The Grim Secret of Nordic Happiness | Hacker News Reader

The Grim Secret of Nordic Happiness

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78 pointsRickJWagner99 comments

Sounds like they're just using the wrong word for what they're measuring. Perhaps we should be talking about "contentment" instead of "happiness" here?

The word 'happy' has an unusually large load of nuance to it, as well, not the sort of thing I would want to try to nail down for scientific study.

To be quite cynical, I think this is a textbook sociological study. You take a loaded word like happiness, twist the definition into something that fits both A.) what you can easily measure on a survey and B.) gives you results that fits your own preconceived idea of who should be happy (the Nordics) . Then you publish your study claiming you've found the keys to happiness, or if you're too modest to do that then the lay media makes such a claim.

It bothers me that the re-purposing of words is getting so pervasive. It's good that people like you spot it and call it out.

Why? Languages are constantly evolving, and always have been. Chaucer (middle English) is so far from modern English that it may as well be a completely different language, and yet it's what was spoken in England at the time (ad1400). Here is an example (with modern English translation): https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/millers-prologue-and-t...

That's a slow change. That's not so bad. What's happening today seems to be deliberate change to recast ideas (and people) in a particular light for the purposes of persuasion or even deceit.

We must learn the newspeak, or its to room 101 with us all! /s (it's an Orwell reference)

That's neat.

If I try and read it silently it's much harder than just reading it, then it sounds like my grandfather who had a really strong Yorkshire accent.

Try being a physicist surrounded by frontend developers babbling on about coding in Atom, using Electron as a framework and catching that rocket ship by deploying everything as micro-services with Nuclio.

haha as a physicist I totally feel it!

In pop psychology, this is usually the contrast between happiness and satisfaction. In articles that contrast the two, they imply that satisfaction is the preferable aim. Happiness is the fleeting emotion, satisfaction the long-lasting one. Happiness is the emotion that you really only notice if it is improving or decreasing, a steady state of happiness is not noticed.

The standard example is having kids -- kids often decrease instantaneous happiness levels but generally increase long term satisfaction.

Put standard pop psychology disclaimer here.

I personally don't like WHR. But it's almost like scholarly communication don't rely on a naive dictionary understanding of words. Happiness here signifies performance within their WELLBYs methodology. Discussing the nuances of the word happiness is getting lost in semantics, as it's meaning in this context is axiomatic to what ever WELLBY signifies. Critiquing their word use instead of their methods is getting lost in the sauce.

When you pop out a headline like "nordics happiest people on earth!" and a million people read it, what matters is _not_ whether your definition of 'happy' was technically correct within the framework of the study you're writing about.

You can try to hold the position that all those readers are wrong, and the article is fine. But more reasonable people will think you're being silly, and that journalists are basically responsible for choosing words that will be interpreted correctly by their readers.

But if your issue was with who I was criticizing, that's fair - the researchers probably weren't intentionally mis-communicating, and my criticism wasn't targeted clearly enough.

It might be a cultural thing, if you're content in Danish you're "tilfreds", but that's still a more positive word than content.

Happiness is translated to "lykkelig", which technically is a much more positive state than "tilfreds" (also much more positive than happy), but I don't think many Danes distinguishes that hard between "lykkelig" and "tilfreds", in terms of expressing their level of happiness with everyday life. We're generally more muted in our feelings and tend to not use the extremes, unless sarcastically. At least that's my take on Danish mentality.

You could perhaps use reasonable or tolerable, if you want the same result at perhaps Americans would expect to get from "content".

It seems like this might map onto the "joy" / "happiness" distinction in English?

The term "happiness" has come to be understood as something closer to what "joy" originally meant, but stricto sensu it's closer in meaning to "contentment" than something like "elation".

The happiest people I meet are in places like Jamaica, Trinidad, or Thailand. That type of happiness is obviously not tied to politics or a social safety nets.

In Finland, I remember Finns taking cruises to Estonia just to buy tax free liquor. It’s unsurprising that many in Estonia consider Finland to be a nation of drunks.

