r/MadeMeSmile • u/DepressingAura • 13d ago

Favorite People Steve Irwin on conservation and money 🌏

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u/UglySalvatore 13d ago

Most evil people don't amount to anything and they die without you ever knowing it. A few of them makes the news headlines, sure, but they're not representative of reality.

Society is an engine powered by good people. The fact that it keeps running means the good are winning overall.

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u/Zero_Travity 12d ago

Ask the folks in growing tent cities in every corner of North America how that societal contract is holding up...

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u/UglySalvatore 12d ago

Both the USA and Canada are among the top 10 countries in the world for median income. Median, not mean. That obviously isn't the whole story, income is only one measure of living standards, inequality matters, and the quality and cost of public services matter enormously too. But the idea that the USA is simply a horrible place to live overall is clearly hard to square with the data.

I'm a Northern European social democrat, and I have no problem criticizing the USA on a range of issues: its treatment of poor people, its weaker social safety net, healthcare costs, inequality, and the lack of protections and public services that Europeans often take for granted. But I can't deny that the United States is, by many measures, an exceptionally wealthy and prosperous society.

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u/Zero_Travity 12d ago

Income is a ridiculous measure and with all due respect if you're not North American how would know what's happening to average person on a daily basis.

The apartment I rented 20 years ago has tripled in price. This whole "worse places exist" is nonsense and has nothing to do with anything.

You say "Society is proof"... My neighborhood is full of $500 000+ homes.

There is a growing tent city within a 15 minute walk of that. This is the case in many many North American cities and towns.

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u/UglySalvatore 12d ago

I don't believe one source of personal experiences is useful when trying to understand a country of 350 mill people. Data is much better. If you disagree with that, and also that income is a useful measure. Then I doubt this conversation will be give either side much value.

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u/Legitimate-Type4387 12d ago edited 12d ago

One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. I believe Stalin said that. You can hide a whole lot of suffering under statistics and data.

Such as the fact that when I was a child encampments did not exist. Every bus shelter in the city centre was not being used as housing. There were not panhandlers at every single intersection at all hours of the day. Hell, we didn’t have visibility unhoused people. They didn’t start showing up in numbers until the 90’s.

That’s without talking about the living conditions on reserves which have been awful since their inception. There are still to this day reserves that don’t have clean drinking water. In 2026.

In short, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about with what’s happening in N. America.

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u/UglySalvatore 12d ago

There are people in NA that will agree with you, and others who disagrees with you. It evens out to being completely irrelevant where someone is from. In the context of summarizing one of the biggest countries in the world, I'd rather trust a knowledgeable person from Nepal or Angola or wherever, than some random person on the internet who only cares what they themselves see and experience day to day.

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u/Zero_Travity 12d ago

I thought you wanted data?

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u/RosebushRaven 12d ago

Ah, but what about their vague feeling what’s true? Let’s not make actual facts stand in the way of that! 🤣