Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Explaining American Civilization" video.

@100percentSNAFU The idea that the US is best for Americans just isn't accurate. It's best for wealthy Americans. But even for upper middle class it's just equivalent to Europe, better in some areas, worse in others. And for the majority of Americans the country is quite frankly failing them. You're right that there's no such thing as a perfect society. But a Nordic model would have worked better for the US then what you currently have. So would many other systems. Americans are so convinced that the US is the best place in the world that the continent has become blind to the advances made elsewhere and the continent is falling behind socially, and its economic prosperity is not sustainable, not just from a environmental point of view, but from a economical one... Relying on economic patterns within the US that just can not continue.
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@Stockbrot_ Few as much as the US does for your average citizen... Now rich people and well educated people can do extremely well in the US. But your average American... They'd be better of elsewhere, depending on their background often in Europe...
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@calebemerson9317 Actually that upwards mobility is fairly low in the US. That American dream of going from rags to riches is mostly a myth in the US but true in much of Europe. If you look at Scandinavia and at the US you'll find that way more people whose parents where in the bottom 25% of wealth end up in the top 25% in Scandinavia then in the US as a example. Scandinavia also have way more truly rich people pr capita then the US does, despite our taxes. Having a government that provides free education and health care means lower costs for companies and increased social mobility for citizens as a example.
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@calebemerson9317 As for comparing countries with 10 million people vs a country of 300 milions, that just doesn't hold water. You have plenty of states that's comparable to us. And Europe as continent is actually bigger in terms of both land and population then the US, yet we have better social mobility here. There's 26 countries with higher social mobility then the US. Most of them in Europe. As does the continent as a whole, even with Russia etc dragging us down... Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are other countries ahead of the US in terms of social mobility... You're not horrible though... At least the US is ahead of Russia... And regarding migration from South America, you have more social mobility then Brazil, Mexico, Venesuela etc. Basically all of South America... And to be fair, when it comes to social mobility it's actually a statistics where the US isn't dead last among western nations for a change, and you're beating some western nations like Spain and Italy according to some studies on social mobility... (Although not by much)
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@geraldmeehan8942 Far advanced probably isn't accurate. But in social matters it helps being multiple countries instead of just one as you get more room for experimentation, trying out new things. While with the US being unified people there ends up being less exposed to other ways of running a country, both good and bad (because trust me, we have some poorly run governments too in Europe) But having those allows us to learn from our own mistakes as we can see when others are doing better. The US is slowly catching on. Biden has changed some laws slowly incentivizing more mixed zoning for instance, that should help with many problems long term. But it's going to take decades for that to have a effect.
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@SampoLähteenaro That's pretty much how I feel too... It feels like we're backsliding a bit in the nordic region. And the US has so much potential. And like, I genuinely love many of the typical personality traits of the Americans like their resilience and determination to get back on their feet even when life pushes them down for example. Heck, I even used to have a US girlfriend... The US has so much potential, but seeing her and others suffer needlessly just because of the US being the way it is honestly makes me angry. The US changing or lot doesn't make a huge amount of difference to us here in the nordics. But it's painful to see all that needless suffering over there... And frustrating...
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@EPK123 Yeah, there where things that was deeply wrong in the US back then and a lot of things have definitely improved since the eighties and earlier. But while there has been improvements like less discrimination based on race and gender (to some degree) your average American still would still probably have had a better life prior to Regan then after...
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@geddon436 Thank you. Honestly workers voting with their feets and leaving the US might improve the situation long term. There's also a increase in unionization rate in the US now, something that might help in the long term. The US is a bit like a tank ship. It has started to turn the rudder in the right direction. But there's an awful lot of inertia to overcome before it'll change direction.
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@lan4756 You're American to being with I assume? As for how good or bad the US is compared to other countries, it depends on a lot of factors. But even in poorer countries you'll see that health care is generally a bit more accessible to a majority of the population then it is to your average American even if there might be certain drugs or operations that's in short supply. People usually have more time to recover after giving birth with even third world countries having paid maternity leave. And don't get me wrong, people are paid less then in the US. But their quality of life is often still higher. For instance the smaller European houses isn't smaller because we have less money, but because we prefer another lifestyle where we are within walking distance of everything we need. Even when walking you'll probably spend less time for everyday chores like buying groceries, taking your kids to the kindergarten, getting to work, doctor etc in Europe then you would driving in the US because the distances are smaller. Likewise although Asian countries are often a lot less walkable you'll have street restaurants and stores everywhere and can get most things done without going far.
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@walkingcontradiction223 That's good. But I hope that you'll try to live somewhere else. Because the thing is that a lot of Americans might ask about how much a European earns after taxes, see a smaller number, and a smaller apartment and think that our quality of life is lower, failing to see why those things actually ends up improving our quality of life. We have fewer working hours in order to earn what we earn, and because of our smaller more urban apartments that lasts longer we can live closer to all the services in walkable cities meaning that we spend less time in traffic. And once taxes are paid we have a whole bunch of services that if paid for by a American would actually end up leaving you with less money then us despite you working longer hours. Food is usually slightly cheaper in Europe. (although my country, Norway is definitely a exception to that rule of thumb) A German built house would probably survive tornadoes that US houses wouldn't because it's heavier and more solid. Using airing instead of an AC for cooling and building the building with windows on the opposite sides to encourage airflow saves money on electricity there. Being stationed here you probably saw the activities on the streets, cities being walkable and people living in the middle of them makes them more alive for the most part. But something you might not be aware of is how city planning here tends to encourage neighborhoods and even individual buildings with a mix of different classes,and shared services also leads to people from different classes mixing. You won't see rich people and poor people growing up separately and resenting each other because of it as they're often friends. Something that also leads to higher social mobility.
