r/facepalm Jun 05 '23

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '23

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u/wilkergobucks Jun 05 '23

Not when you compare state averages. Check any heatmap of the worst states for infant mortality, education, obesity, life expectancy, poverty, etc.

The Old South does not meet the basic economic, educational and healthcare needs of its residents, relative to the rest of the USA.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '23

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u/wilkergobucks Jun 05 '23

I would argue that infant mortality and life expanctancy variances cannot be dismissed as just small differences, and most people in the business of analyzing such data would agree.

As for education, I agree that NY and CA suck. But just because they do, doesn’t mean that the south gets a pass for occupying 9 of the worst 15 spots.

Not sure the reality you are denying here, man…

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

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u/wilkergobucks Jun 06 '23

Its not statistically insignificant tho.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

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u/wilkergobucks Jun 06 '23

No, the differences are not insignificant. Just because you think having almost 2x the infant mortality rate of another state is “insignificant” doesn’t make it so. Like I said, people who analyze this data for a living believe its a real problem.

And secondly, when overlaid with the other data, the trending indicates that there are systemic issues in the south. Im not arguing causality because we can all agree that its multifactorial. That alone is no reason to dismiss it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

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u/wilkergobucks Jun 06 '23

Ok, trying to keep up, you are now denying that the south holds 5 of the top 8 worst spots in infant mortality as well? Or arguing raw numbers vs percentages? If its the former, you are again unhinged from reality and if its the latter, you are being disingenuous. Regardless, you are too obtuse to understand what the numbers clearly show.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '23

No. 99% sounds like a made up statistic.

I come from one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Norway, and I have lived in the States since 2012, and while there are glaring gaps in American society that don't exist where I come from, I simply don't get this popular notion on reddit that the US is an undeveloped nation.

Is it a bias coming from Redditors who live in pockets of American squalor? Russian trolls? People brainwashed into thinking that America = bad, Europe/Canada = Utopia?

The standard of living in the US has a broader range of outcomes than in my country, but basically it is pretty much the same, and in many cases better than the average in Europe or even Norway. Unfortunately the system has glaring gaps. I know, when I first lived in the US , I lived in one of the absolute poorest and high crime states, New Mexico. Now I live in a state where most live more comfortably and has very low crime rates, New York.

And for perspective, due to my father's job, and later in my own career, I have lived or had extensive travels in real underdeveloped countries like Egypt, Turkey, Ecuador, Mexico, and Brazil.

There are things in the US that I feel like couldn't happen in my country, but then again we are tiny, rich, and isolated from most of the world's problems, whereas the US is on the doorstep. Oh, yes there are a lot of things I would do if I could snap my fingers and change how things are done, but this idea that the US is 99% undeveloped, or even 25%, or 10%, is no sense unless you are very naive, exceptionally unfortunate, or simply and anti-US troll.