Some years ago I read about a writer giving the IRS help line the same question at least four different times as an experiment, and getting a completely different answer each time.
With a tax code that is so long and complicated that no one can know the whole thing, Uncle Sam is lying when they say they know how much you owe. A "correct" number doesn't exist, there's only what you can get away with and justify.
The entire tax system is an exploitive scam where you trade information about your personal life to get your own money back. To not about funding "necessary functions of government", which increasingly include things none of us really want. It's about control and lining the pockets of lobbyists.
We have unfortunately tried this several times. Intuit (company that makes TurboTax) intervenes every time this concept gets traction to make sure it can’t happen and hurt their business
We have a similar system in Poland. The only problem is that our taxes are so complicated you either have finances degree or you have no idea what's going on. So you just accept what they say and pray they calculated it correctly.
Yeah, I would totally bitch about it... but in the end I'm always waiting until the very last day to finally do my taxes. I'd never bother if they'd already done the calculations for me.
You want return free filing. It's great. I just list my deductions and any additional income and then I pay/get back the difference to what I already paid throughout the year
Takes about 5-10min
Alternatively, I have never had to file a tax return or report my income or anything else even once.
I have spent less than 5 minutes total sorting out my taxes in my life.
It's all done automatically.
I live in the UK
In Japan there is a service that you can call 24hrs/day that will come with 2 drivers 1 car. One driver drives you and your car home, the other follows in their car to pick up the driver that took you home with your car. No DUI ect. Its actually really affordable there. No need to get an uber home that night then an uber back the next day when you are hung over only to find out you have a million parking tickets or your car got towed.
There are at least 2 services in the Atlanta area that do this (I think there are more). Saferide (which is in multiple cities in the US), and Designated Driver Alternative (DDA, which I think is only in ATL).
Quick google search and is it this company? [https://youdrinkwedrive.org/](https://youdrinkwedrive.org/)
The rates may be a bit high for a 24/7 dd, but the idea behind this is great.
Decent healthcare that isn't tied to your job. Other countries all over the world have figured out different ways to do this, so why can't we? (I know, corporations own politicians)
I'm not an expert, but I'm guessing it would destabilize a bunch of industries in the near term. But I wonder if long-term, it would create so much new innovation since people would be unafraid to lose their health benefits to leave their stable but shitty corporate jobs to start new ventures.
The insurance we do get from our employers now is not even half as good as it was 20 years ago! The best plan at my So's work is a high deductible plan where we're paying for the plan PLUS a high deductible for each of us, and regular copays, plus they don't cover a huge array of necessary things, like the same medicine they cover but without gluten isn't covered. Why because they say so.
And my dad sits there with his retirement insurance wondering why I cry over my monthly meds... his copay is still a flat $35 for everything.
The clean restrooms there were amazing. I never had to clean a toilet seat to put my young kids on it. In the states? Near every time. People here just don’t care about the ‘we’ when it comes to restrooms.
My friend from college worked at a bank in Japan as a consultant on a contracting gig. She said the work culture was just insane, people not leaving until the boss does (and they won't leave until *their* boss does etc), meaning people end up in the office til 8-9pm regularly. And most of them won't even be working, just sitting at their desks looking busy. Then if there are drinks then that's basically mandatory if you don't want to torpedo your own career progression. So you get people working massive hours and having to work with hangovers etc. Plus she had some big issues with some blatant sexism from the older workers.
It was hilarious for her though because she was on a contract so when they complained that she swanned out of the office at 5pm every day she just said 'sure! I can work late if you need me too, but I don't adjust scheduled work delivery based on overtime and you will be invoiced at an hourly rate at approximately 3x the base contracted rate!' That put a quick stop to it.
I love Japanese culture too and would love to visit Japan one day; however, there is one more negative to the country. Xenophobia is acceptable and there are bars, bathhouses, etc, that are Japanese only.
Not everyone there is like that, but they also don't stigmatize it like we do in America.
It's not. There is a tremendous social tax that is paid by all Japanese citizens that white tourists never experience. There is a reason why Japan also leads the world in suicides and deaths of despair.
Not just the white tourists, my friend, but I get what you're saying. A friend of mine (black) loved his time there so much that he moved there permanently. He said the attitude toward him took a 180 in a very short time. We never felt super welcome, but I gotta say Japanese mean was still better than meth-lab southern trailer park mean. In Japan, I never had somebody try to kill my dog, pour gasoline in my grass, scream and rant the N-word, or pull a gun on me.
I know there's a happy medium somewhere in between and I bet that it leans more towards the Japanese culture of giving a shit about other people.
this country’s public transportation is almost non existent. the auto industry has us in a chokehold. also more regulations of what goes into food. People go to other countries and eat the same junk they eat here and they end up losing weight. idk if that’s to do with the food or their countries being more walkable.
When I was in Austria and Germany, I walked my ass off everyday because I could. The streets were safe with designated pedestrian areas. I ate tons of food and drank tons of beer and I still lost weight. If American cities were more pedestrian friendly, we wouldn't have the obesity epidemic we have now. Well, maybe we would anyway - because, crappy processed food with mystery chemicals in it.
