First of all, let’s try to avoid American-bashing, and stay respectful to everyone.
I’ll start: for me it’s the tipping culture. Especially nowadays, with the recent post on !mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world with the 40% tip, it just seems so weird to me to have to pay extra just so that menu prices can stay low.
There is so much that screams “stress” to me when I think of living in the US that makes me uncomfortable. To just mention that your job can fire you at will and your health care might be attached to your job, or that a person who can not drive a car for health reasons, like me, is basically fucked. Or no sick days and a very low amount of vacation days that you might have to take when you are sick and on top taking them at all is looked down on, while my boss reminds me to tell him when I prefer to take my vacation days, because by law I have to take them.
I could make a very long list of things that come with American life that I find stressful. Just one more tiny thing: I do not have much money, so I have to be careful not to overspent. In Germany the prices on the shelf in the grocery store are the total I will have to pay. In the US the total can be whatever, you just have to be really good at doing math in your head, have enough money to not care or walk around with a calculator. So it is not just the big things that add onto each other. If I am sick I can walk to the nearest grocery store and drug store in less than 3 minutes from my flat, the doctor’s office is inbetween both and the visit is free and medication either free or costs 5 Euro each for what I usually need. My gall bladder surgery was all in all 100 Euro, including ambulance transport on a Sunday because it was an emergency and aftercare with my doctor. My days in the hospital and at home afterwards were fully paid by my employer.
I wonder what America would look like if everyone would live on an European stress level. We do not have no stress of course, but the base line for many Europeans is way lower. On top there is a base line of feeling safer (less shooting, except for Ukraine of course) and more social secure.
It surprises me that despite all that, Americans do rarely complain and are as happy as they are. I admire them for that, but also wish they could have less stress in their lifes.
America is a developing country with a Guccu bag.
There are some rich areas, but even there, the vast majority of people are poor and live under not-great conditions.
I think the “pursuit of happiness” mindset is still very strong over there. You’re only poor because of yourself, not because rich people fucked you over. So you can’t really complain, because it’s your fault.
As someone who spent roughly half my life in the US and the other half in EU, this is very accurate as to my experience in each place. In the US my life constantly felt balanced on a knife edge like everything could fall apart at any moment. When I moved to the EU, even though I didn’t speak the language or grow up there, I breathed a big sigh of relief. I felt like my life was finally manageable.
I think this causes a ton of mental illness in the US that we just don’t see in the EU. Most people I know in the US are on the constant verge of a breakdown and basically just disassociating themselves from reality (usually using drugs, alcohol, religion, or some combination thereof). I think this is why Americans so badly need to put on a happy face. If they didn’t, they’d all have a simultaneous mental breakdown.
Lifelong American here - I do love it here, though as you point out there are definitely some stressful flaws.
Healthcare here is messed up. Not the quality (which is typically very high), but the price. Having insurance tied to employment never made sense to me either.
Personally, I actually love driving and owning a car. I just think cars are really cool and I like wrenching on them. Everything I could need is within a 10-15 minute drive and I never have to worry about there not being enough parking. That said, you are correct that car ownership is basically required - although I have been to cities in the US that have decent public transportation. Not European level good, but decent.
At my job I get 4 weeks paid vacation and “unlimited” sick days (they say unlimited but of course they have the ability to deny them if they find you are abusing them). My bosses will actually hunt people down who HAVENT used all their vacation days and encourage them to do so. They have realized that productivity is tied to employee happiness so they try to keep us happy. Now, none of that is government mandated but I just mention it to prove that not everyone here has a job that treats them like crap. I agree that this stuff should be guaranteed though. For reference, I work in IT and make less than 100k.
Tipping is definitely a weird thing and I would be glad to never have to think about it again.
The massive dependence on cars. I don’t understand why people put up with this nonsense. I just walk everywhere.
I read a travel guide to another European city I was visiting, and the guide was aimed at Americans. It’s a major really walkable city, with car access as good as nonexistent (wonderful). It surprised me, that some Americans walk so little, that the first advice in the guide was “start by trying to walk around your house”
Have you seen the size of America?
You have large cities separated by vast empty lands. A good train network would be much faster and much more efficient.
In cities it’s even worse. Cars are the least efficient way to organise a city or travel in it.
