I might reuse this picture a lot.
These days I’m realizing that one of the most powerful weapon to change things around –learning from others- is not used at all.
You know, whatever your beliefs are I always thought that when the real world shows you that there’s a better way, you go for it. I mean, this is what we did post WWII, making progress.
Today though it’s increasingly something people not only don’t want, but are against! Healthcare in the US is still a raging debate, despite Europe, despite Germany, despite Sweden, despite France, despite Costa Rica, the US will not copy something that works somewhere else and apply it to its people. Not even something as basic and crucial as healthcare. Mind blowing.
The same can be said for all cultures, France can’t structurally change despite having Germany perform a ton better and three decades of economic analysis coming from everywhere stipulating over and over what needs to change so real growth comes back. Nope.
Not knowing is one thing. Not applying is I suppose, a right albeit a dumb one. But not acknowledging that something else is better or “refusing” that it is the case is plain denial and goes against everything we went through and built up to the past thirty years. We now have to fight hard just to allow common sense to be heard (yes, end the drug war, yes, right to die etc).
It’s just fucking weird. It’s like we benefit progress everyday but don’t care about future progress that we enable now, with changes. Well, I’m craving for them changes.