Is America Really That Bad?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Cannizzaro@feddit.ch⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?

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Zarxrax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It varies from person to person and place to place. But generally, I would say that America is a pretty good place, but not perfect and has a lot of room for improvement.

Yes, healthcare is expensive, but we have some government programs to provide cheaper care for certain groups, like the very poor, the elderly, and veterans.

Violence varies from place to place, but I feel like I live in a safe area, and I have never seen or heard a gun fired at someone in a public place.

A lot of the bad laws typically involve disenfranchising certain minority groups. I am lucky enough to not be affected by most of this, and a lot of people are fighting back against it by trying to vote in better politicians.

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- sibe@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I have never seen or heard a gun fired at someone in a public place
  
  Feels weird you have to specify “at someone” and “in a public place”. I’ve never heard a gun fired outside of firing ranges (EU)
  
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  - Alenalda@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Live in a suburban area. Several of my neighbors have 5+ acres of land. One of them has a makeshift range, so I hear someone shooting all the time, sometimes for hours on end day after day. I’m not thrilled by it.
    
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  - WorldWideLem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    This would cover things like hunting and/or target practice at a home or private property, so not entirely that weird.
    
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  - TheHottub@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    American here. Lived in California most of my life just outside LA in suburbs. Ventura as well. Lived in Tennessee for 2 years and Idaho 2. I’ve seen people open carry a few times. I own a gun and I’ve never seen or heard a gun fired outside of a gun range. I’m 40 btw. It’s not that bad here. It’s big and there are a lot of people so the news has tons of opportunities to present the worst of humanity which makes up a small percentage.
    
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Lemmylefty@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
America is harder to live in the poorer you are, and it’s on a steeper scale than in other industrialized nations because there are fewer and less robust social services, especially health and child care, and declines in union membership have paired with a rapid increase in wealth inequality that is forcing the shrinking middle class downward and stomping on the poor even harder.

You can live a comfortable life (for now…) if you are firmly middle class and up. Your higher salary than your counterparts in Europe is eaten away at by higher costs, and you deal with risks that they don’t in the form of transportation being car dominated (more accidents and less walking exercise) easy access to guns (the most dangerous being the one in your own home, to you) and less strict food safety laws. Compared to those in Eastern Europe, however, your likelihood of suffering from a foreign attack is drastically lower, not that it was ever very high to begin with.

One thing that Americans take pride in (and rightly, mind you) and full advantage of is our First Amendment right to not have our speech be curtailed, so a large amount of the bitching about America, and especially in English, is Americans bitching about America(ns). So there’s a cultural element to it that may or may not exceed the truth.

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- kersploosh@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  a large amount of the bitching about America, and especially in English, is Americans bitching about America(ns).
  
  Absolutely.
  
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  - OptimusPhillip@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    J.J. McCullough did a really good video about this fact, I’d definitely recommend it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVQKD3jH2M&ab_channe…
    
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- Subtlysubtle@sffa.community ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I would also add that the capitalist class loves to promote the idea if America as the greatest nation on earth because that storyline benefits them. They’ve already won the game and are benefiting from our current system. They don’t want it to change.
  
  If we admit we have shortcomings–large gap in wealth inequality, lack of accessible and affordible health services, piss poor public transportation, unaffordable child care paired with living costs so large 2 incomes are required, poor school funding, pervasive gun violence, and Policing that emphasizes violence, just to name a few-- then we are also acknowedging that we have to change things. Why would those who greatly benefit from our current system want change?
  
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Jackthelad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This is why Trump should get elected so he can Make America Great Again, right guys?

But in all seriousness, I imagine it’s a case of that America is nowhere near as good as some Americans make it out to be, but it’s also not as terrible as the media make it out to be either. You can probably apply this to most of the Western World, really.

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- meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  A lot of the ones that make it out to be greater than it is are just wishfully thinking. They imagine a place where they don’t need to make any changes while everything else must conform to their ideals and bend for them. They imagine trump is the answer to this. They typically have the simplest of beliefs and solutions that would fail even the slightest scrutiny.
  
