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Comment by ofalkaed | Hacker News Reader

I flagged it and am not an atheist or depressed, I just don't see any discussion of worth coming from this thread and the general trend in the comments are that of splitting the community that is HN into the same us vs them bullshit that has infested most of the internet.

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> I just don't see any discussion of worth coming from this thread

I can see that as a justified reason. There are just some topics HN can't do well because they tap into prejudices that are common and strongly held here.

The post I responded too was complete garbage and against those supposed prejudices of HN. This thread represents both sides in the same light so far and neither side comes across as happy. Happy people generally do not attack the beliefs of others.

the reason I post it is because I want to see the talent of HN dive around the data. I suspect there is a bias some where. Perhaps the conservative religious are coming from wealthier families so perhaps a inequality issue. Perhaps an issue of internet use akin to Haidt's thesis but I'm skeptical of Haidt as I am with anyone who sort of enters the pop culture sphere of dialogue. He might note of a problem but there may be other reasons for the problem etc. We can't ever dive into that further because such discussions get flagged before even taking off. HN beyond reddit and others I feel have a better intellect to consider such data.

That title alone is almost certain to result in a pissing match and virtue signalling regardless of where you post it, anyone actually interested in deeper discussion is probably going to skip the thread. Find a well done study that is more about exploring the idea than the conclusion and you might get better results. But measuring happiness is not really possible, it is subjective and personal and often heavily influenced by community; I have done everything my community represents as happiness so clearly I am happy. Are you? The bulk of life is not happy fun times so is anyone actually happy? or when we say we are happy are we just saying that the desire to give up is infrequent and fleeting?

I only go with the title of the article. So far there have been some good comments. I'm not here to be part of the discussion. Only give the reason why I posted and also why I did not change the title.

Accurate. If there is a correlation, that does not mean there is causation. Propose a theory and a mechanism. If not, then the rest is statistical noise and anecdotes.

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