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U.S. hits new low in World Happiness Report
- mensetmanusman 1y agoA state by state breakdown would be more interesting. Many US states are larger than multiple EU countries combined.
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-states-where-americans-are-struggling-the-most-financially/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-states-where-america...
- tromp 1y ago[flagged]
- mensetmanusman 1y agoUS killed far more in Iraq, so might be unrelated.
- throwawayq3423 1y agoThe U.S. killed less than 6,000 people in their invasion. What you are referring to is a civil war and a terrible comparison for Israel's ongoing war against Gaza.
- mothballed 1y agoThe last Iraq incursion was directly responsible for the rise of ISIS in the area, giving them a stronghold for mass slaughter throughout Iraq and Syria. Saddam Hussein was obviously a murderous psychopath, albeit one who held tight enough reign to mostly subordinate the other psychopaths in the area, so you can ask the question about our culpability in switching that trolley onto a new set of tracks.
- tsunamifury 1y agoYes but the US is not ISIS and did not do that. So be clear and stop conflating.
- mothballed 1y agoThat's one take on the trolley problem, but it's a controversial one for a reason.
- throwawayq3423 1y agoUS did not kill those people, a civil war did. Flippantly conflating the two things does not do your argument any good.
- mothballed 1y agoThe civil war didn't kill those people, the bullets that went into the brain of the casualties did. Flippantly conflating the two things does not do your argument any good. Now of course the bullets were inspired by a guy pulling a trigger, the guy pulling the trigger was inspired by the civil war (more specifically to name one example, the the ISIS-Kurdish one in the northern region of Iraq and Syria), the civil war was inspired by the power vacuum, and the power vacuum was inspired by the toppling of Saddam, and the toppling of Saddam was inspired by the USA blowing up the Iraqi regime. Whether the US is culpable, again, I left as a question. But they did pull the lever for the trolley.
- tsunamifury 1y agoYou understand by this reductionist logic you are responsible for the sins of the entire world. By being born your actions triggered through your existence all terrible things that have happened since. I can’t believe you’d be this dumb. This is well trodden moral philosophy bullshit.
- 1y ago
- wmeredith 1y agoSee: Zone of Interest - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zone_of_Interest_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zone_of_Interest_(film)
- brap 1y agoPerhaps when you’re surrounded and significantly outnumbered by people who want you dead, and have almost succeeded in doing so very recently, you get a sense of purpose.
- nenenejej 1y ago> Perhaps when you’re surrounded False > and significantly outnumbered by people who want you dead, False > and have almost succeeded in doing so very recently, False > not mentioning settlements, seizure of land, imprisonment, precious campaigns on Gaza strip, apartheid, etc...
- reliabilityguy 1y ago> > and significantly outnumbered by people who want you dead, > False Can you provide some sort of evidence to your response? AFAIK surrounding countries are not fond of Jews as evidenced by lack of Jews in those countries.
- moduspol 1y agoAlso the only western country with a birth rate above replacement, IIRC.
- Beijinger 1y agoSocialized healthcare. We don't have healthcare for everybody, but ship shitloads of Cash to Israel. This can't he healthy.
- myth_drannon 1y agoThey are just happy that Europeans or Muslims are not slaughtering them and also have the ability to defend if such cases arise (despite said Europeans being not happy about that and actively trying to degrade that). Looks like they went from fourth to eighth, and IMHO having hostages still held in Gaza is the biggest contributor of unhappiness.
- baw-bag 1y agoIts not genocide though. Feel free to provide a link to the legal judgement.
- roughly 1y agoYou mean this one? https://www.un.org/unispal/document/commission-of-inquiry-report-genocide-in-gaza-a-hrc-60-crp-3/ https://www.un.org/unispal/document/commission-of-inquiry-re...
- toephu2 1y agoInteresting that Mexico is much higher than the U.S.! I could believe it though.
