> pick up some mass-produced groceries, full of toxins and colourings and GMOs, even if they are labelled “organic” and “fresh”, all forbidden in Europe
As if just being a "GMO" by itself is a disqualifier. That'd be 90% of the crops on the planet. And the catch-all "toxins". Oi the naivety.
There are some truths in that article but it was hard to read without cringing. That and he generalizes the entire US when public parks, transportation, art, events etc. vary wildly by state.
Ok, well public transport is pretty terrible everywhere in the US.
No, it’s when you visit the cities most Americans think of as “third world shitholes”: places like Mexico City, Bangkok, Manila, Lagos, Bogota... and you realize they have much more modern infrastructure with more accessible healthcare, better food, and more opportunity for social advancement. When you see how the quality of life is better — or at at least equivalent — in a “shithole country”, it really disabuses you of any previously-held notions that America is heads-and-shoulders above the rest of the world. We largely just trade individual happiness for a low unemployment rate and a high per-capita income (which is only high if you ignore how much more we spend on healthcare).
I’m a big fan of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. One of the most insightful things in the book is that our understanding of the situation on the ground in a far off culture is that any information we have about that place will perpetually be 10 years behind reality. This has more to do with cultural / language differences than anything; before western researchers even realize advancement is happening to know to measure it, the change has already achieved critical mass. And the pace of advancement has only gotten faster, meaning our perceptions of these places are even further behind the reality.
But if you don’t travel, you don’t see any of that. You just see what the news shows you; and that news is influenced by the sentiments of an audience comprised of people who largely don’t travel. So misunderstandings persist.
Again, you may be right about what people broadly value, but he makes it personal as if he has no choice but to consume low quality garbage while in the US. I think he was being a bit hyperbolic. Perhaps he could have said it is more work for him to consume quality food/TV in the US because of what is easily available, popular, marketed etc..
[Edit: Apparently so! Quite the controversial statement. However, when voting, do consider what percentage of television consumed outside of the US was produced IN the US and vice versa.]
Some of the actual content is much better, but the experience of watching television in the US is drastically worse.
I don't watch network tv anymore. Well, I don't actually watch TV at all, but you get the picture.
EDIT:
In an American survey, but this did include YouTube as a form of streaming media
Most people just switched to online on-demand streaming services.
Well, I do. Although my interest is more in science/nature TV than dramas. In the past Discovery Channel would be about.. discovery. Science. Nature. Then it became a reality show. Just as one example. I don't find anything to watch. British television has always been, and still is way above anything anywhere when it comes to science and nature. And to be honest I prefer the British crime dramas over the US ones too.
[1]
Ten charts on the rise of knife crime in England and Wales
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089
[2]
Germany: Stabbings and Knife Crimes at Record High
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13802/germany-stabbings-k...
German homicide rate: 1.18 per 100,000
US homicide rate: 5.35 per 100,000
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/koeln-silvester-justiz-101....
Perpetrators could hardly be identified
In Cologne, the charges resulted in preliminary proceedings against 290 suspects and to date in 43 indictments against a total of 52 defendants; in addition, six orders of summary punishment were issued. According to the local court, six of the cases are still pending. But most of the proceedings deal with accusations such as theft, robbery or receiving stolen goods. The allegation of sexual coercion was made in only three proceedings against a total of six accused persons.
The biggest difficulty for the investigators: Many of the suspected perpetrators of sexual assaults from New Year's Eve could only be identified with difficulty afterwards. The investigators evaluated more than 1000 hours of image material, for example from surveillance cameras. However, in most cases it was not possible to identify individual persons.
Some actual sources which are not from a far-right 'think tank':
Crime statistic summary (english): https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/EN/publikatione...
Crime statistic full (german): https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikatione...
FAZ article (german): https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/kriminalstatistik...
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/kriminalstatistik-125.html
"One of the safest countries in the world"
Interior Minister Seehofer expressed his satisfaction with the 2018 crime statistics, saying that the number of crimes had decreased by 3.6 percent. It is lower than it has been for decades, the minister said.
Of course not all stabbings are fatal.
> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentary by an academic, the BBC’s Blue Planet, or a Swedish crime-noir. I think back on my day and remember the people smiling and laughing at the pubs and cafes.
This is so farcical it's not even worth trying to rebut.