Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 11-19-2014, 04:18 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
18,502 posts, read 15,417,056 times
Reputation: 11936

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by iNviNciBL3 View Post
I know i'm just playing.

I work weekends too.
So you're unhappy with your life? Little sad emoticon.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 11-19-2014, 04:22 PM
 
Location: M I N N E S O T A
14,799 posts, read 21,417,406 times
Reputation: 9263
Quote:
Originally Posted by Natnasci View Post
So you're unhappy with your life? Little sad emoticon.
No i'm actually really happy right now.

Not because the country i live in but because i'm single, the weather is beautiful, i'm eating chipotle and my favorite holiday is right around the corner.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-19-2014, 04:27 PM
 
Location: Vancouver
18,502 posts, read 15,417,056 times
Reputation: 11936
Quote:
Originally Posted by iNviNciBL3 View Post
No i'm actually really happy right now.

Not because the country i live in but because i'm single, the weather is beautiful, i'm eating chipotle and my favorite holiday is right around the corner.
I've missed lunch today..so I'm NOT happy. LOL
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-19-2014, 04:28 PM
 
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
1,741 posts, read 2,515,301 times
Reputation: 1340
I think it depends on what someone call 'happiness'.
Bhutan has a very interesting approach about this with what they call as 'gross internal happiness'. There are a lot of people in the world which state they are happy even if they suffer deprivation of things perceived in the western world as essential.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-19-2014, 10:13 PM
 
Location: Taipei
8,854 posts, read 8,372,932 times
Reputation: 7390
You know another happy index named Denmark the happiest country in the world, yet in this survey, Denmark is much much more melancholic than pretty much all of its neighbors.

Enough to tell that these indexes are nothing more than ****.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-19-2014, 10:54 PM
 
Location: Duluth, Minnesota, USA
7,641 posts, read 18,070,462 times
Reputation: 6913
The Happy Planet Index factors in various environmental / ecological factors into their calculations, so that explains why the U.S., Canada, etc. rank so low (and probably why current drug trafficking havens like Honduras and Guatemala rank so high).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-20-2014, 02:59 AM
 
1,028 posts, read 1,116,741 times
Reputation: 622
Be happy and have a comfortable life isn't the same. It can explain why people in South America are happier than people in North America.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-20-2014, 06:11 AM
 
Location: Estonia
1,704 posts, read 1,827,260 times
Reputation: 2293
When putting this nonsense together antidepressants were probably sold out in the whole of Denmark.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-20-2014, 01:02 PM
 
2,887 posts, read 5,115,721 times
Reputation: 3663
Quote:
Originally Posted by tvdxer View Post
The Happy Planet Index factors in various environmental / ecological factors into their calculations, so that explains why the U.S., Canada, etc. rank so low (and probably why current drug trafficking havens like Honduras and Guatemala rank so high).
Yes and no. One of the reasons for these weird results is that there are many non-equivalent ways to aggregate multiple factors into an index.

I downloaded the data on the HPI website and used a much simpler method than what they actually did. First, I standardized the 3 factors they take (life expectancy, happiness and ecological footprint) so that they all have an average of 0 and a standard deviation of 1, something very common in statistics. Second, I summed those three factors, multiplying footprint by (-1) to keep up with the assumption that higher footprint = bad.

Denmark goes from #110 to #57. It is the country that moved up the most.
United States goes from #105 to #59.
Iceland goes from #88 to #44.
Belgium goes from #107 to #63.
Canada goes from #65 to #22.
Australia goes from #76 to #33.
Singapore goes from #90 to #48.
Netherlands goes from #67 to #27.
Finland goes from #70 to #31.
Ireland goes from #73 to #34.

Tadjikistan goes from #43 to #91. It is the country that moves down the most.
Pakistan goes from #16 to #58.
India goes from #32 to #74.
Madagascar goes from #49 to #89.
Bengladesh goes from #11 to #50.
Nepal goes from #58 to #95.
Yemen goes from #68 to #105.
Phillipines goes from #25 to #61.
Morocco goes from #42 to #78.
Malawi goes from #72 to #108.

I am not even questioning the criteria, just picked a different way to aggregate them.

Here is the new top 10 and the new rank for a few other countries not listed above. (old rank in parentheses)

1. Costa Rica (1)
2. Israel (15)
3. Panama (7)
4. Norway (29)
5. Venezuela (9)
6. Switzerland (34)
7. New Zealand (28)
8. Belize (4)
9. Chile (19)
10. El Salvador (5)

16. Argentina (17)
17. Brazil (21)
79. China (60)
20. France (50)
21. Germany (46)
28. Italy (51)
26. Japan (45)
14. Sweden (52)
15. UK (41)

I believe my results make a lot more sense.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-20-2014, 07:31 PM
 
Location: World
285 posts, read 300,056 times
Reputation: 491
Those indexes are bullsh*t. Happiness is a personal matter. One can be extremely unhappy in the USA or Europe and feel the joy of life in, say, Bhutan or Madagascar. It depends on how each person manages the way they live and how they adapt it to their surroundings.
Plus the wealthier a nation is, this bigger is the pressure to achieve material success and the easier it is for one to feel like an outcast in society if they don't match up to the expected levels and that can bring "happiness levels" down. So not always money is the key to being happy.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > World Forums > World

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:50 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top