Yes, but in the end, there is no real motivation to respond accurately to surveys either. It’s just that it’s our reflex based on our previous social interactions that it feels wrong to respond inaccurately. Similarly, it will feel wrong when responding in a socially unfavourable way to a question about well-being, even if it’s a survey.

Additionally, longer-term happiness is a quite vague experience so there isn’t much keeping one from interpreting it however you like.

Of course, I’m not saying that there is no truth to the report. I’m just saying it’s not particularly newsworthy because the numbers aren’t particularly concrete and it doesn’t describe any single important event at all.

I meant subjective as in what you say. All that humans do is to strive to fulfill their own motivations, and communication is just doing so through interaction with other humans. The only reason for that what we say is connected to what we actually experience is that we don’t like people finding out we are misleading them and as a result like us less.

Nobody else can really measure our happiness, though, so there is no concrete motivation to respond to such questions as accurately as possible, so we’re much more inclined to just say what is socially the most favourable.

Like, do you genuinely reply how you are feeling when someone asks you how you’re doing? I’d say most people don’t.

I do agree, but I don’t think China performing well qualifies as World News, because subjective well-being is only loosely connected to actual experiences.

…closely followed by Saudi Arabia. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of these happiness reports.

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Ah, so you’re a troll.

Edit: looking at your profile, I’m not so sure anymore. If you’re not, please do explain how that makes the US any less of a rogue state.

Do you seriously think they haven’t tried?

Yes, you are right, de facto the UN has very little authority over countries. But however powerless, they can still try to nudge countries away from doing what they definitely shouldn’t be doing through coordinating international opinion.