4 ms·
Better than Bulgaria, not as nice as Cuba: US has become an awful place to live
- throwawaysleep 4y agoThey need to look at the median for a more realistic view. Sure, for some, America really sucks. But for the typical American, they have it a lot better than Syria. Being poor in the USA in a poor area like Jackson is pretty bad. But thats hardly the norm.
- mbrodersen 4y agoIt’s pretty bad if you have to compare the US with Syria to feel superior.
- torstenvl 4y agoSyria is mentioned as a point of comparison in the first paragraph of the OP.
- draw_down 4y ago
- sys_64738 4y agoSpeak for themselves not the majority. The USA is the best place in the world to live bar none. I am a European.
- slater 4y agoI am a European, and no, it's not.
- sys_64738 4y agoWell don’t let us keep you here.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoLove it, or leave it?
- torstenvl 4y agoGP appears to be pointing out that a poster's stated preferences are at odds with their actual revealed preferences, which is a fair comment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference Please don't respond with snark.
- slater 4y agoLuckily, there are shades of gray between "best thing ever" and "i hate it so much i want to leave". Nuance, it's awesome!
- mbrodersen 4y agoI am a European who has actually lived, worked, and paid taxes in the US and 4 other countries. And no you are wrong. And it’s getting worse.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoI've found few claims like this are backed by any sort of good evidence. The actual reality in the form of the masses of people putting in a huge amount of effort to live in the USA seems to indicate that it isn't such an awful place. Yet I've never seen anybody question these "indexes" and social metrics, or the logic used to draw such conclusions from them. Faced with reality and their own preconceived worldview, they never seem to doubt themselves. "Am I out of touch? No, it's the tens of millions of migrants who are wrong."
- mbrodersen 4y agoMasses of people are putting in a huge amount of effort to live in any rich western country.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoYep. Reality sure does make a mockery of the western bourgeoisie liberal's infantile anti-western worldview doesn't it.
- armchairhacker 4y agoThe US is huge and diverse, so much so that ranking it as a whole really isn't fair. Yeah there are the same federal departments, programs, and laws, but heck, even how they're enforced and handled varies by state and region. You have to rank states or regions, like urban northeast and Bay Area vs pacific northwest vs rural deep South vs Alaska. I will say that some rural areas in the US really do resemble third-world countries, examples are Indian reservations and places in southern states like Ohio. They have dirt roads, poor water quality, rampant town council and police corruption, huge proportion of the population seriously uneducated. These places still have federal services like food stamps and healthcare, and moving to another place in the US as a "refugee" is significantly easier, so maybe it's still not fair to compare them to actual third-world countries. But even people who live in the US and have seen "poor neighborhoods" would be shocked. EDIT: And I know that even places like India have big cities, and places like the Netherlands have urban and rural areas. But the US is even more diverse. The rural areas in Massachusetts are a lot different than those in North Carolina.
- pivo 4y agoNitpick: Ohio is a midwestern state, not a southern one.
- bediger4000 4y agoI think OP is right: it used to be midwestern, but over the last 30-40 years, became southern.
- pivo 4y agoMichigan also has dirt roads (as does every US state) and worse water problems than Ohio (Flint, MI) Does that make Michigan a southern state too? I don’t think it makes sense or is useful to use geographic terms to describe political or economic conditions, but I’d like to hear why you think it does make sense.
- Arnt 4y agoWhat does southern mean, in this context? It's not just places having poor water quality and those other traits mentioned upthread, I take it. Are Kentucky and Virginia considered southern (now or traditionally)?
- orionblastar 4y agoOnly if you are poor and live in a big city full of crime.
- maxerickson 4y agoLooking at the ranking in question, the US loses points for inequality and irresponsible consumption. https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings The inequality probably isn't making things all that much worse for people at the top end of it. Nor is a high rate of consumption.