More academic idiocy
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Research finds the happiest US States[^] So these two profs (one in the UK) used two disparate studies of health, crime rates, etc, and produced a list ranking states by 'happiness'. Their study places Louisiana at the top of the list. Yup, Louisiana - the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty... and then there's that little Katrina thing... But no matter. The profs say it's the happiest place in the country. :rolleyes: On a more believable note, NY was dead last. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
Having spent 15 years living in New Orleans, I'd agree with the study. I sure hated to leave and I go back every chance I get! There's not much question that I was happier in Louisiana than almost anywhere else I've been in the US. If they were talking international, I'd put pre-Chavez Maracaibo on about equal footing. Very similar attitude to that in New Orleans.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Research finds the happiest US States[^] So these two profs (one in the UK) used two disparate studies of health, crime rates, etc, and produced a list ranking states by 'happiness'. Their study places Louisiana at the top of the list. Yup, Louisiana - the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty... and then there's that little Katrina thing... But no matter. The profs say it's the happiest place in the country. :rolleyes: On a more believable note, NY was dead last. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
if the people in LA say they are happy, who are you to say they shouldn't be ?
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Having spent 15 years living in New Orleans, I'd agree with the study. I sure hated to leave and I go back every chance I get! There's not much question that I was happier in Louisiana than almost anywhere else I've been in the US. If they were talking international, I'd put pre-Chavez Maracaibo on about equal footing. Very similar attitude to that in New Orleans.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
Hmmm... I could see it in N.O. That's not the whole state, though. Actually, this brings to mind a couple interesting lines of thought. I wonder how the 'happiness' scale these guys came up with would correlate with per capita income? If you were to take the two states at the extreme of their scale (La. and N.Y.), it might indicate an inverse relationship between the two, thereby proving that money is not the root of happiness. Or to further Pete's thought, maybe we could correlate per capita obesity levels with happiness, and prove or disprove that fat people really are happier. :-D
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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if the people in LA say they are happy, who are you to say they shouldn't be ?
Let me ask you this. If you were to move to a new location, adapt your income to the local rate, put your kids in the local schools, and move into average housing for the area, where would you be happiest? Your choices are Louisiana and any other state. How often would you pick Louisiana?
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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Research finds the happiest US States[^] So these two profs (one in the UK) used two disparate studies of health, crime rates, etc, and produced a list ranking states by 'happiness'. Their study places Louisiana at the top of the list. Yup, Louisiana - the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty... and then there's that little Katrina thing... But no matter. The profs say it's the happiest place in the country. :rolleyes: On a more believable note, NY was dead last. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
So you don't like Louisiana. I'm sure that the happy, and the not so happy, residents of that state will be even happier for you to stay away. ;P
LunaticFringe wrote:
the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty
Maybe fat, dumb and happy has some things going for it. Reminds me of movie quote: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
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So you don't like Louisiana. I'm sure that the happy, and the not so happy, residents of that state will be even happier for you to stay away. ;P
LunaticFringe wrote:
the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty
Maybe fat, dumb and happy has some things going for it. Reminds me of movie quote: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
Gary Kirkham wrote:
So you don't like Louisiana. I'm sure that the happy, and the not so happy, residents of that state will be even happier for you to stay away.
:rolleyes: I don't have anything against Louisiana. I just question the methodology of the study and the validity of it's results.
Gary Kirkham wrote:
Maybe fat, dumb and happy has some things going for it. Reminds me of movie quote: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
See my response to Walt up above. I see the potential for a number of studies in this area. I wonder who ponied up the bucks for subject of the thread? Sounds like a soft touch for a BS research grant. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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Research finds the happiest US States[^] So these two profs (one in the UK) used two disparate studies of health, crime rates, etc, and produced a list ranking states by 'happiness'. Their study places Louisiana at the top of the list. Yup, Louisiana - the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty... and then there's that little Katrina thing... But no matter. The profs say it's the happiest place in the country. :rolleyes: On a more believable note, NY was dead last. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
There's no idiocy at play here. I've lived in Louisiana, and people are happy. I think this is because they have meaningful relationships that transcend their wealth, physical attractiveness, etc. If you meet a Cajun, there is probably someone, somewhere who really loves that person regardless of their income, bra size, etc. That's less true of more advanced areas. My family lives all over the world, so I see both sides. Often, I wish I was part of a real community with a real culture like Louisiana. When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
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Let me ask you this. If you were to move to a new location, adapt your income to the local rate, put your kids in the local schools, and move into average housing for the area, where would you be happiest? Your choices are Louisiana and any other state. How often would you pick Louisiana?