- NooneAtAll3 1y agoI wonder what's happening with Switzerland, as it seem to also be dropping on the graph
- BoredPositron 1y agoAusterity.
- tsunamifury 1y agoSwitzerland has been such an odd place where its population enjoys an enlightened high quality life funded on the back of the world’s shadiest wealth. And in the midst of that is down to one final bank which if it collapsed is worth something like 20x the gdp of the nation in holdings. So maybe the Swiss are waking up to how much more delicate their situation may be.
- devonkim 1y agoSwitzerland has a slightly high suicide rate (not the best inverse metric of happiness but a correlation on unhappiness at least) for a country with such high standards of living, so if we look into suicide rates over time we also see a conundrum that over the past 20+ years the suicide rate is overall decreasing but has mostly flattened out. But from what I've observed anecdotally it still has problems like other developed countries with legacy industries declining (see: watchmakers and other artisanal crafts trades rather than mining) where boomers in the country are pretty miserable and that will probably be noticed in macro level statistics.
- jmclnx 1y agoGermany lower that the US ? That is a bit questionable to me.
- kylecazar 1y agoIt's a few spots higher than the US this year.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- layman51 1y agoThis year it looks like Germany is higher on the scale. I am surprised by Mexico being really high.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ajmurmann 1y agoIt's not all about finance. From my recent visits to Mexico everyone there seems much happier and friendlier than in the US and Europe. It was honestly quite striking. I have no theory what causes this (maybe large families?), but it was really quite obvious.
- mothballed 1y agoI have an unsubstantiated theory that people in Latin America largely realize their institutions are completely broken or ineffectual, thus they and their local community are on their own in life. Thus it is pointless to be angry about a lot of things people in other places are angry about (corruption, government, immigrants, prices, corporations, etc) because it's a total lost cause, it's not like they could vote it away even if they tried. The end result is their sphere of worries basically are constrained to their immediate family, work, and community all of which are things they not only have control over but actually probably will care about them.
- bigtex88 1y agoEverything is expensive, our president is the dumbest person to ever live, we're constantly at threat of random shootings, and did I mention everything is expensive?
- ajmurmann 1y agoPeople in Mexico are much poorer and the country has huge crime and corruption problems. Just the disappeared people and especially women alone are massively concerning and likely worse per capita than US school shootings. Yet somehow they are happier there.
- radpanda 1y agoI think it’s about momentum. The perception is that the US is in some ways getting worse and Mexico is getting better. Who is better off, the software engineer who lost her $250k job and had to settle for a new job that pays $150k, or the teacher who found a new job and got a raise from $50k to $70k? The software engineer might be better off while simultaneously less happy about their situation.
- reaperducer 1y agoPeople on the internet said the same things about W, and thought things couldn't get worse. Oops.
- standardUser 1y agoI've heard a lot of worries from friends, especially friends with kids, I had never heard before. Mostly gun violence and the loss of women's rights, which some friends have voiced as restricting their options in where they will work and live that they never had before. That, and the new anxiety about bringing your phone on a plane, which I share.
- barkerja 1y ago> and the new anxiety about bringing your phone on a plane This one I am not familiar with. What's the latest development here?
- standardUser 1y agoAn increase in phone searches at points of entry and broad threats of detention and passport revocation if you're critical of Trump / supportive of Palestine / a "member" of the latest "terrorist organization" Antifa https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/brian-mast-marco-rubio-revoke-passport-measure https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/brian-mast-m...
- crooked-v 1y agoAll the anti-trans stuff has basically guaranteed that I can never live or work in half the country, because it would be fundamentally unsafe for some family members to even visit me there.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- pnw 1y agoAren't the Nordic countries listed at the top also the highest consumers of anti-depressants? I only know this because having travelled to the Copenhagen airport many times with Danish colleagues, one of them mentioned it when we saw the inevitable "Welcome to the happiest country on Earth" posters.