If you have ever filled a gratitude journal you often put mundane things that make you happy. “My cake turned out great!”

So who is to say what makes people happy?

Nobody, personal meanings to the word vary too much - that's kind of my point :-)

At the end of the day, somebody chose to use that word to describe a culture, and anyone with no information about that culture is going to make wildly wrong predictions based on the statement. Choosing words and phrases that communicate meaning accurately is pretty much the fundamental responsibility of journalism, and I'd describe this as a failure.

I personally think it involves a lot the nordic mentality of thinking carefully before acting, which in the long run leads to a society with much fewer problems.

See for example the prison system: do want people to suffer or do we want them to return as reasonably normal members of the society?

Also, let me add that I find the article slightly offensive.

Agreed, but note however that, for many people, no amount of careful thinking will bring them to the latter decision in your example. They want the imprisoned to suffer - to them, that's the whole point ("deterrent", they'll say).

I think the "suffer"/"rehabilitation" is only one of the important aspects.

There is a selfish component as well, do I want to have low crime. A successful return to society facilitates that (life sentences for all is the only other alternative). The difference between doing what is right (whatever that means), or what is effective (which is much easier to measure).

Though the blatant disregard for human life in general in the US is quite astonishing for a "western" country.

The rights vs outcomes chasm weirds out many visitors to the US. For example, in California every hotel and apartment pool has to be outfitted at considerable expense so any rich but disabled inhabitants could theoretically enjoy their right a dip in the pool while in their wheelchair, although I've never seen these conveyances actually used. Meanwhile, there are mentally ill homeless people outside the hotel, enjoying the freedom of begging for money, camping on the sidewalk and using BART escalators as toilets.

I think it depends. If you murder someone, you shouldn't be allowed to live. Likewise with heinous crimes like Anders Brevik. Why he wasn't put to death is still mind boggling to me. For people who do serious crimes but maybe aren't as severe, that would warrant prison. I just think the US's system of perpetual imprisonment leads to a worse system overall. I personally have a threshold that if I were to be jailed for longer than a specified amount I'd just kill myself. There's no sense in it. People who want justice also want you to get Shawshank Redemptioned but without the happy ending which is even sadder than when the criminal gets caught. It's why I think the death penalty is vital in human society. Torturing people with futile boredom or potential assault for the rest of their life is how you destroy someone's psyche to the point of complete psychopathy.

> If you murder someone, you shouldn't be allowed to live.

So if the government murder someone, it should not be allowed to exist?

> Likewise with heinous crimes like Anders Brevik. Why he wasn't put to death is still mind boggling to me.

Why?

> I just think the US's system of perpetual imprisonment leads to a worse system overall.

You contradict yourself; you want harser sentences, but also thinks that harser sentences "leads to a worse system overall."

Death is not harsher than "25 to life." Being a rat in a cage told to exist but your purpose is futile is no life worth living.

I also do firmly believe that even if the wrong person is chosen for the death penalty, it's still significantly more humane than throwing an innocent person in jail for decades stealing their life away in an even worse way.

Lastly, if you don't think Anders Brevik shouldn't be put to death, I'd argue morally you're the one purporting immorality.

I am honestly curious. What in the article do you find offensive?

The stereotypes all over the article

> nordic mentality of thinking carefully before acting

To me, your comment also sounds like a stereotype.

If you're comparing countries in this way, generalizations are basically mandatory. That said, nothing in there felt particularly mean to me.

> See for example the prison system: do want people to suffer or do we want them to return as reasonably normal members of the society?

Unfortunately, this idea has not worked out. If you look at people who have been convicted a few times, reoffending rates approach 100% for Sweden.

Then there's all the suffering for the victims who get no help what so ever from the police who pretty much just let everyone go.

For instance, breaking a restraining order might at most get that person a fine. Although in reality the risk of actually getting that fine is small because prosecutors don't generally bother prosecuting someone to just get them a fine. Basically, if someone wants to kill you, the police won't help you.

