People who live in functional and safe countries, how happy are you?

We are not living in the safe world anymore. We are all threatened with Ruzzia and its lapdog US.

I live in Germany and we have an election coming up where the far right might win. And the US have just handed command of the most powerful military of the world to a certified moron who works for their biggest adversary. That's somewhat concerning, isn't it?

Mexico. We're very happy here, honestly!

We got our first woman president who keeps wowing us with comprehensive initiatives and continuing the work of our last president who got us on the right track. Great reforms are happening after a long string of corrupt presidencies that were more interested in personal gain. We had actual government efficiency reviews that cut down on misappropriated funds that have now been reinvested. And we're expanding our exports to things like chipset manufacturing and growing our infrastructure.

Our public spaces are prettier, cleaner, more accessible, and quite modern here in the large cities. I know that my city alone is not what it used to be 10 or even 5 years ago. I keep saying we're not a third world country anymore. We're on our up and up so long as the international powers that be allow it.

Germany. While I do feel like my country is overall still safe and a good place to live, it feels to me like we're on the brink. The US may well drag us down with them and even if they don't, our own politicians might just do that on their own. So yeah, quite anxious and not overly optimistic right now. The next few years will be critical and it could go either way really.

Australian checking in.

Feeling as happy and as safe as ever. Granted, I don't pay a lot of attention to our politics cos it's just a bunch of little children fighting over who gets to play in the sandbox but it says something that I CAN be ignorant of our politics without being scared that something drastic is going to happen while I'm not looking.

My biggest concern is honestly that Australia has a habbit of following whatever inclinations big Daddy USA is following and for that reason the state of affairs over there is a little worring to me.

But yeah, overall can't complain.

Isle of Man. We have farmers that run the government. They are terrible at it, and its stupid, but we dont have power to rename a sea, so they mostly just argue amongst themselves and the rest of us get on with it. Postage takes longer and is more expensive. We cant get a lot of the services the UK gets. We still dont have 5g. That being said its one of the safest places to live in the British isles. So I dont know, swings and roundabouts.

UK. It's actually alright here despite our culture of complaining about everything.

Weather is predictably dull and boring, but in a world of climate change that's not such a bad thing anymore.

Wages are outpacing the cost of living once again so that's nice.

Politics is just the usual arguing/ bitching about the economy. Everyone blaming each other blah blah blah. Storm in a teacup really.

US news is getting a bit scary, seeing the president cosying up with the enemy and appearing to want to let them take Ukraine in exchange for half of their minerals means that I don't think we'll be considering them a close ally in the near future. At least not a reliable one.

I'm pretty happy

Guatemala.

Good food, good people, good mountains, laid-back fun culture.

incidentally, I am from the states but have chosen not to live in the US for the past decade for reasons that have now become obvious to everyone.

I'm not too worried if the US collapses, there are 200 other countries to live in.

it doesn't seem like it will collapse entirely, maybe, since that wouldn't benefit the rich people in charge of it? good luck.

All the fucking right wing wankers are feeling empowered and crawling from under the rocks thanks to the blond Cheeto you guys idiotically voted as president. Economy is going to shit. This is a nice peaceful sunny European country and we're suffering with your idiocy. So not very happy. At all.

Germany - Overall I feel ok. Nothing beyond the ordinary Weltschmerz. But that kinda creeped into normalcy, so yeah. Here we are.

Things might turn to shit tho. We have an election this weekend. So ask me again in a couple of days.

Sweden is a functional country for the most part, but we are small in a geopolitical context.

In daily life I feel mostly fine, I have a decent job (I am on the bus to work right now), I have a good apartment (if a bit small), just ordered a new desk for my home setup, in general you can feel society bracing against "Drumpf & Puttler's Crazy Wild Ride: The Rise of Ketamine boy".

Biggest news lately, the school shooting in Örebro, terrible shit, and the coward perpetrator didn't have the decency to survive so we'll probably never know his motives which would help us prevent this in the future.

Locally we have had some small scale scandals recently, politicians disliked by most citizens but with connections getting new jobs either barely following the process or outright ignoring it, nationalistic party have their scandal politicians, other politicians scamming money from the government.

