Most Miserable Cities in the US
 

Business Insider's list of ten most miserable cities

Damn.

I live in Ashland, KY (part of #2; apparently #1 last year) and Charleston, WV is still pretty much "local." It is in our news viewing area, and I can get there in 45 minutes or so on the interstate.

People still seem happier here than any military base I've been on, though. Fort Bragg, NC especially. Interesting none of those made the list.

I'm surprised Seattle isn't on there since almost everybody who lives here is constantly complaining about the weather. I personally never really had a problem with the rain to sun to rain to sun to rain thing. I like it.

Seattle's not going to show up on a "most miserable" list made by Business Insider anytime soon. It's about business and technology value, not the weather.

Seattle does get listed for the weather on other lists but yeah not a business oriented article.

Especially since you guys just got 15 dollar min. wage vote passed recently.

Edit:

Actually the index for that article uses these criteria: Life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities.

Still Seattle isn't that bad.

Janis Joplin was born in town No.4, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas. As I recall, she never had any kind words for her hometown.

An excerpt from "Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin" by Alice Echols...

"What's happening never happens there" was how Janis summed up life in her hometown. Port Arthur was so suffocating it felt as if it might suck the life right out of you, especially if you were a smart and curious girl like Janis. Dwarfed by oil refineries, chemical plants, and row after row of huge, squat oil-storage tanks, the town seemed like an afterthought to this vast industrial sprawl. At night when the burning flares from the refineries turned the sky "an eerie doomsday red" the place even looked like hell on earth. Then there was the smell, what some residents called "the smell of money." The whole "Golden Triangle” of Port Arthur, Orange, and Beaumont stank like a rotten egg. There was no way to avoid the fumes; in those days the plants simply blew all the gas out into the open air. At Lamar Tech, where Janis began college, the fumes from a nearby sulfur plant could become so noxious they'd melt the girls' nylons. After a day on campus, "you'd end up feeling like you'd eaten a book of matches." To Janis and her friends, the Golden Triangle was a smelly, stultifying, mosquito-ridden swamp—"a foot fungus" growing along the Texas-Louisiana border, wrote Molly Ivins. Even that organ of Establishment-think Business Week named Port Arthur one of the "ten ugliest towns on the planet."

I wouldn't pay these kinda lists any mind. Happiness comes from within and cannot be gauged by external factors. The only way to know if people are happy is to ask them. The kinda data these lists use to reach their conclusions make life easier, not necessarily happier.

I've travelled a fair bit in my time and the happiest people I ever met were not in America or the UK or France or Germany or Israel or any other wealthy nation. The happiest people I ever met were poverty stricken individuals in Nigeria and in India and they had nothing, they lived in dead end s**thole villages with no healthcare, one of them had half a leg and was selling bananas at the sidde of the road, and yet there was more happiness in their eyes than I've seen in anyone.

ughhh, just stop.

Stop what?

:clap:

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Your hippy dippy pseudo knowledgeable yah dude ~love is all you need~ bull**** philosophy you spew on here everywhere. It's really ****ing patronising and really gross that you partake in poverty porn. I'm just really cringing hella hard.

Is your favourite Beatle John? Because I ****ing bet it is.

It's every city in Virginia.

I'm really surprised my city isn't on here, we nearly always make these kinda lists.

I lived for several years in Virginia because I was stationed in Norfolk. What a suck-ass, piece-of-sh!t state. I have nothing good to say about it because there isn't anything good to say about it. The worst, stupidest driving laws in the country--completely backwards from civilized nations. No place to get laid by anyone worth laying. The sailors didn't call it No-fvck, Vagina for nothing.

I think you're confusing their innocence of first world issues as a reason for them being happy and to be fair measuring happiness is not an easy thing to do.

The nearest I've seen concerning this and the one I'd most agree with, would be the reports over the years that say the happiest nations are normally the Scandinavian countries and the common factors here are a high standard of living, good disposable income, good working environment, excellent social security system, a clean environment, low crime and a liberal setting. In fact the only really negative factor that comes out of that area tends to revolve around the climate.

Don't you live in Detroit or something

Nah, George was my fave.

As for the rest of yous post, ouch. You sure told me.

Considering Seattle is the home of some of the more successful businesses as well as being a great place to start a small business, this doesn't make a lot of sense.

Also... Coolest Small Businesses In Seattle - Business Insider

You were saying?

I'm not saying income, security, healthcare etc. don't improve life, nor am I saying poverty is a prime requisite for happiness, only that it is propogated and nourished from within.

Yeah and neglecting to mention that it's a lot easier to "nourish from within" when you don't have to worry about income, security, and healthcare etc.


