The insights on American and Chinese industry / tech are undercut by the generic stereotypical “Europeans are smug and backward-looking” comments. A bit disappointing that someone who spends a ton of time analyzing two complex societies (China and the US) falls into Reddit-tier caricature on a third.
The attitude here is quite astounding, seeing how any criticism of the author or this piece is seen as some sort of reductionism of his views and european smugness (?!?), all the while the author reduces an entire nation (Germany in this case) to the anecdote of a Georgian mass murderer, probably one of the most ruthless and diabolical people that ever existed, so yeah, very balanced discussion here.
Indeed, it seems that the gap that is present politically between America and Europe is to some extent also playing out in the individual, even in the tech scene. This is a little alarming to me, as the idea of an alliance can break down on the political level and be repaired in the new cycle of elections, that's OK.
But if an individual American really thinks Europeans are as smug as described in this article, or if Europeans really think the way this article describes, there is a more concerning, deeper issue with the worldview of these historically well-aligned peoples.
I find these comments funny, because a lot of HNers will reduce the behavior of Asians (everything is about “face”), and yet become so acutely aware when it happens to Europeans.
It is a bit of a trope under self-important bloggers, he seems to have copied and as such it reveals one's depth of understanding. On the one hand: who cares, we all have stereotypes when the resolution is too low. And criticism is due, but not this one.
I think it is a bit of a trade-off, his writings are engaging, but to discuss Europe in a serious way a blog wouldn't cut it, and it would make it possibly quite dry nonetheless. One has to not only understand the EU, their limited budget and mandate, but also the various parties in each country. This is just incredibly difficult to form an accurate picture of, even if there wouldn't be things like centuries old cultures and various languages.
To take away from the doom and gloom, iff the EU is really able to integrate in the next decade(s), form a shared market, my money would be on them.
Both the current US government and Russia fear an integrated Europe, as they would be too big as a prey. Meanwhile, many countries want to join the EU, despite it being a "hell hole", at least if one believes the adversarial content promoted on the big tech platforms. At this moment the current US government supports "nationalistic" parties and corrupt kleptocrats like Orban, trying to break it apart from inside.
I'm finding numbers ranging from 16k (Imperial College London) up to 175k (WHO). All studies I encountered seem to be based on a statistical correlation between heath and death counts, which makes sense as 'heath' is rarely registered as an official cause of death.
Would installing more airco's help? Perhaps, especially some of the poorer regions in the south, hardest hit by climate change, may still have some nursery homes without proper cooling.
But installing airco's isn't even listed in the 4 points of advice provided by the WHO. It's about adapting lifestyles and work practices (think: construction workers) to the changing climate.
The US is not exempt from this. The NY times is reporting a doubling of heath related deaths in recent years, though I can only find numbers based on official causes of death, which cannot be compared to the European numbers.
So no, I don't think this is a great example of all of Europe being too stupid to do even simple things in its own interests.
I might be missing something because I don’t really understand why you mean by “health” related deaths…
But it seems like you’re making Dan’s point for him. “We need to adapt our lifestyles to climate change” is not an acceptable answer to someone dying of heat stroke who would very much prefer (out of self-interest) air conditioning and a higher standard of living…
Yes it's a bit disappointing but probably captures the current American and Chinese opinion quite well.
Europe as a whole has a lot of good things going for it but I do agree that it's less ambitious on average than these 2 power blocks.
However the same dynamic that was described in the article where nobody wants to lack behind is also true for Europe.
Also, yes Novo Nordisk plundered their GTM in the US and lost market valuation but you can still get the same medical outcome in Europe as a patient based on a European invention. Another one: The first Covid vaccine came out of Germany.
More interestingly is the question on degrowth. I personally believe that growth is the more tempting path in general, but we do live on a finite planet and no system is on a path or has a good framework on how to grow sustainably or responsibly. Maybe AI is going to figure it out for us, but maybe it involves some hard tradeoffs that intelligence alone can't solve.
I’m responding to comments like this in the article:
So I am betting that the US and China are more compelling forces for change. Stalin was fond of telling a story from his experience in Leipzig in 1907, when, to his astonishment, 200 German workers failed to turn up to a socialist meeting because no ticket controller was on the platform to punch their train tickets, citing this experience as proof of the hopelessness of Germanic obedience. Could anyone imagine Chinese or Americans being so obedient?
This isn’t a serious analysis of German culture. It’s perfectly fine to argue that certain countries are economically or industrially problematic, but when you throw in comments like this, it really doesn’t help your argument.
