Hacker News Reader

Comment by buynlarge | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world, is full of kind people, has a general abundance of food, gives workers a relatively large number of days off in a year, has a functioning police force and takes care of sick people and those who can't work for whatever reason.

Of course it is not perfect.

The people of Britain may not have huge bank accounts, but this is partly because they collectively spend their earnings on the worthwhile things mentioned above.

View on HN

If you compare it to the rest of Europe for those criteria I think it would be pretty far down the list.

I'm from the UK but have been living in Europe (EU) for half a decade, and I'd say where I live now is much better than the UK for almost all of those things.

The only thing we don't give such high benefits (relative to cost of living) for those who can't work. But in the UK a lot of people abuse that, so maybe it's a good thing.

I don’t know about the UK as a whole, but London is not safe at all. I wouldn’t call it inherently dangerous for the average person either, like some places in the world. But it was strange to go home last year and talk to the teenagers on my estate, who were now selling hard drugs, had stab/bullet wounds, easy access to guns and considered this the norm. All 16 years old or under. It was never this bad previously. I hear from friends petty crime is rife, people riding scooters and bikes snatching phones with impunity.

Right now whether you get taken care of when sick depends heavily on where you live.

> takes care of sick people

I've read horror stories about the healthcare system in UK.

Please define safe? The stabbings and acid attacks suggest otherwise

Please define functioning police force? The fact the police had to remember that turning up to burglaries is a good thing suggests otherwise

Please define takes care of sick people? The fact that ambulance response times were so slow they couldn't save cardiac arrests suggests otherwise

No offence but all those assertions sound like the UK 20+ years ago, not the one of today...

I am curious what the UK was like 20 years ago, can't say I was very aware around that time. Would love to hear your thoughts on how and why its gotten worse.

I think its easy to shit on the UK at the moment because we're in this period of relative decline. The point I was trying to make was that in absolute terms, it's still a great place with a lot of upsides, it just takes more work to realise it and even more work to be grateful despite of it all.

Going from 5 to 4 hurts, going from 3 to 4 feels good. Either way, you're still at 4. It's on the people of Britain to recognise that 4 is still OK, better than the 2 that many countries experience, and better than the 1 of fighting lions and being murdered by your fellow tribesman because he's bigger than you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com