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On January 12 2018 15:43 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2018 15:15 Mohdoo wrote:On January 12 2018 15:05 Gahlo wrote:On January 12 2018 14:21 TheLordofAwesome wrote:On January 12 2018 07:59 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Someone finally said it.
We are the shithole country. Are you kidding me? Ever seen the millions of people living in shanties in Africa without even basic plumbing? Did you know that 60% of Cape Town, the richest city in the richest country in Africa, is composed of those kind of shanties? Every house and hotel and apartment building and school in that city is surrounding by walls topped with barbed wire. And, again, this is the wealthiest city in Africa. 30k a year would be a dream come true for any of those people. It would mean decent food, housing, and a flush toilet. Apples and Oranges. Of first world countries, which is often decried as being the best one, the USA is a shitty one. From the perspective of someone working in chemistry, no country really even comes close to the USA. Do we live longer? No Do we have better health care? No Are we happier? No Is our education better? Nooooooooooooooooooo I kinda want to know what is it that the USA does so much better than everyone else? We have a large economy but that does not really benefit most people involved in it. We work FAR more hours but thats probably part of why life expectancy is lower.
Pretty sure your education is the envy of the world, along with your engineering programs, top end health care etc People aren't emigrating out to other places in the world just for their universities, at least not like they are in America.
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On January 12 2018 16:03 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2018 15:43 Adreme wrote:On January 12 2018 15:15 Mohdoo wrote:On January 12 2018 15:05 Gahlo wrote:On January 12 2018 14:21 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Are you kidding me? Ever seen the millions of people living in shanties in Africa without even basic plumbing? Did you know that 60% of Cape Town, the richest city in the richest country in Africa, is composed of those kind of shanties? Every house and hotel and apartment building and school in that city is surrounding by walls topped with barbed wire. And, again, this is the wealthiest city in Africa. 30k a year would be a dream come true for any of those people. It would mean decent food, housing, and a flush toilet. Apples and Oranges. Of first world countries, which is often decried as being the best one, the USA is a shitty one. From the perspective of someone working in chemistry, no country really even comes close to the USA. Do we live longer? No Do we have better health care? No Are we happier? No Is our education better? Nooooooooooooooooooo I kinda want to know what is it that the USA does so much better than everyone else? We have a large economy but that does not really benefit most people involved in it. We work FAR more hours but thats probably part of why life expectancy is lower. Pretty sure your education is the envy of the world, along with your engineering programs, top end health care etc People aren't emigrating out to other places in the world just for their universities, at least not like they are in America.
If you can afford any of that. Of course, 98% can't, so it's kind of a moot point.
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Is that really America? No one can afford anything, everything left over sucks?
Sounds depressing.
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Not sure if you're sarcastic or not. A bell should've rung when you were talking about top end health care.
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Health insurance is not impossible to afford for 98% of the population, the engineering programs in America result in the greatest intellectual and technological throughput around the world, and your universities are a thing to behold. I don't understand the fascination with acting like it's a third world country. At most you could say its overall the worst of the very best, which is an excellent place to be.
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On January 12 2018 16:20 bo1b wrote:
Health insurance is not impossible to afford for 98% of the population, the engineering programs in America result in the greatest intellectual and technological throughput around the world, and your universities are a thing to behold. I don't understand the fascination with acting like it's a third world country. At most you could say its overall the worst of the very best, which is an excellent place to be.
Health insurance barely exists in the US, and the shitty version that does exist is constantly in question/under fire (hell, your presidential candidates RAN on removing it and got elected). Yeah, i suppose it's better than health insurance in syria, but the fuck are you even talking about? Ever seen actual health care? That's what is argued here, compared to other first world countries. What you meant to say is "the US has the best medical facilities", and for many fields that's true. As joe average you don't have access to these.
Same with education. Education in the US is a joke, that's why so many americans study in europe. Yeah, the US has a few prestigious universities, Harvard immediately springs to mind. You know, a university that is a pipe dream for 99% of americans (not to mention, things like Oxford exist too). Your universities aren't "a thing to behold", they're a thing making sure that you start your life with a 100k and more debt.
Of course the US isn't a third world country, and it's a great country to live in if you're a billionaire, but for joe average, in the developed world, it's the least desirable. No (proper) public transport, the worst(!) health care in the developed world, education that throws you into debt above both ears (and that's completely ignoring the stuff that comes BEFORE university, public schools are great i heard), and so on.
All things that are worse for a billionaire in almost all of europe, but considerably better for everyone else.
That's not being said that other countries are Utopia, btw. Other countries have problems too, but generally people acknowledge them, rather than beating their chests screaming how great their country is for no actual reason. In fact, people like you and Mohdoo are part of the problem: if everything is great, nothing has to change.
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I don't think we will agree on this topic, lets just leave it at that.
