Miten löytää iloa ja turvaa epävarmoina ja pelottavina aikoina? Tästä aiheesta kävin sunnuntaina keskustelemassa Ilkka Lahden kanssa TV1:n Sunnuntai-ohjelmassa. Oma osuuteni alkaa 32.00 kohdasta. Vastasin muun muassa kysymykseen "Mikä on sinun oma missiosi?" areena.yle.fi/1-72847864

Why is Finland so happy? @cbsnews.com travelled to Finland to find out. I took them to Oodi library and Carita Harju took them to sauna, to get to the heart of the matter. Besides well-functioning institutions, we discussed sense of contentment with what you have: www.cbsnews.com/video/why-is...

Is the World Happiness Report bullsh*t? Professor Yascha Mounk made this provocative claim and Futucast asked us to debate the issue. Despite starting from the opposite sides, I think we ended up finding quite much common ground: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlcP...

Praise to comedians! They do a vital job of ridiculing those in power, exposing any double standards and empty promises. Democracy dies without laughter. That’s why would-be authoritarian leaders are so eager to silence the comedians - their power pose can’t withstand it being poked with ridicule.

History rhymes a bit too well sometimes.

"Taking drastic measures against AI in higher education is..about creating the conditions necessary for young people to learn to read, write, and think, which is to say, the conditions necessary for modern civilization to continue to reproduce itself" #AcademicSky www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

We might be “experiencing an AI bubble,” Rogé Karma argues. “If that bubble bursts, it could put the dot-com crash to shame—and the tech giants and their Silicon Valley backers won’t be the only ones who suffer.”

"On Saturday evenings, when the rest of the family is already asleep, I end up watching a two-minute video clip featuring Jim Carrey embarrassingly often." I wrote about Jim, existentialism and the art of being born for the third time: "The fact that nothing really matters can be highly liberating."

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. ... History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ―Orwell, 1984

Kirjoitin tekoälystä asiantuntijatyössä: "Tekoäly saattaa lisätä asiantuntijatehtävien laatueroja: He, jotka ovat jo valmiiksi osaavimpia pystyvät erottamaan tekoälyn tarjoamista syötteistä jyvät akanoista. Keskinkertaiset tekijät tekevät tekoälyn avulla yhtä keskinkertaista jälkeä kuin aiemminkin."

Eight decades: That seems to be the time it took to forget the horrors of WWII, and for leaders to start rip apart the institutions that were meant to ensure that it would happen ”never again.”

I definitely need to read Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp that “covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies.” “People are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.”

Israel has stopped pretending that they are targeting Hamas, while killing civilians: ”Almost all the casualties in Gaza in recent days have been linked to the delivery of aid rather than Israeli strikes on Hamas targets.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

In my latest post, I explain why having high self-esteem is "like shoulder pads and mullet haircuts. Big in the 1980s, but all the hype feels a bit embarrassing nowadays." We should focus on another distinction: that between needy and stable self-esteem: frankmartela.substack.com/p/untangle-y...

So you want to be happy? Don’t. Happiness is just a thermometer - Don’t waste your time chasing it. To celebrate the publication of my new book, Stop Chasing Happiness – A Pessimist’s Guide to a Good Life, I created a series of Substack posts covering themes from the book. Read the first here:

Israel celebrates participation in Eurovision by intensifying the killing of Palestinians. Feeling powerless by inaction of Europe, I donated to Doctors without Borders to at least do something to help those targeted by ethnic cleansing!

OK, this is wild. In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*. What the HELL? 1/

Professor Richard Ryan, the world's leading expert on motivation and well-being, is coming to Finland and we are excited to organize a seminar at Aalto about how to lead engagement for well-being and performance! So join us on June 3rd at 16-18! Free of charge, register here: lnkd.in/diZMNTHb

In this year’s Champions League, the best goalies take their teams to the final. 😐⚽️ #championsleague #ucl

What is human well-being? Many key theories of well-being argue that besides positive experiences, well-being is about positive psychological functioning. But what then is positive psychological functioning? This is what my just published article aims to examine: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"Trump is not making America great again. But he is making white, uneducated men feel great again. For them, the MAGA movement offers a newfound sense of community and meaningfulness. Desperation is replaced by empowerment and a sense of purpose."

Trump’s success is not dependent on achieving any political goal but on serving as an outlet for emotions. According to a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler, one of his primary rules was “never allow the public to cool off.” This is how both he and Trump create so fanatic movements.

What can Arendt's analysis of Hitler teach us about Trump's appeal? Same three factors seem to be behind their success: 1) A sense of chaos, disruption, and worry about the future 2) Seeing oneself as the victim 3) A sense of loneliness, isolation, and lack of self-worth medium.com/@f_Martela/b...

