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Comment by boffinAudio | Hacker News Reader

The Ruhrgebiet is a shithole. But then again, so is Florida. As is North Dakota and most of Utah. Arizona is pretty nice, but I probably think that only because of my Australian skin.

The USA is a huge shithole, and if you don't understand why anyone would think that, I have a bridge to sell you .. under which live 12 families, kids and all, who couldn't pay their medical bills after Mom/Grandpa died of cancer.

It is a very American thing to get so upset when the country is criticized. Haven't run into that in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, or Serbia. Okay, the Hungarians can match American nationalism at times, but for the most part you guys have a monopoly on incomprehensibly bone-headed nationalism occluding your view of the wonders of the rest of the world...

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I'm sorry to pile on, but flamewar comments like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30074086 are completely unacceptable on HN, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, and regardless of which country or countries you have a problem with. No more of this, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think getting upset comes from the fact that in addition to some very valid criticism, there is a tremendous amount of invalid criticism thrown towards the US. If Germany or Austria or the Netherlands were constantly being insulted on the world-stage then they would likely grow sensitive to criticism as well, even when it is occasionally valid.

Another reason could be the mindless, abject hatred you seem to have of the country. If you approached your criticisms rationally they likely would be better recieved. Instead it sounds like you're spouting what you've read on woke twitter and have left no room for compromise. Saying "The USA is a shithole" is akin to saying "Europe is a shithole". It's a blanket statement that it not unilaterally true for either. I lived in Europe myself for several years and there were things I both loved and hated. There were nice areas as well as shitty areas. After spending those years in the EU, I've come to prefer the US. You're entitled to your opinion, you're not entitled to generalize an entire country and it's population and then insult someone when they object to those generalizations.

> If Germany or Austria or the Netherlands were constantly being insulted on the world-stage

This would be a fair argument if you, as an American, weren't ignoring the fact that the USA is the worlds #1 cause of terror, war and torment - in countless other sovereign nations, whose infrastructure was torn apart so that Americans could feel good about themselves and their country.

Austrians, and Germans aren't dropping bombs on innocent people every twenty minutes. Your perception that America is unjustly criticized belies the fact that just maybe, you need to travel a bit more to see that a lot of the world is seriously fed up with America's bullshit. The point of travelling is to try to understand that a bit better, and I hope you do that. In the same way that I generalize about America being a shit-hole - Americans generalize, and then drop bombs.

>the fact that the USA is the worlds #1 cause of terror, war and torment - in countless other sovereign nations,

Pax Americana has been the most productive time in modern history. Europe's track record is objectively worse

I love that you are getting downvoted for pointing out something so objectively true no one has responded to it by other than downvoting :)

A lot of the world is also thrilled with the defense support provided to them by the US. We don't remain in countries like Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc by force. We do so because they couldn't defend themselves without us and they know it - so they request our presence. A lot of these allied nations are participating in those very wars you complain about, but naturally their involvement is usually much smaller since they lack the infrastructure to compete with the US.

When you say "a lot of the world" you really talking about a very specific subset of the world, while there is also much of the world grateful for our presence as we are the only real deterrent from NK, Russia, or China taking their country by force. Feel free to deny or say that I'm "othering" or am perpetuating a boogey-man, but there is very real data and intelligence to support these claims, I'm not just pulling it out of my ass.

Around the time of our invasion of Iraq the South Korean President of Korea criticized the Bush administration’s fixation with Iraq. A day or so later Rumsfeld announced that the U.S. would withdraw from South Korea in the coming years. Their stock market went into a downward spiral and they quickly recanted their criticisms. The U.S. has done a lot of good and a lot of bad. An Australian once said to me, “If someone is going to rule the world you could do a lot worse than having it be the U.S.”

One of the few things I liked about Trump was his statements that our allies need to spend more on defense. We should not shoulder the burden alone.

https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/evolution-of-the-u-s-rok-all...

Last I saw, France, whose army is still inflicting serious violence in West Africa with its army (albeit with the permission of the governments there), is in Europe.

Austria and Germany started the first and the second world war. Austria has a bad record of implementing and respecting laws about its minorities to this day.

We recently had a President talk about “shit hole” countries. Roughly one half of the U.S. cheered or at a minimum were passive about such a comment. I use the term “shit hole” country to refer to the U.S. partially as a joke to see Trump supporters get huffy when saying this.

For a nation to be as wealthy as we are and to be in the state we are in I think it’s fair to say the U.S. is a shit hole country. Our patriotism and propaganda blind us to this fact.

