Europe is not as different from the US as it likes to pretend, especially politically.
Racism is not a unique or exceptionally American phenomenon, and the things I've heard from otherwise progressive Europeans can fucking curdle milk equal or in excess to what people in my ultra-rural ultra-conservative home region of the US can say.
Based on the comments it looks like Europeans weren't ready to hear some of these things. đ Let me pile on...
Innovation in Europe is stiffled due to a risk-averse culture, complex regulatory environments, fragmented markets across different countries, limited access to venture capital, and a tendency for established companies to be less receptive to new ideas from startups, making it harder for innovative companies to scale up (compared to the US).
yall need to get off the high horse and take a joke sometimes. you terrorized the entire world via colonization for hundreds of years through modern day, if people harmlessly stereotype the german or french, make fun of british people, or tease the dutch language, yall can handle it
for context, im american. we get bullied all the time, and while not all americans are fat and stupid, the combination of that many are and that we've terrorized the world plenty make me think a lil teasing is fair
How would people who live outside of Europe know what Europeans are not ready to hear? As someone who lives in the U.S. I know only a couple of people IRL who live in Europe.
The thing my European friend was not ready to hear was that all his complaining about the social programs in his home country and the high taxes and so on comes across as entitled and spoiled. Because he's never lived without the benefits of a state that will provide healthcare and so on, he is free to complain about his privileges and glorify the U.S. as a place where individual citizens fill in the responsibilities that the government should fulfill. He sees this as an unmitigated good, because he thinks it means more civic engagement.
What he doesn't understand is that this results in most people falling through the cracks, and until he falls through one of those cracks himself it won't be real to him how bad it is to not be able to afford losing wages because you are sick or injured, or what it's like when you can't afford to see a doctor when you break a bone or get so sick you can't leave your house.
That said, I'm not sure every European needs to hear this, or that they're not ready to hear it - just this one person seemed to be a little delusional and to have idealized the U.S. as some kind of right-wing libertarian utopia.
It really does feel like online communities get more relentlessly xenophobic when they have more Europeans. It just seems like a lot of you can't get by without mentioning where someone's from. Like, no, someone not seeing the value in retro computing doesn't say anything about "the intelligence of the average Scot." And if you can't tell where they're from, American by default.
Europeans like to pretend they're innocent, but they are the benefactors of most the damaging empires to have ever existed. They colonized nearly the entire world, extracting value from other cultures while destroying them. They pulled out once it was financially wise, keeping the wealth they extracted and leaving behind the destruction they created. They then blame everyone else for their issues while bragging about how awesome the EU is while overlooking that the EU is only possible due to the wealth they stole from everyone else. Europe likes to discuss that they had their social hardship discussing WWII, but the origin and impact of WWII there was internal to Europe. Had Europe been subject to colonization from elsewhere, it would be just as much a mess as other places. Look at the situation in former Soviet Pact countries that were practically colonized by Russia for maybe half a century. Now imagine if instead of half a century, it was hundreds of years and 5 times as brutal.
Fun fact: The term "colony" comes from Christopher Colombus' name, which is Spanish is Cristobal Colon. Even the term colonization derives from a European.
tl;dr: Europe got to where it is by destroying the rest of the world while blaming the rest of the world for their issues. Their critique of USA is merely a distraction from their own responsibility.
European racism is out of control to the point of cringe. The new world cannot hold a candle to you.
Here is a quick example. Netflix released a Norwegian movie called "Christmas as Usual" (translated). It essentially takes the concept of the American 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", moves it to Norway and gives it a holiday twist. According to Netflix, this 2023 film was in the Top 10 in thirty countries. How? How is a movie concept from America's peak civil rights battles era working for you in 2023?
My wife is European and my largest clients are European with European staff and the abundance of casual racism is hard for myself and my staff to handle. Don't get me started on my family in-law.
EDIT: Europeans were definitely not ready to hear this one. LOL
The US is not a mono-culture and most of us (unfortunately not all of them voted) are against most of the things we as a country are ridiculed over.
I swear, replace "US" or "Americans" in some of the stuff Europeans are posting/commenting with any other country, and those would sound xenophobic AF. But somehow, because 'Murica, it gets a pass.
It's not just the US that has bland restaurants and/or is afraid of spice.
I've been to restaurants in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Bulgaria.
I'm sure there are places that spice things up more and some of the restaurants were really good, but some were also some of the most bland food I've had at a restaurant.
It's the same thing in the US; there are places that won't put any spice on and there are places that will leave you crying the food is so hot and everything in-between.
Also every "Mexican" food dish I've had in Europe has just been bad. Y'all are doing it wrong.
The sound from my portable bluetooth speaker. But that's mostly because it's a shitty speaker and you can barely hear it when it's sitting 3 feet away let alone when there's at minimum an ocean between you and it.
France, Germany, and Austria all have a military-industrial complex problem. MIL money might not dominate their politics the same way as the US, but there is a problem there.
Even with their post-WW2 defensive militaries, Germany and Austria are perfectly ready to sell military hardware to anyone with the cash. H&K, Glock, and Steyr all hail from those two.
