4 ms·

As you say this can cut both ways. A good example would be the US where people constantly wonder whether $thing-that-29-out-of-30-developed-countries-do-since-d

by atoav 3y ago

As you say this can cut both ways. A good example would be the US where people constantly wonder whether $thing-that-29-out-of-30-developed-countries-do-since-decades could truly work. Yeah it works, we have seen it work, it is currently working. Now imagine you are a software developer entering the offices of a group of bueraucratic clercs that keep an intricate fax-and-scanner-based system of bullshit just barely afloat. Of course as a person that is specialized on thinking about the storage, transformation, santitizarion, transmission and deletion of data you are going to probably have a slightly more sophisticated take on information processing than them. They might know the law better or which combinations of checkboxes a person is allowed to tick on a form, but they suck at the meta task of organizing the efficient, fast and error free flow, storage, deletion, etc of information. And sure now one could argue about the merrits of paper (and I routinely argue it's merrits for democratic elections, where correctness and traceability are more important than speed), but that would be like arguing for making doctors use medival hand tools in the age of the scalpel. Now it is true that outsiders to a system won't see what reasons there are for a certain thing being shaped a certain way, but this can sometimes even happen to insiders if the information handover is bad enough.

skybrian 3y ago
The argument from what other countries have done can often be used simplistically. Yes, it’s important to learn from other countries. However, when you look into it, it sometimes turns out that the other 29 countries have all done things in somewhat different ways, that their solutions are somewhat path-dependent and culture-specific, that they have problems too, and your country has some unique problems of its own that are hard to overcome.
- atoav 3y ago
  Yeah, sure. You cannot translate what works in Sweden one to one to the US and expect the same success. But here is what you could do: realize that the cultural differences between Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Finland, UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Belgium and so on are very likely not less than the difference between the US to all of these countries. And yet, some things US citizens claim can't ever work do so in very different cultures, under various right or left wing governments and in different climate zones. But keep on telling yourself the story that the US is so exceptional that reasonable conservative policies that work everywhere else can't work. This is likely just going to work out great in the long run.
  - vonwoodson 3y ago
    The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan... It's a really foolish opinion or disregard the immense diversity of 350,000,000 people, and (unfortunately) it's made all over the internet. "Why don't you just do X", totally papers over the extent of what just needs to happen. "Everyone should just do Y" is always bad policy. Just look at what happened with something as simple as wearing masks.
    - 6510 3y ago
      Each government in the world is for the most part presented with the same set of puzzles. Then they spend good money trying to solve it in isolation as if they are all unique and special. Some countries are just 1000 years behind in some areas, or 1000 years ahead. The US is no exception in both. If you never did leg day the gains will be easy.
    - p_j_w 3y ago
      >The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan This is just so obviously not true on the surface. We all speak the same language at the very least, which isn't true for a single one of those countries you listed.
      - voltaireodactyl 3y ago
        Australia and Ireland certainly speak the same language as much as Maine and Texas do.
      - vonwoodson 3y ago
        They speak French in Louisiana, German in Amish Country, Gullah in North Carolina... Your ignorance doesn't make you correct.
        snowpid 3y ago
        while clearly the Amish language is related to German, it is not German spoken in Germany. Btw, all these people can speak English.
mech422 3y ago
while I agree we need some sort of nationalized health care and should learn from the countries that have implemented it, I'm not sure thats the strong success you think it is? Just recently we had a bunch of comments here on HN about how bad candian health care can be if you live in the 'wrong' area. UK has had issues with NHS for decades at least (hell, they ALSO have 'private' insurance which seems to be almost a requirement). And several other EU countries have hit issues with healthcare lately (charge fat people/smokers more since they use more resources was fairly divisive recently. Personally - I think it all boils down to scale. As these systems grow, it becomes harder to sustain them. That doesn't bode well for the US with 10x the population of Canada :-( It sucks because I'd really like it, and I'd love not having my health care tied to my job ...
- goodcanadian 3y ago
  As a Canadian who has lived in the United States and in the United Kingdom, I can say without a doubt that both Canada and the UK beat the US "system" by a mile. While their universal healthcare can have problems, the problems in the US system are far worse.
  - mech422 3y ago
    Yeah - I have family in both countries (parents: mom & family from Leeds, dad and family from London cousins: I don't actually know where in Canada they are now) Obviously, there is a lot of good stuff we can copy/learn from both countries. The thing is to make sure we can iron out as many issues as possible (large population and geographic area mostly) before we attempt something and having politicians claim it "doesn't work". Seem my response to isleyaardvark above for my (stupid) idea to try to us the VA hospitals to test bed some of this. Thanks!
- isleyaardvark 3y ago
  Not too long ago I saw an article from a Canadian source about how bad Canadian healthcare was getting, and complaining Canada had or was about to drop out of the top 10 rankings. It had a scatter chart showing the metrics, and while Canada was shown as lower than many of the other countries, the gap between all those countries and the US was enormous. When other countries complain about their healthcare, they're complaining about complaining about sane systems not performing to their standards, and that doesn't make the US any less of a dumpster fire.

