[akudha]

U.S is outperforming everyone else economically. At what cost though? And for how long?

There is an insane wealth gap. People always seem to be stressed. There is plenty of food, but quality isn’t great. We don’t even need to start on healthcare and housing and college tuition. Then there is gun violence. Women’s rights are going away slowly too.

Sure, developing countries have lots of problems too. I suppose each person has to decide what kind of problems they are ok dealing with?

Sad part is - most of these problems are man made. Even sadder is that just a few dozen people seem to be the cause for most problems

[psunavy03]

The violent crime rate in the US is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago. The only difference is that now every crime is getting blasted from the rooftops by the news media as propaganda to generate clicks on ads.

There is a violent crime problem in specific neighborhoods of specific cities, largely tied to gangs and the drug trade. But there is zero empirical data to suggest that it is more of a nationwide problem than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

The majority of gun deaths in this country (60-80 percent jurisdiction-dependent) are people committing suicide, often middle-aged men. Beyond that, the average gun murder is a young man with a criminal record killing another young man with a criminal record using an illegally-possessed handgun.

[returningfory2]

There's also the fact that way more Americans are killed by cars than in homicides. This is not to diminish the importance of tackling homicides. But the high level picture of "what is most wrong in America" is definitely skewed in weird ways that is independent of the underlying reality.

[fuzztester]

>The violent crime rate in the US is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago. The only difference is that now every crime is getting blasted from the rooftops by the news media as propaganda to generate clicks on ads.

How about all the mass shootings that we read about, happening every few weeks or even more frequently, sometimes back-to-back, on average, in the US? That's not violent crime? Of course it is.

>a fraction of what it was 30 years ago

And statistics don't paint the full picture, not by a long chalk, unless all you are is a bean counter. What about the personal and family and friends' trauma of all the victims and their circles? We can dismiss that as negligible, right? /s

Check these:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...

There were so many that I got tired of scrolling.

JFC.

[compiler-guy]

Don’t confuse, “the overall crime rate is down signicantly in very good ways” with “and therefore the remainder is fine”.

[psunavy03]

Also don't confuse the law of diminishing returns with "therefore the remainder is fine," either. There's room for regulation of many of the ills of our society, but you will always reach a point where trying to stamp out that last bit you can't get ends up taking away things that make life worth living.

I can't imagine more of a hell than being forced to live a life wrapped up in bubble wrap so someone else is convinced I'm "safe."

[fuzztester]

Yes, but you are talking about data and logic, while I was making a point about humanity (humanitarianism? need to check which is appropriate).

If you are from the US, and feeling defensive about my comment, and/or if you want to treat your people's deaths and crippling as just statistics, it's your call, shrug, and maybe also your death or crippling by gun violence some day, again, statistically, you know.

[compiler-guy]

The statistical probability of gun violence affecting me is much lower than it has been historically. That is worth celebrating. And I have seen exactly no one in this thread dismiss the ongoing pain caused by the remainder as negligible. But--and this is the entire point--that amount of ongoing pain is less than it has been in the past. Definitely still real, but less of it than before.

Yes, we absolutely mourn those who are still affected by it, and we do what we can to prevent additional deaths.

But the idea that we should not be happy about our progress is absurd.

[rightbyte]

If the success is not cheered we might regress to the old bad times. It is not like the only path forward is even less violent crimes.

[psunavy03]

What about the personal and family and friends' trauma of all the victims of drunken driving, alcoholism, and their circles?

Should we re-enact Prohibition, given that there are orders of magnitude more people who've been victimized by alcohol than firearms? No, that's absurd. You regulate the problem through hard, data-driven analysis, not waving the bloody shirt. Be that violent crime or addiction.

[FredPret]

> There is an insane wealth gap.

Your unexamined prior is that this is a bad and unsustainable thing. It was always thus.

> People always seem to be stressed.

They really aren't. Americans are extremely happy and relaxed compared to where I'm from.

> We don’t even need to start on healthcare and housing and college tuition.

I think we do. Healthcare in the US has more red tape and expense than would be optimal, but the actual outcomes are still good. Keep in mind some caveats:

- US healthcare spend drives a ton of medical innovation that then benefits the rest of the world

- North America is going through a Fentanyl crisis that's cutting life expectancies

> Then there is gun violence. Women’s rights are going away slowly too.

This is a problem but not with the economy.

[BehindBlueEyes]

Women's rights may be more of a problem with the economy than one thinks - pressure on those rights aren't necessarily just ideological. Zooming in on this one aspect within the bigger picture, at a country level you can shape the economy via controlling immigration (do we welcome brains? do we welcome labor?) and via controlling natality (do we need to make our own labor?). If a country is hostile to immigration or limits immigration to an elite, I can well imagine eroding women's rights for purely economical reasons - needing labourers the country is not willing to welcome from abroad. Could also be done with incentives instead of taking away rights but different debate. Womens' rights determine if/how/where women can contribute to the economy, and how easily.

[sifar]

>> There is an insane wealth gap.

Relative wealth gap in developing countries dwarfs that of the developed ones.

Source: Personal observation.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...

tl;dr as of 2021 Gini coefficents, Brazil is the worst and Japan is best large nation... (there's tons of nuance missing here, but that's the basics)

[Timon3]

Is there a reason to trust your anecdote instead of looking at data? I'm sure this topic has been researched.

[baq]

Yeah it’s called the gini index. US isn’t great but isn’t anywhere near the worst.

In absolute terms though just look at pictures of e.g. rural Russia va Moscow.

[Timon3]

Thank you for bringing up this data point! I'm sure we both agree that's a much better argument than "trust me" :)

[sifar]

I understand, however it was a disclaimer not a "trust me". One of the main reason such metrics are not as reflective of the reality is that for developing countries, the taxes are not reported accurately. A lot of wealth is officially unreported - and it is a massive amount. Such things are not captured by official statistics, by virtue of being unreported income, which leads to an incomplete or distorted picture of reality.

[returningfory2]

> I suppose each person has to decide what kind of problems they are ok dealing with?

What problems do you think people in the United States have that people in Mexico don't? Of this list you gave, most of them seem to apply to people in Mexico.

[akudha]

I was talking about immigrants. If you are deciding between two countries, each one is likely going to have a different type or level of problems - man made or otherwise. Australia is too hot, Canada is too cold. Scandinavia might be too progressive for some, Saudi Arabia might be too regressive for some.

And so on. What kind/level of issues to put up with - I suppose that varies from person to person

[BehindBlueEyes]

I agree with you, but for anyone reading this who considers immigration: that's just a third of the decision - another third of the problems is only visible once you live there a while, and the last third is the same problems you had before that you take with you.