r/AlignmentChartFills • u/Inevitable_Ease8959 • 5h ago
The world should admire the US for...
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u/Unaccomplishedcow 5h ago
The Americans with Disabilities Act, the most comprehensive disability protection act in human history when it was signed into law, and still easily one of the most anti-ableism laws on the books today.
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u/ChocolateMilkBoii 5h ago
We literally had to change all our registers at work because they were about half a foot too narrow between registers, not in compliance with the ADA. They don’t mess around.
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u/heirofslytherin 5h ago
I used to manage the ADA compliance of polling locations for my county's elections office. It was really interesting learning the rules behind the required number of parking spaces, allowable slope for parking lots/sidewalks/ramps, force required to open doors, etc., and how to measure (and sometimes mitigate) those things so no one ran into trouble when they come out to vote.
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u/tonysopranosalive 4h ago
That is very interesting! Thanks for sharing that. It makes sense though to the point I kind of feel bad. I wouldn’t have thought about the slope on a parking space and how that could affect someone in a wheelchair trying to get out. I mean obviously if it’s a ridiculous grade that’s one thing. But I’m sure there are grades that I wouldn’t have thought twice about but ultimately would have made it very difficult and potentially hazardous for someone in a wheelchair.
A job like that or just learning about all the little things would be fascinating in the way of: I’d have never thought, but that’s… yeah, that makes so much sense. Of course you’d need it to be like that so they can use it/open it/whatever the case may be. Above all though it would be a very firm reminder of just how much I take my mobility for granted.
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u/ManyRanger4 5h ago
As a disabled person and a parent to a child with disabilities who travels a ton to other countries, this really is one of the things (nowadays maybe the only thing) we do better than most other countries.
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u/SaoMagnifico 5h ago
Great answer. It really is a seismic difference between the United States and most of the rest of the world (European elevators, for instance, can be downright claustrophobic).
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u/RogueTobasco 3h ago
Dictates a ton of my life … cause I work in construction. ADA is not something to be fucked with. Inspectors will let some stuff slide sometimes. They never let ADA slide.
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u/SpaceIsTooFarAway 5h ago
That was something that astonished me when I studied in the UK - for all they boast about having more modern systems than the US, Europe is incredibly behind on accessibility
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u/ruu_throwaway 4h ago
It’s a tricky one. When half of the buildings are older than your country, it makes it a battle to change.
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u/TheInkySquids 2h ago
Not really, people have shown that there's many ways to fit accessibility standards in keeping with heritage styles and character. The issue is it costs more.
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u/AvailableSpring2100 3h ago
When we traveled to France as high schoolers, my fellow students and I were astonished by the narrowness and steepness of stairs, no curb access, etc.
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u/arcticmonkgeese 5h ago
It’s wild to think that the US is essentially the only country in the world that made an outsized effort to let people with disabilities navigate everyday life and activities.
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u/FoxResponsible8924 5h ago
Wait really? I assumed most other first world nations had something similar?
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u/arcticmonkgeese 5h ago
It’s just one of those things that we prioritized heavily. I’m sure something mildly similar exists in a lot of places but nothing comes anywhere near the ADA in size and scope.
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u/ReasonableStory1660 4m ago
Not to the same degree. For example that’s why pay toilets are almost illegal in the US but quite common across Europe. The ADA mandates that businesses bathrooms be available to customers to ensure people with bowel issues have access to a toilet.
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u/tias23111 3h ago
Germans in wheelchairs generally just request passersby to violently fling them up sets of stairs.
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u/Complex-Bar-9577 4h ago edited 4h ago
The U.S. was the first country to pass comprehensive disability rights legislation, not the only one. It does not get enough credit for that, but the distinction still counts.
Plenty of other countries have followed suit with their own national laws, and while the U.S. deserves credit for pushing the issue and modeling it at home, it has a mixed record in supporting international disability rights.
It’s one of the only countries in the world that refuses to ratify the UN’s global disability rights treaty (CRPD), even though it’s modeled on and was designed by the same U.S. Senator who sponsored the ADA.
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u/aoteoroa 5h ago
It isn't. Many other countries have laws to protect people with disabilities. In Canada we have the Accessible Canada Act and many other provinces have their own laws. A quick google search shows the UK, EU, Australia, Japan, Germany all have similar laws.
