They give several well-considered criticisms of the question - it leads people to focus on socioecomonic status, it doesn't correlate with other measure like whether they report experiencing joy recently, etc. It's not much of a defense to simply say "well, it's the standard".
My criticism is about how the dramatic language differs from the banal content of the article.
Titling it "The World Happiness Report Is a Sham" and calling it "beset with methodological problems", I would expect some more serious scientific malpractices, like data fabrication, calculation errors, sampling problems, p-hacking, etc., not "I think there are some problems with this variable".
Disagree. Whether I'm entirely fabricating data that claims A by writing numbers into an Excel sheet, or whether I'm doing a survey that measures B and then claim it means A, isn't materially different in outcome. The outcomes are just as bad, and that's what people care about. Maybe you as a researcher care that the former is more immoral, but to everyone else it doesn't matter.
I think there's a difference in outcomes between fabricating data, and getting data that still remains validly gathered, but measures something subtly different.
And I think the general public can make meaning of that
difference and have a stake in both – in the same way that the general public knows that stock market values and economic security are different things, even though people still have a lot riding on retirement plans based on stock investments.
Is joy related to happiness, or are they two separate concepts? That depends on your cultural background and the languages you speak.
The World Happiness Report can be traced back to the UN General Assembly Resolution 65/309, which was proposed by Bhutan. Therefore the intended definition of happiness in this context is similar to the one in Bhutan's Gross National Happiness index.
Why is it necessary to have a flood of foreign money to operate the university? Universities in the past operated without an influx of wealthy foreign students paying outrageous tuition.
Today they are bloated with administration that is nothing but a cost center, meanwhile they eliminate tenured professorships and have classes taught by tenuous adjunct faculty who are paid poverty wages. Universities could easily right the ship by cutting the administration and focusing on teaching and research, but the people who need to make the decision to do that are the ones who would be cut.
Continual cuts to both state funding and federal research support is a large part of it for public universities. Essentially, every time there is a major budget crisis, state support gets slashed, and it never gets put back when things get better.
Tuition is one of the few levers left, and while people will object to tuition hikes for in-state students, very few people will do the same for foreign students.
More money, more income. That's why flood of foreign money is good for a university. But, it is a fallacy to think that this has no cost.
In my experience, the large influx of foreign students are typically at the masters level. MS classes are typically (not always lol!) more advanced than undergraduate classes. So, you need more qualified instructors, such as your tenured/tenure track faculty to teach them. When you take T/TT faculty out of undergraduate classes and replace them with teaching faculty, you lose a lot. (Let me know if you need what's lost to be spelled out.)
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Why is it necessary to have a flood of foreign money to operate the university? Universities in the past operated without an influx of wealthy foreign students paying outrageous tuition.
I guess it is not strictly necessary, but it brings in a lot more money, which the university is of course very eager to take.
It's just focusing on different things. Sure they had wood and metal tools, but they also had literal snake oil, watered stock, and people selling you the Brooklyn Bridge.
For certain tasks for me, having a movie running while I'm working is more productive. It gives something to take your attention when you have to wait for something without getting sucked in to endless scrolling.
> A company will know that you just got paid and so charge you just a bit more for your chicken nuggets than they do when you haven’t been paid in two weeks.
I know there's various data apps can collect. On iOS at least it seems like you have to grant permission for the app to access most of it. But how on Earth is this supposed to work? How does the app on my phone know if I just got paid?
Author here - they can only do surveillance pricing on you if they know who you are when you're paying. They can't do that at a kiosk or counter because they would only know whose paying when you use your credit card and have already seen the bill.
If you use an app they already know you who are and so the second you open the app it's showing you the surveillance prices.
> The debt facility is being made through the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which was formed under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to foster the growth of clean energy technologies.
> The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed during the Biden administration, created another pot of money under the LPO known as the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program. That program was created to restore existing power plants to operation provided they avoid or reduce pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration kept it largely in tact, rebranding it the Energy Dominance Financing Program.
Congress passed the Energy Policy act of 2005 and then the Inflation Reduction Act allocating money to the DoE to make these loans.
It sounds like this is the actual problem and instead of paying exorbitant salaries or fixing the entire US education system Ford just needs to face reality and accept how long repairs actually take and pay for that time. That and/or redesign their cars to take less time to repair.
This is one of those things that, for some people, will be simple but not easy.
If you grew up with an emotionally erratic parent or caregiver, who might suddenly explode with anger at unpredictable times, that’s probably why you’re unwilling to bluntly address what should be simple issues. You were conditioned early on to think that anything that could possibly be conceived as critical would be met with anger and possibly violence. So you avoid exposing yourself to that risk.
What you have to learn, and what this post is indirectly trying to tell you, is that’s not normal, and most people won’t react like that.
Everyone in the military should be trained with weapons. If it comes down to it, even the guy who mops the floors is going to need to pick up a rifle if the situation is dire enough. It helps if he held one before at least.
I mean.... enough to make shots on target at about 300-400 yards with a sling, and enough to make shots on target at about 50 yards while standing up.
I do competitive bullseye rifle, and I've done some basic marksmanship coaching. That's about what I'd expect for maybe 6-12 hours of total training on a rifle for someone with zero prior experience with guns.
The basics of rifles is very, very simple. In competition world we just get overly focused on stuff that doesn't matter - our benchmark is like 10/10 shots at 400 yards in an 8" circle. For someone getting basic instructions, 5/10 shots at 400 yards in a 16" circle is probably fine, and that is an order of magnitude easier to teach.
It took me like 3 hours from zero experience to get to that, and another 300+ hours to get to competitively decent at prone (I might be good now but I'm not particularly skilled so it took me a lot of practice). And we're not going to talk about standing because in the competition world what we do is so far removed from reality that it's not worth talking about in this context lol. Someone with run&gun experience can talk about that, I don't know anything about that.
Agree totally, which is why I just said "make hits at 300-400 yards", because I strongly suspect they won't cover anything beyond basic marksmanship in a total of a week.
If we're nitpicking, I'm talking about lying in the dirt in a big empty field, not sitting at a bench.
Ok, it does not though. I have taught people with no experience and it takes <10 hours to get to making hits at 300-400 yards. Basic maintenance takes even less time to teach
That isn't really what happens. The unit would just surrender. That's how it went down in WWII early in the pacific campaign. Western nations don't go down to the last man.
Don't count other nations the way you do the US, and don't compare the behaviour of troops defending some piece of jungle on the other side of the planet with those defending their homes.
I mean being given the prospect of the possibility of being treated fairly as a prisoner vs committing suicide I think many would end up being a prisoner. There is no rampant idealism in Canada like say Imperial Japan that would make someone resist their own inherent pragmatism.
In the Battle of Kapyong, Korea [0], Canadian forces refused to retreat from their position, delaying advancing Chinese forces long enough to cause them to regroup. The Canadian forces were encircled, and several times called down artillery on their own positions to clear the assaulting Chinese troops.
The fighting helped blunt the PVA Spring Offensive and the actions of the 2 PPCLI and 3 RAR at Kapyong were critical in preventing a breakthrough against the UN central front, the encirclement of US forces in Korea, which were at that point in general retreat, and ultimately, the capture of Seoul.
This may be true but we want any adversary to think that we will! We at least ought to be all able and willing to do so. I hope our generals and military command know better but I want them to have multiple options and I want any adversary to have to think twice before breaching our shores.
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