Is America the greatest country in the world?

not on any measured metric that I have seen

guns per capita?

lol

Is there anybody without small d*ck syndrome who actually says "best country in the world"? (USA or otherwise)

Has Trump succeeded already?

What defines best? You need established metrics, OP, in order to make a determination.

Not anymore Canada is looking good these days.

All things considered....yes, but it's trending down since the turn of the century.

@warmblur:

Canada lacks the geographic diversity, resources, and worldwide power of the U.S. It is better in some ways though.

All things considered, it would be a no...

Hahahahaha, very true.

Greatest educational system? No

Greatest health care? No

Greatest level of equality? No

Least ammount of violence? No

Richest country, in which 1% control the economy? Yes.

It's the richest country, but not the greatest.

No. Far from it.

@THUMPTABLE:

We disagree, and I'll leave it at that

Yes.

Compared to the other big 2, we have the greatest military and control the oil.

Top 100 sure. Top 50 maybe? Top 10 not a chance.

If your answer is no, just like mine, then what country for you is the greatest?

Can America buy Canada?

We need healing.

Our version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare is far superior. The American version can't go 10 seconds without playing some drama music over everything, and it's always magically resolved by the shitty restaurant getting free stuff.

What a question.

There is no other place on this earth that I would live than right here in the good old USA.

It's currently under an identity crisis.

Hmm, according to the list of the best universities in the top 5 is M.I.T, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech and the only entry from Europe Cambridge.

As to health care, well again what is the measurement? Quality? availability? advancement ?

Equality is overrated and as seen by most communist countries, it does not work, people want something to strive for, they want that chance to own 2 cars while the guy next door owns 1. and especially if you work hard,

Violence is relative, compared to most western countries, America is not that bad.

And yes America is the richest country by GDP, also it´s the place the rest of the world gets it music, movies, games and tech from.

I thought it was Kazakhstan.

@Jacanuk: I get my games from Japan bro. The music and films are great though, agreed.

Yes, I think it is. Or rather, one of the best. These past couple and possibly future few years are really testing that belief.

There are a lot of intangible things that people don't consider in "overall happiness", household income, and so forth that go into overall rankings of "best place to live".

Some people might say the US is the best because of the Grand Canyon. Some might think it's the best because of the Pacific Northwest. Others might think the US is the best place to live because it is home to the highest quality food products, and most of the great chefs come here to perfect their craft.

For me, I think the US is great because of it's diversity. You have all these states and territories full of people that all take pride in where they come from specifically, but also where they come from as a country. I will always talk about how awesome California is, but it's just part of a larger whole of also-awesome states doing their own thing.

Anyway, just my opinion. Any arguments about "best country" are philosophical as far as I am concerned, and not really worth taking seriously. If someone thinks France is the best country because of it's cheese, well, they're not wrong.

Misconception about the US is that because our average is mediocre, that means everything is bad. As stated above I come from California which has a surprisingly terrible K-12 educational system, but we also have some of the greatest universities in the world. There are some terrible public schools out there, but some great ones, too. I was lucky enough to go to a great public school system in a low-income area, and ended up going to college at a great university after that. I grew up 15 minutes from Oakland, which during my childhood was the murder cap of the US, yet you wouldn't realize it. Again, because all the shit happened in Oakland, but since it's an average then the whole area is suddenly "a bad place to live".

As you said, equality is overrated; if your average is ranked above average because you actually try to make every single one of your schools (to stick to the education part), then you neglect to make any of your schools great.

I guess that is the argument, here: is it better to have some great, some bad, and a bunch of average schools; or is it better to have all your schools simply be above-average, but no great ones? I prefer the former, to be honest; I'd rather have the potential to excel or fail based on my own merits, than the guarantee of mediocrity.

That's another thing about America I love, the innate competitiveness of everyone here. You ahve schools competing for grants, for students, for contracts and money and all that stuff. Some might think that is not fair, that schools should be given everything they need (and they should, I don't disagree), but to excel these schools have to compete and in the end one school is going to be better than the other. If the rules are equal, then it's fair. It might not end up to everyone's liking, but it's fair.

Such a vague statement. There is no such thing as "greatest country in the world",.

Couldn't have said it better myself. My grandfather had an 8th grade education. He was one of the first people to land on Omaha Beach Normandy. He retired in 1987 with a full pension and enough money in the bank to live out last of his days at the casinos in Vegas. My grandmother had a 3rd grade education. She was born on a kitchen table in a dirt floor shack on a tobacco farm in Kentucky. She made parts for the bombs dropped on Japan. She retired in 1985 with half a million dollars in the bank. She owned 3 beautiful homes and had a full pension. My grandparents fought and worked hard to get what they wanted. Back then the American dream was available to anyone willing to work for it. Since then I've watched everything they fought and worked for get systematically destroyed by the upper 1% in this country. My grandparents bled red white and blue and they were UAW all the way. Unions were a good thing back then. In the 1950's half of this country was unionized. Now it's less then 6% and what unions are left the corporations pull the strings. The American worker had leverage against the corporations back then. The corporations have taken over in this country at the expense of future generations wealth. Over the past 20 years I watched entire generation get robbed of their wealth.

Obviously, this is a yes.

Brits bash America but at the end of the day, they gave us Hulk Hogan, they gave Arnie a job and invented the cowboy hat.

At the end of the day. God bless America.

