• HPI: 47.9 (average respondents: 41.8, average UK: 40.3)
  
• Life expectancy: 77.4 (average respondents: 79.7)
  
• Ecological footprint: 2,57 planets, 4.62 g Ha (average respondents: 5.52)
  
• Life satisfaction: 8 (average respondents: 6.73)
  
• Personal feelings: 4.09 (average respondents: 6.04)
  
• Personal functionings: 5.72 (average respondents: 6.14)
  
• Social feelings: 5.47 (average respondents: 5.66)
  
• Social functionings: 4,51 (average respondents: 5.58)
  

I don't like index numbers, especially the ones like this. Life expectancy is straightforward enough to measure, even though more than one measure of life expectancy exists... Average life span? Median life span? Do we include infant mortality? I think infannt mortality is a good indicator of serious unhappiness, and should be listed separately. So, even though life span is "properly quantitative", there is a lot of qualitative ambiguity in its measurement.

Then we come to ecological footprint. Clear air, clear water, food, energy, and housing are all converted to "global hectares" and added up. As if one could compensate for greenhouse gass emissions by not eating or drinking. But still, these impacts are presumably measurable, even if the aggregate is a bit dodgy.

As for life satisfaction... All we can do is ask people how satisfied they are with their life in general, or with particular aspects of it. Expressing these estimates numerically allows or even invites certain numerical manipulations that I don't think are entirely justified. And then there is the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect, where "a raising tide lifts all boats and leaves everyone feeling the same", since a lot of "life satisfaction" has to do with perceived self-ranking relative to everyone else.

Reducing everything to one number allows ranking, which is, I suspect, the whole point of many of these measures. I think it should be a rule not to take seriously any measure that is not at least two-dimensional.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

Here on earth the death of Bontshe Shweig made no impression.
...
The death of a tram horse whould have caused more excitement.
...
But that's not how it was in the other world. There Bontshe's death was occasion.
...
"The Heavenly Tribunal can pass no judgement on you. It is not for us to determine your portion in paradise. Take what you want!
...
"Well, then," smiled Bontshe, "what I'd like most of all is a warm roll with fresh butter every morning."

This story indicates that happiness is relative.

Studies have shown than many people would be happy if they acheived the economic status of those just one step above them.

See this book:
Frank, R. H. (1999). Luxury Fever : Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess.  New York, Free Press.  Princeton University Press paperback edition, 2000.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

Here's an explanation of how such a cartogram is created.

And the full list of World Mapper cartograms.

Too bad they don't have one for median PPP income.

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.

Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872), Lutheran pastor, poet, hymn writer, and historian, gave birth to the idea of the folk school, which his followers implemented. The Grundtvigian ideological system and folk school emerged from a turbulent period of Danish nationalism, democratic change, and economic crisis. Grundtvig's ideas helped to restore national pride after disastrous military defeats of the 1860s, to rebuild a depressed economy, and to equip the peasants for suffrage.

Michelson's (1969) analysis of how the Grundtvigian religious movement contributed to economic change is instructive. After 1828, following Grundtvig's resignation from church office, he began to articulate his ideas in print, and they gained acceptance among a group of people who became active in his behalf. Persons applied the name "Grundtvigian" to these ideas and the theology that accompanied them, and the name became common in Denmark. Grundtvigians valued self-expression and regarded conversation as recreation. They possessed strong egos and had few doubts about their own country and their role in building it. They did not fear innovation and believed in showing people what they could do. On the other hand, they were also dependent on one another, cooperated in common endeavors, and compromised to make the situation work for others.

Grundtvigians developed several mechanisms for implanting these ideas: singing, the "meeting," the church, grammar schools, and the folk schools. Of these several mechanisms, the folk school has been linked to the establishment of cooperatives, which resulted in Danish farm prosperity. Credit, as Michelson (1969) cautions, does not belong to the folk schools. The folk schools could not have existed during that period of Danish history except as part of a wider Grundtvigian community, and they were only on of several mechanisms by which the Grundtvigian idea system was disseminated and internalized. The folk schools did not teach economics nor advocate cooperation. Yet, the Grundtvigian ideas predisposed people for structural change, which did involve cooperation.

 MORE HERE: http://www-distance.syr.edu/stubblefield.html

[Grundtvig's son, the philologist, was the mentor of Francis Child, the renowned American ballad scholar, who gave his name to the so-called "Child ballads." Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks both attended a Grundtvigian Folk School -- Highlander in Tennessee. The Folk Schools also inspired settlement houses, the YMCA, and adult education in general. It is my understanding also that Scandinavia never underwent land enclosure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure , which had such a demoralizing and pauperizing effect on small farmers and craftsmen in the British Isles and Ireland.]