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Indeed. Someone recently linked to an article that does a pretty good job of going over the massive infrastructure costs[1]. The U.S. also has relatively well f

by bnralt 6y ago

Indeed. Someone recently linked to an article that does a pretty good job of going over the massive infrastructure costs[1]. The U.S. also has relatively well funded education[2]. I think many of the comments here reflect one of the reasons we're in the situation we are in - the inability to consider that we might be able to do things better, even when there are plenty of examples from other countries to look at. To quote from the first article: > The answer, I believe, has to do with American incuriosity. Incuriosity is not merely ignorance. Ignorance is a universal trait, people just differ in what they are ignorant about. But Americans are unique in not caring to learn from other countries even when those countries do things better. I think there's a lot of truth in that; look at how almost all the discussions about healthcare ignore the successful systems in other countries. It goes beyond that, though. We shouldn't have to look at other countries to consider the possibility that we could be doing things better. But whenever it's suggested that we could make things better, there seems to be a lot of hostility to the idea and push back against it. [1] https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-c... [2] https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

solarkraft 6y ago
"But the other countries are smaller, so of course they're spending less in aggregate!" Is the one thing that seems to be enough to shut every discussion down for a certain political group.
- twalla 6y ago
  Caring for a smaller, homogenous, less geographically distributed population is definitely different from a larger, heterogenous distributed population - and that's a valid criticism of attempting to wholesale copy other countries. I just wish that the criticism was used as a launching point for questions like "How can we overcome those challenges?" or "What parts of the system would potentially transfer well?" instead of the rhetorical blunt instrument it seems to have become.
  - AnHonestComment 6y ago
    Why not solve those issues at the state level rather than federal? States are meant to experiment and innovate on policy for their residents. The reason conservatives push those policies into states is they’re more beholden to their local populations and more able to address local concerns than federal policy is.
pnutjam 6y ago
The US does great on educating the kids it cares about. The many kids that are written off (poor and/or non-white usually) drag down the average. If we spent on family stability instead of prisons, we'd turn things around quickly, but that might benefit the "wrong" people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nostromo 6y ago
  > non-white usually This just isn't correct. Many majority non-white school districts are very well funded -- cities like Chicago or Washington or LA. It's simply not an issue of lack of funds.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    Correct. We fund the "wrong" things when it comes to education. Simply pumping more money into poorly performing school districts isn't a solution, but we continue to do so. Some of that money might be better spent on social services to help ensure stable households and early education for the kids in those areas. Or higher minimum wages to help ensure the parents don't need to work 12 hours/day to make ends meet. Etc. And neither side of the political aisle can come to a consensus on what to change, so here we are. Le Sigh.
    - nostromo 6y ago
      School choice would help to solve this by putting pressure on school systems to improve or lose students (and dollars) to better schools.
      - alistairSH 6y ago
        Except schools largely aren’t failing because the school itself is terrible, they’re failing because the students have massive disadvantages. Vouchers might allow a few exceptional students to leave but strands the average students. And those exceptional students still need to find transport to the school across town. It also assumes a better school actually exists. Society would be better off ensuring equal opportunity at all ages, stable households, good healthcare (including food) instead of blowing up the system to the advantage of a small number of people.
bcrosby95 6y ago
It isn't ignorance or lack of curiosity. It's called American Exceptionalism: in that America (the USA) is exceptional and the rules of other countries don't apply to it. This can be used for both good reasons (perseverance when others failed) and bad ones (the "that will never work here" argument).
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  This is just a trite excuse and no where near the truth. We can do better we can learn from others and have done it before. A lot of it has to do with generational disadvantages for poorer parts of society as well as lack of opportunity and mobility.
moltar 6y ago
I don't think it's incuriosity or ignorance. From my observations of Canada, the reason is that it "creates jobs". It it's the classic "not-invented-here" syndrome. Noone wants to borrow the solutions of another country, or even a province or city within Canada! Always finding some rationale to do it their own way, or do more local (inferior) studies to tick a box. Then hire a bunch of inexperienced engineers to build something that they have never done, and get x10 expensive, and 10x worse results. All under a flag that it will create local jobs. Imagine that's how tech would work? We want to be build a complex micro-service system, that we have never built, and we are only going to hire talent from within the distance of 10 km, to "create jobs". How would that work out?

by bnralt 6y ago

solarkraft 6y ago

"But the other countries are smaller, so of course they're spending less in aggregate!" Is the one thing that seems to be enough to shut every discussion down for a certain political group.

twalla 6y ago
Caring for a smaller, homogenous, less geographically distributed population is definitely different from a larger, heterogenous distributed population - and that's a valid criticism of attempting to wholesale copy other countries. I just wish that the criticism was used as a launching point for questions like "How can we overcome those challenges?" or "What parts of the system would potentially transfer well?" instead of the rhetorical blunt instrument it seems to have become.
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  Why not solve those issues at the state level rather than federal? States are meant to experiment and innovate on policy for their residents. The reason conservatives push those policies into states is they’re more beholden to their local populations and more able to address local concerns than federal policy is.

pnutjam 6y ago

The US does great on educating the kids it cares about. The many kids that are written off (poor and/or non-white usually) drag down the average. If we spent on family stability instead of prisons, we'd turn things around quickly, but that might benefit the "wrong" people.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nostromo 6y ago
> non-white usually This just isn't correct. Many majority non-white school districts are very well funded -- cities like Chicago or Washington or LA. It's simply not an issue of lack of funds.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Correct. We fund the "wrong" things when it comes to education. Simply pumping more money into poorly performing school districts isn't a solution, but we continue to do so. Some of that money might be better spent on social services to help ensure stable households and early education for the kids in those areas. Or higher minimum wages to help ensure the parents don't need to work 12 hours/day to make ends meet. Etc. And neither side of the political aisle can come to a consensus on what to change, so here we are. Le Sigh.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    School choice would help to solve this by putting pressure on school systems to improve or lose students (and dollars) to better schools.
    - alistairSH 6y ago
      Except schools largely aren’t failing because the school itself is terrible, they’re failing because the students have massive disadvantages. Vouchers might allow a few exceptional students to leave but strands the average students. And those exceptional students still need to find transport to the school across town. It also assumes a better school actually exists. Society would be better off ensuring equal opportunity at all ages, stable households, good healthcare (including food) instead of blowing up the system to the advantage of a small number of people.

bcrosby95 6y ago

It isn't ignorance or lack of curiosity. It's called American Exceptionalism: in that America (the USA) is exceptional and the rules of other countries don't apply to it. This can be used for both good reasons (perseverance when others failed) and bad ones (the "that will never work here" argument).

stjohnswarts 6y ago
This is just a trite excuse and no where near the truth. We can do better we can learn from others and have done it before. A lot of it has to do with generational disadvantages for poorer parts of society as well as lack of opportunity and mobility.

moltar 6y ago

I don't think it's incuriosity or ignorance. From my observations of Canada, the reason is that it "creates jobs". It it's the classic "not-invented-here" syndrome. Noone wants to borrow the solutions of another country, or even a province or city within Canada! Always finding some rationale to do it their own way, or do more local (inferior) studies to tick a box. Then hire a bunch of inexperienced engineers to build something that they have never done, and get x10 expensive, and 10x worse results. All under a flag that it will create local jobs. Imagine that's how tech would work? We want to be build a complex micro-service system, that we have never built, and we are only going to hire talent from within the distance of 10 km, to "create jobs". How would that work out?