France sold off the Exocet anti-ship missile to just about anyone. As far as I can tell, it has only been fired in anger at the boats of other NATO members. Thanks, France!
Not Eurpoe specifically but I shared a rather basic comment on YouTube joking about Great Britain causing famines in India but its okay because they brought trains and the result is a mile long thread of pissed off UK suckers telling me I'm wrong, that there was no fammine, the Wikipedia article and its 300 sources are fake, and that the British empire totally went around modernizing civilization for the benefit of humanity. (Was a post about Irish complaining about a very crappy Irish History book made by a British author)
So I guess for any of those people, no GB was just a colonist empire racing to exploit the hell out of resources faster than France, Spain, and Portugal. The technology they brought was used almost exclusively in their conquest operations (Trains used to transport goods and resources) and they actively supported and supplied opposition groups to destabilize and overthrow governments similar to what the USA does today.
I mean seriously, they held immense power over China via opium and are responsible for practically every shill state in the middle east because they provided weapons to overthrow the Ottaman empire.
The iconic pan arab flag is actually a British designed flag given to all the opposition groups they funded to break up Ottaman power.
They fell apart after exhausting their power in WWII and the USA came in to save them so now they gleefully cheer about how they carried in WWII with intelligence services as if Germany couldn't have easily invaded the entire nation overnight had Hitler not been an incompetent moron.
Thankfully, after exploiting half the world, they totally didn't spend the last of their power screwing over every former colony into some long term problem that they could exploit without the need for military power.
Many of us I the US want to come there, and we're willing to contribute, but the barriers of entry are too high. I likely won't be able to until after retirement and that probably won't be until I'm too old to move. And I have a lot to contribute if I could find a way to get on my feet. The US doesn't allow for building enough wealth to start a business right out of the gate, unless you're already born wealthy or get lucky and are willing to be exploitative, and in that case I could use a different visa to get in. Immigration isn't all welfare cases and even with those who do need that help having a system in place to allow then to contribute while they get on their feet would benefit everyone. Dump the idea that you need to be extreme capitalists like the US and start embracing the people who need help to get started and most of them will contribute significantly as they will be so prideful of the place that took them in.
Youtube always shows off all the progressive and positive aspects of Europe. Bike lanes, relable trains. Was so jealous. Then heard that my game buddy is off to manditory milatary service.
The idea that the government can take away a year of your life, and thats normal is still a tough pill to swallow.
Well for one thing, there is that one obvious thing which Americans and everyone else are also unready to hear: You need to give up fossil fuels. No more coal, no more gas, no more petrol, no more diesel. Some parts of Europe like to think they're well on the way to that goal but even there for the most part you've barely begun and are moving too slowly or in the wrong direction (e.g. biofuels). The hard part cannot be put off for much longer.
EU institutions are just as regulatory captured as everywhere else. The EU bureaucracy is horribly inefficient with tons of unfirable "human drones" making 2x for the same role one does in the the private market, where they just do 1/10x of the work. The only reason EU is not quite as corrupt as USA is ironically because all the competing rich fuckers of each nation are competing with each other's lobbying
The Europeans have had -many- centuries longer to screw -everything- up in -every way- and then, eventually, regret it. A bit. So, like most of us humans, who learn most lessons the hard way, they have finally settled on something they can live with ... and they call it civilization. With pride.
Amongst those living there who don't know all of that history - like most humans - they assume that things got that way reasonably. And brag about it as if it was true.
Unlike the middle East - which has had -millenia- longer to learn - and which was, is, and it seems always will be, screwing everything up in every way. While they all point their fingers elsewhere. And build very large monuments to survive them.
i eat with bare hands
I believe everyone is ready to hear anything, they might get angry but that's just the nature of stupidity (since we're on the internet I think I should specify that angryâ disagreeing and vice versa)
I don't think your prompt makes much sense
Sometimes, while seeing discourse about the US, I think our region should try to better align itself with Europe, that stronger connections and cooperation could benefit us both.
Then I see how Europeans get when our name comes up and it's no wonder we're calling China instead. Sure, they don't care about us either, but at least they put on an act and we might get something out of it rather than just racism and neocolonialism.
Really, I'm steadily approaching the point where I wouldn't mind much if you all nuked each other out of existence, much like you wouldn't care if we disappeared either. In the absence of names, no such thing as friends beyond borders.
You all need to just start making English an official language across the EU. Yeah I know that's very American imperialist of me to say, but most of you speak it already anyway and it would make travel and communication so much easier. It feels like you all are insisting on speaking different languages just to pretend you have unique cultures when let's be real, once you welcome McDonalds that ship has sailed.
European and UK universal healthcare is able to exist in it's current form and at it's current cost because the US has private healthcare.
Healthcare Companies give heavy discounts to UK/EU to make extra money, they are fully funded by US payors and thus patients. If US healthcare went public and it ate into profits, and other countries run low on healthcare funds (the NHS, right now), private insurance or more likely, increased taxes, in those countries may be required. The NHS is already considering pay-to-play models.
Note: This is a simplification of lots of details around the international transactions and legislation.
Note 2: Before disagreeing, pick a pharma company and look at their annual report.
Note 3: Clarified form and cost based on an astute commenter below.