The only thing you optimize with cars is individualism.
This doesn’t take into account the amount of suburbia in the US though. European cities are way more dense. If you’re in a neighborhood out in the suburbs the only option is really to drive.
Not with proper public transports. Suburbs are also far better with public transports than cars.
Even in small cities you are kinda dependent on a car but you are able to drive to the closest train station and use the train to get to the next bigger city. In North Carolina (USA) I made the experience that the train is often not an option to get to the next bigger city or so expensive it is not worth it on a travel budget.
I enjoyed the speed limit on your highway’s.
Europe is bigger than the US, but how often do you travel all across? The radius of movement might be a bit bigger in the US, due to bad design (urban sprawl). That’s a choice. You can plan cities better if you want to.
I don’t go from Sicily to Finland every week (but if i wanted to, I could easily do so by train). The size doesn’t matter in my daily life.
I know it’s a clichee but guns. I regularly watch some youtubers from a lot of backgrounds. Science, engineering, music, you name it. And the casual way they talk about guns, even carry them, is deeply disturbing to me.
Yeah I guess it happens that you shoot a gun once or twice in your life. From military service to the plain old “Schützenverein” in Germany. But having them in everyday life is… just… dangerous.
They in-part have open carry in malls. And plazas. I don’t get why everyone carrying in a public space isn’t classified as a danger.
I understand it in rural regions. There is more wild nature in the US. In Europe most wolves have names. In Germany at least.
I still agree with you in general though. It seems weird that guns are a symbol of freedom for many there.
If you ask me it must be some sort of escapism. Owning and firing guns is an outlet, makes them think “I could totally overthrow this tyrannical government if I wanted to”.
But of course a government that’s had an armed population for hundreds of years knows how to deal with it and if anybody ever tried anything remotely resembling an insurrection they’d come down on them like a ton of bricks.
Guns are like SUVs- 90+% have no need for them but have them anyway and don’t use them for their intended purpose.
education.
while supercharged in one specific field during education, general knowledge of the world outside of said field is near zero.
and then education even ends. no real vocational training.
The fees are crazy too. Considering how many fail out of a course and have to deal with this large debt.
boggles my mind. buuuut europe is on a great way to fail there too. I think the swedish fully privatized school system is an utter failure…but it will take time to come to full effect. sweden is doomed.
I’m always surprised at the huge taboo about nudity. A while ago I read some comments about a Swedish TV show and some people were complaining how unnecessary it was that you could see a guy’s naked butt for a moment. I hadn’t even noticed when watching.
It’s surprising because at the same time US media is often labelled as (over-)sexualised.
I know that opinions on nudity also vary a lot across Europe, some might even be very close to opinions on the US. But for me personally it comes as a surprise because there is often controversy about something I wouldn’t even have noticed.I guess it comes with being founded by puritans.
the puritans also founded canada and they don’t have the same problems w nudity that we do; so i think it’s much more than puritans.
the Puritans haven’t been a thing for like over 200 years
That there are long stretches of road where you can’t get somewhat healthy food. I have been on a road trip across Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, and outside the big citys you only get junk food at petrol stations, but no fruits, no vegetables. I guess it makes sense because salad or fresh food spoils quick and is expensive to deliver to each and every petrol station, especially if they don’t have a reliable power supply in the middle of nowhere. Never thought about it before. In Germany you can get ice cream, chocolate, cake, salad or a full meal (at gas station prices, and lower quality) on the Autobahn.
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Grew up here thinking all this is normal. Trump opened my eyes to our crazy country. Now I’m a bit of a black sheep of the family. Enjoying all of your responses. Just bought my first European car recently. Hope to go back soon.
White Male Suprimacy. Thats what all thats about. The fear of them losing it to women, black people or anyone else really.
Well, thats my gut based opinion anyway :)
You’re talking about a stereotype of a very small subset of Americans. You’re basing your fears on the extremist online postings that aren’t really indicative of Americans in real life in the majority of the country. If you have legitimate reasons to be afraid to leave your house, then I strongly urge you to move. I can’t imagine you’d have much tying you to the area if you never even go outside.
You’re talking about a stereotype of a very small subset of Americans.
