The Taco Bell meme afaik isn’t about food poisoning at all, it’s that it’s a lot of oil-rich beans, which can have a certain effect.

Regarding food poisoning, I think you’re right that it’s worse in the USA, but the EU is not without food poisoning. My suspicion is that the media attention is different in part because food in Europe tends to come from smaller farms, whereas in the USA it tends to come from larger farms (is my understanding). So, an outbreak at a farm in the USA is bad because it potentially affects a huge number of people, whereas in the EU it may be a smaller farm with less of an impact (so any individual outbreak is less impactful). Just a guess, and it’s in my opinion good to strive for lots of small farms rather than a few big ones.

Wouldn’t 25 year olds still be in school for their doctorates though?

Yes, I think that’s the point — they skew the numbers upwards.

Many time zones: You get to a new place and look up what time zone you’re in.

Well, sorta — but it’s no effort at all because my timekeeping device (phone) does this automatically.

For me, the time of day is internalized in a way that I think is hard to switch. Same as how I was raised with imperial units — even though I prefer (and use professionally) metric, the intuition can be a little harder to get. But to each their own of course :)

I prefer the current way — I can be in another state or another country and I know that 7am is a good time for breakfast, around noon is a good time for lunch, and so forth. (If you don’t change latitude sure, just go outside to figure this out, but it’s complicated if it’s overcast, or the latitude isn’t what you’re used to, or…)

Time has a number of meanings — UTC is great for machines, local time is (IMHO) a good concept for humans.

It could grip it by the husk.

Well yes, but so is Canada, which has a higher HDI than the US.

Parent was asking why Mexico is excluded from the list while Canada is not.

By “don’t have incentive” I’m just referring to an on-paper incentive from an HDI ranking.

Canada has roughly the same HDI ranking as the US, whereas Mexico is somewhat lower. So from the “looking for a better life” perspective, Canadians don’t have an incentive to move to the US (other way around actually, from HDI).

Just a guess though.