tpratt441
1 HN recommender · recommended in 4 months, 2018–2026
4:49 · 5M views · Jul 22, 2012
The opening scene of HBO's The Newsroom, in which anchor Will McAvoy answers a student's question about why America is the greatest country. He delivers a blunt speech arguing it no longer is.
Posted in threads on US costs and institutions as a famous fictional rebuttal to American exceptionalism.
5 comments from Hacker News
It's from a fictional drama (The Newsroom) but this a great riposte to "freedom in the US". You're going to say that we're the only ones in the world that has freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. this video
As measured .. how? I understand liking your country. I'm an American, too. I like my country, a lot. But, I think that the phrase "we are the best in the world" gets thrown around a lot as a meaningless platitude. It gets used more as a "my team is the Yankees"-style of statement. e.g. expressing your preference/allegiance, rather than meaning what it actually says, which is that the US is the 'best' in the world. To be the 'best' at something, you need to define how you're measuring that. Healthiest? Happiest? Longest life span? Because when you look at actual metrics for these types of things, across multiple countries, the US does not rate at the top. Have you seen this clip of Jeff Daniels in "The Newsroom"? this video ("America is not the greatest country in the world anymore")
No, it's you who are delusional. The U.S. ranks 45th in press freedoms. There are 25 European countries who rank better. Heck, there are even 5 African countries who rank higher. [LINK] [LINK] This infamous clip from The Newsroom might shed more light on how the U.S. is actually doing in comparison to other democratic countries (all statistics quoted are easily verified if you want to look into it) this video
Reminds me of the speech "America is not the greatest country in the world" from the show Newsroom: this video It was made 14 years ago and I don't think the US improved on any of those statistics.
The "titans" you speak of are Jerome Powell, and Janet Yellen. Not the schmucks that put Taxis on the internet, or effectively stole billions of dollars from SoftBank to build a rental company. These types of extremely competent people are far and few between in important parts of our society. So idk what the fuck you're talking about Yosemite? (from NewsRoom Intro this video ).