[johnnycerberus]

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.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Why would you give up on freedom

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.

I agree with William Gibson: "People who feel safer with a gun than with guaranteed medical insurance don't yet have a fully adult concept of scary." - https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/385249887891111936

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.

[unishark]

> 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.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> 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.

[unishark]

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.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> 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

[unishark]

I haven't posed a definition, just questioned yours. For example, as for healthcare not being the only "want", that is indeed my point. Yes one might twist a definition to make freedom about the ability to freely spend the wealth of other people in a country, without working for it (hence no one in a undeveloped country or primitive lifestyle is ever free, apparently). But the rest of the safety net is obviously more important to that agenda than the difference between voluntarily buying health insurance versus being forced to pay for it. Lack of more basic needs will kill most people much faster. But what is unusual about the need for healthcare is of course the fact that it is unpredictable. Just as with guns and crime (which again, you haven't given an alternative explanation for how it fits in). This is an equation based on fear of danger, i.e. a desire for security. There's nothing wrong with that.

[_hzrk]

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.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Freedom does not translate into gun ownership.

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.