Ask Lemmy

We're small, and that means a lot of the problems facing America just pass us by.

I guess history and a sense of being part of an established culture.

Do also want to point out though that Americans talk their country down on here. It's a place of extremes but that diversity in theory means anyone could find their niche. They also have pretty much every biome you might want to live in from desert, to parks to icy tundra - I can see why you might not need a passport.

• Actually diverse politics (though still dominated by moneyed right wing)
• Amazon is not the nº 1 online retailer and there exists... some competition between the major ones
• Significantly less infighting between federal govt and states - phones were recently banned from every school as federal law, no "let states decide" bullshit
• We don't have to pay to make searches in justice databases
• We have govt-funded hospitals and healthcare (doesn't always work and there's constant right-wing ill-will to sell it all off)
• 🏴‍☠️ So long as you don't pirate stuff for profit, nobody will go after you 🏴‍☠️

It doesn't have a traitor as a president

A president cant win without getting majority of votes. If there is no one with over 50% of the votes, a second round happens between the top 2

This seems like a pretty obvious one: We have democracy.

Instead of starting a list of those things and ending up with my App crashing, I will name the one thing I think the US does better.

I think having a speed limit on your highways is kinda a sane thing to have.

Public healthcare
Super annuation
Preferential & compulsory voting
No tipping culture
Consumer protection laws
Gun control laws
Weather service isnt privitised
Wide variety of multicultural foods
Farming sector isnt controlled by a few companies (ie chickens)/subsidy schemes (looking at you corn)
Organised religion has less participation and dropping steadily
Adoption of rooftop solar systems

Also significantly less instances of tech billionares, team factional politics, media oligarchs & donald trumps.

There are a lot of areas we could do better and are ashamed of though.

I come from a third world country that is worse than the US in a lot of ways, but I don’t have to worry about getting shot by a rando with a gun.

India - multi-party democracy. US is too big and too diverse of a place to have effectively have two parties for every region and every cohort of the country. It should try to copy some aspects of India's multi-party culture. Some states in India have parties that don't exist in any other state. And some parties exist across many states. Basically a mix of current US system and the European system.

If you get cancer, you can have access to chemotherapy for free. And that’s basically it

Just off the top of my head:

State-sponsored higher education that is later paid back through taxes. Free healthcare, also paid for by taxes, and affordable medicine. Decent mass transit, although railways are a disgrace. Labour laws. Paid sick leave and mandatory minimum vacation days. Paid maternity leave, and tax breaks for new mothers.

PM is a Russian asset, but still better than Trump.

Healthcare, climate, food, democracy, measurement system, no death penalty, houses in concrete

We already went through the phase you just began.

Parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, affordable healthcare, affordable education, great roads and infrastructure with lots of cycling lanes, shops near homes, better labour laws, more vacation days, maternity leave, social safety net, less gun violence, police trained in de-escalation, affordable phone and internet plans, more affordable healthy food options, more egalitarian culture, none of those pesky hills or mountains, surrounded by countries that make good beer.

We don't have a 2 party political system and have functional public transport.

Strike that. Let's try "What can America learn from your country to become a better nation?"

The value of human life and life in general.

If a foreigner comes to my country and suffers any ailment or accident, they receive treatment because life is understood as an absolute value. This implies that paying taxes goes towards creating a safety net that nobody really wants to rely on but is thankful to have when misfortunes happens.

We don't think we're the only and best in the world. We are interested in the culture of our neighbours. And we respect them.

I’m allowed to walk across the street without being arrested for ‘jay walking’.

We elected a fascist leader once and then we learned from it.

Being able to walk in the cities! And healthcare is also a big reason

In new ways every passing day!

Literally all of them except size of military.

Every?

The only thing the US got going for itself is that it has a bunch of really rich oligarchs. Oh, it has (soon, had) nice nature too, that's it

A smidgen fewer school shootings, although the reason for that is very ephemeral and incomprehensive.

Healthcare, a sane leader who cares about his country, cheaper tuition, more than two parties, the metric system, less urban sprawl (though it’s still not great here), far less guns

5 weeks paid leave

In most urbanized areas, even in suburbs, you can buy daily necessities (food, personal hygiene, medicine, etc) in just a short walk. If in a subdivision, like in a suburb, there would be some houses with an attached corner store. Failing to find what you need there, a convenience store would be a bit further (either still inside the subdivision, or just out the gate).

If you need to do your groceries, you can use public transport to the market. Even within subdivisions (with some exceptions, like those for the wealthy), there usually would be some form of public transport that could take you to the main highway, and from there, to the market.

That's just one that immediately came to mind upon reading the prompt. Not sure if there are others, but it's the most striking to me, and one that I've taken for granted until hearing about the US' suburbs.

We, here in the UK, for all our faults, have waaaay fewer school shootings.... In fact way fewer shootings altogether (even when multiplied by ~5 for relative population size)

We have the four freedoms that guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people as part of the European single market.