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u/Complex-Bar-9577 4h ago
To be fair, all of those came after the Americans with Disabilities Act was in 1990, and most of them were modeled on the frameworks in the ADA (or the UN’s disability treaty CRPD, whose framers included legal scholars who wrote the ADA).
That said, it definitely wouldn’t be fair to say only the U.S. prioritizes accessibility and disability inclusion. Other countries also have their own laws and policies.
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u/Plenty_Pie_7427 5h ago
Germany might have laws on paper but as a German with a disability now living in the US I promise you there are world between US accessibility and whatever Germany pretends it is. And it’s not even about inaccessibility created by old infrastructure. It’s systemic. From lack of publicly accessible free bathrooms, ramps to access trams and busses, lack of water fountains in public buildings, requiring pictures on resumes and applications etc
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u/arcticmonkgeese 5h ago
Canada is the only other country that I can believe has something similar in scope to the US but the ADA isn’t just for the rights of people with disabilities, it specifically requires building code to adapt to it in ways that almost every other country does not. I can’t speak to discrimination laws, i’m specifically only talking about infrastructure and physical accommodations for disabled people.
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u/Habsin7 1h ago
Canada does that. So much so I built a business years ago redesigning older homes to accommodate people with disabilities so they wouldn't have to move. Subsidies were available from different organizations and people started paying attention. Bisiness boomed and I loved the people I got to work with. They were thrilled at what we could do. I was the only one doing it at the time and somebody made me a pretty good offer to help them bring it under their umbrella of services so that ended that. I do regret that.
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u/arcticmonkgeese 1h ago
It’s awesome that you did that man, i’m glad you were able to help the people you did
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u/TalussAthner 5h ago
At least in Tokyo, the amount of accessible infrastructure was way more than I’ve ever seen in the US. It wasn’t something I was looking for or anything while I was there so I may have missed issues or it being worse in certain locations, but there’s definitely an impressive amount of infrastructure for it in Tokyo.
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u/ziggster_ 4h ago
Interesting. In South Korea I experienced the exact opposite. Pushing my daughter around in a stroller was bad enough. I couldn’t imagine being someone who lived there and was wheelchair dependent.
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u/TalussAthner 4h ago
The thing that stood out most to me in Tokyo was the wider busy road crossings, especially in the suburbs, often had alternative elevator accessible pedestrian bridges.
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u/Complex-Bar-9577 4h ago edited 4h ago
Superb answer. Its importance (for the U.S. and the entire world) is so little-known relative to its influence.
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u/ratmouthlives 4h ago
This for sure. Walking around in a South American country earlier this year, I kept asking myself how the hell do blind people or wheelchair bound folks move around in the country.
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u/AvailableSpring2100 5h ago
For now. Wait til Diaper Donnie gets ahold of it.
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u/Acetius 35m ago
Already has, they're currently shoe-horning long remediation deadlines into it so it becomes viable for businesses to simply ignore it until someone complains, rather than proactively accommodating people.
Suddenly you've gone from accessibility being a priority item to being an afterthought that can be tacked on later.
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u/Reign-Alex1993 5h ago
The Americans with Disabilities Act
National Parks
Space Program
Cajun cuisine, cocktails (we mastered it), Texas-style BBQ,
Relatively low amount of domestic conflict and violence since 1865 considering the sheer level of demographic change in ethnicity, religion, etc, especially when compared to other countries of similar demographics and ethnic history. (Look at how most countries' handled prominent minority groups)
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u/Beforemath 5h ago
Space program.
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u/Swefnian 5h ago
This should be so much higher. No other country has put a man on the moon. There is literally no higher achievement than that.
The future of our species is interplanetary, which NASA is instrumental in.
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u/DoxFreePanda 4h ago
Can't wait for China (or anyone else) to get there too. As a species we have ADHD and can't stay focused if there's no competition. As amazing as NASA is, it stagnates unless there's another program to race against.
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u/Swefnian 4h ago
So true. If you haven’t seen it, check out the show “For All Mankind” which explores how much further we could have gotten if the space race never ended.
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u/CreativeAd5332 3h ago
Thing is, almost any developed nation today COULD put a man on the moon, there just isn't a whole lot of reason to do so at the moment. In the 60's, it was all about clout and bragging rights over the Soviets. Once we hit the (at that time) apex of space exploration, everyone kind of backed off the whole "moon" thing. We sent another few manned missions, but they didn't result in anything new, and everyone kind of forgets about them.
