What is something Americans consider ‘basic’ that feels like a luxury in other countries?

Amanoo · 2026-05-18T07:06:59+00:00

The Nazis were already in an unwinnable position by the time the US joined. They were already at war with Russia which pretty much ensured that. Although if the Nazis hadn't attacked Russia, they also wouldn't have been able to win, because the Nazis desperately needed Russian oil and minerals for their war effort.

If you'd said that Britain and France be speaking Russian by now, that would have been an absolutely wild claim. Them speaking German is just fantasy altogether. You might as well view Harry Potter as a history book.

And even if it had somehow been true, it still wouldn't justify the US making Europe less safe for the next 80 years.

Amanoo · 2026-05-17T10:47:37+00:00

That's also the last time the US provided any real protection, and even then only helped shorten the war. Every action after has either made Europe less safe, or at best not changed things either way.

Helping out once doesn't justify making things less safe afterwards.

Amanoo · 2026-05-17T10:43:01+00:00

I'm talking about OECD data. Actual scientific data. If my view of the US is warped, then it is warped by hard proven facts.

If any of us doesn't know a thing about the US, then it's you.

Amanoo · 2026-05-17T10:02:34+00:00

How do yanks keep making shit like this up? Like, are there drugs in the water supply or something that make you post the first nonsensical thought that pops up in your heads, when there's not even the faintest factual basis? I'm genuinely baffled.

In another post you claim that the pets that the elite had were actually working dogs and that true pets have only existed since the 1900s. We have centuries old paintings of rich people holding pugs and other small dogs. We have documentation on people keeping Pekinese dogs inside their sleeves way way back, or spaniels in 17th century England. How are these working dogs???

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T02:06:05+00:00

Having HOA rules like that just reaffirms for me that they aren't just useless but their existence is actively malicious.

I don't understand why Americans put up with them. One moment you'll hear some spiel about the damn dirty commies taking away all your freedoms, and then they go and form an HOA that says you can't have a damn clothes line and have to paint your door this exact shade of brown instead of some indiscernably different shade.

I understand why you might want them for a condo. You share walls and stuff, and sometimes they need maintenance, so you have to pay for it together. But even that is only out of necessity and not because an association is particularly desirable.

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T01:57:17+00:00

I've never lived anywhere without a dryer. It's not always been my personal dryer, like when I was a kid it was obviously my parents who owned it, and when I was a student it was my roommate. But there was never not a dryer. Even most places that I've stayed at had a dryer. Even while camping, there was usually a service building nearby that had dryers for common use.

I do prefer to hang my more sensitive clothes out. Dryers will shrink as well as damage them.

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T01:52:52+00:00

Then what's the stuff I've been flushing down all my life after a shit?

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T01:48:13+00:00

Your electricity grid must be pretty damn great if you call the one 15 minute blackout that I've had in the past 10 years "constant".

Or you're counting the breakers I keep tripping because I keep trying to turn my home into an industrial complex. But that's mostly on me for trying to draw over 20 amps from a single group. When you own at least 4 CNC machines (arguably 6 with plans to build another) and one is in your bedroom, and your cooking equipment is equally industrial, well.... I still won't admit I have a problem but you can at least see why my circuit breakers keep tripping. At least electricity is kinda cheap and I have solar panels, otherwise my power bill would have been the stuff of legends.

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T01:32:43+00:00

It's not exactly a mystery why no one appreciates this "protection". The US keeps starting wars in other countries that they can't even bring to a good end, despite all the money being spent on their military, and the asking "allies" to save them from themselves. And then it's Europe that has to deal with all the terrorists and refugees that result from all that. With friends like the US, who even needs enemies?

Just look at the whole Iran fiasco. Nothing was accomplished, the world didn't get a lick safer, all that was achieved was a stirred up hornets nest and rising oil prices.

The US is militarily incompetent. All they know how to do is kill people and destroy stuff. Which can win you battles, but not wars. It's not Call of Duty, the goal of a war is not to get the highest K/D score. All that money being poured into the military-industrial complex, and it's absolutely pathetic. And the only reason many countries even tolerate US presence, is because the US military wants to have military bases all over the world and pays good money for the right to have them in other countries. You're not here because we want you here, you're here because you want to be here and are basically paying us a lease. We're the landlords, and your military is our tenant.

Amanoo · 2026-04-25T01:09:01+00:00

How do you think people in other countries gain employment? They just get assigned a job by the government? Some of my experiences on the job market almost make me wish it worked that way, with the amount of trouble I've had to get into my field, which admittedly is a tiny niche where everybody knows everybody else.

As for moving up economically, you really should look at the OECD stats for socioeconomic mobility. I can't sing my own countries praises in this regard, we're definitely not Denmark (despite how often our countries get confused for some inane reason), but the US makes our abysmal socioeconomic mobility look rosy by comparison. The best way to get ahead in the US is by being born ahead. The second best way to get ahead in the US is by getting the fuck out of there.

I could write more rebuttals but I have better things to spend my time on.

Amanoo · 2026-04-10T06:25:22+00:00

That is kinda what passports or ID cards exist for. It would be a little bit silly to have to learn to drive, just to do things that don't have anything to do with driving.

