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The usually unstated question underlying these sorts of comparisons is basically: "where people are better off?". But that can never really be answered, because
by em500 3y ago
The usually unstated question underlying these sorts of comparisons is basically: "where people are better off?". But that can never really be answered, because
* Different people value different things: am I better or worse off when I live in a small apartment in a city and go everywhere by bike/bus while my children cycle to the local public school themselves vs owning a big house with a big garden and a big car, driving them to school every day? Even to what extend such different lifestyles are by choice or necessity are hard to tell.
* Quality of life differences can be very different for different segments of the population (high vs low income, minorities, children, retirees, people with disabilities, etc). Is a country better or worse of when the QoL is a bit worse for a bottom quartile high school drop-out, but a bit better for a a top-quartile doctor, or a third quartile nurse or police officer?
Such questions can't be answered, because they depend mostly on subjective weights.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoThose questions can all be answered though. In fact some of them conclusively have been.
- em500 3y agoThey can only be answered subjectively, because different people value different things. That's why such discussions usually end up with clusters of people with somewhat similar preferences arguing inconclusively with other clusters who do not share their preferences.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoYou're sitting here like "oh maybe it's better for all of us if some of us are miserable, it's subjective you know." Fucking ghoulish.
- hiatus 3y ago> In fact some of them conclusively have been. Don't leave us in suspense! Elaborate.
- StanislavPetrov 3y agoNo, they absolutely cannot be answered objectively. Some people will be very happy living in a rural setting with nobody else around, while it would drive other people absolutely bonkers. The same is true for "city living". Different people have different personal preferences about what constitutes happiness, and these preferences vary widely.
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoI mean the elephant in the room here is socialized healthcare, no? It costs less than our system, it breaks the tie of employment to healthcare that we labor under here in the states so people are more free to leave crappy jobs, which is only made better by a much more comprehensive social safety net overall. Irrespective of your own personal economic position, having a society that's ready to actually help people who need it vs paying them lip service at election time (or seemingly genuinely trying to kill them, depending your party affiliation) is going to make a massive difference in who's better off. There are also other differences too, things like many more walkable cities, more modern infrastructure and public transit. I could go on. Like I'm doing fine enough here but I wouldn't even kind of defend how we live over here. America is in many ways the international version of a person who makes a lot of money but is still check to check eating ramen most nights and playing video games because they spend it all on their hobbies and stuff. It's a way to live but I wouldn't call it a good one.
- xenospn 3y agoI think we can all agree that the ideal is california-level compensation in Europe.
- pcrh 3y agoThat exists in some sectors, e.g. the City of London. Also, UK doctors are compensated at internationally competitive rates when compared to average national income, especially so if they work in private practice in London with international clients.
- Sevii 3y agoIt's not even whether our healthcare is socialized or not. Our health insurance regulatory system is setup to be adversarial between insurers and providers. If we can break up that dynamic we'd see cost improvement even if we didn't move to an entirely socialized system.
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoI'm very curious how you propose we make two entities both of which are profit-driven non-adversarial.
- scythe 3y agoThings like apartments are not even so consistent. Building codes in America are highly ineffective, whether for content or enforcement I don't know. But the last three apartments I lived in were just awful. Noisy and falling apart at the seams. The one before that was a 1000-unit complex in San Francisco which was of generally decent quality although we faced two evacuations in five years due to residents starting fires (a low probability times 1000 is a much larger probability) and I had to kill at least six mice. I stayed in apartments in China and Italy where things worked and I never heard my neighbors. I could live with that. But now I live in a house in the US and I'm much happier for it.