Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are? • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by pelemele » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #180

bepotts wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don't have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is. I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and traini…

> I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is. No, that's just a byproduct of being wealthy -- which is a byproduct of starting with looting a huge plot of land, not being left devastated by 2 world wars (420K Americans died in WWII, for contrast millions of people died in European countries each with 1/5 to 1/20th the population of the US), not…

...most innovations were coming from Europe...

Not too many people know about Operation Paperclip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip) and what it meant for NASA and space race (Wernher von Braun was chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the key instrument in getting man to the moon)

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

#292

Post by Delmania » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #123

0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we convince people if they kill themselves for corporate, they'll get a minuscule slice of money from the top. American dream and all that. At least people in Europe have hobbies.

Most Americans enjoy a level of live that Most Europeans can only dream of. Large cars, very large houses, every product they buy is at least 20 to 30% cheaper, they have access to the latest technologies... the list goes on and on. Hobbies do not make up for the lack of opportunities.

You define success in terms of houses, cars, and tech gadgets? This is in view of widening wealth gap and increased isolation, depression, and an opioid epidemic. Meanwhile people in Europe have less stressful lives and enjoy hobbies and relationships. I think I’d prefer having a smaller house, last year’s tech, and smaller car with more friends and neighbors than being isolated in my McMansion.

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

#293

Post by Frost1x » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

ergothus wrote: post #266

ytNumbers wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which approach is better is very difficult to objectively evaluate. There are a vast number of yardsticks you could use, and I can't see two people ever agreeing on which yardstick is the right one to judge a health care system. Since cancer is one of the top quickly fatal medical conditions, I consider the wait to get treated for cancer to be an excellent yardstick for evaluating any health care system. In this rega…

Note I didn't say "better" - I said "worse". For example, there are different voting systems, each that optimize different outcomes. Impossible to agree on the best system because we all think different goals are important. Yet despite this inability to determine the best, First Past the Post is across the board worse than the alternatives. PIck a feature people really want in their voting results, and FPTP is worse…

It's has many parallels to the fallacy of Loki's Wager: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki%27s_Wager

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

#294

Post by infinite_luck » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #289

infinite_luck wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that wikipedia page you linked, the 7000 (or 10000 since 1994) deaths are from all combined sources. The vast majority of those seem to be from exposure to the elements (for instance hypothermia is one of the most common causes of death) or accidents. If you read the part of that page that talks about Border Agents' use of force, around 17 deaths are listed, with an additional 10 left disabled. Your use of that so…

Which is no different from the landmines that "Europeans" (one country) "use" (still have them after an atrocious war) to keep migrants out. This was my point. It felt like a "whatabout" reaction and no effort was made to remove the impression that mines are actually employed with the purpose of keeping migrants out.

I understand. I wasn't supporting the person you were arguing against, just pointing out that the US Border Patrol hasn't killed thousands of migrants.

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

#295

Post by dejaime » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

First world problems meme is taking on a whole new level

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

#296

Post by eqdw » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

> Everything I consume in the States is of a vastly, abysmally lower quality. Every single thing. The food, the media, little things like fashion, art, public spaces, the emotional context, the work environment, and life in general make me less sane, happy, alive

This is more a reflection on the author than a reflection on America. There are plenty of extremely high quality things available here and it's not America's fault if OP settles for junk instead

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

#297

Post by RestlessMind » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

cribbles wrote: post #63

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…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

It is pointless to compare richest subset of Europe to the entire US. If you want to do a fair comparison, compare entire Europe to the entire US. Then we see that Europe is not that much better and so called "awesome European welfare" is not reflecting into key metrics. Just to pick two examples, if Europe provides vastly better healthcare and education for free/cheap to its citizens, why is life expectancy or unemployment rate comparable to the US?

Life expectancy: ranges between 71.5-89.4 years across European countries [1], 73.4-81.3 across US states [2]

Unemployment rate: ranges between 1-31.4% between European countries [3], 2.1-18% across US states/territories [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

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

#298

Post by tinco » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

Agustus wrote: post #279

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those more economically minded: We know that 1$ given to poverty will return the economy somewhere along $1.12, while $1 given to wealth will return the economy somewhere along $0.7. There requires no empathy to conclude that providing for our neediest appears to be economically beneficial for everyone, assuming economic growth is a good thing. I understand and accept that certain poeple do not give a damn about…

How can a dollar taken from me by the government and given to a poor person generate a positive cash flow overall? Has no one taken economics 101 when they get to government that they cannot understand the broken windows policy that Baathist put forward? Step 1. I earn money. Step 2. The government makes fallacious claim using whatever economist dujour is will to prostate themselves to the political party in need of…

You're not going to save it to start a business. You're just going to spend it on rent, products from China and a car loan. Don't pretend your socioeconomic class is better than that.

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

#299

Post by eecc » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

spoovy wrote: post #219

bepotts wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't believe the onus is on the whole to make sure the individual lives a happy life. We just don't have the collectivist culture the Europeans have. I think this is a great thing, and is why America is where most of the innovation, cultural, and political power is. I personally have lower taxes, high quality healthcare, and live in an awesome location, and I got all of that through an education and traini…

I'm European and I'd love to live in the USA; if I put the same effort in there as I have done here my quality of life would be so much better. I've worked incredibly hard all my life in the UK (and I've been successful at work -- something I have to remind myself of regularly) and it's got me practically nowhere. I'm taxed to the eyeballs (this year I'll pay approx 70% of my turnover in taxes of one sort or another)…

Well to be honest you're complaining of the UK system which in 30 years has seen Thatcherism and then Blairism bend the country's social contract into some half-baked neoliberal inferno.

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

#300

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

sacheendra wrote: post #31

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...

I'm not sure that number tells the entire story. There's certainly a positive correlation between "percentage of citizens with passports" and "cluefulness about the rest of the world" but I don't think it's a simple, linear one.

In terms of understanding another country, I'm sure we can agree that there's simply no substitute for living there, working there, and speaking the language for an extended period of time.

In a very distant second place, there's having friends, family, and colleagues in other countries. I'm middle aged and my grandparents live in the Netherlands. Unfortunately I've not been able to travel there, but I do have several decades of secondhand experience with their healthcare system so I, at the very least, know there are viable alternatives to what we have in the U.S. in terms of healthcare and lifestyle in general thanks to them and my close friends and colleagues from other countries.

In an even more distant third place, there's tourism. I wouldn't call it a waste of time, but I don't think a week or two of sightseeing and Instagramming it up teaches the traveler much about life in that country.