Re: These Are the World’s Happiest Countries. Finland Is – Again – at the Top.

On Sun, 23 Mar 2025, Auric Hellman wrote:

The United States fell to its lowest spot since the World Happiness Report’s inception.
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Key Takeaways:
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Finland was ranked No. 1 in the World Happiness Report for the eighth straight year.
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The U.S. finished at No. 24 – its lowest rank since the report launched 13 years ago.
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Every Nordic country found itself in the top 10, which also included Costa Rica.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2025-03-20/finland-is-no-1-u-s-falls-in-world-happiness-report-rankings

Having lived in Sweden for many years, these types of reports are complete B.S. The reason the nordic scores high, is their sense of insecurity and insignificance to the world.
That leads participants in the studies to overrate their happiness with the motivation to "win" and show that their insignificant country can achieve something. The participants in these studies are also self-selecting, in that the ones who show interest are exactly the people who want to "fight" for the honor of their country.
Never have I ever met anyone in daily life who has participated, and who is particularly happy in sweden. The main causes of unhappiness are authoritarian taxes 60+% of your income is confiscated. Too many arabians. Too much crime. Shootings in the streets. Increaseingly authoritarian government that has created surveillance laws similar to china and russia.
This is a swedish perspective. As for the rest, have no idea, but would suspect the same factors.