
Why Didn’t America Become Part of the Modern World? - pyjammas
https://eand.co/why-didnt-america-become-part-of-the-modern-world-dac6d65e9015
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aeternus
Poorly researched article, no citations and the numbers that are provided are
grossly misleading. Ex:

>40 million Americans live in poverty, while 50 million Mexicans do

The Mexican poverty rate is $157/month and less in rural areas whereas US is
over $1000/month.

Even with that, the US poverty rate is 12.7% below the national poverty line
whereas Mexico's is 42%.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Mexico)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Recent_poverty_rate_and_guidelines)

Mexico also isn't anywhere near the bottom compared to other countries. Only
2% of Mexican citizens live below the international poverty line.

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nwah1
This piece is very melodramatic, ignores huge pieces of US history, and the
US's place in world history. No citations or references. Starts off relying on
cherry picked headlines to set a biased tone that doesn't reflect reality for
most US citizens.

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satherx
This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while. America practically
created the modern world, in ways good (transportation, electronics, medicine)
and bad (modern warfare). But sure, the fact that you dont like the president
negates all of that. Still the wealthiest country in human history, and it's
not close. Please just look, for one second, at how the poorest Americans
compare to the rest of the world. Its a positive story. Always more to be
done, but take a step back once in a while and appreciate how amazing the
world we live in is.

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ojhughes
“Practically created the modern world” is a vast exaggeration and sad you
actually believe that.. European countries especially Britain and France
developed many of the things that enabled modernisation of the world.

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sullyj3
Americans are weird. America is always exceptional. Exceptionally good, or
exceptionally terrible. We have homeless people in Australia too, you know.

~~~
pharrington
The blog's author is British.

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mbfg
I'm not sure we've been that exceptionally good for awhile now. if ever. It's
a story we grow up with, and tend to repeat, But i think the author has a
reasonable assertion, and describes america pretty accurately. I look back at
all the vitriole we would cast at peoples of foreign countries, and laugh at
how beneath us they are. I suppose most countries feel that way about others,
it's the age old iron-age in-group/out-group that we need to somehow grow out
of. Frankly we, as americans, are now looking up at other peoples.

~~~
mbfg
I see this response got down voted, but no one has given evidence to it
mistakes. Compare America to most of the other 'modern' countries. Look at the
metrics: Poverty, Health care, Social values, Life expectancy, Jailing
practices, Murder rates... on and on.... where are we exceptionally good?

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rfg34te4
This essay certainly corresponds with the sentiment in this article:

[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-white-
blu...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/trump-white-blue-collar-
supporters/)

"You are patiently standing in the middle of a long line stretching toward the
horizon, where the American Dream awaits. But as you wait, you see people
cutting in line ahead of you. Many of these line-cutters are
black—beneficiaries of affirmative action or welfare. Some are career-driven
women pushing into jobs they never had before. Then you see immigrants,
Mexicans, Somalis, the Syrian refugees yet to come. As you wait in this
unmoving line, you’re being asked to feel sorry for them all. You have a good
heart. But who is deciding who you should feel compassion for? Then you see
President Barack Hussein Obama waving the line-cutters forward. He’s on their
side. In fact, isn’t he a line-cutter too? How did this fatherless black guy
pay for Harvard? As you wait your turn, Obama is using the money in your
pocket to help the line-cutters. He and his liberal backers have removed the
shame from taking. The government has become an instrument for redistributing
your money to the undeserving. It’s not your government anymore; it’s theirs."

I think this sentiment explains why so many poor whites are against programs
that would ultimately help them. To them, minorities are the competition in a
zero sum game.

~~~
mbfg
The line is so long and non moving not because of these supposed line cutters,
but because the people at the front of the line managing it are so slow and
stingy processing the people in the line.

~~~
rfg34te4
That could be part of it. If you are convinced by the Picketty idea where the
rich have captured a greater part of the economy and rig the game in their
favor (I am personally convinced by this) then you can see why things don't
seem to be getting better for most Americans. But why do those same American's
not focus their rage against the 1%? I think racism plays a role. And
certainly, some members of the 1% stoke these flames.

~~~
mbfg
>> But why do those same American's not focus their rage against the 1%

The %1 aren't stupid after all. They have done what they could to pit one
group of poor people against another group of poor people. They have convinced
a large group of poor white people that poor brown people are the cause of
their problems, as if the most disadvantaged people in the country could
possibly have any power over anyone. The power players in Washington have been
doing this quasi-covertly for a long time, it's only in this latest term of
presidency where the actions are explicit, obvious, overt and relentless.

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scotty79
Funny thing is that USA thinks it's rich because they are doing something
well, but the reality is that they are just cutting coupons off of the fact
that they didn't have their industry completely wrecked by WWII.

They'll get easily surpassed in raw income by India, China and few developing
countries in one generation.

Or faster. When world decides to ditch the dollar as reserve currency it's
house of cards.

~~~
geoalchimista
> They'll get easily surpassed in raw income by India, China and few
> developing countries in one generation.

Ain't gonna happen. Do the math of GDP per capita please.

~~~
scotty79
Hard to predict things over few decades into the future.

Also predictions are accurate only if nothing unpredictable happens. I don't
think anyone made 30 year accurate prediction of British economy in 1920.

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CompelTechnic
Thinkpieces lately have had a trend of reaching harder and harder to link the
news de jour to a higher, abstract concepts. They try to give an impression
that their words can carve America out of the "modern world" with surgical
precision, by contrasting the socialist utopia of... the entirety of Europe.

The result feels hystrionic to me. Claiming that America has no social
contract, that there is a proto-fascist movement arising, all this and more,
feels like it is just designed to raise the excitement for people in the
correct echo chamber. By calling on increasingly abstract concepts the author
can reign in an appeal to authority and emotion that has more appeal than
actual facts and statistics.

The author, and his inward-looking media peers, are all drinking eachother's
Kool-Aid a bit too much. It's like some sort of outrage porn that keeps
getting remixed over and over again, and becoming some sort of fractal version
of itself.

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amriksohata
Though poverty does cause ruin, the cause of poverty is often a lack of
education and I'm not talking academic, I'm talking about the education your
parents give you. Europe has been through a lot more bad experiences and
doesn't want to do that again whilst America is yet to learn.

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geoalchimista
> Now think of America. People dying for a lack of insulin.

I stopped treating this article seriously here. I can confirm you this happens
everyday in a third world country and the international English-speaking media
don't give a damn about it.

Quickly skimming through the article I can see the author was filled with rage
and drowned in a sense of entitlement. True, human existence is suffering, but
it is not just the US. You can never eliminate poverty completely.

I'll tell a Soviet joke. \- What is the best way to eliminate poverty in a
communist country? \- Eliminate the people who are in poverty.

That is where the author's blind spot is. The author fails to see the
foundations that lead to the rapid expansion of wealth in the past three
hundred years: limited government, individual liberty, free market, and
_capitalism_. Before the industrial revolution, everywhere on the planet
people live in "poverty" if judged by today's standard. You can rant all day
long about your rage against poverty. But you are not providing any _better_
solution than the _existing_ solutions the system has.

