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remember when there used to be all these articles about how people in europe live longer than americans because they drink red wine and eat more olive oil or bullshit like that? turns out it was universal healthcare the whole time
It's only universal healthcare when it's made from the Universalis Healthcarus region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling medicine.
l'huile de serpent, if you want.
You should sell that!
walkability might also be a factor
And diet and work safety and income distribution and the list goes on I'm sure
Plus the red wine and olive oil
Or maybe it's because they study and ban food additives beyond finding the dose that causes immediate symptoms and don't put an extremely strong industrial waste products in their drinking water (turns out the crap they put in the drinking water was poisoning the land when they dumped it in the rivers, and has been pretty convincingly linked to ovarian cysts and low testosterone while doing nothing for our teeth). Or maybe it's just because they have better social cohesion and stronger worker protections.
But probably just the olive oil and red wine. And hey, all that stuff is complicated... Why not just buy the fancy expensive liquids at the grocery store? If you pay enough and do your research, you can even get olive oil that is legal to sell over there!
Obviously
We also don't have 500 school shootings each year. At some point that has to have an impact on those stats.
Even if you don't take these deaths into account, this does something to the mental health I'm sure
Owning horses makes you live longer too. Or maybe it's that only rich people own horses? Does putting the olive oil on the horses help at all? I'm down to try anything at this point.
I'd be interested if anyone has ferreted out if that does make you live longer once adjusted for income. On the one hand you get a bunch of physical exercise and emotional bonding caring for the animal (moving hay, moving water, moving the horse, moving manure, etc.) which I suspect would still improve life expectancy. On the other hand I know plenty of folks who have been killed or ended up with serious spinal injuries due to riding accidents.
On the other hand I know plenty of folks who have been killed or ended up with serious spinal injuries due to riding accidents.
Owning, not actually riding.
I'm pretty sure the horses are supposed to put the olive oil on you, actually.
Ur trying to live longer? I'm trying to speed run this shit, I'm gonna start smoking again when I'm 50.
"If an effect can be explained by socioeconomic status, it's probably that rather than the thing that you're measuring."
I mean this isn't quite the effect of socioeconomic status as much as it is the effect of removing socioeconomic status from the equation.
So actually yeah it sort of is.
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Universal healthcare and red wine, you savages.
Nope. Turns out that people who can afford to relax with a glass of red wine were just in better health due to various socioeconomic factors rather than the wine itself.
Feel like you've never spent time in southern Europe, friend.
Where people are also healthier because of factors unrelated to drinking red wine.
European centenarian hotspots are not located in the richest parts of Europe.
The studies that postulated health benefits of wine weren't either. Correlation doesn't equal causation and the mistaken belief that wine makes you live longer is a classic example of mistaking the two.
The industrialists were happy during the Great Depression and resented the New Deal. The US was always about preserving polarized power structures, just with extra obfuscating steps.
Spoiler: The same is true in Europe, but they have been smarter, possibly from centuries more experience they know the peons will only take so much bullshit.
possibly from centuries more experience they know the peons will only take so much bullshit.
Like we don't share the same history? We came from over there once. I think part of our problem is that too many of us ignore history that didn't happen on our soil, like it's irrelevant to us even though it isn't.
US history as it is taught in US schools is rather hagiographic, suggesting at most we borrowed a few ideas (e.g. the two-house congress), but otherwise were dismissing all that was feudalism. Even our elected officials dressed as officials and not as aristocracy.
So yeah, we also discarded a notion from classic peonage that serfs belonged to the land. Rather we had slaves and waged workers (not that we treated them particularly well.) The American Dream before the California gold rush was an honest day's work for an honest day's pay and we were crap at that even then.
I don't think it's a cultural effect, I think it's about power and wealth. As in, the US has more power and wealth at its disposal, so capitalists gain more by corrupting their government than they would other governments. So they spend more money and effort corrupting that place and it gets worse. It is slowly collapsing as the corruption gets worse, I'd say this is a large part of why any centralised power structure collapses - the corruption rots its core until it can no longer sustain itself.
So it's basically "power corrupts" but on a governmental level rather than an individual one.
So eat the rich? Got it. If more people would understand society as a class struggle, maybe we would get somewhere.
It's odd in many ways the western systems can be corrupt. Often western tourists can be shocked when the corruption is done on a more blatant individual level in other countries. They object to a little money here, there, everywhere makes things work better for the locals in other countries.
