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There seems to be a lot of countries that are culturally homogenious, and yet they are poor and miserable. So it does not seem to check out. It is also not cle
by ClumsyPilot 4y ago
There seems to be a lot of countries that are culturally homogenious, and yet they are poor and miserable. So it does not seem to check out.
It is also not clear how one should calculate this - for example you could have white americans of german dissent violently disagreeing in issues of Trump, or hell, this about civil war. You could have people of different background hold very similar opinions.
- biomcgary 4y agoMy general hypothesis is that most people are happier when they feel typical or normal (even when they claim to value being different). This seems to be the essence of lots of advertising. To increase their own happiness, most people want to "normalize" everyone around them (levels of wealth, values, etc). Perhaps national happiness (since that is the level of society being discussed) is a joint function of cultural AND financial homogeneity? Many poor countries with high cultural homogeneity have tremendous financial heterogeneity (e.g., wealthy strongmen and their lackeys), which leads to unhappiness. There are more ways that people want to be normal than just cultural and financial. For example, I would also posit that people with more common personality traits are probably happier. However, money and culture seem to cover a large fraction of how people perceive normality.
- tekknik 4y agoYou’re saying, in so many words, the more similar people are to each other the happier they are. This is the definition of sheeple.