I am a dual national with roots in Europe. A far greater contributor is the lack of avoidable chronic disease in Europe. I know many middle class and above Americans who have ongoing battles with their insurance companies to treat and manage relatively mundane issues. If they apply enough time and money they can usually resolve things though often this requires pausing treatment or changing doctors recommendations.
This does not exist in Europe. What your doctors recommend happens regardless of your income.
There is an image I see when in the US. A homeless person who is crippled and pushing themselves with a stick or one leg in a wheelchair. Lame thanks to lack of treatment. You never see that in Europe. Homeless people exist but they aren’t chronically ill.
This has positive effects for everyone. There is less disease in the environment and it’s easier for people to literally get back on their feet.
It’s a bit of wishful thinking to presume Americans poor health is all lifestyle choices and advertising. It’s the system and a pervasive lack of easy to access treatment at all levels of society.
I have what I believe is "decent" employer-sponsored health insurance, but using the healthcare system is still an enormous pain in the ass, as is getting insurance to pay for the things that they are supposed to. I'm pretty healthy and young. I keep wondering "are there really that many people whose experience getting healthcare system doesn't suck ass and feel like getting robbed"? My partner insists that our health insurance must actually not be that good, I believe that our health insurance is above average and Americans have been conned into ignoring their own direct experience, but neither of us have much of a reference.
Insurers aren't there to help you. I've never met a person in all my years who was happy with health insurance. And that includes before the "cadillac" insurance packages were done away with.
People don't want or choose this system (unless they work for insurers), but their voice doesn't matter. No politicians can afford to oppose the health care industry. We need campaign finance regulation, investment in education, and public election platforms to shift away from this unhealthy way of life.
Reading isn’t just about successfully understanding words. It’s the ability to decipher context, particularly in long texts in which metaphor and subtext are important.
You need look no further than the current crop of VCs and tech leaders who can all clearly barely read. Andreessen, Musk, Zuckerberg all love to point at classic science fiction and modern media while making comments which articulate how completely they have missed the point. When musk says the Cybertruck is “…something Blade Runner would drive” or Andreessen quotes Marinetti as a hero, or Zuckerberg unironically uses “move fast and break things” as a motto it’s clear how little of what they have read they understand.
People today are praising translations of Hitler’s speeches. They do this because they cannot connect the points he’s making to the inevitable outcomes of those attitudes. They lack the ability to see into the text and truly understand it.
That’s why a 3rd grade reading ability is a problem. Zuckerberg and Musk are dropouts. It’s shows.
Regardless of the faith you have in the courts assessment time has shown the more critical opinion to be true. Solar City was a dead company, none of the promises they made has amounted to anything, they aren’t producing any products or revenue, and the deal has been shown to be self dealing in order to bail out his brother.
Where are the solar roof tiles? What’s happened to the tax payer funded factory in NY?
The irony of course is that Johnson has already stated all of these things.
He consistently points out that he’s an n of 1, but since these experiments cannot be ethically performed on greater numbers of people the n = 1 is a start.
However, it’s very likely he will do things that will indeed hurt his health.
He’s also stated several times that he’s much more likely to die of something extremely mundane.
Finally, it’s a bit presumptuous of you to state he’s excluded simple pleasures from his life. He enjoys himself far more than he did earlier when he wasn’t healthier, and most importantly, has repaired relationships with both his father and his son. He considers being a dad the most important and enjoyable part of his life.
All of this may be bullshit, but unless one has evidence of it being bullshit, it’s pretty clear that he at least appears to understand what simple pleasures in life are better than most people and claims to be able to enjoy them more than most other people, and most jnportantly, more than he did when he hadn’t started on this journey.
Where do you get that from? Huge numbers didn’t vote. Of those who did Trump squeaked by with a small lead but significantly less than 50% of the populace voted for him.
Audiophiles are a self selected group. Membership has nothing to do with hearing ability. Most are of an age where they have less than “normal” hearing for a healthy child.
Audiophiles classically deliberately confuse measurable differences with audible ones. This they chase meaningless goals and convince themselves that anything which affects signal affects sound.
None of it would stand up to properly double blind testing. When it’s done things like “the sound of cables” disappears entirely outside incompetent engineering.
Even worse audiophiles tend to prefer distortion which flatters. I.e. exaggerated bass and treble to compensate for components and old ears.
This isn’t true in professional circles at all. Audio interfaces are external. There is no need to collapse the language it confers no benefit.
Audio interfaces are external because it makes it so much easier to shield them properly. Thus if someone wanted to sell a computer for professional audio work with a sound card there would be a problem.
You are so close (you being America). Yes. Just pay for a high quality education to tertiary level and beyond for everyone. It would be much cheaper and crime would plummet.
Large parts of the world don’t use a phonics system and for a long time it didn’t exist.
I am sure a properly performed study which accounted for the time spent on reading, as well as exposure to books, would demonstrate that phonics is no better than any other way of teaching reading.
My children live in a house of books, we have thousands. We read to them daily from soon after birth. They did not read early compared to their friends (though they did memorize some books which made it look as if they were reading pretty young). They didn’t start school until six and spent their early years in a bi-lingual Nordic school system before moving to the US and then Europe once again.
They now read at a very high level indeed, well above their peers. We made zero special effort. They just had access to books and libraries and live in an environment where everyone reads.
This does not exist in Europe. What your doctors recommend happens regardless of your income.
There is an image I see when in the US. A homeless person who is crippled and pushing themselves with a stick or one leg in a wheelchair. Lame thanks to lack of treatment. You never see that in Europe. Homeless people exist but they aren’t chronically ill.
This has positive effects for everyone. There is less disease in the environment and it’s easier for people to literally get back on their feet.
It’s a bit of wishful thinking to presume Americans poor health is all lifestyle choices and advertising. It’s the system and a pervasive lack of easy to access treatment at all levels of society.