Correlation is not causation.

**** YOU, *****!

Filthy "Northerner"

Are we going to see another Compromise of 1820 in California here?

Southern California should say "**** you" to Northern California and start our own state. Most of the stupid laws originated in districts near San Francisco, not Los Angeles or San Diego.

Take all your douchey overtanned people in designer sunglasses with you!

SoCal. Cool place to visit. Never want to live there.

I wonder where the 52nd state would fit, us Canadians seem like a happy bunch to me.

The same thing is happening to my state, only from Californians looking to jump ship. So thanks for that. Yet despite this we're still #16. Woo! Looks like the trend basically correlates to population density, wealth, and religious belief. Not all that surprising. Also, education level. Stop learning ****. It makes you unhappy.

Believe me if you have lived in one of the little towns up in the northern part would know what I mean, Salt Lake City is alright and all of the scenery here in Southern Utah is absolutley gorgeous, but I wish it had a different society.

Most of the reason it isn't rated higher is probably the blow-*** weather and the fact that its boring as s***. People are pretty nice though.

Well that's why it's so happy. Because it's boring as s***. So people drink a lot and smoke a lot.

If Florida wasn't #3, I'd say it had to do something with number of Jews.

Ugh. Florida.

Did you completely miss the fact that you I did not say you did?

You highlighted JM's post that showed the correlation. I just quoted it because I was reading it. Yes, you reposted correlation in a way that was easy to read. So I quoted it.

Implication, my friend.

I'm guessing population density. It causes unhappiness, AND liberal idiocy.

What's so great about Louisiana?

Agreed. Steven, we should start a secession movement.

hell is other people

Using the classification here gives this result. (Republican numbers are positive, democrat numbers are negative)



I could calculate a Pearson correlation coefficient or something, but there doesn't seem to be any correlation.

Also, comparing this happiness rank with population rank

#4, **** yeah!

#26.. okay I suppose! If it weren't for these damn winters I'm sure it would be much higher.

#24

Meh...

Try one using population density for each state.

What's so great about Louisiana?

maybe cause they drink lots of moonshine and they can marry their sisters.

New Orleans, of course!

Again, I've plotted the population density rank against happiness rank, that makes more sense than plotting the raw data.

There's an interesting little cluster at the low population density that does seem to suggest that low the lower ranked population density states have a higher happiness rank (as I believe was your hypothesis), but there's also a lot of variability in the highly ranked population density states.

This is probably the best correlation we've seen so far, though I'd have to do more analysis to confirm that.

I thought it probably would be. Personally, I'm kind of wondering how happiness would correlate with recent population growth. I expected Colorado (for example) to be a lot higher on the list.

I'm on it!

On every one of these graphs, I get a little befuddled by District of Columbia. On some places, it seems to be listed as a 'state', but not on other places. My knowledge of US geography is pretty poor, but even I know (or thought I knew) that there were 50 states. What is District of Columbia?

It's a district. We're not the only country in the world to have a capital territory.

So before I even read the thread, just the OP, I decided to run the numbers on the Red Vs. Blue thing. For this post a Red state is one that went for McCain and has a Republican governor. Blue should be obvious. Purple is a mixture of one party each. Then I also break down individual stats. The statistic presented for each is the average position on the list for a state in the category listed. Here we go.

Blue - 34
Red - 14
Purple - 25
Democrat Governor - 31
Republican Governor - 19
Went Obama - 33
Went McCain - 17
Republican Governor and went Obama - 28
Democrat Governor and went McCain - 22

Sorry, didn't feel like making it prettier. Now, the bad news is that the raw data for this study was lost however that really isn't relevant because the issue is settled.

Yep. To clarify further, the District of Columbia is not a state, doesn't have full representation in our legislature, and houses only our capital city and some of its immediate suburbs. Geographically, it's a tiny area between Maryland and Virginia.



Didn't quite get this last part. Was there only one issue? Which one, and how was it settled?

And this is a wonderful demonstration of how data with no correlation can be used to make apparently meaningful conclusions! I used exactly the same data, from the Wikipedia article I linked to in my post, and simply graphed it and showed there's a very slight negative correlation but nothing statistically significant - while Wookie's averages all suggest that red states, and states that voted McCain, all rank higher in happiness. Lies, damn lies, and Wookie.

Somebody will and then they will explain it and make some sort of tinfoil hat comment about me.

In a rare instance I will respond to you. The only conclusion necessary in this particular example is that the average Republican dominance in any one of the categories I mentioned were more likely to be "happier" than there opposite. "Moderate" states were right in the middle. Now go make another chart that shows the Blue states are depressed due to the pollution from the Red states or something.

Except it doesn't. Averages only tell you something if there's correlation to begin with. The Pearson rank coefficient between these two sets of data is -0.3, which is pretty weak. I don't know why I'm even responding to you, as you certainly have no interest in actually learning anything, just desperately trying to reinforce your bizarre worldview.

There are other factors more significant than political inclination. Trying to work those out is interesting. Now please let the grown-ups talk.

Yes, there are other factors and many of them follow along personal ideological lines. Besides, it was an extremely simple process, simply count the number in each category and divide the sum of the ranks by that number. Of course it wasn't scientific by any means and all the results were rounded. I'm not trying to prove anything, the numbers I pointed out pretty much just reinforced what the average person might have already gathered by glancing at the state names.

We could get a much better idea of happiness vs population density if we conducted a happiness poll in every county.

Mort : One issue with your second graph. Is that 'population rank' how many people live there, or is is population density? California has a lot of people, yes, but it is also very large. Rhode Island certainly has fewer people, but it probably has a higher population density.

Well, it's awfully uncharitable of you not to offer a (surely more accurate) explanation yourself and spare them the effort and me the wait.