Media Can’t Stop Presenting Horrifying Stories as ‘Uplifting’ Perseverance Porn

Re:Media Can’t Stop Presenting Horrifying Stories as ‘Uplift... by iforgotpassword on Sunday August 18, 2019 @11:28AM (#20730750)

But does it really reduce your standard in those systems? I know it's really hard to properly compare the costs of something like this between countries, but it would be interesting to know how much you need to spend on healthcare in the US to get similar benefits as in some European country purely with public healthcare. Since another benefit of public health care is that you can be reasonably sure people around you are healthy and not dragging themselves to work with god knows what since they can't afford treatment. Be it your colleague or the cashier at the store.

It's actually quite baffling how Americans generally seem much more generous, warm and helpful to their fellow human beings, but the idea of potentially paying for someone else's medical treatment seems absolutely outrageous to most.

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Re:Media Can’t Stop Presenting Horrifying Stories as ‘Uplift... by leetcrew on Sunday August 18, 2019 @04:14PM (#20732539)

> It's actually quite baffling how Americans generally seem much more generous, warm and helpful to their fellow human beings, but the idea of potentially paying for someone else's medical treatment seems absolutely outrageous to most.

this is just my personal take as an american. I think the disconnect has to do with locality/proximity. americans who have some surplus income (ie savings and not living paycheck-to-paycheck) are quite willing to help people they know with cash or free labor and will happily donate time or money to help people in their broader community. what americans hate is being forced by the government to help people far outside their circle. I think partially we are suspicious that the money doesn't get where it's supposed to go intact, but there's also an element of "fuck them, what do those people over there have to do with me?"

obviously this is suboptimal as entire communities can be disjoint and have serious imbalances in funds available. also it tends to leave a lot of efficiency from scale on the table. but perhaps this at least explains some of your bafflement.

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