We’re actively disinformed. That’s why. It’s really that simple.
As an example of the deeply ingrained disinformation and brainwashing, see a comment I made earlier today regarding Liberals continuously blaming progressives for Trumps win — without evidence — instead of the statistically verifiable, and multi-decade ratfuckery by the fascists… not to mention the ~100 million American adults who refuse to vote in every election (aka. the 100 million adults Liberals continuously fail to motivate), or the ~80 million voters who support fascist authoritarianism, or the corporations who have corrupted the political class and propagandized the entire population for 5 decades, or the political class who continuously serve the oligarchy.
War is peace! Freedom is slavery! The political class, bought and paid for by fascists, will save us from fascism!
It’s all very culty with partisan people of both stripes.
Honestly, I just block the people who keep repeating that kinds of BS. They aren’t worth my mental energy.
Does that mean I miss out on a bunch of discussions on .world? yes, but not wasting my mental energy on bad-faith arguments is worth it.
Because we are so far removed from poor conditions that some of us don’t even think they exist. And since they’ve never seen it, misinformation can just slide right in.
Asking Americans why they are like they are is just going to result in a bunch of denial, obfuscation, rationalization, and misdirected aggression.
This is what kills Americans the most: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/ And almost all of them are preventable.
We also have a chronic disposition toward optimism. You know “the American dream” and all that.
So a disease with a 10% mortality rate has a 90% survival rate. And 90% is bigger than 50%, so when you factor in chronic optimism it’s basically a 100% survival rate in our brains.
5th stage of grief… Acceptance.
We know we’re fucked and the government believes it’s role is to wield power, not help people.
For a disease to be prevented from spreading, you need a certain percentage of people to be immune. It’s different from disease to disease and also depends on the vaccine itself. Some diseases like Covid can still be spread to people who are vaccinated (though obviously the worst of the symptoms are mitigated).
For the sake of example, let’s say you need 90% immunity for a disease to not spread. Maybe 5% of the population cannot be vaccinated due to immune conditions, being too young, etc. That gives 5% of wiggle room.
Then there are acolytes of the fraudster, Andrew Wakefield, who faked data to get a flashy headline to get published in a prestigious journal. That includes RFK jr., Jenny Mccarthy, mayim bialik, etc. Clinging to their views for so long makes them unable to change them even if you show them proof that they are wrong. That might be another 1% of people.
There are a very small percentage of people who shun vaccines for lets say “true” religious reasons. Most of the people who try to claim religious reasoning for refusing vaccines are members of religions that are completely fine with vaccines. They are usually just really stupid people who are scared of needles and/or don’t think it’s that big of a deal with modern medicine. That’s probably another 1% of people.
Then there are people that are homeless or otherwise outside of the system. Vaccines are one of the most cost effective methods to improve health of a country, so despite the nightmare that is our healthcare system, you typically should never have to pay for a vaccine. It may be a bit more work than someone who is homeless and/or has substance abuse or mental health problems can prioritize. That might be another 1%.
All together, that would put us at 92%, above the threshold for a widespread epidemic, but all of those categories of people who don’t get vaccinated tend to be in communities, and so we can have outbreaks in those communities.
What is there to live for? Collective pain and misery. Be a mensch and let go.
I’m concerned but I don’t know what I can do about that other than make sure my whole family is vaccinated.
That’s all you can do, really. Should give you a bit of satisfaction, too, knowing you did something incredibly simple that could prevent a ton of hardship.
This will make you see red. My nephew cannot get vaccinated for legitimate health reasons. His parents were always pro-vax until it came time for the Covid vaccine. Then they became all “mRNA is a new technology, we don’t have enough research.” We basically stopped talking to them after my husband yelled at his brother (nephew’s dad) that he is risking killing his own son if he gets Covid. So fucking stupid. Yes, they are conservative although they claim not to support Trump.
Because, quite frankly, Americans are idiots. They would rather scarf down misinformation given by their news anchors than open a book and/or think for themselves.
Amen. A country of trash.
This is one of those scenarios where it may be better to look at fiber detail
- life expectancy by state has an 8 year range, from 72 to 80 years
- our nightmare of health coverage … In 2018, …coverage rates ranged from 82.3% of people in Texas to 97.2% of people in Massachusetts.
- average income almost doubles, from $87,063 down to $46,511.
You can go down a list of stats related to quality of life, and see similarly large ranges by state, and the ones on the low end correlate strongly with people who voted Republican. These are poorer people with worse education, worse health, much less income, voting for disrupting the status quo without understanding what that means
The leading cause of death is the same. The leading cause of death of poor Republicans is the same as that of wealthy cardiologists: preventable forms of heart disease. There is so much toxic masculinity and superstition about food in the USA, even people who know better conform to the cultural norms, and kill themselves with unhealthy food.
That’s exactly the type of stereotype I was refuting. Some states have life expectancy similar to developed countries and some are more like developing, and I’ll bet preventable heart disease is the leading cause of death everywhere.
And I’m saying that’s looking for a reason to be helpless. The behavioral differences between educated and uneducated are shockingly small. Regardless of your education, you (AA5B) are probably doing the same stupid things, some of which you know you shouldn’t be doing, but you keep doing them because of cultural conditioning. Leading to your own predictable, preventable death. Knowing that is hard to cope with and there are entire industries dedicated to helping people find a reason to be helpless and just accept their situation, when they could easily change. And some do.
Preventable heart disease is the leading cause of death in every US state, but not of every nation. It is not the leading cause of death in Japan, and nearly that alone enables them to have one of the highest life expectancy of any nation. Any two US states are more alike each other than they are a healthy country.