- MangoToupe 1y agoPutting aside the silliness of trying to quantify happiness, that could just as easily be a marker of wealth or western fascination with chemicals. I've visited extremely poor countries & from what I can tell, antidepressants aren't going to make a dent in many if not most issues humans face.
- paxys 1y ago[flagged]
- cesarvarela 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_antidepressant_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_antidepre...
- paxys 1y ago> The OECD have not included the United States in these reviews, but if added the country would have the highest or second-highest rate. Nordic countries are also not on the top of the list. This is basically just a list of developed countries where people can afford luxury medication.
- impossiblefork 1y agoIt could also be a matter of the seasons in the case of Iceland.
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- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- marc_abonce 1y agoThe article has a paywall for me and I was curious about their methodology. Fortunately, Wikipedia has some information: "Nationally representative samples of respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
- renewiltord 1y ago[flagged]
- exBarrelSpoiler 1y agoIf you have such disdain for this community, you can always go to a different website instead of begging to be banned for being abrasive and tiresome.
- renewiltord 1y agoSadly, Christ compels me to educate the ignorant.
- exBarrelSpoiler 1y ago"You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. Matthew 5:21-22 https://www.gotquestions.org/raca.html https://www.gotquestions.org/raca.html
- renewiltord 1y agoI'm sure he'll understand when I explain statistics to him.
- exBarrelSpoiler 1y agoWhat do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my[a] Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18:12-14
- stickfigure 1y agoThis has all the scientific rigor of a "which Disney princess are you?" quiz.
- potato3732842 1y ago> "which Disney princess are you?" quiz. Dory, obviously.
- neuronexmachina 1y agoXenomorph Queen
- polotics 1y agoVanellope von Schweetz
- jfengel 1y agoDr. Frank N. Furter
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- debo_ 1y agoI'm the princess from Brave, in case you were wondering.
- smt88 1y agoHow would you prefer they change it? Happiness can be studied in a lot of ways, and none of them is complete or accurate. Momentary happiness is possible in a miserable life and vice versa. I suspect this survey does tell us something over time, if methodology is stable.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoMaybe not going bankrupt because of medical expenses as the only first world country with universal healthcare? When it comes to the hierarchy of needs, not dying because of unaffordable or unavailable healthcare I’m sure ranks near the top. There is no objective measure where the median American is better off than the median European. I’m saying this as a born and bread American citizen who is fortunate enough to be on the better side of the economic divide.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoThank god the Netherlands is only #5. It’s high, but not too high. That said, the Finns probably got surveyed right after exiting the sauna. Is that fair?
- pickledonions49 1y agoAmerica is rich, but normal citizens aren't making money anymore.
- Toby1VC 1y agoI don't leave the house anymore. Am I considered normal?
- rufus_foreman 1y agoLong social distancing. It's a thing.
- paxys 1y agoNot just that, normal citizens are getting poorer at a very rapid rate. Groceries, housing, healthcare, education are all more and more unaffordible every day. Inflation is eating away the American middle class lifestyle.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 1y agoWe have been under attack for years and it is definitely working. Hell, at this point it’s not off the table that our democracy itself will fall to this attack. I’d be incredibly impressed by the effectiveness, if it were not so frankly depressing.
- Jcampuzano2 1y agoOur president won't condemn violence and Politicians on the right all fan the flames while holding everyone to higher standards than the president himself when it comes to violent rhetoric. Gun violence regardless of position is still always in the news, and the party in power has no intention of doing anything about it. The political elite actively shun science. Tech billionaires are all licking the boot - so the hopes some had that those with money and large corporate entities would keep the government in check are long gone. Politicians actively endanger our international relationships with the entire world. Everybody in the world looks at us like a laughing stock. The elite actively welcome and cheer for AI taking peoples jobs. The economy is shit meanwhile our leaders lie to our faces about how tariffs and their own economic policies work and pointing at wall street gains meanwhile the majority of Americans don't invest in the first place. Our rights are being stripped. Military/National Guard is actively deployed in the streets in places, and there is threat of deployment in other places (hint left leaning places). Any speech not aligned with the presidents values is criticized and threatened at a national scale. Politics is just a reality TV show made for clicks and our current leaders are basically the equivalent if children bickering. "Transparency" is completely gone - they ran on transparency and then immediately flipped, who coulda seen that coming. There is literally nothing to be happy about here unless you're already rich.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hermitcrab 1y ago>Tech billionaires are all licking the boot I never understood that. What is the point of amassing all that money and power if you have to grovel to terrible people?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- megaman821 1y agoI was told that the billionaires run the goverment, so I don't know what you are talking about.
