traveling open your eyes to how terrible the US is in many ways?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often travel and think the opposite- we have it great in America. Central and South America are riddled with poverty, corruption, drugs. I feel unsafe as a woman in the Middle East and India (also riddled with extreme poverty and is unsanitary). Even in Europe, my kids point to laundry hanging across alleys and small apartments and comment how poor those people must be. Nope, middle class Europeans live in small apartments and don’t enjoy many of the day-to-day conveniences we have. They pay dearly for their safety net such as healthcare though high taxes and will complain about the long waits and inefficiencies in their healthcare system. I’d never want to live in communist China or in Russia under Putin. Does anyone think there is anyplace in Africa that has the comforts and safety we have here?

We certainly have our problems, but there are few, if any, places that don’t. I’ll take our issues any day over the issues of any place I’ve visited.

Well stated.
Thank you, pp. I couldn't agree with you more.

look into how much China has built out its infrastructure in the past decades compared to the US. I don’t want to live in China either; but that doesn’t mean the US isn’t falling apart. Eventually some smart US city will join the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative to get infrastructure funding 😂

Thanks Beijing for finally revealing yourself as the author of this thread.

I told you all earlier this thread was written on behalf of Russia, Iran, or China.

[Anonymous]

US is an undeveloped S hole of backwater rednecks with very low education.

Tens of thousands of their people die per year from guns and go bankrupt for epipens. What a laughably bad society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often travel and think the opposite- we have it great in America. Central and South America are riddled with poverty, corruption, drugs. I feel unsafe as a woman in the Middle East and India (also riddled with extreme poverty and is unsanitary). Even in Europe, my kids point to laundry hanging across alleys and small apartments and comment how poor those people must be. Nope, middle class Europeans live in small apartments and don’t enjoy many of the day-to-day conveniences we have. They pay dearly for their safety net such as healthcare though high taxes and will complain about the long waits and inefficiencies in their healthcare system. I’d never want to live in communist China or in Russia under Putin. Does anyone think there is anyplace in Africa that has the comforts and safety we have here?

We certainly have our problems, but there are few, if any, places that don’t. I’ll take our issues any day over the issues of any place I’ve visited.

Well stated.
Thank you, pp. I couldn't agree with you more.

look into how much China has built out its infrastructure in the past decades compared to the US. I don’t want to live in China either; but that doesn’t mean the US isn’t falling apart. Eventually some smart US city will join the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative to get infrastructure funding 😂

China has done amazing work on the infrastrucute side. Here's a map of major rail services:



But notice how it's almost all on the east side of China? Even China is difficult to compare to the US, since despite being big size-wise, very few people live in the western part of China (a lot is desert) so their massive population is essentially squeezed into one half the country. It would be like if the entire US population was living in Texas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not. I live in Germany, and I have to laugh when so many Americans fantasize about moving to Europe and talk about it like some kind of utopia. It's insanely naive. Every place has its problems and issues

The problem in the US is not that we have problems. It is our obstinate refusal to solve any of them while new problems continue to crop up. While many of these problems are sort of relegated to the poorest people in our country, they are increasingly “trickling up” to the middle class.

People are routinely dying from a lack of healthcare or going bankrupt from medical problems. This should have been resolved ages ago, and is simply not such a crisis in other countries.

Same with gun violence. Yes, there are a multitude of tertiary issues related to gun violence but the main issue is simply guns.

And now, we have a huge mentally ill homeless population suffering in our cities and it’s only growing.

And I think the worst part is that people seem so lonely and unhappy.

Why do we tolerate this?

When I go to my parents’ home country, it just isn’t so miserable. I’m staying in a middle class neighborhood, not a luxury hotel. I have been here often over the last 2 decades: People are grinning and bearing it. No one is shot in the street. If I need medicine I can just walk into the pharmacy and buy it for $2. People are out past 8pm having fun. People are just enjoying being with other people more.

Something is just broken at home. I really feel like I get a break abroad, from the horrible political news and violence and apocalyptic weather events. I have not felt this way before.

You keep on repeating yourself here. Over and over. These are your feelings. Some agree, some disagree. We have free speech here. We don't need to agree with you just because you type out the same words over and over.

If you are so distressed go out and help people in need in the U.S. or go back to your home country. What you are not going to do is make us feel so bad about ourselves that we are going to spend our days in despair, looking for Russia or China or Iran to come save us.