Okay, good for you, that doesn't at all change my statement. A sitting president talking about "shit hole" countries doesn't equate to constant, enduring criticism from the rest of the world. Glad you can get one over on "other side" though. It's honestly people like you who drive the division that perpetuates the bipartisanship and make it even more difficult to pass legislature that could benefit the country. Before you criticize everyone and everything else, take a look at your own behavior and see if there's anything you can do to mitigate harm at your scale.

Talk about generalizing things! You know very little about me and my little joke with using “shit hole” country is hardly a problem the country faces or is in any way perpetuating partisan divides. It’s ok to call out hypocrisy when one sees it. This is especially so when it involves our leaders.

Before you criticize everyone and everything else, take a look at your own behavior and see if there's anything you can do to mitigate harm at your scale.

I haven’t criticized everyone or everything else. I criticized the U.S. for being as wealthy as it is and being in the state it is in. It’s not a good look for you to complain about overgeneralizing and then write the above overgeneralization.

My presidential voting record:

George Bush 1992

Bob Dole 1996

Green Party 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012

Donald Trump 2016

I've lived in the US my whole life, I've been to LA once for a wedding, and I really don't see a single similarity between what's going on in LA and what's going on where I live (Northwest Arkansas).

My air is clean, my commutes are traffic free, the people here generally suck, and I have access to world class... everything, if I want it (well, maybe not transportation, but my car is nice, German even!, and I can get everywhere in it pretty easily). Because I'm wealthy, I can afford all of the things you get for free in Germany without it negatively affecting my way of life, which probably helps substantially, but that's part of America too.

I want to move to Europe from the US, everything you described is amazing, but maybe it's a shithole to you because you've only been to a few places in the US.

Hawaii is in the US. Puerto Rico, Alaska, The Everglades, Sequoia National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park; it's hard to go to those places and walk away thinking they're "shitholes".

The USA is huge. Some of it is a shithole, and where you lived for 15 years is probably closer to shithole than not, but "The USA is a huge shithole" is probably not as true as you're making it out to be here.

Oh, there are definitely beautiful places in America - just as there are beautiful places in Australia.

But the nationalist culture, the pride and arrogance, the ignorance of the cost to the rest of the world of American moral authority - this is prevalent no matter where you go in the USA.

And then, there's the social fabric. Go outside and find your nearest bum, living on the street. Get to know them and how they go there. That is a very American circumstance.

In my darker moments I tend to agree with you here, but what I then realize is that it's monumentally difficult to get a land of 330m people to agree, and when you've got a group of people that large, the worst groups will just be bigger and meaner.

My worry for you is that this reaction is a visceral one, fundamentally rooted in a dislike for America's diversity.

It's a messy process, getting everyone to work together, and we're fucking it up pretty monumentally, but to call the effort a "shithole" seems like you'd prefer the US be less diverse? Fewer disagreements would arise, but at what cost?

Germany and Austria have... less than stellar records when it comes to human rights, and aren't exactly known for their exploding levels of diversity on a national level, so perhaps the "unity" you're experiencing came at a cost? Perhaps that very cost was something that disgusted you in the US?

I wonder how a Muslim would describe living in Vienna vs. living in, say, Chicago or DC.

Germany and the US have very similar levels of foreign-born populations.[1] Austria has a much larger muslim minority as a share of the population than the US, and the same goes for Germany.[2] While US politics are certainly more divisive, it is hard for me to see how it is more diverse.[3]

Fully absent from your consideration is the fact that both Austria and Germany are part of the EU, a project in diversity maybe only outdone by the indian federal state.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

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

thanks a lot for referencing the numbers. I (German) was not aware of them being so similar.

I was wondering if this might be because most immigration in Germany is actually from more or less neighboring EU countries, and according to [1], that group accounts for 2/3 of the immigrants.

[1] Figure 2: https://www.bamf.de/DE/Themen/Forschung/Veroeffentlichungen/...

Foreign born population isn't what I said, I said diversity, which Germany has a lot less of (0.168200 in Germany compared to 0.490100 ethnic fractionalization). [0]

And EU diversity isn't anything like American diversity. Your countries are nothing like our states, our "mixing" is a lot higher.

The US has to solve problems of a kind and at a level Germany and Austria will never have to deal with. The scales just don't compare, it's laughable to even try.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...

> Because I'm wealthy, I can afford all of the things you get for free in Germany without it negatively affecting my way of life, which probably helps substantially, but that's part of America too.

As an outsider, this looks like the biggest problem in the US. The EU is no utopia, but standards of living, environment and way of life is pretty good for the "not-wealthy". In the US, it looks like you can also have a pretty damn good standard of living with a nice environment... but only if you are in the fairly wealthy minority. Which perhaps explains why there is such a focus on unobtainable "prosperity", to make it to the "other side".

Even if I can afford it, that concept of society doesn't appeal to me at all, it feels pseudo-elitist based on something that is mostly dictated by random opportunity - sorry if that sounds horrible.

