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Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

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Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#51

Post by spacedcowboy »

qwytw wrote: post #44
spacedcowboy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true though, at least (living here) it doesn't seem that way. It seems that barely a week goes by without some rando running amok with another shooting in a local mall or in a school somewhere in the state and these people are then deemed "mentally ill" and nothing happens to stop it happening again. There sure must be a lot of mentally ill people in the USA... As for the last point, the US does n…

> not have military bases overseas for any reason other than self-interest Which is fine as long as it's also in interest of the host country to have the American base in their territory.

Sure, I wasn't suggesting otherwise - I just think it's disingenuous (despite any downvotes) to try and ascribe American military bases overseas as anything other than pure self-interest.

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#53

Post by spacedcowboy »

another2another wrote: post #9
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #7

The EU without a common language and government is a failed experiment

The EU is in fact a resounding success of monetary integration and legal harmonization leading to a mutually beneficial zone of economic cooperation. People can travel, work and live in any member state with little or no barriers. Produce and sell their goods and services across the whole zone in one big legal bloc. The cost of being outside of that bloc is one that Britons are now starting to realise, and are beginn…

A lot of us (48% in fact) disagreed with the entire idea of leaving the EU in the first place. It was in the interests of our political masters to execute the result of the poll, though - the EU wanted to make money more transparent, and the tories have too many friends/political donors on the dodgy side of the coin...

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#54

Post by sacnoradhq »

America, has for a long time, not been a country to emulate in all spheres. Some, perhaps, but definitely not when it comes to post-1960's cannibalism of community and commonwealth, i.e., government institutions, social services, common infrastructure and services, and ambitious projects and goals, often under a deluded notion that profit motive and unfettered greed creates handwaving "good" without externalities. Additionally, most empires in N. America and Europe are in decline and will only skip and bounce with a cultural revolution with a core hopeful outlook that is concerned that their neighbors aren't going bankrupt with medical bills, their kids aren't shot at school, and festivals aren't mass shooting galleries. Healthy societies don't have excessive violence, extremely large prison populations per capita, absurd income disparities, media full of superheroes and apocalypse fictions, populist "strongmen", millions of unhoused people living worse than IDPs without UN assistance, and don't know their neighbors.

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#55

Post by ofcourseyoudo »

lockhouse wrote: post #25
massysett wrote: post #4

The point about the lifestyle industries is a good one. Europeans feel they have the good life, so why would they want to be more like Americans (who work like crazy, have no safety net, and live with random gun violence) or like the Chinese (who slide into even greater autocracy)? Perhaps the drawbacks of American and Chinese society are the very factors contributing to their economic growth?

I have to disagree with one point you made. Despite what the media would have you believe, gun violence in America is not random. The vast majority of it is gang related or suicide. We don’t have a gun problem, we have an inner city crime problem and a mental health problem, both probably fueled largely by the other problems you mentioned, such as our work culture and lack of social safety nets. Another point I’d lik…

In the 1960s, there were 20 incidents of shootings at a school.

In the 1990s, there were 99.

In the 2010s, there were 261.

So far in the 2020s, there have been 139, so we're on pace to set a new record for school shootings in the US.

Crazy that all these schools were in the inner city and they were all the result of mental health issues. Also wild that other countries with income disparities the same or worse than ours and other countries with significant mental health challenges in their populace don't have the gun violence stats that we have.

I wonder why.

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#56

Post by qwytw »

3dbrows wrote: post #46
qwytw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America [...] please stop continuously expanding NATO Many Eastern Europeans would probably have very different thoughts.

Like I said, views are changing in light of events, but let’s not pretend this was the settled majority view since 1945 or 1990. That’s the point: there has been a presumption by America that their view is the only view over the long term, leading to European perceptions that the US takes an arrogant view of their defence spending.

> Like I said, views are changing in light of events

In some countries however has been the dominant view in Poland and the Baltic states at the very least for the several decades.

Possibly in Czechia too?

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#57

Post by trextrex »

mharig wrote: post #50
trextrex wrote: post #41

Having lived in both the US and a couple of countries in the EU, one thing that struck me about living in the EU is how inwards looking and past facing the society is. And the general sense of European exceptionalism meant there was much less interest in attracting talent from outside the EU. I personally believe the latter is one of the major reasons for their decline. In many industries and in academia, not only do…

Better past facing than ridiculously fast pacing.

Why?

Re: Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing

#58

Post by ix-ix »

lockhouse wrote: post #47
ix-ix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have an "inner city crime problem" but that does not mean you don't have a gun problem. It absolutely is both.

The way you said “you” implies you’re not from the United States. Gun violence is one of those areas where nearly all American media surrounding it is heavily biased. Politicians seize on this every time to push gun control measures which usually have nothing to do with the specifics of the incident, such as pushing for universal background checks when the gun used was legally purchased by one of their parents and im…

I am not American, but I have a master's in American history. I stand by what I said.
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