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- Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I have very mixed feelings about Trump. Obviously, he really isn’t good for any country, so I hope he doesn’t get re-elected. Just throw him in the jail already. Unfortunately, I can’t deny the fact that on some sick and twisted schadenfreude way I also enjoyed watching the first four seasons of the Shitshow. Oh, what a rollercoaster that was.
  
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kava@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
America is a country with over 300 million people and it’s bigger than Western Europe. There’s going to be a lot of variance. Someone growing up wealthy in San Fransisco is going to live in a different America than someone growing up with a single waitress mother in Louisiana.

The average homicide rate in the US is 5 per 100,000. The town of Boca Raton, FL has a homicide rate of 1 (less than half of the European average of 2.5) and Baltimore / St Louis / New Orleans can sometimes reach 30+ on bad years (worse than some Brazilian and Mexican cities).

When you ask about the shitty laws, we have to remember that the US is almost like 50 different countries in one. Every single state you will have a different experience as well. In Illinois school districts kids in elementary school may take home school laptops free of charge. In Panhandle Florida the kids aren’t getting that.

In Florida you can go to a one of the many kava bars or smoke shops and purchase a kilogram of kratom. If you drive through Louisiana with that kratom you can get charged with a felony comparable to being caught with heroin.

Do you get what I’m saying? There are many different Americas - even in the same geographical area. In SE Florida there are a wild mix of different ethnicities and cultures. There are Haitians, Jews, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Vietnamese, Jamaicans…

You can live in the same city but have a totally different experience. The Brazilians may hang out with mainly other Brazilians and go to the Brazilian restaraunts / clubs / grocery stores and not ever go to the Jewish deli that all the Jews love as a staple of the town. It’s like you walk around the same area and depending on the cultural lens you put on, you experience a different reality.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT

I think America is a good country to live in. Why? Because it’s better than the vast majority of the world. You earn more money. You are safer. You have more opportunities and there’s better infrastructure, healthcare, etc than in vast majority of the world.

Yes, there are serious problems. Wealth inequality is splitting the country in two. Healthcare is expensive. There’s an opioid epidemic. We have high rates of gun violence. Etc etc

But having come from a relatively well-off third world country, I’ve seen the difference in QOL first hand and it’s massive. America is a good place to live.

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- Hyperreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  US is almost like 50 different countries in one.
  
  While this is obviously true, it's important to note that the US certainly isn't unique in this regard. Non-Americans often underestimate how diverse the US is. Americans often underestimate how diverse even seemingly homogenous European countries are, especially when diversity isn't immediately visible.
  
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  - kava@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Of course variance in terms of culture, demographics, and industry in even small countries can be massive. My home city in Southern Brazil of almost 1 milliom population has less than 1% black population. Last time I visited for 2 weeks I didn’t see a single black person. This surprises some people because of the perception of Brazil and the fact they imported more slaves than any other country in the America’s.
    
    So yes, I’m not claiming US is uniquely diverse. It’s just unusually large so it has large amounts of diversity due to geographic distance and total population + historic & current immigration.
    
    However what I was trying to say by 50 different countries is that the laws can vary wildly from state to state. It is something that isn’t common in other countries. Of course there are other counties with strong federated systems where the provincial-level governments have strong autonomy (Germany and Switzerland come to mind) I think these types of countries are uncommon.
    
    For example in Brazil no state regulates specific substances. That’s a power for the federal government. So if you buy a substance that’s legal in one state, you can safely bring it anywhere in Brazil. However in US this is not the case. I have the example of kratom, but Marijuana is another one.
    
    This is what I was trying to say by 50 different countries. They aren’t actually countries but in some ways they have just as much if not more autonomy than countries, besides of course foreign policy decisions. But look at California for example. It’s economy is bigger than most countries in the world.
    
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- Bigs@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This, y'all. One of the things I think a lot of younger travelers fail to realize is that the US is not a meme. It's huge and full of people with thoughts, hopes, regrets etc. just like everyone else.
  
  Maybe there are better places to live or visit, but the US is pretty easy and most folks I've met are genuinely nice when they realize you might need help.
  
