[bigtones]

FYI: This world happiness report is entirely based on asking just one obtuse question, which does not even have the word happiness in the actual question:

Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?

[throw0101d]

The Howtown channel had a video on this last year, 'One weird metric picks the world's "happiest country"':

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1--c2r8HE

They link to their sources:

* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFO-3Sq5-rorCWBIKwuR-Spk...

Specifically the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale ("Cantril Ladder") is used:

* https://www.sciotoanalysis.com/news/2024/2/9/what-is-cantril...

* https://news.gallup.com/poll/122453/understanding-gallup-use...

It's been around since 1965, so it's presumably been studied a lot and the pros and cons of it explored in the literature.

[emptysongglass]

This is one of those things that just is not true, no matter what sort of evidence is presented, because actual humans can go walk outside their door and see it isn't.

Denmark has ranked as one of the happiest countries for years running, but, Dane here, we hoover up antidepressants like it was our breakfast. There are also deep cultural factors at play that make Danes more likely to mask that everything is fine when it isn't. We have an extremely high incidence of cheating on our partners, which, surprise, comes from a talent for deception, both toward self and others, and we are extremely emotionally avoidant, which results in our nationally very high rate of alcohol consumption and alcoholism.

These happiness indexes are a complete sham and don't observe the full spectrum that goes into how cultures present themselves versus lived reality.

[UncleMeat]

> we hoover up antidepressants like it was our breakfast

Is somebody who uses antidepressants to successfully improve their mood not happy? The question is not "would you be happy if you were unmedicated?"

[dyauspitr]

Pretty good question I would say. It’s rating your life on a scale of 1 to 10. That being said it doesn’t gauge actual happiness. For instance the Nordic countries have very high levels of depression with a third of the some countries being on antidepressants. As a whole I would say on a day to day basis people are much more ebullient and happy seeming in a lot of other places like the Mediterranean. I would wager that this doesn’t capture the percentage of time people are “happy”.

[rapnie]

It looks to me that this refers to a 272 page PDF report [0] on the theme "Happiness and Social Media" and the Executive summary explains that it is about much more than that simple question.

[0] https://files.worldhappiness.report/WHR26.pdf

[FrustratedMonky]

Its hard to frame a question across languages and cultures.

The ladder metaphor isn't the worst.

[semilin]

It's especially hard to express "happiness" across languages. It's a word that is hard to define and generally has no perfect synonyms between languages. It ranges broadly from "present feeling of contentment" to "ultimate feeling of fulfillment in life," and it seems like the survey is aiming for the latter aspect. Therefore the ladder analogy is a decent way to communicate that.

[dyauspitr]

This isn’t gauging happiness but rather if your country is fulfilling your aspirations. I bet someone that works in a role he didn’t really want still might be very happy on a day to day basis but he never had the chance to become the doctor or botanist he always wanted to be.

[jamilton]

An obvious issue with the metaphor that comes to mind is that if you consider yourself to have a pretty good life, to be overall happy and satisfied, but you think it's possible to have an objectively much better life, then you'd rank yourself relatively low. And vice versa, if you think your life sucks but it could be much worse you'd rank yourself relatively high.

[FrustratedMonky]

But, that is still giving a happiness score.

If the society/culture you are living within. Is well off, but swamped with cravings that it could be better. Then you are less happy.

This study isn't trying to measure how 'materially well off you are', it is happiness. So if you are un-satisfied even with your big house, and un-happy, that still says something.

[dyauspitr]

It’s also a culture score. Objectively we should all be very unhappy because we’re not all billionaires and can’t do whatever we want but culture tempers at what point you’re content.

[jltsiren]

The kind of a person who thinks they would be substantially happier as a billionaire would probably be unhappy as a billionaire. You get used to what you have, but there is always more wealth / status / power / influence to be had.

[lores]

Same problem as rating your pain on the pain scale: is 10 the worst pain I've experienced, or the worst I can imagine? Because I've got a... very vivid imagination. And still, that's the best we can do. I blame an imperfect universe.

[rightbyte]

No it is not the best we can do. Like, just ask "are you happy?" instead of some convoluted scale.

Like, if there is no consensus on what the scale means the answers will be too culturaly dependend and random between individuals.

In my experience doing surveys "was the food good?" after say a conference is way easiee to interpret than some scale answers.

[dismalaf]

Canada here. Feels like we're barely hanging on to rung 5 or 6 and about to fall to the bottom.

Quantifiable example: most recent jobs report we lost 100k+ full time jobs. Biggest job less since COVID. Or the fact our increase in GDP per capita is the (second?) worst in the OECD in the last 10 years. Worse than Japan, Italy, the UK and all the other laggards...

[throw0101d]

> Canada here. Feels like we're barely hanging on to rung 5 or 6 and about to fall to the bottom.

The Missing Middle podcast went into this in a recent episode, and it's age-dependent: older folks are happier (i.e., they have purchased homes), while younger folks are less happy (cost of living). We Canadians basically have age-dependent wealth-class nowadays.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dizaUBC22o4&t=4m13s

[dismalaf]

The fact boomers have it so good yet our ranking is dropping like a rock tells you just how bad it is for the working class, especially those who don't have government jobs...

[girvo]

It’s the same in Australia. And they will live for another few decades most likely, so this only gets worse as far as I can tell.

While the government removes all the benefits boomers and Gen X got to use to build their wealth, ensuring the ladder is firmly pulled up behind them.

[bombcar]

Reminds me of the labour union negotiations where to preserve existing member benefits they forfeited future member's access to the same.

