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According to Global Mind Set, Britain is Second most saddest country on earth. I suppose the general decline, is not quite enough at this stage to take prime position. But coming second at something, anything isn't half bad is it? I'll be sure to add my dark gothic sense despair, on arrival later during the year to add to the prevailing sense gloom and doom and with any luck l do my bit to get it over the line to first position.
Can one take such claims with any degree of seriousness? Well, , as I go about looking at the feasible of relocating back there, (at least short term until another place comes up) it's sounding ever more like my sort of place to live a dark and glum but joyous life .
Forgot to mention Uzbekistan was ranked ahead of UK as most unhappiest in the world. But Australia is breathing down British necks coming at a sixth most depressed place in the world. The drugs obviously are not working.(OZ being biggest recreational drug users in the world) But such high ranking For Down Under was a bit of a surprise to me at least. Aussies, like Americans, usually over positive take on most things. The Irish were the only other country in Europe to score high in being unhappy. Again a bit of a surprise.
Hard to imagine that Dominican Republic came up tops. Sri Lanka came in as second happiest. Most odd as thought they had an extremely high suicide rate?
Must look again just how these results came about. It seems of questionable conclusion with the final rankings INO.
Very weird especially when nearly every immigrant illegal or not wants in here to the UK.
Put a sock in it. There are over 280 million migrants in the World.
How many refugees are there in Europe? Data UNHCR
Executive summary. The number of forcibly displaced and stateless people in Europe rose to 21.8 million by the end of 2022, including almost 12.4 million refugees, 1.3 million asylum-seekers, 7.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and 474,000 who were stateless.
From Breaking Barriers:
Refugees and asylum seekers in the UK
As of November 2022 there were 231,597 refugees, 127,421 pending asylum cases and 5,483 stateless persons in the UK. The war in Ukraine has driven a large increase from the previous year, when there were an estimated 135,000 refugees. Over 70,000 people claimed asylum in 2022.
Seems to me that most of those "happiest" polls put countries with strong social safety nets like the UK, Canada, Sweden, Norway, at the top of the happiest list and the poverty-stricken countries at the bottom.
I've always thought the methodology was flawed. Just because a country has services in place to try to ensure that people have no reason to be unhappy, doesn't mean they are happy. Basically content, maybe, but happy? I haven't been to the Dominican Republic or Sri Lanka, but I've been to small towns in Guatemala that were dirt poor, and the people there seemed outwardly happier than most Northern Europeans I have met.
Seems to me that most of those "happiest" polls put countries with strong social safety nets like the UK, Canada, Sweden, Norway, at the top of the happiest list and the poverty-stricken countries at the bottom.
I've always thought the methodology was flawed. Just because a country has services in place to try to ensure that people have no reason to be unhappy, doesn't mean they are happy. Basically content, maybe, but happy? I haven't been to the Dominican Republic or Sri Lanka, but I've been to small towns in Guatemala that were dirt poor, and the people there seemed outwardly happier than most Northern Europeans I have met.
I agree, and some of these studies are pure nonsense when it comes down to real facts.
For instance, the UK has a relatively low suicide rate when compared to many other Western nations, and it's lower than other Anglosphere countries including Australia, New Zealand, the US and most of Europe including the likes of Germany and France etc
Out of the 184 countries listed in relation to suicide rates, the UK comes in at 117 with a rate of 6.9, compare this with the US which comes in at 32, with a rate of 14.5, which is over double the UK rate, even Ireland which comes in at 87 as a higher suicide rate at 8.9.
Whilst there is no definitive method to measure happiness, you can certainly measure medical factors including cases of depression, self harm, suicide etc, and the UK does not stand out in terms of such problems indeed if anything it has less problems than most countries and a half decent mental health system compared to many countries.
As for happiness beyond the actual medical figures, a lot of it is just subjective and the study like other suggested poor mental wellbeing was linked to pervasiveness of smartphones and online comms. and ihat young people are noted to have suffered the biggest drop in mental wellbeing appears to add heft to their argument.
The actual countries that came out were lower-tech countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, which recording better wellbeing scores, and stronger family ties in those nations were also linked to better mental health.
In this respect other western countries such as Australia also did badly, and generally rich Western nations performed poorly overall, with researchers noting: “Greater wealth and economic development do not necessarily lead to greater mental wellbeing.”
So it sounds like whinging Millennials and Gen Z, with their heads constantly looking down at their phones might have had something to do with this distorted result.
Last edited by Brave New World; 03-09-2024 at 12:46 PM..
Different countries and ethnic groups have a different sense of happiness. To some people happiness means money and social status, to others living in peace, being healthy, having balanced work/life ratio, pursuing career vs having big family, having goals and expectations...etc. Happiness perception is very subjective. Depends on state of mind and self esteem too. It also can change depending on mood and temporary events that affect that mood.
Can one take such claims with any degree of seriousness? .....
No, one cannot take such claims seriously without an original source and an explanation about the whys and wherefores.
I've never heard of Global Mind Set, have no idea what it could possibly be. It would be much appreciated if you would post a link to the report so I can read the whole thing for myself to see what they're carrying on about and not have to rely on 2nd hand say-so on a forum. Thank you.
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