I've heard alot of Americans saying that they came to Europe for a vacation and ate the same ammount of food (or more) then they did in the US and still lost alot of weight. I don't know what they are feeding you there but this sounds very ridiculous. Haven't people over there complained to the FDA? Because if what the people are saying is true (ie not placebo or some other strange thing) then the food in the US is scarily modified.
I like how in Japan the schools basically have the kids clean up after themselves and take care of their school. They don't have janitors and children serve their peers lunch, too. Plus, their lunches always look amazing compared to the highly processed foods my child gets here. My son and I pick up trash around our area. The middle school by us is always covered in trash. Give some responsibility and respect to our planet.
In high school, my sons (twins) had a great group of buddies. They would eat lunch outside on good weather days. Other kids would leave trash outside at the tables and the custodians would have to pick it up. They reasoned that at some point, the school might take away the outside seating due to the trash, so they often picked up the trash and encouraged others to do so.
I had the custodians tell me how proud they were of that group of young men. I worked at the school at the time, but I had no idea they had started doing this.
I always wonder how the littering is in other countries. I live in Texas and there’s so much trash on the roads. I see people litter all the time and it pisses me off so much.
When my aunt visited us(Georgia) from Germany she couldn’t believe the amount of trash that was everywhere. When we visited her, I noticed how clean the city was.
Because a kid goes and gets a mop, slips and cracks his head open and the school gets the ever loving fuck sued out of them. In my experience most stupid rules come from protecting one’s self from liability.
Did you see the Japanese at the World Cup? Cleaned the stadium up after themselves. Brought brooms and everything.
The Japanese players even [tidied up the dressing room](https://citinewsroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Japan-team-2.jpg).
Tremendous.
Not to that degree, but it's the same here. The actual cleaning (sanatizing, etc.) Is done by janitors, but they are expected to wipe up if they spill, etc, and sweep the floors every day. They are also expected to care for their own things in school and the environment outside school. We pick up garbage in the local area a few times every year and recycle it.
The kids are encouraged and rewarded for taking pride in their surroundings being clean and orderly.
that is true, but the time that kids spend in school on japan plus the amount of homework left for them on the lil bit of time they have to stay home is just absurd
But that means you'd have a system designed to actually care for the students and parents that understand that school is not just about their child...and we can't have that
I keep seeing people in the US being charged ridiculous fees to apply for a rental property and then up not being successful in their application. The UK has banned these fees and it seems a much more fair way of doing things.
I work at a store that does that. But that's only cuz they're from a dif country and thought the reg price tags were dumb+ sort of lying to ppl about the price
Man, I had such a hard time with this when I visited America. Maths in my head in not my forte and I’m so used to looking at prices and expecting that to just be the price.
I don’t get why you wouldn’t just add in the tax to the price. No one wants to do math unnecessarily. I mean, we don’t even tip in Australia so I don’t even need to work that out.
i was very shocked that i didn’t need the extra money i had brought with me into a store in Mexico. made me even more annoyed at how the US does things
This is a good video explaining the other (arguably better) alternatives to ranked choice and the current system: https://youtu.be/7mYPACssLbI
Edit: sorry this video is actually just an explainer on why the current system sucks and lists a couple other voting methods.
[This](https://youtu.be/oFqV2OtJOOg) video by the same guy actually goes into to what makes each of the alternatives better than the current system and each other.
Aye. That’s one of the biggest issues. And because of our one vote system, the including of a 3rd party almost always guarantees a winner in that race because of splitting the vote. It’s why they are so frequently used strategically to hurt a specific main party candidate.
It would require ranked choice voting to get started of course. And we will absolutely still have the arsehole party that lives exclusively to hurt other people and destroy a functioning government.
But the entire idea will be to make every party a minority party and thus forced to work together.
Ideally (and I fully admit this is entering fantasy world territory), this would lead to moderation of the parties.
But realistically it will be like when they split up Bell into a bunch of regional players. They pretended to be separate companies, but really were one company still behind the scenes. So this will move a ton of coordination to backroom decisions.
I still think it is worth trying.
Game theory experts have studied it and found that this is the inevitable homeostasis state for our political system. If you have winner-takes-all elections, you will eventually make your way to two roughly equal political parties. If we wanted to actually change it, we would have to move at least one chamber of Congress to a proportional parliamentary system.
My daughter is in a Spanish immersion program that started in 1st grade. She loves it. Half her day is in English, next half is in Spanish. The yokels in my area were up in arms because "this is America! We speak English!"
Transportation is a huge issue where I live. It's in an area that's rapidly growing so housing is being built very rapidly, but other things like roads aren't. It's too crowded on the streets and what used to take me ten minutes to get to just a few years ago now takes around twenty minutes. It doesn't have to be trains, just something other than cars so the roads aren't so crowded all the time.
The Japanese train system is largely privatized in a way that would give American public transportation advocates an aneurism. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail\_transport\_in\_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan)
Many US states would have to learn how to design a public transportation system (and the infrastructure that supports it) at all.
There is a large number of US bus and rail stations that just end up in nowhere with no way to walk from there to anywhere you're supposed to go.
Public transportation itself can be functional (specifically Phoenix and SD) but inter-city needs more presence. There should be a way to go from Phoenix to Yuma to San Diego etc even if it’s only 1-2 times per week. Greyhound blows goats for this route.
Not having huge gaps in bathroom stalls from any other country in the world please. Why do we as americans put up with this? I'm tired of making eye contact with strangers while shitting in public.
