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>They require some form of collective action and solidarity This is perhaps easier with Germany's population of ~60M vs. the US population of ~300M. I'm much m

>They require some form of collective action and solidarity This is perhaps easier with Germany's population of ~60M vs. the US population of ~300M. I'm much more comfortable with something like this happening at the state level because, for example, I have almost nothing in common with the people of Alabama.

igravious 9y ago
~80M† actually † source? The CIA :) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2119.html#gm https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
- ehllo 9y ago
  just to second your comment with a comparable chart(with history) (worldbank data): https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:DEU:FRA:GBR&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:DEU:USA&idim=region:NAC&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  Holy shit! The idea that it's 60M instead of 80M misses the fact that it is an order of magnitude different scale. Would it help you people if I said, Germany is 10^2M vs 10^3M? I'm I pedant, but this is ridiculous.
  - libertyEQ 9y ago
    Just to be clear: 60/300= 20% 80/300= 26% Not much of a difference, IMO. Make your case if you disagree.
rainbowmverse 9y ago
State populations are not monoliths. I live in exurban Atlanta. I have more in common with someone in Atlanta than with my neighbors. There are people who want Atlanta to break off from the rest of the state, and people further downriver who don't appreciate that Metro Atlanta has so much control over their water supply. There's no amount of division that can neatly contain a group's interests. Gerrymandered maps are an extreme example. 60m vs 300m is no more meaningful a distinction than 500k (Atlanta) vs 6m (Atlanta MSA).
- wallace_f 9y ago
  It's certainly nice that in our healthcare predicament that we can at least point to other countries and ask "what are they doing that causes them to have better healthcare outcomes and cost 1-/3 to 1/9th the price--as is the case with countries like Germany and Japan." Another example is marijuana legalization, which seriously benefits people with certain diseases and psychosis. Further, it has shown in Colorado to reduce crime and increase tax revenue. It would have been significantly delayed if the federal government imposed authority of federal law in this case. So there is a pretty compelling argument to be made that some issues seriously benefit from not being under one bureaucracy.
- mercer 9y ago
  > There's no amount of division that can neatly contain a group's interests. Gerrymandered maps are an extreme example. 60m vs 300m is no more meaningful a distinction than 500k (Atlanta) vs 6m (Atlanta MSA). While technically true, surely there's degrees of 'containing group interests'? I've been part of various groups with different sizes. Family > friends > Christian denomination (Evangelical) > Class (highly educated but very 'middle-class'), Country (The Netherlands), etc. To me it seems obvious that as the group gets larger, as well as more 'abstract', the group interest becomes vaguer and broader and less cohesive. While I don't agree that comparisons on a state-level are the right kind of abstraction (perhaps more rural versus urban?), I do think that there's a huge difference in 'contained group interests' on the level of something like 'The Netherlands' versus 'The European Union' (the 'umemployed leeches' are at least my unemployed leeches, and not brown-skinned, etc.). And while I think the USA cannot be directly compared to the EU, I do think the USA is more similar to the EU than to one particular country within it. Or at least enough so that it makes that comparison very shaky. I often find it difficult to remember this, because from the perspective of a Netflix-guzzling European the USA is a monoculture. But if the differences within the relatively small and relatively (globally speaking) homogeneous eurozone are any indication, the USA might be much less monocultural than it appears.
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  >State populations are not monoliths. I never made that claim. It is simply that state level democracies is what we have in the US. I live over 1,000 miles from my nearest relative because that is where I feel most comfortable, even though I know very few people and have no connections.
hans_mueller 9y ago
> I have almost nothing in common with the people of Alabama. seriously? you have very much in common with them. you want clean water to drink and air to breath, healthy food to eat, peace, a non-corrupt and efficient government, safety, medical infrastructure and so on ...
eatplayrove 9y ago
This is a crazy form of propaganda instilled by both sides of the political spectrum in the US. Germany's population is 82M+, and much more diverse than you think. You think you have nothing in common with someone in Alabama? At least you speak a common language and share a constitutional tradition. German unification was completed 60 years after Alabama was admitted to the union. A Schwäbisch person has as much in common culturally with an Ossie as you do with an Alabamian. This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems, because the population of the US is only comparable to few countries in population and they are not in a good position...
- JBlue42 9y ago
  >This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems, because the population of the US is only comparable to few countries in population and they are not in a good position... Thank you. I hate when people use this as a former of argument and neglect all the difficult things the country has achieved. It's an excuse for laziness and the status quo.
  - libertyEQ 9y ago
    > I hate when people use this as a former of argument and neglect all the difficult things the country has achieved. My point was it is difficult for 300M people to agree on something, and I don't know what you are talking about otherwise.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      It's difficult for two people to agree on something. See: your thread.
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  >This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems Within the US, people are able to move across states at will very easily. It is not a "straw man" in that I did not present it as argument being made by someone else. I simply do not believe in centralized power and large homogeneous populations. I have been to Alabama, and I often can not understand what they are saying whether you believe it or not.