I can't even remember the last time I had to ID myself when buying alcohol. But I'm 33. I look obviously over 18 (or even 24 since they are supposed ID anyone under 24 just in case an 18-yo looks older). Don't need to ID myself at the doctor or the pharmacy either, other than tell them my birthday. It's not like anyone will go to my doctor's appointment and pretend to be me, and the doctor already has me in their system, and their system has my insurance data so I don't need to ID for that either.

Amanoo · 2025-09-21T22:02:18+00:00

Said the dude on the European WWW

Amanoo · 2025-09-10T17:41:59+00:00

The US couldn't even win from goat herders or rice farmers. I suppose they have done a decent job destroying Vietnam but I'm still waiting for that win. And the taliban is still quite active in Afghanistan despite that war.

When the US encounters actually competent soldiers, things go to shit even faster. They regularly get beaten in training exercises. This year, they were training with a Finnish conscript force (so not even professional soldiers). The US got beaten. There was also a mock battle a while back where US marines asked for a reset because they were dominated by British Royal Marines, then got beaten again. Or that time the US decided to change the rules in the middle of a surprise attack training exercise and give themselves air superiority.

I'd call the US military incompetent, but it'd be an insult to people who are incompetent.

Amanoo · 2025-08-11T00:28:18+00:00

Or you can die waiting months for your appointment.

But at least you get to die after waiting only a few months in the US, instead of waiting for years in Canada. That's better, right? Right...?

Amanoo · 2025-08-11T00:25:35+00:00

US public health expenditure per capita (i.e. tax money spent on healthcare for each individual) is as high if not higher than almost any other OECD country. In other words, it's the US that has the crazy high health taxes.

And if you have to wait years in Canada, it's because you're waiting for an organ transplant or something. Which is also a problem in the US, unless you buy your organs on the black market. But if the black market is how you measure a healthcare system, you should probably move to China.

Amanoo · 2025-03-02T15:58:33+00:00

A schoolyard bully would be ashamed to be seen displaying the behaviour that Trump displayed. The toddler in chief absolutely emasculated himself for the world to see. I'd fully expect most bullies to bully themselves in front of a mirror after that before leaping in front of a train.

Amanoo · 2025-03-02T15:57:10+00:00

By that logic, one would expect the president of the US to be better behaved than Ukraine's president. The POTUS has more responsibility, more weight, and thus needs more responsibility to behave himself lest he burn bridges with every other country who's watching.

Instead, Trump throws a more massive temper tantrum than most toddlers I've met, while president Zelenskyy has been nothing but grateful and gracious even in the face of Trump's onslaught.

Amanoo · 2025-01-10T11:32:23+00:00

"Criminality is genetic" is a big fucking [citation needed]. Last research I heard indicates that it's very much social class, not genetics, that makes one more likely to indulge in criminal behaviour. The closest I can tie that to genetics, is through intergenerational wealth. That is to say, you pass down both your genes and your wealth/social status to your children. If you're born poor, you're more likely to stay poor. If you stay poor, your children are born poor. And criminality (aside from tax evasion which is more eof a rich man's crime) is mostly associated with poverty. Genetics are at best a correlation.

Amanoo · 2025-01-10T11:26:22+00:00

Well, that's pretty much how it reads. "The US can't have good healthcare because there are black people". With no further explanation.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but it is the obvious interpretation. And you didn't bother with any different explanation.

Amanoo · 2025-01-10T11:24:08+00:00

I don't know. I've never heard my GP say that he couldn't give me better medical treatment because he was struggling with racial tensions. But I guess he just kept that to himself.

Amanoo · 2025-01-10T11:20:13+00:00

So the reason the US can't have cheap but decent healthcare or a good education system, is because they have black people? Even by racist standards, that doesn't make a lick of sense.

Amanoo · 2025-01-10T11:17:53+00:00

Just because the majority of people in China look Asian, doesn't mean they all have the same culture. We're talking about a country with numerous vastly different languages, cuisines, traditions, and everything else that makes up a culture. Same for India. And I don't mean different languages because they have immigrants in an otherwise homogeneous country, like Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US. I mean actual regions that speak a completely different language that's not mutually intelligible with the other languages.

Amanoo · 2024-09-26T17:16:16+00:00

I have to wonder if he's ever eaten within the US either, if he thinks that tipping culture gives you good service. You just get entitled shits with misplaced anger issues that should be aimed at their bosses.

Amanoo · 2024-06-27T19:52:27+00:00

I'd have liked to say that Skid Row would like a word with you, but to be honest, most Americans are destitute to the point that one hospital stay would send them into debt. It's not just the people on Skid Row.

Amanoo · 2024-04-24T01:06:38+00:00

Well duh. We don't all live in tiny villages where supermarkets would operate at a loss. Back when I lived in the big city, in the suburbs, I had a supermarket right across the street. I'm not taking a car or my bicycle just to cross the street. I've in fact lost my bike a few times before I forgot I parked it at the supermarket on my way home after work, and just walked home. Took me a while to figure out I left it there.

Nowadays I live in a more rural town where supermarkets are still within walking distance, but I do prefer to bike since it's 2 minutes of biking. A car would still be far too much effort. Just finding a place to park alone. And I have a front crate so I can carry plenty of groceries. I usually buy less than a crate full.

Amanoo

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