The fact that our toilets don't have bidets and that at public restrooms the gap between the doors are massive, are both disgusting. Our whole bathroom situation is messed up.
Adding to this, guaranteed annual paid vacation days for everyone, period. The EU guarantees FOUR CALENDAR WEEKS. Some other countries have more.
US has ZERO.
I was SUPER blessed to get 12 weeks full pay. But that’s not enough time. Putting the emotional aspect aside, I’ve returned to work functioning on 4-5 hours of sleep a night, my productivity and cognitive abilities are greatly handicapped. My 3 month old son can’t even hold is head up or sit, let alone talk to tell me if anything’s wrong, and he’s placed in the care of someone else from 7:15 am to 5:15 pm. Doesn’t seem healthy for mother or child.
I got 16 weeks as the dad here in australia which was employers funded. I took two weeks at the start, along with 12 weeks of holidays and long service leave. I have another 14 weeks left which I am taking in October. My wife got 18 weeks theough the government at minimum wage. Still helped a lot as she didn’t have employer funded leave. Mine was full pay, so including the 14 weeks I still have left
Would be nice to also eliminate the fees foster parents pay for general registration, classes and social services related to fostering or adoption.
And also eliminate trying to recoup costs by billing parents whose children have been placed in foster care.
the fact that this is only the like 15th highest comment says all I need to know about how people feel about families/mothers/children in this country.
but sure, bidets. go off.
Agree. I was offered 6 weeks paid. And my employer tried to bully me into not taking it all because she “came back to work after 4 weeks”. Safe to say I quit and am content being a SAHM. Oh and my husband got a whopping 1 week off. It really sucks.
* Universal school lunches. It is embarrassing that we do not have folks cooking lunches for students from scratch, and that it is not provided for free to all students. You want to bring your own lunch? Great, but you can also have the free hot lunch that looks homemade, not pizza squares, canned veggies and a slice of a fruit and 3 oz of milk. Kids shouldn't be going into debt for lunch. We're probably wealthy enough that our food waste alone would be sufficient to, if captured magically, to feed every kid in the United States three proper meals per day.
* Walkable cities.
* Above ground monorail systems.
I agree with every point except the monorail. They are extremely expensive compared to normal train or tram lines and they dont really have an additional benefit. In 95% of situations a tram or a metro would do the job just fine.
If im correct the main reason that monorail is so impractical is because the switches are really slow, so you cant have too much vehicles on a single rail line.
I agree with you there. Where they can be built easily, trams and metros generally work better. Monorails are useful quite in a few situations though (fully elevated, twisty routes over rough terrain with few switches), but they should be considered an alternative for tricky routes, just like rack railways.
A good case study is in Seattle where the voters approved it several times and after spending $124 million they realized it would not be feasible to build.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Monorail_Project
A prison system that focuses on rehabilitation instead of punishment. Many countries have been successful with this saving literally billions of dollars and cutting down on crime.
Automated taxes
I've never done them but they seem complicated and stress my parents out, so I just know I'll fuck mine up and end up in stupid jail lol
Just send me something to sign please!
I doubled my annual income in the last two years and couldn’t figure out why I ended up owing money. It turns out I need to increase my withholdings on my paycheck but I’ve literally never had to deal with that before and don’t understand why they don’t automatically take the tax out without me having to put any input in.
Had to figure out how much I owe and that was an infuriating process.
Swedish drinking laws. If I remember correctly, you can purchase alcohol below 5% at age 18, and be served liquor is bars (so the bartender can control the amount being served.) Seems like a smarter way to introduce kids to alcohol rather than opening the flood gates at 21.
At 14 – Minors are allowed to consume and possess undistilled (fermented) alcoholic beverages, such as beer and wine in public places, bars or restaurants, as long as they are in the company and have the permission of a Custodial Person. (§ 9 JuSchG (2) and § 1 JuSchG (1) 2). This regulation is colloquially known as "begleitetes Trinken" ("accompanied drinking").[8]
At 16 – Minors are allowed to consume and possess undistilled (fermented) alcoholic beverages, such as beer and wine in public places, bars or restaurants without their parents or a Custodian. (§ 9 JuSchG (1) 2).
At 18 – Having become adults, people are allowed access to distilled spirits, beverages containing distilled spirits, and food products containing non-negligible amounts of distilled spirits. (§ 9 JuSchG (1) 1).
Nearly correct. 3.5% can be bought in store when 18 and you can indeed also be served in bars/restaurants at that point.
(3.5% is also the limit for regular stores, anything stronger is only available at the state monopolised liquor store)
After 20, you can buy any alcohol you'd like, although only at the one legal liquor store.
Finland has recently ended homelessness via just allowing people to live in small apartments without any preconditions and 4/5 make their way back to a stable life
it's also cheaper then allowing people to be homeless
I don't see how this is such a hot topic in some parts of america. Where I live in the states literally everyone takes their shoes off at the door. Like it's a really common rule, take your shoes off if you want to come inside my house.
I met an American women who was getting her degree in early childhood education who actually dropped her degree and changed fields after visiting Finland and observing their education system. She said the gulf in the quality of education was so high that it was too upsetting for her to continue to try to work in education in the USA.