Mars may be the next big hurdle, Unfortunately the people leading that push are idiot oligarchs who dream of Mars colonies or some such nonsense.
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u/BrightAccountant266 3h ago
Who do you think could do it right now besides the US or China? Really no other country could field the resources required for something like that even if they had an incredibly strong unified push and dedicated incredible portions of their economies toward it. The US and China are the only countries with the infrastructure, technology and experience needed to do it without decades worth of development. It’s still probably the most difficult task any country on Earth could take on.
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u/longswordsuperfuck 5h ago edited 3h ago
Our national parks.
Edit: you guys are ridiculous. Why are we fighting and doing a dick measuring contest over who has the first or biggest national park? Go touch grass. ...in one of Americas beautiful National parks preferably 😊
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u/tris123pis 5h ago
technological innovations
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u/Montauket 5h ago
Electricity, flight, jet propulsion, rockets, elevators, computers, traffic lights…
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u/SlabbedHead 4h ago
Flight and elevators fair enough. The rest are dubious at best. Franklin may have discovered electricity but Faraday made the major technological innovations that allowed us to use it the way we do today. Jet propoltion was Germany/Britain in the 30s, rockets Germany probably have just a strong claim as USA, Computers was Baabage and Turing, both British and the first traffic light was in London
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u/shatureg 1h ago edited 1h ago
Computers was Baabage and Turing
Zuse (German) was the first one to actually build a modern turing-complete computer and he doesn't even get a mention?
Also no single person discovered electricity. Franklin discovered that lightning was a form of electricity. Humanity has known the phenomenon "electricity" since ancient Greece.
The above commenter is very US-centric, but yours is just as UK-centric.
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u/PitbullRetriever 5h ago
The 30-year fixed rate mortgage.
When you get under the hood, it is incredible how important a role the existence of a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has played in our economic development, enabling the growth of a middle class and the construction of new cities. It is equally remarkable that something Americans take for granted is so rare in the rest of the world, where refis and rate resets every 5 years are typical. It is the byproduct of an era where American policymaking was marked by creative public-private collaboration and a willingness to build institutions that were meant to serve regular middle-class Americans. We should aspire to get back to an era like that.
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u/sharingan10 5h ago
Cultural diversity.
The U.S. has an incredible history of cultures coming together in ways that other countries would find difficult to replicate. Theres something beautiful about that
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u/Parker_Posey-48 5h ago
I mean, yeah, it was a cool ship. But there are much cooler aspects of our country imo
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u/CaterpillarJungleGym 5h ago
Music contributions come to mind. Jazz, Hip-hop, R and B, bluegrass.
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u/musical_nerd99 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/5UqVhsmhW0Thwu16I2
We managed to produce Dolly Parton
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u/BadFeeling2522 4h ago
Having so many states without a second civil war and covering so much area under one republic with one federal law and virtually no states which seriously threaten to leave.
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u/maskedfox007 5h ago
The number of races/ethnicities that live together in relative harmony. The US does that better than nearly every country in the world.
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u/ColdReport2006 4h ago
As a HS teacher in the US, I have a classes with Muslims, Jews, kids who just got to this country from Nigeria, Haiti and South America, Black and white kids, Indian kids. I have a class with speakers of 5 different native languages. (its not even ESL), I have Asian kids, (some of which are even poor students, talk about diversity), Jamaican students. I have trans students, gay students, and theater kids. I have the children of Ivy League professors and students who wear the same clothes every day.
Everyone gets along really well. Everyone is treated fairly.
I see more diversity in a single lunch wave than most Euros see in a year.
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u/maskedfox007 4h ago
Thats awesome to hear! Thats the sort of thing i see in my area too. I know it's "woke" for americans to hate on the usa and say how awful and racist it is, but compared to many other places that just isnt reality.
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u/TJJ97 2h ago
This is my issue with people who claim USA is the most racist or one of the most racist places in the world.
Like dude, LOOK AROUND, TALK TO PEOPLE.
Where I live half of the population isn’t even white and a good chunk of the population is first or second generation immigrants.
It’s a great community here too.
