[bendtb]

There is also a religious element to suicide that cannot be overlooked.

Also, I Spain your view of Spain is tainted. I think very few people would choose an average city in Spain over e.g. Copenhagen where 20% of the Danish population live.

[GoatOfAplomb]

All the Spanish cities I've visited have looked "perfect", but there's a lot I don't see as a tourist, e.g. that Spain has one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe (10.5%).

[PLMUV9A4UP27D]

Finland is now close to Spain when it comes to unemployment rate! Let's see how that affects Finland's ranking.

[alephnerd]

The perception of Spain is much more positive in the Anglophone world - it's viewed as a country where cost of living is low, you can nap in the middle of the day, the women/men are hot and easy, the wine is great and cheap, and you can party late at night.

In reality the average Spaniard isn't experience the majority of that, as those are perceptions that arose from the rose-tinted glasses of tourists. Most tourists don't know about the Eurozone crisis, the regional disparity, and the consolidation of Spain's economic growth engines to 1-2 cities.

Spain is a good developed country with a decent QoL as is reflected by it's HDI and developmental indicators (and the fact that it has outpaced historically richer and more developed Italy is a testament to that), but tourists almost always take a rose-tinted view whereas locals almost always take a negative view.

And I think this is the crux of the issue with how the "World Happiness Index" is used in American discourse - in the US almost no one vists Europe or other parts of the World for extended periods of time and most Americans lack familial or social ties in Europe. As such, idealized images of Europe ("a socialist paradise" or "white Christendom under siege") have taken hold in popular discourse and are used as proxies for the American culture war.

[vjk800]

> The perception of Spain is much more positive in the Anglophone world - it's viewed as a country where cost of living is low, you can nap in the middle of the day, the women/men are hot and easy, the wine is great and cheap, and you can party late at night.

If you're a tourist, you get to experience only those parts. If you live there, you have to experience the other 99% of the life also and it's not so great.

[alephnerd]

Did you even read the second sentence?

[phony-account]

These measures are bullshit and often just come down to a prevalent societal ‘temperament’ that’s inculcated from birth. I live and have family in Sweden and the rest of my family is in Spain. The Swedes have immense pride in their country and pretty much only talk about the positives. When the winters are dark, cold, rain has been pouring for fourteen days straight and the last time you saw sun was 4 weeks ago, they say “there’s no bad weather just bad clothes”. One day I sat with my cousin and some other relatives in the olive grove of his country place in Spain - sun was shining and we’d been eating delicious locally produced food for hours and drinking wine from his vineyard while he yapped on about how everything in Spain is ‘shit’ (una mierda). And this is why places like Finland are reportedly the ‘happiest’ in the world.

[oldestofsports]

We’ve had about 1 hour of sunlight so far in december where i live in Finland, but it’s fine. It also makes the sun way more enjoyable when it finally shines in the summer.

I’d never want to live in perpetual summer. Seasons brings joy.

[haritha-j]

I'm from Sri Lanka, and i'm glad you're 'happy' with it, but i'll take my eternal sunshine over months of darkness anyday.

[phony-account]

> I’d never want to live in perpetual summer. Seasons brings joy

Even this is a typical myth that I often hear from Scandinavians. In fact different parts of Spain (or England or France) have also clearly demarcated seasons.

If you want to experience the joy of Autumn then the crisp, long days of an English Fall are incomparably more distinct than the unrelenting darkness that’s almost indistinguishable from Winter in Scandinavia, for instance. And when Spring comes to the valleys of the temperate regions of Spain, then the blossom and explosion of wild flowers is miraculous.

But like I said, from preschool onwards Scandinavians are indoctrinated with the belief that they live in the best of all possible worlds, and no amount of actual experience can ever dent that notion.

[arethuza]

Not sure that "crisp" is a word I'd use to describe any part of the UK in autumn - probably more like "soggy" - but that applies to any season!

[phony-account]

> Not sure that "crisp" is a word I'd use to describe any part of the UK in autumn - probably more like "soggy" - but that applies to any season!

From the gently self-deprecating nature of your answer I’m guessing you’re British - and this is indeed the whole point of what I’m saying.

I genuinely and deeply miss this aspect of the English character which is totally lacking in Sweden - the websites called “shitLondon” or the insistence that English food is inferior to Italian or French cuisine or this repeated idea that it always rains (it doesn’t). That self-mockery simply doesn’t exist here, apart from when it’s some sort of humble-brag.

[oldestofsports]

If the temp stays above 0 degrees celsius all year round it does not count as having seasons, since winter is obviously missing.

[pezezin]

I am Spanish and I agree with your comment. Sadly we love to hate our country, I guess we still have a lot of guilt accumulated from Franco's era.

In my case, the cure was traveling and living abroad for 7 years now, it made me realize that Spain is actually a great country.

[SiempreViernes]

To be fair, nothing in Sweden can match the flooding of Valencia.

[parineum]

I don't see how that makes the measure bullshit. Outlook and expectations are related to happiness. If you want for nothing but have little it's better than a never ending treadmill of more.

Having a culture that produces happier people in worse circumstances doesn't make those people less happy.

[phony-account]

> Having a culture that produces happier people in worse circumstances doesn't make those people less happy

The question is whether stoicism in the face of what most people would categorize as suffering should be classified as “happiness”.

[allturtles]

Yes, absolutely. How else would you define it? The whole point of happiness is that is a subjective, internal state. If you just want to know if people live in a cold, dark climate you don't need to ask them.

[euroderf]

> There is also a religious element to suicide that cannot be overlooked.

Also a genetic component.

[nephihaha]

Dark winters are a bigger component here. Most Nordic countries get little sun in winter and it gets worse the further north you are.

[euroderf]

Finland leads the world in per capita coffee consumption. My pet theory is that in the winter it fights depression, and in the summer the sun is out late at night and you're saying to your friends: How could we possibly go to sleep now?! Moar coffee!!

[nephihaha]

I tend to find coffee increases jitteriness and anxiety in people. Some evidence it may increase depression too.

[euroderf]

Well, maybe not so much fight depression as fight lethargy ?

[nephihaha]

In my experience, even that is not true. It displaces it.

[socalgal2]

Have you eaten everyday food (not gourmet) in Copenhagen?

[simonask]

Copenhageners eat the same plastic-wrapped salads, organic grass-fed whatever, and whatever the latest green smoothie trend is, as in Southern California.

If this is a dig at the largely pork/cabbage/potato-based diet of Northern Europe, you will be relieved to hear they don’t follow it.

Source: Am one.