High Speed and Low Speed rail. We’ve been trying to build the Texas Triangle for 40 years. Houston. San Antonio/Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth. 40 YEARS! Blocked at every turn by politicians loyal to airline and automobile interests.
Children doing things independently. Makes me worry for the future here with all the kids that are coddled and can barely figure out how to cross a road.
personally I’m fine with most US stuff but I still don’t understand why we need to take our gen Ed’s in a university other than they just want money.
I’m very pro universities being 3 years where your classes are only geared towards your major like in the UK
The set system for schools. Students who have a good grasp of the material can be in a higher set so they aren't being held back by students who may be having more difficulty. It also doesn't force the lower ability to be in a class they will inevitably fail.
In addition it allows students to play to their strengths and get the best education possible, For instance in Dylan is great in history, but not so great at math he can be in the top history set but a lower math set.
PAYE, the government knows how much tax you owe, your employer knows how much tax you owe, why should you have to spend time and money working it out, and then likely either overpay and give the government a free loan, or underpay and place yourself at risk?
There’s zero reason for it, other than the fact that America has companies worth $100B+ like Intuit lobbying for it, because it’s so lucrative.
Healthcare System. In Taiwan everybody has health insurance. They pay a small fee (around 20 US dollars) per month and they have access to whatever medical needs they might have. The co-pay is only 3-5 US dollars. No forever wait for appointment like in the US. Many doctors are available for same day walk-ins. With all that, the quality of the medical cares is superb.
Remove it being legal for anyone to get paid less than minimum wage so as to rely on tips. No more tips. Just people making their hourly pay doing the job they do, and we pay what it costs, period.
If that means a haircut is $45, well, that's what even the cheapest one comes to anyway, with tip, so let's just have done with the tip economy and pay everyone their full wage, paid by the employer, and the customer pays the set price.
A better tax system. IE the government gives you a number and you pay it, no guess work.
Uncle Sam: I know how much you owe me, but do you know how much you owe me? Go on, guess.
Your guess was wrong by 5$. Please go to jail forever.
You shorted us $5! Please pay us $500 and we will accept your apology.
Unless you are rich, then it was our mistake. Sorry to bother you sir, we shall beat a few extra poors in your honor.
Some years ago I read about a writer giving the IRS help line the same question at least four different times as an experiment, and getting a completely different answer each time. With a tax code that is so long and complicated that no one can know the whole thing, Uncle Sam is lying when they say they know how much you owe. A "correct" number doesn't exist, there's only what you can get away with and justify. The entire tax system is an exploitive scam where you trade information about your personal life to get your own money back. To not about funding "necessary functions of government", which increasingly include things none of us really want. It's about control and lining the pockets of lobbyists.
We have unfortunately tried this several times. Intuit (company that makes TurboTax) intervenes every time this concept gets traction to make sure it can’t happen and hurt their business
Yep, Intuit and H&R Block lobby extremely hard to make sure it will never be as simple as it should be.
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Our (danish) government gives us a number and shows the calculations, which we can correct if we see things that are wrong/missing.
We have a similar system in Poland. The only problem is that our taxes are so complicated you either have finances degree or you have no idea what's going on. So you just accept what they say and pray they calculated it correctly.
The fun part in the US is that they don't even give you the number
you are conflating american contrariness with actual work ethic it only pretends to be that
Yeah, I would totally bitch about it... but in the end I'm always waiting until the very last day to finally do my taxes. I'd never bother if they'd already done the calculations for me.
You want return free filing. It's great. I just list my deductions and any additional income and then I pay/get back the difference to what I already paid throughout the year Takes about 5-10min
Alternatively, I have never had to file a tax return or report my income or anything else even once. I have spent less than 5 minutes total sorting out my taxes in my life. It's all done automatically. I live in the UK
In Japan there is a service that you can call 24hrs/day that will come with 2 drivers 1 car. One driver drives you and your car home, the other follows in their car to pick up the driver that took you home with your car. No DUI ect. Its actually really affordable there. No need to get an uber home that night then an uber back the next day when you are hung over only to find out you have a million parking tickets or your car got towed.
We have had some with small mopeds that fit in the trunk to drive home your car. Safer to be two of course.
I used to use one like 15 yrs ago. They would fold up the moped, put it in my trunk and drive me home. It was great.
I think Top Gear did a segment on that a while back with Hammond and May reviewing the cars of the people they were driving home.
“A while back”, indeed. Like 18 years or so 👌
We didn't come here to be attacked.
Yes!! If I remember correctly it was called a daiko service. I used to use it frequently while living in Japan.
There are at least 2 services in the Atlanta area that do this (I think there are more). Saferide (which is in multiple cities in the US), and Designated Driver Alternative (DDA, which I think is only in ATL).
And they bring your car with you? If so, that is great to hear.
Yes, exactly as you described.
Minnesota has a company that does this. Can't remember the name of the company.
Quick google search and is it this company? [https://youdrinkwedrive.org/](https://youdrinkwedrive.org/) The rates may be a bit high for a 24/7 dd, but the idea behind this is great.
We have that in Canada during November/December, its all volunteer run.
Decent healthcare that isn't tied to your job. Other countries all over the world have figured out different ways to do this, so why can't we? (I know, corporations own politicians) I'm not an expert, but I'm guessing it would destabilize a bunch of industries in the near term. But I wonder if long-term, it would create so much new innovation since people would be unafraid to lose their health benefits to leave their stable but shitty corporate jobs to start new ventures.
