How Asia Makes The U.S. Look Like A Third World Country | Hacker News Reader

How Asia Makes The U.S. Look Like A Third World Country

businessinsider.com

16 pointsAjJi14 comments

Ok, here's my first person experience. Anecdotal, take it with whatever grain of salt you wish. I want to state up front that I love living in the US, I love the outdoors here in particular, and I'm happy to be back. But...

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After over a decade in Asia my wife and I moved back to the US to have our second child.

Our first child was born in Hong Kong. There we had weekly ultrasounds by one of the most experienced doctors there (a real master of both the machine and reading of the results). Minimal cost which we paid for ourselves (about USD80 per session). This was, notably, a private clinic, not public.

For our second baby, in the US, we've had precisely two. They cost over USD400 each.

The ultrasounds we had in HK were spitting out 3D imaging for us, detailed sonograms, etc. In the US we got a couple of standard ultrasound printouts and a "thumbs up".

(note: I don't care whether we need a weekly or not, the point is that the basic level of attention and care was much higher in HK... the ultrasounds are just one of many examples of this.)

And the US airports? Not third world yet, but they are often decrepit (LA) and invariably inefficient compared to the majority I've been in elsewhere (HK easily has a better airport than anywhere in the US).

Cell phone coverage still sucks here. The whole subsidized mobile phone industry is a drag on the market.

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What is better about the US? Try ordering anything online... easy, delivery is fast, no customs hang-ups. I love logistics in the US. The US iTunes store has a better selection of movies, tv, music than any international iTunes store. Same for most media sales online.

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It's not so much one thing (airports, health care, etc.) as all these little things combined. Where did the US that believes in excellence go? It was here when I left, I swear. I want the US to be better than this. I want us to excel in our transportation and communications infrastructure, our health care.

Sure, we're not the third world, but our first world systems and services are looking pretty shoddy lately.

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(edit: I wanted to add that most of the examples in the article are ridiculous and for the most part poor comparison for the us... the taxis in singapore are cool but you can do a lot of cool stuff if you entire country is a small, paved city controlled by a small cabal of efficient, commerce minded technocrats. The health care, airport and telecoms examples I find more relevant.)

Just because they've built a few modern airports in Asia does not mean the US is suddenly a 'third world country'.

Reporters: Do us all a favor and once you get over oo-ing and ah-ing at the airport (which is the FIRST thing you see) take some time to actually live somewhere in Asia before writing and publishing crap like this.

Shiny airports and soy-sauce filled chopsticks do not a modern country make.

Regarding these comparisons I am always tempted to refer to the: law of the handicap of a head start [1]. America being (many times) on the forefront of (partial) technology adoption; gets also the legacy backslash when technology advances. I don't believe there are easy solutions to this.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_handicap_of_a_head_s...

This is kind of funny. I'm going to just say that this is pretty one-sided. One example is the traffic heat-map. Anyone who has an iPhone in the US has a far superior solution to this problem. In addition, although japan has some awesome toilettes, it also has some very un-awesome toilets that lack seats and require squatting. These kinds of toilets are not to be found in the US.

I protest! In places where folks squat for the toilet their whole lives, adults actually maintain the strength and flexibility to squat, whereas we soft types lose it.

Touche

Some people who are used to squatting toilet would squat on seated toilets. Sitting down feels too weird for them.

With less body contact, it's probably more hygienic as well.

iirc, squatting is the best position for humans for this activity.

(You can probably work out why; something to do with the lack of toilets at some point in history)

And who developed the 350+ mph train?

Silly article

The U.S. is a second-world country, but it's not Asia's fault. China had nothing to do with the emergence of tent cities.

We have more in common with Brazilian society (high economic inequality, corruption) than with Europe at this point.

An invariant across societies is that when the value of land and real estate becomes high (relative to incomes) the culture and civic values are in decline, and there's serious risk of a reversion to feudalism. This is why it was obvious in the late '90s that our society was in decline. The question is whether we can reverse the bleeding and get on the right track.

You use a very solid metric with respect to "the value of land and real estate [...] (relative to incomes)", but how do you measure "the decline of culture and civic values"?

Obviously, it's more subjective. That said, the fact that X is directly measurable while Y is slightly subjective does not mean that an X:Y connection isn't worth discussing.

When real estate is expensive, it means that (1) past wealth is being valued highly against present labor and future potential (e.g. talent) and (2) that the wrong people are winning. It's a really bad sign; it signifies that a society is past its prime, and will fall into feudalism if changes do not occur.

> An invariant across societies is that when the value of land and real estate becomes high (relative to incomes) the culture and civic values are in decline

Umm, the value of land and real estate is high relative to incomes only in a few places in the US. In large areas of the US, land and real estate is very inexpensive.

The US is not its coastal population centers.

In the areas with cheap real estate, this is because incomes are low.

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