Comment by helloworld11 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by helloworld11 | Hacker News Reader

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Where do people keep getting these absurd ideas about "american Individualism" being the root fault of so many problems? No, dirty cities are not caused by American individualism. They're caused by a mix of factors that can vary enormously from one place to another and are present all over the world, not just in the U.S.

Have you even traveled much across this huge and deeply diverse country? Or do you just stereotype and generalize by pulling assumptions out of thin air?

There are also many, many very clean communities in the United States, and many people or groups of people who despite loving their personal freedoms and individualism, also take community spirit very seriously in many ways. The country has been famous for this for centuries.

Goddam how simplistic some of the U.S bashing on this site can be, much of it based on incredible levels of ignorance and caricaturesque notions from people who don't even live in the country. Many of them Europeans too, who should know a bit better about avoiding stupid stereotypes and simplistic depictions of complex cultures.

The U.S also consistently happens to rank as one of the world's most charitable countries on a per capita basis (not just in total dollar value donated, though in this too it ranks in the top spot). This ranking has been noted by many sources across many years. American individualism being a terrible thing again... (Yes, sarcasm)

This statistic is highly influenced by income tier, donations to religious organisations like churches, the tax code and as a form of a social safety net that might otherwise be missing.

And none of that changes the basic fact that they tend to donate a lot of money, goods and time to charity-related projects. It's almost like saying "yes sure they donate, but it doesn't count because of this random list of reasons that I don't like".

Also, another major myth of the U.S is that social safety nets don't exist. They're not as well woven as they are in many developed countries, but they're very present and heavily funded. In fact, the single largest annual U.S federal budgetary outlay, costing trillions per year is the whole range of social support programs managed by its government (see link below).

What's more, keep in mind that managing such a thing is much harder in a country of 320 million people than it is in your average European state, of which none have a population of over 90 million (Russia excluded). The U.S social safety net could be much better, especially if spending on other things were discounted, but it's not absent or even close to it.

Also, I partly exclude military spending, because though this viewpoint won't be popular at all here, the colossal U.S defense budget works as a sort of (very flawed) global safety net for many other countries in their relations with certain neighbors.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58268

> And none of that changes the basic fact that they tend to donate a lot of money

Sure, but this can be summarised as:

It’s great that people donate tens of thousands of dollars to buy a paralysed child a wheelchair. At the same time, it’s a shame that they have to.

> Have you even traveled much across this huge and deeply diverse country?

Is this post a travel ad?

Do we pretend cities are overwhelmingly clean just because places like Dallas also exist? Are people supposed to first take selfies in NY and Philly, in Chicago, SF, LA, and Phoenix, to be permitted to say they're dirty?

Maybe on average it's not so bad, but "this place is diverse therefore the opposite is true" is worse than anecdata.

> Goddam how simplistic some of the U.S bashing on this site can be,

Nobody is bashing the states. And nobody said American individualism is all bad.

> Or do you just stereotype and generalize by pulling assumptions out of thin air?

Is individualism -> not my problem really a bad explanation? Even when people to try to explain why their hometown in the US is clean it usually starts with "no walled enclaves here/people don't live in little castles".

I think you might taking issue with the assumption that American cities are dirty in the first place, not my attempt at explaining it? It's hard to tell since most of your post is you being upset with me, making accusations, very little substance.

> "this place is diverse therefore the opposite is true"

This is an obvious strawman. The point is "this place is diverse, so any widely general statement about it is likely to be false".

I think the point of a sentence that begins with "Have you even" is to discredit me.

Excuse me for not being most charitable trying to extract meaning beyond that.

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