For what its worth, the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and still has massive recidivism: "An estimated 68% of released prisoners were arrested within 3 years, 79% within 6 years, and 83% within 9 years."

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/measuring-recidivism

Where are you getting the data that recidivism rates are close to 100%?

Mostly Brottsforebyggande Rådet. You have to dig into their statistics though because they tend to like publishing what looks good.

Edit: Also personal experience, unfortunately.

Edit 2:

> Where are you getting the data that recidivism rates are close to 100%?

Recidivism rates for people with a few convictions.

So you’re saying people who have committed a crime more than once tend to commit crimes more than once? This doesn’t sound particularly surprising.

I'm saying that once someone has a couple of convictions, the change that they will commit crime again is about 100%, which sadly goes against the nice idea that people in our prisons "return as reasonably normal members of the society".

Begging the question. People with "a few convictions" are certainly going to have a high rate of recidivism, by definition.

Not at all. We might for example see recidivism drop off after a few convictions. That would be the case if prison could reeducate people.

I'd expect recidivism to be low after a single conviction if the system works. But you can't teach an unwilling student, so frequent fliers will keep coming back.

Exactly, it’s important to remember the overall recidivism rate is much lower than the US’s. Unfortunately I think some amount of crime is inevitable and is ultimately reflective of societal development or lack thereof. When you get to multiple convictions, the cost of letting someone go has to be balanced against the cost of incarcerating them permanently, and the relative harm they would cause over the rest of their life if they simply could not be socialized properly. Maybe we really should be locking them away forever. Maybe we shouldn’t. I don’t think we’re ready to have those discussions yet. Emotion and retribution still drive how we punish people, to a destructive extent. It’s clear we could still go much farther in liberalizing and reforming the penal system before these questions become the most important questions to answer.

I find it interesting the article didn't seem to bother looking at income inequality. It seems without fail the countries that rank happiest have the lowest income disparity.

In general, that seems to be because they have strong social safety nets, which means even the "worst off" can still lead a comfortable life which should mean: less crime, less social unrest, and more social cohesion.

That's not necessarily true, since one country can have higher income disparity and have it to where their "worst off" are living a better life (in terms of living standard / consumption).

I'm not aware of a single country with higher income disparity than Finland whose "worst off" are living a better life. Can you cite some examples?

You're asking me to cite examples for a claim that I never made. It should be obvious that the claim I actually made is true as long as you understand the difference between income and consumption (spending) and how the GINI coefficient works.

That said, it appears that the bottom 20% of the USA live at a similar standard of living of the average household in Finland: https://www.justfacts.com/news_poorest_americans_richer_than...

This article is charmingly Finnish - blunt and to the point. Only a Finn would call bullshit on a study praising their nation while also proudly praising the very high quality of life and social cohesion that people enjoy in Finland.

It is telling that the critique here does not offer an alternative approach. Nobody smiles in Finland? Who cares, you can fake/force a smile and some culture do force them.

The happiness index here is really measuring contentment, though this is a necessary condition for happiness.

In general happiness research is fraught with the classic pitfall of all psychology research: culture. What makes people happy is acceptance and respect from their fellow humans and this varies by culture. Sometimes this means money, sometimes this means performance. Generally this means living your life in the way that your compatriots respect. In that context it doesn't seem especially surprising that egalitarian and well educated Finland would top the list for happiness, though it would be hard to measure and compare such qualities.

The author seems to live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Maybe they moved there exactly because they didn't approve "reasonable expectations" thus called them "grim" and wrote an article about it? Because the article doesn't seem to criticize the status, but the expectations themselves, as in "you should have huge expectations in order to be happy". And this is maybe the entire difference we see also in other comments here: the nordic way of being content with less, or the american way of everything is possible. Thing is, we don't live in the world of hopes, so when you look around and see that actually not everything is possible, of course your happiness index takes a hit. While if you look around and see that you can have everything you put on your reasonable list, hey, you can take a break from whatever you're doing and just enjoy it.

