Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Generalizing About Europe

jonasbentzen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 369 posts

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#171

Post by xradionut »

arethuza wrote: post #167
xradionut wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In USA, how many hours by car do you need to find a local that doesn't speak your language?" Zero. The janitors and the landscapers of the company don't speak much English. The baker at the ethnic grocery down the street doesn't speak English, but his daughter does.

Depends on your definition of "a local" - I may have lived in a particular city for 30 years, doesn't make me "a local". In fact, I can think of places (I grew up in one) where being "a local" required multiple generations.

True. Local has a different define in a rural or stable area than it does in a rapidly growing area.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#172

Post by pointernil »

lispm wrote: post #156
crazygringo wrote: post #34

This post feels awfully pedantic. While it may not be clear to non-Americans, when Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. They almost certainly aren't including Russia. (Just like when Americans talk about Asia, they aren't usually thinking of India.) Of course, that's geographically inaccurate -- but it's what we usually mean. The Eur…

> ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs Germany has over three millions SMEs (small and medium enterprises, called 'Mittelstand'). I can assure you that there are no ambivalent feelings against 'entrepreneurs'. Exactly the opposite. You find world-market leaders in small towns all across rural Germany. You can guess that people are extremely proud to work for these companies. 99% of all companies are in the Mittel…

" I can assure you that there are no ambivalent feelings against 'entrepreneurs'. "

quite often this is believed to be true: start-up == entrepreneurship

Well, I disagree here and it looks like you are mixing up 'entrepreneurs' and the "Mittelstand" you mentioned. I don't know if this is generally true, but i'm under the impression that there is some negative sentiment towards 'entrepreneurship' as it is connected with "making money fast" on the internet and/or "just" doing things to make money. That is in contrast to the "Mittelstand" which is seen as creating actual sustainable business aka Old-Economy.

This is obviously NOT true for all 'entrepreneurs' and all "Mittlerstand" businesses.

Sometimes the concepts of start-up, entrepreneurship and "Mittlerstand" get mixed up. I don't think many ppl bother to differentiate those in as much detail as paul graham does ;)

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#174

Post by rmah »

vanhalt wrote: post #80

America is a continent. No matter how much the people from the US call themselves "Americans" You are generalizing when you say "Americans". Thanks

America is NOT a continent. North America and South America are the two continents.

Further, there are more than one United States. Ever consider how the people of the United States of Mexico feel when you ignore them like that?

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#175

Post by rmah »

jordinl wrote: post #23
fahadkhan wrote: post #7

I think you are pedantic about other people's semantics and not your own. E.G. when you say American, do you mean US citizens or people from the two continents of America? I think you mean the former. Just like they most likely mean Western Europe.

So when Americans say American do they mean US Citizen or someone from North/South America? ...

They mean residents of the USA. Note that there are two nations that are "United States of _____" in the western hemisphere.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#177

Post by okal »

[deleted] wrote: post #159
edj wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. They almost certainly aren't including Russia. Likewise, most people across the world seem to use "American" and "U.S. citizen" interchangeably, even though Canada and Brazil, for example, are in the Americas, making Canadians and Brazilians American , as well.

[deleted]

The exclusion of Indians from "Asians" isn't a people thing. It's a very American thing, I suspect.

EDIT: Formatting

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#178

Post by sixothree »

elebertus wrote: post #84
loxs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have…

They're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different. The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.

The do all have different legal environments.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#179

Post by Xylakant »

outside1234 wrote: post #158
Xylakant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to follow the conversation between somebody living in my village and the next one 5 km further down the road. Or a bavarian and someone from Hamburg. They wouldn't understand each others dialects. You know what I mean. Even the folks down on the mexican border get fox news and understand plain old english. Things tend to be pretty ok in western europe where most can agree on english, but don't forget that a large…

In the city I named (Watsonville) there are many people that don't understand English and many of the signs there are in Spanish. This city is in the heart of agricultural California so most foreigners (and Californians, to be honest) never see it. It is only about 60 minutes from Silicon Valley and yet has more culturally and linguistically in common with Mexico in many ways.

The people 150km to the south from here speak Sorbisch [1]. They have their own culture, their own schools even though they're mostly german national. Still, they get german TV and mix with "regular" germans on a daily basis. However, the people 200km to the east all speak polish and don't get any german tv. Which group is more likely to have some common ground with me?

The question is not if there are enclaves of other cultures and languages within a larger body of uniform people since on a small enough scale you will always find enclaves: Chinatown, Little Italy, or Kreuzberg in Berlin[2] but how uniform the population is. No population is truly uniform and I don't think anyone pretends that West-Coast Americans and East-Cost Americans are the same as Texan, but I dare to postulate that a common overarching government and a common official language leads to a greater degree of uniformness than 20+ official languages and a loosely knit set of contracts. A norwegian is most likely more different from a greek than a New Yorker from a Californian.

[1] The Sorbs are one of a couple recognized german minorities which explains their special status http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs [2] Strong turkish/arab minority

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#180

Post by w1ntermute »

okal wrote: post #177
[deleted] wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

The exclusion of Indians from "Asians" isn't a people thing. It's a very American thing, I suspect. EDIT: Formatting

It is different in the details. But in the general sense, this is true in other countries. For example, in the UK, "Asian" means "Indian" and what Americans would call "Asians" are just referred to by their nationality. This is because in the UK, Indians are the largest nationality from Asia. But in the US, where East Asians are more common, they got the blanket term "Asian".
Post reply on HN