Why America is not the greatest country in the world

[_schizo321437]

USA #1 fer sure!

That's just as true as this:

Just Like Thomas Jefferson was advocating for Freedom of Religion,  Religion here being synonym to any kind of Christianity some might include Judaism.
NOT "Freedom" from religion like being ATHEIST!

Oh and more thing for those atheists... it says god something on our moneys and you believe in money don't you? It says on the money that we trust in god!

And this cute evolution story... that's just some euro-elitist fairytale to make it harder for good christians to get nobel prize in biology, pricks!

We should create a proper american prize for real-young earth creationist evangelist(not those softy catholics!) and we're gonna call it the...

REAGAN PATRIOT PRIZE
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I'm American in spirit but, not on paper, the opposite of that Barack Hussein Osama

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[Leshma]

[IR_Kuoin]

Why would you walk into the track instead of going behind the barrier after your car stalled?

[Leshma]

O.C. Couple Obsessed With ‘World of Warcraft’ Sentenced to Prison for Extreme Child Neglect

An Anaheim couple was sentenced to prison for keeping their two young daughters locked inside their filthy mobile home for years without adequate food or basic care while they obsessively played the online computer game World of Warcraft.

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[Clockworkkiller]

Merica isnt the greatest country in the world

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ITS THE FUCKING GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE UNIVERSE

[Leshma]

American quality buildings. Made by wood as thick as quality photo paper

And then being surprised how a hurricane can wreck a whole state. Start building properly instead of cheap!

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Once was very close to a lightning - it's freaking scary and humbling.

dont worry about Molly Anders, they still build their houses out of mud n shit in Germany, they look like the fuckin teletubbies house.  He's just jelly.

How come houses in america are made of wood?

how come america claims to be the richest country in the world but 80 to 0% of the population live in homes made of wood and cardboard. In most countries,people live in concrete cement houses made of cement..bricks/blocks and wood is by far an inferior material to cement especially in building,its way cheaper too...why is this?

First of all, America doesn't "claim" to be anything. This was probably a case where the news media took a very complex subject like GNP, world economy, etc. and boiled it down to a 10 second sound-bite. Okay, now that I've got that off my chest.

As in most parts of the world, construction of homes is based mostly on the availablilty of building materials. If you live in a country that has an abundance of wood, you will typically build houses using wood. If you live in a country that lacks forests that can harvested readily for lumber you will build houses out of stone, rocks, mud, bricks or whatever you can cost effectively get.

Second, there are plenty of houses in the US that are constructed of brick or stone. It's all a matter of affordability and personal choice as well as what part of the country you live in and when your house was built. In the US, brick is more expensive but not so much that only the rich can afford it. However, if given a choice, most in the US would rather own a home even if they are not willing to pay a 15-20% premium for brick.

Lastly, I'm not sure I would agree that stone construction is far superior to wood. You have to consider things such as energy efficiency, speed in which you can produce homes, protection from the elements, performance in natural disasters (earthquakes, fires, etc.) Also, if you're referring to construction in Europe, you have to consider when the houses were built. The science of home construction has changed dramatically in the last few hundred years so comparing houses built to in the US where most are built in the last century to houses that are 2- 3 hundered years old is not a good comparison. There's way too much to go into here.

To sum it up, on average people no matter what country they live in will do what is the most convenient and cost effective to do. In the US that includes that houses are framed-in with wood.

 

wooden houses can sway in an earthquake instead of falling down and crushing you. In California, anyone would be insane to build a brick or concrete house. I was actually wondering why people in India build houses out of concrete when prisons use concrete in hot areas to punish people as they work like an oven. Wood houses have concrete slabs under and all the pluming/electrical hookups built in so its easy and cheap to rebuild a stick house on concrete slab. The largest earthquake we had, no one died, and im talking about an earthquake larger then ones that kill thousands in other countries.