Olen ollut mukana tutkijoiden ja asiantuntijoiden ryhmässä, jossa pohdimme miten kehittää suomalaista työelämää paremmaksi. Tänään julkaistiin lyhyt "paremman työelämän manifestimme", jossa nostetaan esiin joitakin keinoja tehdä suomalaisesta työelämästä maailman paras: www.aalto.fi/fi/uutiset/t...

If our democracy dies, this is its epitaph

If you need evidence that Israel military deliberately targets and kills unarmed Red Crescent aid workers and then their military spokesman lies to the international community to cover up, here is that evidence: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/w...

What is this thing with declining empires wanting to self-sabotage just to avoid collaborating with others?

Does 'truth' as a concept serve us in a polarized era, where each party holds onto their own truths? With my colleague Jukka Luoma we wrote about why the whole concept needs to be abadoned. Instead, let's build agreement on how to make claims warranted: frankmartela.substack.com/p/we-lost-th...

Finland happiest again? Boring! But which countries have gained or lost most happiness between 2012 and 2025 in the World Happiness Report? Here are the top 10 gainers and top 10 losers as regards how positively people evaluate their lives around the world: frankmartela.substack.com/p/which-coun...

This speaks volumes: Yale professors, Timothy Snyder, a historian of totalitarianism and the author of "On Tyranny," and Jason Stanley, a philosopher and the author of "How Fascism Works", move to Canada. leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2025/03... munkschool.utoronto.ca/person/timot...

My book Stop Chasing Happiness was launched yesterday, with a little help from CNN promoting it when interviewing me about why the Nordic countries are so happy! 😊 The book is about finding an attitude in life where you are less bothered by adversities & more energized to pursue self-selected goals.

Nobody could have predicted this:

My book Stop Chasing Happiness was launched yesterday, with a little help from CNN promoting it when interviewing me about why the Nordic countries are so happy! 😊 The book is about finding an attitude in life where you are less bothered by adversities & more energized to pursue self-selected goals.

Yesterday, President Zelensky’s delegation got a parking ticket here in Helsinki, just when he was speaking on the phone with Trump. This may sound like a small incident, but it explains why Finland is the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row: open.substack.com/pub/frankmar...

Sunday reading: What Authoritarianism Means   I wrote about why even critical observers underestimated the speed and scope of the Trumpist assault, why they overestimated democratic resilience – about what America is now, and what comes next?   New piece:

'No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding,' Elon Musk said. 'No one.' "That is not true. In South Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, the efforts by Musk and President Trump are already leading children to die." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Next week - on the International Day of Happiness 20th of March - my new book will be published in English! The title is: Stop Chasing Happiness - A Pessimist’s guide to a good life 🙃 More about the book in this thread:

”Pallo kopsahtaa mailan lapaan. Nyt on tehtävä kaikkensa, jotta se pysyy omalla joukkueella ja kulkee kohti maalia. Sählypeliin tiivistyy filosofi Frank Martelan arjessa onnellisen elämän salaisuus. Yhdellä sanalla salaisuus kuuluu näin: kilvoittele.” www.hs.fi/elama/art-20...

If you have been wondering why Trump/Vance are behaving like Putin, Erdoğan, & other authoritarian leaders, it’s because the foreign policy values of US right are closer to Russia and Turkey than any democratic country. Reported by the (woke legacy media) Financial Times: www.ft.com/content/3046...

This is how #democracy always dies. I think the U.S. is particularly vulnerable for many reasons, such as its many mechanisms that increase the costs and risks of engaging in civil society let alone protest: lack of public healthcare and nearly nonexistent social security, poor worker protections…

Julkkarit on myyty loppuun. Mutta niitä on nyt mahdollista seurata myös striiminä osoitteessa: vimeo.com/event/4962519 Tervetuloa kuulolle!

Democracy dies in darkness. And darkness has now fully taken over Washington Post, as the billionaire owner directly intervenes with what opinions are allowed to be published on its pages (having already directly intervened on who the paper should endorse in the presidential election).

The spread of false information that social media has amplified not only undermines democracies. It kills children - in this case an unvaccinated child died of a disease that vaccines had already eradicated decades ago. 😟 amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/02/...

Turns out participating in an autocratic takeover of government, with no competence or understanding of how government functions, is not the best market stunt to sell cars.

Interesting theory! Seems like a paper I need to read!

Not a bad summary

Seuraava kirjani ilmestyy aika tasan kuukauden päästä: Älä etsi onnea - epätyypillisiä elämänohjeita nykyihmiselle. 🤔 Kirjan viestinä on, että usein parempi elämä käynnistyy väärien ajattelutapojen poisoppimisesta. Siksi kirjan yhdeksästä luvusta kuusi ensimmäistä alkaa 'Lakkaa välittämästä...'

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.