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As with a lot of other things, the US is simply a child. A child slowly learning what it is to be a country, a government, a society. You can see it in many a

As with a lot of other things, the US is simply a child. A child slowly learning what it is to be a country, a government, a society. You can see it in many areas, especially in ones other, more mature countries and regions, hold as vital to the public good. Health Care. Transportation. Communication. Environment. etc. Just look at how the EU governs passenger rights. None of the utter SHIT that is ok in the US would fly. Same with data privacy - look at the upcoming GDPR law and compare to what ISPs can do in the US. And look at the stick they attached to it - a fine of 4% of total, global revenue. Boy I hope Facebook and Google have their checkbooks ready. The citizen comes first, never a corporation. You can't skip a couple hundred or even a thousand years of development though. A society needs to learn its lessons, takes ages. That the US is fueled by immigrants from less developed nations does not make it easier, those lessons need to be re-learned all the time. Societal memory does not exist as it does in say, Germany.

epistasis 9y ago
I think it's important to realize that unlike the analogy of maturation from child to adult, which is typically viewed as a one-way process, a better analogy may be a pendulum that swings both ways. Let's recall that the article is saying that 40 years ago the situation was different.
- pinaceae 9y ago
  Absolutely - but the lack of societal memory and cohesion wiped out all the progress. Ultimately there is a lack of a unified societal contract, ironic in a country so focused on its constitution. What is the purpose of government, rules and society? A lot of the issues in the US stem from this lack of common ground. And I believe, at the root is poor education and a sense of me vs. the newly arrived. A constant struggle to keep your spoils and not wanting to share with new people who haven't contributed yet. The US is not a coherent country and society (yet). Still confused as to its purpose. And yes, Trump is a great symptom of this. The UK has this personality crisis right now, the empire is gone and a lot of newcomers have shaken up society. Brexit is a similar outcome. It needs to find its core, but as a conglomerate it is hard. Common traditions should help - but when the Queen dies, it will shake them up even more.
HeavenBanned 9y ago
Meh. America has free healthcare, it's just not advertised loudly. I'm in California and I have Medi-Cal - it's full healthcare and I pay for nothing out of pocket. I have no income and I'm taken care of by Uncle Sam. Not gonna hear about that on the news, though. Also - it's not impossible to have one's intelligentsia substitute for hundreds of years of existence. America does this quite brilliantly through it's brain drain from other countries and treating them like royalty (Einstein, et al). Transportation may be lacking, but for the major cities it's rather decent given the fact that our country is the size of China's. If we were as small as Japan maybe bullet trains littered across our land would be more feasible, but it's not the easy. We're attempting this in California by the way, so don't count us out yet. 1 hour between SF and LA very soon. Environment? We're doing the best we possibly can. The biggest polluters like India and China are completely ignored and they're on our scale of size. How is it fair to compare our environmental consciousness with a state as small as Denmark? How is that a fair comparison in the slightest?

epistasis 9y ago

I think it's important to realize that unlike the analogy of maturation from child to adult, which is typically viewed as a one-way process, a better analogy may be a pendulum that swings both ways. Let's recall that the article is saying that 40 years ago the situation was different.

pinaceae 9y ago
Absolutely - but the lack of societal memory and cohesion wiped out all the progress. Ultimately there is a lack of a unified societal contract, ironic in a country so focused on its constitution. What is the purpose of government, rules and society? A lot of the issues in the US stem from this lack of common ground. And I believe, at the root is poor education and a sense of me vs. the newly arrived. A constant struggle to keep your spoils and not wanting to share with new people who haven't contributed yet. The US is not a coherent country and society (yet). Still confused as to its purpose. And yes, Trump is a great symptom of this. The UK has this personality crisis right now, the empire is gone and a lot of newcomers have shaken up society. Brexit is a similar outcome. It needs to find its core, but as a conglomerate it is hard. Common traditions should help - but when the Queen dies, it will shake them up even more.

HeavenBanned 9y ago

Meh. America has free healthcare, it's just not advertised loudly. I'm in California and I have Medi-Cal - it's full healthcare and I pay for nothing out of pocket. I have no income and I'm taken care of by Uncle Sam. Not gonna hear about that on the news, though. Also - it's not impossible to have one's intelligentsia substitute for hundreds of years of existence. America does this quite brilliantly through it's brain drain from other countries and treating them like royalty (Einstein, et al). Transportation may be lacking, but for the major cities it's rather decent given the fact that our country is the size of China's. If we were as small as Japan maybe bullet trains littered across our land would be more feasible, but it's not the easy. We're attempting this in California by the way, so don't count us out yet. 1 hour between SF and LA very soon. Environment? We're doing the best we possibly can. The biggest polluters like India and China are completely ignored and they're on our scale of size. How is it fair to compare our environmental consciousness with a state as small as Denmark? How is that a fair comparison in the slightest?