- eikenberry 1y agoHappiness is irrelevant, productivity is the only metric that matters. Joking, not joking.
- awalsh128 1y agoGet off HN and back to work you.
- throwmeaway222 1y agoIt really is - your life needs deep importance. Work is one of the things that provides that. If you feel like you're not important you're going to be unhappy.
- potatototoo99 1y ago*that can provide that, as can many other things
- throwmeaway222 1y agoIS ONE OF THE THINGS is in my original statement.
- paxys 1y agoOne can find fulfilment in anything. You may think someone lazing on a beach all day is wasting their life, and they may think the same about a drone who is sitting in a windowless office for 60 hours a week from age 21 to 65 so their bosses can get richer. Family, community, art, relaxation, work - what is important in life is entirely up to you.
- vidarh 1y agoI used to think like that. It made me miserable. What's made me happy has been to come to terms with it not mattering one iota whether it feels like I'm important. That's not to say it's not a good feeling when someone finds utility in something I've done, but a nice walk also gives me the same good feeling.
- pearlsontheroad 1y ago[flagged]
- nielsbot 1y agoThe American capitalists might have something to say about that tho!
- analog8374 1y agoMexico is putting out some fine cinema recently. Mexico might be the new California.
- rufus_foreman 1y ago>> Mexico might be the new California More like the new Oregon...the new place where people are justifiably pissed off about all the Californians moving there.
- cpursley 1y agoAny recommendations?
- Slow_Hand 1y agoThe first thing that comes to mind is the work of directors Alphonso Cuarón, Guillermo Del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Arguably these are largely American productions, but creatively they’re at the top of the field. Cuarón, in particular, takes my breath away.
- archagon 1y agoRoma is amazing and the documentary about it made me appreciate it even more. The insane attention to historical detail!
- paxys 1y agoIt was also the old California.
- pavlov 1y agoSome years ago I moved back to Finland (#1) after several years in the US (now at #24). While the quality of life really is objectively better with children, the secret to these rankings is probably the calibration inherent in the question. Finnish people just don’t have high expectations. Every positive development is a welcome surprise. Americans are primed to want it all and seem to constantly compare themselves against unachievable standards on social media. “The American Dream” is more illusionary than ever. Everybody is a temporarily inconvenienced billionaire. This can be positive when it produces a drive that builds things, but it seems to mostly produce unhappiness right now because it’s so out of balance.
- cpursley 1y agoYeah, these surveys seem to miss the cultural nuances. Totally agree with your assessment.
- codeulike 1y agothe secret to these rankings is probably the calibration inherent in the question. Finnish people just don’t have high expectations. Every positive development is a welcome surprise. Yes but that calibration is also the secret to happiness.
- quickthrowman 1y ago> Finnish people just don’t have high expectations. Every positive development is a welcome surprise. You’re just covering up the real truth: Finnish happiness is a result of everyone having access to a sauna :) Mina rakastan löyly, haluan saunassa nyt! (What I hope I said: ‘I love throwing water on the sauna rocks and the experience of the resulting steam, I want to go into a sauna now’) ——————— On a more serious note, do you think the ever present threat of Russia and obligatory military service affects the expectations of Finnish people? Meaning, there is an actual tangible threat bordering Finland, which last invaded just 86 years ago (and forced Finland to ally with a country we won’t name so they would emerge from WWII independent, only Norway and Finland managed to achieve that, every other European country bordering the USSR was behind the iron curtain) Do you think that keeps Finnish people’s expectations more grounded? Or is it something else entirely?
