Please. Europe doesn't even have cold brew coffee
Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
21–30 of 332 posts
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#22This article is blog spam, here's the actual link: https://eand.co/what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-fro...
Thanks for that link, much better and it answers some of the questions I had about the author that are covered at the source.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#23From the actual post:
> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentary by an academic, the BBC’s Blue Planet, or a Swedish crime-noir.
I mean, if you are a Europhile of course the US is going to suck. You can always move to Quebec I suppose? No train to hop on, though.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#24There are some objective problems fairly raised here (e.g. quality of public transit) but set against the rest of the world, the net immigration numbers simply suggest we are not all as bad as the author makes out.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#25Don't get me wrong; vast numbers of Americans do have plenty of experience with the world outside America. The simple (and unfortunate) answer is that because America is geographically isolated, many Americans literally don't see how folks in other countries live. Also, thanks to the Cold War, we spent half a century being indoctrinated to believe that socialism is evil and capitalism equals freedom and that's why th…
Thank god we have all of those shining beacons of socialism today to set us straight, like Venezuela.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#26A lot depends on your particulars. I'm a minority and the US is great because I can earn opportunities my relatives in some other countries would not be allowed. In some other countries, your ethnicity/background/religion would get in the way far more than in the US. This is not to say we don't have room for improvement, we do. Just that we're more meritocratic than certain other first world countries. I know this ju…
> In some other countries, your ethnicity/background/religion would get in the way far more than in the US.
Some may say that in the US, what gets in the way is which social class you belong to. Several studies highlight that social mobility is very low in the US.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#27I think this Vox video explains it well. TLDR American TV does a good job distracting people from real issues in order to keep funneling funds to the rich. My guess is European elites are catching on to American tactics and are following suit.
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#28Americans don’t travel. If we did, we wouldn’t buy the myth of American exceptionalism.
But then, we are largely becoming a country controlled by global financial interests rather than the population. Money is the deciding factor in our elections, and the most concentrated forms of wealth out there are sovereign wealth funds and large multinational corporations whose executives are largely above the law. Which means you don’t need to be an American citizen to have a voice in the political process that affects the quality of life for hundreds of millions of us.
We need publicly funded elections. Otherwise, corporate and foreign money with zero interest in the wellbeing of American citizens will dominate the politics agenda (just like they have for the last 20-ish years).
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#29The linked blog is by a notorious America-hater Umair Haque, almost all of his pieces are slammed for similar reasons you see in this comments section. It's hate bait, nothing more. (I recommend "Why the Anglo World is Collapsing" /s)
Take a look at his other work to get an idea of how seriously you should take this guy: https://eand.co/@umairh
Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?
#30One constant thing in every country is there is always a narrative among certain percentage of population about how shitty their country is, America is no different, usually the people who feel this way are not nationalists. If you immigrated to US from third world country you would know how amazing this country is. It always be your choice to live how happily you want to live, you can quit wanting to climb the ladde…
> If you immigrated to US from third world country you would know how amazing this country is.
Yes, compared to the third world country you come from. But that works for pretty much any other western country. It doesn't help comparing them between each other.