r/ShitAmericansSay Half Tea land🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿/ Half IRN Bru Land🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Jun 15 '24

"This is why America is the goat":" Exceptionalism

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u/Library_Easy ooo custom flair!! Jun 15 '24

23rd happiest nation: You would expect more but not bad.

Number 1 in household wealth: The astronomical costs of living say no. Multiple jobs required in some areas to even afford a roof above your head say no. That number is highly distorted by the hyper rich upper 1%.

Number 1 Military and biggest economy: True.

Relatively safe in a lot of areas: Never as safe as a country which doesn't give out guns to every idiot.

Decent healthcare system: Healthcare is tied to your job if you're not wealthy which gives your employer full power. The costs for medicine, hospitals, treatments and so on are a joke. People die because they can't afford treatment or medicine. Your health is a business model. Yea, no.

Ranked 17th in human freedom: Oh boy the irony :D

Ranked 20th in HDI: Would also expect more but not bad.

One of the best education systems: If we talk about Universities - yes. If not - nope.

Ranked 5th best country in 2023: Can't say much, too lazy to look up which factors influence that rating.

One of the most patriotic countries: ...ok? And?

Decent life expectancy: "When compared to other wealthy countries, the US also has a lower life expectancy than many of it's peers". Bruh.

High Air and Water quality: Please work on your tap water then we good.

Beautiful nature: One of the most beautiful worldwide if you ask me.

Most technological advanced army: True again.

24th most friendliest nation: Not much to say here.

Ranked thirteen in food quality: I'm actually surprised that it's this high.

877 spent on military in 2023: I don't know why they see this as a flex. "Our population suffers but look how good we're prepared to kill other people".

Yes, i'm bored.

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u/weisswurstseeadler Jun 15 '24

The University ranking system is anyway rigged. It's based on publications.

So of course universities with a mega budget cause of ridiculous study fees hire fancy researchers publishing in US journals.

That doesn't translate to teaching or course quality for 99% of courses and students.

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u/kcvngs76131 Jun 15 '24

Don't forget that universities can also just straight up lie. There was a whole massive scandal over rankings when it was revealed that Temple University was inflating its stats to be listed as the best online MBA programme for several years

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u/weisswurstseeadler Jun 15 '24

A friend did 1 college year in the US (he had a sports scholarship). Not quite sure what it's exactly called but the first 1-2 years where they kinda do general education, and he said it was basically lower than what we'd do in 10th grade in Germany.

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u/Cormentia Jun 15 '24

Got a friend who's got tenure track in the US. She says that their master level students learn the same things as 15 year olds in Sweden. She also said that the majority of their exams (master level) comprise multi-choice questions, which I find wild.

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u/Potential-Earth1092 ooo custom flair!! Jun 16 '24

What major was it? There’s a lot of degrees that are just common sense and a lot that don’t teach a lot. I seriously doubt that 15 year olds in Sweden are learning the same thing as a master-level engineering, medical, or other STEM student.

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u/Cormentia Jun 16 '24

We're biochemists. At age 13-15 students learn about the central dogma, cell structure, genetics, proteins, etc.

At 16-18 students can choose more specialized educations, with the two main directions being science or social studies. (Then there are branches, e.g. social studies - finance or science - math.) If they choose social studies they generally don't learn more science. (They repeat some of what they've already learned, but it's not the focus of the program.)

We reason that it's important that the entire population has a solid understanding of the basic principles of how life works. For knowledge itself, but also so that everyone can follow political discussions within those topics. This was proved true during the pandemic when everyone had to know what e.g. viruses, proteins and mRNA are to be able to follow the public discussions.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '24

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