What are you talking about? I am not the only poster on this thread?

I wondering why you feel so threatened and defensive at the idea that something may be going sideways with our way of life. Who said anything about China and Iran? Do you realize what a provincial and close minded reaction that is? And how do you know that I’m not involved with helping people in the US?

Why would I be threatened by somone else's opinion? You are not that powerful. Just because you throw words out of your mouth doesn't mean they are true or even need to be considered. Listening to you is not the determiner if someone is close minded because you are not an authority on anything. In addition, complaining doesn't make one non-provincial. You are provincial: not appreciating that different places are unique, including our country. A large country like ours is not going to have a transportation system like Germany's. If your point is to encourage everyone to be so unhappy that they look to you and say oh wise one tell is what we need to do to be happy you have failed. Those of us who are happy are working everyday, trying to advance in our careers to keep up with the economy,supporting our families, instead of begging people on the internet to be "collective" and do things for me so I don't have to work hard. "I just need a little studio in a big city where I can walk everywhere and I then will not really need to go make money and work, I can enjoy my hobbies as a man should!"--well that is not my priority, so not "collecting" or whatever to support this--young men and their desire for ample leisure time.

Ok dude. You can be happy - as long as you’re not actively getting in the way of the US improving itself. Because the US is way behind on developing infrastructure compared to peer nations.

What I suspect is that you are not actually happy but are desperately anxious and polarized. As long as we approach things that *should* be common sense improvements for the nation (like improving housing and transportation) as another chapter in our excruciatingly stupid culture wars, the US will continue to fall behind.

I feel like a third party dedicated to actually solving American problems is needed - let’s fix the bridges, teach the kids to read, keep people healthy, make the cities vibrant, the small towns with jobs, and keep the water and air clean. Left and right can agree with all of that.

So i don't know how I feel but you know how I feel? You are the sole arbiter of what is good and right? No.
I am happy with car-centered culture. I have a job and can afford a car. I like the freedom of driving. I don't want to live close to neighbors.

Ok that’s fine. what I am saying is that the uniquely bad American thing is that you are turning reasonable infrastructural and transit improvements into a branch of the culture wars. As long as American politics allows and rewards that we are going to continue to fall behind peer nations. If people like you had their way we’d have nothing in terms of infrastructure because you would have protested public sewers and electricity grids …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taiwan is about the size of MD and Delaware combined. Of course it's easy to run cross-country trains for cheap in a place that small.

The king of Thailand is the richest monarch in the world (estimated net worth $30-70 billion) and Thailand has the strictest Lèse-majesté laws in the world, meaning criticizing the king carries a sentence of 3-15 years in prison.

I've lived abroad in a few countries and traveled to nearly 100. What I look at is things like innovation, economy and standard of living. Thailand's economy is nearly 50% from tourism (it's 3% in the US). For the most part, tourism does not require innovation. Name any innovations from Thailand that you use. They have 0 Nobel prize winners. Compare that to the US, where more than half of all Nobel prizes awarded in 2024 went to Americans, despite having less than 5% of the world's population.

Taiwan does a little better on the innovation scale -- TSMC is a massive semiconductor manufacturing company and you probably have at least one of their chips in some device in your house. But I think people would struggle to name even one major Taiwanese company.

Then look at standard of living. In the US, even low-income people live in a house with air conditioning and usually a dishwasher and a garbage disposal. Meanwhile, every time there's a heat wave in Paris and scores of people die from the heat.. because not all places have air conditioning. Compare that to for example, Montgomery County, where air conditioning has been _required_ in all rental properties since 2020.

Yes, the US has many downsides, crime and violence in particular. I think we as a society choose to live with it because those who are middle class and above are mostly isolated from it, and ther lower class do not have a strong enough voice. Compare that to many countries, especially in Asia, where you can walk around alone at night down dark alleys with zero fear.

The US is by no means perfect, but it's hardly terrible. A 1-week vacation to some tourist land in another country is hardly a typical experience of how real life is like there.

The US is uniquely bad in infrastructure development compared to peer countries and I bet also compared to many “poorer” countries. We just don’t invest in it; and leaving decisions to fragmentary states and municipalities results in an uncoordinated and ineffecient system. What OP was seeing in terms of superior transportation was real. In the US we just accept things like regular air travel delays of hours and cancelled flights; and the lack of rail options in most of the country.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

When it comes to roads, you seem to be overlooking the interstate highway system. The federal govenrment funds most major transporation infrastructure projects in the US, and for good reason -- the nation's economy overall benefits from having a well-connected country. Yes, states are the ones to propose and implement such projects, but typicallly the feds put in the majority of the funding.

