Unlike those filthy Austrians, Belgians, Finns, Taiwanese, Qataris and Luxembourgers... living in squalor. :D If the USA failed to make this list the way they have, you all know what's what people would be saying. Even though it would be no less ridiculous than what I just said.
Funny? No, not really. Clever? Debatable. But certainly true. There is a definite double standard, with the US held to a much higher standard than other developed countries. I'm quite sure if, as Kalbahamut says, the US were to narrowly miss out on this list, half the comment section would be crowing. Is it fair? Again, debatable. Perhaps the world's first and only truly democratic superpower should be held to a higher standard. Whatever your answer on that, Kal isn't wrong.
Typical snide reply from Jingoist Kal. Nowhere in his comment did Tom evidence lack of comprehension of your words, but all you got is condescending ridicule as a response. Stay murican.
Nothing I've ever said in my life was jingoistic, both you and Tom *clearly* did not understand what I wrote, and you are outing yourself for being the things you hypocritically accuse others of (and throw in a nice little bigoted slur at the end there for good measure, just to make sure we got it). Not a good look. I'd say stay... whatever you are... but... actually, don't. Whatever you represent there should be less of it in the world. Try to change.
It clearly is. And no, it's not a joke. Slur = "a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard." I looked it up for you. You're welcome.
First, I understood perfectly. You constantly belittle other people's intelligence here, don't cry when you get some if you're always dishing it out.
Second, considering you always jump at even the slightest criticism of the US (even if it is valid), or when none is even implied like in the OP, it's perfectly reasonable and accurate to say you're very nationalistic. If you weren't, you wouldn't get butthurt every single time you read even the slightest negative comment about your country.
The problem you seem to have is, like many people in the US, you are blind to it, probably even thinking that you're overall very critical of your country. And maybe you are in some aspects, but the cultural indoctrination is so strong that you just can't see things which are obvious to an outside viewer. This cultural issue, that goes from swearing loyalty to the flag every morning as a kid, to praising your soldiers no matter the justification for the conflicts they're involved in, and includes the need to "defend" your country every single time it receives even the slightest critique, is what I cheekily referred to as "murican". You see, despite what you arrogantly think, I don't talk out of my ass, and when I say something, I have arguments to back it up. "Murican" in this context isn't a slur.
It is obvious from your comments that you look down upon the people you're arguing with, like me. You might want to take some of the advice you're dispensing and get off your high horse.
Ok I can't take this data serious at all... I'm from Switzerland and can tell that we definitely have a higher "HDI" than Germany and the U.S.... I don't want to express that this has to influence the quality of a single person, but still, the nation is way more richer than the other two
though in fairness pretty much everybody I know who has ever been to Switzerland absolutely loves the country and lists it at the top or near the top on their list of favorite places.... but... agree with some of the sentiment here that it is enjoyable seeing self-important people being taken down a peg.
Since leaving the above comment I've been to Switzerland myself. The reputation it has for being beautiful, affluent, well-developed and pristine is clearly deserved. Though it's not a place I'd personally want to live for various reasons not related to HDI. Were they not on the list before? They're #1 now... maybe they weren't ranked previously.
Never really agreed with the HDI... or that high HDI = high quality of life... the criteria they use is so narrow and there are much better things for determining quality of life that they don't even consider like climate, entertainment, culture, and the availability of attractive easy women. But I still got all but 3 of these.
I hope this was partially a joke, but I'll post this anyway. I for one agree with HDI very thoroughly.
Everyone has their own taste in climate. I come from Estonia (think of it as Finland) and I can't stand temperatures above 25 Celsius. Below -25 C is just fine for me.
The cultures of countries are different and it'd be offensive to call some cultures better than others.
One more thing, attractive easy women might lead you to bad situations. Plus they don't work as good as their more intelligent counterparts.
It wasn't a joke at all. As a species we are designed to want sex almost as much as air and food and water. If it's easier to have it, this will improve your quality of life. In some societies it has become so difficult to obtain that people have become moralistic prudes who spend a lot of their time spitefully condemning Charlie Sheen and Miley Cyrus for having more interesting lives than they themselves have. It's sad, and as this is a product of the cultures that produce those people I would say this is one of many ways we can objectively measure the worth of those cultures, whether it offends somebody or not. As Sam Harris would say, and he's spent a career thinking about and writing on this subject, not all cultures or belief systems are equally good at producing happiness or contentment. Where we can measure the outcomes we don't have to adopt a relativistic stance on the causes. Saudi culture produce a lot of suicidal young women. Australian, not so much.
