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> societies that promote innovation have higher quality of life Does the US have a higher quality of life than Germany, France or the Netherlands? I agree tha

> societies that promote innovation have higher quality of life Does the US have a higher quality of life than Germany, France or the Netherlands? I agree that innovation is important and societies should promote it, but -imho- not at the cost of consumer & employee protection.

tluyben2 5y ago
I would like to see US answers to this but in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich and then it degrades fast: in NL it is good to great for all. So I can pick bleeding hard work in a lottery to maybe be someone or I can do whatever I like and have most of those same perks. Where is the choice here?
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  > in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich I would argue almost everywhere in the world quality of life is fantastic if you are rich. What is the huge difference between living in a gated community in California to doing it in Thailand?
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    That in Thailand that would cost almost nothing. And personally, it is much nicer on probably almost everything besides the small issue that the country is completely owned by the military. But yes, you are right: rich is also better in NL. But it is not 1000x better: it is just better. Subjective of course; if you enjoy driving McLarens into trees then rich is a lot better. I have the feeling, and again, I do not live there so I cannot be sure (and can you be even if you live there?) But from books, docus and US friends, the difference is not 1000x even. It is just another world. That is simply not true here. I guess it is a matter of taste if you can stomach that inequality. I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your have poor here but that is exclusively mentally challenged(or what is the current PC term?) People who get help but always fall back, and very few of them. I recognize the vagrants in my home city from decades ago: still the same people: they have a state provided house and get help but it does not help. You cannot fix that. But rows of addicts turned criminals lining the streets in tents and worse. In the richest country on earth. Rich people should be ashamed that happens on their doorstep. They can and should fix it today.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      > I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your snarky comment is just pretentious cherry-picking. I can walk you through some neighborhoods in France, Sweden and the UK where you'd also wouldn't want to live.
      - tluyben2 5y ago
        The snark was only because of the American induced (and we have it here now) driving everywhere, even if it is a few 100m (I have been all across the US many times and people find it weird if you walk anywhere unless you are actually hiking in nature). It cannot be really denied if everyone would do their shopping by foot (meaning you would need to do multiple runs a week) you would be healthier and have better quality of life right? That was the norm here but now people get into their SUVs and drive. And it is not cherry picking: I know those places too: I do not count the UK as that is another Anglo Saxon country so it seems to copy the US values faster (like Australia where the best city in the world to live apparently, Melbourne, I literally trip over the drug addicts in every street and I go there a lot). And yes, there are places enough I would not want to live but they do not look quite as bad as some things I have seen in the US which were more akin to New Delhi. Maybe I did not travel enough and also not the point; if you are the richest country in the world you simply cannot allow that. In my opinion of course.
- relativ575 5y ago
  I'm in the US. Quality of life is unbelivable if you're rich, great for upper middle class, good for middle class, okay if you're working class, terrible if you're poor. Of course, all of that is still very much generalization, and I find comparing quality of life in Europe with US is more or less dick measure contest. You try one when there are no fact based arguments to talk about. NHS versus Medicaid, for example, that's could be a good debate.
  - RGamma 5y ago
    "Unbelievable" is a strong qualifier. Care to give some examples? Genuinely curious.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The US suffers from de-industrialization as a result of the free trade agreements. That is 100% the cause of the excessive poverty we have vis-a-vis Europe. What's odd is this belief that consumer protection laws are somehow what is keeping Europe from having the same problems. And I don't really see Europe as being on a different development path. Rather, the EU managed to buy time with Eastern Europe coming into the fold creating a source of cheap labor nearby that delayed the migration of industry to China and the resulting mass de-industrialization and growing pockets of poverty that result. But the rot is already there with the industrial decline of Southern Europe and firms migrating production out of Europe, just at a slower rate. You can view Europe as lagging the U.S. in this area also.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Depends on the demographics. Algerians in France or Turks in Germany don't have such a great quality of life, but neither do El Salvadorans in the US. The U.S. is 60% Europe, 25% Latin America, 10% Africa, 5% Asia, and has pretty good quality of life for these demographics. As demographics in Europe change, the EU will see more of the issues it likes to criticize the US for, but the demographic-adjusted quality of life in the U.S. is pretty good.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  By what measure though: it is highly subjective and when there is a vote, the US never gets very high. Unlike Canada, Norway, Netherlands. On this site most people are wealthy, but I think (not sure but I have nothing else than my visits and documentaries), you are really bad off if you are poor in the US. Here that is not really an issue.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  A lot of white Europeans in the U.S have a horrible quality of life, Trump would probably not have been elected otherwise.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    A lot of French, Italians, Spaniards, and Greeks have horrible quality of life as well. You can go out to some of the more remote parts and be shocked at the living standards in Europe. But they are still higher than the world average, and this also true for the U.S. as well. I think perhaps part of this is the lack of pop-culture coming out of Europe, since scenes from movies/tv showing terrible US ghettos and american countryside decaying towns are watched around the world, but Europe isn't producing entertainment showing czech Roma living in mountains of trash or bored teenagers wandering around French slums or toothless grandmothers in rotting Italian villages. But it's all still there.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      You are right. The one big difference though is even a French person living in poverty will get the best cancer treatment the country can give as far as I know. In the U.S he will be left to die if he is not insured.

