Hacker News Reader

Comment by addicted | Hacker News Reader

This is the most remarkable thing about the US as an outsider.

Americans are completely dependent on their cars. Which means that children in the US have no freedom at all.

That's something that strikes me every time I come home from Europe and wake up in the (Pacific Northwest) suburbs. The streets are wide, the sidewalks are clean, there are trees all over the place, and not a soul in sight.

> Americans are completely dependent on their cars.

America is a big place with a lot of different situations.

> Which means that children in the US have no freedom at all.

This does not follow, and is not true. In America we tend to think of freedom as freedom from various kinds of persecution.

Consider the possibility that life in the U.S is abnormal by the standards of the rest of the world and that our view of what it means to be free is distorted.

Do people from elsewhere continue to want to immigrate to the US? Do you find yourself wanting to immigrate elsewhere?

Yes to both questions. Neither question is really relevant though. In the hierarchy of needs it’s easier to fill the lower level ones in the U.S. than in El Salvador. People move to the U.S. for ease of meeting needs, to experience the U.S., etc. This doesn’t mean than in comparison to Japan, UK, or Germany that life is freer here.

Eight percent of European migrants live in the U.S. and five percent in Kazakhstan. Is this evidence that Kazakhstan is comparable to the U.S?

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/european-immigrants-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com