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U.S. hits new low in World Happiness Report

(www.axios.com)
219 points surprisetalk | 2 comments | 25 Sep 25 20:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.517s | 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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ajkjk ◴[25 Sep 25 22:02 UTC] No.45379755[source]▶
wait, is your point that there is some mystery about what happened to make the US even less happy? ... what didn't happen? It's hard to think of anything good that has happened in the last few years. Every month is scarier and more uncertain than the last.
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snickerbockers ◴[25 Sep 25 22:26 UTC] No.45380022[source]▶
i mean specifically between '23 and '24, i don't remember much happening on the national level then. COVID's been in the background for a few years and trump hasn't been re-elected yet.
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ajkjk ◴[26 Sep 25 16:20 UTC] No.45388201[source]▶
That was when the economy got more horrible for everyone that's not rich
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1. snickerbockers ◴[26 Sep 25 16:48 UTC] No.45388536[source]▶
dude that's every year. I am specifically referring to something which did not happen between '22 and '23 but did happen between '23 and '24. I don't know if you actually bothered to read the article in the OP but there's a graph showing a major inflection point.
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2. ajkjk ◴[27 Sep 25 16:16 UTC] No.45397090[source]▶
I don't think so. Something very particular happened that year, financially. That was the year the covid stimulus haze wore off and everyone started talking about inflation and grocery prices and layoffs, was it not?

I guess my full theory would be "that, plus political disenchantment". Which you could say happens every year, but no, it was especially bad that year: Trumpism coming back for real; plus Israel-Palestine and the backlash in the US when everyone realized the Democratic party was going to be completely sold out regarding it; plus everything with Biden being senile and everyone knowing it. It's the year everything started to feel truly hopeless.