I'm not jumping into to the discussion of women, but it is true that climate issues are scientifically proven to have actual effects on mental and physical health that are not tied to personal preference. For instance, sunlight is a proven regulator of mood; people who live in sunlight-deprived locales (either due to latitude or to climate issues such as rain or fog) have higher incidences of depression and alcoholism.
While I don't think "climate" should be considered part of development, what samiamco says is true. And what I do think should be part of HDI is mental health. It sounds like the index focuses more on physical well-being, and while in most regards that's pretty high in Western countries, mental health certainly isn't. Just take a look at this: mental health disorders are more common in "developed" countries by a fairly significant margin, which isn't surprising given how high-stress our cultures are.
I'm not saying that I'd rather live in a developing country--I'm pretty happy with my life in America. But just because I'm happy doesn't mean I'm not constantly stressed out. It was pretty eye-opening for me when I went to rural Bangladesh and saw how tranquil life is there, despite the high poverty rates. We could maybe learn a thing or two from that.
not development. But the original title of this quiz was "countries by 'quality of life'"... and it should definitely be a major component of that. The title of the quiz has since changed to reflect what it's actually about and several of my above comments no longer make as much sense as they used to.
You're talking about women as if they were a commodity, which is pretty offensive. Women and men should be considered as equals. You also seem to have a pretty heteronormative way of considering "sex": some men and women might not find that "attractive and easy women" is their heart's desire. It's not about being "prude" or "moralistic", it's about treating women the same way you'd treat men. Sex must be a willing act, where both partners consider each other as equals. You'd need to consider "the availability of attractive and easy men" an equal criterion, and I'm not sure most men (as for women) would agree to be categorized that way. Also, how would you define "easy" and "attractive"? These definitions, and also those of entertainment and culture, will differ in every country, as do political, social and religious constructs. Using a global classification process like the HDI can only use a limited number of criteria, and thus can only rely on observable and comparable data.
I'm not doing what you're saying I'm doing. Your comments here are ridiculous. Women are brainwashed by patriarchal male-dominated society, where they are treated as property and commodities only good for marriage and must therefore preserve their sale value by remaining chaste and pure, in many places. By subscribing to the values of those cultures you are more guilty than I could ever be of reducing women to objects. The availability of quality bachelors, or attractive easy men (though, really, where in the world are men NOT easy? That's irrelevant) certainly are valid criteria and should be considered, though this isn't important to me personally.
You've got a point about attractiveness being subjective, though it can still be measured by consensus opinion. Not that that's going to be the best way for an individual. They can make that assessment themselves. Access to fulfilling sexual/dating/romantic opportunities can also be measured, as can sex-aversion/neuroticism.
Just because it doesn't conform to the ideas you've been programmed by society and culture to understand and accept as valid doesn't mean it was a miss. I stand by what I said.
this comment is just as deplorable now as it was 8 years ago and the fact that your stance hasn't changed in that time really says a lot about you personally. for someone who travels around a lot, you sure have a narrow worldview.
person 1 has a view on a topic that is the product of extensive travel, experience, study, and personal enlightenment. One that does not match the conventional "wisdom" of any one place, time, or culture; but rather transcends them all and comes closer to approaching truth than any.
person 2, petty, petulant, adversarial, angry, insecure, the sort who lashes out at others online he disagrees with because of all of the above (or thinks he disagrees with, as he's not especially good at reading), has a view on same topic that is entirely conventional, the product of the time and place he was born, irrevocably shackled to his own culture.
I won't accuse you of having a narrow worldview, but saying that you're closer to the "truth" than anyone else? That's silly. Your views of right and wrong are exactly as important as mine--which is to say they're entirely subjective and only really affect our own consciences in the end. I genuinely respect that you are willing to share your experiences and your knowledge with us--I know I've learned a lot from reading your comments--but please don't act like everything you believe in is automatically true and that people are wrong if they disagree with you.
Fair enough. Am I wrong? Prove me wrong through argumentation. I'm confident that you cannot (on this subject, I'm plenty ignorant on other subjects), but I'm willing to listen if you try. I've been wrong before. On the other hand... call someone's view on a subject "narrow"... when it does not conform to any one time or place and in fact goes against everything that we are indoctrinated to believe from birth onward and thus could only be arrived at through contemplation and protracted synthesis? (when the person issuing this insult obviously has not done that) That will make you look foolish.
Fair enough. I disagree with your argument, but I'll also concede that don't have any strong rationale/enough experience to make my case. Since there's no hard data or proven correlation behind attractiveness and quality of life (unless you can find some for me), I'd say this is pretty subjective and based on what people value. Personally, I don't think that sex is the one of the most important requirements for a good life, but I also think that's kinda hard to prove one way or another. And your arguments make sense, even if I don't agree with them.