- brap 1y agoWould be interesting to see happiness segmented by Democrats/ Republicans.
- jsbisviewtiful 1y agoI would speculate Republicans are wildly happier when "their team is 'winning'" and Democrats would have a boost in happiness with Democrats in power, but nowhere near the swing of Republicans. Democrats, IMO, are more aware of the *real* current and longterm problems the US faces while Republicans listen to whatever Republicans say the "problems" are - "problems" that are too often very outlandish and not based in reality.
- brap 1y agoI agree that both probably swing depending on who’ “winning”, although I bet that generally the Dems tend to be significantly less happy and therefore swing less, relatively.
- raw_anon_1111 1y agoAs someone who leans left. I doubt too many Democrats were excited about Biden. He was just “not Trump”. People actually liked Obama and Clinton.
- jacobolus 1y agoTaking political constraints into account, the Biden Administration was just about the most successful and effective, in policy terms, of the past 50 years. Unfortunately the political landscape is pretty unfavorable, with GOP-supportive media, a GOP-aligned Supreme Court and super wealthy people, increasingly extremist state governments in many parts of the country, decades of corporate consolidation, weakening civic institutions, and an electorate that largely ignores the details. Biden himself was never a great orator and his public charisma suffered further with age, but as far as governing goes, he did a great job. Harris would also have been an excellent president. Unfortunately building and fixing things (or just keeping things working, negotiating compromises, and so on) takes a lot of time and effort, and doesn't make for great pithy slogans or rile people up.
- snickerbockers 1y agoWhat was it that happened between 2023 and 2024? Here's all i can think of but none of these really explain it: * Major terrorist attack in israel; its obvious we care way too much about this random country on the other side of the planet but even so i can't see that impacting people's happiness this hard. * general populace now knows LLMs exist and may someday potentially perform jobs which were previously thought to be immune to automation but i would expect this to be offset by the people amazed by this technology. * It's becoming increasingly apparent that our then-current president might actually suffer from a more serious case of Alzheimer's than reagan did; simultaneously it is becoming increasingly apparent that the only viable alternative is going to be trump again. #3 is the only one that sort-of makes sense but I have doubts that people are this invested in presidential circuses on a personal level.
- ajkjk 1y agowait, is your point that there is some mystery about what happened to make the US even less happy? ... what didn't happen? It's hard to think of anything good that has happened in the last few years. Every month is scarier and more uncertain than the last.
- snickerbockers 1y agoi mean specifically between '23 and '24, i don't remember much happening on the national level then. COVID's been in the background for a few years and trump hasn't been re-elected yet.
- ajkjk 1y agoThat was when the economy got more horrible for everyone that's not rich
- snickerbockers 1y agodude that's every year. I am specifically referring to something which did not happen between '22 and '23 but did happen between '23 and '24. I don't know if you actually bothered to read the article in the OP but there's a graph showing a major inflection point.
- dang 1y agoI believe that these self-reported surveys are partly testing the cultural acceptability of complaining—that is, the more unacceptable it is to complain, the happier one comes out in the scoring. How well that corresponds to 'actual' happiness is, of course, a different question. I base this on experience with some of the 'happy' cultures on the list. However, I would be interested in knowing whether HN members from Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands (to name the top 5) agree with this concept or not.
- lossolo 1y agoThere are cultural differences, but once you have the baseline, I think the delta is more interesting, so how happiness has changed in a country throughout the years.
- 7952 1y agoI guess a cultural willingness to complain could also have a feedback effect on the 'actual' happiness.
- paxys 1y agoExactly. This is like saying "the people aren't unhappy, they just think they are unhappy". Well if they think they are unhappy then they are unhappy.
