6 ms·

Okay, but as a citizen I don't care about our military might. I want affordable housing. Affordable healthcare. High speed rail. Better zoning laws. New subway

Okay, but as a citizen I don't care about our military might. I want affordable housing. Affordable healthcare. High speed rail. Better zoning laws. New subway lines. Other countries with less military power have that, why can't we?

EduardoBautista 3y ago
I can’t name a single country that has all of the items you mentioned at the same time. Especially affordable housing.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago
  Austria, for one.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    Austria strongly relies on the fact that it is located in a "safe" region, where none of its neighbours is likely to ever attack it. Austrian military expenses are very meager.
    - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
      Aren't the US in a safe region as well? They choose to spend a lot in military to project their force globally, not because they need to protect themselves.
      - devilbunny 3y ago
        Withdraw the US Navy and watch how fast that evaporates. Someone has to, or you get piracy. A lot of it. And I don’t mean movies. We have the most to lose from impaired trade, so we pay for it. We have floating airbases all over the world. As Madeleine Albright said to the president of China, “Jiang Zemin, one of my favorite men, but when you’re not so sweet, I send the Seventh Fleet.” Nukes mean that no nation-state will attack us openly. The Navy means that fucking with the US is a personal death sentence.
        pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        I wonder why do you have the perception that half the world would attack the US if they didn't have the largest military force. Why doesn't that happen to Austria, for example, or China? Perhaps "fucking" with the world is what caused the US to be considered an enemy by so many countries. Almost like the more they impose their force globally, the more other countries feel the need to resist it.
        inglor_cz 3y ago
        Not the OP, but I don't understand how you parsed his argument into "I wonder why do you have the perception that half the world would attack the US if they didn't have the largest military force" There is absolutely nothing insinuating this perception in his comment. He says that without the US Navy, there would be a lot more piracy on the high seas, and he is likely right. The historical experience from all corners of the world confirms that weakening naval control leads to increase in opportunistic piracy all around. Piracy is one of the oldest organized criminal activities in the world and most civilizations, including the really old ones (like Ancient Egypt) had to deal with it this way or another.
        pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        > There is absolutely nothing insinuating this perception in his comment. From OP: > Nukes mean that no nation-state will attack us openly. The Navy means that fucking with the US is a personal death sentence.
        devilbunny 3y ago
        Right. But I’m not saying people are dying to attack the US. They largely don’t care about us. I’m saying that you can play games with, say, Austria, that you can’t with the US. And yes, we will hunt you down. Does that make us bad people? No, it’s the consequence of power. If you don’t use it, someone else will. And the US has done a lot of bad things - but name what other country capable of doing it you would prefer to be in charge. Monaco isn’t an option.
      - inglor_cz 3y ago
        While the US can always decide to turn inward and stop caring about safety of anything else but their own territory, the resulting harm for the US economy and diplomatic relations would be enormous. The US took over from the British as the power that protects global trade networks, which means patrolling the seas. The capability and willingness to do so attracted a lot of other developed nations into the US-led political coalition, and contributed to enormous growth of international trade (something like 5-fold since the 1970s?) Without enough of a Navy, this network will disintegrate, or will be taken over by someone else, much like in the UK-to-US case around the time of WWII. Realistically, the only nation capable of doing so is China and I am not even certain if they wanted to, as their international projects like Belt-and-road are being abandoned.
        pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        So how could China develop so much without that huge network of navy imposing their power globally? Why does China invest in peaceful commercial agreements (like Belt and road, which is still active btw) while the US invests in global military control?
        inglor_cz 3y ago
        Belt and Road isn't shuttered down yet, but the volume of new projects under its aegis has gone to approximately zero. China was able to export its goods to the rest of the world using ships. Those ships sailed mostly safe seas (yeah there are exceptions like the Malacca Straits, where pirates still lurk) without any Chinese navy protection, because those seas were made safe by someone else. That is not hard to understand. If the global trade as a whole is protected by the US Navy, Chinese trade, a subset thereof, is protected as well. BTW The US does not have global military control. They do have quite a lot of control of the seas, but dry land is a different story. They had to withdraw from Afghanistan after trying to impose their will for 20 years. They didn't succeed in remaking Iraq to their ally either. And, in the steppes of Ukraine, a war has been raging for almost two years by now, with no end in sight - obviously not "in control" of the US, not least because one of the combatants is a major nuclear power and you cannot have any meaningful military control over a major nuclear power.