Even with "local" rail, like Metro's silver line, the Feds put in about 40% of government funding.

As for rail infrastructure, the US is just so much bigger and with lower population density than most countries. Why would anyone sit 2+ days on a train from New York to LA when they can fly in 5 hours? The same is in Europe -- Copenhagen to Athens is a shorter distance but no one is going to sit 2 days on a train and bus (there are no inter-city trains to Athens) when they can fly it in 3 hours.

Shhh don’t tell him about high speed trains …

But the point is not only long haul trains but also regional rail. Imagine if instead of the patchwork of WMATA, MARC and VRE we had a comprehensive regional rail system like Madrid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not. I live in Germany, and I have to laugh when so many Americans fantasize about moving to Europe and talk about it like some kind of utopia. It's insanely naive. Every place has its problems and issues

The problem in the US is not that we have problems. It is our obstinate refusal to solve any of them while new problems continue to crop up. While many of these problems are sort of relegated to the poorest people in our country, they are increasingly “trickling up” to the middle class.

People are routinely dying from a lack of healthcare or going bankrupt from medical problems. This should have been resolved ages ago, and is simply not such a crisis in other countries.

Same with gun violence. Yes, there are a multitude of tertiary issues related to gun violence but the main issue is simply guns.

And now, we have a huge mentally ill homeless population suffering in our cities and it’s only growing.

And I think the worst part is that people seem so lonely and unhappy.

Why do we tolerate this?

When I go to my parents’ home country, it just isn’t so miserable. I’m staying in a middle class neighborhood, not a luxury hotel. I have been here often over the last 2 decades: People are grinning and bearing it. No one is shot in the street. If I need medicine I can just walk into the pharmacy and buy it for $2. People are out past 8pm having fun. People are just enjoying being with other people more.

Something is just broken at home. I really feel like I get a break abroad, from the horrible political news and violence and apocalyptic weather events. I have not felt this way before.

You keep on repeating yourself here. Over and over. These are your feelings. Some agree, some disagree. We have free speech here. We don't need to agree with you just because you type out the same words over and over.

If you are so distressed go out and help people in need in the U.S. or go back to your home country. What you are not going to do is make us feel so bad about ourselves that we are going to spend our days in despair, looking for Russia or China or Iran to come save us.

What are you talking about? I am not the only poster on this thread?

I wondering why you feel so threatened and defensive at the idea that something may be going sideways with our way of life. Who said anything about China and Iran? Do you realize what a provincial and close minded reaction that is? And how do you know that I’m not involved with helping people in the US?

Why would I be threatened by somone else's opinion? You are not that powerful. Just because you throw words out of your mouth doesn't mean they are true or even need to be considered. Listening to you is not the determiner if someone is close minded because you are not an authority on anything. In addition, complaining doesn't make one non-provincial. You are provincial: not appreciating that different places are unique, including our country. A large country like ours is not going to have a transportation system like Germany's. If your point is to encourage everyone to be so unhappy that they look to you and say oh wise one tell is what we need to do to be happy you have failed. Those of us who are happy are working everyday, trying to advance in our careers to keep up with the economy,supporting our families, instead of begging people on the internet to be "collective" and do things for me so I don't have to work hard. "I just need a little studio in a big city where I can walk everywhere and I then will not really need to go make money and work, I can enjoy my hobbies as a man should!"--well that is not my priority, so not "collecting" or whatever to support this--young men and their desire for ample leisure time.

Ok dude. You can be happy - as long as you’re not actively getting in the way of the US improving itself. Because the US is way behind on developing infrastructure compared to peer nations.

What I suspect is that you are not actually happy but are desperately anxious and polarized. As long as we approach things that *should* be common sense improvements for the nation (like improving housing and transportation) as another chapter in our excruciatingly stupid culture wars, the US will continue to fall behind.

I feel like a third party dedicated to actually solving American problems is needed - let’s fix the bridges, teach the kids to read, keep people healthy, make the cities vibrant, the small towns with jobs, and keep the water and air clean. Left and right can agree with all of that.