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
i'd love to live in New Orleans. and i have friends who live in Baton Rouge; and they seem to like it. but more importantly, what pleases you or me is irrelevant: if people say they're happy, then to do anything but take their word for it is patronizing condescension.
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There's no idiocy at play here. I've lived in Louisiana, and people are happy. I think this is because they have meaningful relationships that transcend their wealth, physical attractiveness, etc. If you meet a Cajun, there is probably someone, somewhere who really loves that person regardless of their income, bra size, etc. That's less true of more advanced areas. My family lives all over the world, so I see both sides. Often, I wish I was part of a real community with a real culture like Louisiana. When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
Member 3680785 wrote:
When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
I smell a reality t.v. show in the making.
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Hmmm... I could see it in N.O. That's not the whole state, though. Actually, this brings to mind a couple interesting lines of thought. I wonder how the 'happiness' scale these guys came up with would correlate with per capita income? If you were to take the two states at the extreme of their scale (La. and N.Y.), it might indicate an inverse relationship between the two, thereby proving that money is not the root of happiness. Or to further Pete's thought, maybe we could correlate per capita obesity levels with happiness, and prove or disprove that fat people really are happier. :-D
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
Well, I actually lived just outside of New Orleans. I would say that life in the Bayou Country is nice and people are generally happy, maybe in a different way than in New Orleans, but happy nonetheless. I find the general correlation that the study reported to be only slightly convincing. People can be happy for widely different reasons. I know lots of people that love the mountains, whereas I hate them. Others love snow -- not me. Put me in snowy mountains and I'm perfectly miserable, whereas others are perfectly content. Maybe be they found multiple correlations with more significance than they showed -- it would be interesting to see the entire study and see exactly what they did -- but their overall conclusion is pretty much self evident: People who are happy know that they are and will tell you that they are.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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There's no idiocy at play here. I've lived in Louisiana, and people are happy. I think this is because they have meaningful relationships that transcend their wealth, physical attractiveness, etc. If you meet a Cajun, there is probably someone, somewhere who really loves that person regardless of their income, bra size, etc. That's less true of more advanced areas. My family lives all over the world, so I see both sides. Often, I wish I was part of a real community with a real culture like Louisiana. When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
Member 3680785 wrote:
There's no idiocy at play here. I've lived in Louisiana, and people are happy. I think this is because they have meaningful relationships that transcend their wealth, physical attractiveness, etc. If you meet a Cajun, there is probably someone, somewhere who really loves that person regardless of their income, bra size, etc. That's less true of more advanced areas.
I don't know about that. I've lived in a wide variety of places, some very densely populated, some not at all. I've found people to be pretty much the same everywhere, with different local flavor and customs. One thing I have found many people have in common is their belief that their home, wherever that may be, is somehow just that little bit more ethical and kind than everywhere else. Perhaps this is more a function of their never quite feeling at home elsewhere than it is a function of any real difference in the quality of the people.
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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Member 3680785 wrote:
When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
I smell a reality t.v. show in the making.
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Research finds the happiest US States[^] So these two profs (one in the UK) used two disparate studies of health, crime rates, etc, and produced a list ranking states by 'happiness'. Their study places Louisiana at the top of the list. Yup, Louisiana - the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty... and then there's that little Katrina thing... But no matter. The profs say it's the happiest place in the country. :rolleyes: On a more believable note, NY was dead last. :laugh:
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
Happiness is not a matter of statistics. The best country to live in according to a UN study is Norway, and they also have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Happiness Is a Warm Gun[^] :)
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Well, I actually lived just outside of New Orleans. I would say that life in the Bayou Country is nice and people are generally happy, maybe in a different way than in New Orleans, but happy nonetheless. I find the general correlation that the study reported to be only slightly convincing. People can be happy for widely different reasons. I know lots of people that love the mountains, whereas I hate them. Others love snow -- not me. Put me in snowy mountains and I'm perfectly miserable, whereas others are perfectly content. Maybe be they found multiple correlations with more significance than they showed -- it would be interesting to see the entire study and see exactly what they did -- but their overall conclusion is pretty much self evident: People who are happy know that they are and will tell you that they are.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
Walt Fair, Jr. wrote:
People who are happy know that they are and will tell you that they are.
