A new article in the BBC shows what they call the "The First Published Map of World Happiness" (pdf alert). Denmark is supposed to be the happiest place in the world, while Burundi is the unhappiest coming in at 178th. So where does India stand? Pretty poorly at 125th, which brings me to my next question. Does this mean that when I moved from India to the US (which is 23rd on the happiness scale) I went from being unhappy to happy, and that will I be unhappy when I go back.
To be clear, I get that these are measures that represent whole countries, but come on... how realistic are these estimates and do they mean anything wrt. real people?
So, to make this a bit more realistic, I searched the net for a measure of unhappiness and I found a chart of the suicide rates across the world. Turns out Denmark is 27rd in terms of suicide rates (higher is worse), well ahead of India (44th) and the US (45th). I thought happy people didn't kill themselves!
Anyway, thats my $0.02 on this.
So, to make this a bit more realistic, I searched the net for a measure of unhappiness and I found a chart of the suicide rates across the world. Turns out Denmark is 27rd in terms of suicide rates (higher is worse), well ahead of India (44th) and the US (45th). I thought happy people didn't kill themselves!
Anyway, thats my $0.02 on this.
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