It needs to be because the US has leaned further into individualism relative to other countries. If society's golden metric of success means being able to acquire all of these luxuries or services purely through monetary means as transactional individuals, don't be too surprised when the expenses rack up.
Just because the wider society encourages it, your family doesn't have to lean into individualism, and many don't. We got by when I was a kid with a lot of help from friends and family, when I am absolutely sure we didn't have a living wage under this definition.
Did you fairly compensate your friends and family members for that "help"? Systematic reliance on wholly unpaid labor is not exactly something to be proud of.
I help my kids, but I don't expect them to help me. I want them to save their money to help their kids, otherwise I'm just taking from my grandkids.
Same when I help my siblings. If they pay me back, now I'm taking away from my nieces and nephews. Within friends/family, I think it's completely reasonably if the money flows "downhill".
This is the fundamental concept of the vast majority of taxes, including those that feed the poor/unemployed: that money is gone, somewhere between little and no personal return, but that usually makes sense, increasingly so with income.
Um, sometimes people help each other because they want to, or because they understand that those less fortunate than them need it, or because they understand that they may need help someday and so it doesn't make sense to make a big deal of "compensation" now. It's called community, and I think it is something to be proud of.
I think it also reflects a lense of US academia. It kind of assumes a sanitized, formal, self-sufficient life, detached from others - and then assumes anything other than that is an aberration.
It's kind of like the physics joke about assuming a spherical cow in a vacuum.
You're presumably looking at a source that's including water area. When talking about land area, China > USA > Canada. (As opposed to when including water area, Canada > USA > China)
Replaced the original iPhone SE battery recently with a higher capacity one. Works perfectly. Many apps require an update or else they refuse tor run, but outside of that, still doing well.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I never knew there were libraries with a subscription model. Hopefully that means the catalogues are really good and well-taken care of.
> The US is not one country. It's two that are radically different.
I can't help but roll my eyes. I understand this is supposed to be figurative and not literally mean there are two countries, but I still roll my eyes because no, it is just one country. It is one country that collectively decides stratification to this extent is fine.
This reminds me of when some people say "America isn't bad, it's the other party that's keeping us hostage." The rest of the world really doesn't care and is waiting for the US to get it together already. Other countries couldn't care less about a completely different country's peculiar internal differences that contribute to its overall terrible behavior. The US is one country and the buck stops there. If you can't get your house in order, then yes, the house is bad and can't take responsibility for domestic affairs.
Is this a strange concept due to you being European or because of your particular European country? I thought public libraries where you can borrow books is a common thing in Europe, but I could be wrong since I just assumed that.
No no no. Sure, there might be a future where solid state batteries become the standard for electric vehicles, but you cannot link to Donut Lab's announcement from this month. There is no credible evidence they've achieved the holy grail of batteries so far until they actually deliver these motorcycles in hand and people independently verify them.
Time will tell on their battery, especially if the bike they're putting it on delivers. I think the overall point could be that there's active R&D in trying to find geopolitically sustainable materials, and lowering the weight of materials used.
Ah yes, the previously-marketed $20,000 Slate which is actually $30,000 now, still comes with nothing, and hasn't hit production yet. If only BYD could come in and destroy the non-smart/budget EV market.
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