If they really were just a very small subset of Amercians, they wouldn’t be able to pass legislation based on their intolerance and hatred of others.
If it’s a very small subset of Americans, then how in the world do some of them have seats in Congress?
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I think that depends greatly on where you live. In Berkeley, California? Definitely a small minority. In Harrison, Arkansas? Definitely not a minority.
And their own justice system for some weird reason.
The expectation of everyone having a credit card as soon as they can get one and paying everything with credit to somehow “build” credit. Sounds such a great way to get people into financial trouble at a young age.
In Germany the system is shit too. There is a private monopol company that calculates and stores a score for you. The calculation method is secret, but we know several things can lower your score, such a having too much bank accounts/credit cards, moving too often, if you ever had debts and how fast you paid them and so on. When you ask a bank for a loan, they check this score and may decline if it’s too low. There are some people who have problems getting a loan because they have no records for their score.
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On the flip side, without establishing some kind of credit record, nobody will ever give you a loan for a house or even a used car.
That’s the part I don’t get at all. How come is not having any credit history a bad indicator? If anything, it should tell that the person is financially stable to afford things without needing credit.
Where I live (and I think in other European countries too, with exceptions) it works other way around. Having a clean credit record is a good thing and only if you neglect your payments you get negative marks on your record. Having any negative marks generally prevents you from taking any new loans or financing (a good thing!) but negative marks will be cleared after debts have been paid off and some time has passed.
clean history wont prevent you from getting a loan in the usa, it just prevents you from getting a big loan at a low interest rate. Smaller amounts won’t be much of a problem if its a clean. Also, bad marks are removed in time just like anywhere else.
I think the reason why clean reports may be a little bit more of an issue in the us than elsewhere is because of how easy it is to get an kind of loan or credit and how uncommon having a blank credit score can be as a result. Between student loans, credit cards, car loans (atleast cheaper loans for used cars) etc its pretty unlikely, by the time someone goes to try and take out a big loan, like say for a house, that they would have zero credit history or not have someone like a parent cosign who also has zero history (if someone cosigns it goes on both people’s credit history) And, businesses, looking for any excuse to avoid risk on an investment, would be less likely to give a big loan to someone with no history when there are so many people with good credit history to still make plenty of money.
All that said, credit cards seem quite a bit less common than they used to, especially since debit cards became a thing. Most people i know, myself included with credit cards are either for business expenses that are paid off immediately, or for the extra safety provided by the ability to charge back on purchases that debit cards don’t often provide.
Consider two potential creditors:
- Person A has no credit history at all.
- Person B has had a credit card with a $20k limit for ten years, generally has a balance of less than $2k, and has never missed a payment.
Can you see how B is a less risky client than A? A is essentially an unknown risk, but B has demonstrated the ability to manage their debt. A could still get, for instance, a car loan, but likely not a mortgage. And B will get a lower interest rate.
Dept is fascinating, our system seems to be build around it. And still, I was raised with ‘Don’t spend money you don’t have’ which makes person A more trustworthy to me compared to person B, who seems to live a financially risky life. But of course the bank earns more with person B, paying interest. I would reward this behavior as well, but it’s not the kindest system for gullible people.
How is A an unknown? They’ve demonstrated that they don’t make a habit of spending money they don’t have, which most people would consider conservative and responsible.
I agree that credit scores are stupid, but for the purpose of playing the devil’s advocate… Person A may have just crawled out from under a rock (or their parents’ money) and knows not how to manage a credit or just thinks it’s free money. They’d still have no credit history. For risk assessments, you always take the worst case in all fields where it applies, not just financial.
On the other hand, I think that if your circumstances change and you manage to pay off a loan early, you get penalized on your credit score, cause some bank had plans for your interest for the next 30 years or something.
Many years ago, I was chatting with a friend from California and she told me her family votes Republican. As in, by default. No matter the policies or political needs of the country.
Aside from the US parties being very similar back then (pre-Trump), I’ve also learned since then that this may have to do with party affiliation programs.
In the US, you need to register to vote and the parties basically offer to do the registration for you, if you promise to vote for them. So, you end up being ‘affiliated’ with them, even without being actively a member.I’m not sure voting by default to one party is a consequence of registering with that party. Maybe some psychological effect.