I live in Finland, the only problems here are basically loneliness and depression. It's hard to make friends, and not only for foreigners but even Finns have a hard time making friends. Everything else works, November and December are the worst months, due to darkness and cold. But in sprint / summer you can feel the happiness flowing on the streets.

I can think of some other problems with Finland from my years of experience with the country. One is nepotism: Finland has a reputation as a low-corruption country, but that is simply because it is swept under the rug that often jobs and state funding go to the people with the right connections.

Another downside is a society that is rather hostile to those who want to work only seasonally. In Eastern Europe populations are comparatively poorer, but it isn’t at all unusual for a young person to work his/her ass off for a while, then backpack the world or live off savings. In Finland, I found this challenging because rental contracts on flats are very long as a rule, and because the high cost of living makes it difficult to live off savings.

> It’s reasonable expectations.

Yes, isn’t this what stoics have been saying all along?

I’ve been getting into stoicism lately and finding it enormously therapeutic. I don’t even know if it’s the philosophy itself as much as it is knowing that other human beings have been struggling with the same questions I have for thousands of years. If it were a modern pop psychology self-help book I might actually hate it. But stoic writing hits me on that level.

No, stoicism is more about determinism of outcomes and being free from emotions like anger and jealousy. If you kinda mangle that a bit, I can see how it might sound like reasonable expectations but it’s really not the same thing.

Besides, the Stoics are one group with one philosophy, the chances of them being the “correct” one (if there is such a thing) are nearly nil. So to point at stoics matter of factly in this way doesn’t advance the point, even if the stoics espoused what you’re claiming they espouse.

> No, stoicism is more about determinism of outcomes and being free from emotions like anger and jealousy.

I disagree.

> the Stoics are one group with one philosophy, the chances of them being the “correct” one (if there is such a thing) are nearly nil.

Since this argument can be made equally against any viewpoint and philosophy, it is clearly irrelevant.

Nope. Stoicism is about focusing 100% on what you can do and not on what you can’t. Worrying about things you can’t control is a waste of time.

The article ends on a sour-ish note, that Finland lost its lustre for him because "I like it when people smile, laugh, and, yes, even talk to their neighbors. It makes me happy." Well, these things happen in Finland too, and increasingly so as the 20th century recedes into the distance. But the extroverted cheerfulness is not forced. Maybe the author had been Americanized into trying too hard ? Granted, out-and-out enthusiasm is an odd thing in Finland; the folk wisdom seems to be that "If you're enthusiastic, you obviously haven't thought it through." Which makes sense in its own way.

People do not typically talk to their neighbors in Finland in blocks and I have not seen any major change in this regard in the last couple of decades. Indeed, in Helsinki it is becoming a common behavior, before opening the door and leaving, to first look out the peephole to make sure that there isn’t anyone in the corridor – not running into one’s neighbors at all is seen as a common courtesy.

Obviously people living out in Junttila might talk to their neighbors, but these are comparatively so few people that they aren’t representative of the country.

people don't talk to their neighbors in the States either.

As an expat living in Sweden, this sounds spot on. You can easily live very comfortably in here, and it's very seducing. Not the best place if you hold any ambitions of world domination though, which is why I'm moving to the US as soon as possible.

I wouldn't agree with the author's sentiment: "The reason why I decided to stay here in the United States, despite a couple of efforts to return to Finland, is because I like it when people smile, laugh, and, yes, even talk to their neighbors." My Swedish neighbours and Swedes in general have been delightful, though I know things may be different in Finland.

I think it's great that places like Sweden exist, and might suit most people, but those who wish to lead lives of high variance with high highs at the cost of potentially ruinous lows should be able to do so as well.

For what it’s worth, Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_...). It’s just harder to spot because there’s less contrast.

Billionaires per capita I think is a pretty terrible way to describe the situation. 25% of all billionaires live in the US, same for China. 1.4% live in Sweden.

