• SwingingTheLamp@midwest.socialEnglish
        17·
        11 months ago

        It’s hard to sum up because it’s hard to describe. Life in the U.S. on the surface is one of material abundance, congruent with our status as a wealthy nation. But that image is a serious headfuck because of how easily it can all be taken away from an individual: Even a relatively minor illness can plunge you into bankruptcy. You’re totally dependent on a car to get just about anywhere. You need it to keep a job, but you could lose it to an expensive mechanical failure at any time. Or, you could get crashed into on the road through no fault of your own, and get plunged into medical debt, lose your car, and your job in an instant. There is no safety net for this. The police aren’t there to protect you. In fact, they could come bursting through your door and kill you at any moment, maybe because they read the address on a warrant wrong, or somebody they want used to live there. Or, they could just take your assets by civil forfeiture because they feel like it. Police take more assets from citizens each year than nominal criminals do. Employers steal more yet through wage theft. Nobody will help you when that happens. People live with the threat of homelessness ever looming in the background, and if the system beats you into it, there’s little societal help. Quite the opposite, many places in the U.S. are actively working to make homelessness a criminal offense, or even subject to summary execution in some places. Even when welfare programs exist, they’re explicitly designed to be humiliating and hard to access.

        To use an analogy, lots of people in the world live only a few steps up the prosperity staircase, and Americans are way high above them. However, we’re not on a staircase, we can’t just back down a few steps to a lower standard of living; it’s been cut off. There’s a certain minimum wealth standard enforced by law, custom, and environment. We’re perched on the edge of a cliff, with the constant threat of being forced over the edge.

        Even the people in the U.S. slightly further up don’t understand the psychological trauma of this precarious existence, because their backs aren’t up against the precipice. That’s how the U.S. is such a paradox: It’s a shit hole country for so many people, who live with constant fear and anxiety, but so many other Americans can’t see it because they’re just a little bit higher up in prosperity, so they do have room to step back down a little.

        (But even then, the upper classes put in insanely long hours at work and spend large amounts of money to secure a wealthy future for their children, for fear that they might fall out of the upper class. I think that’s pretty telling about what it’s like to be working class in the U.S. that it frightens them so badly.)

    • Klear@sh.itjust.works
      19·
      11 months ago

      It’s the other side of american exceptionalism - one they realise they are not the best, they start believing they are at least the worst.

    • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
      9·
      11 months ago

      I live in a third world country and I have a crappy stressful job but unlike an american, my garbage wage can afford me an apartment to rent, pay the bills, eat well and save something or use it for entertainment. Unlike the American situation, since they can’t afford to pay their mortgages, student loans, credit card debts, predatory corporations, insane house costs, disgustingly expensive medical bills and other bullshit living expenses. The American dream is dead and, crime and murder rates aside, third world countries allow people to have a less miserable life, in case you were not aware of how bad the situation was there.

  • weeeeum@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    11 months ago

    Man shut the fuck up, the US is still richer, more developed and better to live in than most countries. Just be happy with that.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
      58·
      11 months ago

      richer

      Concentrated in the hands of very few. Over half of the population has negative wealth.

      more developed

      I’ll give you that one, though not everyone sees any benefit of it.

      better to live in

      Again, far from everyone. There’s areas with barely a dirt road and no access to clean water, there’s neighborhoods that look like 1990s Sarajevo right next to ultra-rich neighborhoods and women and minorities are discriminated against and abused more than most other Western countries.

      Just be happy with that.

      No.

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
          8·
          11 months ago

          Spoken like someone who doesn’t close their eyes and goes “America great!” every time

          It is a shithole of a country, with barely any democracy, cops that are more likely to murder you than help, and debt incurring healthcare. There are barely any worker rights, wealth isn’t distributed at all, housing is a mess. The US has a homeless problem in every large city, a mental health crisis, and an opioid epidemic.

          US is a shithole, whether you like it or not, it’s a fact.

    • Stelus42@lemmy.ca
      6·
      11 months ago

      Gotta agree with you bud. America certainly should change for the better, but this post is some privelaged ass shit. All these people downvoting should talk to someone who escaped cuba or who has friends and family who died on the west bank last month.

      • good_girl
        2·
        11 months ago

        escaped cuba

        Never ask a gusano what they “escaped” from

    • Kayel@aussie.zone
      1·
      11 months ago

      American forgetting about the whole of Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, and some of south America.

      • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
        3·
        11 months ago

        The US is a better place to live than most of S America, huge parts of Asia, and half of Europe.

        Just look at the migration numbers, people voting with their feet.

        • Kayel@aussie.zone
          2·
          11 months ago

          I’m not arguing every country in those areas. My point is the joke doesn’t make sense as there’s large populations who believe this to be true.

          25℅ of my workmates are first or second generation USAians. They earn less here than they would in the US. By your logic, Australia is better place to live than the US.

          I mean, I don’t disagree.

  • recapitated@lemmy.world
    12·
    11 months ago

    As a person who lives in the USA it’s honestly pretty comfy, besides wholly embarrassing fairly frequently.

  • Kayel@aussie.zone
    6·
    11 months ago

    I don’t know how joking you are, I hear this in the wild from Aussies a couple of times a month.

      • Kayel@aussie.zone
        9·
        11 months ago

        It’s usually: well, we may be a neoliberal state with the resulting capitalist issues but let’s be thankful we’re not living in the US.

        For example, most recently I heard this in a conversation about growing wealth disparity.