4 ms·

> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low st

> What's your excuse, USA? Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? It turns out there are many different dimensions of development, and just like many countries, the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues.

markdown 8y ago
> Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail. > What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. > the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues. And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have loads of problems. So I'm not sure what your point is with democracy and the space program. As for "powerful", I also don't see how that's relevant. China is extremely powerful, and Switzerland is not powerful at all. However I would bet my life that a greater fraction of Swiss than Chinese people have access to sick leave. Yes, the US is prosperous in some ways, and not in others. > And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is. Actually that was the point of my entire post. Everything else in the post was an illustration of that point. Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions. So it doesn't make sense to reason as though "the US" made some sort of irrational bad decision to be a shitty country where people can't take the day off of work. It doesn't make decisions at all in the way a human being does. It's an emergent system with no mind of its own and must be understood as such.
  - benj111 8y ago
    "Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions" You made a similar point in your reply to me, but you've made it better here, so I'll reply here. The US is a human construct, just like any other nation. And part of 'The US' is its people, its citizens. You can't divorce the country from the people that make it. It does have willpower, it does have feelings, it does have emotions. As an example take a look at the countries reaction to 9/11. There was a reaction, which seems to disprove your theory, I would go further and say it was quite a human reaction.
- kortilla 8y ago
  You missed the larger point. A token offering of “5 days for rugby” is irrelevant if the rest of the economy is shit. You might claim that more government mandated PTO has no impact on the economy, but that’s not been established in any facts you presented.
  - markdown 8y ago
    > You missed the larger point. A token offering of “5 days for rugby” is irrelevant if the rest of the economy is shit. No you did. A worker who needs to stay home a few days to care for a sick child or parent will consider this a blessing, regardless of how shit the rest of the economy is, how low wages are.
benj111 8y ago
Unless you're suggesting causation between barely above 3rd world status, and having family days off I'm not sure what your point is? Richer countries tend to (or should?) have nicer things, its reasonable to ask why one of the richest doesn't have something that much poorer countries do.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  How are you defining "rich" ? Having high quality of life like easy access to childcare, sick leave and vacation time from work, etc., is part of being a rich country, or more precisely, a developed country. So your argument amounts to "rich countries should be rich", which is circular. If by "rich" you mean GDP per capita as opposed to development, I don't think it's a great metric -- there are plenty of countries with horrible, oppressive regimes that have a high GDP per capita. There are many low- or middle-income countries that I would rather live in than the "rich" UAE or Saudi Arabia, for example. Also, how are you defining "should" ? Doesn't that imply some capacity for moral reasoning, or at least willpower? The US has neither -- it is not a person and it has no mind of its own. Saying the US "should" do something is like saying a hurricane "should" avoid my house. It'd be nice if it did, but it sounds a bit odd to put it that way.
  - benj111 8y ago
    I'm defining rich in this context as the US, as that was the developed nation we were talking about. You will note that despite the US being richer than most developed nations, it has poorer benefits like you highlighted [1], compared to those other developed nations. So I fail to see how that is circular, if the richer country has less of those things. [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730947/Americans-paid-vacation-time-world-countries-enjoy-FORTY-days-year.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730947/Americans-p... Edit: To answer your 2 additional paragraphs: "Richer countries tend to (or should?)" There is a correlation (tend to), but there are exceptions as you have identified, so to avoid getting bogged down in arguments like this, I added the parenthetical. I then added a question mark because I am aware its attempting to impose ethics on something amoral. I will attempt to hedge my statements even more in the future.

markdown 8y ago

> Well, what's Fiji's excuse for being "barely above 'third world' status" ? Well there's a very long list of reasons starting from geographic isolation to brain drain (incl. to the USA) all the way up to military coups, but I doubt that was a serious question so there's no point me answering your question in any great detail. > What makes you think it's normal for Fiji to have low standards of development, but it's an aberration for the USA? See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. > the US ranks poorly on some of those dimensions, due to extremely complicated and maybe intractable political and cultural issues. And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is.