Not sure I’m understanding this objection. The parameter in question is ability of a society to generate extreme outliers in achievement. In economic $billion net worth is a good proxy, though I’m sure we could look at things like publication citation rank or number of gold medals instead. We would certainly want to scale whatever number by the size of a country since that corresponds to the probability that a given individual in that society can achieve that level of success. Comparing the US to China, for example, in total magnitude will naturally bias to China since it has 4x the population. That means that although both societies have a similar number of billionaires the probability of being a billionaire in the US is ~4x greater.

It's not about your own wealth, it's about the size of the company you are at the helm of.

People understand the diminishing returns of wealth, they'd rather be at the helm of a Fortune 100 company and have a net wealth of 100m vs. being a billionaire who made his billion buying and selling real estate in Sweden.

Sweden billionaires are all small potatos guys, they are way inferior to Trump if we are talking about turnover of the companies they own.

The US has the real guys, people like Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Koch etc.

> Not the best place if you hold any ambitions of world domination though

Does seem to have worked fairly well for Ikea, Spotify and some others though.

There are a few ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_Nordic_compani...

Not to mention pop music. Swedes have been extremely talented at marketing Swedish culture abroad.

As an expat living in Sweden, I have the opposite experience. Did you by any chance work in a big corporation like Ericsson? Then I can see why you'd think that. Startup culture was the opposite though. Other comments here also give a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Despite US being the butt of jokes on the internet, as someone who moved here from India at 21, ~6 years ago, I feel like my experience has been mostly pleasant. People are so much more friendly here in US than back home. And yes, some of it maybe superficial but I do feel in general it's easier for me to trust a random friendly face in America than someone back home. Life is in general just easier here.

While I do agree this idea of happiest people is empirically nonsense, I'm not sure I understand this bit about expectations but I think I may disagree. I can't speak for Finland, but Swedes have very high expectations. Having lived in other places and coming here, I tend to see them as exceptionally spoiled. They'll complain about potholes out on on the forest roads nobody drives, be aghast at slight political scandals or outraged that high school teacher said something a bit weird. I think that the more people get, the more their standards are raised (As a side note that's kind of a prediction of Buddhist thinking.) Also I don't get how Jantelagen is supposed to be an explanation for anything... people are still demanding a lot regardless of that. Also a ton of people don't take it seriously or outright hate it, so... more research needed I'd say. There is definitely a strong emphasis on fairness but that seems like an entirely different subject.

The article refers more to “big” expectations around one’s station in life or fame. Americans are brought up to think “you could be the next President” or “you could be a star”, and then when they turn out to have a regular life then feel disappointed.

I'm a Norwegian, and this is weird article. Let's be clear that the article is written by a Finnish author, and finnish people are so different from Norwegians and Danish people; Swedes and Finnish are more "related."

Bringing in Lutheran heritage is just bullshit; Norwegians haven't cared a lot about our "Christian" heritage for decades.

In my limited knowledge of psychology it's widely accepted there are 2 kinds of subjective well-being AKA "happiness". One is in-the-moment emotional happiness - joy, laughter, fun, that kind of thing. The other is "life satisfaction" which is what is discussed here.

If this is widely accepted, would it just be better to describe the exact form of subjective well-being that is studied rather than relying on vague descriptors?

One of my biggest issues with the science community is their lack of discipline when choosing language to describe what they are doing. Exact language is good practice and can eliminate a lot of bias and superstition that is prevalent in the way reality is described.

There’s something quite un-human about this idea of just being content and accepting and not standing out. Yes this is what a lot of meditators aim for and it likely means less emotional variability in life.

But it is not peaceful contentment that lifted us from the caves and will lift us to the stars. It is passion. Love. Hatred. Desire. Dreams. Despair. Individualism. That is a large part of what it means to be human.

Not the whole thing to be sure - the sense of unity with all that I get from DMT or similar things is sublime. But a large part of life is about intense striving for the dreams I have. As a self that is separate from the world.

