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Quality of life > money. I love the US for its beauty and many parts of its culture, but I would never want to live there. In western europe it is normal for
by estaseuropano 5y ago
Quality of life > money.
I love the US for its beauty and many parts of its culture, but I would never want to live there.
In western europe it is normal for people to go to preventive care, or hospitals and NOT fear to be bankrupt.
Its normal to have four weeks of paid vacation a year.
Its normal to have a safety net when you fall on hard times, e.g. when you lose your job or family or mind.
Its normal to think of police as a positive, not as something to be regularly scared of.
Its normal to live walking or cycling distance to work.
Its normal to study at university and not be saddled with debt.
Its normal to be fine with life as it is, without an ambition for being rich or powerful or whatever.
America seems to me always like a place for ambitious and hungry people that want to work and fight all their lives to prove themselves. But it doesn't seem like a place for people that want to be happy and live a good life.
America is a force for creativity and creation but also for the misery of many. I just can't believe how many people 'stick it out', how many people simply accept that dental pain is normal if they can't pay to fix it, or that they might die because they pay $100+ for insulin that they need to live, when in any other first world country this is free. Your employer can let you go with basically no warning or reason and you lose everything - how insane is that!
America has more prisoners than China (>4x its size). America has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the world. America has an abysmal school system that fails the majority of people. America has crime and murder rates through the roof.
I just don't understand how Americans have learned to accept all that with no inkling to either leave or fight for actual change.
- HWR_14 5y agoAbout the infant morality rate specifically, that's in large part due to a different reporting standard. And, as to the "regular walking or cycling distance" the US simply has less population density. That said, I think mandatory vacation and universal healthcare would be nice.
- Andaith 5y agoCould you explain or link to the "different reporting standard" between USA and everyone else for infant mortality please?
- tacitusarc 5y agohttps://vitalrecord.tamhsc.edu/american-infant-mortality-rates-high/ https://vitalrecord.tamhsc.edu/american-infant-mortality-rat...
- HWR_14 5y agoOh sure. At a high level (and I'm not super well versed), infant mortality statistics are only based on live births. In the US, this includes any baby that breaths or otherwise shows any sign of life. In several other countries (including western european ones), the check for signs of life doesn't happen immediately. There's also the question of if countries mark extremely premature births (<22 weeks) as live births or miscarriages. It's a politically charged issue, because many people consider it to be the loss of a child, and no doctor wants to tell them the child was never born. Since 2001, France has more than doubled the number of stillbirths, because of new standards that moved what were once miscarriages to the stillbirth category (some driven locally, some in response to new WHO standards based on the ability to care for premature infants.) It's also politically charged because many groups have a vested interest in downplaying any results that make their country look bad. I'm not going to claim it's entirely a statistical artifact - the US lacks comprehensive neonatal care and that's an issue.
- Ekaros 5y agoPopulation density has little to do with it. It is the city design and culture. Europeans accept that it is normal to live in apartment or terraced house in the cities.
- HWR_14 5y ago> Europeans accept that it is normal to live in apartment or terraced house in the cities. Because of population density.