Is America the greatest country in the world?

it's up there, if you define up there as being in the top ~20 countries (but sometimes as low as top ~60) in the measures the article uses. there are other countries that consistently score higher.

true. but now you're moving the goalposts a little.

the article references the "weighted fractal count" measure nature magazine uses to determine a country's academic output. taken from nature magazine the usa has three universities in the top ten in the world. so maybe "the world's best colleges" is slightly misleading. it does come out tops in wfc so maybe "has the highest volume of very good universities" is more appropriate.

for the record, subjectively as an englishman, i love visiting america, i'm a huge fan of the culture and the people are generally super friendly. the diversity in landscape and weather is amazing. truly beautiful in many places. your gun laws (and president) are nuts though

You know, it depends. To my mind the best country in the world is that which has stable economics and good relationships with other countries. I can guess that it may be Switzerland or Sweden for example.

@Macutchi:

Fair enough, and for the record, I loved England, I was stationed there in the U.S. Air Force back in the Reagan 80's (or should I say the Thatcher 80's), really liked the people there (they seem especially friendly up north), and being a history buff I really enjoyed exploring places like London and York. Far and away my favorite music bands are British.

You are right about guns, that is a major issue I disagree on with alot of my fellow Americans. Not a fan of guns or our inept clown of a president (though I will give him credit for North Korea if he gets verifiable denuclearization done).

Of all the criteria I can think of, no, it's not. It's not even in my top 10. With my personal criteria at least. My top 3 would be Canada, Sweden and Switzerland.

you have impeccable judgement (northerner here ;) ).

respect for serving in the military too. coincidentally that's another thing the usa are best at (or at least have the largest armed forces)

I'd have to say yes, even with its flaws and what not. Most of the people who say that it's a shitty country either have never been anywhere in their lives or just live in a shitty state.

The US is not the greatest country lol, the US is so backward on significant issues. (not a hater though)
How many countries have you visited? The US seems to be all about money...

Then you are comparing a third world country with the US, really??

See this is the dumb american mentality. Are you seriously comparing the U.S educational system to South Korea?

@Macutchi:

Thanks much, I was stationed at Croughton back then, a small but important base in the midlands north of Oxford and south of Northampton, lots of top secret stuff going on there, even the NRA was monitoring the Russians there from what I understand. At that time top secret messages from the Pentagon to USAFE headquarters in Ramstein Germany were crypticly sent through, with the code changed every 24 hours. Cool stuff and messages the public had no idea about. Those codes could be cracked in a heartbeat now I'm sure.

I reconnected with my AF buddy on Facebook a few years back, he and his wife go to England like once a year. We had great memories back then, we were early 20's and had some of the best years of our lives there.

Of course. How is this even questionable?

Of course, it's that obvious that it's not...

Ding. Excellent Schools. Dong. Quality Hospitals.

Australia? Hahaha.....very repressive in their entertainment.

@LJS9502_basic: Yeah no one watches Australian shows, there's a handful that are good. but most are shitty drama's

Repressive entertainment, lol.
Care to add to that?

@npiet1: What are the good one's?

What are you talking about? South Korea?

Well, again as I said Top 5 universities in the world has 4 American and 1 British,

@THUMPTABLE: There's hardchat a sometimes brutal interview with aussie celebs and poli's. House'os, Summer hights high. Can't really think of more.

They ban specific entertainment....ie games.

So... top universities = whole educational system? Okay, Merica! I suggest you educate yourself, I'm sure you haven't on what makes a great educational system. Just read up on it, google or a book.

Did I say that? no, I simply pointed out that clearly, the education system in the us is not that bad, considering that the top universities, you know the place people get the actual education from, they can use in the real world (for the most part), is American.

America banned kinder eggs lol.

Pretty silly metric to claim Australia is "repressive".

Not even close.

@AFBrat77: so America is great if you have money, but since most people don't have money wouldn't that mean for most people it's a terrible country?

@deactivated-5b19214ec908b:

No, people can make money if they put the effort in and don't make bad choices. I screwed myself years ago by defaulting on a student loan, but I'm still doing fine despite not working in my field.

America has not banned kinder eggs per say, they have found the surprise inside to be in violation of several US food and safety regulations.

So they could have released the egg as nothing but a egg, but that would not make it as interesting :)

No. They are sold with a warning. Facts are important.

Also Australia banned quite a few video games. Which I find repressive. Maybe their government considers them toddlers but I don't find that a positive by any stretch. You must like to be treated that way as well since you're rushing to defend.

@LJS9502_basic: No, Kinder Surprise are still banned in the US lol. Look it up. They sell something called Kinder Joys, which aren’t the same as Kinder Surprise (the original eggs).

I don’t agree with banning video games but I also don’t care to call that “repressive”. It is an insult to actual repression where people can’t vote, are murdered for their sexual orientation, or get stoned to death over blasphemy. You can easily present your point without resorting to gross hyperbole.

Also, if the worst thing you can think of about Australia is they ban video games... that basically proves the other poster’s point. Which you basically ignored just to point out video games, as if people give a shit about that when deciding where to live.

I consider censorship repressive. That is not hyperbole. I laughed at him calling it the best. I could list other things I don't like about it as I could Canada. But I don't do that. Unlike some of you.

