Re:Americans' life ratings reach record high
by chadanon on Monday July 26, 2021 @12:27AM
(#27955664)
Every now and again I read a comment like this and tell myself, "this is why I read Hacker News".
Re:Americans' life ratings reach record high
by jfengel on Monday July 26, 2021 @02:00PM
(#27962775)
Ironically, it's the parent to that post that makes me think, "This is why I should give up Hacker News".
A post of the form "This must be biased, because my anecdote is X". Your specific experience is the most biased thing there can be.
I think they're trying to get at "deliberately altered for political ends", but with no basis for that statement. It feels like projection: "I know what I want the result to be therefore you must be deliberately saying the opposite".
To see it expressed so baldly like that really takes the wind out of my sails, regardless of the cogent and coherent reply.
It's easy to confuse our own personal bubbles with the general population. There's nothing inconsistent about you living in an area with low life satisfaction and a poll that says 60% of people across the entire country have high life satisfaction.
The way you describe your home town sounds depressing and it's easy to believe that they wouldn't be part of the 60% of Americans rating themselves as thriving in this poll. However, what you're describing is very far from the norm for towns in America. Occurs too often, yes, but it's not what life in the average American city looks like.
> Starting a family with a single income in Bay Area, meeting ends meet is hard even with a tech job.
The entire Bay Area represents around 2% of the US population. It's not expected that a national poll would reflect the realities of a single geographic region.
That said, I have several friends and extended families starting families in the Bay Area who are very happy with their circumstances.
> Like every other news these days, I take these polls with a grain of salt.
The poll said 60% of Americans see themselves as "thriving". That doesn't meant that no one is struggling. It's important to look at these polls as ways to get a glimpse of life outside of our own bubbles. It's also important to view them as a distribution rather than a binary outcome.