I've been to Japan and it's a wonderful place with many benefits. Very low crime, polite people, etc. The language is the only real problem.
The US, though, is vastly more heterogeneous. There are aspects that are far worse and aspects that are far better. And you can choose. There are infamous high-crime neighborhoods with gang problems; you don't have to live in them. Meanwhile want a job making very good money and with flexible hours and a boss that treats you like an equal? non-existent in Japan.
Please expand. Japan is much, much poorer. The work environment is awful in at least two different ways, dualisation and insane levels of presenteeism. It’s quite sexist by European or US standards. What makes Japan look good?
The US's appalling lack of basic social safety nets, specially regarding healthcare, coupled with its poverty rate (over twice of Brazil's) and violence epidemic don't make it a shining beacon of a functioning society.
Just because STEM graduates in the US can aspire to live in a comfort bubble due to their access to a cushy job, that does not make it an example of a well-functioning society by no means.
It makes absolutely no sense to claim that a country has a well-functioning society if it happens to have a hand full of ultra-rich billionaires while the whole population suffers to barely make ends meet, let alone have a shot at a decent life.
> It makes absolutely no sense to claim that a country has a well-functioning society if it happens to have a hand full of ultra-rich billionaires while the whole population suffers to barely make ends meet, let alone have a shot at a decent life.
The US is much, much richer than any remotely comparable entity. Americans do not live the lives of grinding poverty you imagine. The only country or region that consumes more per household is Hong Kong[1]. A comfortable life in the US is available to much, much more of the population than STEM graduates as well.
Please provide a source for the claim that the US poverty rate is twice that of Brazil's. You may be comparing the rates of people below the poverty line for that country. Being below the poverty line in the US is still going to be a higher standard of living than being below the poverty line in a developing nation.
These sort of comparisons should always be crouched in specifics. The US is a country, while Europe is either a continent or an intranational union, depending on what you're talking about.
Would the average person rather live in, say, Belarus or Nebraska?
Why would you give up on freedom and live in a society as rigid (not in a derogatory sense) as Japan's? I'm also European, but I would rather live in US than in Japan. I believe opinions on US differ in Europe, you should have said that it's your personal opinion, if you dislike US that doesn't mean that it has any correlation with the fact thay you are European.
Not OP, but I would guess the simplest formula is to total up (Heath care - gun violence). i.e. the more likely you are to have health care for whatever happens to you, and the less likely you are to get shot, the better.
It's a case of what exactly you view as "Freedom". Are medical bankruptcies freedom?
YMMV, you are welcome to choose otherwise. But I put it to you that this costs vs. benefits is a valid, consistent and informed point of view. If you're asking "Why would you?", then that's why.
> Not OP, but I would guess the simplest formula is to total up (Heath care - gun violence). i.e. the more likely you are to have health care for whatever happens to you, and the less likely you are to get shot, the better.
What in the world does that formula have to do with freedom? If anything, you are trying to maximize for security with it, which is generally in opposition to freedom.
As for bankruptcy, it depends on whether you are talking about chapter 7 or chapter 13. Just kidding, that question was nonsense too. I think you're just trying to shoehorn zingers into the response.
> you are trying to maximize for security with it, which is generally in opposition to freedom.
So you're saying that employees who don't dare leave the corporate job because they really depend on the company's healthcare plan are more free. Cool.
> medical bankruptcy ... was nonsense too. I think you're just trying to shoehorn zingers
Great zinger yourself, bro.
You're welcome to equate a growing precariat who are vulnerable to exploitation as "Freedom", but don't expect that opinion to be universal.
Mine was a meta-zinger, apparently. Though I have no idea what you are trying to say with that multi-fragment quote
So if I read between the lines it seems your ideal is some kind of "freedom from want" ...but only when it comes to want of healthcare. You're still cool with needing a corporate job for food, clothing and shelter? And you left out the other factor in your equation, which was gun-related stats. I'm still not seeing a coherent definition of freedom there. Still sounds like you want security to me.
> some kind of "freedom from want" ...but only when it comes to want of healthcare
Heathcare is a good example, but it's hardly the only want. It's worth raising when comparing countries, because it's a notable difference: different flavours of state run or state mandated healthcare is common in the developed world, USA being notable exception, and universal coverage gives people more ... "independence" if you like a different word to freedom.
I think you're assuming an entirely false dichotomy between "security" and "freedom". Along these lines https://www.adammcfarland.com/2017/10/18/would-universal-hea...https://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/why-medicare-for-a... Not to mention the entire notion of "precariat" - e.g. zero-hours contracts are means of control, yet they arise from lack of job security. So lack of security leads to lack of freedom, and presence of security (of healthcare, of income, of whatever) leads to freer choices in these cases.
The original question was "Why would you give up on freedom" not "define freedom!" and I'm not going to focus on a debate on parsing the definition of "freedom", or drawn back into the assumption that there is a single definition, which I rejected above. As far as I am concerned, that is a nonsense-making, derailing tactic.
But losing or gaining healthcare will be a consideration when I decide where to live. Regardless of a "coherent definition of freedom", that is a big Quality of life factor that I will look at. As I mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26660947
Freedom does not translate into gun ownership. That's a very leftist/right-wing thing to say. Seems like people have been hardwired by the media to only think about America in terms of gun violence. When a Yakuza mobster terrorizes a small business in Kyoto, I wonder how a guaranteed medical insurance will help then. Don't forget that Japan is the country with the highest mob involvement in the legitimate economy. If the US gov would shake hands with the Irish/Italian mafia to keep the crime rate low, we would call it a feudal alliance but if Japanese government does systematic coverups, we just call them EFFICIENT.
I am not going to move to Japan for a number of reasons (language and ethnicity for a start) and sure that society isn't either objectively perfect without corruption or prejudice, or perfect for me. So I don't feel the need to defend Japan here (I hope to visit Japan some day!)
However I have seriously considered moving to places in the USA, and I assure you that the question "what is the gun violence to healthcare ratio of that state?" was one of the first questions in my mind. It seems relevant, even though you did not raise it. Both guns and healthcare are representative of a group of related features of the society, of which they are only the most noticeable examples.
The US, though, is vastly more heterogeneous. There are aspects that are far worse and aspects that are far better. And you can choose. There are infamous high-crime neighborhoods with gang problems; you don't have to live in them. Meanwhile want a job making very good money and with flexible hours and a boss that treats you like an equal? non-existent in Japan.