Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

danielsjourney.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 332 posts

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#31

Post by sacheendra »

JohnBooty wrote: post #16

Don'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…

I wouldn't necessarily say vast number of americans have plenty of experience outside the US.

For example, only 42% have a passport. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/11/the-sh...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#32

Post by Tor3 »

maggit wrote: post #14
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #4

This article is blog spam, here's the actual link: https://eand.co/what-do-you-call-a-world-that-cant-learn-fro...

I disagree. The article quotes and links to three different articles (the first of which is the one you have pointed out) and ties them together. I agree that it is not the most substantial post, but I wouldn't call it blogspam.

I read the original and didn't get that there were more substance elsewhere. In the end I found it pretty contentless. The link that CoolGuySteve (and seibelj) pointed to is where the real article is.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#33

Post by roenxi »

I'd like to believe the hallmark of a truly great society is that they are capable of shamelessly copying good ideas from elsewhere.

I'm not sure this idea of 'everything [in the US being] lower quality' is going to hold up to close inspection though. He cites life expectancy; that statistic is probably going to suffer from Simpson's Paradox - it is reasonable to expect that the better the poor and are treated, the lower average life expectancy will be. It would be easy to have great life expectancy by raising the cost of living to be so high the poor are all forced to leave.

It isn't to say that America is all sunshine and roses; there are a lot of problems in how people are rewarded and punished for their choices. But it isn't obviously worse and looking in from the outside it does seem to be easier to be the change you want to see in America.

There is also the irony that these ideas aren't being communicated on a world-leading European message board using world-class European software. It isn't that telling, it just made me smile.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#34

Post by piker »

lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > 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…

It's hilarious that the author is citing television. Is there anyone on the Earth who believes, e.g., British television is better as a whole than US television? They must really like slow-to-never-developing low budget, single camera angle crime dramas.

[Edit: Apparently so! Quite the controversial statement. However, when voting, do consider what percentage of television consumed outside of the US was produced IN the US and vice versa.]

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#35

Post by robenkleene »

seibelj wrote: post #20

> 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 documentar…

Why do you think those people write poetry instead of creating side project businesses?

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#36

Post by countryqt30 »

seibelj wrote: post #20

> 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 documentar…

Living in Europe thus could mean living in the future.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#37

Post by chrismeller »

> There is a myth of exceptionalism in America that prevents it from looking outward

Which is frankly such a common sentiment from every European I’ve ever met that it’s become almost a cliche. Perhaps we are a bit arrogant but at some point don’t you have to realize that maybe you’re doing the exact same thing in reverse?

All the things he listed out as being of lower quality are completely subjective. The food is worse? Compared to where? Yes, you can get a lot more variety of crappy fast food... nothing is preventing you from NOT stopping at McDonald’s though. It’s like saying all furniture is crappier in Sweden because IKEA is everywhere...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#38

Post by EliRivers »

roenxi wrote: post #33

I'd like to believe the hallmark of a truly great society is that they are capable of shamelessly copying good ideas from elsewhere. I'm not sure this idea of 'everything [in the US being] lower quality' is going to hold up to close inspection though. He cites life expectancy; that statistic is probably going to suffer from Simpson's Paradox - it is reasonable to expect that the better the poor and are treated, the l…

Is this not being hosted on a Linux box somewhere? Sure, it may well not be, but Linux is common enough that it could be.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#39

Post by mbostleman »

JohnBooty wrote: post #16

Don'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…

There are those that innately understand that socialism and individual liberty cannot coexist. Those people were not indoctrinated.
Post reply on HN