You just be new to Lemmy. There is a constant push here that the us is some huge miserable shit hole. I’m sure some people actually believe it, and the us is far from perfect, but the whole thing comes for propaganda.
So if you believe it, might be time to come up for air and really objectively look around.
I agree that it’s not the worst place to live, we have major problems, and the trends are not looking good but we also have some nice things too: national parks, cool technology, higher income, freedom of speech, etc. However propaganda is intended to influence, while I’m sure there is anti-American propaganda, I think a large part of it can be attributed to commiserating and a break down of the social order especially among young liberals who have been most effected by the evaporation of real life community. I guess I should go join a meet up or something— anyone down to play pool? Oh wait no sorry my university removed the pool tables to put in a never used “T Rowe Price Innovation center” fml.
We have many advantages. But there are some MAJOR problems that can present gigantic setbacks to future generations. We have the freedom most other countries strive for. The cost of that responsibility is to be effective with those freedoms.
There are those that want to push it to the edge just because they can and it’s fucking it up for the rest that are the writing on the wall.
Just like a teenager that becomes an adult, if you can’t effectively manage your freedoms with some sort of priority, you just end up fucking it all up.
This is why the US is becoming a shit hole. We have all this power and are handling it like a fucking villain that finally beat the superhero. We have no damn idea how to control all the power we have as a nation.
Does anyone think it’s a shithole? Maybe if you’re truly poor or a political wingnut on the fringes.
The real issue IMO is that there’s a subset of the population that seems to think America is The Greatest Country On Earth™️, bar none, and gesture randomly in every direction but end up trying to shove the flag up your ass and equating the ability to bomb impoverished foreign countries to a marker of that greatness.
Meanwhile, disparity is wildly increasing, evangelical, right wing theofascists are trying to turn it into a dictatorship/wannabe Russia, Americans are being eaten alive by educational, housing, and medical costs, overrun by functional monopolies, and objectively fare worse in many, many social, health, and economic markers when compared to the rest of the civilized world including upward mobility. Upward mobility being huge as its part of the American Dream™️ in which you allegedly can be anyone you want to be, but in fact countries outside the US offer better chances of changing your station than the US does. Depending on where you live in the US (particularly the south) there is better than a 95% chance your life will never get better. Butwhatabout-ing and saying look how much better off we are than, say, Venezuela isn’t a marker of success, measuring how far you are from the bottom isn’t the same as trying to climb to the top.
So no, the US isn’t a shithole, but if someone is gonna start waving a flag and saying without qualification how great it is here the speaker shouldn’t be surprised when people cover their asses and say hell no it isn’t.
The World Happiness Report uses six factors as predictors of life evaluation: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and corruption.
Because we are better than most countries by these metrics
How was it ever so high?
Because despite the propaganda, it’s actually, relatively speaking, a good place to live.
Yeah, what propaganda might that be…?
You just be new to Lemmy. There is a constant push here that the us is some huge miserable shit hole. I’m sure some people actually believe it, and the us is far from perfect, but the whole thing comes for propaganda.
So if you believe it, might be time to come up for air and really objectively look around.
I agree that it’s not the worst place to live, we have major problems, and the trends are not looking good but we also have some nice things too: national parks, cool technology, higher income, freedom of speech, etc. However propaganda is intended to influence, while I’m sure there is anti-American propaganda, I think a large part of it can be attributed to commiserating and a break down of the social order especially among young liberals who have been most effected by the evaporation of real life community. I guess I should go join a meet up or something— anyone down to play pool? Oh wait no sorry my university removed the pool tables to put in a never used “T Rowe Price Innovation center” fml.
We have many advantages. But there are some MAJOR problems that can present gigantic setbacks to future generations. We have the freedom most other countries strive for. The cost of that responsibility is to be effective with those freedoms.
There are those that want to push it to the edge just because they can and it’s fucking it up for the rest that are the writing on the wall.
Just like a teenager that becomes an adult, if you can’t effectively manage your freedoms with some sort of priority, you just end up fucking it all up.
This is why the US is becoming a shit hole. We have all this power and are handling it like a fucking villain that finally beat the superhero. We have no damn idea how to control all the power we have as a nation.
Does anyone think it’s a shithole? Maybe if you’re truly poor or a political wingnut on the fringes.
The real issue IMO is that there’s a subset of the population that seems to think America is The Greatest Country On Earth™️, bar none, and gesture randomly in every direction but end up trying to shove the flag up your ass and equating the ability to bomb impoverished foreign countries to a marker of that greatness.
Meanwhile, disparity is wildly increasing, evangelical, right wing theofascists are trying to turn it into a dictatorship/wannabe Russia, Americans are being eaten alive by educational, housing, and medical costs, overrun by functional monopolies, and objectively fare worse in many, many social, health, and economic markers when compared to the rest of the civilized world including upward mobility. Upward mobility being huge as its part of the American Dream™️ in which you allegedly can be anyone you want to be, but in fact countries outside the US offer better chances of changing your station than the US does. Depending on where you live in the US (particularly the south) there is better than a 95% chance your life will never get better. Butwhatabout-ing and saying look how much better off we are than, say, Venezuela isn’t a marker of success, measuring how far you are from the bottom isn’t the same as trying to climb to the top.
So no, the US isn’t a shithole, but if someone is gonna start waving a flag and saying without qualification how great it is here the speaker shouldn’t be surprised when people cover their asses and say hell no it isn’t.
Because we are better than most countries by these metrics