  Edit: try to avoid police and if you encounter them play that foreign visitor thing up or make your English really bad. A lot of them are former soldiers that served in the middle east. They default to a pretty aggressive demeanor because that's what we did to them. Your safety won't be a concern, but they can waste lot of your time.
  
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- Devi@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  You have more opportunities and there’s better infrastructure, healthcare, etc than in vast majority of the world.
  
  Umm....
  
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donuts@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The US healthcare system is actually even worse than people think. Employers use it to hold power over us all, and even if you have insurance the prices of everything are extremely inflated (my dad went in for back surgery and the total was $47k usd, but get this, one of the items was a single bag of saline solution----$270!), and many people including myself can't afford health insurance at all so I'm 1 accident or illness away from total financial ruin.

I genuinely love America and the place where I live. There is a lot to like and there are many places where life is much harder, but the US health system is one of those things that is embarrassingly bad and honestly just scary.

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- Aviandelight@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That’s because American health insurance is not really insurance it’s a discount plan. Any of you remember being forced to sell those overpriced coupon books as fundraisers in school? That’s what American health insurance is. It’s a shitty discount plan/coupon book that you are forced into buying from your employer and the plan itself makes sure you pay as much out of pocket as they can legally get away with.
  
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applejacks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yes and no.

We do have mass shootings, but we also live in a country in 330 million, but every mass shooting makes national news, so it seems far worse than it is. Also, most mass shootings are gang violence that get lumped in with what we normally consider “random mass shootings” to pump up the numbers and scare people.

Healthcare could definitely be better, but 67% of Americans are satisfied with their insurance. I would still much prefer a universal healthcare system.

Overall, America definitely has its ups and downs, but a lot of the “AMERICA BAD” rhetoric is just a reddit meme where they get rewarded for trashing it.

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- joe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You skipped over the whole 50% of the population lost the constitutional right to control their own body.
  
  You skipped over a lot of stuff.
  
  America is pretty bad, and we’ll never get better if everyone keeps insisting we’re not that bad.
  
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  - yenahmik@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    See, this just isn’t true. There are a number of states that have the right to abortion enshrined in their constitution. Others are voting to have it added to their constitutions. Just because it was removed nationally, doesn’t mean everyone lost that right.
    
    Granted, it is absolutely a tragedy what is going on in the more backwards states. But things like this make it sound worse than the situation is nationwide. This is the issue the OP has. If you only see the negatives that are reported in the news, it sounds like the US is an absolute hellhole, which is not most people’s lived experience.
    
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  - pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The only way we’ll improve is if people realize how shitty it is and vote for better reps and better laws.
    
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- mosthated@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Trying to downplay the old gun violence again? There is still this though: www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/…/index.html
  
  And those numbers only go up to 2018. This year, we have already had as many school shootings by June as during the entire year of 2018: www.edweek.org/leadership/…/01
  
  But yeah, I guess some people consider that ‘scare tactics’. smh
  
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  - applejacks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yes, this is exactly what I was talking about:
    
    www.npr.org/…/the-school-shootings-that-werent
    
    This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools … reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.
    
    But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government’s Civil Rights Data Collection.
    
    We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.
    
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- STUPIDVIPGUY@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Go outside dude. “America bad” is not based on reddit, there are millions of citizens out there who have real issues with the way our country is run, real activist groups doing protests and trying to spread awareness.
  
  All you have to do is open your mind to be able to see these problems (instead of downplaying issues like mass murder) and listen to the people who feel they’ve been disadvantaged
  
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  - applejacks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yes, how dare I look at the actual statistics over listening to people that “feel” a certain way.
    
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- Muehe@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  Healthcare could definitely be better, but 67% of Americans are satisfied with their insurance.
  
  No offense, but this sounds a bit like asking the congenitally blind if they miss seeing.
  
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  - applejacks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I don’t disagree with that.
    
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AnthoNightShift@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s not just America. It’s the whole world right now.

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- rich@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Well, I have free healthcare here in my country and no guns.
  
  But we do have stupid cunts as politicians enacting stupid fucking laws (like the online safety act)
  
  So eh, kind of.
  
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  - Barbarian@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I feel this in my bones. Different laws, different stupid shit, equally stupid politicians.
    