I’d say the main cause is the fact there are only two parties to choose from, so unless you are a moderate (or these days right-moderate) it is just a waste of time looking at candidates and their policies beyond party affiliation.
The related issue is this: in some places in america, the primaries are run by the parties. So you can only vote for canidates (within a party) in the primaries IF you register with that party. In some races the primaries are the important part, because everyone knows which party will win the main election, so who gets the party nomination is basically the undecided part.
I thought there are multiple small parties too?
There are, but first-past-the-post all but guarantees none of them ever win a seat.
I do get asked when I vote, which part I belong to. I just flip flop every time to keep them on their toes
I’ve never understood why the drinking age is higher than the driver licence age.
And taking away voting rights from felons.
Both baffle me.
Voting is generally handled at the state level, so preventing felons from voting is a state thing. That said, they already did time, why punish them further by disenfranchisement?
I’ve never understood why the drinking age is higher than the driver licence age.
Because driving is a necessity and drinking is not.
And taking away voting rights from felons.
That’s an instrument of oppression. Our right-wing party wins by stopping people from voting.
With some infrastructure near your housing and a working public transport, driving isn’t a necessity.
How? If you live in a suburb, even with working public transport, there could be dozens of stops between home and work.
why would the number of stops be a problem?
when i went to secondary school there were 13 bus stops (15 minutes) and when i went to university there were 12 train stops (30 minutes). And i wouldn’t classify either of those as a long commute
The stops, and the indirect route the bus must take to reach all of those stops, greatly increases travel time, and by “greatly increases” I mean by a factor of 2 to 3.
For example, Google Maps estimates that, to travel from the suburban apartment complex where I live to a business building in the next town, it would take 12 minutes by car or 42 minutes by bus. And yes, there are bus stops close to both the start and end points of this route; that time is actually spent riding a bus, not walking.
Outside of densely-packed cities, public transit is, by its nature, slow. Very, very slow. More public transit doesn’t change that. It might decrease how long you spend waiting for a bus to arrive, but the bus still has to make the same stops along the same indirect route, so it’s not going to be any faster once you’re aboard.
Cars are popular for a reason. It’s not just some anti-competitive car-industry conspiracy. Public transit very much exists where I live, and whenever I see a bus on the road, there’s almost never more than a few people aboard. Buses are quite clearly viewed as transportation of last resort.
rural areas here have buses with stop-on-demand. the bus continues on when no one is in the stop AND no one on board has pressed the stop button. very convenient.
With some infrastructure near your housing and a working public transport, driving isn’t a necessity.
When I read about people being frugal, there’s always something like “I now go to restaurants only once a week”, “I’m driving the same car for 5 years”, “you don’t really need 10 subscriptions for x”. Do people really not cook their own food and spend money that much? My only subscriptions are internet and rent, and my savings would be gone if I’d get a car 🤷♂️
“I discovered cooking at home” “Meal planning” “Dining in”
Bitch, that’s called Tuesday in most of the world.
Are these by posts by newspapers, blogs, or normal people? Because all the people writing for newspapers and financial blogs seem to live in a different world than most Americans. The average car in the US is 12 years old for example.
You also wouldn’t spend hours commuting to work every day. Cars are fast. I don’t know how it is in Europe, but in America, commute time is unpaid and cost of living is obscenely high, so cars are pretty much mandatory if you want to keep a roof over your head and get a full 8 hours of sleep.
Here, cars are not fast. Cities are congested. When I worked on the other side of my small town, getting there by bike or by car cost the same amount of time. In bigger cities there is public transport.
We generally also don’t live hours away from where we work. I got rejected for a jobs because they didn’t believe I’d commute for an hour by car while looking for a new place
But then you have to live in a tiny apartment in the city. Housing in cities is extremely expensive (in terms of cost per square foot).
Well, yes.
That’s not okay.
Dignified living is a suburban house with ample open floor space, a yard for the kids and pets to play in, and no HOA or building manager threatening you with homelessness and catastrophic debt unless you bow to his every whim.
That’s how I grew up, it was a hell of a lot nicer and less scary than the apartment I’m living in now, and housing costs have stolen that life from me. Now you’re telling me I should be happy with what my life has been reduced to? No, I am not happy about it. I am angry.
