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> Of the 11 countries with GDP per capita no more than 10% below the US's I like how you casually discard the vast swath of data that doesn't agree with you.

by pluto9 8y ago

TheCoelacanth 8y ago
I like how you casually discard the vast majority of the comment. I addressed more or less every country in the world at some point in the comment. It is not an accomplishment for the US to be doing better than a bunch of third world countries that are poor as shit because they were on the losing end of colonialism. It needs to be compared to the other comparably developed countries.
- pluto9 8y ago
  > It is not an accomplishment for the US to be doing better than a bunch of third world countries I never said it was an accomplishment, just that the U.S. is better than many countries. That was in response to a comment that was implying that the United States is somehow worse than the majority of countries period, not just developed Western nations. You shifted the conversation by arbitrarily declaring that the U.S. should only be compared to a select group of developed countries, which is not the point that I was originally arguing against. But let's go with that for a minute. I assume you're measuring stratification by the Gini coefficient, since you don't say. In that case, what you failed to mention is that the list of countries "less stratified" than the United States also includes Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, among many other decidedly unpleasant places. Your implication that some other countries are necessarily "doing it right" compared to the United States because they have a lower Gini coefficient assumes that a lower Gini coefficient is always necessarily a good thing, which is obviously false when you consider all of the data. A lower Gini coefficient does not equal a higher quality of life.

> Of the 11 countries with GDP per capita no more than 10% below the US's I like how you casually discard the vast swath of data that doesn't agree with you.

by pluto9 8y ago

> Of the 11 countries with GDP per capita no more than 10% below the US's I like how you casually discard the vast swath of data that doesn't agree with you.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

I like how you casually discard the vast majority of the comment. I addressed more or less every country in the world at some point in the comment. It is not an accomplishment for the US to be doing better than a bunch of third world countries that are poor as shit because they were on the losing end of colonialism. It needs to be compared to the other comparably developed countries.

pluto9 8y ago
> It is not an accomplishment for the US to be doing better than a bunch of third world countries I never said it was an accomplishment, just that the U.S. is better than many countries. That was in response to a comment that was implying that the United States is somehow worse than the majority of countries period, not just developed Western nations. You shifted the conversation by arbitrarily declaring that the U.S. should only be compared to a select group of developed countries, which is not the point that I was originally arguing against. But let's go with that for a minute. I assume you're measuring stratification by the Gini coefficient, since you don't say. In that case, what you failed to mention is that the list of countries "less stratified" than the United States also includes Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, among many other decidedly unpleasant places. Your implication that some other countries are necessarily "doing it right" compared to the United States because they have a lower Gini coefficient assumes that a lower Gini coefficient is always necessarily a good thing, which is obviously false when you consider all of the data. A lower Gini coefficient does not equal a higher quality of life.