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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

  • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s only universal healthcare when it’s made from the Universalis Healthcarus region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling medicine.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          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!

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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

            Chemicals in the water turning frogs gay lmao

            • theneverfox@pawb.social
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              1 year ago

              It’s banned in the EU and Japan. Their dental outcomes are the same over the same period, and guess what we have more of?

              Fluoride in toothpaste isn’t the same as what they dump in the drinking water, molecules matter.

              One of those is a medical product lethal if you drink a bottle of it, the other is a hazardous material that you need training and PPE to handle

      • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        We also don’t have 500 school shootings each year. At some point that has to have an impact on those stats.

        • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Even if you don’t take these deaths into account, this does something to the mental health I’m sure

  • Yote.zip@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • GMkOz2MkLbs2MkPain@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • NABDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • Patches@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        On the one hand you get a bunch of physical exercise and emotional bonding caring for the animal

        I see you have only met one subset of people who own horses.

        We call them horse poor.

    • xpinchx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ur trying to live longer? I’m trying to speed run this shit, I’m gonna start smoking again when I’m 50.

  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    Hank’s razor

    “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.

  • 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.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        So eat the rich? Got it. If more people would understand society as a class struggle, maybe we would get somewhere.

    • WashedOver@lemmy.ca
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      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.

    • UnspecificGravity@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Or maybe they literally blew up their whole continent and got to start over again after learning how shit worked.

      Europe is old, but their current governments and infrastructure isn’t.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      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.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • adam_y@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Congratulations, you’ve taken a flippant, light-hearted, comment and turned it into a debate about the veracity of cause/correlation whilst demonstrating some wonderful contrarianism.

            Here, have a fake internet point for your trouble.

            Wine may or may not increase life expectancy, but stress and anger have been shown to have negative long term health implications. Lighten up a bit, and try not to take the internet too seriously.

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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        no, it turns out that political biases in the US are walls in the brains of either political leaning.

        Look at the studies that concluded that moderate exercise, saturated fats, and red wine were contributing factors to the longevity and you’ll see that they did account for the socieconomic status and access to the healthcare. Everything else would’ve been a really, really bad study. Which you suggest it was without ever even looking it up.

        But nevermind, maybe you could do a simple back-of-the-envelope analysis: southern/mideterranian Europe is where people live longest. Yet their GDP per Capita is like half of a representative northern countr. And their healthcare system is absolutely garbage in comparison as well. And yet they still live longer on average.

        But, no, please, I’m sorry, I’m probably fascist for saying that, I probably vote for Trump and whatever other explanation your brain can find to not realize you’re wrong.

        – Eurobro. (but absolutely would vote for Trump, he’d make Europe great again, trust me).

  • Floey@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Did anyone seriously believe Americans would be healthier if they consumed more refined fat and alcohol?

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • mycatiskai@lemmy.one
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      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.

    • JayObey711@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • Madlaine@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Or getting your doctor say (tho way more nicely): “Some of your conditions may be caused by being fat. Please go to this public-healthcare-funded dietary assistant that will create an individual dietary plan for you”.

        Lost 20kg in the months following it and stayed at the lower end of the “slightly overweight” area since 2 years.

        I’m in no way a healthy person, but I would be way less healthy without public Healthcare. And probably wouldn’t be a net positive to the economy as well.

        And in an economic view: If I would not have received Healthcare when I was broke and homeless I wouldn’t have been able to pay more in taxes and back into public healthcare in the last two years than I have ever received in my life before.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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      I thought they blew this all up by just doing a simple correlation of the amount of time spent walking vs health. So instead of walking to your driveway, you walk to the bus stop… etc.

  • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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    ITT: American pseudo-intellectuals showing they neither have read the study, nor are aware of income differences within Europe.

  • InternetUser2012@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Arfman@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    Wait, what if olive oil and red wine was the carrots give good eyesight story of the recent times?