I guess this depends on what your definition of a first-world problem is.
People die here because they can't afford care. People avoiding the larger milestones in life like owning a home and having children because it's untenable. This will cause larger, show-stopping problems.
People in the rest of the world die because there literally isn't good care available, regardless of whether they can afford it. As a kid, I once got a big cut and my doctor's only solution was to dump an old vial of iodine on it because they didn't have bandaids.
All you (and a few other comments here) are doing is proving my point. Complain all you want, but don't for a second think your problems are even remotely close to what the majority of the rest of the world endures.
I suspect the West as a whole hasn't had real problems in a very long time, so a generation is growing up magnifying their own to victimize themselves. Americans are particularly bad about this.
I think I agree with your summary of what's happening in the US re: magnifying problems - our range of experiences has become much narrower as things have become safer and more controlled, so it takes less and less extreme experiences to reach the extremes of our personal experience.
I never said you can't have problems. I'm saying the fact that you think your problems are even comparable to most of the rest of the world comes from a lack of perspective & education.
You're more likely to get hit by an asteroid than killed by a cop in the US - the fact that you think it's a real issue worth talking about, in a thread about 3rd world countries, shows your lack of perspective. Go tell someone in Sierra Leone about police brutality stats and poverty levels and see how you get on.
I highly recommend you get out of your internet-San Francisco bubble and go and travel off the beaten path to get a better understanding of what the rest of the world still lives like.
I am IT support for an organization that does long-term disaster recovery work. I directly support coworkers that coordinate some form of mass-care (clothing, food, and alternate housing). And I live near San Francisco.
Do people in Flint have clean water? The fact that the problem still hasn't been solved but instead brushed under the rug and even the president going there declaring it's all good now shows how corrupt the whole system is. Something like that you find in 3rd world nations.
Have you ever been to a 3rd world nation? You have no conception of what it's like if you really think living in Flint is somehow an analogue.
The sheer lack of perspective of Americans is baffling. You have no conception of just how difficult life can be and frankly, is, for the vast majority of people.
Play the tape forward on our continual lack of infrastructure investment, our slouch towards oligarchy, our fractious internal tribalism.. the root causes behind 3rd world problems are sneaking up on us.
It’s really not. Go down to Dhaka’s main river. Gag due to the clouds of gas coming off the raw sewage, and watch as people wash themselves and their clothes in the same river that people are shitting in. It’s absolutely absurd to compare the US to anything like it.
Guess we have different expectations for a first-world country then. This kind of sewage-borne disease should have been eliminated in any developed country, a hookworm infestation is soil-transmitted, you acquire it by walking through sewage.
The municipalities can't fix the sewage system, and the health authorities can't screen for intestinal worms and hand out medication worth pennies. It's shameful to see.
I'm not saying that the US shouldn't do better, it absolutely should. But it's also important to try to keep a little perspective, and be thankful for how lucky we are.
There is an actual commenter here suggesting Flint is an example of "3rd world country".
You'd think in the age of YouTube people would have more perspective on the rest of the world. Seriously, one stroll down the giant open air landfills (which double as housing for hundreds of people) of Dhaka should be enough to be eternally thankful for what one has.
The poster you mention absolutely does not say that. The poster says Flint’s clean water problems are the kind you would find in a 3rd world country.
I think you are clearly misreading both the article and people’s comments to it. No one is suggesting the US is a 3rd world country. But in certain areas it’s statistics resemble 3rd world country outcomes more than it does developed country outcomes.
The reason this is important is that the US is usually an outlier in developed countries in this area, which means solutions to these problems exist.
Not being able to afford a home is definitely a first world problem. In the third world you have to regularly bribe police, hope no one visits your family in the middle of the night, don't have access to clean food or water...
Even life at the lowest rungs of US culture have it way better than most in a third world country. We have law and order and pretty good public infrastructure.
Been living in India for more than 2 decades. Never had to bribe the police once.
> hope no one visits your family in the middle of the night,
Funny you mentioned that. USA has worse criminal violence than most countries in the world. Gun violence is entirely a US phenomena.
> don't have access to clean food or water.
Never faced the issue of clean food or drinking water in my entire life. And I am from lower middle class.
> Even life at the lowest rungs of US culture have it way better than most in a third world country
Really? I prefer to live in a country where I can afford healthcare atleast. Probably a great idea to visit some so called "third world" countries and see for yoursevles. If you dont have time for that read Fact-fullness.
Don't get me wrong but you're one person in ~1.4bn (!). I'm pretty sure your experience isn't applicable to most of the population. Judging by the first statement, one that's contradicted by basically all statistics and most citizens, I'd say your experience may very well be a statistical fluke. [0]
And related to water, we may have different standards for cleanliness. But when the whole world agrees that most of the water is not fit for consumption you have to wonder. [1]
Anecdata. I went with a friend to a wedding in India. And while we were warned to only drink from water bottles that we unseal ourselves (we even received refilled bottles of water in the Hilton hotel we were living in), my friend did not account for the ice cubes in his drinks. The outcome wasn't pretty.
Yes. The issue was that the OP used this phrase which is a great exaggeration
> Even life at the lowest rungs of US culture have it way better than most in a third world country
I agree that some portion of my country is living in bad conditions. But majority are not and nobody is going to trade their spot for the lowest rungs of US culture. Don't get me wrong. I have been to US as well. I would probably trade my place with a person living in a good neighbourhoodn with his own house in California if I was offered Greencard and a job with good salary. But lowest rungs of US culture? Defintely not.
You have to look at Per Capita. India is a far more populous country than the US.
And guess what. The US is at 99 and India is at 107 which reinforces the idea that the US has developing country outcomes in certain areas. It’s not the worst (there are 98 worse countries), but it’s signficanrly worse than its wealth should indicate it should be.
I have lived in Europe earning an above average salary for a swe and never saved enough to really feel I made it in life.
The healthcare was just good enough, almost mediocre and living there felt like all in all just "good enough".
I moved to Asia, to a country with much lower taxes and live a much better life.
People die here because they can't afford care. People avoiding the larger milestones in life like owning a home and having children because it's untenable. This will cause larger, show-stopping problems.