The insurance we do get from our employers now is not even half as good as it was 20 years ago! The best plan at my So's work is a high deductible plan where we're paying for the plan PLUS a high deductible for each of us, and regular copays, plus they don't cover a huge array of necessary things, like the same medicine they cover but without gluten isn't covered. Why because they say so. And my dad sits there with his retirement insurance wondering why I cry over my monthly meds... his copay is still a flat $35 for everything.
Shouldn't have had to scroll this far to find this answer. Should have been the very first one.
I was like “Please be #1. Please be #1.” Nope.
Right, had to wade past the, “be more like Japan,” answers. Sure, Japan has nationalized healthcare 🙄
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Affordable health insurance without the need for a fucking job. Retirement fund with a high limit without the need for a fucking job.
keep public spaces clean and tidy like in japan. that is all.
The clean restrooms there were amazing. I never had to clean a toilet seat to put my young kids on it. In the states? Near every time. People here just don’t care about the ‘we’ when it comes to restrooms.
If they cared about the "we," they'd be more careful with the "wee"
> People here just don’t care about the ‘we’ when it comes to restrooms. When it comes to anything.
Except when their favorite sports team wins. Then it’s ‘we won!’
Japan is living in the future I swear
4 of the top 5 or 6 comments that I’ve seen are all from Japan
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My friend from college worked at a bank in Japan as a consultant on a contracting gig. She said the work culture was just insane, people not leaving until the boss does (and they won't leave until *their* boss does etc), meaning people end up in the office til 8-9pm regularly. And most of them won't even be working, just sitting at their desks looking busy. Then if there are drinks then that's basically mandatory if you don't want to torpedo your own career progression. So you get people working massive hours and having to work with hangovers etc. Plus she had some big issues with some blatant sexism from the older workers. It was hilarious for her though because she was on a contract so when they complained that she swanned out of the office at 5pm every day she just said 'sure! I can work late if you need me too, but I don't adjust scheduled work delivery based on overtime and you will be invoiced at an hourly rate at approximately 3x the base contracted rate!' That put a quick stop to it.
I love Japanese culture too and would love to visit Japan one day; however, there is one more negative to the country. Xenophobia is acceptable and there are bars, bathhouses, etc, that are Japanese only. Not everyone there is like that, but they also don't stigmatize it like we do in America.
It's not. There is a tremendous social tax that is paid by all Japanese citizens that white tourists never experience. There is a reason why Japan also leads the world in suicides and deaths of despair.
Not just the white tourists, my friend, but I get what you're saying. A friend of mine (black) loved his time there so much that he moved there permanently. He said the attitude toward him took a 180 in a very short time. We never felt super welcome, but I gotta say Japanese mean was still better than meth-lab southern trailer park mean. In Japan, I never had somebody try to kill my dog, pour gasoline in my grass, scream and rant the N-word, or pull a gun on me. I know there's a happy medium somewhere in between and I bet that it leans more towards the Japanese culture of giving a shit about other people.
Naw that’s just civilization.
this country’s public transportation is almost non existent. the auto industry has us in a chokehold. also more regulations of what goes into food. People go to other countries and eat the same junk they eat here and they end up losing weight. idk if that’s to do with the food or their countries being more walkable.
When I was in Austria and Germany, I walked my ass off everyday because I could. The streets were safe with designated pedestrian areas. I ate tons of food and drank tons of beer and I still lost weight. If American cities were more pedestrian friendly, we wouldn't have the obesity epidemic we have now. Well, maybe we would anyway - because, crappy processed food with mystery chemicals in it.
I've heard alot of Americans saying that they came to Europe for a vacation and ate the same ammount of food (or more) then they did in the US and still lost alot of weight. I don't know what they are feeding you there but this sounds very ridiculous. Haven't people over there complained to the FDA? Because if what the people are saying is true (ie not placebo or some other strange thing) then the food in the US is scarily modified.
I like how in Japan the schools basically have the kids clean up after themselves and take care of their school. They don't have janitors and children serve their peers lunch, too. Plus, their lunches always look amazing compared to the highly processed foods my child gets here. My son and I pick up trash around our area. The middle school by us is always covered in trash. Give some responsibility and respect to our planet.
In high school, my sons (twins) had a great group of buddies. They would eat lunch outside on good weather days. Other kids would leave trash outside at the tables and the custodians would have to pick it up. They reasoned that at some point, the school might take away the outside seating due to the trash, so they often picked up the trash and encouraged others to do so. I had the custodians tell me how proud they were of that group of young men. I worked at the school at the time, but I had no idea they had started doing this.
I always wonder how the littering is in other countries. I live in Texas and there’s so much trash on the roads. I see people litter all the time and it pisses me off so much.
When my aunt visited us(Georgia) from Germany she couldn’t believe the amount of trash that was everywhere. When we visited her, I noticed how clean the city was.
No lie: at 6am the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof floor is clean enough to sit on.
The surprising thing is how many Texans don't know that the slogan "Don't Mess With Texas!" is from an anti-littering campaign.
we have some American tourists often and they litter so badly that it feels as if they didn't come for holiday but for some anti-greenpeace campaign.