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@zerefsunlimitedshipworks You claim that the Nordic countries essentially didn't have to spend resources on their military. Yet if you look at the facts that's not true. Finland still has a larger army then most EU countries, including Germany. And during the cold war Sweden had one of the largest airforces in Europe. If you are claiming that we only work due to the EU economy then how is that different from US states depending on each other economically? I'm not claiming that Europeans are inherently better than Americans, I'm claiming that having a unified top down goverment structure has left you with too little social experimentation to keep up with the rest of the world in that area. US states can try things out separately too to some degree, but the overarching framework is limiting that quite a bit.
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@AfricanMaverick May I ask what that means?
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@Tethloach1 True, but if you put up walls governing where the river may flow it may become rigid. You'll lose the silt left behind on the fields as the river wanders and overflows. And if you build new channels diverting the water the river may vanish entirely. You need some changes to grow.
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@assim2213 Um, most people in this thread are using English. Many of us don't speak Spanish (I had German as my third language, not Spanish, not that my German is particularly good) so perhaps it would be more useful to use English if you wish to communicate with us?
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6:56 Remember New Sweden was mixed in there too. And mixed well with both the Dutch and the Quakers culturally.
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14:48 You started so well with the ethnic groupings...
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@GrigRP That's not true. The US definitely have problems. But peoples perception of exactly how dangerous it is is warped by two effects. The media has a natural negative bias because everything working well just isn't news. And that the US is a large country. So even if the risk of being victim of a crime is low in any given area you'll hear about crimes every day somewhere in the US even though sager parts of the US is comparable to your average part of Europe, possibly even a touch safer. Sure, the safest places in Europe is safer then the safest parts of the US but it's not like Europe doesn't have some areas that's dangerous. The change from using the justice system to punish people and over to using it to reform people in northern Europe has helped a lot, but British crime rates (they still focus on punishment) and US ones are actually fairly similar, except for the gun violence. The US definitely needs reform. But calling it a "shithole" is lacking just as much nuance as what we usually accuse the Americans of doing.
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@shahinkianpour Thank you for mentioning my favorite Greek philosopher. :-) And yeah, his comment reminds me of that.
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takethetrashout7195 What is?
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@walkingcontradiction223 True, but being in a US military base outside the US is basically like being in the US itself. Your experiences of those countries while in such a base is limited. You'll still be dealing mostly with US services like the US postal service, US fast food chains etc... A better example is those who genuinely have tried to live elsewhere like civilians. Look up the black forest family as a example. They're Americans living in Germany, not due to the military, but working there as civilians, for better and worse. Being well educated they're actually the kind of people that could live decent lives in the US too.
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@orktv4673 Exactly. When it comes to societal change the biggest advantage of Europe is probably that we are able to try things out and make mistakes that we can learn from because we do have more countries and therefore ways of running a country.
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@AngryNegativeHistoryProject What are you trying to convey if I may ask?
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@chickenfishhybrid44 I don't know anyone who haven't ever been outside the continent above the age of 18 personally. Don't get me wrong. Usually when traveling we'll go to other European countries. Leaving the continent is expensive and often a rare treat. But myself I've been to New Jersey, New York and Florida. And I plan on visiting Pennsylvania, Arizona and Colorado I've also been to Egypt (together with my most of my school class), both Cairo and further east in Sinai (the rest mostly traveled to China) As for driving distances. It depends on the country. The country I live in, Norway is both further west then Luxemburg and about as far east as Istanbul. And driving the whole length of the country would actually take about as long time as driving across the US or Australia from east to west. A big part of that is of course that the country literally is a mountain chain, so progress is naturally going to be slower then say when flying. But even so if you where to overlay Norway over the US and tilt it we'd still cover the whole US-Mexican border. And sure, there's countries in Europe you can literally stroll across on an afternoon without a problem at all the continent is actually bigger then the US. Yet the average European hasn't just traveled more within the continent then Americans have, we've traveled more outside it too. Europeans also tends to know as much or more about the US as Americans do about their own country (you'll of course find individuals in both continents that knows more or less, with Americans intimately familiar with Europe, Asia, South America etc, and Europeans that doesn't have a clue, but on average you'll find that what I've said is true, although there's definitely differences between countries in this regard) So I do believe that it's accurate to say that Europeans are indeed more cosmopolitan them Americans and more aware of the world around them. Mind you, we have gaps in our knowledge too. Usually they're regarding the African or South American continents in my experience. We tend to lump them together as a single entity in our minds a bit although we're of course aware that it's not really true...
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