- linguae 3y ago
  Japan has all these things. The Tokyo metro area has quite affordable housing by global standards, and housing can be downright cheap in many cities outside Tokyo. Japan has affordable health care and comparatively lenient zoning laws. Japan is famous for its Shinkansen, and there’s a maglev train under construction that will be even faster than existing Shinkansen lines. For local transit Tokyo’s subway and train system continues to improve.
  - John23832 3y ago
    And what they then lack is a young and growing populous, which are who all the previously mentioned benefits should be for. Nothing is perfect.
    - nvoeiah 3y ago
      That is precisely the point. All is cheap and nice because there isn't a young population to buy it. Otherwise it would turn expensive because of simple supply and demand.
      - JCharante 3y ago
        it's still possible to realize those gains by moving there though, there's plenty of for example Indians who move to Japan straight out of uni (Japanese companies go recruit Indian grads with 3 or 5 year contracts). Don't even need to be an established professional to move there.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Japan isn’t known for being the most open to immigration. But ya, they have a lot of Indians, Chinese, Filipino immigrants.
    - gregjor 3y ago
      The US also has an increasingly geriatric population. Japan has a lead in declining birth rate and increasingly aged population, but the US and western Europe (and China) have the same problem.
- ranguna 3y ago
  Finland?
  - darthrupert 3y ago
    Finland has 2 high speed trains, and 75km of high speed rail. So, technically yes. Healthcare is hardly affordable, costs are skyrocketing and meeical staff are overloaded. The system has been overhauled recently, remains to be seen what the effect is. Cost of living is generally high if you want to live near cities. Subway lines only in the capital.
- krapp 3y ago
  I can name a lot that have most of those items. The list of countries that have none is much shorter, and the US is right on top.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Singapore? Does HDB count? Singapore seems to have universal healthcare. Tokyo housing is pretty cheap tbh because you can just live several train stations away and find apartments in the 60k-80k yen/mo range.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    You can’t move to Singapore and take advantage of that, you need to be a Singapore citizen to get a flat in your mid 30s.
- slaw 3y ago
  China.
raccoonDivider 3y ago
Because these countries rely on the US military for protection? All the EU does against Russia. Japan and south-east Asian countries do against China. Look up how underfunded Germany’s Bundeswehr has been these past few years, how France’s push to build up European defenses is going, how Eastern European countries rely on NATO. When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Unfortunately you are right and here in Central Europe, Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of anguish. At least initially, plenty of people were afraid that he is going to steamroll Ukraine, and then continue towards the Baltic/Poland, in order to restore the entire imperial zone of influence of the former USSR, or at least as much of it as practical (so, without the former GDR, probably; with AfD in his pocket, he could gain a lot of soft power there anyway). In that case, if the US decided that they don't really care about a potential nuclear war for the sake of some distant Eastern European countries, we would be caught with our pants down. Only Poland was somewhat prepared. Many European countries grew fatter and lazier under the American defense umbrella. It was easier to stuff money into popular projects than into guns and soldiers. Only, it turns out, sometimes you really need those guns and soldiers even in the 21st century. "Si vis pacem, para bellum."
  - ttyprintk 3y ago
    Another HN post puts this in terms of civilian casualties: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 The average people in powerful democracies have a responsibility to avoid the circumstances which historically have led to mass civilian casualties. For USA, the toll of nuclear strikes is an approachable example. Other great powers have a worse record in avoiding malicious mass suffering. The part relevant to your comment is that the US military now needs to prevent war rather than excel at it. And it has chosen to look as formidable as possible to rational enemies. I think Europe agrees with this, but I don’t know if there are other ways.
- 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kalleboo 3y ago
Because your population isn't electing a government that is working toward that.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Yup. I think the US will suffer brain drain as skilled professionals realize they can move abroad for a better QOL. I'm not talking about FIRE in Thailand but moving to a Western European country or East Asian country where there is lots of developed infrastructure and expat groups (e.g. immigrant communities)
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    That is nowhere near happening yet. The USA still benefits from brain drain from those countries to the USA for some reason. Denmark, for example, just produces too many computer scientists to utilize locally, so lots of them wind up in the US.
Log_out_ 3y ago
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EduardoBautista 3y ago

