> But my point wasn't to say that the U.S. is unsafe.
But when you say the US is "exceptionally violent" that is indeed what you're saying.
> they need to be taught to recognize our society's preference for conflict over cooperation, for winner-take-all strategies,
Oh come on. This just reads like selection bias. Just drive to work some day, and look at all the cars cooperating so the traffic smoothly flows. They go to work, and cooperate with the people at the workplace, cooperate with their suppliers, cooperate with their customers, and pretty much everyone they interact with all day, every day.
The winner-take-all mentality is in organized sports, which are specifically designed for that, and those are in every country. (And even then the teams have to cooperate with each other, and cooperate with other teams on rules and schedules.) But not much in other activities. Humans would all literally die in short order if we don't cooperate.
Thought I'd throw in this thought:
Free markets are based on voluntary cooperation.
Socialism is based on forced cooperation. I can't even think of a functioning system based on non-cooperation.
> Homicide rate is among the highest of all OECD countries
First off, what is and is not an OECD country is selection bias right from the start. "Among" the highest is subjective as well, and it's far from the highest. Next, the US is a large and diverse country. There are some neighborhoods with very high homicide rates (in Chicago, for example). This is not at all representative of the rest of the country, but it averages into the statistics.
The TV series "Sons of Anarchy" is certainly entertaining, but has nothing to do with reality in the US.
The homicide rate is still very, very low compared to deaths from other causes. It doesn't even rate a mention in lists of deaths from causes. I wouldn't characterize that as "exceptionally violent".
> The US still has legal capital punishment.
28 states have capital punishment, 22 do not. In 2019, 22 people total were executed. While this is 22 too many and it needs to stop, it is statistically insignificant compared to the population of 328,000,000.
> The whole approach to the penal system being very revenge-based
I agree with that, but don't agree it makes society violent.
> The prevalence of sexual violence
I clicked on the reference, expecting to see rates of conviction for sexual violence. It's not there.
Things aren't binary in real world. When you compare how ie Europe works, the differences are there and in similar vein as highlighted.
American society is brutal in many respects. It is truly winner-take-all and rest be damned, you should have tried harder. Be it medicine (you either can afford it or are screwed - unimaginable for any european country), education (public universities are almost/totally free everywhere), penal system etc.
I find it interesting how US top 1% succeeded to persuade the remaining 99% of the population that this is best system for them, when clearly it isn't. Not if you want the best place for your kid to grow up and be given fairest and best chances and have a good safe life. I guess Hollywood helped, but rather than contemplating some conspiracy it seems to me its more some sort of self-fulfilling myth.
We know class mobility is largely a myth, and US society is deeply divided into classes based on money. And as for violence - its there on more noticeable levels than across the pond.
But when you say the US is "exceptionally violent" that is indeed what you're saying.
> they need to be taught to recognize our society's preference for conflict over cooperation, for winner-take-all strategies,
Oh come on. This just reads like selection bias. Just drive to work some day, and look at all the cars cooperating so the traffic smoothly flows. They go to work, and cooperate with the people at the workplace, cooperate with their suppliers, cooperate with their customers, and pretty much everyone they interact with all day, every day.
The winner-take-all mentality is in organized sports, which are specifically designed for that, and those are in every country. (And even then the teams have to cooperate with each other, and cooperate with other teams on rules and schedules.) But not much in other activities. Humans would all literally die in short order if we don't cooperate.
Thought I'd throw in this thought:
Free markets are based on voluntary cooperation. Socialism is based on forced cooperation. I can't even think of a functioning system based on non-cooperation.