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I believe that these self-reported surveys are partly testing the cultural acceptability of complaining—that is, the more unacceptable it is to complain, the ha

• lossolo 1y ago
  There 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 ago
  I guess a cultural willingness to complain could also have a feedback effect on the 'actual' happiness.
  • paxys 1y ago
    Exactly. 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 ago
  Yes it has nothing to do with healthcare, education, work-life balance etc. Must be something else.
  • timeon 1y ago
    and commuting, not sure if nerd-snipping with Waymo is going to help here.
    • falcor84 1y ago
      How 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.
• izacus 1y ago
  Plenty of eastern European countries on that list above US, so your theory has no real basis.
• analog8374 1y ago
  You buried your thesis statement. "US is not actually unhappy. The survey is broken" or somesuch.
• carlosjobim 1y ago
  It is obvious to anybody who has ever been to the Nordic countries: They are far from being the happiest people in the world. A lot of them are very miserable, for reasons that I could never deduce.
  • vidarh 1y ago
    Is it? As someone from Norway, who has spent plenty of time in the other Nordic countries, I'd disagree strongly. We'll complain a lot. Until you ask us to actually rank how happy we are with our lives. If you base you impression on what people are saying without explicitly asking how happy they are with their lives, then you're getting an impression that's biased by almost an eagerness to complain, despite at the end of the day generally being very satisfied.
    • carlosjobim 1y ago
      You're disagreeing with yourself. Somebody who complains a lot and in other ways shows how miserable they are does not become happy by saying they are happy. You can maybe lie to yourself that you are happy, but you can't fool others. Although Norwegians and Danes are generally happier than Finns and Swedes.
      • vidarh 1y ago
        No, I am not. Complaining does not require unhappiness at all. That there are lots of things I'd like to be better does not mean I'm not happy. That I enjoy complaining does not make me unhappy either - on the contrary, it makes me happier. > You can maybe lie to yourself that you are happy This is inherently paradoxical and hence nonsensical. If you successfully convince yourself that you are happy, you are happy. > Although Norwegians and Danes are generally happier than Finns and Swedes. That you think you know better than people themselves whether they are happy is just rude and insulting.
        • carlosjobim 1y ago
          You are the person focusing on complaining specifically. I stated that the Nordics are far from being the happiest people in the world, and that is not by counting how much people complain. > This is inherently paradoxical and hence nonsensical. If you successfully convince yourself that you are happy, you are happy. If people are visibly unhappy but tell you that they are very happy, that doesn't mean that they've become happy by convincing themselves. That's like a guy screaming and punching you while he's saying that he's very calm. It's not reality, it's delusion. When somebody successfully convinces themselves to be happy, they don't continue their lives showing all the behaviour and attitudes of an unhappy person. You can also outwardly tell that they are happy. > That you think you know better than people themselves whether they are happy is just rude and insulting. Oh, the insolence!
• vidarh 1y ago
  I'm Norwegian, and we're down to 7th place, but I've lived half my life in the UK, and I can tell you that Norwegians will complain just as much as people in the UK, if not far more whenever I visit family. It's the national sport. In fact, if you tell most Norwegians about coming 7th on a World Happiness ranking, odds are high most of us will complain loudly about that too, thinking we deserve a higher spot, and that there's no ways the Finns and especially Swedes can be higher than us on the list (being beaten by the Danes is okay). In other words, I don't think this matches cultural acceptability of complaining at all. Norwegians will express dissatisfaction loudly and about everything (don't get a Norwegian started on the quality of the roads, or taxes; at the same time, don't get a majority of Norwegians started on "American conditions" or the political parties that might bring them about by lowering taxes), while still generally living pretty great lives.
• crockeo 1y ago
  Half Dutch half American. I find the Dutch complain a decent bit more, but I find that there is more to complain about in the States. Maar wat is het leven zonder klagen? One thing I've noticed being back recently: cost of living has gotten very unaffordable in Amsterdam the last time I was back. Cost of basic goods is on par with what I'm used to paying in major American cities, but my Dutch relatives often earn a decent bit less. I wonder if this will affect Dutch happiness in future surveys once affordability exceeds more and more people's earnings.
• Braxton1980 1y ago
  Wouldn't the cultural factor of complaining not mean as much since it's a survey for scientific purposes? For example, it's considered weird to talk about how many times I went to the bathroom this week but if asked by a doctor I would be more willing to provide the information