Seemed like a good / practical idea.
sorry this was funnier before your edit
In the UK most children are taught to swim, and in many European countries the same. I'm often surprised to learn that Americans swim less frequently, but I guess it's just another one of those culture and facilities differences.
You are answering this to a post that state that not being able to swim was a part of naval culture.
For this reason children are generally taught to swim as a safety measure. Drowning incidents are fairly common in Canada so it is good to help reduce them.
If most of your swimming is in pools (especially public pools) it is far safer (shallow end, more people around, limited depth, no trauma from a boating accident) so it is less necessary to learn from a safety point of view. Obviously many people will still learn for fun but it generally isn't pushed as much in school or other community services.
Living near water has nothing to do with it as most places have pools, rivers, lakes, or springs in close proximity.
[1]https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/352679/majority-world...
The problem isn't as simple as "America too fat".
When I was young I was fed a lot of stories about what America was, mostly in contrast to the USSR and other communist countries. I was told about horrible things those evil other nations did to their people or failed to do for them which would never happen in the USA and how proud I should be that we were better than that, but over the course of my life I've seen more and more of those very same things happening right here.
It's even worse for the folks looking at how our military has been used. I've met people who told me they were more than willing to defend their country, but were not at all willing to go to the other side of the planet and defend an oil field, or topple a democratically elected leader so that we could install someone more favorable to being exploited. I don't think there's been a single year of my life where we haven't had US servicemen overseas killing people for one reason or another, but damned if I could even tell you what it was for or where it took place for all but the ones most widely reported/televised.
The US absolutely could do with better PR, and sometimes people are unfairly critical, but it's hard to blame folks feeling disillusioned given our record and even our current/recent behavior leaves a lot of room for improvement.
From talking to veterans directly, some I've talked to are adamant that none of their kids should join the military as they don't see it as worth it. I know families with histories of military service where that has ended with the newer generations so maybe that's also a factor.
Most of the people with VA problems were like Vietnam veterans who have zero documentation of their claims that they got hit with agent orange. Most complaints I see about the VA are about refusals to render service, rather than bad service given.
A friend of mine (Iraq vet) has the worst experience with the VA offices in Southern California VA offices, they regularly fuck up his prescription refills and refuse to issue him extra/backup scrips so he often has gaps in his medication regimen that debilitate him until the refill comes in.
He moved back up to Oregon last year, solely for access to more functional VA offices. Another friend keeps his residence in Arizona and regularly travels back for appointments, again to avoid dealing with CA VA.
For what little it's worth, I never trust this statistic because the unemployment rate calculation doesn't count certain types of people: such as those who've given up looking for work. Given the weird times and general malaise of society, this might be a non-trivial variable right now. I could be wrong about this, but it remains a possibility that we're not getting the right picture of what's happening.
All of those measures are highly correlated with each other and move nearly in lockstep with each other.
It's sort of crazy that the military is having trouble recruiting in down economic times: they're the one entity that is always able to hire lots of people regardless of how the economic climate is doing. IMO, the pool of people who would want to join the military would greatly expand if other things were done:
> The brass is doubling down on "woke messaging" for recruitment. You may or may not agree with this personally, but there's zero doubt that this is in conflict with the ideals of the kinds of people who traditionally want to join the military.
> The country's leadership seems to be dead set on, at the very least, a proxy war with Russia. Potentially risking your life to protect your family from real danger is one thing, but few sane people want to seek out unnecessary war for the benefit of the military industrial complex.
> Whether you think the Covid vaccines are good or bad risk-management assessments, there's no doubt that a significant fraction of the country do not see it that way and will not put themselves in a position to potentially take it. Many people don't think it's necessary and don't trust it, but the administration can't seem to let go of the other group of people they're simping for: Big Pharma.
PS: I welcome downvotes if you tell me why my analysis is incorrect, not simply because you disagree with it.
And "woke messaging"? A proxy war with Russia that US troops are not involved in--certainly relative to the US military situation overseas in the past couple of decades? And lots of private companies required COVID shots to remain employed.
So, yes, those seem like largely irrelevant reasons.
To fully explore this idea, I'd have to say some things that are verbotten on HN, but suffice it to say that there's a big difference between the policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and going full on into LGBTQPIA+ that the current military appears to be going on. This kind of thing may have an impression on the kinds of young men that might want to join the military. (as a very small supporting data point on this, look at men's declining entry to colleges). Again, you don't have to agree or disagree with it, I'm only pointing out factors in the conversation that might not get brought up otherwise. These are factors to a non-trivial part of the population.
> A proxy war with Russia that US troops are not involved in--certainly relative to the US military situation overseas in the past couple of decades?
The wars of recent decades are a big factor, but I can say that this push against Russia also isn't helping. My opinion is that people want to defend their homes, but don't want to risk getting exploded in some unnecessary conflict.
> And lots of private companies required COVID shots to remain employed.
And many people hated this and sought out companies that didn't require them. You don't have to agree with refusing the vaccine, but I hope you understand that many people absolutely didn't want it and the military's insistence on injecting people with this doesn't help among some people.
> So, yes, those seem like largely irrelevant reasons.
I strongly disagree with your analysis, but thank you for your polite and honest thoughts at least.
I think historically there's probably been a lot of bigoted people in the service, but I'm not sure we should set policy to specifically cater to them just to bump recruitment numbers.