 

Very simple. When this country came to be settled by Europeans, It had vast forests. The immigrants were, for the most part, not rich and most had only their own hands for building. Wood was the logical and affordable choice. It became nornal or habit to build this way. Stone, being harder to get to here (usually) and requiring more money and labor, became a rich mans' material, until lately. The country, as a whole could be considered rich, but as for the people, maybe 10-20% are. If you are poor, you can get food, clothing shelter and medical care, but it is of the poorest quality. True, In much of the world, even that much is being rich, but the poor would live in better quality homes, if they could. The rich have bound us with 'building codes', high prices for land and materials and have so many requirements (especially if you have children) that the poor are forced to follow their rules. If a poor man manages to obtain land, somehow, he MUST NOT take his children to live in what is termed 'sub-standard housing' while he builds. He MUST get so many permits, so many inspections and so on and the prices for most materials are so high. He MUST also have 'certified experts' in the fields of electricity, heating and plumbing. There are REQUIRED things like 1) No outhouses- it must be city sewer or a septic field, the latter requiring professional maintenance. 2) No wells, in some paces. It has to be city-provided water....As you can see, while many of us WOULD have progressed to the logical choices of better building materials, it is usually not possible. To build 'green' (or, to put it better, to build ecologically soundly) is prohibitively expensive. The rest of the world has its' problems and some places don't treat their people right, but the US is expert on being subtle about it.

 

We ran out of brick trees back in the early 50s.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kwstk/eli5_why_do_americans_build_their_houses_out_of/

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[Lt_Anders]

Did you know:
Engineered Wood is Just as strong as Concrete Masony Units(CMU)?
Rough Sawn Lumber is much stronger than people give it credit for.
CMU is more expensive for only a slight increase in strength.(Wooden wall can handle, based on several factors, 2000-4000 pounds of downward force. CMU can handle 7500 Pounds of force)
The most important part of a house is, generally, the foundation. One: It's expensive to repair Two: If it's wrong, the rest of the house has to be fixed.
All Damage for buildings comes not from the walls, but the roof(Uplift). It's the #1 failure mode for all houses, except for seismic based houses. Even a concrete house has a wooden, or equivelent, roof in nearly every country(if it's sloped). Flat roofs, not so sure. Unless they are more expensive, then they'd use metal trusses, but that's godly expensive.
A small metal strap(Standard here is a Simpson H2.5T) can hold 550# of Uplift before it buckles? And it costs only 3-10 bucks to buy.
"True Brick" houses are incapable of being built over 5 stories, because brick buckles on it self.
Most "brick" houses use the brick as a veneer, while wood, or concrete, is what the house is truly supported by.

If you want to know lots of Design features of Wooden based houses, I can give you 2,000,000,000 things to look at. So much complexity in them.

[Turk_Otto_Knight]

Let me tell u the secret of america..Select a target,show them whole the world as an evil...When first america was discovered they made indians look like devils and killed them.After then black people after then communist russians and now muslim terrorists..whats next?aliens?or murderer china ?

[Malaclypse]

Prohibition/war on drugs (which spread near-globally and made the perceived "problem" worse), over militarization of police force, shitty healthcare compared to other developed nations, shitty education (especially college/fee-based) compared to other developed nations, science budgets compared to overspending on military endeavors, erosion of civil liberties out of  backwards fear, lack of high-tech infrastructure for travel on national scale (still using same old freeway system). Those are my gripes with the place, though I have a large deal of privilege and comfort here, it comes at the expense of other people around the world, and I don't want that- I'd rather live in a yurt and have everyone be taken care of then live in excess at the expense of others.

[Gmnotutoo]

Prohibition/war on drugs (which spread near-globally and made the perceived "problem" worse), over militarization of police force, shitty healthcare compared to other developed nations, shitty education (especially college/fee-based) compared to other developed nations, science budgets compared to overspending on military endeavors, erosion of civil liberties out of  backwards fear, lack of high-tech infrastructure for travel on national scale (still using same old freeway system). Those are my gripes with the place, though I have a large deal of privilege and comfort here, it comes at the expense of other people around the world, and I don't want that- I'd rather live in a yurt and have everyone be taken care of then live in excess at the expense of others.

Want to join my cult and go live out in the forest?