So i don't know how I feel but you know how I feel? You are the sole arbiter of what is good and right? No.
I am happy with car-centered culture. I have a job and can afford a car. I like the freedom of driving. I don't want to live close to neighbors.

Ok that’s fine. what I am saying is that the uniquely bad American thing is that you are turning reasonable infrastructural and transit improvements into a branch of the culture wars. As long as American politics allows and rewards that we are going to continue to fall behind peer nations. If people like you had their way we’d have nothing in terms of infrastructure because you would have protested public sewers and electricity grids …

But who cares? You are telling us over and over things are awful...but many of us think they are not. We live here just like you do (but I suspect you are in a troll farm overseas possibly)...we don't need you to tell us how to perceive things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often travel and think the opposite- we have it great in America. Central and South America are riddled with poverty, corruption, drugs. I feel unsafe as a woman in the Middle East and India (also riddled with extreme poverty and is unsanitary). Even in Europe, my kids point to laundry hanging across alleys and small apartments and comment how poor those people must be. Nope, middle class Europeans live in small apartments and don’t enjoy many of the day-to-day conveniences we have. They pay dearly for their safety net such as healthcare though high taxes and will complain about the long waits and inefficiencies in their healthcare system. I’d never want to live in communist China or in Russia under Putin. Does anyone think there is anyplace in Africa that has the comforts and safety we have here?

We certainly have our problems, but there are few, if any, places that don’t. I’ll take our issues any day over the issues of any place I’ve visited.

Well stated.
Thank you, pp. I couldn't agree with you more.

look into how much China has built out its infrastructure in the past decades compared to the US. I don’t want to live in China either; but that doesn’t mean the US isn’t falling apart. Eventually some smart US city will join the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative to get infrastructure funding 😂

Thanks Beijing for finally revealing yourself as the author of this thread.

I told you all earlier this thread was written on behalf of Russia, Iran, or China.

oh sweetie, I guess the GAO is also Chinese?
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106866

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recently went to Taiwan, where they rank higher on the freedom index than even the US. It's amazing how things function when everyone obeys the law and it is clean everywhere. Never worried about crimes and guns anywhere. Public transport? Amazing. Regional railways that took over one hour long cost a grand total of about $2.80 FOR TWO TICKETS. Amazing when infrastructure is not built around cars and catering to car culture. Food, much higher quality. Next stop was in Thailand, where one in our party got sick. Went to the hospital and was seen immediately. Got checked out by the attending physician, took a stool sample to determine if there was an infection, and had the results in less than one hour. All of this without using insurance cost a grand whopping total of $83. Imagine how terrible it'd be in the US. Probably at least over $2000 for the same treatment and it'd take triple the amount of time. Even Thailand is so much safer with respect to gun violence and crime. Traveling really opens your eyes to how terrible the US has gotten. I honestly think we are borderline 2nd world. We aren't really that free, healthcare is unaffordable, zero guaranteed vacations, high cost of living, toxic food, terrible infrastructure, severely obese population, and out of control crime and gun problems.

Diversity may not be our strength?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:US is an undeveloped S hole of backwater rednecks with very low education.

Tens of thousands of their people die per year from guns and go bankrupt for epipens. What a laughably bad society.

Nobel Prizes in 2024:

Physics: American and a Brit
Chemistry: 2 Americans, 1 Brit
Medicine: 2 Americans
Economics: 1 Turk, 1 Brit, 1 American (all from MIT)

At least one American won every Nobel prize this last year for prizes in science and innovation (I left out literature and peace).

Yes, there are many Americans with poor education, but we also have some of the most brilliant people in the world. Look at technology -- the majority of software and devices you use every day are from American companies. Which country can match that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taiwan is about the size of MD and Delaware combined. Of course it's easy to run cross-country trains for cheap in a place that small.

The king of Thailand is the richest monarch in the world (estimated net worth $30-70 billion) and Thailand has the strictest Lèse-majesté laws in the world, meaning criticizing the king carries a sentence of 3-15 years in prison.

I've lived abroad in a few countries and traveled to nearly 100. What I look at is things like innovation, economy and standard of living. Thailand's economy is nearly 50% from tourism (it's 3% in the US). For the most part, tourism does not require innovation. Name any innovations from Thailand that you use. They have 0 Nobel prize winners. Compare that to the US, where more than half of all Nobel prizes awarded in 2024 went to Americans, despite having less than 5% of the world's population.