(Ironically, I'm posting this comment on the same day I'm set to learn about "attractiveness" in my Social Psych class. Maybe I'll learn something!)
I think Kal phrased his argument in a poor manner but I agree with him. Rather than using "beautiful and easy women" as a metric, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that cultures that are more liberal when it comes to sex/relationships are happier. Humans are biologically hard wired to be social, part of that involves entering into relationships with people you are attracted to. Looking at countries such as India/Saudi Arabia, where they don't have the same culture regarding sex/relationships, I think it's fair to say that young women aren't very happy with the status quo.
I sometimes enjoy saying observably true things in a way that I know will trigger an emotional, irrational, knee-jerk (but rhetorically indefensible) reaction from people.
I understand how to say the same thing using different words in a way that would be almost universally accepted, even applauded, it's not that I'm bad with words.... but.... I just also think it's silly that people get so worked up over semantics and word connotations without caring about what is true or what the words actually mean, that virtually nobody is capable of logical or rational reflection when they are thus triggered, and that as a result almost none of us can be truly honest and just say what we mean; we have to constantly tiptoe around eggshells trying to find inoffensive and socially acceptable ways to convey some portion of a similar idea. Often tiresome, sometimes amusing.
Probably has something to do with being on the spectrum.
I assure you I wasn't and never have done this, as it's not something I have ever believed. If anything I used to believe that women were generally superior to men (and have since decided that all humans generally speaking are equally crappy). Anyway, if you read this implication in the above or any other comments I have made, the implication is in your head. Certainly I do not believe that being sexually open or positive makes one inferior (if that's where you got this from)... quite the contrary. Perhaps you should evaluate your own implicit biases when it comes to this subject and how you view people who are.
Take it easy guys, I'm sure this list is not 100% because that's impossible. Also, it would be silly to make generalizations about countries without having lived right throughout the country and making an accurate and objective judgement. Otherwise I'm very glad to see Australia at no.2 :)
I am somewhat concerned that Austria is not there - which is where I live. Maybe the fact that there is STILL no complete smoking ban affects their rating. Honestly there is no excuse.
Many Islamic countries aren't poor --- Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE are all oil-rich countries. Although they may not be first-world countries, that doesn't mean that they aren't rich. If you really think that countries are being held back because of their religion, then you really have no idea how the world works.
I think you'll find that religion, or more specifically, interpretation of that religion, is a major reason why most Islamic countries don't make lists like these. Some of the oil rich middle eastern nations do have immense wealth, but it is not distributed across the population very equitably. Similar for other criteria like education, healthcare and democratic freedoms (especially for women)
All those countries you mentioned are rich but because they are largely Islamic republics, they do indeed fail to reach a respective HDI due to their staunch wealth distribution and poor democracy, law, and human rights. So yeah, if they are Islamic countries, they do tend do to rather poorly. Of course there are countries with a majority Muslim population that seperate religion from the state to a fair degree like Turkey or Albania but these countries lack wealth and general living standards unfortnuately.
This is pretty untrue. This list is ranking off of base HDI. The highest ranking conservative Muslim country is the UAE with an HDI of 0.911, only 5 spots from being on this list and higher than France and Spain. Other high ranking conservative Muslim countries are Bahrain (0.875), Saudi Arabia (0.875), Qatar (0.855), Kuwait (0.831), Brunei (0.829), and Oman (0.816). If we're talking about inequality adjusted HDI (IHDI), it would be a different story because these countries all have high rates of inequality, which is completely irrelevant to their religion.
Holidays and number of foreigners are not part of the criteria for determining HDI. Why would the latter matter, anyway? Isn't the fact that the USA attracts millions more immigrants than any other country in the world sort of proof that they have high standards of living there? Other people want to go to the country and live and work there even if it means picking berries. I knew undocumented day workers in Virginia who made upwards of $20-$25 an hour working in the USA. Twelve years ago. Compare that to Saudi Arabia where the average Bengali floor sweeper earns $80 a month, or the average educated and qualified Filipina nurse makes at best $1000 a month, and you can see (part of) why it's such a desirable destination for immigrants.
If they did that, they would probably have to put all the US states separately as well, seeing as there are probably more differences between some states than there are between the countries of the UK.
Unreal! I simply cannot believe Ireland and Iceland make this list. Both are on the verge of bankruptcy and Ireland in particular has all sorts of social ills, mostly related to religious issues. Japan has a lot of economic issues in recent years, too. I admit to being surprised.
By the way, I had a problem with this quiz. It wouldn't show Norway, even though I tried typing it three times. But after my time was up, it showed I *had* got it. Just a glitch, I guess.