In Germany HOAs aren’t a thing and by law you have quite good tenant rights. for example once you have an open ended rental contract, your landlord can’t really throw you out on their whim.
Around here, they may not be able to arbitrarily throw me out, but they can decline to offer a new fixed-term lease when the current one expires, and rent automatically doubles if a fixed-term lease is not signed. Is that not a thing in Germany?
An expensive apartment in the city might still be cheaper than a rural place plus the cost of a car (which you don’t need in the city).
I’m currently reading Twilight and judging by the tone it’s normal for 16-17 year olds to go to school by car (or even truck!) that they drive by themselves? I might be ignorant on the subject so correct me if I’m wrong but car culture in general. We just…took the bus or the lucky ones with a free parent got a lift. I’ve even walked to school for the fun of it, granted it was 40 minutes by foot.
I’m nearing my 30s. I don’t own a car and I don’t have a license. I do wish I had one sometimes but once I hop on the bus to the remote place I want to visit, I quickly lose interest once I see the (usually mountainous) road ahead. Driving just scares me.
Most Americans towns require you to have a car because they have little to no public transportation. Can’t get a job without a car in most places, for example.
Being an American, I see a winding mountain road and think about how much fun it would be. Then again, my parents bought me a $1500 shitbox when I turned 16 in exchange for me giving my sister a ride to all our after-school activities.
And I have this weird phobia about taking public transit where they’ll leave without me and I’ll be stranded with no way to get home. Planes, trains, busses, heck even monorails I have to be way, way early because I’m terrified of missing them. And if I have to make a connecting stop I’m even more anxious because they’ll also just leave without me.
you just need transit that’s frequent enough that you stop caring! metros in cities are great example, no one checks the schedule, it is basically always available within a few minutes.
That would fix ground transportation but it’s kinda hard to have a plane show up every few minutes. That’s the most anxiety-producing mode of transportation for me, and it has nothing to do with accidents and everything to do with nobody but me caring if I make it to where I want to go, and me being completely powerless.
I would much rather drive cross country than fly, and would prefer a week on a ship to eight hours on a plane.
The average drive here to work is ~30minutes with zero public transportation in most places. I go through 4ish towns myself. Add in terrible weather ~4 months out of the year in rural areas, that’s why most people have SUVs.
Of course the dumbshit street-legal mobile tanks that the neonazis spend $1000/month in petrol on are RIDICULOUS, overkill, and definitely compensating for something, but most people not in cities need safe cold-weather vehicles.
The fact that they dont have affordable healthcare… Its a human right…
First, I need to confirm if it’s true or just a television trope.
Do North Americans really keep their shoes on while lounging on their beds, or is it something directors do for whatever technical reason?
If true, then I can’t get over it - and I come from a outside-shoes-indoors culture.
When I moved in with my husband he wore his dirty shoes everywhere inside the house. The dogs even had a designated tile floor to shit on. He’s southern. Needless to say we’re still together because he cut that redneck shit out lmao.
I’m American and I don’t know a single adult who does this. Even kids take off their shoes before walking around the house, typically.
Well, maybe typical for you and a subset of Americans. We wore shoes in the house as kids; we only took them off if they were clearly muddy.
It’s common to keep shoes on indoors but not when on a bed.
lol…no, we don’t. Unless they’re bedroom slippers. Some bedroom slippers really could pass for shoes but they’re not nearly as protective.
I don’t know of a single person who does this. I personally only wear shoes in my house if I am leaving but forgot to get something and need to quickly grab it.
I never wear shoes in my house and I certainly wouldn’t wear them in bed.
USA here. Grew up wearing shoes all over the house. Even in carpet, etc. one out of a dozen friends will have a house rule no shoes in the house or on the carpet. Those people are weirdos 😉 edit. I do wear shoes on my bed or couch. Wouldn’t place on my pillow or my head area.
I may be doing it wrong I admit. I haven’t had any foot oral transmission of disease that I know of. 🤦♂️
But would you lounge on your (or someone else’s bed) with your shoes still on? From the other answers, that seems to be rare or even TV-only.
Shoes on carpets and floors, I understand. That’s how we do it where I came from originally (I don’t do it any more because the climate is different where I live now).
Definitely not someone else’s. Climate difference makes sense.
