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> 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 bra

> 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.

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.