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On January 12 2018 16:34 bo1b wrote:
I don't think we will agree on this topic, lets just leave it at that.
Yeah, hard to argue with someone who beats his chest and argues that the worst health care in the developed world is "top end".
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I think you've confused affordable with worst.
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The General results the US healthcare system delivers are the worst among first world countries, especially for cost.
Why do you even argue this?
I guess you confused "best that money can buy" with "good". A common theme, the same logic is used when defending the US education system.
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On January 12 2018 16:03 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2018 15:43 Adreme wrote:On January 12 2018 15:15 Mohdoo wrote:On January 12 2018 15:05 Gahlo wrote:On January 12 2018 14:21 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Are you kidding me? Ever seen the millions of people living in shanties in Africa without even basic plumbing? Did you know that 60% of Cape Town, the richest city in the richest country in Africa, is composed of those kind of shanties? Every house and hotel and apartment building and school in that city is surrounding by walls topped with barbed wire. And, again, this is the wealthiest city in Africa. 30k a year would be a dream come true for any of those people. It would mean decent food, housing, and a flush toilet. Apples and Oranges. Of first world countries, which is often decried as being the best one, the USA is a shitty one. From the perspective of someone working in chemistry, no country really even comes close to the USA. Do we live longer? No Do we have better health care? No Are we happier? No Is our education better? Nooooooooooooooooooo I kinda want to know what is it that the USA does so much better than everyone else? We have a large economy but that does not really benefit most people involved in it. We work FAR more hours but thats probably part of why life expectancy is lower. Pretty sure your education is the envy of the world, along with your engineering programs, top end health care etc People aren't emigrating out to other places in the world just for their universities, at least not like they are in America.
Our colleges are the envy of the world, our actual pre college education is AWFUL. Every time US students are compared to the rest of the world the US does awful. We spend more for education and get less.
As with most things in the US once you get past the parts most people experience and focus only on the absolute top that most do not get to the US does amazing, its just the average citizen will never get to experience the same quality and are stuck with quality that lags behind the rest of the developed world.
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Because the person who came last in the Olympic 100 meter sprint is still really quick? In a comparison of nations, America ranks highly for very good reasons.
And they're not just available to the local billionaire, nor is it just a great country to live in if you are a billionaire. I also don't even live in America, though I have, and by the sounds of things m4ni doesn't either, so this is a pointless discussion.
Trump did not run on completely removing health care, that is a ludicrous reduction of what he ran on. There is a reason that healthcare is being argued over all across America, even if I think they could solve an enormous amount of their problems by adopting other models.
I'm not even saying it's perfect by the way, I'm saying that perpetuating this stereotype of things sucking in America is shitty.
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Stop making things perpetually suck in America to extract another buck from the people on the bottom to go to the people on the top and the stereotype might go away eventually. But as it stands we're the trailer park of the civilized world.
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On January 12 2018 17:38 bo1b wrote:
Because the person who came last in the Olympic 100 meter sprint is still really quick? In a comparison of nations, America ranks highly for very good reasons.
And they're not just available to the local billionaire, nor is it just a great country to live in if you are a billionaire. I also don't even live in America, though I have, and by the sounds of things m4ni doesn't either, so this is a pointless discussion.
Trump did not run on completely removing health care, that is a ludicrous reduction of what he ran on. There is a reason that healthcare is being argued over all across America, even if I think they could solve an enormous amount of their problems by adopting other models.
I'm not even saying it's perfect by the way, I'm saying that perpetuating this stereotype of things sucking in America is shitty.
Yes America has better education for the masses then 3rd world countries but of the 1st world countries (literally never used that phrase before) it is the worst. You cannot fix a problem without admitting its existence. The problem is that in America we pay the most (though not the most relatively which could be a problem in and of itself) and the get the least bang for our buck, just like with healthcare the amount invested is not translating to quality.
When you have access to all the resources that America does including a higher education system that is the envy of the world there is no sane reason the "lower" education systems should be struggling as much as they are.
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Just think about this bo1b: I pay 20 euro's per month to have full dental; hospital and general health insurance. I get payed to get higher education if me (depending if I'm independent or not) or my parents fall under a certain income threshold and if they don't, well, it's still not going to put them or myself in debt.
We have a very dense public transportation net, yet our roads are quite bad (probably the most densely ridden roads in Europe though so idk..)
Our internet connections are, although quite monopolized, really great overall.
I think Belgium/Netherlands/France/Germany and Scandinavian countries are the best in the world to live because we've invested so much in social netting in the past.
Just to put things a little in perspective.
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Useless trivia: I think it bears mentioning that 1st world, 2nd world and 3rd world doesn't actually refer to economy in its original definition. Merely to whether or not you aligned with NATO, USSR, or neither during the cold war. Finland and Sweden are two examples of third world countries which none of us would usually consider third world as the term has since come to (loosely) relate to economic performance.