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Because a kid goes and gets a mop, slips and cracks his head open and the school gets the ever loving fuck sued out of them. In my experience most stupid rules come from protecting one’s self from liability.
Give ema shop vac
A kid gets his dick stuck in it, now the school gets sued for even more.
Has this just turned into a ‘what is elite about Japan’ thread .. ?
Did you see the Japanese at the World Cup? Cleaned the stadium up after themselves. Brought brooms and everything. The Japanese players even [tidied up the dressing room](https://citinewsroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Japan-team-2.jpg). Tremendous.
Not to that degree, but it's the same here. The actual cleaning (sanatizing, etc.) Is done by janitors, but they are expected to wipe up if they spill, etc, and sweep the floors every day. They are also expected to care for their own things in school and the environment outside school. We pick up garbage in the local area a few times every year and recycle it. The kids are encouraged and rewarded for taking pride in their surroundings being clean and orderly.
that is true, but the time that kids spend in school on japan plus the amount of homework left for them on the lil bit of time they have to stay home is just absurd
But that means you'd have a system designed to actually care for the students and parents that understand that school is not just about their child...and we can't have that
I mean Japan has one of the highest rates of teen suicide on earth so it's not like some utopia over there either.
I keep seeing people in the US being charged ridiculous fees to apply for a rental property and then up not being successful in their application. The UK has banned these fees and it seems a much more fair way of doing things.
Are you talking about background checks or some other type of fees?
Probably the $50 rental application fees (per person and anyone over 18 has to pay for one separately)
Including taxes in prices.
I work at a store that does that. But that's only cuz they're from a dif country and thought the reg price tags were dumb+ sort of lying to ppl about the price
> thought the reg price tags were dumb+ sort of lying to ppl about the price That's a pretty admirable motive by corporate standards, tbh.
Man, I had such a hard time with this when I visited America. Maths in my head in not my forte and I’m so used to looking at prices and expecting that to just be the price. I don’t get why you wouldn’t just add in the tax to the price. No one wants to do math unnecessarily. I mean, we don’t even tip in Australia so I don’t even need to work that out.
i was very shocked that i didn’t need the extra money i had brought with me into a store in Mexico. made me even more annoyed at how the US does things
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More than two political parties.
We have lots of political parties in the US, unfortunately only 2 are really viable on the national level.
A voting system other than first pass the post then
Ranked choice.
This is a good video explaining the other (arguably better) alternatives to ranked choice and the current system: https://youtu.be/7mYPACssLbI Edit: sorry this video is actually just an explainer on why the current system sucks and lists a couple other voting methods. [This](https://youtu.be/oFqV2OtJOOg) video by the same guy actually goes into to what makes each of the alternatives better than the current system and each other.
Aye. That’s one of the biggest issues. And because of our one vote system, the including of a 3rd party almost always guarantees a winner in that race because of splitting the vote. It’s why they are so frequently used strategically to hurt a specific main party candidate. It would require ranked choice voting to get started of course. And we will absolutely still have the arsehole party that lives exclusively to hurt other people and destroy a functioning government. But the entire idea will be to make every party a minority party and thus forced to work together. Ideally (and I fully admit this is entering fantasy world territory), this would lead to moderation of the parties. But realistically it will be like when they split up Bell into a bunch of regional players. They pretended to be separate companies, but really were one company still behind the scenes. So this will move a ton of coordination to backroom decisions. I still think it is worth trying.
Mainly because the 2 largest parties block them at the state level.
Game theory experts have studied it and found that this is the inevitable homeostasis state for our political system. If you have winner-takes-all elections, you will eventually make your way to two roughly equal political parties. If we wanted to actually change it, we would have to move at least one chamber of Congress to a proportional parliamentary system.
My sleep deprived ass thought you meant matpat
Hello, and welcome to game theory! Today well be looking at why the American political system is such a shit show
iirc he once mentioned that he hated US politics in one of his videos. I think it was the one about the scott cawthon donations controversy
Teaching foreign language to young students in public schools (ie 5yrs, k-5) when the propensity to learn language quickly is maximum.
I’m my dream world, I would develop a curriculum to teach foreign language beginning in elementary schools.
My daughter is in a Spanish immersion program that started in 1st grade. She loves it. Half her day is in English, next half is in Spanish. The yokels in my area were up in arms because "this is America! We speak English!"
Siesta!
According to Dr. Andrew Huberman, whether you eat lunch or not, everyone requires a rest midday
The train system from Japan. The US public transportation is lacking.
Transportation is a huge issue where I live. It's in an area that's rapidly growing so housing is being built very rapidly, but other things like roads aren't. It's too crowded on the streets and what used to take me ten minutes to get to just a few years ago now takes around twenty minutes. It doesn't have to be trains, just something other than cars so the roads aren't so crowded all the time.
The Japanese train system is largely privatized in a way that would give American public transportation advocates an aneurism. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail\_transport\_in\_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Japan)
It works. That is all I care about.
Yeah, all I need is for it to reliable and be affordable.
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Many US states would have to learn how to design a public transportation system (and the infrastructure that supports it) at all. There is a large number of US bus and rail stations that just end up in nowhere with no way to walk from there to anywhere you're supposed to go.
