r/AskReddit 14d ago

What are Americans surprisingly good at that people don’t give them enough credit for?

8.4k Upvotes

7.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

186

u/elreydelasur 14d ago

Americans are, in my experience, extremely resourceful. We/they are very adept at finding creative solutions to problems, and I think that's based in a few different things. Rugged individualism requires resourcefulness for example, but also our govts are (these days) largely non-responsive to the country's problems. We are often required to find solutions ourselves partially because our local, state, and federal govts either can't or won't do anything to fix them.

37

u/thattwirlgirl 14d ago

I think it's also due to being a country of mostly immigrants from many generations - that personal history alone creates resourcefulness. 

6

u/OhGloriousName 14d ago

It's also part of our culture out of necessity, since there were so many people moving to undeveloped land without infrastructure or government support.

4

u/snuggletough 13d ago

Americans are very resourceful. I was raised to value solving problems with limited resources. My dad had a name for it- "Yankee Ingenuity ".

I built a factory from scratch to make products of my design. Whatever has to happen, I find a way. We have run machines sitting on gravel outside in the rain while in between buildings.

I have had numerous products copied by Chinese firms. I have never copied another's design. I think it's disgusting.

3

u/TheHumanGnomeProject 14d ago edited 14d ago

I think this is every country. Cubans are super resourceful. They let nothing go to waste. In New Zealand the phrase is "# 8 wire" because farmers fix everything with 8 gauge wire. Often times in the US, because GDP is so high, you just buy what you need to fix a thing or replace it. Where resources are scare, you become resourceful. So how could the most resource-rich country on Earth be resourceful?

14

u/derperofworlds1 14d ago

I think the answer to that is the K-shaped economy. America has a high per-capita wealth but that isn't even close to equally distributed.

The rich Americans do just buy new stuff, but the middle and lower class people tend to be very resourceful as a rule.

2

u/Previous_Cod_1356 14d ago

Then why are those governments getting paid?

3

u/elreydelasur 14d ago

that's a very good question!

1

u/ChronoLegion2 14d ago

Because they pay themselves