

The Happiest People - tokenadult
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html

======
mixmax
_"Maybe Costa Rican contentment has something to do with the chance to explore
dazzling beaches on both sides of the country .... and it’s surely easier to
be happy while basking in sunshine and greenery than while shivering up north
and suffering nature deficit disorder."_ Denmark, which comes in at number two
in the happinsess index has beaches that are emtpy 10 months of the year
because of the cold. Right now I'm looking out the window at a frozen sea. And
I guess this ought to make Iran a very happy country too.

I think we can conclude two things from this article: The author likes Costa
Rica, and he doesn't understand that correlation doesn't equal causation -
like many of his peers in journalism.

~~~
DaniFong
Correlation might not imply causation, but _nothing_ implies causation. The
best we've got is a pile of correlations, a few anecdotes, and a lot of
imagination.

~~~
Eliezer
A common misconception, but you'd have to read quite a bit of Judea Pearl to
understand how certain patterns of conditional statistical independence do
allow us to declare causation.

See this page for a start:

<http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/home.htm>

Or the opening paragraphs of this:

<http://lesswrong.com/lw/qr/timeless_causality/>

~~~
DaniFong
Thank you for your links, and writing the article that you've written. I've
tried to understand it; though in honesty skimming it more than reading it,
and I haven't given it the fresh thought that it likely requires.

But.

How can one declare causation if one isn't even sure of one's senses? One's
observations? One's data? How can we avoid the possibility of an 'evil daemon'
of Cartesian philosophy: who is "as clever and deceitful as he is powerful,
who has directed his entire effort to misleading me."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_daemon>

Sure, certain patterns patterns of our observations will nudge us one way or
the other towards a higher probability of assigning some, possibly specific,
causal link. But can we ever be sure of it? This is the sense in which I mean
that nothing 'implies' causation. Perhaps it is better to say that some things
merely _suggest_ it.

~~~
Eliezer
In precisely the same sense, nothing implies anything. So why single out
causality?

~~~
DaniFong
Mainly because people so commonly dismiss a study by stating that 'correlation
doesn't imply causation,' while going about their lives with their own ideas
and biases based on anecdotal evidence just the same. It's the tool of a
common course of visible hypocrisy. Maybe it's just a personal thing.

------
3pt14159
Guys, dig into the quoted research and you'll find they cherry picked data.
For example, the USA with the question: "Suppose the top of the ladder
represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder the
worst possible life. Where on this ladder do you feel you personally stand at
the present time?"

has a response of 7.3 whereas Costa Rica has 6.9. Beware of newsprints
offering statistics.

~~~
rauljara
While I agree that you should question statistics, particularly those
appearing in op-ed columns, I don't see how this statistic contradicts the
thrust of the article at all. The self measures regarding happiness all still
apply.

It seems to me that this particular question seems to have to do more with
being able to imagine a better life. That is, despite their happiness, Costa
Ricans are able to imagine things getting even better. Despite our
unhappiness, we in the U.S. have slightly more trouble imagining our lot
improving.

Even if you disagree with my interpretation, you have to admit that it is
incredibly open to interpretation, even more so than the question, 'are you
happy?' I'd say the more direct measure would be the obvious one to quote.

~~~
3pt14159
To me, "are you happy" seems more temporal. Whereas, "do you have the best
possible life" seems more lasting. If someone calls me up in the middle of Jan
on a cold week here in Toronto, say -25C, I'm not a happy man, but I still
think I have the best life possible.

------
10ren
Orson Scott Card has this idea of "edge" nations and "centre" nations. It's to
do with whose culture wins, not to do with whose military wins. Basically,
when an "edge" invades a "center" (or vice versa), the result looks like the
centre nation. So, the Mongols invaded China... and adopted Chinese style
government.

I think the Romans were amongst the strongest centre nations, as we're still
copying them (pythons: "what have the Romans ever done for us?") e.g.
democracy, bureaucracy, even details like a senate. Though fallen, the Empire
survives.

 _heads beat arms_

~~~
eru
You may be right in general. Though: Democracy from the Romans? They used to
have a Republic, but it was not a Democracy.

Much of the `Roman' stuff comes from the Greek. And they also got a lot from
elsewhere, too.

I do find myself agreeing with your assessment of China and Mongolia more.

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petercooper
It's all well and good getting rid of your army when you have a superpower
(with whom you have a free trade agreement) just up the street and which would
be unlikely to let an invasion slip under its nose. It's even better when your
country has hardly anything worth invading for..

~~~
sgman
You just described 90% of the countries in the area. However, Costa Rica is
the only one that has implemented this. The author's point still stands.

~~~
petercooper
Going on the CIA World Fact Book figures as stated at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures),
Haiti, Bermuda, Guatemala, and Trinidad and Tobago spend less of their GDP on
military expenditure than Costa Rica.

And Mexico, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicargua, Barbados and the Bahamas all come in
at only 0.5% or 0.6% of GDP compared to Costa Rica's 0.4%.

With some minor exceptions (Belize needs a deterrent for historical reasons),
almost the whole of central America is poorly armed and barely militarized due
to the long arms of Uncle Sam. Whether or not these countries have boasted
about complete demilitarization or not is just a formality when they spend so
little on what they do have.

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tezza
The New Economics Forum was searching for a press hit, it is a shame NY Times
is confirming this truthiness[1]

As evidence see ::

[http://heavylifting.blogspot.com/2006/07/on-happy-planet-
ind...](http://heavylifting.blogspot.com/2006/07/on-happy-planet-index.html)

and especially the comment from the NEF itself

sam.thompson@neweconomics.org

"However, I thought your piece was thoughtful and interesting, so I just
wanted to make one point, which is that we don't claim that the index measures
happiness (we emphasise several times, in fact, that it doesn't). Rather, we
claim that it measures well-being efficiency: that is, the relative 'price
paid' for experienced well-being by countries as a function of their resource
consumption."

"To an extent we asked for this kind of (mis)interpretation by using the word
'happy' in the title of the report - we have wondered, with hindsight, whether
this was such a good idea. The trade off is that we got a huge (and 95%
positive) press hit - and that's all part of the game too.."

\----------

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness>

------
gr366
It is a lovely country well worth the visit and they deserve a lot of credit
for their environmental conservation. But it's not as though they've done away
with poverty. I've seen families living in shacks in Quepos just down the hill
from sprawling expat mansions in Manuel Antonio. (Though even those families
did seem pretty happy).

~~~
abhiyerra
Poverty doesn't necessarily have to correlate with happiness (even though the
West seems to think so). Sure they can't afford a lot of things and struggle,
but some of the happiest people I've seen in India are the poor.

------
willwagner
Of all the places I've gone, there are two places I've visited where I found
the people to be remarkably friendly and happy: Costa Rica and Thailand. I'm
sure part of it was that I spent time in both places on vacation, but in both,
I was on a rented motorcycle with my wife, visiting both touristy areas and
places off the beaten path.

My wife and I have a dream of starting an international hacker house someday
for companies/individuals that want some isolation and focus during crunch
mode but also want some exotic locale, and both Costa Rica and Thailand are on
our short list.

------
akkartik
Book recommendation: the geography of bliss ([http://www.amazon.com/Geography-
Bliss-Grumps-Search-Happiest...](http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Bliss-Grumps-
Search-Happiest/dp/0446580260)) Among other things it includes a now-
interesting perspective on Iceland.

------
alanthonyc
Seven of the most fun days of my life were spent on a vacation in Costa Rica.

~~~
wallflower
I'd like to ask. Was it latitude or attitude? Or just being free? A perfect
confluence of circumstance?