- Herring 1y agoYes it has nothing to do with healthcare, education, work-life balance etc. Must be something else.
- timeon 1y agoand commuting, not sure if nerd-snipping with Waymo is going to help here.
- falcor84 1y agoHow does nerd-sniping with Waymo work? Is it about nerd-sniping a person so they get hit by a Waymo, or is it about nerd-sniping the Waymo itself, distracting it before having a human hit it? D'oh, I think I got nerd-sniped there for a second.
- brap 1y agoFor some grounding, I would like to see how many US citizens migrate to those happy countries vs how many happy citizens migrate to the US. Actions speak louder.
- BobbyJo 1y agoAlmost no one from North Korea emigrates to the US. Conclusion: North Koreans are very happy.
- mothballed 1y agoI would genuinely be shocked if North Korean's aren't happy. They're basically told they live in the best place on earth, have no basis for comparison to believe otherwise, and the sphere of influence of any particular average N Korean is narrow enough that if they were sad it would basically be artificially constraining their sadness to ones about personal failures they probably would rather not believe they have. It's not starving, not having healthcare etc that makes you sad so much I think as thinking others are getting it while you are not, or believing that someone is pulling something over you rather than the situation being in your hands. If you think you're doing the best you can and your own success or failure is up to you, it's hard to be particularly sad about the situation compared to someone in another position.
- wanderingstan 1y agoCitation is needed for this: > It's not starving, not having healthcare etc that makes you sad so much I think as thinking others are getting it while you are not… While social comparison is proven to be part of happiness, the science is quite strong that starving or being sick makes someone unhappy.
- mothballed 1y agoI said that I thought not having eg. healthcare doesn't make you as sad as not having it while someone else does. Nothing I've used in that relative comparison breaks the science you quote. And I do not need a citation to think something rather than to state it is fact. It would be odd indeed to require a citation to think of something.
- analog8374 1y agoBlow off your credit card payments. It's the only sane course.
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago[dead]
- Geee 1y agoThere's also the mental state of the world report by Sapien Labs, which tells a different story: https://mentalstateoftheworld.report https://mentalstateoftheworld.report I believe this is more accurate, although it's not just happiness. They measure MHQ, i.e. Mind Health Quotient with various mental health related metrics. I just looked at the report for the first time and it's quite insane how bad young people are feeling globally. Old people seem to be fine on average everywhere. The distributions don't even overlap i.e. the most unwell old people (Ukraine, UK, etc.) are doing better than the most well-being young people (Nigeria, Tanzania) on country average basis.
- neuronexmachina 1y ago* Direct link to 2025 report: https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/ https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/ * Rankings: https://data.worldhappiness.report/table https://data.worldhappiness.report/table * Data for the US specifically: https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/USA https://data.worldhappiness.report/country/USA The main thing I found interesting was the big jump in "Benevolence" for 2020-2021, presumably related to the pandemic.
- throw0101c 1y agoIf anyone is curious, Howtown did a video a little while ago on some of the methodology of this: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1--c2r8HE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1--c2r8HE General overview: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
- ls612 1y agoI can’t take this seriously, there is no way in which people are systematically unhappier today than during Covid, just to give one example.
- marojejian 1y agoThe charting section of the report has a great set of data: https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart One thing I noticed, comparing the US to the top ranked (mostly Nordic) countries: There was no clear pattern in "positive emotions" scores. Indeed, the US might be above average. But the US was far above the Nordic countries in "negative emotion" scores. So perhaps it is more accurate to conclude the US is "more unhappy" vs. "less happy". Also the variance in the US was much higher - so it's more a subset of the population dragging things down. This is consistent with a story that the major factor in the rankings is that the support and security of Nordic states reduce downward variance in unhappiness (e.g. for the poor, & sick). Of course there could be many other explanations too (e.g. the US having a competitive culture where people who don't succeed above average are less satisfied). (Too bad no one will ever read this comment, due to HNs recency bias).