by atoav 3y ago

skybrian 3y ago

The argument from what other countries have done can often be used simplistically. Yes, it’s important to learn from other countries. However, when you look into it, it sometimes turns out that the other 29 countries have all done things in somewhat different ways, that their solutions are somewhat path-dependent and culture-specific, that they have problems too, and your country has some unique problems of its own that are hard to overcome.

atoav 3y ago
Yeah, sure. You cannot translate what works in Sweden one to one to the US and expect the same success. But here is what you could do: realize that the cultural differences between Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Finland, UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Belgium and so on are very likely not less than the difference between the US to all of these countries. And yet, some things US citizens claim can't ever work do so in very different cultures, under various right or left wing governments and in different climate zones. But keep on telling yourself the story that the US is so exceptional that reasonable conservative policies that work everywhere else can't work. This is likely just going to work out great in the long run.
- vonwoodson 3y ago
  The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan... It's a really foolish opinion or disregard the immense diversity of 350,000,000 people, and (unfortunately) it's made all over the internet. "Why don't you just do X", totally papers over the extent of what just needs to happen. "Everyone should just do Y" is always bad policy. Just look at what happened with something as simple as wearing masks.
  - 6510 3y ago
    Each government in the world is for the most part presented with the same set of puzzles. Then they spend good money trying to solve it in isolation as if they are all unique and special. Some countries are just 1000 years behind in some areas, or 1000 years ahead. The US is no exception in both. If you never did leg day the gains will be easy.
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    >The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan This is just so obviously not true on the surface. We all speak the same language at the very least, which isn't true for a single one of those countries you listed.
    - voltaireodactyl 3y ago
      Australia and Ireland certainly speak the same language as much as Maine and Texas do.
    - vonwoodson 3y ago
      They speak French in Louisiana, German in Amish Country, Gullah in North Carolina... Your ignorance doesn't make you correct.
      - snowpid 3y ago
        while clearly the Amish language is related to German, it is not German spoken in Germany. Btw, all these people can speak English.

mech422 3y ago

while I agree we need some sort of nationalized health care and should learn from the countries that have implemented it, I'm not sure thats the strong success you think it is? Just recently we had a bunch of comments here on HN about how bad candian health care can be if you live in the 'wrong' area. UK has had issues with NHS for decades at least (hell, they ALSO have 'private' insurance which seems to be almost a requirement). And several other EU countries have hit issues with healthcare lately (charge fat people/smokers more since they use more resources was fairly divisive recently. Personally - I think it all boils down to scale. As these systems grow, it becomes harder to sustain them. That doesn't bode well for the US with 10x the population of Canada :-( It sucks because I'd really like it, and I'd love not having my health care tied to my job ...

goodcanadian 3y ago
As a Canadian who has lived in the United States and in the United Kingdom, I can say without a doubt that both Canada and the UK beat the US "system" by a mile. While their universal healthcare can have problems, the problems in the US system are far worse.
- mech422 3y ago
  Yeah - I have family in both countries (parents: mom & family from Leeds, dad and family from London cousins: I don't actually know where in Canada they are now) Obviously, there is a lot of good stuff we can copy/learn from both countries. The thing is to make sure we can iron out as many issues as possible (large population and geographic area mostly) before we attempt something and having politicians claim it "doesn't work". Seem my response to isleyaardvark above for my (stupid) idea to try to us the VA hospitals to test bed some of this. Thanks!
isleyaardvark 3y ago
Not too long ago I saw an article from a Canadian source about how bad Canadian healthcare was getting, and complaining Canada had or was about to drop out of the top 10 rankings. It had a scatter chart showing the metrics, and while Canada was shown as lower than many of the other countries, the gap between all those countries and the US was enormous. When other countries complain about their healthcare, they're complaining about complaining about sane systems not performing to their standards, and that doesn't make the US any less of a dumpster fire.