It's not horrible at all, you're totally right; American society is much more stratified on wealth than the EU is.

You have to understand though, when I travel to the EU, my personal quality of life drops, because of that fact. I understand why, and I don't think any less of the EU because of it (I want to live there someday), but if you're lucky enough to be marginally wealthy in the US, it's a whole different experience, and a lot of HN users will fall into that "fairly wealthy minority".

You're not talking to the median income folks in the US if you come to HN, I would guess. But we don't have to lift a finger to get to experience all the best parts of the US, without many/any of the downsides.

> You're not talking to the median income folks in the US if you come to HN, I would guess.

True, I think there probably is another geographical difference here.

Whenever salaries are discussed on HN there appears to be one or two zeros difference compared to the median salary over here for similar jobs - only as a casual observation, I can't be sure (i.e we get paid significantly less). If it's true, I suspect this is because of the differences in income threshold for a decent standard of living, and because of certain aspects that are mostly decoupled from salary such as social health care.

Another resulting difference then, might be that on average workers of tech jobs in the EU are more likely to rub elbows with and be more relatable to people of "less prestigious" jobs - which I think is probably a good thing - I feel like I'm about to be accused of being a socialist though :P

> As an outsider, this looks like the biggest problem in the US. The EU is no utopia, but standards of living, environment and way of life is pretty good for the "not-wealthy". In the US, it looks like you can also have a pretty damn good standard of living with a nice environment... but only if you are in the fairly wealthy minority. Which perhaps explains why there is such a focus on unobtainable "prosperity", to make it to the "other side".

You're mostly right. Except the threshold for a nicer life isn't the wealthy minority. i'd hazard a guess that it's somewhere below median income i.e. i could get so much more in most of the US for the median income vs what i could get in most parts of Europe for the median income. however the bottom quarter have so many more problems here. Coincidentally this is about the amount of people struggling to afford medical care.

Personally (having lived many places) i would want to be in a much higher income quotient in Europe.

> The EU is no utopia, but standards of living, environment and way of life is pretty good for the "not-wealthy".

Romania and Bulgaria are part of the EU. Some 25-30 million people in total. Do you think the standards of living are "pretty good" for the non-wealthy Bulgarians?

If you are challenging my view as being selective I think that could be fair (if provided some statistics to combat my finger in the air analysis). I live in the UK which (was) one of the more developed members of the EU, so that probably does bias my view, and I have not visited the poorest members of the EU.

Even with this caveat, there is a difference in principle that I believe distinguishes the way of life for the less wealthy in the US compared to most of the EU. A big part of US culture seems to be something along the lines of "everyone for themselves", and "paying your own way", which neglects those not blessed with opportunity and seems to encourages larger wealth disparity. I do not believe most of the governments of the EU share this principle, but I welcome counter examples. That said, it's also not black and white: even the US borrows socialist tools to equalise such disparities where it's been proven to work best, such as public schools and libraries.

I challenge the broad generalizations and simplifications you are employing to compare highly complex and diverse populations and cultures to advance your preconceived conclusions.

Because I too can reduce this comparison to a couple of well picked numbers like say per capita GDP or number of companies in top 100 by market cap and conclude that it is EU who should borrow capitalist programs from the US, not the other way around.

But I won’t…

I was accepting to your criticism and then exploring it from a different angle. Your comment is needlessly hostile, it's not going to make me more receptive to your opinion.

Perhaps write from a place with less "preconceived conclusions" about the other commenters motives next time.

Public schools and libraries are socialistic tools now? They were a thing before Marx has even dreamt about socialism. Since you are from one of more developed ex EU member state, you could surely afford to travel to an ex communist EU member state to see for yourself (go outside of capitals) what poverty in EU looks like.

This is so far away from my original argument of "not wealthy" I don't see the point in discussing with you. What are you trying to prove? that poor people exist in the EU? of course they do.

>>Even with this caveat, there is a difference in principle that I believe distinguishes the way of life for the less wealthy in the US compared to most of the EU.

I don't think you have seen how poor people live on either side of the Atlantic and yet you believe being poor in EU is inherently better than in the USA. What is your source of information?

I am not talking about poverty

This quote nails on the head what is wrong with the USA "Because I'm wealthy". Being wealthy at the cost of providing a good society for everyone is what is wrong with America. We could have a society where people have a safety net and work/life balance, and also have wealthy people.

I grew up in Fayetteville AR watching my family struggle at multiple times... especially over health care emergencies. Ultimately this led me to leave the country. I'd recommend you take a look around your city / state and look at the damage we are doing to people who have less than us.

I'd be happy to give more if I knew it wasn't going to people like who live in Harrison (for example).