RIP toast_burner

@LJS9502_basic: I actually googled a few freedom indices and Australia features prominently in all of them. Here for example they are significantly higher than the US: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-country-scores

As well as here: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-2017

You haven’t exactly provided an argument for why it isn’t the best. Merely taunted him and replied with some nonsense about the banning of video games, despite the fact Australia has higher “freedom” than the United States. So how can it be repressive?

Of for ***** sake. You are very argumentative about a conversation you weren't involved in and isn't about your country.

I don't like censorship. Nothing you posted negates that games get banned in Australia. Don't like my opinion.........tough. You took it too seriously to start with. Tight panties?

@LJS9502_basic: Why are you so upset over your opinion being challenged? This is a discussion forum. If you can’t handle being criticized and instead want to be validated and praised 24/7, the internet may be the wrong place for that.

I already told you that unlike the rest of you jerking it to slamming the US I'm not going to tell anyone their country sucks. I have never done that and I'm not going to start because you want me to do so.

Also you haven't challenged my opinion at all on censorship. To do that you would have to provide adequate corroboration that government censorship is a positive. And if you agree with that then I suppose NK and China would be to your liking.

It was mostly a joke. One which seems to require a safe space for YOU.

Is the recent Gridiron (NFL) banning of kneeling before the game censorship?
Yes we did have some games banned or modified before the R18+ classification came into legislation.

@LJS9502_basic: You’re not even making sense. A safe space? I’m replying to you, a safe space would mean I’d run away and stop engaging with you. Who said anything about NK and China lol wtf are you talking about.

Take a step back from your keyboard and take a deep breath. It’s really not that serious.

Its very easy to circumvent games being banned, you import the banned games and its fine, as the games cant be sold in Australian stores, customs and border protection don't have the same laws as retail stores.

You need to reread my comment since you're confused judging from your question.

No it wasn't serious. I was having fun....hence the hahahaha.............however you seem to get all bent over it.

Despite Trump and his administration, I love this country and am eternally grateful every day I live here.

I’m so sick and tired of these whiney college infants bemoaning the U.S. as the greatest injustice and blight on mankind ever conceived. Whine, whine, whine. Ok, pardon the hyperbole but many come off that way. These children have no concept as to how good they have it. We live in incredible times, we have nearly everything at our fingertips we need, and if not, the potential to improve our lot more than other places afford us. Even relatively speaking, those living in poverty today are living like kings comparatively to not to long ago in a historical timeframe. Any time you feel like moaning about your lot in life living in America, go watch some videos from other countries on bestgore. A year of college should be dedicated to sending students around the globe to see how blessed they truly are, perhaps this would help silence those who require “safe spaces” when people so much as disagree with them.

America certainly has its problems and room for improvement no doubt, and I can’t say whether it’s the greatest place on earth, but one thing I’m sure about is that it could be a HELL of a lot worse.

Man, if you are american -- your brain has been washed since your birth to think that America is the greatest county in this whole wide world.... Up to this day I have never understood how to measure the greatest of one country - this is stupid - you can measure GDP and other metrics, but you can not measure opinions -- what is great and what is the greatest. Anyways clearly most of the folks here think that America is in fact not the greatest country in the world.

Compared to other developed countries, we don't have it that great. The Scandinavian countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Britain, South Korea, and all countries in Western Europe are much nicer places to live and raise a family than the US. They have universal healthcare, livable wages, paid maternity leave, free or cheap college. Working class people in the US get a raw deal compared to other developed countries. Compared to war torn starving African and South/Central American countries, sure the US looks good. But the US has fallen far behind the rest of the developed world. Why has this happened? Because our government is ridiculously corrupt and doesn't work for the people, but rather the banks, billionaires, and big corporations. The socioeconomic inequality just keeps getting worse in the US. I would love to see our rotten political system get torn completely down and remodeled on the social democracies that work so well in Scandinavia.

Trump was complaining that we only get immigrants from craphole countries and not nice countries like Norway. Why would anyone from Norway want to move to the US? The US is a craphole compared to Norway. Norwegians have some of the highest wages in the world, paid maternity and paternity leave, top quality univeral healthcare, free college, and a thriving economy.

This is hilarious. Will you actually say this in person? lol. I would like to hear this conversation.

I do not think that America is the best, but we have one job. DO NOT KILL SUPERMAN. Actually, it is more realistic with holding back on killing Superman's friend because that would be wrong. Very wrong. Infinite-Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths-type stuff.

@bigfootpart2: world renowned colleges such as Yale, Princeton, and Stanford? The 5th largest economy in the world in one state that is the epicenter of driving technological innovation? You can tout all these socialist programs as if they somehow amount to some sort of utopia nirvana while you attempt to paint the U.S. as lacking far behind in its (admittedly) corrupt capitalistic predilections, but there's a reason many people (yes, even those from Norway) attempt to move here. We have some of the best institutions in the world.

This may be just my weeb/otaku self speaking, but I would genuinely love to live in Japan. Not just on an "I like anime" level, but on a "I deeply respect and love the culture, food, geography, etc." level.

@nepu7supastar7: HA. That's a good one. Too bad there too many small vocal minorities trying to conform it to those identities.

@360ru13r:

Nani? ?

Jeezus! You made me dig up my old comment to know what the hell you're talking about!

At any rate, you're still wrong. If anything, they're trying to conform to our society.