Stop Generalizing About Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#191

Post by rmc » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:05 PM UTC

xradionut wrote: post #148

rmc wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so that's 2 languages (English & Spanish). There are currently 23 offical working languages in the EU. And I'm sure if you live in Watsonville, California, you can get your tax forms in English, right? This is definitly not the case within the whole of the EU and the EU offical languages. (e.g. someone in Ireland could not get their tax forms in Swedish).

There's way more than two languages: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/ If you live in a larger urban area in the US, odds are that you can encounter several dozen languages in a day.

Yes, clearly there are many different languages spoken in a large, populous country like the USA.

However that's not at all like the European Union which has to publish all EU Directives in 23 languages, and each country has 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 official languages for their region. In the USA, English is the lingua franca, and official stuff can be done in English. There is no language that you can use all over the EU that will work in all (or sometimes any) official capacity.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#192

Post by lispm » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:05 PM UTC

pointernil wrote: post #172

lispm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wi…

Germany does not want anything more than create new successful start-ups. We are just not focused on 'Internet start-ups'. There is a huge infrastructure in Germany to support it.

> negative sentiment towards 'entrepreneurship' as it is connected with "making money fast" on the internet and/or "just" doing things to make money.

In Germany? I have never heard that.

It is just that we don't focus on 'Internet startups'. Start-ups can be in logistics, chemical products, machine tools, ...

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#193

Post by lost_aether » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

pretoriusB wrote: post #169

erebrus wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about scale. That is the point that almost everyone else is missing! The differences between New York and rural Idaho, in all, are smaller than the differences between Greece and Norway. They are however comparable to the differences between North and Southern Italy. Scale

> It's all about scale. That is the point that almost everyone else is missing! The differences between New York and rural Idaho, in all, are smaller than the differences between Greece and Norway. You'd be surprised. Rural Idaho and New York have very little in common in buying preferences, business opportunities, employment opportunities, cost of living, potential market and such. And New York and parts of Mississi…

Again, you force me to repeat myself. My point is that it's all about scale. There are surely big differences between NY and Idaho, but these are smaller than those between Norway and Greece (as an example). Greece and Norway have very little in common in ANYTHING, not only "buying preferences, business opportunities, cost of living, potential market and such". They are totally different countries. The huge difference between these countries was visible more than a 1000 years ago, when Varagians guards were employed by eastern roman empire / Bizamtium. In fact, part of the reason why the differences are bigger in europe is exactly because of the longer history of the countries, but that is a whole different subject. The point is, YES, there are differences between such states in the USA. NO, they are not as huge as those between countries in Europe. (Probably, but arguably, the fact that in Europe these countries exist for way longer than the USA, is a reason why the diversity between them is so strong)

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#194

Post by gudukassa » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:18 PM UTC

I am from Africa - a continent of more than a billion people speaking around two thousand languages. In Africa, you find one of the first Christian nations in the word as well as communities practicing ancient forms of traditional belief systems. Climate ranges from scorching heat and arid desert to tropical rain forests. You find the very wealthy elite monopolizing all the resources as well as mass poverty. I could go on.

To make matters worse, borders between countries are artificially drawn by colonialists. That results in frequent conflicts and makes effective governance or business extremely difficult. Yet, almost everyone refers to Africa as one homogeneous (dark) unit.

Schadenfreude from your African fellow.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#195

Post by aes256 » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:18 PM UTC

alexchamberlain wrote: post #141

nhebb wrote: post #54

I think a lot of us need to admit that the author is right. I, for one, do generalize about Europe. I think of social democracies with high taxes. I think of arcane rules and regulations to start and run a business. And most of all, I limit the term "Europe" to include about 20 of the 50 European countries. I will never think of Russia as a European country. If I entered a contest and won a vacation to "Europe" - and…

Most British people would struggle to tell you the difference between Great Britain and the UK.

Then again, I think a fair number of Brits would state Northern Ireland (the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom) is part of Great Britain

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#196

Post by lost_aether » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

artimaeis wrote: post #188

erebrus wrote: post #107

It's amazing how many from the USA insist that the inner diversity in the USA is comparable to the one in Europe. I've heard this many times, namely here in HN. It is not comparable. PERIOD. Even if the poster goes a bit to the extreme of bringing Russia in to the conversation, even inside the EU, there is still no comparison on how how diverse Europe is (e.g. Portugal to Norway, Greece to France, Spain to Germany) c…

Perhaps the diversity of the USA is not the extreme of Europe, but I would be quick to point out that the regional differences in the US are quite notable even to an outside observer. There are 5 major regions of the US: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West. Each of these regions has noted differences in: dialect, culture, food, general behavior, economy, and quality of life. Now regardless of US or Eur…

Another aspect we should factor is history. Countries in Europe are in general much older than the USA. That is probably one of the biggest reasons for such rich diversity in Europe. Portugal has the same borders since 1249; Greece exists since the classical age; etc.

