NationStates Jolt Archive

How does your corner of the world stack up with the Happy Planet Index? Check and see from this site.

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/list.htm

Have not seen a index set up in this way before. I think it is an interesting perspective. I once was discussing with a Mexican jungle tour guide about the differences between US and Mexican citizens. I had mentioned that it would be nice to have a place where we were to fish and relax on the beach. He said that even though the people seemed poor compared to US, Canadian citizens they had everything that alot of Americans work there whole life to retire to. Had to agree with the tour guide at that point. It gets down to what is really rich in life. Your happiness or is it money. Anyway this index is an offshoot of this outlook.

The HPI incorporates three separate indicators: ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life expectancy. The statistical calculations that underlie the HPI are quite complex. However conceptually, it is straight forward and intuitive

right im off to Vanuatu, byebye

That's an appalling survey. It assumes all sorts of things about people.

Introverts will always score lower. They might be perfectly content, but because they don't get involved in their communities the index says they're less happy.

I hate these kinds of surveys. It's just people imposing their subjective values upon others, and you get a result that's far from scientific. I sincerely hope that this index was made by an entirely private foundation, and was not given taxpayer money so that they could just go and make things up.

I admit I was definately shocked about my "Personal Feelings" score. I said that I was stressed out, which I am. But since stress is a huge part of my career (er, what I want to have as a career), and this is the only career I could ever be completely happy doing, it's no longer a big deal. Just because every rehersal and audition pushes me dangerously close to the edge, I am unhappy? The stress and fear all melts away at curtain call.

Gah, I hate when things tell me to "use more public transport". I'll use it just as soon as my town gets it.

That and it said my life expentancy was low, I'm guessing because of the question of how many of my grandparents reached 85. The problem with that is that my grandparents are just now hitting 70-75. My family has them young, several of my younger cousins and my sister (who is one year older than I) have children.

It also says I should "use less energy". I average about 188 kWh per month, there's not much more I can do. *funny note* On my power companies website they have a new "Online Outage Restoration Time" feature. Because people without electricty have easy access to the Internet.