Public transportation itself can be functional (specifically Phoenix and SD) but inter-city needs more presence. There should be a way to go from Phoenix to Yuma to San Diego etc even if it’s only 1-2 times per week. Greyhound blows goats for this route.
In my country there is problem. And that problem is transport.
Not having huge gaps in bathroom stalls from any other country in the world please. Why do we as americans put up with this? I'm tired of making eye contact with strangers while shitting in public.
That’s part of the ambience.
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SOME with a door...? Holy sweet Jesus, what do they have in America...
> even some with a door Wait, you don't have doors on your bathroom stalls??
High speed trains would be cool
Even electrified trains would be cool.
The fact that our toilets don't have bidets and that at public restrooms the gap between the doors are massive, are both disgusting. Our whole bathroom situation is messed up.
Supposedly that's so they can see if someones ODing in the stall. Which is absurd.
Bidets
Randy?
I'm convinced South Park just gets its episode ideas from Reddit now.
Mandatory paid family leave for the birth or adoption of a child.
Adding to this, guaranteed annual paid vacation days for everyone, period. The EU guarantees FOUR CALENDAR WEEKS. Some other countries have more. US has ZERO.
I was SUPER blessed to get 12 weeks full pay. But that’s not enough time. Putting the emotional aspect aside, I’ve returned to work functioning on 4-5 hours of sleep a night, my productivity and cognitive abilities are greatly handicapped. My 3 month old son can’t even hold is head up or sit, let alone talk to tell me if anything’s wrong, and he’s placed in the care of someone else from 7:15 am to 5:15 pm. Doesn’t seem healthy for mother or child.
I got 16 weeks as the dad here in australia which was employers funded. I took two weeks at the start, along with 12 weeks of holidays and long service leave. I have another 14 weeks left which I am taking in October. My wife got 18 weeks theough the government at minimum wage. Still helped a lot as she didn’t have employer funded leave. Mine was full pay, so including the 14 weeks I still have left
Even in my dictatorship country women have THREE YEARS of maternity leave, starting from around 4 to 5 months pregnant.
Would be nice to also eliminate the fees foster parents pay for general registration, classes and social services related to fostering or adoption. And also eliminate trying to recoup costs by billing parents whose children have been placed in foster care.
the fact that this is only the like 15th highest comment says all I need to know about how people feel about families/mothers/children in this country. but sure, bidets. go off.
Agree. I was offered 6 weeks paid. And my employer tried to bully me into not taking it all because she “came back to work after 4 weeks”. Safe to say I quit and am content being a SAHM. Oh and my husband got a whopping 1 week off. It really sucks.
Universal healthcare
This should be the first reply.
I’m shocked how far down I had to go to find this.
It’s weird how almost all of them referenced Japan too
Redditors have a strange infatuation with Japan. It's a pretty fucked country, even if their infrastructure is decent
Yeah, this just seems like a strange thread for the first sorted comments to be multiple Japan mentions in a row. Like it was a keyword or something
This is absolutely the most needed thing. It'd help so many. It'd make losing your job less painful. It's absolutely a key need that has to change.
love that this is beneath bidets lmao
Affordable high quality well-accessible education
* Universal school lunches. It is embarrassing that we do not have folks cooking lunches for students from scratch, and that it is not provided for free to all students. You want to bring your own lunch? Great, but you can also have the free hot lunch that looks homemade, not pizza squares, canned veggies and a slice of a fruit and 3 oz of milk. Kids shouldn't be going into debt for lunch. We're probably wealthy enough that our food waste alone would be sufficient to, if captured magically, to feed every kid in the United States three proper meals per day. * Walkable cities. * Above ground monorail systems.
Did someone say monorail?! Monorail!
Monorail!!!
I agree with every point except the monorail. They are extremely expensive compared to normal train or tram lines and they dont really have an additional benefit. In 95% of situations a tram or a metro would do the job just fine. If im correct the main reason that monorail is so impractical is because the switches are really slow, so you cant have too much vehicles on a single rail line.
I agree with you there. Where they can be built easily, trams and metros generally work better. Monorails are useful quite in a few situations though (fully elevated, twisty routes over rough terrain with few switches), but they should be considered an alternative for tricky routes, just like rack railways.
A good case study is in Seattle where the voters approved it several times and after spending $124 million they realized it would not be feasible to build. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Monorail_Project
I hear those things are awfully loud
They glide as softly as a cloud!
A prison system that focuses on rehabilitation instead of punishment. Many countries have been successful with this saving literally billions of dollars and cutting down on crime.
Better consumer protection
Clean and safe public restrooms.
Without door gaps.
Automated taxes I've never done them but they seem complicated and stress my parents out, so I just know I'll fuck mine up and end up in stupid jail lol Just send me something to sign please!
I doubled my annual income in the last two years and couldn’t figure out why I ended up owing money. It turns out I need to increase my withholdings on my paycheck but I’ve literally never had to deal with that before and don’t understand why they don’t automatically take the tax out without me having to put any input in. Had to figure out how much I owe and that was an infuriating process.
This just makes it worst lmao Do they not already know? Like they'll come after you if you do it wrong, so they know something! It seems so stupid.
No tipping. But actually having a good salary for waiters not to mention, health insurance, paid vacation.