That's tough to argue with. Thank goodness we have a study to confirm it. :laugh: There's a NY Times story on it -here[^] that gives a link to the published study. The last lines of the Times article are pretty hysterical - More important, might contentment be overrated? Seriously, isn’t restlessness, even outright discontent, often a catalyst for creativity? We’re from the Harry Lime school. If you’ve seen the film classic “The Third Man,” you will remember that character’s admonition: “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. “In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
L u n a t i c F r i n g e
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So you don't like Louisiana. I'm sure that the happy, and the not so happy, residents of that state will be even happier for you to stay away. ;P
LunaticFringe wrote:
the state with the worst education system, the highest (IIRC) rates of obesity, widespread poverty
Maybe fat, dumb and happy has some things going for it. Reminds me of movie quote: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
Gary Kirkham wrote:
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Maybe so, but the guy who said that ended up being run over by the Deathmobile[^].
Software Zen:
delete this; -
There's no idiocy at play here. I've lived in Louisiana, and people are happy. I think this is because they have meaningful relationships that transcend their wealth, physical attractiveness, etc. If you meet a Cajun, there is probably someone, somewhere who really loves that person regardless of their income, bra size, etc. That's less true of more advanced areas. My family lives all over the world, so I see both sides. Often, I wish I was part of a real community with a real culture like Louisiana. When my family gets together, it's cordial enough, but there's no real connection. We're just a grouping of self-interested individuals battling their narcissism with advanced degrees, plastic surgery, etc. No one's ever gonna get up and spontaneously dance, and the minute one of the group falls off the straight-and-narrow, they get ostracized.
My father traveled worked for the US gov, and the longest we stayed anyplace before I was in high school was 2yrs (1967.07.04-11969.07.04, Taiwan). We grew up leaving people behind, expecting never to meet them again. It exposed me to a lot of culture and such, but none of us kids have had close friends or been very happy. We are all hyper intelligent social 'tards. I know a number of people who moved to Louisiana (from Connecticut) for the rural life style, warm temps and low cost of living. I understand their motives. As far as adding a an objective measure to an subjective question: . Rate your happiness, on a scale of 0-10 Ok, it is 8.5. No it isn't! You can't be happier than 4.7, look it the pollution and weather in your area, plus your income and weight . How much BS is that? It is OK to try and see what correlates with perceived happiness, but lack of education, more than enough food and low expectations may well have the best correlation to happiness, and who are we to laugh at it? ( :) :-D :laugh: ;P )
Opacity, the new Transparency.
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Happiness is not a matter of statistics. The best country to live in according to a UN study is Norway, and they also have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Happiness Is a Warm Gun[^] :)
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My father traveled worked for the US gov, and the longest we stayed anyplace before I was in high school was 2yrs (1967.07.04-11969.07.04, Taiwan). We grew up leaving people behind, expecting never to meet them again. It exposed me to a lot of culture and such, but none of us kids have had close friends or been very happy. We are all hyper intelligent social 'tards. I know a number of people who moved to Louisiana (from Connecticut) for the rural life style, warm temps and low cost of living. I understand their motives. As far as adding a an objective measure to an subjective question: . Rate your happiness, on a scale of 0-10 Ok, it is 8.5. No it isn't! You can't be happier than 4.7, look it the pollution and weather in your area, plus your income and weight . How much BS is that? It is OK to try and see what correlates with perceived happiness, but lack of education, more than enough food and low expectations may well have the best correlation to happiness, and who are we to laugh at it? ( :) :-D :laugh: ;P )
Opacity, the new Transparency.
My wife lived in Rhode Island. Jam that many people into a state the size of a largish airport and you would be amazed at their perpetual mood. Eye contact is considered aggressive behavior and will get you attacked. I'm betting their weight and income + education should put them pretty high on that scale. But man, they hate everything. You are right, the scale is just plain stupid.
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Gary Kirkham wrote:
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
Maybe so, but the guy who said that ended up being run over by the Deathmobile[^].
Software Zen:
delete this;See, that just proves my point. :-D
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit It's against my relationship to have a religion. Me blog, You read
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Happiness is not a matter of statistics. The best country to live in according to a UN study is Norway, and they also have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Happiness Is a Warm Gun[^] :)
Everybody is just dying to be happy there, I guess. ;P
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
