What is the US behind on? Access to healthcare, maternal mortality rate, access to abortion, minimum wages, paid time off, public transport, walkable cities, ...
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery”
edit: anyone downvoting me really needs to use one of their 5 llm subs and ask what america is ahead on atm
Europe is going bed, have your fun with the karma
Pretty much every one of these is a boring example. Abortion access is a debatable topic, most people who want public transit want it so they can get OTHER people off the road, lots of major cities have both public transit and walkability, many states and cities have significantly higher minimum wages, etc.
None of these are things most Americans are absolutely clamoring for - you just want to live in Europe without moving there.
Well, maybe the concept of free healthcare.
> Abortion access is a debatable topic
It's a simple debate though, one we can speedrun:
Objections to abortion access are rooted in religious concerns.
The first amendment guarantees separation of church and state.
Birth control of all sorts are the best method of reducing generational poverty.
It is also medically necessary in some cases to save the life of the mother, especially in the case of a non-viable fetus.
QED: If you don't like abortion, don't get one. It has multiple societal benefits.
This is simply false. You don't have to be religious to be against killing babies. Many non-religious people find it barbaric.
Why? Because treating a fertilized egg or a fetus as the same thing as a baby is rooted in religion. 13% is few not many.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
> This is simply true.
FTFY
Opinion polls are very easy to game by phrasing questions differently. Ask people at what number of weeks is it ok to crush a growing baby (fetus) into pieces and vacuum it out, and you will get a wildly different percentage.
The easy way is the one already taken: by putting more restrictions the closer you get to the time of birth, and not at all addressing the question of when it counts as a baby. The easy way is not making that question the focus, because it inevitably leads to a discussion of "when does the soul inhabit the body" - a religious argument.
Thank you for proving my point.
Spare me the smug bullshit.
Desire for every human to be viewed as equal is rooted in religious concerns (see: divine rites of succession).
The first amendment guarantees separation of church and state.
Therefore, we should not allow people to view each other as equals.
> most people who want public transit want it so they can get OTHER people off the road
> ...studies have shown this...When did YCom commenters lose all rational thought
Again, brain rot. I’m outta here - people line you are ruining this site.
Forget free healthcare, it's about affordable healthcare. For the outcomes we get, the US has extremely expensive healthcare. Many, many other countries have better outcomes for way less money.
Get sick, can't keep up at work so you get fired, can't afford treatment because healthcare insurance is tied to employment.
You will never get well, you get evicted. Then you can decay on the streets if not jail.
Compared to Europe.
Get sick. Have real labor protections so you won't get fired, and generous benefits to keep you afloat. Get free healthcare, get well.
Sip fine wine while reading horror stories about the US healthcare system.
America is basically a giant casino. A small percentage of gamblers win, but even they are a bad roll of the dice away from destitution.
All while still having high taxes.
Crime is also drastically higher in the US. I've been to Europe and Asia. Serious crime is a fraction of what it is here.
Plus you don't need a car in most big cities.
But I guess America has more billionaires ( for now anyway).
Also, who gives a shit if you need a car or not? What is this lol
Even if I lived in Japan, I’d still have a car. You DO realize people outside of the internet occasionally enjoy cars, yeah?
And America will probably have more billionaires for ages. Hardly anyone gets that rich in Europe, and in China, all billionaires exist at the pleasure of the government and are disappeared constantly. Outside of Singapore (where you go to jail for spitting out gum), there are hardly any.
But yeah, the “for now” was definitely a cool mic drop…
The vast majority of us are a bad year away from sleeping on the streets. Just decoupling healthcare from employment would be amazing.
It happens all the time. Any serious illness will stop you from working. You then have no way to pay for treatment, and then your stuck.
Not to mention Europe is much safer by several orders of magnitude. Both the UK and France are very diverse and safe.
Cars are expensive. Try affording healthcare insurance, a car, car insurance and out of pocket medical expenses on an average income. People just skip things, drive around without insurance and ignore easily treatable illnesses.
Eventually it all falls apart.
It's a horrible system for almost everyone, but billionaires.
Like I said, America is a casino. It's fun when your winning, but very few come out ahead.
Which nation are you referring to? Broke Greece? Unemployed Spain? Walled-off Britain? No-government France? Dictator-run Turkey? Dictator-run Russia? Dictator-run Belarus? Economically-stagnated Germany? Nervous-of-invasion nordic states? Like, where is this utopia?
Ironic you bring this up as government workers are expected to work without pay during the shutdown.
France has a fraction of the crime of the US. They have plenty of immigrants.
Healthcare outcomes are significantly better.
Greece, while having less billionaires, has a significantly longer life expectancy than the US.
I guess if you're a billionaire America offers lower taxes. For everyone else it's a raw deal. The main issue is if you're poor life is hell, and it's very easy to fall off.
No country is perfect, but our healthcare system alone puts us below most developed countries.
As a bonus even if you leave the US you're still expected to pay taxes. Aside from Eritrea, no one other country does this.
Meanwhile, as far as I understand, laws only mandate unpaid leave for a limited time, and only for very serious conditions in the US.
A friend had a rough pregnancy, got fired. You can try and sue but it's expensive/stressful and you'll probably lose.
Mom and the kid are both fine years later.
Had a co worker who only took a single day off for his daughters birth as the company didn't offer any PAID family leave.
europe: live in government row-houses, watch national economy implode, drink warm beer
america: have some of the most affordable housing in the world (compared with income), watch national economy grow, sip three-buck-chuck
No hyperbole!!! therefore it's just a normal observation and not fetishization!
These things are quite apparent as a visitor: the "greatest city on earth", NYC, has a comically dirty and outdated metro system, and walking from a hotel to the nearest supermarket is basically impossible in most large cities - which are already the most walkable places.
[1] https://tcf.org/content/commentary/worsening-u-s-maternal-he...
[2] https://hellopebl.com/resources/blog/minimum-wage-by-country...
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/why-us-vacation-policies-are...
[4] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/03/why-walkable-urban-a...