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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   23076 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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I've spent decent time in the last four of that list and the typical quality of life seems pretty much identical across them. There's no way I can see the median Singaporean feeling 3x as rich as their Japanese or Korean counterparts. It may be the rural parts of the latter two countries are much larger and/or worse off than would be expected. Same for Taiwan being >1.5x.

Given that microstates like Monaco and Liechtenstein have similarly high PPP adjusted GDPs per capita, the rural-urban divide is likely the cause.

unless the rural parts of the latter two countries are much worse off than would be expected

I think that's the main hidden variable, yes. UK is actually ~$60k, and I can't see QoL as better in the UK than Japan, but it makes more sense if you ask about rural Japan vs rural England rather than comparing Tokyo vs London.

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