7 ms·

Funnily enough when you look at the countries in the 'happiness index' they all happen to be countries which fundamentally have pretty good underlying economies

by Closi 4y ago

Funnily enough when you look at the countries in the 'happiness index' they all happen to be countries which fundamentally have pretty good underlying economies (and often they tend to be from european countries that have decent social support structure). Well-being is probably a third-order effect from a strong economy, good healthcare / social care, culture and a variety of other factors. But because it is a third-order it is very hard to measure the impact of policy, because: * They are 'arms length' from policy changes. * The indexes are slow to respond to changes. * They are noisy and affected by unrelated factors (i.e. does a colder winter decrease happiness?) * A policy which improves well-being today could very well decrease well-being far into the future (e.g. increasing a countries spending and decreasing tax).

moffkalast 4y ago
> (e.g. increasing a countries spending and decreasing tax) That one's hardly far into the future, more like the next election cycle. Policies that improve well being today and screw us in the far future would be more like resource depletion, pollution, ecological destruction.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Not all that's to the Future are negative expected value. The difficulty and nuances figuring out which are and which are not
photochemsyn 4y ago
How does one obtain a realistic and reliable measure of the 'happiness index' for any particular country? I imagine this is something that's subject to massive propaganda efforts (for example, East Germany attempted to keep its suicide rate hidden from view, at least according to the movie 'The Lives of Others').
- PeterisP 4y ago
  It's tricky - also because it's very hard to aggregate 'happiness'; for economy you can reasonably get the total and just calculate an average, but any 'happiness' measure inherently has to be bottom-up and then the differences between subpopulations in a single country become critical. Like, someone can compare their well-being at San Francisco versus Paris and see which one is better but that would be a comparison of well-being for them which won't necessarily hold for Parisians and SanFranciscans of a different income level or with different cultural values - while wealth can be compared directly in a mostly objective manner (e.g. adjusting for purchasing parity).
voisin 4y ago
Is the well-being a result of a strong economy or vice versa? You seem to assume directionality that might be the opposite. Perhaps workers not fearful of losing their healthcare if they leave their jobs are more productive, or do more broad schooling because there is less pressure to immediately start making money to avoid poverty, and this leads to more productivity or innovation.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  It certainly goes both ways. But in one direction you have more wealth enabling people to live better, and on the other direction you have people with better lives being able to work better. It is very clear those effects do not have the same intensity.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    What about extractive wealth that relies on the misery of people in other nations, how to factor that into nation specific well-being indexes
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      It is great for a happiness metric. Import happiness and export misery. You improve your position relative to other nations both ways! This is a great example of how focus on metrics can lead to a race to the bottom. Better yet, save money and don't even bother importing the happiness. Just sow misery, and your country will have better and better stats!
      - Silverback_VII 4y ago
        why are we speaking about happiness and not about the colonisation of the solar system or about finding out what truly lies behind our existence? simulation, multiverse or what and if so, why? That said, a good metric obviously mesures power on this planet so it must be something like how fast an economy can build a space station or advanced military equipment.
aeternum 4y ago
A key consideration should be how easy it is to 'game' well-being measurements. It's pretty hard to game economic measurements as a whole. Metrics with smaller scope are generally much easier to game so while they may be a slightly more accurate measurement initially, they may be more vulnerable to corruption.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > It's pretty hard to game economic measurements as a whole. Two immediate examples: Healthcare and GDP. Military Spending and GDP. If a genie wish made everyone healthy and brought about world peace, The US's GDP would drop, quite dramatically!
  - aeternum 4y ago
    >If a genie wish made everyone healthy and brought about world peace, The US's GDP would drop, quite dramatically! Would it? 'We must invest in a strong military to keep the peace!' and 'Everyone is healthy, lets invest in preventative care and longevity to keep it that way!'
    - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
      The US could easily take much of that military funding and put it into infrastructure, job programs and healthcare spending and allow European countries to increase their military spending. This would keep our GDP and reduce our deficit with tax collection. Every time I suggest this, however, I seem to be downvoted into oblivion and poopooed by the Europeans on the forum. I guess a more isolationist policy isn't that great of an idea after all.
      - kranke155 4y ago
