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Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

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Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a time traveler? Tobacco addiction hasn’t been rampant since the 90s and it was dying out then. It is certainly not a staple of American culture. Agreed that it’s not genetics. That’s just silly.

Eh - "tobacco" addiction is likely on the way out, but "nicotine" addiction likely isn't.

A cup of coffee and a cig is now a Starbucks milkshake and a chinese disposable battery powered addiction feeding machine putting a cloud of I have no idea what into my lungs. The future is cyberpunk AF.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on country I think. At least here in Norway, after the ban on smoking indoors at public places like restaurants and bars 20 years ago, smoking went way down. When I visited New York a few years ago I was shocked about how much smoking there was everywhere. Of course, people didn't quit nicotine entirely, many moving to snus[1] instead. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus

I was shocked at the amount of smoking I saw in Copenhagen 3 years ago. And I live in Durham, North Carolina, a historically tobacco city, whose nickname (Bull Durham or the Bull City) literally comes from old tobacco ads.

Yea, then again Danes have been quite liberal with alcohol and such in comparison with Norway, perhaps a common theme there.

But yes, varies greatly between countries. Since it's "only" been 20 years since the ban here, I'm curious to see if the numbers diverge more in the coming decades, or not.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#113

Comically, this is also basically a map of countries in Europe scored based on how convenient the existence of each country is to the kind of people who make us-europe comparisons Take the absolute value and the numbers and you get an ok map of how likely someone is to be trying to mislead you if they're comparing all of the US to just this one nation. You could make a pretty similar map with US states vs US average.…

Why don't you include Mexico when you compare America to Europe? Are you trying to mislead someone?

The parts of Europe that weren't a part of Soviet overwhelmingly have better life expectancy than USA. Including the ex-soviet/communist states is like adding Mexico to US statistics.

Edit: Map of the soviet blocks, you can see it very closely correlates with this life expectancy map. When people compare Europe to USA, they compare western Europe, the soviet block states are not relevant in the comparison.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Europe-b...

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#114
post #24

Fast food addiction, free-refill-fueled soda addiction, tobacco addiction, weakly trained near universal use of automobiles for daily travel, and unequal access to healthcare are staples of American culture so I am only surprised the spread is not worse. This has very little to do with location or genetics and everything to do with education and culture.

[deleted]

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#115

Let's all go to San Marino! I think the proximal answers for "why" are in the World Health Report, which tells you why people die. https://www.who.int/data/gho/publications/world-health-stati... Some of those you'd assume are to do with health care in general, but some (alcohol and tobacco consumption) are more like direct causes in and of themselves.

> Let's all go to San Marino!

Probably best not to go all at once. ChatGPT estimates the shoulder-to-shoulder standing capacity of San Marino is only 244 million people!

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#116
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Annual sales of Pepto Bismol look to be well under $0.50 per person, so while the American diet and food quality is appallingly worse than Europe, I suspect your one week of stomach upset is not be a great source from which to extrapolate.

Fair enough, maybe it was just the amount and variety of peptobismol products that I noticed were for sale everywhere. For example just in the Hotel where I was staying, they had a bunch chewable peptobismol gummy bears + the ordinary bottles for sale.

> maybe it was just the amount and variety of peptobismol products that I noticed were for sale everywhere.

Just wait until you see the breakfast cereal aisle

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#117

What typical Reddit ignorance that compares the avg life expectancy of the whole USA with a range of 68 years for tribal people to 85 years for “Asians”, a 17 year spread, to individual European countries. It has always baffled me a bit that Europeans keep making this basic type error, by comparing individual European countries that were relatively cohesive and healthy until recently, to the whole of the USA that suf…

> comparing individual European countries that were relatively cohesive and healthy until recently, to the whole of the USA Isn't USA a country? How is a country-by-country comparison "typical Reddit ignorance"? I'm gonna use my typical Reddit ignorance to guess you are indeed from the USA.

I don't know much about "Reddit ignorance" as I don't use it except for a couple programming languages. But I understand the argument/point trying to be made.

Many states in the US are as large as countries in Western Europe. Both Texas and Alaska are larger than France in land size.