tluyben2 5y ago

I would like to see US answers to this but in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich and then it degrades fast: in NL it is good to great for all. So I can pick bleeding hard work in a lottery to maybe be someone or I can do whatever I like and have most of those same perks. Where is the choice here?

joelbluminator 5y ago
> in the US your quality of life is fantastic if you are rich I would argue almost everywhere in the world quality of life is fantastic if you are rich. What is the huge difference between living in a gated community in California to doing it in Thailand?
- tluyben2 5y ago
  That in Thailand that would cost almost nothing. And personally, it is much nicer on probably almost everything besides the small issue that the country is completely owned by the military. But yes, you are right: rich is also better in NL. But it is not 1000x better: it is just better. Subjective of course; if you enjoy driving McLarens into trees then rich is a lot better. I have the feeling, and again, I do not live there so I cannot be sure (and can you be even if you live there?) But from books, docus and US friends, the difference is not 1000x even. It is just another world. That is simply not true here. I guess it is a matter of taste if you can stomach that inequality. I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your have poor here but that is exclusively mentally challenged(or what is the current PC term?) People who get help but always fall back, and very few of them. I recognize the vagrants in my home city from decades ago: still the same people: they have a state provided house and get help but it does not help. You cannot fix that. But rows of addicts turned criminals lining the streets in tents and worse. In the richest country on earth. Rich people should be ashamed that happens on their doorstep. They can and should fix it today.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    > I walked (yes, strange EU thing where one uses legs instead of wheels) through some part of Fort Lauderdale and it looked like a bloody war zone. I could not live in a country that permits that. Your snarky comment is just pretentious cherry-picking. I can walk you through some neighborhoods in France, Sweden and the UK where you'd also wouldn't want to live.
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      The snark was only because of the American induced (and we have it here now) driving everywhere, even if it is a few 100m (I have been all across the US many times and people find it weird if you walk anywhere unless you are actually hiking in nature). It cannot be really denied if everyone would do their shopping by foot (meaning you would need to do multiple runs a week) you would be healthier and have better quality of life right? That was the norm here but now people get into their SUVs and drive. And it is not cherry picking: I know those places too: I do not count the UK as that is another Anglo Saxon country so it seems to copy the US values faster (like Australia where the best city in the world to live apparently, Melbourne, I literally trip over the drug addicts in every street and I go there a lot). And yes, there are places enough I would not want to live but they do not look quite as bad as some things I have seen in the US which were more akin to New Delhi. Maybe I did not travel enough and also not the point; if you are the richest country in the world you simply cannot allow that. In my opinion of course.
relativ575 5y ago
I'm in the US. Quality of life is unbelivable if you're rich, great for upper middle class, good for middle class, okay if you're working class, terrible if you're poor. Of course, all of that is still very much generalization, and I find comparing quality of life in Europe with US is more or less dick measure contest. You try one when there are no fact based arguments to talk about. NHS versus Medicaid, for example, that's could be a good debate.
- RGamma 5y ago
  "Unbelievable" is a strong qualifier. Care to give some examples? Genuinely curious.
rsj_hn 5y ago
The US suffers from de-industrialization as a result of the free trade agreements. That is 100% the cause of the excessive poverty we have vis-a-vis Europe. What's odd is this belief that consumer protection laws are somehow what is keeping Europe from having the same problems. And I don't really see Europe as being on a different development path. Rather, the EU managed to buy time with Eastern Europe coming into the fold creating a source of cheap labor nearby that delayed the migration of industry to China and the resulting mass de-industrialization and growing pockets of poverty that result. But the rot is already there with the industrial decline of Southern Europe and firms migrating production out of Europe, just at a slower rate. You can view Europe as lagging the U.S. in this area also.

rsj_hn 5y ago

Depends on the demographics. Algerians in France or Turks in Germany don't have such a great quality of life, but neither do El Salvadorans in the US. The U.S. is 60% Europe, 25% Latin America, 10% Africa, 5% Asia, and has pretty good quality of life for these demographics. As demographics in Europe change, the EU will see more of the issues it likes to criticize the US for, but the demographic-adjusted quality of life in the U.S. is pretty good.

tluyben2 5y ago
By what measure though: it is highly subjective and when there is a vote, the US never gets very high. Unlike Canada, Norway, Netherlands. On this site most people are wealthy, but I think (not sure but I have nothing else than my visits and documentaries), you are really bad off if you are poor in the US. Here that is not really an issue.
joelbluminator 5y ago
A lot of white Europeans in the U.S have a horrible quality of life, Trump would probably not have been elected otherwise.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  A lot of French, Italians, Spaniards, and Greeks have horrible quality of life as well. You can go out to some of the more remote parts and be shocked at the living standards in Europe. But they are still higher than the world average, and this also true for the U.S. as well. I think perhaps part of this is the lack of pop-culture coming out of Europe, since scenes from movies/tv showing terrible US ghettos and american countryside decaying towns are watched around the world, but Europe isn't producing entertainment showing czech Roma living in mountains of trash or bored teenagers wandering around French slums or toothless grandmothers in rotting Italian villages. But it's all still there.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    You are right. The one big difference though is even a French person living in poverty will get the best cancer treatment the country can give as far as I know. In the U.S he will be left to die if he is not insured.