The set of people who see their future as relatively happy is increasingly slim
I’d like to test your intuition. Can you write down your predicted answers to these questions, then check the answers and let me know how you did?
From the years 2001-2025, Gallup polled Americans on the question “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time?” In 2025, what percentage responded “satisfied”?
Gallup also asked, “Are you very [satisfied/dissatisfied], or just somewhat [satisfied/dissatisfied]?” In 2025, what percent of all respondents were “very satisfied”, and what percent “very dissatisfied”?
On average (mean) across the 23 polls conducted from 2001-2025, what percent responded with each option?
In 2025, Pew conducted a poll primarily about American’s attitudes towards their country. When asked “When you think about the future, do you feel hopeful?” on this poll, what percent said “yes”? When asked “When [...] feel happy?”, what percent said “yes”?
In the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the US government, what percent of adults reported serious thoughts of suicide in the past 12 months? What percent overall attempted suicide?
What percent had thoughts of suicide or attempted suicide in 2015?
I predict that you will respond ≤70% satisfied to Q1, ≥15% very dissatisfied to Q2, a “satisfied” mean ≥5% greater than your Q1 response to Q3, hopeful ≤60% to Q4, and ≥8% ideation or ≥1% attempt to question 5. No strong opinions on the others (I believe that question 4 has unusually low numbers due to priming respondents to think about politics). While “very substantial” and “increasingly slim” are relative statements, I believe your phrasing reflects an overestimation of the rate of severe unhappiness in the US, so I predict your intuition would be off.
From the years 2001-2025, Gallup polled Americans on the question “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time?” In 2025, what percentage responded “satisfied”?
My guess would be 60-80 percent, leaving 20-40 percent (openly) in various states of despair. I’d give a similar answer to (2), with maybe 30 saying very satisfied and ~10 saying very unsatisfied. Important to note that my position is not that a majority of people would be fine seeing the world end, only that a substantial portion of people would be.
I would qualify this with an assertion that the positive results likely skew older, and the negative results skew younger. This is relevant in this context because the open-to-the-idea-of-existential-risk-from-AI crowd skews young. I’d also add that I’m predicting responses, and that the true values likely skew a bit more negative due to respondent bias—people don’t like admitting they’re sad.
Answers: 1. 81% satisfied, 17% dissatisfied.2. 44% very satisfied, 8% very dissatisfied.
(1 Falls towards the better end of my predicted range. Qualifications above still important, though. 2 is pretty close, 30->44 and 10->8.)
In 2025, Pew conducted a poll primarily about American’s attitudes towards their country. When asked “When you think about the future, do you feel hopeful?” on this poll, what percent said “yes”? When asked “When [...] feel happy?”, what percent said “yes”?
On ‘hopeful’, I’d expect that the right direction/wrong track polls, which generally track with party affiliation and then move downwards towards the middle of a presidential term, unless I interpret the question differently than the respondents did.
Answer: 4. 68% hopeful
(Not much to say here. I think they read it as “any hope at all”, rather than “more optimistic than pessimistic”.)
5. In the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the US government, what percent of adults reported serious thoughts of suicide in the past 12 months? What percent overall attempted suicide?
6. What percent had thoughts of suicide or attempted suicide in 2015?
On ideation, I’d say somewhere in the middle of the single digit range, but reporting bias confounds this.
On attempt, I’d argue that reporting bias is severe enough that I can’t make a good prediction. Most suicidal people aren’t going to tell someone and get shuffled off to a psych ward, and it’s been established in the public eye that that’s what will happen. The ‘false positives’ (people joking about it nonchalantly) have been cut down by this, but we’re also seeing way more false negatives.
I’ll note here that these are likely floors rather than ceilings on people who’d be fine with the world ending. A suicide leaves behind responsibilities to the world, whereas ‘all going together when we go’ doesn’t. I’ve seen this mindset quite a bit, more often nowadays.
(5.5/4 is essentially the dead center of the single digit range. I stand by making no prediction on attempt rates, we don’t have a remotely reliable source of data there.)
Commentary:
I predict that you will respond ≤70% satisfied to Q1, (Middle of my range, +1) ≥15% very dissatisfied to Q2 (That’s a miss.), a “satisfied” mean ≥5% greater than your Q1 response to Q3 (Rolled that into the first two because I expected them to be the same thing; I think you miss on that one.), hopeful ≤60% to Q4 (Not much to say on this; I guessed at the question’s semantics.), and ≥8% ideation (I’d say semi-miss; 8% is near the middle of the single digit range, but the true value is closer to the middle.) or ≥1% attempt (No prediction made, but after seeing the recorded result, I would say that the true value probably is above 1 percent, assuming that half of attempts are unreported, and you count things like a guy driving to a quiet place with a gun and then not going through with it as an attempt. Firearm suicides are all or nothing, and consist of around half of total suicides.) to question 5. No strong opinions on the others (I believe that question 4 has unusually low numbers due to priming respondents to think about politics). While “very substantial” and “increasingly slim” are relative statements, I believe your phrasing reflects an overestimation of the rate of severe unhappiness in the US (I think this is where you were off. I’m not saying most people would accept the end of the world, but I think the numbers provided present a strong case that this demographic exists, and it’s almost definitely at its largest among the young, relatively alienated, and relatively anxious tech community), so I predict your intuition would be off.