If the US broke apart, California and Texas would take 2 slots in the top 10 world economies (by GDP) with NY at 11 and Florida behind them beating out Spain. Less known states (in terms of world recognition) beat out many countries too. Illinois beating Switzerland & Pennsylvania running about even. Ohio, Georgia, Washington (the state, not dc) N. Carolina soundly outpacing Belgium, Sweden & Ireland. etc

For size, population and GDP, the combined countries of west Europe (that is fuzzily grouped together for these purposes) is comparable to the collection of states in the US. Thus, should either be compared by similar US State to single European country, or USA to the Western Europe conglomerate of countries.

That is how many Americans see the US. Culture, customs and even beliefs and language* can vary between states in ways one would think they are in a different country. This way of American's seeing the US vs Europe also relates to geography, sure, most Americans can't point European countries on a map and name them, but how many people outside NA can locate & name US states that are not CA, NY, or maybe TX?

* yeah it's pretty much all english, but there are a few distinctly different version of english where some could have trouble understanding each other (as can happen in large countries). Some 13% speaks Spanish. While it's all Spanish, Texas Spanish is not the same as California Spanish; try using your very limited Texas Spanish in Spain if you want funny looks.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> comparing individual European countries that were relatively cohesive and healthy until recently, to the whole of the USA Isn't USA a country? How is a country-by-country comparison "typical Reddit ignorance"? I'm gonna use my typical Reddit ignorance to guess you are indeed from the USA.

I don't know much about "Reddit ignorance" as I don't use it except for a couple programming languages. But I understand the argument/point trying to be made. Many states in the US are as large as countries in Western Europe. Both Texas and Alaska are larger than France in land size. If the US broke apart, California and Texas would take 2 slots in the top 10 world economies (by GDP) with NY at 11 and Florida behind…

I get what you're saying: stuff in the USA tend to be on the large side, but that's not what makes a country. The USA speaks more or less one language. In Europe, English is literally only spoken in UK. Other countries speak different languages and it is in fact very rare for two countries to speak the same language.

Moreover, USA have their supreme leader and (the former) constitution. In Europe, each country has their own parliamentary setup, presidents/ministers, their own legislature, fiscal politics, etc.

Of course someone from USA is of the opinion that Europe is some small homogenous entity, while each us state is unique in its own way, that's not at all surprising.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about "Reddit ignorance" as I don't use it except for a couple programming languages. But I understand the argument/point trying to be made. Many states in the US are as large as countries in Western Europe. Both Texas and Alaska are larger than France in land size. If the US broke apart, California and Texas would take 2 slots in the top 10 world economies (by GDP) with NY at 11 and Florida behind…

I get what you're saying: stuff in the USA tend to be on the large side, but that's not what makes a country. The USA speaks more or less one language. In Europe, English is literally only spoken in UK. Other countries speak different languages and it is in fact very rare for two countries to speak the same language. Moreover, USA have their supreme leader and (the former) constitution. In Europe, each country has th…

It's not only about language. Many are English as a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language in Europe. There are hundreds of languages spoken in the US, as in Europe. And if one doesn't look too closely the EU can remind one of the US, particularly with the Schengen Area.

And to be fair, our Supreme Leader is also getting away with being Supreme Leader by proxy of western European states that keep capitulating to his whims on specific things; our hell is their hell. US states ave their own equivalent of parliamentary setup, presidents/ministers, their own legislature, fiscal politics, etc. In some states women have bodily autonomy, in others they are a miscarriage away from being suspected criminal.

> Of course someone from USA is of the opinion that Europe is some small homogenous entity, while each us state is unique in its own way, that's not at all surprising.

If you are suggesting that is my view, then you completely misread what I wrote.

Americans seeing each state as its own little country neatly grouped together in a geographical region does not equal Americans seeing Europe as a single country. I was pointing out why the individual states can be comparable to individual countries in Europe based on size, population, laws and economies.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#120
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, maybe it was just the amount and variety of peptobismol products that I noticed were for sale everywhere. For example just in the Hotel where I was staying, they had a bunch chewable peptobismol gummy bears + the ordinary bottles for sale.

> maybe it was just the amount and variety of peptobismol products that I noticed were for sale everywhere. Just wait until you see the breakfast cereal aisle

Or the chips/pretzels aisle which is often different from the cookies aisle which is often different from the candy and chocolate aisle…
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