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“I have travelled the world, and you can cherry-pick areas where the US is resoundingly better than NZ” The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the s

by zepto 6y ago

“I have travelled the world, and you can cherry-pick areas where the US is resoundingly better than NZ” The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the size of a large metro area in the US. It seems like the cherry picking is being done by you. It’s completely meaningless to compare it to the US as if it were similar. If you compare the US to Europe as a whole, you’ll find just as many problems, and the comparison with individual smaller states would be equally meaningless. You’ll find this is even true with things like Covid.

robocat 6y ago
> The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the size of a large metro area in the US A meaningless cliché argument. Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware , South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, District of Columbia, Vermont, and Wyoming all have less population than metropolitan Auckland... so do I get to make sweeping generalisations about those states based on that? There are 32 states with smaller populations than NZ. There are 44 states that are smaller in size than NZ. The Tokyo Major Metropolitan Area has about the same population as the most populous state of California - so what?
- zepto 6y ago
  “so do I get to make sweeping generalization about those states based on that” If you did, that would be just as meaningless. Why do you want to make sweeping generalizations? What’s your point? There exists an island nation of ~5 million is better run than many parts America but worse than the best parts? What generalization do you seriously think you can make from that?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - robocat 6y ago
    My original point is “The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better. Every other country in the world manages to model their own policies by using other countries of smaller or larger size, that have wildly different societies and governance. Each state government in the United States holds legal and administrative jurisdiction within its bounds, yet somehow US states are special, and other countries have nothing worthwhile copying. Almost every time someone says that other countries manage to do something better, the same tired canards are brought out in attack, usually with the undercurrent of “USA #1”, therefore any other way of doing things is wrong or inapplicable. I don’t normally argue the point, because the counter-arguments like yours are so predictable and so spectacularly irrelevant. You mentioned Covid. Watching the arc of excuses made by citizens of the US has been a black comedy: it started with excuses about how China managed to control Covid, it moved on to different excuses when some other Asian countries managed low death counts, then the excuses changed again once some first world countries got their shit together. The underlying premise was “USA #1” therefore if another country is doing better then let’s pipe up with a irrelevant excuse meme. The pattern is tragically hilarious.
    - zepto 6y ago
      “The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better. Not really for a 350m region. You don’t need to go outside the US to be able to contrast two different regions of 5 million people. Showing that some administrative groups of 5 million have better outcomes than others does nothing to explain how to run a state of 350m in a better way. You have offered us nothing of explanatory value, merely a statistically obvious observation. My “counter argument” is predictable because it’s pointing out a predictable flaw I’m what you are saying. Ignoring it doesn’t make it less true. If you understand the causes of NZ’s better than average governance, and can also explain why it underperforms some states, then why not offer an explanation? If you can’t offer explanations, then perhaps that tells us something.
      - robocat 6y ago