I’d like to test your intuition. Can you write down your predicted answers to these questions, then check the answers and let me know how you did?
From the years 2001-2025, Gallup polled Americans on the question “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in your personal life at this time?” In 2025, what percentage responded “satisfied”?
Gallup also asked, “Are you very [satisfied/dissatisfied], or just somewhat [satisfied/dissatisfied]?” In 2025, what percent of all respondents were “very satisfied”, and what percent “very dissatisfied”?
On average (mean) across the 23 polls conducted from 2001-2025, what percent responded with each option?
In 2025, Pew conducted a poll primarily about American’s attitudes towards their country. When asked “When you think about the future, do you feel hopeful?” on this poll, what percent said “yes”? When asked “When [...] feel happy?”, what percent said “yes”?
In the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the US government, what percent of adults reported serious thoughts of suicide in the past 12 months? What percent overall attempted suicide?
What percent had thoughts of suicide or attempted suicide in 2015?
Answers and Commentary
Answers:
1. 81% satisfied, 17% dissatisfied. 2. 44% very satisfied, 8% very dissatisfied. 3. 83% satisfied (54/30% very/somewhat), 15% dissatisfied (6/9% very/somewhat). 4. 68% hopeful, 54% happy. 5. 5.5% ideation, 0.8% attempt. 6. 4% ideation, 0.6% attempt.
Commentary:
I predict that you will respond ≤70% satisfied to Q1, ≥15% very dissatisfied to Q2, a “satisfied” mean ≥5% greater than your Q1 response to Q3, hopeful ≤60% to Q4, and ≥8% ideation or ≥1% attempt to question 5. No strong opinions on the others (I believe that question 4 has unusually low numbers due to priming respondents to think about politics). While “very substantial” and “increasingly slim” are relative statements, I believe your phrasing reflects an overestimation of the rate of severe unhappiness in the US, so I predict your intuition would be off.
Sources: Gallup, Pew, NSDUH 2024 and 2015.
My guess would be 60-80 percent, leaving 20-40 percent (openly) in various states of despair. I’d give a similar answer to (2), with maybe 30 saying very satisfied and ~10 saying very unsatisfied. Important to note that my position is not that a majority of people would be fine seeing the world end, only that a substantial portion of people would be.
I would qualify this with an assertion that the positive results likely skew older, and the negative results skew younger. This is relevant in this context because the open-to-the-idea-of-existential-risk-from-AI crowd skews young. I’d also add that I’m predicting responses, and that the true values likely skew a bit more negative due to respondent bias—people don’t like admitting they’re sad.
Answers: 1. 81% satisfied, 17% dissatisfied. 2. 44% very satisfied, 8% very dissatisfied.
(1 Falls towards the better end of my predicted range. Qualifications above still important, though. 2 is pretty close, 30->44 and 10->8.)
On ‘hopeful’, I’d expect that the right direction/wrong track polls, which generally track with party affiliation and then move downwards towards the middle of a presidential term, unless I interpret the question differently than the respondents did.
Answer: 4. 68% hopeful
(Not much to say here. I think they read it as “any hope at all”, rather than “more optimistic than pessimistic”.)
On ideation, I’d say somewhere in the middle of the single digit range, but reporting bias confounds this.
On attempt, I’d argue that reporting bias is severe enough that I can’t make a good prediction. Most suicidal people aren’t going to tell someone and get shuffled off to a psych ward, and it’s been established in the public eye that that’s what will happen. The ‘false positives’ (people joking about it nonchalantly) have been cut down by this, but we’re also seeing way more false negatives.
I’ll note here that these are likely floors rather than ceilings on people who’d be fine with the world ending. A suicide leaves behind responsibilities to the world, whereas ‘all going together when we go’ doesn’t. I’ve seen this mindset quite a bit, more often nowadays.
Answers: 5. 5.5% ideation, 0.8% attempt. 6. 4% ideation, 0.6% attempt.
(5.5/4 is essentially the dead center of the single digit range. I stand by making no prediction on attempt rates, we don’t have a remotely reliable source of data there.)
Commentary: