Making a new country is much harder than that. You have to get a plurality of existing countries to say you're a country before you can join the club. See also: Taiwan.
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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That's not what they mean by "happiness" when they say Finland is the happiest country in the world. It's more about overall life satisfaction and I can assure you that this isn't achieveable by drugs alone.
It's an interesting approach to studying something as hard to define as happiness, but it does make sense to me. Their own explanation:
How is your ranking calculated?
Our happiness ranking is based on a single life evaluation question called the Cantril Ladder:
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.
On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
This question is both democratic and universal. Rather than constructing an index from multiple metrics, the Cantril Ladder empowers people to make their own judgements about what matters most, regardless of their culture and background.
The question does not mention concepts like happiness, wellbeing, or satisfaction, so it can be easily translated and understood in many different languages.
I'll never be above 8 or below 2.
No matter how bad it could get, there could always "but also there's snakes on the loose"
Damn, this question is kind of a mind fuck. I could spend a long time thinking about my answer.
Ya, I mean I would definitely be "laying on the floor curled in a fetal position", but am wailing or sobbing quietly?
I would start with thinking in rougher terms (bad, okay, pretty good, great) and then narrowing it down to a specific number. Overall it is about what you feel so go with your gut.
It's a good question imo to at least see how content people are
There's been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It's the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.
Shiny
I knew I recognised this but I needed your comment to place it.
Imagine if antidepressants = happinesses. Lol
Read their name again dude. They don't give you anything, they prevent shit.
yep, and sometimes they give a lil something too. it's sort of like picking which depression symptoms you want to deal with. you got symptoms XYZ and hate them, but wouldn't mind symptoms ABC? try this drug, swap symptoms! eg no appetite, use the drug that makes you eat nonstop. insomnia because life sucks, use the sedating one.
How do you know Finland isn't already doing that?
Yeah, Kensington PA is famously a paradise.
I'm pretty sure this is several sci-fi novels
we happy few has entered the chat
The hard part would be finding a place to make your country that would be legally recognised as not part of another country's territory. Maybe construct an artificial island in the ocean, or a floating island made of essentially large boats, or settle in Antarctica and hope when the treaty goes up for renewal you can get recognised?
We had to force it on the grumpy old men, but they are happily sedated now.
I don't think the people who do the happiness statistic could see past the "forcibly inject" part.
Its called the Geneva Suggestions.
Only the first one is forced.
After that, you're begging for it.
just like heroin! first ones free, after that it's all you can do to feel normal again
Isnt that the plot to we happy few? and being high is not the same as happiness.
They didn't really ask us about our happiness, but rather just analyzed a bunch of facts. It looks like dor them "the ability leas a safe family life" is what is most important for happiness.
But if you.don't have a family, this place is worse than, well, almost anything in Europe.
They didn't really ask us about our happiness, but rather just analyzed a bunch of facts
Incorrect. World Happiness Report uses a poll question (conducted by Gallup) as the sole basis for the ranking.
The other stuff isn't used for making the ranking but rather:
The six metrics are used to explain the estimated extent to which each of these factors contribute to increasing life satisfaction when compared to the hypothetical nation of Dystopia, but they themselves do not have an effect on the total score reported for each country.
Okay, thanks for the correction. Then it's a bit funny the result has ended up the way it is.
Probably the reason is then that we are taught not to complain about what we get. If you are asked whether you are happy with how things are not, you are supposed to assume that things are already done as well as reasonably possible and, therefore, as well as they can reasonably be. Therefore, you are happy with things. Of course, you might be exceptionally depressed, but you will still be happy about your how your country is run, because you know it's, by defintion, run as well as it can be.
But, maybe I'm still wrong. I now tried finding that one question in their report, but couldn't find it in a reasonable time. What has the question been?
This is from the FAQ:
How is your ranking calculated?
Our happiness ranking is based on a single life evaluation question called the Cantril Ladder:
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.
On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
This question is both democratic and universal. Rather than constructing an index from multiple metrics, the Cantril Ladder empowers people to make their own judgements about what matters most, regardless of their culture and background.
The question does not mention concepts like happiness, wellbeing, or satisfaction, so it can be easily translated and understood in many different languages.
So the question is mostly about contentment with life. I think the answer to why we rank so well is both that we live in a pretty good country comparatively and we are content with fairly little.
A depressed Finn would probably say that "this is the best possible life for me under these circumstances I live within."
Or, I could phrase the thought this way: "Things are shit, but no can do, so this is the best possible situation currently available for me."
I'd say a depressed person would think that life could be better and that they're not high up on the ladder, even though they don't feel like they can get up to the higher rungs.
In either case I would say that's the same for depressed people elsewhere too, so it wouldn't affect the ranking.
"Älä valita!" and "Ei pidä turhasta valittaa!" are things you hear a lot more in Finland than in other European countries. In English those would be "Don't complain" and "Don't complain if there's no good reason!"
At least when living in Germany, Ukraine, Spain and the Russia, I heard a lot less of that kind of stuff than what I had gotten used to in Finland. And people also seemed more happy in their everyday lives than what was familiar to me from Finland.
You've probably also seen the advertisements by the Helsinki public transportation authority, HSL, telling how we have the best-functioning public transportation in Europe, based on locals in Helsinki giving better ratings for their public transportation than locals in other European cities do. And yet, most of the HSL network is based on bus lines, with only 1½ metro lines and three metro-like local train lines. Anybody who's been to other European capitals knows that our public transportation is indeed good, but other cities have it a lot better.
If you have 43 units of serotonin per 1 unit of volume in your blood, you'll say you're on rung 8 on the ladder of happiness if you're a Finn, but with the same amount of serotonin in your blood you'll say you're on rung 6 or 7 of that same ladder if you're, say, German. This causes us to score very well in any poll where they ask "how okay are you with how things are going around you?"
I think it's a very Finnish reaction to try and complain and find faults in any positive news about Finland hah
Absolutely! And somehow it's a part of the same modesty.
Things are what they are. They are not awesome, because there's always place to make things better. So, if someone says that things are awesome, they are wrong. At the same time, people are constantly trying to make things better and better, and you trust that they are. (Or: at least you trust they are) So, if someone says things are bad, that's unfair because things are as well as they can be. And yet, they are not awesome, because they can always be better.
(And then I'm trying to avoid not going for a tirade about the surprisingly high level corruption in Finland and how that's fed by us being so proud of not having almost any corruption at all...)
We have very little corruption compared to other countries. It's all relative. Same for the happiness/life satisfaction.
I guess I just disagree with the idea that we aren't actually as content as the poll shows. I think Finns are very blunt about how things are going. It's just that comparatively things are pretty okay here.
I really would not say we have less corruption here than in at least some other countries.
Practically all our grocery stores belong to only two companies, known as the S-Group and the K-Group(Now Lidl is growing big enough to kind of be a third player, but it doesn't really have that much effect yet). Those two chains agree about the prices four times per year. That is legal in Finland, and therefore does not appear in statistics on illegal corruption. But it is corruption, even though it's legal. And of course, continuing on the theme of those two chains: there's the political system where one of the most efficient ways of getting into communal politics is to be voted into the chair of one regional subdivisions of the S-Group, which is a cooperative company and showing your skills there first. This means that in zoning, the S-Group largely tells the municipalities what to do because such a large share of politicians have connections to it, that a huge swath of people appointed to work in zoning are loyal to that company. That is legal in Finland, and therefore does not appear in statistics on illegal corruption. But it is corruption, even though it's legal.
And then... Around year 2011 or so it was declared by the Ministry of domestic affairs that because our railway company is an Ltd., the old rule that policemen can use trains for free was considered bribery from that point on, and therefore illegal. I think it was a stupid decision, because policemen using the trains and the conductor knowing where they are is a useful safety feature that can save human lives. But, now that the decision had been made, and everybody working for the police knew it is bribery now, it really was a problem indeed. The policemen knew they are now getting the free rides only because the railway company believes it will gain something from it. And yes, there were investigations into really shady behaviour that never really lead anywhere. The police has been incredibly unable to find clues when it comes to anything the bosses of our railway company do, and nobody can understand why. I saw a few times between 2012 and 2015 how a passenger shows their badge, tells their destination, gets surprised when it turns out that they (gasp!) must buy a ticket! And then they look really embarrassed, because they absolutely knew they were taking a bribe there. And even a sitting place can cost over 100 €, so if you want to go for a holiday to Lapland and back, we're not talking about pennies... 
It was around year 2018 or 2021 or so (I don't remember precisely if it was a bit before COVID-19 or a bit after it), when the Finnish railway company declared that "the free rides for policemen are no longer allowed". During that time, about a decade, every single person working for the Finnish police knew about the bribery scheme between our railway company and the police. And nothing. No court process, no investigation. Maybe something happened back those five-ish years ago in the police that caused the railway company, VR, to end the bribery. I don't know. But still, there were so many years where nothing, NOTHING happened about it. Every single policeman in this country devoid of any corruption whatsoever knew about a bribery scheme and using those free rides – taking a bribe to not see whatever illegal the company might do, or at least not see it very well – was commonplace. I'm not sure if even in Bulgaria or Romania there are bribery cases that everyone among their police forces know about and choose not to act on.
Argh, now the text is getting a bit long. Still, it is really difficult for me to believe that this is really the least corrupt country in the world. I'm quite sure that at least all other Nordic countries are doing better, probably also the Benelux countries and Germany.
But, to finish this: We also know we have no corruption, which is nice because that means we don't need the heavy anti-corruption structures we still had in the 1980's. We simply don't need to make such an effort looking for corruption, because our people doesn't do it. And of course, since we're not looking very much for corruption, we also don't find very much of it. Which proves that there's basically no corruption, which proves that we don't really need to waste money trying to uncover it. You wouldn't spend money for finding unicorns, so why spend money finding other things that also don't exist? I do agree that many forms of corruption that are common elsewhere don't exist here. And that's a good thing. But also, at the same time we have forms of corruption that other countries don't have. And in international statistics they don't appear because they are internationally not a relevant phenomenon. What I really don't like is that this nation thinks it's free of corruption. Even though our corruption levels are lower than in many other places, corruption is a problem that exists here and our complacency regarding our corruption situation is very dangerous in the longer term. I've spend long times in countries with a lot more corruption than Finland, where people also know there is corruption. I find it better for there to be a lot of corruption and people knowing about it than there being relatively little corruption and people assuming it doesn't exist at all. When people take the existence of corruption into account, the field is leveled to an extent.
