6 ms·

> Indeed. It's hilarious to see some Americans claiming things are so much better in "Europe" when their entire experience consists of a few weeks as a tourist

• andrewmutz 3y ago
  > It's not unreasonable, however, to compare the efficiency of public transit of San Francisco to that of Copenhagen. Comparing accessibility of population-wide health indicators of the US to Germany also makes sense. I definitely agree that the US healthcare system sucks and should not be emulated. But I think many of its critics think healthcare is a solved problem in countries like Germany and it really isn't. Germans are not completely happy with their healthcare system and there is an effort underway to reform it currently. I think it's a better system than the US system, but it's got plenty of problems: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/14/a-ticking-time-bomb-healthcare-under-threat-across-western-europe https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/14/a-ticking-ti... > In Germany, which spends more on healthcare than almost any other country in the world, hospitals are a greater concern, with this winter’s wave of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in young children triggering alarm across the country. > Amid reports of overcrowded casualty departments and parents forced to sleep in hospital corridors or travel hundreds of kilometres for a child’s treatment, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said the country was witnessing “what it means when a system implodes … in scenes which for a long time might have seemed unimaginable”. > In a petition to parliament titled: “Alert level red – hospitals in danger”, the German Hospital Society (DKG) again highlighted a chronic lack of staff as the main problem, noting that many hospitals had had to temporarily close casualty departments due to a lack of doctors and nurses. > More than 23,000 posts remain unfilled in Germany’s hospitals after several years of low recruitment and recent mass resignations, particularly in intensive care and operating theatres, by staff citing a workload so extreme that some were unable to take even a short break or go to the toilet. Additionally, the poor health outcomes in the United States are not necessarily the result of the US health care system. Many of the most important drivers of health care outcomes (exercise, nutrition, obesity, drug abuse, etc) are worse in the US. My point isn't that the US health system is great, because it isn't great. My point is that people in the US are well informed about their own problems but generally ignorant about the problems outside the country.
• adventured 3y ago
  It often doesn't make sense: the nicest countries in Europe won't allow you to become an immigrant there, because they're hyper xenophobic and or extremely racist. They have very tall barriers to entry that are intentional. They usually call it protecting their culture, it's really just plain old xenophobia and racism. The nicest European countries are fragile and can't handle immigration well at all. Just ask Sweden how their next 30 or so years are starting to look. France has entirely failed for decades at integrating their immigration populations, despite their vaunted welfare state. They're very mediocre at functional integration, whereas the US is the greatest by-design melting pot in world history. Try immigrating into affluent nations like Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway, Finland, etc. They make it far more difficult than it is to come to the US (unless you're a top tier immigrant in terms of skill/wealth). The nicest countries love to use points systems or the equivalent to keep poorer, lower skilled people out. Canada for example is 2% black and 3% Latin American. Anyone think that's an accident? There are roughly 3/4 of a billion Latin Americans in the Americas and somehow Canada is merely 3% Latin American. The huge Latin American immigration wave the US has seen over the past 40-50 years has been nearly entirely blocked by Canada. It's by design, they're xenophobic like the Europeans are, and they do everything they can to keep poor people out. People will say: just look how amazing Norway or Germany are. It's a nice fantasy, because good luck becoming a citizen (maybe for the privileged HN crowd there's a chance). Japan is amazing? Yeah ok, go try becoming a citizen there. Try integrating, try becoming Japanese (you can't). So what the hell is the point of saying: xyz is so wonderful - if they're excluding by design and won't let you join? Gee, Stanford, MIT and Harvard are amazing, every college should be like that. The US remains moderately accessible, most of its peers are the exact opposite.
  • vkou 3y ago
    Canada[1] is 15% Asian (India, China, etc), 4.3% Black, 1.9% arab, 1.6% latin american. The US is 12% black, 18% latin american, 6% Asian. And let me tell you, that 12% black number isn't the product of a liberal immigration policy. The numbers aren't actually too different, and if you were to switch the two countries' geographies, I'd expect the US latin american numbers to significantly drop, and Canada's to significantly rise. The Canadian immigration system is actually pretty reasonable. Points for being young, for having useful skills, points for demonstrating mastery of the language, points for having relatives. And a clear process for international students studying in Canada to naturalize. The US is the one that yanks you around by your britches, with decades-long waiting lists and visa lotteries for people who are already living and working in the country. [1] Country-of-origin breakdown for recent immigrants to Canada[2] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171597/new-immigrants-canada-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171597/new-immigrants-c... - 32% India, 8% China, 4.3% Philipines, 3.8% Nigeria. The first European country to make the list is France, at 3.2%, followed by the US, Brazil, Iran, Korea, Pakistan, all at 2-3%. [2] Similar breakdown for the US - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20most%20common,Cuba%20(3%20percent%20apiece) https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested.... - 14% Mexico[3], 13% India, 7% China, 4% Phillipines, 3% Dominican Republic. [3] Given these numbers, I think its reasonable to hypothesize that if Canada had border proximity, and strong cultural ties to Mexico, I'm sure that it's lat-am immigration numbers might look similar to what the US has.