The individual workers are getting it for themselves. It's sort of like tipping but the stakes are for more than just good service. If you want that passport sooner, want to get through to the next zone, or want to get out of this traffic stop "tips" 😉 will be required.
The funny thing is in the west it's often done on a larger and less noticeable individual scale via lobbying of politicians, judges, and the courts. Then it's done on smaller scales in small towns with corrupt elected officials for local sheriffs, mayors and school boards. The systems are corrupted higher up for the gain of those in higher positions and feeding those lower down doing the work.
We can also pay directly to these large services for faster passport processing and faster times through airport security. Generally the corruption at the individual level in these western institutions would be identity theft and stolen items from one's luggage.
The rich elites have always been able to move and sway politicians even up to presidents to their benefit.
To me it's amazing how they have been able to mobilize so many serfs into voting and getting behind ideas that are terrible for the masses but great for the elite. It's a masterclass on modern propaganda on how many are fooled by their own emotions via imaginary hot button topics. The think of the children tropes and watch out for those drag queens when it's priests, coaches, teachers, family members, rich elite, police officers, and politicians (especially those gay hating ones) that are the real threats time and time again.
It's too far back now for many to recall but "Theodore Roosevelt, understood that economic inequality itself becomes a driver of a dysfunctional political system that benefits the wealthy but few others. As he once famously warned, “There can be no real political democracy unless there is something approaching economic democracy.”
His response to the inequities of his times, which came to define the Progressive Era, have much to teach us now about how to sensibly tackle economic inequality. It’s worthwhile to closely examine the Rooseveltian playbook. For instance, his “Square Deal” made bold changes in the American workplace, government regulation of industry, and consumer protection.
These reforms included mandating safer conditions for miners and eliminating the spoils system in federal hiring; bringing forty-four antitrust suits against big business, resulting in the breakup of the largest railroad monopoly, and regulation of the nation’s largest oil company; and passing the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, which created the FDA.
He prosecuted more than twice as many antitrust suits against monopolistic businesses than his three predecessors combined, curbing the robber barons’ power. And he relentlessly cleaned up corruption in the federal government. One-hundred-forty-six indictments were brought against a bribery ring involving public timberlands, culminating in the conviction and imprisonment of a U.S. senator, and forty-four Postal Department employees were charged with fraud and bribery."
The New Deal was great for it's time and I'm still reminded of it when I visit many of the parks and attractions throughout the US that were built by it providing jobs for many, the Square deal was fairly revolutionary for its day. The power brokers of the day were shocked they couldn't push Teddy around or bribe him like those that came before. Without him many of the protections that are eroding and being peeled back today would not have even existed.
We can also thank him for National Parks and the protection of these initial areas like Yellowstone. Even as I get to this point it's amazing how much he was involved with so much that improved our lives to this day. It's a shame how much of it has been weakened and stripped away since.
Did anyone seriously believe Americans would be healthier if they consumed more refined fat and alcohol?
Well red wine has antioxidants l. And that's enough syllables to make most people stop paying attention.
Europeans especially Mediterraneans do tend have a better diet and life expectancy than Americans and even the rest of Europe
Damn, they are onto us.
Source? I mean it sounds plausible, but universial healthcare is hardly the only difference between USA and e.g. Italy. Red wine and olive oil are probably not the main culprit, but lifestyle generally plays a very large role. e.g. compare Italy's obesity rate with that of the USA, or even most other european countries. The wealthier european countries (including Italy) also have way fewer hours worked per capita than the USA.
If you don't have to work 40+ hours a week at a job to make sure they don't fire you to and lose your health insurance and possibly bankrupt your family then you get to have a better work-life balance.
Yea healthcare is not just going to the doctor for free. It starts in school and includes a healthy work life balance and and an environment you feel well in.
ITT: American pseudo-intellectuals showing they neither have read the study, nor are aware of income differences within Europe.
In case y’all were curious
Where legend? What do colours mean?
it shows the rest of the world literally sucking the life out of africa
So much for the blessed rains down in Africa.
blessed rains down in Africa
turned into raining bullets down Congo 🤢 🤮
Australia's presence in it is the ultimate proof, a history of conservative governments whose only difference is universal healthcare, and even with all the deadly wildlife out to get them.
I have pretty good insurance and I really should go to the doctor, but I'll have to pay 2 grand out of pocket before the insurance covers everything. It resets in January so I'm going to wait.
You could have both
Well yes, they have to come up with a spin in order to make sure people aren't attributing these lifespan increases to socialism. Otherwise peasants might get rights, and we don't want that do we?
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