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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

> The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt"

I get the distinct impression that people who liken the US to a third world country are from one particular spot on the political spectrum. This seems like political rhetoric, not a summary of some level-headed analysis. Inequality, crime, etc in the US are certainly problems, but that seems like a low bar for the "third world country" label (with or without the 'gucci belt' modifier). At best it's unhelpful, but I think it's probably just inaccurate considering how many people from actual second and third world countries are risking their very lives to get in, not to mention divisive.

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Generally I define a 3rd world country as a place that has a lot of inequality, corruption across the board, poor to no worker protection, failing and antiquated infrastructure, no free access to health care, high incarceration rate, persecution of journalists, a large working poor population with no ability to move up the social ladder, etc.

Which one of those does the US not have?

Those are all relative and obviously cherry picked. If you need to cherry pick and exaggerate wildly it’s not a very convincing argument IMO.

The US has worker protections and social mobility, so you're flat-out wrong on two of your points. And actually the US has free access to health care via a variety of programs, it's just not universal, but I'll concede that's being pedantic.

Every country is going to have inequality, corruption, antiquated infrastructure, and persecution of journalists, so those are meaningless unless you provide some sort of comparison point.

"High" incarceration is at least attempting to articulate a comparison but only because I actually know the numbers there.

Comparing all of these points against Western Europe, the US is objectively behind. There's your point of comparison. Western Europe has far more expansive worker protections (just look at "right-to-work" states, you can get fired for any reason whatsoever), far more encompassing free healthcare (not just for the poor and older individuals, Medicare and Medicaid is what you're referring to I presume right? There are no other programs for free healthcare in the US), far freer press (according to the World Press Freedom Index, the US is 44th, most Western European states are higher), infrastructure is not crumbling in Western Europe in the same way it is in the US, far lower inequality (this is obvious, check any inequality index), less corruption, on what point exactly of these is the US better than Western Europe?

Being behind first world countries in a few cherry picked regards doesn’t make one a third world country.

a) how are these regards cherry-picked? b) it doesn't no, you are right. However the "third world country with a gucci belt" phrase is intentionally tongue-in-cheek and used to call attention to the fact that the US is behind other first-world countries in many different important ways, which it is. Personally I consider healthcare, worker rights, and infrastructure pretty key issues of extremely high importance, and I'm not sure how it's possible to see it otherwise.

They are important, but ignoring every contrary indicator (per capita GDP, life expectancy, quality of life, etc) in order to exaggerate the extent to which the US lags other nations is the very definition of cherry picking. The US is squarely a first-world country even if it lags various countries other first world countries in certain regards. No doubt this “third world country” business is hyperbole for many people who invoke it (although I think there are many who invoke it who sincerely believe it or just have no moral scruples whatsoever), I’m just saying such rhetoric is unhelpful at best and probably divisive and misleading.

Out of those three examples you gave, Western Europe still wins on 2/3 (higher life expectancy, higher quality of life). Granted the second is subjective somewhat, but I believe most would agree. The first is objectively lower in the US compared to Western Europe, you can check the statistics. Per capita GDP is only high in the US due to massive wealth inequality and a ridiculous concentration of billionaires. It's not "ignoring every contrary indicator", it's that most of the indicators that are used to support the idea that the US is "better" (e.g. per capita GDP) are fundamentally flawed in different ways, and don't amount to a proper comparison of the quality of life.

For the third time now, being behind (some parts of) Europe doesn’t make a country “third world”. Also, I agree that GDP is imperfect—no one is claiming any indicator is perfect. However, the median US adult also has more wealth than the median European adult, and that figure isn’t skewed by billionaires. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_...

The US does not have much corruption. It is present, obviously, but you probably don't realize what corruption is like in "real" 3rd world countries.

About the infrastructure, the one in the US is comparable to that of most rich countries. If you cherry-pick, sure you are going to find something.

Health care in the US is problematic but I think the best indicator of quality is life expectancy, and the US is high tier.

And you think journalists are persecuted? The US is one of the most free country in that regard, more than Europe and much more than in Asia. In "real" 3rd world countries, they get killed, tortured, and all sorts of fun things if they disagree with the local ruler.

Climbing the social ladder is far from impossible in the US. It is hard, but it is hard everywhere, the ones on top of the ladder never want to let go, but at least, in the US, there is no rule officially preventing it like castes in India.

