151–160 of 186 posts
The BBC forgot - or, as is more likely, refused to mention - rule #0: ensure a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour.
No debating about the stringent rules, which I'ver read comes from the Samurai times, but I think your projecting your idea of "racism works!"...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's my point. It's a lot more complicated than "stand to the right on an escalator." You have to learn through observation, read the atmosphere, and engage with context. There are some less obtuse issues with your universal pronouncement. There are escalators where it's too narrow to pass. There's no need nor expectation to stand to one side on these. The same goes for escalators that are so long that nobody's wal…
> That's my point. It's a lot more complicated It's not so complicated that you assume you need to run out at this very moment to find the nearest elevator just to prove a point. That's moronic. > There are escalators where it's too narrow to pass So you see what everybody else is doing and do that. Presumably, if it's that narrow, everybody's just standing in the centre. > The same goes for escalators that are so lo…
All you’re really saying here is that our big brains are sufficiently capable to make sense of the complexity, which I mostly won’t argue with.
Rule 1: be filled with Japanese people Cities and any polity or group of people cannot be created by some abstract rules or enforced. You need it to be composed of individuals who are disposed to act harmoniously with each other and have a culture (which is basically a bunch of jigging to aid harmonious interactions, you cannot create top down the manners you don't want people to violate). Everyone acting in their ow…
Singapore is a multi-culturial society and it is also known to be very safe and clean like Japan. You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.
If by people you mean the particular type of people that live in Singapore, who are known across the world to be supple and tame. Now try this logic in the United States with certain subpopulations who are chronically misbehaved and see where it gets you. Hint: it's been tried for a long time and it doesn't work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is the Canadian healthcare system perfect? Of course not. Is it the best on the world? Clearly not. Is there lots of room for improvement? You bet, and people like my wife are working hard at it. The Canadian system is vastly better than the us system for the vast majority of people. A system where everyone is covered and there is no concept of medical bankruptcy is obviously better out of the gate. Also really odd y…
> Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us. Maybe because 34% of ALL government money in Canada goes towards healthcare. So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Maybe it's bad luck that my family has required several "elective" (note that elective doesn't mea…
Yep, that’s how it works in every country with healthcare for all. Remember you’re paying less than Americans pay, and you’re getting better outcomes. [1]
I also pay for police and firemen and a ton of other stuff I’ve never used. But I’m happy my community gets that safety net, and it will be there if I ever need it.
> There are 38 "rich" countries in the world (OECD) and a ton of them are ahead of us. Why aren't we striving to be more like Switzerland, Germany, France or Norway?
I agree with you 100%
Canada is not the greatest at many things, and has a long way to improve. I’m happy people are working hard to do that.
The original point above was that Canada is essentially the same as the US, which I refuted. At no point did I say Canada is the best or has nothing to improve.
I’ve spent significant time in 65 countries, worked in a handful. I chose Canada. I wasn’t born here, I hold three passports (one EU) and could leave anytime.
I have been living in the inaka for 8 years now and I always laugh at this kind of articles. They only focus on the core areas of Tokyo, Osaka, and a few big others cities, and forget to mention that outside of those areas the whole country is just endless urban sprawl of the ugliest, soulless cities you can imagine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is specifically about its most livable cities. Why would you expect them to discuss the cities people don't want to live in? Every country has plenty of these. The point is to show the things that make a place livable, not to show all the ways a place isn't.
Because these articles always talk about the good parts and never mention the bad parts which make up the vast majority of the country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because living in downtown Vancouver is expensive. Your rent probably comes close to covering the mortgage on one of those huge empty houses in the suburbs. That fresh baked good is probably ~$4 while the equivalent at Walmart is $1. No doubt it's a great lifestyle for well off DINKs. A lot harder to make it work for a family of 5 on 50k a year.
It shouldn’t be, and certainly doesn’t have to be. Logically it should be cheaper to live in an apartment than an entire house - obviously. Suburbs are subsidized by economic centres. And the state of affairs in North America - Vancouver included - is we’re not building housing to match demand. That’s true purely in terms of individual units but it’s also true for types of units. Like apartments that aren’t luxury un…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it tells me the methodology is biased.
Hahaha. Absolutely on point. Don’t like the outcome? Methodology is bad. Never mind this has been around for decades. It actually makes perfect sense. In every metric that impacts a persons everyday life the us is almost always dead last among OECD countries. So of course the cites are too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us. Maybe because 34% of ALL government money in Canada goes towards healthcare. So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Maybe it's bad luck that my family has required several "elective" (note that elective doesn't mea…
> So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Yep, that’s how it works in every country with healthcare for all. Remember you’re paying less than Americans pay, and you’re getting better outcomes. [1] I also pay for police and firemen and a ton of other stuff I’ve never used. But I’m happy my community gets that safety net, and it will be there if I e…
That's what you think... My previous home also burned down in a wildfire that claimed 2000 other people's homes... A wildfire that was warned about for 20 years and for which zero precautions were undertaken.
This year other people's homes have burned down and more are at risk near Vernon.
Canada is a joke of a country, the only good parts are the camping, skiing and proximity to the US for business (assuming you don't need venture capital of course).