They deserve to rot in poverty for their regressive, racist views, and the hate the spews from that town and out into the rest of America.

They do so much more damage than I ever could by making a good living.

You are describing a symptom not a problem. If you give people time and space to think, for their kids not to be stuck in poverty cycles, and for them to learn that Fox news is fear based propaganda this is how things get fixed.

All Americans are stuck in a perpetual guerilla war that is American society, and until that changes nothing will change.

I used to agree with you, but I don't know if bringing people out of poverty helps them learn not to hate anymore. It's a good platitude, but it's not what I've observed here in NWA.

Ya, it isn't overnight, it is a multi generational process.

I think that most progress in society is made through the death of the previous generation and new ideas being more accepted. It is slow but crunches on over the bones of the old. And, this is why it is so important culture/society/government get in there to break the poverty cycle, break the ignorance, teach critical thinking, etc etc etc...

> It is a very American thing to get so upset when the country is criticized.

I think this is thankfully becoming at least slightly less common, at least among educated Americans. For me at least the combination of meeting more people outside my bubble, travelling and learning more about the history of the United States has led me to a similar conclusion that you have reached.

A few weeks ago I returned to my rural Minnesota hometown to see people that had come from families that had lived there multiple generations wearing confederate flag clothing. I wonder if they had any concept of which side their forefathers would have been fighting with back then.

In your first post you wrote: "I've gained Immense amounts of respect for humanity" yet you turn around and write this.

You were a tourist here. You lived in Los Angeles. Yet you somehow feel emboldened to call a nation of 330M+ people "A huge shithole"? And you haven't met any nationalistic Serbians? Sorry if I don't take you seriously.

>I've completely lost the brain-dead nationalist mentality that had infected me in my earlier life

OP seems to deal in intense absolutes

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Florida had the highest net migration in the US both domestically and internationally. Here's the census data for 2021:

The largest net domestic migration gains were in Florida (220,890), Texas (170,307) and Arizona (93,026).

Florida (38,590), Texas (27,185) and New York (18,307) had the largest population gains from net international migration.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/2021-pop...

Florida is a shithole? You spend too much time on the internet. Florida man is a literal meme that came about because of laws that all state collected data should be publicly available causing the media to get most of its fun crime stories from the very large population there. You realize that a large portion of the richest Americans chose to move there for their retirement? Very large swaths of southern Florida contain some of the most modern and amenity rich sections of the WORLD. Not accessible to the average citizen of course, but then again Luxembourg isn't well known for its accessibility either. We are so much more alike than we are different.

>You realize that a large portion of the richest Americans chose to move there for their retirement?

Yes of course, making it a shithole for those who didn't.

I was going to write exactly this. Florida is the proverbial city on a hill for its progressive crime transparency policies. I'm tired of the ignorant fools giving it a bad name because they're going to drag down a very healthy policy with them.

I'm convinced that other states and countries try to smear Florida because they're terrified what would happen if they themselves had the bravery to commit to Florida's level of governmental transparency.

https://uwf.edu/go/legal-and-consumer-info/florida-sunshine-...

How do you consider it “progressive” that Florida makes it easy to publicly shame people in the press for their transgressions?

Most of the time it’s just punching downwards.

I think my link above would be very helpful for you. It's not just about crime transparency, which is something that virtually every state signaled support for in 2020. It's every governmental activity including university meetings.

You know it's working because people get caught trying to circumvent it[0]. The Attorney General hates it[1]. Without it, we wouldn't know about former governor candidate Andrew Gillum being a methhead[2]. I can't confirm this but I'm fairly sure we only know about the expired COVID tests because of this law[3].

I simply encourage you to educate yourself on Florida and to understand that their openness is something to be lauded, not feared or mocked.

[0]https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/01/07/2-...

[1]https://flaglerlive.com/95717/sunshine-law-snyder/

[2]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrew-gillum-found-at-scene-of...

[3]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/desantis-conf...

Of those, the only thing I see as being actually significantly beneficial to the public would be the story about expired Covid tests.

Knowing that a former gubernatorial candidate is/was a meth head isn’t a crowning achievement.

Gillum very likely would have run this year if he hadn't been caught like that.

In Florida, six-year-old children live in tents:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/florida-affordable-h...

I get it that Floridians don't want a nanny state, but this kind of thing is why the below-median lifestyle in the state looks like a shithole from a European POV.

The fact that the 1% is so well-off makes the picture look even worse.

He's not upset. He just wishes for a more mature level of discourse. Your inability to understand that makes you someone not really worth engaging with.

edit: Now that I think about it your mentality fits very well with someone from Vienna, you've integrated well.

If "most of Utah" is on your shithole list, then I question your honesty on having visited.

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