Being happy through absolute contentment with one’s lot in society sounds like what being one of the social insects feels like.

> There’s something quite un-human about this idea of just being content and accepting and not standing out

Un-human, or un-American? This mindset is not unique to Finland, or even Nordic peoples.

Well, sure, it's an average; it shouldn't be surprising that the "happiest" places are the ones that best manage to reduce catastrophic unhappiness on the low end; that's where the biggest marginal improvement happens.

I like that they chose the word "Grim"; in addition to meaning "dreary, gloomy" it's also one of the many names of Odin/Woden (Grimnir / Grimr in Nordic, often Grim in old Anglo-Saxon names)

Maybe that was intended, but Finnish isn't a language derived from Old Norse let alone an Indo-European language. Estonian, Sami and Hungarian form their own group separate from Indo-European [1]. Along with that, most of Finland has their own mythology [2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_mythology

I am quite aware of that. The article was supposed to be about Scandinavia as a whole, though it did spend its latter half mostly talking about Finland.

Jante lagen only applies to the individual. I don’t know about Finland, but at least in Sweden the opposite is true about society: they genuinely believe they are better than anyone else.

Instead of Happiness Index it should be Satisfied Index.

Humility Index

Read it a bit and couldn't finish it on how bullshit it is.

It basically says they're great country, basic metrics that make people's lives better are great and then he disagrees with the studies because they don't go around in Finland counting smiles.

Happiness is about accomplishments, you set your life to work for something, greater or worse you'll get there in countries like Finland. That do make people happy and if you're "sad" with that, that's just a first world problem.

Come to Portugal where half of your wage gets stolen by direct and indirect taxes, making you study and work only to survive and you'll see what "happiness" is.

I don't even know what will make him happy but he seems socially deprived and kind of trying to fulfill that by shifting the definition of happiness into being a fucking clown.

having all that and being "sad". I don't even know if antidepressants will work on him for god sake.

most people are dying in the rat race. some are being mentally destroyed and crushed into just getting up the ladder a fucking little bit, others are just suiciding to let go of the pain and suffering.

and they usually still laugh and try to be happy unless ofc they die, if having all these things isn't enough for him to be goddamn happy I don't know what will.

Nope. Happiness is when your expectations matching your results. There are seriously stressed and depressed millionaires out there. And seriously happy non-millionaires. I know because I have met both.

I think they're way better than people fighting to survive even though they work their ass off everyday...

I think that Hollywood has warped our perception of what happy is supposed to be.

I find it excusable for Hollywood. Contentment doesn't look like much on a screen. Real life isn't dramatic enough to be interesting to others for most people most of the time.

But (looking from Germany) the American obsession with smiling while a large fraction of the population is on antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication and so on does seem a little insane. Happiness as a performance parameter, if you're not happy you fail.

America has an obsession with happiness and when you're not happy you're immediately told something is wrong with you. You should be happy all the time! Feeling bad is wrong!

I feel like Europeans don't have this automatic thought process where they expect things should be perfect and they ought to feel happy.

Yep you are right. Being from Europe, I can’t stand the false happiness projected by some people.

where is the button "report this for being so stupid"? he mentions basically having a world class educational system, lowest corruption level and having the most stable economy in a (meh) accent. Okay, wanna strive and work for your dreams? feel the sweat of fighting and the pride of winning, the US is just also too good for that, move to a 3rd world country champ so you can have a social life.

tfw the dude has the shit everyone wishes for be he's like, nah I am not happy with it. okay, then go 3rd world and live there. enjoy the classical oldschool social life and be "happy". but please don't BS stupid things here because I did regret every second I spent reading this. If I had a static IP on my home router I would've begged you to ip-ban me so I won't come across such posts anymore.

they don't smile, as if the people in the fucking world are laughing day and night ffs. even when they do. you can see the damn depression, poverty, and the last drops of hope on their faces. you can see the ignorance, the feelings of being unsafe in your home country, the feeling of unjust, tribalism, dictatorships, resources being stolen, and fucking lots more.

then comes a random Finnish dude unhappy with all they have. what is supposed to make you happy? a fucking joke teller? a clown? a what? if having the most stable economy and free access to world class education and lowest level if corruption in the world isn't making you happy I am sure you'd need a therapist.