Ireland has a life expectancy of 82 years, a GNI of $70,000, 18 expected years of education. It ranks highly on both the inequality-adjusted HDI as well as the GDI, it's earned its place on this list through recent developments. Not that it's perfect or anything, as the poisons of the Catholic Church still linger in parts of society, particularly among the older generations and our GII is lacking. The efficacy of our education system comes into question too, but Ireland more than meets the criteria for being on this list, hence its (currently) high position, and I'm willing to bet it was reasonably high in 2015 too.
-_- Because Western countries or countries in contact with the west are very modern, they have good life expectancies. People always put down western society as if there's a better society. Sure, there may be some OK countries sprinkled around, but look at Africa, most of Asia, and South America.
That's partly because western countries have exploited others for so long. And also being an American ally has very little to do with it. If, say, Germany, suddenly decided to cut ties with the USA, then their HDI would likely not go down.
Seems the data is a little outdated. The latest table on Wikipedia shows a slightly different ranking and even gives no-UN scores for Monaco and San Marino which would come in at 1 and 7 in the list.
Although interesting, this quiz is nigh on useless as facts go. 0.06 is the difference between first and last. I've lived and worked in six of these countries and have stayed and travelled through many others. There is no country listed that has managed to give the 'Best Quality of Life' to all it's people, on the contrary, where many people live in luxury and with all the chances there are many with nothing for assets and no chance to better themselves.
Wow, this quiz seems to inspire loads of heated commentary. So let me be the first 2017 commenter. What happened to Slovenia this year? I was just there and it's as beautiful, friendly and developed as ever...
Well, obviously some places that were colonized are going to propsper — but the fact is, most former colonies are still feeling the effects of imperialism.
Why aren't microstates like Monaco/Andorra etc or rich oil states like Qatar/Bahrain on here though? Why doesn't their wealth correlate to their HDI? I'm sure there are reasons, but I don't know enough about these places to guess why.
Bahrain is not very oil rich. Their oil has been exhausted and currently their economy, as far as I can tell, depends mostly on Russian, Chinese, and Moroccan prostitutes servicing the young Saudi men who flood across the causeway every weekend. They've also got some shopping malls and an F1 track but that's about it.
Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates are more wealthy and have more oil but I think education and life expectancy lag behind wages in these countries, which could negatively impact their HDI score.
I've been told by my friends who are still in Bahrain that some of the most notorious brothotels in Hoora have either closed up shop or gotten rid of the working girls on the premises, and now that they are allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia and they started opening up movie theaters there, too, Saudi weekend tourism to Bahrain has dropped dramatically. The island nation's economy might be in serious trouble over the next few years.
(From Wikipedia) The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income per capita indicators. A country scores higher HDI when the life expectancy at birth is longer, the education period is longer, and the income per capita is higher. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country.
Uhm im pretty sure it is not just her opinion. Too detailed list and not an order you'd expect if someone told their personal preferences.
just because she didnt post her source doesnt mean it is an opinion. (Perhaps it is simply the latest data of the source you quoted, or another place that has more recent data than wikipedia)
Hitchens' razor is an epistemological razor expressed by writer Christopher Hitchens. It says that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it
Monaco and San Marino have yet to be official scored due to a lack of information, but Monaco is estimated in 2014 to be 1.074 and San Marino is estimated to be around 0.875.
France isn't here because it has quite low mean years of schooling for a developed country. Education is 1/3 of the index. It actually scores higher than the UK in health (life expectancy) and the economy.
Since the well-being of children is such an important component of HDI and there aren't any children born in the Vatican I assume they don't even bother ranking them.
I am honestly a bit surprised Hong Kong is higher than the Netherlands (and other countries, but I can only speak for HK and the NL). I have lived in both places and I absolutely love both, but just the housing situation alone in HK shouldn't give them such a high spot. A lot of people have to live in really small appartments (whereas they'd live in bigger and better appartments or most probably even houses in the Netherlands), which decreases the quality of life a bit I'd say. I hope the HK government will set up a good housing plan like Singapore did, but as we can see these days they barely care their residents anyways unfortunately :/
I'm so surprised about the placement of a country like Japan relative to Hong Kong- based solely on overcrowding and political disunity in Hong Kong, I would have placed Japan much higher.
Interesting fact: 11 out of the 20 countries with the best quality of life are nominally Monarchies. Obviously, it can't be that bad to have a king or queen (or prince or emperor or ...)
Most of these monarchies the monarchs (head of state) have almost no power. The power lies inside the parliamentary system and most of them are chosen by a plural vote or something very similar.