        I wasn’t clear about an underlying assumption: I thought it was obvious the topic is corruption at the state level, and my arguments revolve around whether the state of California can do better... I am not arguing anything about the USA as a whole. California could compare itself with other countries and improve some of its governance. I believe that a major roadblock to that path is the ambiance of American excellence, that blinkers the sight of citizens to solutions found in other parts of the world. Individually, there are many citizens with a suitable social wealth that could choose to have a demonstrable effect upon the governance of their state. Keep an open mind, try to avoid memes of mindless arguments, make an effort to improve your own governance, and if all else fails if you are technically wealthy you could always move to a country that has better social wealth. California is the largest state on many important metrics, so usually it is comparing against other states that are much smaller on those metrics. I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion).
        zepto 6y ago
        California isn’t an independent country, so it can’t just adopt arbitrary solutions from other countries. Even if it could, there is an assumption you are making that you can identify what ‘solutions’ led to particular results and can simply adopt them. That certainly doesn’t seem to be a valid assumption about how governance works globally. Also ‘California’ isn’t a person. ‘It’ can’t compare itself to anything. Individual Californians can make whatever comparisons they like, and so can politicans and other leaders. Do you have something to offer about what they might want to look at that would help them? Do you even have an understanding of the problems? It seems like not everyone would agree on what they are. Otherwise it just seems like your position is essentially just a claim that because there is another country that you think is run better, there are some ideas that you don’t actually understand yourself, that could help. Edit: you added a paragraph to your comment after I posted my reply. Please don’t do this as it can look like you are trying to change the context of the reply, which would be a dishonest move. You added > I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion) You say you ‘feel’ it’s an ‘evasion’ which is a way of dismissing this comment without addressing it. If you think the comparison is valid then why not tell us what could California or the US adopt from NZ that would make things better? If you don’t know, then what’s the point of the comparison, other than a kind of vague nationalism? Edit 2: oh - I see you have changed a whole bunch of things about your earlier comments to make it look as though you made points that I failed to respond to. You are completely intellectually dishonest and as such have nothing to offer to political discourse about corruption.
ashtonkem 6y ago
It's not clear why the size of the area should matter much to the individual. If you feel like you live in a corrupt state, then "but it's very big you see" will do absolutely nothing to reduce the negative experience. And if one felt like they should leave their current country and move somewhere less corrupt, then size doesn't really matter either. If the hypothesis is "living in the US is unpleasant due to corruption" then "but <alternate country> is small" is a bizarre non-sequitur.
- zepto 6y ago
  I’m not commenting on leaving. I’m commenting on the idea that the US could just copy ideas from other arbitrarily selected states, or that the cause of those states present condition is well understood.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Are you asserting that US governance cannot possibly be better than it is due to its size, or are you just arguing against the specific examples provided?
    - zepto 6y ago
      I’m arguing that the examples by themselves don’t tell us anything about how the US could be managed better, or even if there is anything the US could apply that they are doing. I don’t preclude the possibility of learning from other countries, but I think it’s meaningless to say that just because a small country happens to be running better right now, there must be something it is doing that the US could be doing that would help. It’s possible that there is, but there is no prima facie evidence of that. If someone wants to make that argument, they need to explain what is being done better and how the US could adopt it. Otherwise it’s just nationalism.

