[grecy]

I find it interesting when Americans don't want America as a whole to be compared to other countries as a whole, because inevitably it makes for an unfavorable comparison.

Of course looking at a country-wide statistic is an average across the whole country - that's the entire point. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could find a part of Oregon where the homicide rate is 0.1, but that doesn't tell us much about the bigger picture.

Is America one united country, or isn't it?

[gyardley]

America has a single federal government, yes. If you just want a ranking, you can go ahead and use the national average.

However, America is ridiculously diverse culturally, and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America.

Perhaps the Americans in the thread aren't trying to avoid an unfavorable comparison - it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own country. Perhaps they're actually trying to teach you something about their country and point out that relying on averages can be misleading.

[grecy]

> and just using the national average is useless for understanding anything about America.

I agree. We're talking about understanding America compared to other countries, not things about America internally.

>it's not like Americans aren't aware of the pros and cons of their own country

I completely disagree with that statement. How many times have you heard someone say "Best country in the world" with no understanding of the outside world? I'm continually shocked when meeting Americans that have absolutely no idea their infrastructure, education, health care, leave entitlements and general quality of life sucks compared to the developed world. They genuinely think they are the best in the world because that has been driven into them from day 1.

> relying on averages can be misleading.

Obviously looking at an average is exactly that. An average across the entire population, not a deep dive into where is the highest and where is the lowest, etc.

[tadfisher]

Those are strawman arguments. Meeting uninformed Americans is not evidence that the entirety of the American populace is ignorant of their failings as a developed nation.

For example, we are taught about slavery and the genocide of Native Americans in primary school. We dedicate an entire month to Black History because we are acutely aware of our status as one of the most institutionally racist countries on the planet. We have impasses at the highest levels of government over dealing with our failure to control healthcare costs, and that is something that many Americans are cognizant of. We are repeatedly informed of our failure to create a stable market economy. I can go on.

Please leave your preconceptions at the door when having a serious discussion.

[grecy]

Nothing I said was an argument, I was only stating my opinion.

An opinion, it seems, that is not uncommon.

http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/2011/10/28/america-w...

> Please leave your preconceptions at the door when having a serious discussion.

Upon arriving in America in 2003, I had no preconceptions. I'm speaking from my experiences living and working in the country.

[tadfisher]

I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work. That's why it's hard to make meaningful statements about America as a whole, such as "Americans think they are number 1" or "You're more likely to get murdered if you move to America". Nobody throws a dart on a map and moves to America the country, they move to California or Virgina or Wisconsin.

Your supporting evidence cited a Fox News poll, which is probably the most biased and self-selecting demographic I can think of. That's one of our well-publicized failings, actually--the inherent biases of corporate media and the echo chamber of politics.

[pessimizer]

>I can tell you that your experience will be vastly different depending on where you live and work.

I'm not sure how this makes the US different from the countries it's being compared to. They all have more and less dangerous regions. There are more and less dangerous regions within a block's walk from me, but the average over that area gives me a general basis of comparison with other areas.

I always feel that there's a racial subtext to this kind of defense of US statistics (which I often hear in terms of education, crime, and health outcomes.) It is, basically, that the parts of the US that the average Scandinavian or Japanese citizen would ever be in have comparable rates of terribleness to their own countries - just ignore the massive portion of the US behind the curtain.

e.g. I am more likely to be killed when moving to an average Chicago from an average Finland. Since Chicago is segregated, however, very few white people would ever see an average Chicago - so an average Chicago can't be a meaningful comparison.

[smsm42]

When talking about murder statistics, you can't be speaking from experience, can you?

The truth is that there are some very nice places in America, and some not very nice places. In the nice places, statistics is good or better than a developed country, in the not nice places, statistics is worth - because these places are nothing like developed country. While they are inside the borders of the USA, their life is very different from the life of the nice places. Smaller countries frequently do not have such diversity, and averages can be deceptive (when Bill Gates walks into a bar, average wealth of the bar patron raises significantly, even though nobody really got any richer).

[flyinRyan]

Developed countries don't normally have this kind of economic diversity. It's pretty common in developing nations though, with similar results.

[flyinRyan]

Very well, but next time you want to talk about the world's largest economy just keep this in mind.

[jff]

"Sorta". It's more appropriate to compare it to the EU than to, say, Germany. The EU will still come out ahead in terms of murder rate, but it more accurately reflects the US in terms of both governmental structure and diversity of people (Louisiana is as different from Washington as Italy is from Finland)

[freehunter]

America is one united federation of states. The federal government still exercises surprisingly little control over individual states, although that control is increasing over time. Most of the federal controls exist merely to regulate inter-state commerce to make sure there are no unfair practices where Michigan can enact laws to keep Indiana businesses from operating in their state. However, two neighboring states can have wildly different laws on local issues. Michigan for the longest time required motorcyclists to wear helmets when the neighboring states didn't, and only allows heavy trucks to have two trailers where other surrounding states allow them to carry three trailers at once.

Classifying America as one solid country all across is, to be honest, quite inappropriate. It's more of a slightly more put-together European Union, with a federal government existing just to make sure everyone plays fairly.

[grecy]

America is not unique in this regard, many other countries have vastly differing state laws too.

[freehunter]

I'm not terribly familiar with states in different countries, but I wasn't trying to imply America is necessarily unique. What I was trying to get across is that, for all intents and purposes, each state in the union (read union as union of federated states) is semi-independent and can do almost anything they want outside of printing their own currency. Even that law comes with a stipulation that you can print your own currency but still have to accept US dollars as well.

The parent had asked if the US in particular was one country. In actually, it's not quite that simple. Similar reason why people refer to Canadian provinces by their provincial title in some circumstances. British Columbia is only incidentally related to Nunavut. At the same time, Washington state is only incidentally similar to Alabama.

[flyinRyan]

So compare the US to the EU then. It still doesn't come out favorably for the US.

[sneak]

Finland is 5.3 million people.

Norway is 5 million people.

Sweden is 9.5 million people.

Michigan is 9.8 million people.

California is 37.6 million people.

New York is 19.4 million people

Germany is 81.7 million people.

Please keep scale in mind.

[grecy]

Why does scale have anything to do with a per capita statistic?

[jordanb]

Hong Kong's murder rate is 0.2 per 100,000. Iceland and Singapore both have a rate of 0.3.

Clearly Western Europe is a horrible, brutal, violent place against which the inhabitants of these countries should be clicking their tongues.

[tadfisher]

As scale increases, you invariably include populations that affect your per capita statistic. The EU as a whole has a 3.5 per 100k murder rate, for example; much higher than Germany or the UK alone.

[davidwparker]

If you think about it this one, then wouldn't it be best to compare homicides per kilometer or mile? The point the parent was making is entirely valid though- the United States is a huge country compared to most.