- A new ranking of 50 countries seeks to determine the most selfish state in the United States.
- The data used to make the ranking include the number of volunteer hours contributed by citizens, how charitable the residents of each state are and how empathetic each state is, based on a recent study.
- The rankings seem somewhat random, but the most selfish state number 1 certainly makes sense.
The holidays are supposed to be a time of giving, and there are many people who go out of their way to make life better for others. But are the inhabitants of some states more generous than others? Are there really states that are generally more selfish than the rest? Best life say yes, and the site has set criteria for ranking states based on how selfish they are.
To find out what the site calls the “Selfish Index” number for each state, the site used a lot of data from different sources. Included in the index score is data from a recent study on the empathy of each state, the percentage of residents who volunteer annually and how charitable the residents are.
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This is certainly an interesting experiment, although the results are somewhat difficult to analyze. There seems to be a great deal of randomness that I can not really make sense of, but maybe it does. Let’s start at the bottom of the list, meaning that these are the least selfish states in the United States:
- Utah
- Oregon
- Minnesota
- Montana
- Connecticut
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- Maryland
- North Carolina
- Washington
See what I mean? Aside from the fact that I always hear that people from Minnesota are really nice, I do not see a clear trend in this, although the data seems to indicate that these states have the highest percentage of people who are willing to go out of their way to make life better for others. This is great, any way you cut it.
Now, on the other side of the list. These are apparently the most selfish states in the whole country. Again, there is no clear trend, but the state at the very top of the list certainly makes sense:
- Nevada
- Kentucky
- West Virginia
- New mexico
- Alabama
- Delaware
- Florida
- Indiana
- Louisiana
- Alaska
Okay, so let’s get rid of the obvious one. Nevada, home to the gambling capital of the United States and a place where people go in hopes of making themselves rich, certainly does not look like a place where selfless people want to congregate. As for the other states on the list, again, there is not a very clear connection. Maybe I’m missing something, but regardless of anything else, the data makes it clear that these statements are selfish.
Mike Wehner has been reporting on technology and video games for the past decade, discussing news and trends in VR, portable, smartphones and future technology. Mike was recently technical editor at The Daily Dot and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com and numerous other web and print stores. His love of reporting is second only to his game addiction.