I imagine luxembourg is barely off the list. Israel has a good healthcare system, keep in mind right now they have the highest percent of people vaccinated in the world
As someone who has lived in Ireland and Switzerland. Switzerland should be waaay higher. I don't really understand how they did this. Also, no Andorra??
This seems bizarre to me. I stopped in Andorra for lunch recently... the whole country seems like Vail or Aspen... how the heck could it have lower HDI than Poland?
I don't really know either, as I am Irish and have been to Switzerland. I saw that in Switzerland everything was beautiful, and all the lakes and rivers were so clean even in the city centre, and everyone seemed happy enough, but it was very expensive so maybe they dropped down because of affordability? Ireland is pretty expensive too though but definitively not as so as Switzerland.
Lol, I missed out of all countries United States and Israel. I was thinking about both, but assumed that given their security and government stability problems those will be somewhere between 20-30 and did not even bother to type them... :D
And to be honest, I still have difficulties believing, these countries can be there, while Belgium, Luxembourg, South Korea or Estonia are not. The HDI is a bit weird metric.
Second, considering you always jump at even the slightest criticism of the US (even if it is valid), or when none is even implied like in the OP, it's perfectly reasonable and accurate to say you're very nationalistic. If you weren't, you wouldn't get butthurt every single time you read even the slightest negative comment about your country.
(continued...)
It is obvious from your comments that you look down upon the people you're arguing with, like me. You might want to take some of the advice you're dispensing and get off your high horse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
Surprised about the UK though.
Everyone has their own taste in climate. I come from Estonia (think of it as Finland) and I can't stand temperatures above 25 Celsius. Below -25 C is just fine for me.
The cultures of countries are different and it'd be offensive to call some cultures better than others.
One more thing, attractive easy women might lead you to bad situations. Plus they don't work as good as their more intelligent counterparts.
I'm not saying that I'd rather live in a developing country--I'm pretty happy with my life in America. But just because I'm happy doesn't mean I'm not constantly stressed out. It was pretty eye-opening for me when I went to rural Bangladesh and saw how tranquil life is there, despite the high poverty rates. We could maybe learn a thing or two from that.
You've got a point about attractiveness being subjective, though it can still be measured by consensus opinion. Not that that's going to be the best way for an individual. They can make that assessment themselves. Access to fulfilling sexual/dating/romantic opportunities can also be measured, as can sex-aversion/neuroticism.
person 2, petty, petulant, adversarial, angry, insecure, the sort who lashes out at others online he disagrees with because of all of the above (or thinks he disagrees with, as he's not especially good at reading), has a view on same topic that is entirely conventional, the product of the time and place he was born, irrevocably shackled to his own culture.
person 2 calls person 1's worldview "narrow"...
smh...
(Ironically, I'm posting this comment on the same day I'm set to learn about "attractiveness" in my Social Psych class. Maybe I'll learn something!)
I understand how to say the same thing using different words in a way that would be almost universally accepted, even applauded, it's not that I'm bad with words.... but.... I just also think it's silly that people get so worked up over semantics and word connotations without caring about what is true or what the words actually mean, that virtually nobody is capable of logical or rational reflection when they are thus triggered, and that as a result almost none of us can be truly honest and just say what we mean; we have to constantly tiptoe around eggshells trying to find inoffensive and socially acceptable ways to convey some portion of a similar idea. Often tiresome, sometimes amusing.
Probably has something to do with being on the spectrum.
By the way, I had a problem with this quiz. It wouldn't show Norway, even though I tried typing it three times. But after my time was up, it showed I *had* got it. Just a glitch, I guess.
Why aren't microstates like Monaco/Andorra etc or rich oil states like Qatar/Bahrain on here though? Why doesn't their wealth correlate to their HDI? I'm sure there are reasons, but I don't know enough about these places to guess why.
Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates are more wealthy and have more oil but I think education and life expectancy lag behind wages in these countries, which could negatively impact their HDI score.
This the right order:
1 Norway
2 Australia
3. Denmark
4. Switzerland
5. Canada
6. Sweden
7. New-Zealand
8. Finland
9. United States
10. Iceland
11. Netherlands
(From Wikipedia) The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income per capita indicators. A country scores higher HDI when the life expectancy at birth is longer, the education period is longer, and the income per capita is higher. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country.
just because she didnt post her source doesnt mean it is an opinion. (Perhaps it is simply the latest data of the source you quoted, or another place that has more recent data than wikipedia)
Hitchens' razor is an epistemological razor expressed by writer Christopher Hitchens. It says that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it
(Disclaimer : I am kidding.)
Human Capital Index - Top 25 Nations
A bad king, however... Nominally = risk management.