It is ironic isn't it.

Having everything society has to offer actually makes you dull and miserable, and depressed.

I can fully understand your sentiment too. I not have always lived in Scandinavia. But sadly now I can fully relate to the author too.

It is, and unreasonable too. I don't think having the life essentials and a good healthy life is dull or depressive unless you have been abused or something. but generally speaking no it's not bad. the all introverts depressive society, well, not everyone is happy around a lot of people. some are, some are not.

I think people loosing the meaning of their lives is their responsibility at the end of the day if they haven't been abused or just feeling dull, I have my purpose and I am striving to get to it with the depression left from unreasonable stuff that happened to me out of my own will.

I understand people need social connections, have them, make them, be the energetic relentless joyfull dude whom every girl would fall in love with, and every guy can rely on, just go out and meet people like you and make social connections. make communities yourself for god sake. if you have the essentials and you can't go homeless or so low, you have literally nothing to fear. just do something about it.

This matches my experience.

If I were to use a word to define the nordic countries I'd use : Flatline

An other which comes to mind is : Stasis

Those places are depressing, people don't have the hatred and the competitive killer instinct which can be seen in big US metropolis and London

So hatred and killer instincts are the characteristics that appeal to you?

Chacun à son goût, as they say...

Yeah, it's not a bug but a feature.

If you stop competing then all you are left with is contemplating your own insignificance and death.

Competition keeps us busy, if we are busy competing , then we can't think.

The moment society collectively stops to think and do introspection, it would be the end of the human race, we'd all fall in a deep depression and off ourselves.

> If you stop competing then all you are left with is contemplating your own insignificance and death.

I think this is more revealing of your own thinking than that of society at large. Plenty of people derive meaning from family, craft, nature, etc. and don't need competition to distract them from thinking too much.

I'd instead argue that if the premise - competition keeps you from thinking too deeply - is true, competition is probably the most destructive force in society because it prevents one from properly prioritizing one's life based one's own sense of what's meaningful.

> properly prioritizing one's life based one's own sense of what's meaningful.

The biggest meaning is derived by elevating oneself socially. It's the reason why people move to cities. Cities are essentially the arenas where the competition happens.

You can say whatever you want , but more and more people are moving to the arenas, and to the extent they stop moving there or an outflow begins...that's because we now have the Internet which is essentially a MegaCity. A huge metropolis , the biggest arena we ever built

> "The biggest meaning is derived by elevating oneself socially"

I wonder what makes you state that in such certain terms.

I certainly don't feel a need to compete with everyone else all the time. Living somewhat below my means, supported by a decent, but not flashy paycheck in a society with a good safety net means I have no real financial worries, which eliminates a huge potential burden of stress off my shoulders.

My job won't revolutionize the world, but I do make a positive difference for people every day.

When I am off work, I am off work, my spare time is 100% mine and I spend it doing things that I enjoy, not trying to somehow monetize my hobbies as a "side hustle". I am not lacking for resources to hang out with friends, go on vacation or eat at interesting restaurants.

All of this means I am quite content, and especially content that I don't have to feel like I'm in some sort of constant competition with everyone else. It's nice to stop and smell the flowers, you should try it.

Funny, but not actually true. Competition is not the only available source of excitement

This discussion needs more exposure because it is hammering the nail hard in the head.

I have come to both conclusions on my own too... Is it better to live in competition to avoid thinking... Or... Is it better to derive joy form external factors: family, craft, nature.

I have no good answer but love where the discussion is going.

I also live in Scandinavia.

What experience is that? I have lived and work in Denmark, England, USA and Australia and I completely disagree with you. Most people in the US are constantly scared and stressed. Not so in the Nordic countries.

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