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dan1101@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Overall, no. In most places things are peaceful and nice. In some places there is a lot of crime and squalor. A lot depends on your location, perspective, and luck.

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charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No, it’s not nearly as bad as depicted.

The USA, for all its faults, remains the standard against which other countries measure themselves (and find themselves lacking). That’s why every embarrassment and mistake gets blasted across the international media.

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- Hyperreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  That’s why every embarrassment and mistake gets blasted across the international media.
  
  Do you speak languages other than English fluently?
  
  the standard against which other countries measure themselves
  
  What are you basing this on?
  
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  - charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    What are you basing this on?
    
    The international newsworthiness of any American embarrassment and shortcoming.
    
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- STUPIDVIPGUY@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  True that many countries may find themselves lacking to the USA. Americans meanwhile don’t compare themselves to anybody, completely ignoring all the countries which are leaps and bounds ahead of us in terms of social justice & public welfare.
  
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  - charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Americans meanwhile don’t compare themselves to anybody, completely ignoring all the countries which are leaps and bounds ahead of us in terms of social justice & public welfare.
    
    Thank you for demonstrating my point.
    
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- clobubba@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I thought that Germany had pretty much displaced us as standard-bearer in Europe's eyes. Would any European care to educate me on that?
  
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- 40hands@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Apologist propaganda.
  
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  - charonn0@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Butthurt denialism.
    
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Ibaudia@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It depends on who you are, really.

If you’re a poor, black woman living in Louisiana where the only work you can find is at a chemical plant, your life is going to fucking suck.

If you’re upper-middle class living in a city, you’re probably going to have a pretty good life.

There are some systems that are just awful by developed standards though. Education, medicine, policing, and politics come to mind. They’re not likely to change, so you just have to cope with them. Basically just don’t ever get sick or interact with the police. You’ll probably die if you do either.

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n0cturnali@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
American Dream isn’t dead. I’m grinding for mine. It’s just definitely harder now.

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- rasterweb@artemis.camp ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I don't think my parents or grandparents had to "grind" for the American Dream™. They could afford a house, a car, and raise a family all on one full-time job 50 years ago.
  
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  - Zarxrax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    A lot of people don’t see what their parents had to deal with, because by the time we are old enough to notice those things, they have already had a chance to work their way upward. Not to say that certain things might not have been easier back then, because in some ways it certainly was. But I hear about how my grandparents worked in a factory or joined the military because it was their only option at the time, and then I hear about how my great grandmother had 8 children to take care of as a single parent, and she walked miles to get to work in her factory job. Things have always been difficult depending on circumstances.
    
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  - TheLowestStone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    They may have had to grind but doing so allowed then to save and achieve their goals. Many people today grind themselves to dust merely to survive.
    
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  - Nemo@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Working full-time isn’t a grind?
    
    I’m speaking as someone who supports a family of five and bought a home on one income, btw. I work hard to do it, but I do it.
    
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- Jackthelad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I don’t think the “American Dream” ever really existed.
  
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  - FarraigePlaisteach@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It’s synonymous with exploitation from what I’ve seen. I don’t live there but the news is unavoidable here.
    
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- donuts@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Unfortunately there are a lot of people here (and all over the world) who grind their asses off through multiple jobs while sacrificing their entire life, and still don't earn enough to lead a decent life or own anything.
  
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Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Its a philanthropists playground. Just dont get caught being poor.

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NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The only reason I didn’t get financially destroyed by the accident I was in, was just because the driver who struck me off my bicycle was 100% at fault and there was no denying it. You can try to say I served in front of you but at the end of the day you struck a bicyclist from behind on the road.

Anyways, because of laws on how much you can sue for I was capped out. So I didn’t get a ton of money but thankfully they also were forced to cover all my medical expenses along with the payout, which would have easily bankrupted me even with really good insurance if I had to pay that back.

