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[smjjames]

One of my teammates at work died two days ago, because she was determined to avoid another hospital bill, until it was too late.

Um, geeze, uh, can I ask what happened specifically?

And yeah that's just messed up.

[Orange Wizard]

SalmonGod: You should mention that in the WTF thread where people are saying things like "bleeding from the nose is perfectly normal, even if you've been really sick. I mean, it happens to me all the time."

Nosebleeds are normal though

[Frumple]

I fundamentally disagree.  Things are getting better.

From the outside looking in, the US is going downhill in a number of ways. Some things are improving (like healthcare) but the changes are only a very small step with how far there is left to go.

It's... largely an improvement from eight to twelve years ago. Bush's bullshit (for lack of a better catchall term) on top of some economic confluences basically fucked us seven different kinds of sideways, and we've only started pulling back out of that crap in something like the last year or three. There's definitely a long way to go, but the slide downward has been mostly arrested, and is starting to pull back up in several areas. The ACA stopped a lot (if not all) of the downward spiral our medical system was seeing, we're pulling back on useless adventurism, the environmental stuff continues to see steady (if arguably not enough, but again, anything is better than nothing) improvement, the economy is starting to get back into shape (if, as SG notes in part, still seeing some issues), or at least moreso than it was a few years ago... we're even starting to pull our heads out of our asses on infrastructure maintenance, to a degree. Things really are just kinda' getting better, and is definitely better in most areas than it was when I was a kid, even if that slump in the middle of things makes it hard to remember sometimes.

There's definitely problems, but largely they're smaller ones than they were a couple decades ago. Arguably not as small as they should be, but, well, we had some popped bubbles, a couple of wars fought on false pretenses amongst a host of other fund draining bullshit, and some fairly stupid decisions made in regards to things like taxation, so just that fact that the country's not a bubbling molten crater is honestly somewhat surprising.

... also nosebleeds can be normal, but they usually aren't, and they're especially a possibly bad sign when you're already ill.

[Lord Shonus]

Don't forget that the ability to spread information increases greatly with each passing hour. The scandals of yesteryear didn't get anywhere near the exposure those of today get, even when they were unquestionably worse.

[Orange Wizard]

It's... largely an improvement from eight to twelve years ago.

I'd imagine so. But long-term problems like income inequality and prison population are still on the up... which to be fair isn't unique to the US.

... also nosebleeds can be normal, but they usually aren't, and they're especially a possibly bad sign when you're already ill.

Well, the arterial ones aren't normal, but the other ones (whatever those are called) don't involve excessive amounts of blood pouring from your nose.

...

Spoiler: Unrelated, but this was pretty funny (click to show/hide)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Huh, that's a pretty crazy statistic for Taiwan. When I was there it didn't seem like the kind of place that'd have gun violence, and I wasn't in a tourist zone either.

[Orange Wizard]

"Gun homicides per million firearms"

[PTTG??]

"Gun homicides per million firearms"

Yeah, that's a weird way to measure that. It seems to be presuming that guns just up and decide to shoot people all by themselves, which kind of contradicts the "guns don't kill people" crowd.

[SalmonGod]

I just don't see it on inequality.  The 2016 Oxfam report being the latest damning confirmation.  Yeah, it's about global inequality, but the U.S. being the largest/most influential in the global economy, with our businesses being the leading drivers of globalized business practices that are driving inequality, it should be meaningful to us.  And the most recent data I'm aware of still shows economic recovery within the U.S. going overwhelmingly (in the 90 %s) to the pockets of the 1%.  At my level, I've still never seen a business increase anyone's pay enough to match yearly inflation, unless they got a promotion.

And on the environment... yeah, we're seeing a slight gain in momentum on agreements between leaders to be concerned and sorta start to do something about it.  But the stuff I've seen talked about is decades behind what's necessary for any meaningful result.  It's like we've finally decided to agree that we're driving off a cliff and should maybe think about slowing down, when we're actually already in the air and could maybe pull some action hero shit and leap to grab the edge of the cliff if we're lucky.

