[blhack]

I would highly encourage you to reassess where you are getting your information about the world if you genuinely believe this.

I’m seeing this sentiment expressed more and more, and it seriously concerns me. If you look at the data, almost any data which compares the US to other countries, you’ll see that the US is at or near the top.

This isn’t blind patriotism. Seriously if you are feeling like the US is becoming a “3rd world country” see if you can quantify it in some way. What is deteriorating, and how does that compare to other places in the world?

[lisper]

> I would highly encourage you to reassess where you are getting your information about the world if you genuinely believe this.

I have traveled extensively throughout the world and my assessment was based on my personal experience. But...

> If you look at the data, almost any data which compares the US to other countries, you’ll see that the US is at or near the top.

Not so.

The U.S. is a peer to Serbia in infant mortality [1]. It is behind India and Lithuania in terms political freedom and civil liberties (as rated by freedomhouse [2] [3]) and a peer to Chile in terms of economic freedom [4] and government corruption [5]. The U.S. ranks 38th in math and 24th in science education.

And an anecdotal but IMHO significant data point: I have lived in the U.S. for fifty years. I have NEVER had a piece of U.S. mail go missing, until this year, when I have had THREE checks vanish into the cosmic void. (The fact that paper checks are even still a thing here is a testament to how far behind we have fallen.)

---

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/infant-mo...

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores?sort...

[3] https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores?sort...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_...

[5] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-rank

[6] https://parentology.com/stem-education-statistics-2019-how-t...

[tripletao]

Amusingly, the Freedom House analysis breaks out India and Indian Kashmir separately. If the USA could move its worst behavior into a separate line item, then it would probably do better too. Your corruption index puts the UAE, a federation of absolute monarchies, ahead of the United States. Hong Kong scores at the top of your economic freedom index, even as billionaires disappear from its streets because they displeased Beijing.

Rankings that use a metric complicated enough to give the compiler heavy discretion on the order (like your 2-5) are compiled by people promoting certain ideals. Major powers rarely score at the top, regardless of whether they "deserve" to, because that defeats the political purpose--if you're trying to promote X, then telling the world's most powerful country that they're also the most X has little benefit, just encouragement for them to get complacent and backslide.

In objective rankings, the USA's health care system is indefensible, unless you're both wealthy and in genuine need of unusually high-tech care; but that infant mortality is still just 1.3x Canada's. The American education system seems to be well above average; per your link the USA ranked 8/48 and 11/48 for science and math respectively, out of 48 countries that themselves are mostly well above the global average.

It's reasonable to hold the USA to a higher standard than other countries, given its outsize influence and resources. Indeed, the impulse among both Americans and others to criticize America's real faults, sometimes in hyperbolic terms, is probably one of the major forces pushing to correct them. Anyone who net believes the American standard of living--especially for rich Americans, but for poor Americans too--isn't spectacularly above the global average is dangerously mistaken, though.

[riantogo]

Any data shows US near the top? Are you sure you looked at data at all?

Here is data from top sources referenced in the wiki:

Education: ranked 40 of 72 in mathematics, 25 of 72 in science, 24 of 72 in reading

Health: ranking 42nd among 224 nations

Standard of living: ranked 25 out of 151 countries for 2018

Politics: ranked 45 out of 180 countries

Peace: ranked 121 out of 162 countries

Economics: ranked 17 out of 178 economies

Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_th...

(You might be able to pick slightly better ranking based on your choice of source, but yeah, we are no where near the top. If you filter for developed economies we are near the bottom or have already slipped through the floor)

[refurb]

I always find these subjective rankings by “think tanks” as pretty entertaining (I’m excluding the objective ones like life expectancy).

Regardless if you lean left or right, there is an implicit bias to a lower ranking. Why? Because it means “we need to enact my policy”.

If you dare come out and say “everything is fine” nobody is going to vote for you.

[bleepblorp]

With specific regard to electrical infrastructure, World Bank data ranks the US in 25 place globally. Notably, the US is behind Canada (which faces very similar geographic and climactic issues with its infrastructure), the UK, France, and Japan. The only major developed democracies to score worse are Germany, Italy, and Australia.

Source: https://govdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/heb130a3c?countr...

[guerrilla]

> This isn’t blind patriotism.

Maybe it's just ignorance then. Quality of life in Northern Europe is far better than it ever was in California, which in retrospect looks like a joke.

[refurb]

What is quality of life? Sounds pretty subjective. One person may rank weather at the top, so Northern Europe sucks. Another may rank parental leave at the top, so the US sucks.

Probably the most objective way is to measure how people vote with their feet.

[nemo44x]

I think it’s an interesting point. The USA always gets compared to Europe, especially Western Europe with this so called “Quality of Life” statistic. However there are far more Western Europeans moving to the USA than the other way.

I don’t know, my siblings and I do better than our parents who put time in to raise us. We didn’t have much except each other. We weren’t without but we never had a vacation or went out to eat. Went to public schools, etc. But my parents respected each other and sacrificed a bit to raise us. I’d say my family has moved from working class into middle class and upper middle class for some of us.

Our quality of life seems pretty nice. It’s weird because when I moved to nyc many of the people that complained a lot were from well to do families and they clearly weren’t doing better. They were being recycled downwards and they seemed to resent successful people because of it. They make a lot of noise but my friends back home, many of which are doing better than their folks, don’t go on social media talking about.

[thatfrenchguy]

> However there are far more Western Europeans moving to the USA than the other way

Yeah, you have a “engineer” bias: people move to the US when they make top 10% income because it’s the only way your life is better than in a Western European country. You don’t see Europeans making median wage in the US because that would be quite stupid.

My parents combined make maybe 15-20% of my income in the US, they still go on more vacation than me, don’t have to worry about figuring out how healthcare work (yup gotta make sure you don’t go to a out of network hospital by accident otherwise hello 300000$ debt), and sent their kids to university for almost free.

[nemo44x]

So if you want to strive and achieve excellence, come to America.

If you want to go on vacation more, live in Western Europe.

What are the long term effects of this?

[guerrilla]

> What is quality of life? Sounds pretty subjective.

I guess it would sound like that if you don't know anything about it and don't bother to look into it and don't realize people, including the OECD, thoroughly study it. [1][2] Furthermore, it's pretty idiotic to ignore subjectivity since it's the only thing that really matters in the end. If people in Europe rate their life better then Americans do then clearly Europeans are better off.

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life

[2]. https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org

[grecy]

The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility.

also Maternity/Paternity Leave, Paid Sick Time, and Paid Vacation

In many of those areas (incarceration rate, rate of homicides) the US is doing vastly worse than other OECD countries.

Explore the data yourself - https://data.oecd.org/