I can’t name a single country that has all of the items you mentioned at the same time. Especially affordable housing.

pastacacioepepe 3y ago
Austria, for one.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Austria strongly relies on the fact that it is located in a "safe" region, where none of its neighbours is likely to ever attack it. Austrian military expenses are very meager.
  - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
    Aren't the US in a safe region as well? They choose to spend a lot in military to project their force globally, not because they need to protect themselves.
    - devilbunny 3y ago
      Withdraw the US Navy and watch how fast that evaporates. Someone has to, or you get piracy. A lot of it. And I don’t mean movies. We have the most to lose from impaired trade, so we pay for it. We have floating airbases all over the world. As Madeleine Albright said to the president of China, “Jiang Zemin, one of my favorite men, but when you’re not so sweet, I send the Seventh Fleet.” Nukes mean that no nation-state will attack us openly. The Navy means that fucking with the US is a personal death sentence.
      - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        I wonder why do you have the perception that half the world would attack the US if they didn't have the largest military force. Why doesn't that happen to Austria, for example, or China? Perhaps "fucking" with the world is what caused the US to be considered an enemy by so many countries. Almost like the more they impose their force globally, the more other countries feel the need to resist it.
        inglor_cz 3y ago
        Not the OP, but I don't understand how you parsed his argument into "I wonder why do you have the perception that half the world would attack the US if they didn't have the largest military force" There is absolutely nothing insinuating this perception in his comment. He says that without the US Navy, there would be a lot more piracy on the high seas, and he is likely right. The historical experience from all corners of the world confirms that weakening naval control leads to increase in opportunistic piracy all around. Piracy is one of the oldest organized criminal activities in the world and most civilizations, including the really old ones (like Ancient Egypt) had to deal with it this way or another.
        pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        > There is absolutely nothing insinuating this perception in his comment. From OP: > Nukes mean that no nation-state will attack us openly. The Navy means that fucking with the US is a personal death sentence.
        devilbunny 3y ago
        Right. But I’m not saying people are dying to attack the US. They largely don’t care about us. I’m saying that you can play games with, say, Austria, that you can’t with the US. And yes, we will hunt you down. Does that make us bad people? No, it’s the consequence of power. If you don’t use it, someone else will. And the US has done a lot of bad things - but name what other country capable of doing it you would prefer to be in charge. Monaco isn’t an option.
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      While the US can always decide to turn inward and stop caring about safety of anything else but their own territory, the resulting harm for the US economy and diplomatic relations would be enormous. The US took over from the British as the power that protects global trade networks, which means patrolling the seas. The capability and willingness to do so attracted a lot of other developed nations into the US-led political coalition, and contributed to enormous growth of international trade (something like 5-fold since the 1970s?) Without enough of a Navy, this network will disintegrate, or will be taken over by someone else, much like in the UK-to-US case around the time of WWII. Realistically, the only nation capable of doing so is China and I am not even certain if they wanted to, as their international projects like Belt-and-road are being abandoned.
      - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        So how could China develop so much without that huge network of navy imposing their power globally? Why does China invest in peaceful commercial agreements (like Belt and road, which is still active btw) while the US invests in global military control?
        inglor_cz 3y ago
        Belt and Road isn't shuttered down yet, but the volume of new projects under its aegis has gone to approximately zero. China was able to export its goods to the rest of the world using ships. Those ships sailed mostly safe seas (yeah there are exceptions like the Malacca Straits, where pirates still lurk) without any Chinese navy protection, because those seas were made safe by someone else. That is not hard to understand. If the global trade as a whole is protected by the US Navy, Chinese trade, a subset thereof, is protected as well. BTW The US does not have global military control. They do have quite a lot of control of the seas, but dry land is a different story. They had to withdraw from Afghanistan after trying to impose their will for 20 years. They didn't succeed in remaking Iraq to their ally either. And, in the steppes of Ukraine, a war has been raging for almost two years by now, with no end in sight - obviously not "in control" of the US, not least because one of the combatants is a major nuclear power and you cannot have any meaningful military control over a major nuclear power.
linguae 3y ago
Japan has all these things. The Tokyo metro area has quite affordable housing by global standards, and housing can be downright cheap in many cities outside Tokyo. Japan has affordable health care and comparatively lenient zoning laws. Japan is famous for its Shinkansen, and there’s a maglev train under construction that will be even faster than existing Shinkansen lines. For local transit Tokyo’s subway and train system continues to improve.
- John23832 3y ago
  And what they then lack is a young and growing populous, which are who all the previously mentioned benefits should be for. Nothing is perfect.
  - nvoeiah 3y ago
    That is precisely the point. All is cheap and nice because there isn't a young population to buy it. Otherwise it would turn expensive because of simple supply and demand.
    - JCharante 3y ago
      it's still possible to realize those gains by moving there though, there's plenty of for example Indians who move to Japan straight out of uni (Japanese companies go recruit Indian grads with 3 or 5 year contracts). Don't even need to be an established professional to move there.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Japan isn’t known for being the most open to immigration. But ya, they have a lot of Indians, Chinese, Filipino immigrants.
  - gregjor 3y ago
    The US also has an increasingly geriatric population. Japan has a lead in declining birth rate and increasingly aged population, but the US and western Europe (and China) have the same problem.
ranguna 3y ago
Finland?
- darthrupert 3y ago
  Finland has 2 high speed trains, and 75km of high speed rail. So, technically yes. Healthcare is hardly affordable, costs are skyrocketing and meeical staff are overloaded. The system has been overhauled recently, remains to be seen what the effect is. Cost of living is generally high if you want to live near cities. Subway lines only in the capital.
krapp 3y ago
I can name a lot that have most of those items. The list of countries that have none is much shorter, and the US is right on top.
JCharante 3y ago
Singapore? Does HDB count? Singapore seems to have universal healthcare. Tokyo housing is pretty cheap tbh because you can just live several train stations away and find apartments in the 60k-80k yen/mo range.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You can’t move to Singapore and take advantage of that, you need to be a Singapore citizen to get a flat in your mid 30s.
slaw 3y ago
China.