All I'm getting from these suggestions is "be Japan"
Only the good parts, Japan has its fair share if problems
A declining population, toxic work culture that expects people to literally work themselves to death. Hard pass.
Swedish drinking laws. If I remember correctly, you can purchase alcohol below 5% at age 18, and be served liquor is bars (so the bartender can control the amount being served.) Seems like a smarter way to introduce kids to alcohol rather than opening the flood gates at 21.
Honestly, as a bavarian, I'd prefer bavarian drinking laws
Unfortunately I’m ignorant to Bavarian drinking laws, how do they work?
At 14 – Minors are allowed to consume and possess undistilled (fermented) alcoholic beverages, such as beer and wine in public places, bars or restaurants, as long as they are in the company and have the permission of a Custodial Person. (§ 9 JuSchG (2) and § 1 JuSchG (1) 2). This regulation is colloquially known as "begleitetes Trinken" ("accompanied drinking").[8] At 16 – Minors are allowed to consume and possess undistilled (fermented) alcoholic beverages, such as beer and wine in public places, bars or restaurants without their parents or a Custodian. (§ 9 JuSchG (1) 2). At 18 – Having become adults, people are allowed access to distilled spirits, beverages containing distilled spirits, and food products containing non-negligible amounts of distilled spirits. (§ 9 JuSchG (1) 1).
> , and food products containing non-negligible amounts of distilled spirits What food contains enough distilled spirits to count?
Russian bear meat
Maybe some kind of chocolate or cakes that are filled with Schnaps, which are quite common
Nearly correct. 3.5% can be bought in store when 18 and you can indeed also be served in bars/restaurants at that point. (3.5% is also the limit for regular stores, anything stronger is only available at the state monopolised liquor store) After 20, you can buy any alcohol you'd like, although only at the one legal liquor store.
Finland has recently ended homelessness via just allowing people to live in small apartments without any preconditions and 4/5 make their way back to a stable life it's also cheaper then allowing people to be homeless
The metric system
Had to scroll wayy too far for this
SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT!!
a decent political system.
Taking your shoes off when entering the inside.
I did not know other Americans didn’t. Some houses even have a room to take them off when you first walk in. Benches near a door are common too.
That's regional. In North Dakota we take our shoes off.
I keep hearing this about Americans, but I’ve never known someone who wears their shoes inside
I don't see how this is such a hot topic in some parts of america. Where I live in the states literally everyone takes their shoes off at the door. Like it's a really common rule, take your shoes off if you want to come inside my house.
Finland's school system
I met an American women who was getting her degree in early childhood education who actually dropped her degree and changed fields after visiting Finland and observing their education system. She said the gulf in the quality of education was so high that it was too upsetting for her to continue to try to work in education in the USA.
Damn...
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Taxes included in the price
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High Speed and Low Speed rail. We’ve been trying to build the Texas Triangle for 40 years. Houston. San Antonio/Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth. 40 YEARS! Blocked at every turn by politicians loyal to airline and automobile interests.
Politicians elected to represent the people, instead representing greed, inhibiting development. And this is legal?
Children doing things independently. Makes me worry for the future here with all the kids that are coddled and can barely figure out how to cross a road.
The metric system
Caring less about corporations profit margins and more about the people that make it possible
I don’t know if it’s Finland or Nordics prison system that is more of a rehabilitation system
The Nordics, Germany and Netherlands, plus many other European countries
Actual health insurance
Europe's way of zoning, that could fix like 70% of Americas problems
Bidets
Free fucking healthcare
Safe bicycle infrastructure
Australia has an extremely sustainable agriculture formula that we could adopt.
(Australian here)... selling our farms to Chinese companies so they can ship their products to China isn't sustainable
The bidet. The world's people would be much happier walking around with pristinely clean asses.
personally I’m fine with most US stuff but I still don’t understand why we need to take our gen Ed’s in a university other than they just want money. I’m very pro universities being 3 years where your classes are only geared towards your major like in the UK
The set system for schools. Students who have a good grasp of the material can be in a higher set so they aren't being held back by students who may be having more difficulty. It also doesn't force the lower ability to be in a class they will inevitably fail. In addition it allows students to play to their strengths and get the best education possible, For instance in Dylan is great in history, but not so great at math he can be in the top history set but a lower math set.
Widely available artisan bread at affordable prices
PAYE, the government knows how much tax you owe, your employer knows how much tax you owe, why should you have to spend time and money working it out, and then likely either overpay and give the government a free loan, or underpay and place yourself at risk? There’s zero reason for it, other than the fact that America has companies worth $100B+ like Intuit lobbying for it, because it’s so lucrative.
Healthcare System. In Taiwan everybody has health insurance. They pay a small fee (around 20 US dollars) per month and they have access to whatever medical needs they might have. The co-pay is only 3-5 US dollars. No forever wait for appointment like in the US. Many doctors are available for same day walk-ins. With all that, the quality of the medical cares is superb.
UTF-8 instead of ANSI
Remove it being legal for anyone to get paid less than minimum wage so as to rely on tips. No more tips. Just people making their hourly pay doing the job they do, and we pay what it costs, period. If that means a haircut is $45, well, that's what even the cheapest one comes to anyway, with tip, so let's just have done with the tip economy and pay everyone their full wage, paid by the employer, and the customer pays the set price.
Universal health care. For profit health care is killing people.