        I’m European and I fully understand that our free health care and giant social programs (on many countries) are paid for by our minuscule military spending - which turned out to be a terrible idea considering actually we live next to a revisionist and expansionist power. But Europeans liked to believe that WW2 had somehow “shown the world” that wars were unwinnable bla bla bla while really the US just installed a giant protectorate system on Europe and kept it under their nuclear umbrella (one which the continent largely decided to maintain after 1991). So yes, there are Europeans who understand (and should) that European prosperity was bought with an American military umbrella, one which we don’t pay for. But - the Trumpian argument that this architecture is “useless” is also wrong in my view. The system was constructed to benefit the US, and so it did. The problem is that after 1991 everyone got sloppy, and capital took enormous control over politics of the US and the West in general (since there were no enemies but only “opportunities for investment”) and this led to a series of poorly thought out disasters - including China in GATT/WTO hoping it would democratize, etc.
actually_a_dog 4y ago
Which of these countries you're referring to doesn't support a highly extractive (no matter the cost as long as there's sufficient profit in it), "greed is good" version of capitalism? If you're referring to the Nordic countries, from a Marxist perspective, they exploit workers plenty, just mostly not their workers. Lenin talks about this practice in _Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism_ wherein capitalist countries have an incentive to make conditions at home just good enough to stave off revolution, but not so good as to overly damage profit margins. They do so by essentially exporting misery to other countries the way the US has basically turned China into a large US manufacturing annex. The global south is highly exploited by capitalist nations. Norway in particular struggles with huge issues related to climate change, being something like the 13th largest oil producer in the world. TL;DR: are any of these countries you're referring to not capitalist countries that just export misery?
WalterBright 4y ago
I suspect that different cultures apply different meanings to "happiness". Heck, if you ask the same person on different days how happy he is, I bet you get different answers. I don't see how such a measure across cultures can be reliable.
goodpoint 4y ago
> Funnily enough This is not the gotcha you think it is.
moomin 4y ago
I’d like to see how well it correlates with median income.
elif 4y ago
Perfect summary of fukuyama neoliberalism. After 3 decades of US etc. travelling backwards on nearly every index despite economic expansion, and people are still buying it.
nradov 4y ago
Happiness indexes are rather meaningless and arbitrary, often reflecting more the political biases of the index creators rather than things that regular people care about. Instead of making indexes it's better to look at revealed preferences in terms of voluntary migration rate. The USA has a positive net migration rate with all major European countries despite having lower index scores.
andrepd 4y ago
Well the most conspicuous thing is that the countries that top these indices have mixed economies with a heavy degree of public participation, plus high and progressive taxation and a strong social safety net.
babypuncher 4y ago
Good well-being should be the desired outcome. It should be the measurement by which "success" is determined. What tools are necessary to achieve good well-being should be the topic of research and political debate. I think the problem we have today is that, politicians in particular, are only interested in the metrics that make their preferred tools look good. So a hard line socialist is inclined to ignore the benefits a free market provides and focus solely on how state-run programs can solve everything. On the flip-side, conservatives see a strong economy, put all their faith behind the free market, and ignore the proven effectiveness social programs have in areas where capitalism struggles like healthcare.
nxmnxm99 4y ago
Because happiness indexes are unscientific nonsense that give higher scores for things like income equality
harlequinn77 4y ago
8note 4y ago
What does third order mean here? Cubed? f°g°h(x) ?
- kthejoker2 4y ago
  It's a systems thinking concept. It means an effect of an effect of an effect of the original thing. "X because Y because Z because original thing A." Think like Five Whys and so on. In this case it's shorthand for "not a direct outcome but most likely correlated" You start working out regularly. First order effect: you get healthier. Second order effect: you feel more confident. Third order effect: you start going out on the weekends more.
- syockit 4y ago
  The latter. Effect of an effect of an action.
- Smithalicious 4y ago
  A causes B (first order) B causes C (second order) C causes D (third order)
smeej 4y ago
A lot of them are also in places where the climate spends half the year trying to freeze you to death. I've always wondered if that's coincidental. I could imagine it going a few different ways. Maybe every day when you wake up and have not frozen to death, you already feel accomplished, so start the day with a win. Or maybe there's a certain resilience already in people who would choose to continue to live in such a climate. Or maybe you just don't have much time to care much about your neighbors' negative qualities when there are homes to keep warm. Maybe you can just afford to complain more about everything else when you don't have the weather as an easy (and unifying) adversary to complain about.
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  My guess was a dark and horrible "adverse selection" where suicide or emmigration already weeded out the unhappy. Reducing suicide decreases overall happiness - even though it also avoids the damage.