Taiwan does a little better on the innovation scale -- TSMC is a massive semiconductor manufacturing company and you probably have at least one of their chips in some device in your house. But I think people would struggle to name even one major Taiwanese company.

Then look at standard of living. In the US, even low-income people live in a house with air conditioning and usually a dishwasher and a garbage disposal. Meanwhile, every time there's a heat wave in Paris and scores of people die from the heat.. because not all places have air conditioning. Compare that to for example, Montgomery County, where air conditioning has been _required_ in all rental properties since 2020.

Yes, the US has many downsides, crime and violence in particular. I think we as a society choose to live with it because those who are middle class and above are mostly isolated from it, and ther lower class do not have a strong enough voice. Compare that to many countries, especially in Asia, where you can walk around alone at night down dark alleys with zero fear.

The US is by no means perfect, but it's hardly terrible. A 1-week vacation to some tourist land in another country is hardly a typical experience of how real life is like there.

The US is uniquely bad in infrastructure development compared to peer countries and I bet also compared to many “poorer” countries. We just don’t invest in it; and leaving decisions to fragmentary states and municipalities results in an uncoordinated and ineffecient system. What OP was seeing in terms of superior transportation was real. In the US we just accept things like regular air travel delays of hours and cancelled flights; and the lack of rail options in most of the country.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

When it comes to roads, you seem to be overlooking the interstate highway system. The federal govenrment funds most major transporation infrastructure projects in the US, and for good reason -- the nation's economy overall benefits from having a well-connected country. Yes, states are the ones to propose and implement such projects, but typicallly the feds put in the majority of the funding.

Even with "local" rail, like Metro's silver line, the Feds put in about 40% of government funding.

As for rail infrastructure, the US is just so much bigger and with lower population density than most countries. Why would anyone sit 2+ days on a train from New York to LA when they can fly in 5 hours? The same is in Europe -- Copenhagen to Athens is a shorter distance but no one is going to sit 2 days on a train and bus (there are no inter-city trains to Athens) when they can fly it in 3 hours.

Shhh don’t tell him about high speed trains …

But the point is not only long haul trains but also regional rail. Imagine if instead of the patchwork of WMATA, MARC and VRE we had a comprehensive regional rail system like Madrid?

Just get a car

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I often travel and think the opposite- we have it great in America. Central and South America are riddled with poverty, corruption, drugs. I feel unsafe as a woman in the Middle East and India (also riddled with extreme poverty and is unsanitary). Even in Europe, my kids point to laundry hanging across alleys and small apartments and comment how poor those people must be. Nope, middle class Europeans live in small apartments and don’t enjoy many of the day-to-day conveniences we have. They pay dearly for their safety net such as healthcare though high taxes and will complain about the long waits and inefficiencies in their healthcare system. I’d never want to live in communist China or in Russia under Putin. Does anyone think there is anyplace in Africa that has the comforts and safety we have here?

We certainly have our problems, but there are few, if any, places that don’t. I’ll take our issues any day over the issues of any place I’ve visited.

This is one of those cases where a basic understanding of history and America’s role in it would absolutely blow OP’s mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often travel and think the opposite- we have it great in America. Central and South America are riddled with poverty, corruption, drugs. I feel unsafe as a woman in the Middle East and India (also riddled with extreme poverty and is unsanitary). Even in Europe, my kids point to laundry hanging across alleys and small apartments and comment how poor those people must be. Nope, middle class Europeans live in small apartments and don’t enjoy many of the day-to-day conveniences we have. They pay dearly for their safety net such as healthcare though high taxes and will complain about the long waits and inefficiencies in their healthcare system. I’d never want to live in communist China or in Russia under Putin. Does anyone think there is anyplace in Africa that has the comforts and safety we have here?

We certainly have our problems, but there are few, if any, places that don’t. I’ll take our issues any day over the issues of any place I’ve visited.

Well stated.
Thank you, pp. I couldn't agree with you more.

look into how much China has built out its infrastructure in the past decades compared to the US. I don’t want to live in China either; but that doesn’t mean the US isn’t falling apart. Eventually some smart US city will join the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative to get infrastructure funding 😂

China has done amazing work on the infrastrucute side. Here's a map of major rail services:



But notice how it's almost all on the east side of China? Even China is difficult to compare to the US, since despite being big size-wise, very few people live in the western part of China (a lot is desert) so their massive population is essentially squeezed into one half the country. It would be like if the entire US population was living in Texas.

interesting thanks! obviously the infrastructure of a very large country is diverse, with cars/trucks/planes being predominant in the less populated sections.