Worker protection could be better but it is no nonexistent either. At least, there are contracts that mean something, safety standards, etc...

Incarceration rate is not necessarily the sign of a third world country. In the worst places, there are no prisons to keep criminals locked in, and they are out to get you.

This is absolutely correct. I strongly suspect the people who say things about the US being a third world country have no experience in second world countries, much less third world.

One can just look at objective data: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

People that say US is a third world country are mostly illinformed, my guess is due to political affiliation as you said, but also the city dynamics, arm chair media consumption (NYT exclusively reports vocal minority issues day in day out) and uninformed about what actual third-world countries are like.

Looking at the data, the sample size is quite pathetic. https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/bli/

The amount of responses is skewed largely to 2-3 countries and the self-report guide is unreliable.

On top of that, by their own admission here: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/how-s-life_97892641...

their empirical data does not account for factors like wealth distribution, and a lot of the subjective indicators do not correlate strongly with the "objective" measures, with the exception of housing satisfaction.

Data and science doesn't make something objective. For something that claims to measure the quality of life of entire countries and compare them, I'd expect at least 70% of the world to be sampled in a thorough way.

Also, I don't think I've ever met anybody that genuinely believed the US was a third world country. They usually bring up its flaws in response to claims of "USA #1" or something along those lines which are slogans they grew up around their whole life. Now that they are looking into things, traveling, and experiencing more of life, they realize that that blanket statement holds no truth. The arm chair media consumption is definitely an issue but in the same way, I remember only reading good things about the US for almost the entirety of the 90s (consuming news from the BBC, Reuters, and local Japanese/Indian news orgs).

> Data and science doesn't make something objective

Well the “US is a third world country” take is based on no evidence whatsoever and defies all common sense, experience, etc, so I guess I’ll take the significant but imperfect evidence.

The idea of the US "turning into a third world country with a Gucci belt" is just a caricature; you are taking it extremely literally and I'm not sure why. But assuming large amounts of the population believed this to be a fact, this evidence from the website is not significant whatsoever. It's imperfect and insignificant. Any meaning you extract from it would be the equivalent of obtaining a desired trend from a plot full of randomly placed dots.

> The idea of the US "turning into a third world country with a Gucci belt" is just a caricature; you are taking it extremely literally and I'm not sure why.

Some people are intending it as a caricature and others are intending it literally (for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27520754). The literal case is obviously factually incorrect and the caricature case is unhelpful and divisive. Take your pick.

America's problems are numerous and have been discussed elsewhere at length. Suffice to say that sometime between 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, America has not been keeping up with other economies in terms of what makes a first world country worth living in. Biden may change that, or he may not. In any case, America has a lot of catching up to do if they want to overtake Europe (and some other places) in anything besides profit.

Poverty has been increasing rapidly here in the states and people just keep ignoring it. My employer isn't, we're gearing up to make tons of money on the next crash.

> America's problems are numerous and have been discussed elsewhere at length. Suffice to say that sometime between 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, America has not been keeping up with other economies in terms of what makes a first world country worth living in.

Maybe. Or maybe the media is just peddling negativity such that we are overexposed. I moved to Europe a decade ago and have since returned, and plan to go back occasionally. When I went, I definitely had the impression that Europeans had it together and that Europe was some kind of liberal Utopia. And it was neat and European countries have political ideas worth borrowing, but it turns out that Europeans are also just people with their own distinct problems. They aren't more enlightened as American liberal media would have you believe. Europe has some really cool cultures, but they aren't "better" than American culture(s). IMO what Europe does have that America lacks is a deep, vibrant history (pre-Columbian American history is relatively impoverished for a variety of reasons).

A black friend of mine who's a travel writer (hence has lived in a bunch of different countries) says that she often finds more problems in terms of racism in Europe, relative to the US.

Also, a few years back some Indian extraction friends of mine were complaining about casual racism in the Western European country they were living in.

So, it's probably not as great as some US media portrays, but it's definitely not as bad as the other US media portrays.

I’ve traveled Europe a lot as well and was similarly surprised at first (because the media’s portrayal of reality is severely warped). People say things like “America is a literal ethnostate” and other such nonsense but they don’t realize that America is one of the most egalitarian places in the history of the planet. That isn’t contradicted by the bad things that happen or have happened here; it’s just a testament to how bad things are and have been everywhere for all time.

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