Canada is the USA with good (for the sake of discussion…) healthcare. The life expectancy is only slightly better, because they share the “Standard American Diet.” There is only so much medicine can do with people are killing themselves at every meal.
Anyone know why someone would think being in a house fire means you’re relatively unconcerned about dying in a fire?
Lack of education?
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Because we also die from totally preventable school shootings too.
Sad thing is that I don’t think gun restrictions would work cos criminals get their guns unlawfully
You can’t make concentrated firearms to smuggle into a country. They’re bulky, expensive and made from metal. They’re not heroin. Also, most of those illegal guns were legally purchased in another US state with looser laws, not smuggled in from another country.
Yep, they purchase them unlawfully because legislation isn’t a quick fix.
They purchase them from straw purchasers who get away with it because of lax laws in some states. Most states with stricter gun laws, the guns on the streets come from states with lax gun laws. If there were no states with lax laws there would be less of those guns on the streets.
It’s sadly not as simple as that when there’s already a lot of guns in the country. Realistically that can’t be changed in the current system. What would help in the immediate future is PSAs, training for professionals, risk assessments etc that can identify perpetrators. It’s not massively expensive and can be implemented in the existing system.
Which other countries with stricter gun restrictions than the US regularly have school shootings?
I don’t feel countries can be compared like that. School shootings are often carried out by juveniles who can’t lawfully get a gun. They’re committing mass murder showing they’re not law abiding. Realistically there’s so many guns in America that even making guns illegal wouldn’t prevent guns in the country.
Instead there’s other things that could help, such as training professionals to identify perpetrators and warning signs they’re going to attack. PSAs could be done so people can ID people around them.
Sure, the shootings won’t stop the day legislation changes. But it prevents more guns from entering the US, making it more difficult to get one, even illegally.
I get that some people in the states need guns. Some communities have a real danger from bears etc. But those people can get a license to own a gun, the way it works in most countries.
Yes hopefully it would. It’s a slow drawn out process though, and america isn’t an island. It’s not a fix
Its not a fix, but a start in the right direction.
Yep, given the reality of how many firearms there are already, and the resources it would take to remove them… I think we should focus on other things.
^OP, here’s the answer to your question
(Intellectual laziness and uncritical acceptance of propaganda).
School shootings are often carried out by juveniles who can’t lawfully get a gun.
Cut this crap, this isn’t reddit. Most kids them get the guns from a relative or friend who obtained it legally and adequate storage laws reduce both suicides and homicides in kids. BTW, guns kill more kids now than cancer or car accidents, but only in the US. Your take is the best example of americans being unconcerned about preventable deaths.
Please let me reassure you, thats inaccurate. I do voluntary work in DA, work in the supportive sector and have personally funded related uni courses (DA being linked to crime perpetration, incels, firearm misuse etc). I’ve done considerable research into academic articles on lone actor grievance fuelled violence. I do far more than the average person does, I just have a different perspective… partly due to the academic research I’ve read.
Please let me reassure you, thats inaccurate…
What’s inaccurate? I made like 5 statements.
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Guns kill more school-aged kids than motor vehicle accidents and cancer (i had to recreate the stats from the CDC wonder database myself excluding anybody over 18 because schmucks kept on complaining about the NEJM article including 19-year-olds, which apparently invalidated the data, except that it didn’t)
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Gun suicides are mostly committed using firearms from friends and relatives.
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If you look at UK’s homicide stats and the US’s (BJS) homicide stats you can tell that actually the homicide rate difference is driven by firearms.
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It’s a fact that it is much harder to kill someone including oneself without a gun.
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States that have gun storage laws have lower firearm mortality in kids.
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Blablabla on your trust me because I did some research. I’m in academia and published half a dozen (non-gun) epidemiology papers to date as a side hustle so I do know how to use the CDC databases. I’ve been forced to dive into the gun violence data because I’m really fed up with all the disinformation.
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What I have seen no supportive evidence for to date is “that training professionals to identify perpetrators” (“hardening schools?”) has any effect on school shootings.
-Now let’s see your papers.
I’m referring to the personal remarks you made about me, they were inaccurate. Do you retract them?
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Yes, I agree publicised school shootings are generally in the US. Did any of the other countries go from firearms being lawful to unlawful over the last few decades? The US has a huge amount already there, and that’s a significant difference.
Australia did it in 1996 and has only had one mass shooting since then in 2018
It works in every other country.
Is there another country that illegalised guns when there were already a massive amount in the country? I’m unaware of one but happy to be enlightened if there is.
Buyback programs tend to work, because they’re “no questions asked” and illegal guns still get bought and taken off the street. Australia did one that was very effective, though they’re cheating since it’s an island.
But one thing you have to remember is the US is the largest source of illegal guns in the world, because it makes them legally and they get smuggled. 40% of guns used in crimes come from just four manufacturers.
If the US stopped making so many fucking guns it would actually make the whole world safer. Especially Mexico! Trafficked guns are the main source of the cartel’s armory.
It’s a fair point on ceasing manufacturing, I agree that would help with preventing incidents for future generations.
Probably something like 99.9% of guns or more are legal guns when they’re manufactured. If there were fewer legal guns produced and out there, there’d be fewer illegal guns for criminals, would-be or otherwise, to get their hands on.
Yes, it’s a slow fix though
People only care about narratives, and a side effect of having a scientific/naturalistic worldview is that things like disease become narratively inert.
People used to care a lot more about diseases when they could be given narrative causes like witchcraft or demons.