> The wars of recent decades are a big factor, but I can say that this push against Russia also isn't helping. My opinion is that people want to defend their homes, but don't want to risk getting exploded in some unnecessary conflict.
I agree 100% that this is a major factor. I've spoken with many people who are willing to fight to defend their country, but aren't interested in ending up overseas defending oil fields. I don't think it's fair to say that the US is dead set on a war with Russia. Russia is the one invading our allies unprovoked, flooding the internet with disinformation and interfering in our elections. The US might not always respond well to Russia's antics, but I don't think the US is trying to start trouble.
> You don't have to agree with refusing the vaccine, but I hope you understand that many people absolutely didn't want it and the military's insistence on injecting people with this doesn't help among some people.
Military service requires a ton of vaccinations and so antivaxxers were never jumping at the chance to sign on. I'd even suggest that we're probably better off without them anyway. Anyone unwilling to take such a simple step to help protect themselves and their fellow Americans probably won't be the right person for the job, and certainly anyone who is still worried that it's going to turn them magnetic, or give them 5G powers, or worried that it's somehow horrifically dangerous even after 13 billion+ shots have been administered globally without much issue might not be someone whose judgement you want to depend on being able to make quick decisions in a critical situation.
This is a straw man point. Not wanting to be in a "woke" organization and having to constantly have stuff like sexuality bashed over your head that doesn't belong in a professional workplace doesn't necessarily mean that you're a bigot.
> I don't think the US is trying to start trouble.
I have friends from countries like Ukraine and Georgia that face big problems with Russia. Even though they don't necessarily always like Russia's government, they refer to the US as a literal spider, always sneaking around and trying to achieve power and play games everywhere. They tell me how the US meddles in their own politics and elections all of the time. Feel free to have your own belief, but your opinion is contrary to a lot of my own experience from people in the region.
> Military service requires a ton of vaccinations and so antivaxxers were never jumping at the chance to sign on.
Being against the Covid vaccine specifically doesn't necessarily imply that you are against all vaccines. I'm not trying to be insulting, but I'd like to express in the kindest way possible that the people that are very afraid of Covid do not seem to be informed about the other perspective very well at all.
> I'd even suggest that we're probably better off without them anyway.
If the concern is dwindling recruitment numbers, you do realize that a non-trivial percentage of the public is against the Covid vaccine, right? Maybe the military can limp along in peacetime without them, but God forbid there's ever a real national emergency that requires a unified response.
> someone whose judgement you want to depend on being able to make quick decisions in a critical situation.
Feel free to have your own opinion, but I have the exact opposite interpretation.
Succumbing to peer pressure is weak-mindedness. Many people didn't want to take it, and knew it was the wrong choice, but did so because of peer pressure and not wanting to face any minor personal difficulty like not being able to see a concert for a few months. This is not an admirable quality.
On the flipside, the people who did what they thought was right regardless of the personal difficulty it posed in their lives have demonstrated a remarkable bit of positive character. These people resisted the greatest government gaslighting event in the history of the world. Being able to say no when all of the institutions of the world are trying to get you to say yes is an honorable quality that shows a strength of will.
Talk about a bunch of special snowflakes if you draw the line at the COVID shots.
1) You do realize that many people who are against taking the Covid vaccine are not against taking all vaccines, right? Many people are specifically against taking the Covid vaccine for varied reasons including some of the the following: most people have already had Covid and many of them don't think any further medical treatment is warranted, some people might think that not enough time has passed to fully understand the long-term risks of the Covid vaccines, some people might not think that the risks from Covid outweigh the risks of the vaccine, some people are greatly creeped out by the government's insistence to try and vaccinate everybody when they normally can't give half a shit about our healthcare, and as more information about them is coming out over time it seems like the vaccines' benefits were oversold anyway.
2) Regarding a difference with things like the Anthrax vaccine, as far as I know, the Anthrax vaccine uses standard attenuated particles, has been tested over a far greater time period, there's no creepy push to force literally everybody to get it, and Anthrax is far more lethal leading to a radically different risk-management calculation.
3) I have a feeling that your kind of mentality is shared by many people who are in charge, and that lack of knowledge doesn't bode well for us.
Did you see the WSJ-NORC survey recently? It seems that Americans have wised up that patriotism and religion don't pay the bills.
This is not sustainable
Fat = lower fertility
Fat = largest contributor in the 3 top leading cause of deaths in the US
&c.
imho it's a symptom of a larger thing, like stress induced over eating in animals. It's a slow suicide, an healthy individual should be able to see it for what it is and act on it, society should be able to see it for what it is and help these individuals, seems like we're doing the complete opposite, mostly for profit
It seems more likely that an equilibrium would be reached before the population reaches 0.
Unsustainable as in people are shadows of what they could be, people die way earlier than they should, &c ? Definitely
Outliers excluded, the difference between an active/fit 60 years old and someone who's been fat their whole life at the same age is night and day. One has years/decades of healthy life to go, the other has one foot in the grave
If it was an experiment on animals we would have pulled the plug 30 years ago
Plenty of choices lead to objectively worse outcomes, but that doesn't mean those choices are unsustainable. It just means they're less than ideal.
This one wasn't enough lmao ?
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/-/media/Images/Health-Information/...
> Trends in obesity among children and adolescents ages 2–19 years, by age: United States, 1963–1965 through 2017–20183
Hence why such conditions tend to produce soneme combination of improved basic pay and benefits (rare), increased signing bonuses, and loosened standards.
(Not sure I see that as a problem for well-being of society, but...)