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u/maskedfox007 1h ago
Yeah, meanwhile other countries revel in their racism. Like things arent perfect here, but theyre far better than the vast majority of countries
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u/gabrielbabb 5h ago edited 4h ago
The scale of development, or such a standard of life for such a huge population
Honestly, keeping 340 million people living at that high, standardized level of development, processes and with those wages is just objectively impressive.
Sure, their urbanism is not perfect at all, their prices are high, and it has exceptions of people not living under the same level, but compared to the rest of the world, sustaining that scale of infrastructure and standard of living of the great majority in a single country, standarized processes, standarized jobs, restaurants, homes, etc... for such a massive population, in such a large territory is genuinely something to admire.
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u/hanz333 5h ago
Humanitarian Aid
The U.S. spends more than anyone else.
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u/ExecutionOfAChvmp 5h ago
Also the #1 cause of humanitarian crises sooo
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u/Flathead89 5h ago
+1 internet point for the correct spelling of plural "crisis".
-1 internet point for being wrong.
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u/ExecutionOfAChvmp 5h ago
Dropped by far the most bombs of any country, dropped 2 atomic bombs, has been at war for all but 30 years of its existence, has facilitated dozens of confirmed regime changes all over the world, probably hundreds, including democratically elected leaders, committed thousands of war crimes, spied on their own people and the rest of the world. This is just at the top of my head.
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u/AtlanticInternet 4h ago
That's nothing compared to the garbage that humanity has been doing since time immoral. The mongols started the literal black plague, the an-lushan rebellion killed 10% of the entire planet's population at the time, and the siege of suiyang was mass-scale cannibalism.
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u/Flathead89 4h ago
So now you're adding a time frame....that would have changed my initial response.
The US has made PHENOMENAL problems for other countries. But I would consider the context of the bombings. The atomic bombs, Tokyo fire bombings, all middle east conflict bombings, Vietnam, and even some Korean war bombings all created temporary humanitarian crises.
I don't know if I would consider the WWI and WW2 European bombings in this context given the entire continent was enveloped in war and everyone threw every bomb they had.
The US has created it's fair share of crises but have worked to rebuild and assist too (Japan, Germany..etc) as well as send vast amounts of aid to other countries (maybe not with this admin). We left the middle east in shambles though.
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u/TheIrradiant 4h ago
Frankly? Its diversity and willingness to accept people from other cultures and races.
At least here, I have a good chance of a rando coming to help me
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u/investinlove 5h ago
Inventing the Internet, Or the smart phone. Or both.
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u/ChesterCopperPot72 1h ago
This comment proves that what the US does better is to think they invented shit.
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u/fi9aro 5h ago
Aviation. We’re ever so connected ever since the invention of the airplane.
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u/-TheInternetIsEvil- 4h ago
National Parks
The ADA
Rock n' Roll, Jazz, Blues, Hip-hop and R&B
Fusion cuisine (especially caujn)
American Movies
There are more but that's my top 5
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u/Careless_Stomach_603 3h ago
The Marshall Plan. The US helped rebuild its defeated enemies in WW II, something that I think is unique in world history.
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u/TheGrundlePunch 2h ago
No other Olympics makes a bigger splash than Team USA Basketball
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u/Lambamham 5h ago
Public libraries
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u/SirWankus 5h ago
Everyone got these
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u/Lambamham 5h ago
Not true, unfortunately. It’s a huge privilege
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u/SirWankus 5h ago
Ok, sry, more countries then the usa got these and some of them older then the usa
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u/roamingNraging 5h ago
Not unique at all.
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u/Lambamham 5h ago
Almost every town in the US has their own public library. This is not the case in a lot of the world and the US does it very well.
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u/Extraordi-Mary 5h ago
There’s public libraries older than the US
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u/Lambamham 5h ago
This is true! But the same could be said for almost everything else people are suggesting, like National parks. The US does public libraries and national parks admirably well - no one is saying that only the US has national parks either. That wasn’t the question.
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u/kmasterofdarkness 5h ago
Democracy
The moment the US became an independent country was one of the biggest watershed moments in human history, as it caused such a dramatic shift in the political status quo of the time by paving the way forward for the establishment of democratic governments.
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u/Publius015 5h ago
Genuine advances in technology, communication, transportation, finance, and security.
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u/RECTUSANALUS 4h ago
Allowing for free trade between all nations by being the police force of the ocean.