EDIT: Wiki-link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
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On January 12 2018 17:38 bo1b wrote:
Because the person who came last in the Olympic 100 meter sprint is still really quick? In a comparison of nations, America ranks highly for very good reasons.
And they're not just available to the local billionaire, nor is it just a great country to live in if you are a billionaire. I also don't even live in America, though I have, and by the sounds of things m4ni doesn't either, so this is a pointless discussion.
Trump did not run on completely removing health care, that is a ludicrous reduction of what he ran on. There is a reason that healthcare is being argued over all across America, even if I think they could solve an enormous amount of their problems by adopting other models.
I'm not even saying it's perfect by the way, I'm saying that perpetuating this stereotype of things sucking in America is shitty.
Your comment about sprinters gave me this thought:
I don't really think that any one doubts that America can produce some Great People and Things. Like Nasa or Apple.
But I think that the issue is that the system that allows this kind of exceptional individual achievements also is pretty awful on aggregate.
When you take this on aggregate, the US falls behind on a lot of areas. Infant mortality, math... etc.
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I think, just like other definitions, the mentioning of first - second and third world countries have evolved past that and have more to do with development now. It already had that meaning for me when I was 10 years old. I kind of imagine it being the same for many people posting here.
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New York City’s decision to sever ties with its fossil fuel investments is set to prove a catalyst to other cities in the face of the Trump administration’s staunch support for coal, oil and gas interests, according to several leading economists.
On Wednesday, city officials announced that New York was to divest its pension funds of about $5bn in fossil fuel-linked money over the next five years. New York’s total pension fund for its teachers, firefighters and other city workers is worth about $189bn.
Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor, also revealed the city is suing the world’s largest oil and gas companies over their role in knowingly creating dangerous global warming in a two-pronged assault that he said is aimed at “standing up for future generations”.
Economists said the status of New York as a financial and cultural giant would probably spur other cities in the US and worldwide to divest and, more significantly, build momentum in the global shift required to reduce emissions and stave off the worst consequences of climate change.
“This is a really big deal,” said Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at New York’s Columbia University and special adviser to the UN secretary general. “Pension funds of other major US cities will follow, I think. New York is the neighborhood of the very big money managers. It’s a powerful, personal signal to them that they cannot keep funding the sorts of projects they have in the past.”
New York will be the first of the US’s largest cities to divest and has jostled to the forefront of a group of global metropolises that have committed to ridding themselves of fossil fuel stocks, including Paris, Berlin, Sydney and Stockholm.
In November, the Norwegian central bank, which runs the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, proposed dumping shares in oil and gas companies. Dozens of other institutions, ranging from Oxford University to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, have also joined a movement that activists say is worth $6tn in divestments or avoided investments.
“The divestment movement is active and growing and by its nature, New York will play a big leadership role,” said Sachs. “New York hosts Wall Street, the UN and the US media, it will now be the centre of climate action too. Even with Trump turning the keys over to the oil and gas industry, it’s clear that if you make egregious decisions you won’t get away with it.”
The divestment itself will be brushed off by major fossil fuel companies but could help galvanize political action even as the Trump administration peels away environmental regulations and throws open more US land and waters to drilling and mining.
“Divestment isn’t about economically punishing businesses, it’s a tool of collective action that can politically isolate companies,” said Paul Ferraro, an economist at John Hopkins University.
“New York is fabulous in this respect because it’s so visible and it gives others room to create change. But it will only work if everyone follows, much like how everyone has to reduce their electricity use collectively for it to have a consequence for climate change.”
New York’s move on climate isn’t without its critics – environmentalists have complained about De Blasio’s opposition to congestion charging for vehicles and his own frequent car trips to the gym.
Rightwing groups and business interests are also opposed. Linda Kelly, senior vice-president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said the plan was an “absurd attempt to politicize natural disasters, rather than a good-faith effort at securing meaningful change”.
The deep divisions over climate change in US politics, along with the continued strength of major fossil fuel companies, has tempered the enthusiasm even of those in favor of divestment and action to reduce emissions.
“The big oil and gas companies still have a long way to go and a lot of money to make,” said Ferraro. “When you look at the stock prices, it’s hard to believe that fossil fuels are facing imminent doom, as predicted by various environmentalists.”
Source
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On January 12 2018 19:45 Uldridge wrote:
I think, just like other definitions, the mentioning of first - second and third world countries have evolved past that and have more to do with development now. It already had that meaning for me when I was 10 years old. I kind of imagine it being the same for many people posting here.
Yes - I also noted that in my explanation. It just came up in a pub-quiz the other night and seeing it now in this thread I figured I would share that, by all other accounts, useless piece of trivia so that others might win a pint at some point.
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EPT