by zepto 6y ago

robocat 6y ago

> The entirety of NZ has a population comparable to the size of a large metro area in the US A meaningless cliché argument. Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware , South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, District of Columbia, Vermont, and Wyoming all have less population than metropolitan Auckland... so do I get to make sweeping generalisations about those states based on that? There are 32 states with smaller populations than NZ. There are 44 states that are smaller in size than NZ. The Tokyo Major Metropolitan Area has about the same population as the most populous state of California - so what?

zepto 6y ago
“so do I get to make sweeping generalization about those states based on that” If you did, that would be just as meaningless. Why do you want to make sweeping generalizations? What’s your point? There exists an island nation of ~5 million is better run than many parts America but worse than the best parts? What generalization do you seriously think you can make from that?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- robocat 6y ago
  My original point is “The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better. Every other country in the world manages to model their own policies by using other countries of smaller or larger size, that have wildly different societies and governance. Each state government in the United States holds legal and administrative jurisdiction within its bounds, yet somehow US states are special, and other countries have nothing worthwhile copying. Almost every time someone says that other countries manage to do something better, the same tired canards are brought out in attack, usually with the undercurrent of “USA #1”, therefore any other way of doing things is wrong or inapplicable. I don’t normally argue the point, because the counter-arguments like yours are so predictable and so spectacularly irrelevant. You mentioned Covid. Watching the arc of excuses made by citizens of the US has been a black comedy: it started with excuses about how China managed to control Covid, it moved on to different excuses when some other Asian countries managed low death counts, then the excuses changed again once some first world countries got their shit together. The underlying premise was “USA #1” therefore if another country is doing better then let’s pipe up with a irrelevant excuse meme. The pattern is tragically hilarious.
  - zepto 6y ago
    “The problem is there is no better” is a defeatist attitude: there is a lot better. Not really for a 350m region. You don’t need to go outside the US to be able to contrast two different regions of 5 million people. Showing that some administrative groups of 5 million have better outcomes than others does nothing to explain how to run a state of 350m in a better way. You have offered us nothing of explanatory value, merely a statistically obvious observation. My “counter argument” is predictable because it’s pointing out a predictable flaw I’m what you are saying. Ignoring it doesn’t make it less true. If you understand the causes of NZ’s better than average governance, and can also explain why it underperforms some states, then why not offer an explanation? If you can’t offer explanations, then perhaps that tells us something.
    - robocat 6y ago
      I wasn’t clear about an underlying assumption: I thought it was obvious the topic is corruption at the state level, and my arguments revolve around whether the state of California can do better... I am not arguing anything about the USA as a whole. California could compare itself with other countries and improve some of its governance. I believe that a major roadblock to that path is the ambiance of American excellence, that blinkers the sight of citizens to solutions found in other parts of the world. Individually, there are many citizens with a suitable social wealth that could choose to have a demonstrable effect upon the governance of their state. Keep an open mind, try to avoid memes of mindless arguments, make an effort to improve your own governance, and if all else fails if you are technically wealthy you could always move to a country that has better social wealth. California is the largest state on many important metrics, so usually it is comparing against other states that are much smaller on those metrics. I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion).
      - zepto 6y ago
        California isn’t an independent country, so it can’t just adopt arbitrary solutions from other countries. Even if it could, there is an assumption you are making that you can identify what ‘solutions’ led to particular results and can simply adopt them. That certainly doesn’t seem to be a valid assumption about how governance works globally. Also ‘California’ isn’t a person. ‘It’ can’t compare itself to anything. Individual Californians can make whatever comparisons they like, and so can politicans and other leaders. Do you have something to offer about what they might want to look at that would help them? Do you even have an understanding of the problems? It seems like not everyone would agree on what they are. Otherwise it just seems like your position is essentially just a claim that because there is another country that you think is run better, there are some ideas that you don’t actually understand yourself, that could help. Edit: you added a paragraph to your comment after I posted my reply. Please don’t do this as it can look like you are trying to change the context of the reply, which would be a dishonest move. You added > I believe the size of New Zealand is not a reason to ridicule any comparison (zepto’s original answer “argued” that the size of NZ matters, which I feel is an evasion) You say you ‘feel’ it’s an ‘evasion’ which is a way of dismissing this comment without addressing it. If you think the comparison is valid then why not tell us what could California or the US adopt from NZ that would make things better? If you don’t know, then what’s the point of the comparison, other than a kind of vague nationalism? Edit 2: oh - I see you have changed a whole bunch of things about your earlier comments to make it look as though you made points that I failed to respond to. You are completely intellectually dishonest and as such have nothing to offer to political discourse about corruption.

ashtonkem 6y ago

It's not clear why the size of the area should matter much to the individual. If you feel like you live in a corrupt state, then "but it's very big you see" will do absolutely nothing to reduce the negative experience. And if one felt like they should leave their current country and move somewhere less corrupt, then size doesn't really matter either. If the hypothesis is "living in the US is unpleasant due to corruption" then "but <alternate country> is small" is a bizarre non-sequitur.

zepto 6y ago
I’m not commenting on leaving. I’m commenting on the idea that the US could just copy ideas from other arbitrarily selected states, or that the cause of those states present condition is well understood.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Are you asserting that US governance cannot possibly be better than it is due to its size, or are you just arguing against the specific examples provided?
  - zepto 6y ago
    I’m arguing that the examples by themselves don’t tell us anything about how the US could be managed better, or even if there is anything the US could apply that they are doing. I don’t preclude the possibility of learning from other countries, but I think it’s meaningless to say that just because a small country happens to be running better right now, there must be something it is doing that the US could be doing that would help. It’s possible that there is, but there is no prima facie evidence of that. If someone wants to make that argument, they need to explain what is being done better and how the US could adopt it. Otherwise it’s just nationalism.