We recently had a news story about an islamist being hired as a teacher and raping a student, that guy was rejected by the security service when applying to be a security guard before being a teacher.

Personally this is how I feel when reading the news lately:

As it stands now, I will just focus on myself and my family and friends, the current US regime is dancing to the tune of a dictatorship and I try to stay far away.

I live in the Netherlands. Happy? Sure. Could always be better.

For how it is in the Netherlands politics wise, it's quite a mess. The biggest party is led by a rightwing nutjob who supports Israel and doesn't give a shit about Ukraine. And main focus is Immigrants bad blablabla. That party isn't in complete control though since they have to work with 3 other parties to get a majority so that is at least something.

We had 2000 explosions at peoples houses last year. Which is insane. Guns aren't legal so people import heavy fireworks from italy (which are basically grenades) and blow it up in front of their house, or burn down their cars, to threaten them I guess.. They pay teenagers to do it for them. So the real culprits never get caught. I saw 3 cars burn down in my neighbourhood in the last few years.

Housing prices are insane. Probably in most well running countries atm. I don't have high hopes of getting a house anytime soon. And my rent just keeps going up.

Not to rub it in, but I moved from the US to Scandinavia (during Biden's presidency) and while I have plenty of problems and stresses there's a relief to the safety and stability of it that I didn't realize I was missing in the US.

Life is far from perfect here but it's all in all better than life was in the US for us, and I feel that would be even more true as time goes on.

Also sorry about wtf is going on to you (presumably) over there.

Flanders, Belgium. Things are... okay-ish, but I feel like we're balancing on an edge, and any little push will topple the current regime and bring power to the far-right parties who continue to gain ground every election. At this point in time, our little country has one of the least unequal societies in the world in terms of income. Something tells me that in say 10 years we'll look back to today and reminisce about the "good old days"...

Not really happy, because the downfall of the US has massive consequences worldwide.

As a Canadian who generally fits this category, i am fairly privileged, have all my basic needs met and some security for the future under status quo conditions. I have my struggles, but they have not so much to with marginalization or oppression. But it depends on who you are. Indigenous women are still going missing, racists are still gonna racist, billionaires are still exploiting people struggling with food and housing security, etc. same goes for the USA. For millions of Americans who are upper-middle/upper class, heteronormative, and white, life is continuing on just fine, feeling safe and experiencing a government that functions as well as it ever has from their perspective. They're too busy living their lives to get caught up in the "noise of angry squabbling of childish politicians". Maybe expenses have gone up, but they can still sustain all their expectations out of life. He'll you can imagine there are a not insignificant proportion of the Russian population are like this.

Not from a "functioning safe country", but I just want to say: No matter where I go, things are just fucked.

I was born in PRC, and the Rural areas doesn't even have bathrooms in your own home, and you'd have to go to a shared bathroom in the village. In the city, I don't have a Hukou (Household Registration), so you're basically an "illegal immigrant" inside your own country (and, as many of you know, its very authoritarian). And even the city, there is problems with finding a job because theres like 1/7 of the world population in the country. Then I got to the US and casual racism is everywhere, and even Chinese Americans classmates (who are born in the US) refuse to stand up for me against racism.

Now its declining into fascism.

Wow, the bad luck just follows me everywhere doesn't it?

Hey EU, wanna give me political asylum? (Hopefully the bad luck doesn't follow me into the EU lol)

Sweden. I'm happy. But I have a hard time watching the rise of a fascist dictator and the collapse of the dollar reserves as the planet still gets eviscerated by mega corpos entities several orders of magnitude more powerful than any government. What I wish most is that the humans that do the biddings of the megacorps realised that they are just temporarily allowed to be their "ceo" or "cfo" and that in reality they are being used but the allure of money as a means of success, while mindlessly ignored goes the fact that joy and success is found in people that avoid money as much as possible. The demons can and should be revoked the status of being "legal humans" and correctly categorised as entities that exist to serve and protect humans. How can so many people be revoked the status of human and even killed while the destructive hateful entities that ruin our souls and habitat are continually worshipped by its zealots when they provide net negative happiness and health is so tragic.