igravious 9y ago

~80M† actually † source? The CIA :) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2119.html#gm https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

ehllo 9y ago
just to second your comment with a comparable chart(with history) (worldbank data): https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:DEU:FRA:GBR&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:DEU:USA&idim=region:NAC&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
libertyEQ 9y ago
Holy shit! The idea that it's 60M instead of 80M misses the fact that it is an order of magnitude different scale. Would it help you people if I said, Germany is 10^2M vs 10^3M? I'm I pedant, but this is ridiculous.
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  Just to be clear: 60/300= 20% 80/300= 26% Not much of a difference, IMO. Make your case if you disagree.

rainbowmverse 9y ago

State populations are not monoliths. I live in exurban Atlanta. I have more in common with someone in Atlanta than with my neighbors. There are people who want Atlanta to break off from the rest of the state, and people further downriver who don't appreciate that Metro Atlanta has so much control over their water supply. There's no amount of division that can neatly contain a group's interests. Gerrymandered maps are an extreme example. 60m vs 300m is no more meaningful a distinction than 500k (Atlanta) vs 6m (Atlanta MSA).

wallace_f 9y ago
It's certainly nice that in our healthcare predicament that we can at least point to other countries and ask "what are they doing that causes them to have better healthcare outcomes and cost 1-/3 to 1/9th the price--as is the case with countries like Germany and Japan." Another example is marijuana legalization, which seriously benefits people with certain diseases and psychosis. Further, it has shown in Colorado to reduce crime and increase tax revenue. It would have been significantly delayed if the federal government imposed authority of federal law in this case. So there is a pretty compelling argument to be made that some issues seriously benefit from not being under one bureaucracy.
mercer 9y ago
> There's no amount of division that can neatly contain a group's interests. Gerrymandered maps are an extreme example. 60m vs 300m is no more meaningful a distinction than 500k (Atlanta) vs 6m (Atlanta MSA). While technically true, surely there's degrees of 'containing group interests'? I've been part of various groups with different sizes. Family > friends > Christian denomination (Evangelical) > Class (highly educated but very 'middle-class'), Country (The Netherlands), etc. To me it seems obvious that as the group gets larger, as well as more 'abstract', the group interest becomes vaguer and broader and less cohesive. While I don't agree that comparisons on a state-level are the right kind of abstraction (perhaps more rural versus urban?), I do think that there's a huge difference in 'contained group interests' on the level of something like 'The Netherlands' versus 'The European Union' (the 'umemployed leeches' are at least my unemployed leeches, and not brown-skinned, etc.). And while I think the USA cannot be directly compared to the EU, I do think the USA is more similar to the EU than to one particular country within it. Or at least enough so that it makes that comparison very shaky. I often find it difficult to remember this, because from the perspective of a Netflix-guzzling European the USA is a monoculture. But if the differences within the relatively small and relatively (globally speaking) homogeneous eurozone are any indication, the USA might be much less monocultural than it appears.
libertyEQ 9y ago
>State populations are not monoliths. I never made that claim. It is simply that state level democracies is what we have in the US. I live over 1,000 miles from my nearest relative because that is where I feel most comfortable, even though I know very few people and have no connections.

hans_mueller 9y ago

> I have almost nothing in common with the people of Alabama. seriously? you have very much in common with them. you want clean water to drink and air to breath, healthy food to eat, peace, a non-corrupt and efficient government, safety, medical infrastructure and so on ...

eatplayrove 9y ago

This is a crazy form of propaganda instilled by both sides of the political spectrum in the US. Germany's population is 82M+, and much more diverse than you think. You think you have nothing in common with someone in Alabama? At least you speak a common language and share a constitutional tradition. German unification was completed 60 years after Alabama was admitted to the union. A Schwäbisch person has as much in common culturally with an Ossie as you do with an Alabamian. This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems, because the population of the US is only comparable to few countries in population and they are not in a good position...

JBlue42 9y ago
>This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems, because the population of the US is only comparable to few countries in population and they are not in a good position... Thank you. I hate when people use this as a former of argument and neglect all the difficult things the country has achieved. It's an excuse for laziness and the status quo.
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  > I hate when people use this as a former of argument and neglect all the difficult things the country has achieved. My point was it is difficult for 300M people to agree on something, and I don't know what you are talking about otherwise.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    It's difficult for two people to agree on something. See: your thread.
libertyEQ 9y ago
>This 300M+ logic is the perfect strawman for people who don't want to solve problems Within the US, people are able to move across states at will very easily. It is not a "straw man" in that I did not present it as argument being made by someone else. I simply do not believe in centralized power and large homogeneous populations. I have been to Alabama, and I often can not understand what they are saying whether you believe it or not.