Objectively, it's the 9th best.. But.. Come on man, it's America. They're so ballsy they even took the name of two continent and made it there's.

We managed to get dibs on the 'English' Channel but the USA is regularly called the name of two contents (the North and South Americas) to refer to just one country. That, my friend. Is success.

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp

...and as far as violence goes I think Doug Stanhope sums it up well here.

...he also explains why America is so great.

First you need to get everyone to agree on what metrics we need to base our opinions on, which sources of said information are credible and what weight each individual item has in the total score.

Go ahead, I'll wait ;)

@korvus: I refer you to the link 1 post above.

You can click the arrows at the top.

I've heard from a fair few people who've travelled Australia is, but I can't really cant really say its true. I've never been anywhere else. It's pretty easy to get a job if you know how. Healthcare is free while there is a waiting list for a lot of things if its urgent you'll get it straight away. Educations pretty good but only if you want it, but it's pretty much free, you don't even notice when you do pay it back that its coming out of you're paycheck or out of your tax as they only take a tiny portion. At the rate I pay mine I'll probably die before its done paying off, it doesn't affect credit either. Rent though is crazy high at the moment. If you've got the credit its the same price as getting a bank loan to pay the house off though the bank. Everything else is becoming cheaper and cheaper.

A lot of my quality of life factors living in the Netherlands are different from the ones I had while living in Portugal and a lot of the same ones have shifted their position in the list. Now what?

EDIT: Sorry, QoL was probably not the best word to use since that's a determined quantity but I'm at work right now and I can't think of a better word XD I meant the things I find important (or pressing) and my priorities changed when I moved to a new country and started a family. If it changed for me it's impossible for everyone to agree on what's most important and sure, you can rank criminality, pollution, wagers etc but unless there's a country on #1 in every single metric (there isn't) "greatest country in the world" will never be an observable metric. Good countries, great countries, even wonderful countries to live in, but greatest? No.

I maybe an American, but my own Country isn't without it's flaws and I wouldn't say it's the greatest, but others think our Country is a tyrant who fears us.

There is no single greatest country in the world imo, they all have some measure of flaws.

no but nearly half the country treats that sentiment like it was written in the Bible

No country can claim to be "the greatest in the world" and be taken seriously. I spent 2 years touring in the US, and there were things I loved and hated. Same can be said of any country.

Not by a longshot. When I stop seeing America mentioned on the same lists as Swaziland, Lesotho, and Liberia then I might consider the possibility that it can be in the discussion.

And I hate it when 3rd worlds think were Gods. I don't like to be view as a God figure.

you may not be considering all the things.

this is a reasonably objective attempt at answering the question

https://www.quora.com/My-friend-from-Germany-says-America-is-not-the-greatest-country-in-the-world-How-can-I-convince-him-otherwise/answer/Kevin-Dolgin?srid=aouu

Someone was gonna post this sooner or later.

-Byshop

Depends what metric you use... In terms of standard of living, no.

But no country is perfect.

@Byshop: Why would anyone post that?

Considering it´s from a pretty horrible tv-show that only lasted 2 seasons and probably 1% in here have seen.

@Jacanuk: There were 3 seasons I think... and it was pretty well received wasn't it?

But anyway, he does make some valid points in the video.

@Macutchi:

Sometimes those statistics don't tell the whole story, notice the U.S. may not be #1 in any single statistic but is up there in every one, where another country might be ahead of the U.S. in one or 2 but fall out in all the others. Also, the countries that would be ahead of the U.S. in several categories are likely much smaller and have less diversity in geography. In the United States, you can live in many kinds of climates. Also, the statistics are overall, some areas in the U.S. are likely better than other countries, while others are less, depends where you are. All those European countries are no bigger than middle-sized American states. Canada is larger of course but there's relatively few living there and there's little geographic diversity. I'd like to see countries hold those top rankings with populations over 310 million.

The statistics look good on paper, but the U.S. is where you can find most anything, including the world's best colleges. Between that, the freedoms, and being the most powerful country in the world are why it's holding on to #1 so far, though I admit it's lost some of its luster this century.

Hmm, ok I had to look up where it from and it looked like there were only 2 seasons and never heard about it.

Anyways, sure his points are valid if you measure it by those polls he mentioned, but there are many ways of measuring it.

What freedoms compared to other first world countries?

@bush_dog: Probably Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Finland.

I doubt we make the top 10 TBH.

Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands are also better.

I could probably name about 10 more before I even started to consider the US.

LOL Not with the Republican party.

@THUMPTABLE:

The freedom to buy and experience most anything, you can get more goods in the U.S. , you have more theaters and entertainment you can experience (though I suppose it depends where you are at, being among the largest countries and all), more varieties in restaurants (and food in general),more national parks and natural wonders, basically more variety in entertainment. You can expect most bands to play there. Sure, Americans like to travel, but you can often visit other countries one or 2 times and feel like you've seen everything. The U.S. you can explore many times over, and theres always more.

There's nothing holding you back here other than money, and if you apply yourself early in your life you can get a good job and do most anything you wish and never leave the country except maybe to get to Alaska and Hawaii. You don't get the range of opportunities with other countries, and that is why the U.S. is still the greatest country.

I do wish we had a better healthcare system, but even so the leading doctors and cutting edge technology are here. It does help to live in the right areas though. The south still tends to be backwards, but here in the northeast we have it good.

Like my housemate from Ghana says, so many people wish they were living in America.