Um, geeze, uh, can I ask what happened specifically?

And yeah that's just messed up.

She lived a horribly unhealthy lifestyle that finally caught up with her.  It was a combination of things, but she could have lived longer and maybe had help turning her habits around if our healthcare system were more progressive.

[Frumple]

Naah, yeah, the income inequality is still pretty fucked up. Ground level, most of the recovery I'm aware of is mostly just in people having an easier time getting work, if perhaps generally more unstable work. Often still underemployed, too, but again, improvement is improvement even when it's not across the board. Perfect and good and whatnot.

Environmental stuff, you'd probably want to look at some of the regulatory stuff Obama's actually pushed through (via executive powers), among other things. There actually is some concrete stuff happening, as well as green energy and whatnot continuing to become more economical, so it's not just vague agreements and platitudes. Definitely agree that, yeah, it's still rather likely we're just kinda' fucked and the rate of change isn't exactly eye-popping, but again, compared to twenty years ago...

[nogoodnames]

Huh, that's a pretty crazy statistic for Taiwan. When I was there it didn't seem like the kind of place that'd have gun violence, and I wasn't in a tourist zone either.

According to this: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/taiwan
...Taiwan has very restrictive gun laws with less than a million guns owned by civilians (illegally). So, that number is actually higher than the total number of gun homicides in the country. I'd further say that a large portion of those unlicensed gun owners are probably involved in other criminal activity, like, say, murder.

Gosh, it's almost like the person who made that graph deliberately chose misleading statistics.

[Frumple]

... also, considering the US is something like half again as murderous by that statistic as the next one down, and in the top 10 by that list, um. It kinda' does look like a deviant trigger-happy outlier? Just not the most deviant trigger-happy outlier.

[mainiac]

But long-term problems like income inequality and prison population are still on the up...

There's always something that is getting worse.  There's a lot of shit going on.  But the healthcare situation has finally started getting better after 50 years of decay and failed reform, the world is safer then ever before, women and minorities face less discrimination then in the past and we have gay marriage.

Don't forget that the ability to spread information increases greatly with each passing hour. The scandals of yesteryear didn't get anywhere near the exposure those of today get, even when they were unquestionably worse.

And this.  The treason that Nixon did torpedoing Vietnamese peace talks to help himself become president makes the Iraq war look downright by the book.  And most people dont even know Nixon did that because it was kept a secret for like 30 years.  Something like that couldn't be kept a secret these days.

Anyone who thinks the corrupt are getting away with more then in the past has no clue what they used to get away with on a regular basis.

[Orange Wizard]

There's always something that is getting worse.  There's a lot of shit going on.

Income inequality happens to be one of the things that fucks over lots of people in the short term, and almost everyone in the long term.

But the healthcare situation has finally started getting better after 50 years of decay and failed reform,

Started getting better. US public healthcare is still one of the worst in the first world, despite costing the most per-capita. If you want to incrementally salvage that trainwreck it's going to take a long time.

the world is safer then ever before, women and minorities face less discrimination then in the past and we have gay marriage.

These areas are improving, certainly. Not as much as other countries, but it's better than, say, Turkey.

Anyone who thinks the corrupt are getting away with more then in the past has no clue what they used to get away with on a regular basis.

US is actually pretty much on par in terms of corruption in the first world AFAIK; but for the overwhelmingly colossal monstrosity that is "donations" to politicians.

[SalmonGod]

I think corruption is just gotten away with in the open now.  Look at the Forex scandal.  Yeah, it's not human experimentation or high ranking treason.  I'll admit today's powerful mostly avoid overtly abhorrent behaviors now that they can't keep them secret.  But we still routinely see them benefit from hurting huge numbers of people, and just laugh it off when they're exposed.  The people that expose them normally get the worst treatment for it.

Yeah, we can call it improvement, but I wouldn't call it worthy of patting ourselves on the back.