(And of course, I have friends here and there who sometimes help me take some shortcuts in my everyday life. Other people have other friends who help them with other shortcuts. But meh, I'm not going to talk more about them, as they are not such a huge thing all in all. This country works so that even if we were to catch the small players, the big ones would be completely unaffected.)
I'm not sure what sort of corruption you feel like others don't have. Municipal dealings, old boy networks, quid pro quo, all the sort of corruption we think of that are biggest in Finland others also have but they also have the sort of blatant corruption and bribery that we think of as "proper" corruption. Fight for the top spot can be tough and we are currently in #2 behind Denmark, so that's one Nordic country that's ahead of us on Corruption Perception Index. So we aren't uniquely uncorrupted or something, just that we have less of it than most others.
Corruption Perception Index isn't susceptible to "it's legal so we rank higher" bias. What could affect is that if some practises aren't seen as corruption, but imo that's common for many other places too. "Quid pro quo/old boy networks aren't corruption, it's just friends helping each other out", "this isn't corruption, it just smoothes the process", "I'm just showing appreciation, I don't expect them to do anything for me" etc are common excuses elsewhere too. I'd say more blatant the everyday corruption is, easier it is to excuse and not see the small favours and such as corruption.
And I don't think we truly believe there's no corruption in Finland. As with the happiness ranking, Finns love nothing more than to rush into to say how full of corruption we are and make a case that we're actually really corrupt (forgetting that the ranking doesn't say we don't have corruption but rather that we have less of it than most).
Heh, you're doing a good job emphasizing what I'm worried about in Finland. Almost anyone you talk to about us not doing enough about corruption, you get a very defensive response. And arguments that include "Finns love to say", followed by a strawman argument such as your "that we are very corrupt".
When not being corrupted becomes such an important part of a national identity that suggesting we might be creeping towards more corruption is seen as an act against national cohesion, we are taking a dive into dangerous waters. In some decades we'll run head-first into a rock wall with this. Corruption exists everywhere and if you ever manage to remove the last bit of corruption, more will simply appear. Once you get complacent and (even just mostly) stop fighting it, it will devour you.
The ranking isn't about who has no corruption but who has the least corruption. That's all there is to it, really.
I'm glad you understood that at last.
Also, regarding Finland it's showing incorrect numbers because our corruption is structured in a a very peculiar manner.
I've been saying that the whole time. You've been fighting against windmills, sorry to say.
our corruption is structured in a a very peculiar manner.
I don't think that is supported by studies or reports. As much as we like to feel special, we really aren't even in this.
Or, ro be precise, I've been trying to say that even though the corruption here could be much worse, it is a problem thait exists and Finns feel so super uncomfortable when you bring up the subject that they get very defensive, which inhibits their ability to work against corruption in their country.
One way this can be commonly seen is that someone assumes I must be an idiot having such a view and assumes I then don't understand basics such as "being among the beat doesn't equal being perfect." You've been assuming I've been fighting a windmill while there hasn't been anyone near the windmill. You've heard my sounds, bur somehow mislocated me. And then you've spent some time trying to get me away from a windmill without noticing you're at a wrong place.
Maybe now, knowing that I hadn't had the misunderstanding you thought I had, go read my comments again and you'll see a different message in them. Please?
And then I’m trying to avoid not going for a tirade about the surprisingly high level corruption in Finland and how that’s fed by us being so proud of not having almost any corruption at all…
I mean when you make claims like this of course you're going to get pushback.
Yup. And it's interesting how different this pushback is in Finland when compared to other countries where I've complained about corruption!
Maybe you're more on point in those cases.
That is definitely how they perceive it, that is true, absolutely!
Epstein's estate entered the chat!
Epstein's estate starts typing ...
Well, now you've just gone and ruined it.
Take away the booze and I wonder how and where these rates would tank, lol. The material comfort is definitely nice, and a good chunk of happy living though.
Apparently antidepressants don't make you happy. They just make you feel nothing instead of depressed.
Please, do not repeat this, because it's terrible advice that causes people that otherwise could benefit greatly from antidepressants to avoid them completely. Don't spread misinformation.
It's true that antidepressants don't make you happy, but they don't categorically make you feel nothing. Every person works differently, and a drug that for some regulates emotion and prevents stress in others suppresses emotional extremes completely. For me, Lexapro made me feel nothing. For my mother, it made her feel normal again. I have a combination of drugs that make me feel normal, but for my wife, might make her feel awful. Antidepressants don't "make you feel nothing." Some might have that effect, but it's the job of a psychiatrist to find the right blend for each person. It took a few tries to find mine. If your antidepressants make you feel nothing, you need different antidepressants.