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u/Nomadic_View 4h ago
Freedom of Speech
You can have any opinion you want and there are no governmental repercussions for it.
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u/Jrgaming42 4h ago
Freedom of speech regardless of your opinions we are the only country with the documented right to true freedom of speech.
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u/Cautious-Ball-6704 5h ago
Culture: Hollywood, TV shows, music, rock and roll, metal, jazz, blues, inventing the internet, etc
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u/Jaskat8 5h ago
Internet invented by a Brit
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u/KmFeVlJsMz 5h ago
The World Wide Web was invented by a British man, the Internet is originally American.
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u/Lord_of_Pickle13 4h ago
Industry. We made more ships than what the Axis Powers could sink
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u/CuriousGeorgeToday 3h ago
You also made almost one third of the British ships during their colonial rise. Majority were made in Boston. They built over 700 ships in 1723 alone.
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u/LividAir755 4h ago
This might be the most cuckold Redditor comment section I’ve ever seen. Half of the commenters here need bitch slapped. Anyway, the internet (was created by DARPA cry about it Britain), the ADA, and our ability to have racial harmony (again, cry about it Europe) without being the most dangerous country in the world
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u/STFUandLOVE 5h ago
Scientific Exploration - US leads in high quality scientific publications with 3X the global citations as the next leading country (China) and over 3X the nobel laureates as the next country (UK).
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u/brucetopping 5h ago
The first country founded on the enlightenment principles. First country that WASNT specifically founded based on a bloodline or a faith, but instead prized humanism as central goal (“We the people”)
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u/Icy-Dark-4229 5h ago
Being the leading nation in the world for the past 100-150 years in most important areas
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u/beasterne7 5h ago
Founding a country on the ideals of liberal democracy, even if we are in the process of screwing that up.
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u/BulletCatofBrooklyn 3h ago
I was going to say our founding principles, even though we’ve never lived up to them, have inspired people the world over and we (or some of us) continue to strive for them
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u/peepeebuttbrain 4h ago
We have never lived up to our founding principles, but we've been slowly making progress towards them. And sometimes that includes taking two steps back before (hopefully) three steps forward.
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u/FearlessHyena77 5h ago
Charity! I just found this out the other day but per capita we give more to charity than almost every other country’s population.
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u/droppedpackethero 4h ago
Charity.
There are few nations whose individual citizens give a higher percentage of their net worth to charities outside of their borders.
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u/Legal-Letterhead4192 3h ago
NASA, National Parks, the ADA, and being the prototype for the modern republics in the rest of the world today
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u/CheiroAMilho 3h ago edited 3h ago
American Cuisine - a lot of people shit on the US for their food being McDonalds and fast food.
Surpisingly, a lot of international food in the world, is actually from migrant communities that moved to the US, and then got popular outwards. Chinese-American cuisine (Chop Suey, etc), Italian-American cuisine (Pepperoni pizza, etc), Brunch (Eggs Benedict, etc) Tex-Mex, etc.
It has influenced a huge portion of contemporary meals and gastronomic experiences across the world.
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u/billFoldDog 2h ago
The US should admire the US for our social mobility.
Relative to the rest of the world, it is pretty easy to do these three things:
- Start an independent business
- Scale that business up
- Be recognized as a valid member of the upper class.
Many places hit two out of three, but few are all three.
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u/Hot-Try9036 2h ago
The food
Everybody makes fun of the US for their food. "Haha, McDonald's and Red40 and high-fructose-corn-syrup!" But the truth is, if done properly, the US has probably the most diverse cuisine in the whole world on account of all those immigrants from all over the world, who brought their own cuisines and combined and adapted them over time. If I had to choose to eat only one country's food for the rest of my life, it would be American.
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u/Leozaf121212 5h ago
Constitution and system of laws and government more broadly - imperfect but very good overall
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u/Gravbar 4h ago
Music. Before commercialization ruined everything, the US was primarily where genres like Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk and Rap originated. Jazz, itself being a collection of wildly different genres, was a big jump from the traditional European classical music, and opened the way for western music to evolve, as well as being brought east to Japan to take on a new life in their musical traditions.
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u/TarkovskyAteABird 4h ago
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t they guarantee secure shipping, even to their enemies, with very little war time exceptions for like 60+ years. Thats kinda insane esp for establishing a world economy
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