[SECProto]

Also Canada, and I disagree pretty strongly with your post. Those two statistics have little bearing on happiness. Housing costs and healthcare access are much bigger concerns.

[9rx]

They are concerns, but not all that closely tied to happiness. Research shows time and time again that deep social connection is the key, if you will, to happiness.

And today's Canadians aren't that great at being social: "In 1986, about one in two Canadians saw their friends on an average day. Now, only about one in five do." — https://www.cbc.ca/radio/nowornever/maintain-friendship-conn...

[applfanboysbgon]

> Research shows time and time again that deep social connection is the key, if you will, to happiness.

Research suggests it, but it does not show it. Psychological research is notoriously unscientific, with most studies not even being replicable because humans are extremely complex and it's basically impossible to design any kind of methodology that concretely controls for all variables, all the more so when we have things like 'ethics' that make it even harder to do controlled resaerch.

It is absolutely possible to be happy without deep social connection. I am an absolute misanthrope, I seriously hate every one of you bastards, but I'm pretty damn happy. The key to my happiness is that I live a comfortable life and have the freedom to spend it creating (and consuming) things I love - art, music, games, software. If I had to instead spend my days labouring on a farm, if I didn't have indoor plumbing and air conditioning, didn't have access to healthcare and stability and security, etc. I would be absolutely miserable. My happiness is only possible due to the great economic conditions and sensible policies of my country.

[9rx]

> It is absolutely possible to be happy without deep social connection.

Well, of course it is. No matter what you think it is that brings happiness to the general population, there will be at least someone who doesn't find happiness in it. There are always outliers.

> If I had to instead spend my days labouring on a farm

Farms are where you find the intersection of all cool tech. I have to wonder how someone who enjoys creating and consuming software would dislike working on a farm. But to each their own.

[applfanboysbgon]

> No matter what you think it is that brings happiness to the general population, there will be at least someone who doesn't find happiness in it. There are always outliers.

I'm not convinced I'm that much of an psychological outlier, though; I think only my prosperous conditions are themselves a global outlier. I believe that if you gave most people the privilege I have, of having just enough money to pursue the things they love without doing work they don't enjoy, without worrying about being able to afford food, shelter, or medical bills, they would be happy too, with or without social connections.

> Farms are where you find the intersection of all cool tech. I have to wonder how someone who enjoys creating and consuming software would dislike working on a farm.

I need to do intellectually stimulating work to be happy. Repetitive manual labour would drive me insane. My mental image of "labouring on a farm" there was also "poor economic conditions subsistence farming", not "industrial farm with a million dollars worth of cool machinery".

[dyauspitr]

I’m in tech and laboring on my farm are my happiest moments. I love to work hard with my hands. I absolutely hate working with what seems like pointless minutia on a computer but I’m good at it and can’t make a comfortable living farming so I do what I have to do. People are very different so I’m interested to see what their n is in each country. If it’s in the hundreds, this study means nothing.

[bombcar]

> I am an absolute misanthrope, I seriously hate every one of you bastards, but I'm pretty damn happy.

Hey, it didn't say deep positive social connection.

Perhaps your hatred is what fuels you and keeps you happy :)

And another question from a ratbastard; have you ever spend a significant time labouring on a farm, or without indoor plumbing and/or air conditioning?

[applfanboysbgon]

I have, yes. Although born in a wealthy country, I grew up in abject poverty. I wasn't entirely unhappy then, and I do understand how social connection can help make it bearable. But I'm a lot happier now than then, and my happiness no longer depends upon the whims of other people, one of whom in particular betrayed my trust and left me deeply depressed for years. I greatly prefer my happiness being in my own hands, and I really couldn't go back to manual labour now, because there is so much I want to create and already not enough time to do it all; having more time to idly think about all the things I want to create and less time to create them would be torturous.

[dismalaf]

> healthcare access

What healthcare access? My family has had to go abroad for surgeries twice in the last 3 years because there's no access to healthcare here...

And housing prices? My sister bought a mansion in Texas for less than a condo here.

Arguably these two data points are even worse for Canada. Either way our ranking is dropping.

[SECProto]

I'm saying that data (not anecdotes) on those would've been better justification for your ranking.

That said, for most people, going abroad for surgery or to buy a home is not an option.

[dismalaf]

Yes. GDP per capita is data and a well known proxy for quality of life.

For example, declining productivity (which is what GDP per capita is) means a worse house price/income ratio, ie. worse affordability.

[canucker2016]

Here's the more important data point - Canada lost to the USA in three 2026 Winter Olympic Hockey finals. The whole country is hanging their collective heads in shame...

[bombcar]

Well USA lost to Venezuela in baseball, so maybe something's going around.

(Canada losing to a USA team made mainly of Canadians is another issue entirely ...)

[boringg]

Doesn't that almost imply the happiest countries in the world have a lack of imagination on what could be better? Or maybe they don't suffer from comparison (the thief of joy) as a culture.

[bauerd]

>a lack of imagination on what could be better

I'd argue it's likelier that people are more informed about their absolute position globally. Any screen gets you the mental image of the top of the ladder. So happy people would end up scoring themselves low, because there's a globalized vision of wealth nowadays.

Besides there's a difference in life self-evaluation and experienced happiness, so the report really is a misnomer.

[wise_blood]

that's also why I much prefer the HDI (Human Development Index), it tracks more meaningful metrics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

[hn_acc1]

I mean.. even if I was a bit worse off financially, if the leadership in the country was even borderline normal, I would give a much higher rating than currently.

[nradov]

Do you mean normal like James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, Richard M. Nixon, and George W. Bush?