raccoonDivider 3y ago

Because these countries rely on the US military for protection? All the EU does against Russia. Japan and south-east Asian countries do against China. Look up how underfunded Germany’s Bundeswehr has been these past few years, how France’s push to build up European defenses is going, how Eastern European countries rely on NATO. When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Unfortunately you are right and here in Central Europe, Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of anguish. At least initially, plenty of people were afraid that he is going to steamroll Ukraine, and then continue towards the Baltic/Poland, in order to restore the entire imperial zone of influence of the former USSR, or at least as much of it as practical (so, without the former GDR, probably; with AfD in his pocket, he could gain a lot of soft power there anyway). In that case, if the US decided that they don't really care about a potential nuclear war for the sake of some distant Eastern European countries, we would be caught with our pants down. Only Poland was somewhat prepared. Many European countries grew fatter and lazier under the American defense umbrella. It was easier to stuff money into popular projects than into guns and soldiers. Only, it turns out, sometimes you really need those guns and soldiers even in the 21st century. "Si vis pacem, para bellum."
- ttyprintk 3y ago
  Another HN post puts this in terms of civilian casualties: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 The average people in powerful democracies have a responsibility to avoid the circumstances which historically have led to mass civilian casualties. For USA, the toll of nuclear strikes is an approachable example. Other great powers have a worse record in avoiding malicious mass suffering. The part relevant to your comment is that the US military now needs to prevent war rather than excel at it. And it has chosen to look as formidable as possible to rational enemies. I think Europe agrees with this, but I don’t know if there are other ways.
3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kalleboo 3y ago

Because your population isn't electing a government that is working toward that.

JCharante 3y ago
Yup. I think the US will suffer brain drain as skilled professionals realize they can move abroad for a better QOL. I'm not talking about FIRE in Thailand but moving to a Western European country or East Asian country where there is lots of developed infrastructure and expat groups (e.g. immigrant communities)
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  That is nowhere near happening yet. The USA still benefits from brain drain from those countries to the USA for some reason. Denmark, for example, just produces too many computer scientists to utilize locally, so lots of them wind up in the US.

Log_out_ 3y ago

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