And I’m not from Europe, but I have lived here for years. The constant clueless comments by my fellow North Americans about the somehow monolithic entity of “Europe” are irritating.
This is not really fair, the story is never explicitly discounted as hyperbole in the article and follows a range of other more mellow criticisms of europe. Also, directly following this quote, is the question: "Could anyone imagine Chinese or Americans being so obedient?".
None of this points to the story being out of place, and since the author specializes in serious analysis of china's relation with america, and the author brings up europe, its fair to assume that they included this story as a relevant criticism of europe.
In that regard, its indeed not of the same quality as the analyses of china or american culture.
I had never heard of this term and I thought about it for a good 30 seconds before looking it up (my best guess was it had something to do with the sea lion's "owrk" "owrk" noise when it asks for a fish at water parks). :]
"I have a hard time squaring the poor prospects of Europe over the next decade with the smugness that Europeans have for themselves. I spent most of the summer in Copenhagen. There’s no doubt that quality of life in most European cities is superb, especially for what I care about: food, opera, walkable streets, access to nature. But a decade of low economic growth is biting. European prices and taxes can be so high while salaries can be so low."
This particular kind of American perspective on Europe always falls into the same trap: Not understanding a world where economic performance is _not_ the be-all-and-end-all, not understanding the connection between the benefits of such a world (things that consider externalities - not individuals - in order to exist) with the costs of such a world (taxes).
I didn't say there was anything wrong with having that value if you want to. The problem is not having the self awareness to realise when that framework of values is clouding your view of other perspectives.
A lack of self-awareness is a trap - the most insidious one because you don't know when you're in it :)
And you'll need a citation on "for the most part the rest of the world". Economic performance as the one true measure of prosperity and progress is very new, even in America itself: Most Americans have no sense of how very different their country is now from say, the country that launched the Apollo missions.
> Most Americans have no sense of how very different their country is now from say, the country that launched the Apollo missions.
You cannot be kidding right? Those that remember the Apollo missions will undoubtedly agree their country is different, first but not least they are most likely using a smartphone assembled and designed with technology unimaginable by NASA planning the Apollo missions; not only that, the smartphone is assembled half way around the world by a country previously in such dire poverty and famine that over 30M died due to Marxist central planning.
That’s not change unique to America though. Why would I be thinking of changes that have affected almost every country, when talking about whether Americans recognize how America has changed?
Whether someone remembers the Apollo missions or not is irrelevant to my point. Quite the opposite: It matters more what people who don’t remember think of it, and how distant their assumptions are from the reality of that time.
It’s also funny how you keep bailing on your previous assertions that we’ve dismantled, and cherry pick different parts of every argument in the hope you might finally get a “win”.
> That’s not change unique to America though. Why would I be thinking of changes that have affected almost every country, when talking about whether Americans recognize how America has changed?
Hahahaha, this is like saying, the world wars didn’t impact Europe, because it also impacted the whole world! Europeans, the war didn’t happen!! Anyways… this entire thread is more evidence that European stereotypes are valid for the most part
The issue is not that it's used as a measure, it's that the thing economic performance is supposed to serve as a proxy for - the general health and stability of a society - is then completely ignored. Homelessness, mental illness and violence are objectively more pronounced in American culture than they are in European culture.
Are you conscious of the fact that you replied to, essentially, someone saying "author mistakes preferences for metrics" with "it's not a mistake, it's a preference"?
Because economic performance does not account for unsustainable consumption of natural resources as a cost. Say I have $1M in the bank with a $10K monthly income. I am spending $100K per month. What is wrong with me measuring my happiness by the amount of money I spend?
Economic performance is a number. You can optimise it. Or you can choose any other number, and optimise it too. Is money the best number? Why not median lifespan? Why not reported happiness? Why not median wealth? US has much more money than EU, but the cost is the streets are covered with homeless. Is US really more prosperous if it can't provide a decent life for the equal percentage of people compared to EU countries?
There's nothing wrong with either perspective, rather its the case that the European perspective is different. That's not to say that Europeans are right, or that criticism flowing from Europe to America is justified, but it should at least be acknowledged that pitching two players in a competition that one of the players has less interest in competing on, is misguided.
> What exactly is wrong with Americans or for the most part the rest of the world valuing economic performance as a measure of prosperity and progress?
Prosperity of the nation? Or average people of the nation?
Imagine economy grows. But created value is distributed in hands of few. How then we think about prosperity? It is a prosperity of those few not a nation's?