umanwizard 8y ago
> See above for why Fiji has low standards of development. In comparison, USA is the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth and has been for over a century. You've enjoyed democracy for almost 250 years. You've been to the moon. Democracy and space programs are two dimensions of development, but certainly not the whole story. India is a democracy, and Russia has an advanced space program. Both countries have loads of problems. So I'm not sure what your point is with democracy and the space program. As for "powerful", I also don't see how that's relevant. China is extremely powerful, and Switzerland is not powerful at all. However I would bet my life that a greater fraction of Swiss than Chinese people have access to sick leave. Yes, the US is prosperous in some ways, and not in others. > And at last after the defensive stuff is out of the way, we see an attempt at an answer, abstract and hand-wavy though it is. Actually that was the point of my entire post. Everything else in the post was an illustration of that point. Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions. So it doesn't make sense to reason as though "the US" made some sort of irrational bad decision to be a shitty country where people can't take the day off of work. It doesn't make decisions at all in the way a human being does. It's an emergent system with no mind of its own and must be understood as such.
- benj111 8y ago
  "Let me make another point. The US isn't a person; it doesn't have willpower, feelings, or emotions" You made a similar point in your reply to me, but you've made it better here, so I'll reply here. The US is a human construct, just like any other nation. And part of 'The US' is its people, its citizens. You can't divorce the country from the people that make it. It does have willpower, it does have feelings, it does have emotions. As an example take a look at the countries reaction to 9/11. There was a reaction, which seems to disprove your theory, I would go further and say it was quite a human reaction.
kortilla 8y ago
You missed the larger point. A token offering of “5 days for rugby” is irrelevant if the rest of the economy is shit. You might claim that more government mandated PTO has no impact on the economy, but that’s not been established in any facts you presented.
- markdown 8y ago
  > You missed the larger point. A token offering of “5 days for rugby” is irrelevant if the rest of the economy is shit. No you did. A worker who needs to stay home a few days to care for a sick child or parent will consider this a blessing, regardless of how shit the rest of the economy is, how low wages are.

benj111 8y ago

Unless you're suggesting causation between barely above 3rd world status, and having family days off I'm not sure what your point is? Richer countries tend to (or should?) have nicer things, its reasonable to ask why one of the richest doesn't have something that much poorer countries do.

umanwizard 8y ago
How are you defining "rich" ? Having high quality of life like easy access to childcare, sick leave and vacation time from work, etc., is part of being a rich country, or more precisely, a developed country. So your argument amounts to "rich countries should be rich", which is circular. If by "rich" you mean GDP per capita as opposed to development, I don't think it's a great metric -- there are plenty of countries with horrible, oppressive regimes that have a high GDP per capita. There are many low- or middle-income countries that I would rather live in than the "rich" UAE or Saudi Arabia, for example. Also, how are you defining "should" ? Doesn't that imply some capacity for moral reasoning, or at least willpower? The US has neither -- it is not a person and it has no mind of its own. Saying the US "should" do something is like saying a hurricane "should" avoid my house. It'd be nice if it did, but it sounds a bit odd to put it that way.
- benj111 8y ago
  I'm defining rich in this context as the US, as that was the developed nation we were talking about. You will note that despite the US being richer than most developed nations, it has poorer benefits like you highlighted [1], compared to those other developed nations. So I fail to see how that is circular, if the richer country has less of those things. [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730947/Americans-paid-vacation-time-world-countries-enjoy-FORTY-days-year.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730947/Americans-p... Edit: To answer your 2 additional paragraphs: "Richer countries tend to (or should?)" There is a correlation (tend to), but there are exceptions as you have identified, so to avoid getting bogged down in arguments like this, I added the parenthetical. I then added a question mark because I am aware its attempting to impose ethics on something amoral. I will attempt to hedge my statements even more in the future.