Tell me a non-western country that have it better than us. Name a single one. And not some shit like Lichtenstein or the Marshall Islands or whatever. Tell me a real. actual country with a real population and territory that beat us out on anything that humans want and need. China? Russia? The Phillipines? Uganda? I mean, get fucking real. We stumbled over the bomb shit here in the west. That's not just a subjective opinion of mine, it's not just cause I'm from here. It's an objectively verifiable truth.
This is an interesting point (completely detached from the pro-Russia troll-fighting). Isn't the fact that we were raised in western societies conditioning us to define success criteria that we seem to prioritize that may not essentially be so objective? Western countries value democracy, wealth accumulation, freedom from persecution (but not social alienation) for personal expression, economic prosperity, absolute safety even if it means extreme process/law control, and staying within a certain comfort zone and constraints of defined procedures and strict social norms that entail safety.
But whenever I spend extended periods of time in places like South America, Southeast Asia, or some less "western" European countries around the Mediterranean or the Adriatic I start thinking about it all differently. Those countries are neither particularly wealthy or dirt poor, nor horribly repressed - just somewhere in the middle, with somewhat different cultural priorities.
Case in point: I lived in Thailand when the previous critically acclaimed king was in power. It is illegal to speak against the king, and there are no elections that mattered. The experience was completely different than our democracies, but I got why the majority actually liked it. As in you could tell that people were happy the way things were. It was kind of cool. Nobody worried about or argued about politics seeing as political parties were not even a concept anyone was familiar with. People had a more united perception of their future as one nation, and had faith in a stable succession of the government and an eternal safety net that the kingdom that's "been around since forever" provided. They genuinely would not understand why would anyone see value in making managing the country a sports contest with your "main managers" constantly changing, and in a burdensome fashion at that.
Also, we may take pride in having a lower risk of road accidents resulting in death, while another culture may take pride in purposefully loosening the enforcement of restrictions that may lead to casualties in the name of.. entertainment. There are places where people choose to drive a motorbike while shitfaced with three passengers on their backs believing they are having the time of their lives. They may ridicule the "stiffness" and "boredom" of western procedures, processes and laws that often eradicate enjoyment in the name of the highest possible practicality and safety.
We may think that polite small talk is nice and safe, while someone somewhere else may be appalled at the idea of trying to kill the joy of pure, dynamic, genuine social interactions and replace it with safe meaningless vocalizations. We may think we have the most freedoms to communicate any way we want, but if you step out of line you're an outcast or the "weirdo", or "crazy", and your quality of life drops dramatically. In Eastern Europe a crazy dude who bungee jumps off roofs and makes moonshine on the weekends may be just a cool uncle with awesome stories people want to be around to hear.
We may think we're better because we're making more money and can buy more stuff, and on a superficial level people wish they had the material outcomes our salaries bring. But I've had so many people in less wealthy countries genuinely pity me the effort and time needed to get there. It is sad to them to understand that I don't live primarily focused on my friends, family, and an enjoyable life, but I live thinking about a difficult meeting at work, or a project plan instead.
In western countries, when someone goes to work their household members may tell them "have a good day at work", or "crush it", while in many other countries it would be "don't work too hard". We are mentally focused on our work days, while in most countries they'd be focused on planning their time after work, with their work day being something they have to get out of the way. Most countries also care very little about someone's profession, while in Western countries it's a much more defining trait. We dehumanize mailmen, plumbers, and even ourselves when we say something unthinkable elsewhere like "I'm a senior accountant at IBM. I love my job. How about you?" instead of "I'm Joe, I like painting, but nothing brings me more joy on a Friday night than camping with my friends, talking about our hopes and dreams while watching the stars - wanna do that next weekend?".
I traveled to Colombia to visit my old friend. She lived in the US for a while, and made a conscious choice to move back home, disappointed with the experience and displeased with how American life actually feels like once there. She refers to North America as "false advertisement".
I had a time of my life in South America, and was welcomed with open arms into a social circle of employed adults that consider work an afterthought - life was about getting together, eating well, drinking well, making sure everyone is feeling good, and building genuine connections. Years later I miss how this felt because we've got nothing like this here in Canada. Once I came back home to my usual life, I had one strong thought in my mind - I felt like I'm paying for an expensive gym membership that I never use.
I couldn't shake the feeling that at a huge cost we've built a more orderly and stable society that we aren't enjoying or taking advantage of. We're too busy maintaining it for the sake of it, never to pause to use it to the fullest towards.. happiness. A ponzi scheme that you have to climb to one day deserve to enjoy your life, maybe once you can afford a house, then maybe when you pay off your mortgage, then maybe after you finally stop working all the time and retire. While people elsewhere may detest the idea of spending most of their life focused on building "meaningless" wealth in a safe cage and then dying.
While we're here in our glass houses thinking how bad those people in Ecuador have it and how superior our lives are, and while they may envy us our iPhones and fancy clothes, they really have an abundance of things we in turn lack. I wonder if we can honestly say we've
objectively got it all-around "better" than them because we have more of the things that we decided quantify what's supposedly most important.