by Closi 4y ago

moffkalast 4y ago

> (e.g. increasing a countries spending and decreasing tax) That one's hardly far into the future, more like the next election cycle. Policies that improve well being today and screw us in the far future would be more like resource depletion, pollution, ecological destruction.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Not all that's to the Future are negative expected value. The difficulty and nuances figuring out which are and which are not

photochemsyn 4y ago

How does one obtain a realistic and reliable measure of the 'happiness index' for any particular country? I imagine this is something that's subject to massive propaganda efforts (for example, East Germany attempted to keep its suicide rate hidden from view, at least according to the movie 'The Lives of Others').

PeterisP 4y ago
It's tricky - also because it's very hard to aggregate 'happiness'; for economy you can reasonably get the total and just calculate an average, but any 'happiness' measure inherently has to be bottom-up and then the differences between subpopulations in a single country become critical. Like, someone can compare their well-being at San Francisco versus Paris and see which one is better but that would be a comparison of well-being for them which won't necessarily hold for Parisians and SanFranciscans of a different income level or with different cultural values - while wealth can be compared directly in a mostly objective manner (e.g. adjusting for purchasing parity).

voisin 4y ago

Is the well-being a result of a strong economy or vice versa? You seem to assume directionality that might be the opposite. Perhaps workers not fearful of losing their healthcare if they leave their jobs are more productive, or do more broad schooling because there is less pressure to immediately start making money to avoid poverty, and this leads to more productivity or innovation.

marcosdumay 4y ago
It certainly goes both ways. But in one direction you have more wealth enabling people to live better, and on the other direction you have people with better lives being able to work better. It is very clear those effects do not have the same intensity.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  What about extractive wealth that relies on the misery of people in other nations, how to factor that into nation specific well-being indexes
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    It is great for a happiness metric. Import happiness and export misery. You improve your position relative to other nations both ways! This is a great example of how focus on metrics can lead to a race to the bottom. Better yet, save money and don't even bother importing the happiness. Just sow misery, and your country will have better and better stats!
    - Silverback_VII 4y ago
      why are we speaking about happiness and not about the colonisation of the solar system or about finding out what truly lies behind our existence? simulation, multiverse or what and if so, why? That said, a good metric obviously mesures power on this planet so it must be something like how fast an economy can build a space station or advanced military equipment.

aeternum 4y ago

A key consideration should be how easy it is to 'game' well-being measurements. It's pretty hard to game economic measurements as a whole. Metrics with smaller scope are generally much easier to game so while they may be a slightly more accurate measurement initially, they may be more vulnerable to corruption.

com2kid 4y ago
> It's pretty hard to game economic measurements as a whole. Two immediate examples: Healthcare and GDP. Military Spending and GDP. If a genie wish made everyone healthy and brought about world peace, The US's GDP would drop, quite dramatically!
- aeternum 4y ago
  >If a genie wish made everyone healthy and brought about world peace, The US's GDP would drop, quite dramatically! Would it? 'We must invest in a strong military to keep the peace!' and 'Everyone is healthy, lets invest in preventative care and longevity to keep it that way!'
  - UnpossibleJim 4y ago
    The US could easily take much of that military funding and put it into infrastructure, job programs and healthcare spending and allow European countries to increase their military spending. This would keep our GDP and reduce our deficit with tax collection. Every time I suggest this, however, I seem to be downvoted into oblivion and poopooed by the Europeans on the forum. I guess a more isolationist policy isn't that great of an idea after all.
    - kranke155 4y ago
      I’m European and I fully understand that our free health care and giant social programs (on many countries) are paid for by our minuscule military spending - which turned out to be a terrible idea considering actually we live next to a revisionist and expansionist power. But Europeans liked to believe that WW2 had somehow “shown the world” that wars were unwinnable bla bla bla while really the US just installed a giant protectorate system on Europe and kept it under their nuclear umbrella (one which the continent largely decided to maintain after 1991). So yes, there are Europeans who understand (and should) that European prosperity was bought with an American military umbrella, one which we don’t pay for. But - the Trumpian argument that this architecture is “useless” is also wrong in my view. The system was constructed to benefit the US, and so it did. The problem is that after 1991 everyone got sloppy, and capital took enormous control over politics of the US and the West in general (since there were no enemies but only “opportunities for investment”) and this led to a series of poorly thought out disasters - including China in GATT/WTO hoping it would democratize, etc.