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Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
America is a decent place if you put your blinders on and worry about yourself… and don’t get sick. In America, you get sick and you go bankrupt. Some places in the world you get sick and you die. 🤷‍♂️ People in the US are pissed off because the problems we have are obvious, easy to fix, and the people in charge make blatantly shitty decisions because they stand to profit off of them. Unchecked capitalism has corrupted every branch of the government. And since the leaders are the ones that have to regulate it and they profit off of it, they won’t change it. The elections are actually lies. And there are people that try to say we are an elite, premier example of democracy and the best country in the world. We are not that. The upper half of this country is broken and it’s squeezing the middle and lower class until we pop, for profit.

The decision making people in this country are selfish twats. They would be voted out but gerrymandering and electoral colleges (that they control) prevent the people from actually making the decision. Our elections are a farce.

But if you don’t pay attention to those things and you decide to just keep your head down, work, pay rent, consume like they want you too, it’s OK. Keep your head out of the news or you just get pissed off and ashamed.

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rasterweb@artemis.camp ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I've lived in the US for over 50 years and yes, in many ways it's really shitty here. I look at how other countries function and wonder why we can't do the same thing. The US is "supposedly" the greatest country in the world and yet, there is so much wrong with it.

Granted, there are good things too (depending on where you live and your status, of course.)

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andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Honestly it isn’t that bad.

I’m over fifty now and have never been even close to a mass shooting. Outside of a gun range I’ve never heard a gun shot. I’m definitely not middle class or upper middle class and other then a 2 year stretch I’ve never had a problem getting insurance or getting insurance to pay my medical bills. In the last year my mom has started having a problem with certain medical bills getting paid by insurance. They always pay but sometimes it requires a call or two to the insurance or doctors office to fix it.

It’s amazingly easy to start your own business in the US. The number of opportunities is crazy. That goes for both people who just came to the US and for those that were born here.

Are there problems? Yea. Same as in any country.

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- KoboldCoterie@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  In the last year my mom has started having a problem with certain medical bills getting paid by insurance. They always pay but sometimes it requires a call or two to the insurance or doctors office to fix it.
  
  I would like to provide an anecdotal counter-point, because I don’t think your experience is representative.
  
  My father was a master plumber and operated his own business, very successfully, for 30+ years until he died of lymphoma. We fought with insurance tooth and nail but when all was said and done, his estate - which included property, savings, and his business assets - were drained to less than $10,000 by medical bills when all was said and done.
  
  He was a military veteran, and was also getting support from the VA - if not for that, he’d have been bankrupted years before he died.
  
  This was someone who, by most metrics, did everything right - he pulled himself up by his bootstraps, was an absolute workaholic, and worked hard to make his business successful, and for all of that, he checked out with less than $10,000. And he died at 64 - he was working up until about 2 weeks before he died.
  
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AttackBunny@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s all relative, but no, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not.

The issue, whether it’s conscious or not, is what we were sold (work hard, be nice, and you can have everything you ever wanted) not matching up with reality for most of us. My parents are squarely in the dead middle of the boomer generation. My step father is a construction worker, and my mother hasn’t worked since I was in high school. So they are one income, and it’s probably not an exceptional lot good income. They own their own home, in a very nice area, have retirement options, the world wasn’t literally on fire, they didn’t have to go through multiple once in a lifetime collapses, etc. In contrast, I’ll probably never be able to afford a home (run down houses on tiny properties are easily 800k here) and husband and I are dual income, I’ll likely never retire, my money is worth far less than theirs was, the world is burning, etc.

I’m also the last generation that didn’t have to worry about school shootings. I was graduating the year columbine happened. Not a single thing has been done in over 20 years since. I’d actually say access has gotten so much worse. Plus the “gun culture”. It’s insanity. The worship is crazy.

Then watching government fall into the farce it is, that’s bought and paid for. With little help coming to those that need it. And being a woman, watching my rights slip further and further away across the country.

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kersploosh@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No. The US has its problems but it’s not the hellhole people like to make it out to be.

It helps to look at the US in parts rather than as a homogeneous block. The country is huge and varied with 300M people in a land are larger than Europe. Laws can be wildly different from state to state, especially on hot topics like abortion or gun ownership or drug possession. Some states are filthy rich and others are depressingly poor. Some places are perfectly safe and others are dangerous.

