u/Krasovchik

i just finished the lemonade stand segment about happiness in anglo-sphere countries and i wanted to come on here and argue my case a little. i’ll try to keep this brief as i know manifestos are a little annoying, but just know this is in good faith (lol). however, i will not provide sources, this is purely “vibes based” and will be anecdotal as an American who currently lives in Nashville, but has traveled around.

i understand Atriocs core thesis of affordability and housing prices being the main driver of sadness in countries that speak English, and i think it has merit. ive been listening to Atrioc since he played super monkey ball and generally agree with him on this front. the one thing i would critique about this segment is the downplaying of religion in the argument from the guys, but probably not how youre expecting. i don’t believe that the declining of religion in the US has created hardships for Americans directly, but the reactions to the decline by protestantism and other majority religions might yield negative effects.

with the internet growing in prominence of use in 2020 and “echo chambers” becoming more and more commonplace (including reddit and the various subreddits that propagate a single ideology) we find ourselves in a situation where a significant portion of the population have world views completely disconnected from reality, where they are fed information that confirms their biases and are told how to combat any views that are “against theirs”.

this combined with the population becoming less religious (and specifically church attendance going down) has made many protestants feel that their religion is dying. protestantism is uniquely connected with english (see the term WASP used in the united states [white anglo saxon protestant]) so this could be applied to many of these countries specifically in the anglo-sphere.

my assertion is NOT that this has caused unhappiness in these nations, but has bred instead a group of “victims” who are largely in power to feel they are fighting some sort of war against the “dying” of their religion. my conjecture is that this powerful group of people, protestants in the anglo-sphere, who are typically boomers and gen x who are largely wealthy and are often entrenched in politics and are often deeply puritanical and conservative, are affecting these countries in negative ways in order to fight this war of “impurity” against a morally evil strawman, and this creates a more difficult social environment for many of these english speaking countries.

you see this in the US with certain “christo-fascist” political groups like Turning Point. you see this in policy like in England when they required identification to use pornography. you see this in the US where the rhetoric against LGBTQIA+ lifestyles and immigrants are typically pushed by a religious right, and the language used to describe Donald Trump as an almost religious figure, allowing whatever he says to be justified. not to mention women’s rights and abortion law being constantly under attack.

all of these things are certainly annoying (if not 100% existential for some people) and bad for happiness on their own but the combination of all these factors creates this sort of web that makes religious christians afraid for almost no reason that their religion is “under attack” and the non christians to feel that their rights are being taken away.

so my argument is that while religion declining is not a bad thing, the overreaction to it by christian groups certainly is, and i think is the through line in a lot of the belief of the us and other countries that they have “less rights” than they did when they were younger. this “us vs them” mindset that many in the religious community harbor is also bad for mental health and could create a more paranoid population.

so while declining religion isn’t bad, it’s those in power pushing unrelated policy using religion as the reason for it that might cause more stress in people’s lives.

therefore i would move the religion portion to “sad” as opposed to “kinda sad”.

tldr: religious people in the anglo-sphere pushing conservative ideology onto their populations due to a perceived “threat” on account of a shrinking christian population is bad for happiness.