actually_a_dog 4y ago

Which of these countries you're referring to doesn't support a highly extractive (no matter the cost as long as there's sufficient profit in it), "greed is good" version of capitalism? If you're referring to the Nordic countries, from a Marxist perspective, they exploit workers plenty, just mostly not their workers. Lenin talks about this practice in _Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism_ wherein capitalist countries have an incentive to make conditions at home just good enough to stave off revolution, but not so good as to overly damage profit margins. They do so by essentially exporting misery to other countries the way the US has basically turned China into a large US manufacturing annex. The global south is highly exploited by capitalist nations. Norway in particular struggles with huge issues related to climate change, being something like the 13th largest oil producer in the world. TL;DR: are any of these countries you're referring to not capitalist countries that just export misery?

WalterBright 4y ago

I suspect that different cultures apply different meanings to "happiness". Heck, if you ask the same person on different days how happy he is, I bet you get different answers. I don't see how such a measure across cultures can be reliable.

goodpoint 4y ago

> Funnily enough This is not the gotcha you think it is.

moomin 4y ago

I’d like to see how well it correlates with median income.

elif 4y ago

Perfect summary of fukuyama neoliberalism. After 3 decades of US etc. travelling backwards on nearly every index despite economic expansion, and people are still buying it.

nradov 4y ago

Happiness indexes are rather meaningless and arbitrary, often reflecting more the political biases of the index creators rather than things that regular people care about. Instead of making indexes it's better to look at revealed preferences in terms of voluntary migration rate. The USA has a positive net migration rate with all major European countries despite having lower index scores.

andrepd 4y ago

Well the most conspicuous thing is that the countries that top these indices have mixed economies with a heavy degree of public participation, plus high and progressive taxation and a strong social safety net.

babypuncher 4y ago

Good well-being should be the desired outcome. It should be the measurement by which "success" is determined. What tools are necessary to achieve good well-being should be the topic of research and political debate. I think the problem we have today is that, politicians in particular, are only interested in the metrics that make their preferred tools look good. So a hard line socialist is inclined to ignore the benefits a free market provides and focus solely on how state-run programs can solve everything. On the flip-side, conservatives see a strong economy, put all their faith behind the free market, and ignore the proven effectiveness social programs have in areas where capitalism struggles like healthcare.

nxmnxm99 4y ago

Because happiness indexes are unscientific nonsense that give higher scores for things like income equality

harlequinn77 4y ago

8note 4y ago

What does third order mean here? Cubed? f°g°h(x) ?

kthejoker2 4y ago
It's a systems thinking concept. It means an effect of an effect of an effect of the original thing. "X because Y because Z because original thing A." Think like Five Whys and so on. In this case it's shorthand for "not a direct outcome but most likely correlated" You start working out regularly. First order effect: you get healthier. Second order effect: you feel more confident. Third order effect: you start going out on the weekends more.
syockit 4y ago
The latter. Effect of an effect of an action.
Smithalicious 4y ago
A causes B (first order) B causes C (second order) C causes D (third order)

smeej 4y ago

A lot of them are also in places where the climate spends half the year trying to freeze you to death. I've always wondered if that's coincidental. I could imagine it going a few different ways. Maybe every day when you wake up and have not frozen to death, you already feel accomplished, so start the day with a win. Or maybe there's a certain resilience already in people who would choose to continue to live in such a climate. Or maybe you just don't have much time to care much about your neighbors' negative qualities when there are homes to keep warm. Maybe you can just afford to complain more about everything else when you don't have the weather as an easy (and unifying) adversary to complain about.

Nasrudith 4y ago
My guess was a dark and horrible "adverse selection" where suicide or emmigration already weeded out the unhappy. Reducing suicide decreases overall happiness - even though it also avoids the damage.