Super simple stuff here.

I think maybe your hung up on easy. Easy doesn't necessarily equal better.

Many people having experinced both struggle and plenty, believe life lived near the bone is sweetest.

Being that I've experienced being dirt ass grown on food stamps poor and comfortable I'm pretty sure I know which one is preferable.

This is a utopian concept of perpetual bliss. The simple fact of the matter is that human beings are influenced by their immediate environment and those that they interact with. If that environment and interaction are positive then the likelihood of their happiness is going to be greater than if it was negative.

As I said before, somebody from a poor third world country and in a rural setting may well be innocent of first world issues, but those in urban areas more than likely won't be and would gratefully swap their lot for a life in a first world environment (which is why people emigrate anyway) and is more likely to grant them the happiness that they want.

I would go on about the gene factor here as well to counter some of the above, but as science is not one of my stronger points I won't.

As for the topic at hand, those pictures of American cities look a damn site more appealing than the pictures they use for the worst cities/towns in the UK.

You know which is preferable for you. Not for others. Some people actively choose poverty, give up their wealth and their comfortable lives, and live a life of cheerful hardship, toil and struggle. Some even went on to write down some of the most noble thoughts ever written and are considered the very wisest of men.

It ain't black and white.

:rolleyes:

Environment plays a part, I agree. I don't think anyone, even the most mentally disciplined, could find happiness spread out on a torture rack and injured daily in terrible ways. But if one has food and shelter then, providing they have a functioning central nervous system, they are equipped to experience the bliss in existence.

.....masochists.....

Never trust someone whose favorite Beatle is John.

:shycouch:

Yes exactly!!!! I always am totally sure you can judge a person completely by their fave Beatle

Umm.. I was saying that Seattle is a well known hub of business and industry?

Forgive me for being dense, but I don't know what this means.


*And I'm asking for the explanation from Herm, not....that new guy. TYVM.

Idk why you couldn't just google it..... y'all need to take the fucking initiative to educate your damn selves once in a while instead of just waiting for someone to hold your hand and walk you through why your ideas are shite. While you asked nicely know that these explanations are not

Urban Dictionary: poverty porn

But basically more than that, it's not just television shows and it's not just for "entertainment." Poverty porn is also when people use the examples of far less fortunate things to goad other people and themselves into believing that oooh they too can achieve happiness, even though these people have nothing! It becomes a gross vicious cycle of romanticisation and exploitation of those who aren't really in the position to refuse extra income/other benefits.

Another example of poverty porn:
Resort's fake shanty town 'poverty porn' experience draws anger

It's much like the type of inspirational porn, the so called motivational pictures passed around on places like Facebook or Pinterest of a person with prosthetic legs who climbed Mt Everest or some such feat bearing the legend "What's your excuse"

NOTTTT acceptable. Both cases are dehumanising and treat the marginalised people as some kind of ~mystical shaman spirit dickfuck~ that is a minor subplot on your otherwise unremarkable life. I love how it's just assumed that he can just speak for the people in question in those countries. Of course you want to see the happy shiny poor people, the ones that are sick or dying or protesting their oppressive government don't fit in with your suburban hookah shop ideologies that reek of patchouli, infected asshole and self importance.

I did google it but I didn't "get it" which is the reason I was apologizing for being dense. You've explained it thoroughly, thank you.

Fair enough, I wasn't really singling you out though sorry if I made it seem that way, but it's pretty irritating to have to explain a lot of things like that when it is so easily googlable. It's much like with having to explain my gender identity or sexuality and then people always expect you to educate them and "nicely" when they'er being ignorant cunts. (Not saying you are obviously, I may have been a bit harsh, so I apologise)

Yeah but if you want people to stop being ignorant ****s why not choose the high road and educate them instead of slagging them off for being ignorant when they ask a question and try to learn more about what you are talking about.

Honestly, I didn't know about the label "poverty porn". When you explained it then yes I knew what you were talking about but there are all these stupid labels on common things and it's weird that you subscribe so heavily to labels.

Well I don't think the label in this case is nearly as pertinent as the behavior it's describing. I wish it was more widely understood what those two words are representing, because otherwise I'd need paragraphs to explain one of the numerous reasons I hold such a low opinion of this member.

As for Herm losing patience with me, she already apologized for that and I accept.

I was talking about in general not you specifically.

Because google exists and people shouldn't need their widdle hands hewd to undastanz dat some peepol dont have it as goody woody as dey doo!!!

I didn't know what poverty porn was either. So you accused me of: Haha. Thanks for jumping to black and white conclusions.

But, you know, rather than romanticising or glamourising poverty, maybe I was merely saying poverty is not an obstacle to happiness?