That is why I think that despite existing notable differences between those regions of the USA, they are on a different scale. Dialect, culture, food, general behavior, economy and (even) quality of life, of each country is affected by it's history.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#197

Post by lobster_johnson » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:24 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #183

jonascopenhagen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Americans talk about "Europe", they're generally talking about Western Europe, not Eastern, and are excluding the UK too. This doesn't hold true for any of the Americans I've met (and I've met a lot). Also, one of the countries Martin Varsavsky mentions in his examples is actually the UK. If it were true that the American definition of Europe doesn't include Eastern Europe, what part of the world do the many A…

If you asked most Americans who have visited Budapest where they went/what area they were in, they would say Budapest. If you to press, they would admit that they were on the continent of Europe, but wonder why that mattered. Similarly, if they went to India, they would tell you they were in India. Upon further questioning, they would admit that they were in fact also in Asia, but would be puzzled as to why that matt…

> If you asked most Americans ... they would say

How do you know what they would say? Aren't you wildly speculating, while at the same time inventing answers to imaginary surveys?

I really dislike this kind of argumentation. This thread has a huge amount of Malcolm Gladwell-esque gut-feeling-generalization-disguised-as-indisputable-fact, but it adds nothing and only serves to validate the OP's point, which is that generalizations are bad because they are usually wrong.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#198

Post by jballanc » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:24 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #162

erebrus wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can name the fastest growing national economy in the USA. It's easy...there is only one nation. In Europe, there are 50... how hard to get can this be?

That's trivial, and obviously not the point of this offshoot thread. While the federal government regulates interstate commerce, each state is free to set up its own tax structure, create different incentives for businesses to open up shop, etc. And each state has its own set of natural resources and hazards. The question of which US state has the fastest growing economy is equally interesting as the GP's question ab…

I don't see how they are at all related. For one thing, I can pretty much guarantee you that the difference in GDP growth between the fastest growing European economy and the slowest is leaps and bounds larger than the same difference between states. For another thing, for many businesses in the US, it's fairly trivial to relocate should things go south. Not so for moving between countries in Europe.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#199

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

SheriffFatman wrote: post #189

antiterra wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is true then "Germany," "China," "Russia," "Ireland," "Australia," et al. are all slang for their proper (sometimes anglicized) country names.

But there's a difference in that "America" or "the Americas" can include a much larger area than just the USA, while that's not true for the countries you list. China is agreed by both the PRC and the RoC to include Taiwan -- they just disagree over who is the legitimate government; "Germany" historically meant all German-speaking lands, but that usage is now, for understandable reasons, defunct; the Commonwealth of…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#200

Post by jlgreco » Thu, Dec 27, 2012, 10:28 PM UTC

lobster_johnson wrote: post #197

jlgreco wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you asked most Americans who have visited Budapest where they went/what area they were in, they would say Budapest. If you to press, they would admit that they were on the continent of Europe, but wonder why that mattered. Similarly, if they went to India, they would tell you they were in India. Upon further questioning, they would admit that they were in fact also in Asia, but would be puzzled as to why that matt…

> If you asked most Americans ... they would say How do you know what they would say? Aren't you wildly speculating, while at the same time inventing answers to imaginary surveys? I really dislike this kind of argumentation. This thread has a huge amount of Malcolm Gladwell-esque gut-feeling-generalization-disguised-as-indisputable-fact, but it adds nothing and only serves to validate the OP's point, which is that ge…

I am extrapolating from myself.

Ask a kid to "Draw Africa" and you will get a wildly different picture than if you ask the kid to "Draw Egypt". Clearly the child is not generalizing all of Africa; the child does not include Egypt in the internalized perception of what Africa "is" even though they know full well that Egypt is in Africa.

This isn't some sort of strange emergent phenomenon, it is nothing more than the result of how places are portrayed in popular media. "Egypt" and "Africa" are distinct destinations, despite the (well understood) geographic reality.

It shouldn't be a controversial statement, I am not saying anything that is the slightest bit profound.