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Living outside America

ryancarson.com

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Re: Living outside America

#31

Post by sneak »

pg wrote: post #22

I've been able to do the first 3 without leaving (perhaps because I wasn't born here), and number 4 doesn't seem so certain. What I noticed about living outside America when I did it later as an adult was that it made it clearer what was distinctive about the US. Many of the distinctive things I noticed could be summed up by describing America as a young culture. Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but t…

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for.

I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean.

How many Americans can spot the difference between Hong Kong and Seoul, or know what "BKA" stands for?

Re: Living outside America

#32

Post by rdl »

sneak wrote: post #27
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

> Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). To be fair, most of the places you lived in that 15 years sucked really hard, even just objectively. The good non-US places are way better than the states in almost every measurable aspect.

Living in UK, NL (well, for 2mo), Anguilla, Dubai, Thailand, 3mo in Japan, and visiting a bunch of other "good" countries is my basis for this. Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa, etc. are known to be write-offs. (and actually Afghanistan minus 100% of the people there would be a pretty awesome place, if inaccessible.) Hong Kong is the one place I've spent >2mo where I'd like to spend 5+ years, but it's too small to be the only place I'd live (it's a great city, but doesn't compare to a larger country).

Raising money in Germany or the UK is a huge pain. Purchasing things is a pain. Hiring and firing. Finding people who actually understand startups.

Re: Living outside America

#33

Post by yaix »

"""But after you settle in, both places are great."""

Found this in the comments. After having lived in different countries for the last 15 years (originally from Germany), that has become my conclusion, not only regarding the US and UK. It takes some time (years) to get really used to a culture and understand its thinking.

Re: Living outside America

#34

Post by mixmax »

thetabyte wrote: post #20
mixmax wrote: post #9

This is a great article, and as a European I can relate to all of his points. Here are some comments from the other side of the pond; they're of course my personal opinion but I think they're somewhat representative of the European view. I don’t view the USA as the center of the world - i see America as an overreaching empire that has had it's heyday. If you take a historical perspective this is how many empires fall…

Opening Note: Personal views- Practicing Jewish most of my upbringing, now agnostic by choice "If the Danish prime minister started confessing her belief in a god she'd be laughed out of the room." As an 18 year old American, active in American politics (I've done minor campaigning, father is a US History teacher), this is utterly strange. A politician that was not some denomination of Christianity would be, most lik…

As an interesting aside, there's a strong negative correlation between GDP per capita and religion; the richer a country is the less religious it is. America is the exception that sticks out like a sore thumb on a graph.

Re: Living outside America

#35

Post by xiaoma »

Alex3917 wrote: post #2

"A ton of people I met from around the World thought Americans were overweight, materialistic and unintelligent. This was, of course, an unfair generalization." Less than 30% of American adults are at a healthy bodyweight, so it's really not an unfair generalization.

With an average BMI of 29, the UK isn't that far behind on the obesity front.

More importantly, stereotyping an entire country of people as stupid is about as uncivil as it gets. When the country of stupid people in question has been continually transforming the world with scientific breakthroughs, engineering, and producing most of the movies the rest of the world wants to watch... it comes off as sour grapes.

I say this as someone who's spent nearly my whole adult life on the opposite side of the globe from America.

Re: Living outside America

#36

Post by thetabyte »

mixmax wrote: post #34
thetabyte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening Note: Personal views- Practicing Jewish most of my upbringing, now agnostic by choice "If the Danish prime minister started confessing her belief in a god she'd be laughed out of the room." As an 18 year old American, active in American politics (I've done minor campaigning, father is a US History teacher), this is utterly strange. A politician that was not some denomination of Christianity would be, most lik…

As an interesting aside, there's a strong negative correlation between GDP per capita and religion; the richer a country is the less religious it is. America is the exception that sticks out like a sore thumb on a graph.

Really? That's actually very interesting, if you have source material for that I'd love to see it. Though I wonder if it's biased by very religious middle eastern states lacking in natural resources other than oil (which benefits a very small group).

Re: Living outside America

#37

Post by rdl »

mixmax wrote: post #26
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

This quote from the article " I don’t view the USA as the center of the world. " seems rather fitting with the part where you mention America as culturally superior to other cultures.

The US basically is the center of the world (any alien who landed on Earth would recognize that, since 1945); it's just not the whole world, which is the default US view.

Re: Living outside America

#38

Post by sneak »

rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

> There are plenty of specific areas where other countries are better than the US, but no single country which is enough better on enough things to be a serious competitor.

Germany. Better education, better attitude, more open-minded, less harassment for being weird/nonstandard, median level of critical thinking ability, healthier food, better transport, more cultural things to do/see, better solutions to the growing underclass problem you described elsewhere.

There are tons of hacker-mindset people here (it's something in the water, I swear), and while there are lots of annoying hoops to jump through in the entrepreneurial arena, the general quality of life is vastly improved over the US in almost every meaningful day-to-day way. Economically the differences have already been done to death.

The US is coasting, and I believe it will implode financially within our lifetimes.

Re: Living outside America

#39

Post by robgough »

mixmax wrote: post #9

This is a great article, and as a European I can relate to all of his points. Here are some comments from the other side of the pond; they're of course my personal opinion but I think they're somewhat representative of the European view. I don’t view the USA as the center of the world - i see America as an overreaching empire that has had it's heyday. If you take a historical perspective this is how many empires fall…

An interesting and relatively recent example of this is that ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair didnt publicly announce his intention of converting to Catholicism until he left office.

Re: Living outside America

#40

Post by geuis »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #14
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

> Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. That's something as an outsider living here in since around last December I've noticed. Your government is quite broken. But it somehow still works. (Paradox, I know!) For instance, the healthcare bill that was recently passed largely solves the textbook prob…

That's an interesting viewpoint about consumption in the US I haven't considered. As an American who dislikes the wasteful consumption I see around me, my comment about your perspective is that many Americans don't purchase items to actually solve problems they really have. Much of it is wasteful on things like fashion, home furnishings, countless crap kitchen gadgets, etc. Things that people think will help them but don't.

That being said, your point about under consumption and unwillingness to improve life by buying better basics to solve problems is something new to me.

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