[lazide]

Ah, that makes sense - it’s doing the ‘tons of oil energy equivalent’, which those countries are petrostates/petrokingdoms which typically have things like free (or nearly so) gasoline, natural gas, electricity, etc. as part of the gov’t popularity equation.

Which those states need to do that typically because they don’t really care about any actual quality of life improvements, or developing any other parts of the economy.

Because why bother, when you can do those other things more easily, it makes folks dependent on the gov’t, and it avoids things like people being more educated and independent and asking tough questions about those in power.

So I guess I should amend my comment - ‘except for countries where the gov’t is incentivizing free unlimited petro energy due to gov’t policy, quality of life still roughly tracks energy consumption and availability’.

Though then we’d need to argue about what quality of life really means - most Spaniards would top most Americans in physical and mental health in my experience, for example. But Americans definitely have more stuff.