I believe that US air infrastructure is actually still one area where we top other nations in terms of safety and volume. But that doesn’t sustain itself on its own without focused attention.

One thing I do worry about (partly because I have a public school middle schooler) is that our math and science curriculum and teaching methods seem to have become hopelessly diluted and just bad. I feel like unless and until we get back to seeing kids as a resource for the common good to educate, we risk just not having enough young people with the skills to do things like air traffic control and airplane maintenance let alone engineering. Our best and brightest and most privileged are going to work for quant traders… we can’t afford to just ignore the educations of everyone else!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely not. I live in Germany, and I have to laugh when so many Americans fantasize about moving to Europe and talk about it like some kind of utopia. It's insanely naive. Every place has its problems and issues

The problem in the US is not that we have problems. It is our obstinate refusal to solve any of them while new problems continue to crop up. While many of these problems are sort of relegated to the poorest people in our country, they are increasingly “trickling up” to the middle class.

People are routinely dying from a lack of healthcare or going bankrupt from medical problems. This should have been resolved ages ago, and is simply not such a crisis in other countries.

Same with gun violence. Yes, there are a multitude of tertiary issues related to gun violence but the main issue is simply guns.

And now, we have a huge mentally ill homeless population suffering in our cities and it’s only growing.

And I think the worst part is that people seem so lonely and unhappy.

Why do we tolerate this?

When I go to my parents’ home country, it just isn’t so miserable. I’m staying in a middle class neighborhood, not a luxury hotel. I have been here often over the last 2 decades: People are grinning and bearing it. No one is shot in the street. If I need medicine I can just walk into the pharmacy and buy it for $2. People are out past 8pm having fun. People are just enjoying being with other people more.

Something is just broken at home. I really feel like I get a break abroad, from the horrible political news and violence and apocalyptic weather events. I have not felt this way before.

You keep on repeating yourself here. Over and over. These are your feelings. Some agree, some disagree. We have free speech here. We don't need to agree with you just because you type out the same words over and over.

If you are so distressed go out and help people in need in the U.S. or go back to your home country. What you are not going to do is make us feel so bad about ourselves that we are going to spend our days in despair, looking for Russia or China or Iran to come save us.

What are you talking about? I am not the only poster on this thread?

I wondering why you feel so threatened and defensive at the idea that something may be going sideways with our way of life. Who said anything about China and Iran? Do you realize what a provincial and close minded reaction that is? And how do you know that I’m not involved with helping people in the US?

Why would I be threatened by somone else's opinion? You are not that powerful. Just because you throw words out of your mouth doesn't mean they are true or even need to be considered. Listening to you is not the determiner if someone is close minded because you are not an authority on anything. In addition, complaining doesn't make one non-provincial. You are provincial: not appreciating that different places are unique, including our country. A large country like ours is not going to have a transportation system like Germany's. If your point is to encourage everyone to be so unhappy that they look to you and say oh wise one tell is what we need to do to be happy you have failed. Those of us who are happy are working everyday, trying to advance in our careers to keep up with the economy,supporting our families, instead of begging people on the internet to be "collective" and do things for me so I don't have to work hard. "I just need a little studio in a big city where I can walk everywhere and I then will not really need to go make money and work, I can enjoy my hobbies as a man should!"--well that is not my priority, so not "collecting" or whatever to support this--young men and their desire for ample leisure time.

Ok dude. You can be happy - as long as you’re not actively getting in the way of the US improving itself. Because the US is way behind on developing infrastructure compared to peer nations.

What I suspect is that you are not actually happy but are desperately anxious and polarized. As long as we approach things that *should* be common sense improvements for the nation (like improving housing and transportation) as another chapter in our excruciatingly stupid culture wars, the US will continue to fall behind.

I feel like a third party dedicated to actually solving American problems is needed - let’s fix the bridges, teach the kids to read, keep people healthy, make the cities vibrant, the small towns with jobs, and keep the water and air clean. Left and right can agree with all of that.

So i don't know how I feel but you know how I feel? You are the sole arbiter of what is good and right? No.
I am happy with car-centered culture. I have a job and can afford a car. I like the freedom of driving. I don't want to live close to neighbors.