EU, Im trying to not focus on politics around the world and especially the US, scared about russia and USA would drag us down but when Im not thinking about politics Im very happy in my life right now

In the UK, it's not great, and seems to be on the down trend like everywhere else, but right now it's a decent enough place to live - definitely a lot better than the US.

Canada. Could be a lot better, but I'm happy that we're not currently doing as badly as they are south of the border.

I've been working relatively high-paying precarious positions, but my circumstances have allowed me to build myself a safety net. So even if the government can't support me should something go wrong, I can support myself, at least for a time.

I currently have enough money to engage in hobbies and socialize. What I'm currently wishing for is more time.

I haven't had a paid sick day in my life, though I have had a couple "We can't give you a paid sick day, but we can pay you to do light work from home" in the last couple of years. The last time I had a paid vacation day and a job still lined up was in 2020. Though I do get statutory holidays, so it's not terrible.

First world problems. Overall, I'm happy with my life. This year, I'm looking to turn my precarious positions into a full-time gig. If that doesn't work out, I'll try to turn my side-gig into a full-time thing (and take the pay cut in exchange for life satisfaction). And if neither of those works out, I have my safety net which should be able to carry me through until I can get more contracts. And my partner may be looking at income increases next year, which should make everything easier.

Things haven't always been this good for me, but I'm happy with where they are and where they're going.

There aren't any of those, but we do have a centre-left government (for now), we're doing alright economically and still have a semblance of a social security safety net.

Mostly what it feels like is that the US and Russia are now both adversaries and this lasts only until their disinformation warfare wins the day or they attack us directly otherwise. We're not "safe" because we're not safe from you and the other couple of idiots that are still married to the old "superpower" idea. If you want to know how I feel, then, it's mostly "really, really angry at any liberal of leftist that did not show up for Harris the way they did for Biden or Obama".

So there's that.

I wouldn't say I'm happy, necessarily. But I'm content.

I have everything I need in terms of basic needs but I suffer from depression, and I have two eighty year-old parents who have borrowed my car for nearly a year driving for DoorDash. My anhedonia keeps me leveled out 99% of the time, so when I'm happy or sad it generally manifests as a manic episode.

Even though my country is generally functional and safe, it's really only that way if you have money. That DoorDash job is the only the standing between my parents and homelessness because no one will employ them, the government doesn't care if they become homeless or starved, and my dad is too old too roof houses.

Not much better on the upper deck of titanic than elsewhere

I've never heard of a functional country. i live in a safe one but the government is made of incompetent sloppy old men

The USA isn't particularly functional at the moment, but I'd hesitate to say it's lost much of the safety it had YET.

Most are still going to work, not being robbed, not being shot in the street, and so forth SO FAR.

Those things may change, but I'd be cautious about calling the USA unsafe until it actually is. I'd still rather be in most of America than most of, say, Syria right now from that standpoint.

Enough to thrive

USA. Despite what people will tell you around here we aren't crumbling to bits or shooting each other in the streets.

What the federal government does has ultimately very little effect on my day to day life. I go to work. I come home. I get high and pet my cats too much. I play video games with friends I've made over the course of my life. I eat dinner and I crash. I'll repeat this pattern all week and then on weekends I do chores and visit friends/family.

Other than that everything is still functional. Safety hasn't gone up or down. It's still exactly as safe as it was under Obama and Biden eras. Pretty safe as long as you avoid certain places or hanging out with the wrong crowds.

8/10. Room for improved always but I'm not really concerned.

This feels a bit out of touch. Firstly, anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi, is richer than almost anywhere else in the world in dollar terms. That is always going to buy a certain level of function and safety compared to most countries in the world, which are, well, poor. Next, "the US" is continent-sized federation. Vermont, say, is clearly safer and more functional, by any measure, than all but handful of independent countries.

In terms of figures, the USA is currently #43 out of 105 in the Safety Perceptions Index. Admittedly not a great score (but I can't help noticing that #1 is Uzbekistan, which is a literal police state). Even harder to measure "functional" but the US is at #20 out of 193 in the Human Development Index, which measures wealth, education and healthcare.

Whatever the current frame of mind of Americans, it's important to remember that the USA remains a privileged place.