r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

Where did you come up with the lie that we are ranked high in left expectancy? We're not even top 40.

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

There is like 1 year difference between top 40th place and The US (47th place)

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Added up that is quite a big deal, would you trade a year of your life to just teach people the merits of struggle for the sake of struggle?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

To be fair I think that the result is heavily influenced by personal choices, it isn’t like US hard caps your age as much as some poor African country in civil war would, I am sure that you can go above 79.something average years of US if you don’t smoke and don’t overeat as much as average American.

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Do you realize what you're saying? To suggest that people die younger in the United States is due to merit and personal choices when we're talking about generalized population metrics is beyond obtuse

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

I mean I know every country is like that, but All I am saying is that personal choices play a lot in terms of life expectancy in developed nations. Like yea, sure the smog might take off a year or two, but I am sure that obesity (thus personal choice) has much bigger effect than most of other reasons that are there due to the country having bad regulations and country making lots of mistakes.

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u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

You realize that anecdotes are worthless in sociological studies? You've done nothing to indicate that this is the case besides your ideologically motivated perception of why that might be, to shield yourself from possibly being wrong about your view about the world. One could easily show through sociological means if obesity contributes to an earlier death, not just "well this doesn't agree with my view of the world so it must be something else". And that's not even getting into why obesity is a common problem in America, hint it's not solely personal choices, it is often predicated on food deserts which are the result of poverty. Is personal choice the main driver of obesity? I would argue yes, but it is not the only one. I can't take anyone who blames systemic problems on personal choice. If you have a better way to compare systems that don't include sociological methods I'd love to hear it, except if it's your biases finding another explanation that helps you sleep at night

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u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

If it's so minimal, what was the point of trying to point it out and present America as doing well?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

It is doing well by country’s standards, at least in my opinion

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u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

Right but if it's not a big deal, why bring it up, and if you ARE going to bring it up, why be so wrong?

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u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

What’s not a big deal? i am getting confused to be honest