Ok that’s fine. what I am saying is that the uniquely bad American thing is that you are turning reasonable infrastructural and transit improvements into a branch of the culture wars. As long as American politics allows and rewards that we are going to continue to fall behind peer nations. If people like you had their way we’d have nothing in terms of infrastructure because you would have protested public sewers and electricity grids …

But who cares? You are telling us over and over things are awful...but many of us think they are not. We live here just like you do (but I suspect you are in a troll farm overseas possibly)...we don't need you to tell us how to perceive things.

Who is “you?” There are many people responding on this thread who have gone to many places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:US is an undeveloped S hole of backwater rednecks with very low education.

Tens of thousands of their people die per year from guns and go bankrupt for epipens. What a laughably bad society.

Nobel Prizes in 2024:

Physics: American and a Brit
Chemistry: 2 Americans, 1 Brit
Medicine: 2 Americans
Economics: 1 Turk, 1 Brit, 1 American (all from MIT)

At least one American won every Nobel prize this last year for prizes in science and innovation (I left out literature and peace).

Yes, there are many Americans with poor education, but we also have some of the most brilliant people in the world. Look at technology -- the majority of software and devices you use every day are from American companies. Which country can match that?

How long will that last though?

And we need people who can design and build roads, not just Nobel Prize winners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taiwan is about the size of MD and Delaware combined. Of course it's easy to run cross-country trains for cheap in a place that small.

The king of Thailand is the richest monarch in the world (estimated net worth $30-70 billion) and Thailand has the strictest Lèse-majesté laws in the world, meaning criticizing the king carries a sentence of 3-15 years in prison.

I've lived abroad in a few countries and traveled to nearly 100. What I look at is things like innovation, economy and standard of living. Thailand's economy is nearly 50% from tourism (it's 3% in the US). For the most part, tourism does not require innovation. Name any innovations from Thailand that you use. They have 0 Nobel prize winners. Compare that to the US, where more than half of all Nobel prizes awarded in 2024 went to Americans, despite having less than 5% of the world's population.

Taiwan does a little better on the innovation scale -- TSMC is a massive semiconductor manufacturing company and you probably have at least one of their chips in some device in your house. But I think people would struggle to name even one major Taiwanese company.

Then look at standard of living. In the US, even low-income people live in a house with air conditioning and usually a dishwasher and a garbage disposal. Meanwhile, every time there's a heat wave in Paris and scores of people die from the heat.. because not all places have air conditioning. Compare that to for example, Montgomery County, where air conditioning has been _required_ in all rental properties since 2020.

Yes, the US has many downsides, crime and violence in particular. I think we as a society choose to live with it because those who are middle class and above are mostly isolated from it, and ther lower class do not have a strong enough voice. Compare that to many countries, especially in Asia, where you can walk around alone at night down dark alleys with zero fear.

The US is by no means perfect, but it's hardly terrible. A 1-week vacation to some tourist land in another country is hardly a typical experience of how real life is like there.

The US is uniquely bad in infrastructure development compared to peer countries and I bet also compared to many “poorer” countries. We just don’t invest in it; and leaving decisions to fragmentary states and municipalities results in an uncoordinated and ineffecient system. What OP was seeing in terms of superior transportation was real. In the US we just accept things like regular air travel delays of hours and cancelled flights; and the lack of rail options in most of the country.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

When it comes to roads, you seem to be overlooking the interstate highway system. The federal govenrment funds most major transporation infrastructure projects in the US, and for good reason -- the nation's economy overall benefits from having a well-connected country. Yes, states are the ones to propose and implement such projects, but typicallly the feds put in the majority of the funding.

Even with "local" rail, like Metro's silver line, the Feds put in about 40% of government funding.

As for rail infrastructure, the US is just so much bigger and with lower population density than most countries. Why would anyone sit 2+ days on a train from New York to LA when they can fly in 5 hours? The same is in Europe -- Copenhagen to Athens is a shorter distance but no one is going to sit 2 days on a train and bus (there are no inter-city trains to Athens) when they can fly it in 3 hours.

Shhh don’t tell him about high speed trains …

But the point is not only long haul trains but also regional rail. Imagine if instead of the patchwork of WMATA, MARC and VRE we had a comprehensive regional rail system like Madrid?

Just get a car

And then join the wailing and gnashing of teeth about beltway traffic and the cost of parking … ?