For example, take a look at these maps comparing US states to European countries. Depending on the metric the US can look great or awful compared to Europe.

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Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s not as bad as they say it is. And yes it does vary from region to region a great deal.

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dotslashme@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Not American, but I imagine that news reporting uses loaded terms and partly drives the division between republicans and democrats. I assume that in reality most people are levelheaded people that don’t hate or fear their neighbors.

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elouboub@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
There are lots of worse places to be, but it definitely isn't "namba wan". Remember, it's a country of extremes and superlatives. "Everything" is "always" the "worst" or the "best". There's "never" a middleground.

Also, out interface with the US is online and the media. Online, people often express their unfiltered opinion or an extreme opinion + behavior, simply because they aren't face to face with others. It feels much less intimate and thus people behave that way. This has been going on long enough that the opinions online have taken a foothold IRL and the US is a good example thereof (from my outside view).

Also, don't forget, there are many people speaking English and talking about the US that do not actually live there and weigh in on stuff. Some crazy af opinions might not even be coming from a person physically in the US.

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match@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If you’re in a developing nation, consider this: America has probably about the same amount of wealth inequality as you, but America has probably ten or a hundred times more wealth. So, the American who lives a life similar to you will have more money when he travels; but while he’s in America, there’s some rich, corrupt villain in the nearby big city who has enough money to buy up and destroy his neighborhood at any time, who owns most of the police force and government and media - I am presuming your developing nation is the same way, because only some parts of the EU are different (at least from what I’ve been told)

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ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The only thing saving us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency

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Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Short answer: No.

Long answer: Everything is played up by the media, for ratings. Mass shootings are extremely rare, America is just huge and we have other issues. (of course any number above zero is bad) Health care is built around having insurance, but there is government insurance like Medicaid and Medicare available. If you don’t have insurance, you can often talk it down by just saying you don’t have insurance.

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eric5949@lemmy.cloudaf.site ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yes and no. Better than a lot of places in a lot of ways, worse than a lot of our peers in a lot of ways.

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zlatiah@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Interesting question...

As an overall answer: humans are incredibly adaptable, so as a person living in the US, it almost never subjectively feels bad. For goodness' sake, I knew people who lived in Chicago's Hyde Park (one of the most dangerous neighborhoods) and happily biked to work. I personally lived in what people would describe as a "hood" and a "third-world country" for a good year and a half, and honestly felt really safe over there. Because of this, I honestly don't think anyone can give an objective answer solely from their living experiences.

Objectively, the US is a developed country and is not terrible, but regarding your specific points:

Yes, the government passed shitty laws, and chose to not pass a lot of not-shitty laws.

Yes, there are more mass shootings than the country should have. I'm not going to say why.

Insured healthcare isn't expensive. However, uninsured healthcare is incredibly expensive, and unfortunately people without employment/self-employed have to purchase their own insurance... which is also stupidly expensive. Also, a lot of things that should be insured aren't.

The different states are certainly different. US politics is very polarized, so heavy-blue and heavy-red states are quite different in their approaches to... many things in life. Whether they are good or bad is up to you.

I mean, people living in Switzerland complain about their countries all the time, even though almost everyone else in the world envy the way they live... so it is possible that some might be a bit overblown.
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DanglingFury@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s not bad at all (for me). Social media likes to take shots at it but the reality is it’s quite enjoyable. Mass shootings are overblown by the media (they happen, they suck, but they effect like .000001 percent of the population per year, your more likely to be killed by a deer than I vlolved in a mass shooting). Gun crime exists but is mainly restricted to poor or inner city areas. The other 99% is safe

Healthcare is expensive but if you have a job the company pays most of it. The care provided is really good though most of the time.

Everyone everywhere is very nice, it’s extremely rare to find an exception to this. If you are brown or Muslim then you may find descrimination more often outside the city, but again that’s rare unless you go to a few areas that no one goes to anyway.

Stuff is cheap (relatively) compared to elsewhere. You can get a cheap 65" TV for like 350 bucks.

It is corrupt politically. That is going downhill but day to day it doesn’t effect us much.

The air is pretty clean, the food and water is safe to eat and drink, there are plenty of jobs available, etc.

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