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U.S. hits new low in World Happiness Report

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219 points surprisetalk | 1 comments | 25 Sep 25 20:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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snickerbockers ◴[25 Sep 25 21:58 UTC] No.45379713[source]▶
What 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.

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georgemcbay ◴[25 Sep 25 22:16 UTC] No.45379903[source]▶
As an older person (52 y/o) who remembers a time when a lot more people I know (of all ages) were optimistic about the future, I believe the major factor leading to generalized anxiety currently is not about one event, but all the additive effects of massive and ever increasing wealth inequality piling up year over year.

That combined with little to no hope that either political party will do a damn thing to fix it (Democrats at least have some politicians who actually want to, but they are stymied by their own leadership, never mind the problem of not having any real national level political power currently).

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1. pesus ◴[25 Sep 25 22:51 UTC] No.45380289[source]▶
Agreed. Even as someone only on the tail end of the millennial generation, the total disappearance of hope in the past 10-15 years (but especially in the last 5) has been palpable. There's a tweet that's been floating around recently that says something along the lines of "basically nobody under 40 expects good things to happen ever again", and I think that sums it up pretty accurately.