Stop Generalizing About Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#281

Post by pointernil » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:24 AM UTC

lispm wrote: post #192

pointernil wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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'…

Are you sure you really mean start-ups as in: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html (in short: companies bound to grow really fast and bound to generate extraordinary profits fast)

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#282

Post by brightsize » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:29 AM UTC

I think there's a lot of truth to this essay. As am American, I've certainly been guilty of these kinds of generalizations. To Americans (colloquially meaning U.S. citizens here), I think the phenomenon can be attributed mainly to two causes. The first is that Americans don't travel much, only a small minority hold passports. And who can travel with a meagre two contiguous weeks of holiday per year, and with real incomes of the 99% declining for the past 30 years? The second is that the political propaganda machine in the States explicitly lumps all the nations of Europe into the "un-American, thus wrong-thinking" category. You need look no further than our last presidential election for evidence of this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16583813 . There's probably a third force at work that just occurred to me: I think that in American schools, kids are not taught anything meaningful about Europe other than perhaps a vague bit about the World Wars. Namely who was "good", and who was "evil", black & white just like modern American politics. My apartment here in Berlin has a Berlin-raised caretaker who I've had a few extended conversations with. I'm astounded by how much he knows about American history, to the point of even forming opinions (historical ones, not politico-propaganda-influenced ones as far as I can tell) on individual events such as the battle of Little Bighorn. He's in his late 40s, speaks English fluently, and knows more about American history than most Americans I've met. I'm not sure that I entirely know what to make of this, but it certainly leaves me with the impression that there's an element of learning and sheer curiosity about the world that's largely absent in the States.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#283

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:47 AM UTC

kamjam wrote: post #122

milesskorpen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most Americans would break the European continent into "Europe" (aka continental W. Europe), the UK, East Europe, and Russia. Even if rounded up, there is a clear distinction between Europe (W. Europe + UK) and East Europe (E Europe + Russia) which probably has something to do with Cold War borders and allies.

I think most Americans would break the European continent into "Europe" (aka continental W. Europe), the UK, East Europe, and Russia. I think you're over generalizing now in thinking that most Americans know any other nations exist outside of America! I don't think I have ever met anyone though that doesn't think of the UK as part of Europe. Note there is a very clear distinction between Europe and the European Union…

"I don't think I have ever met anyone though that doesn't think of the UK as part of Europe."

Except Brits, of course ;-)

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#284

Post by lucaspiller » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 9:55 AM UTC

john_flintstone wrote: post #131

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…

Sorry, but no. I've been in discussions recently with a French company whose development team is based in Dublin (Ireland for the geo-illiterate). Most of the tech staff in Dublin were East European, and the company's HR department was in Romania - a non-EU country. This EU centric perception is a media perception, and bears no relationship to the reality on the ground in Europe. Company in question was owned by a a…

Maybe even more interesting are the European countries not in the EU [1]:

Iceland+, Norway+, Switzerland, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of), Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Moldova, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein+, Vatican City, Russia, Ukraine

+ Countries that are part of the European Economic Area. (:D)

[1] http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_European_countries_are_not_i...

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#285

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:03 AM UTC

unconed wrote: post #213

artimaeis wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you focus on 'diversity', you miss the bigger picture, because of course every place is unique. The US has for example far more pronounced extremes of urban vs rural (which many too forget). The real issue is distance, and how Europeans and Americans in general have vastly different concepts of what's far. If you're in the US or Canada, driving for 10 hours means you're going to visit your aunt. Doing the same any…

Heck, I know several people who have driven more than halfway across Canada, in Europe no-one who drove e.g. from Paris to Istanbul.

Abstract away the vast distances of road and think of it as nodes on a directed graph. How many nodes (ie: inhabited locations of distinct identity) did you pass through from source to destination? That's a kind sociocultural or even ecological distance you traveled, and it can actually be larger on a Paris-Istanbul trip than on a cross-Canadian trip.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#286

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:05 AM UTC

tylee78 wrote: post #259

popee wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are afraid of changes or just don't get it. I'm from micro mid/east country in Europe and i can tell you that most people here think that computers are used only as support for other businesses. When you tell them that web/internet/... is also great business you'll get blank looks all over the place. Btw they're all using google/fb/... but only as consumers. Hmmm, thank god on that :-)

...my experience (originally from Germany, in the US since 2005) as well. It's a question of mentality. While in the US a vast number of people want to create their own business or already did when they are quite young, running a business or starting one is a herculian task in Germany. And you get punished when you fail. And you get taxed to death when you don't. Running a company can easily become a social stigma to…

Please note that Silicon Valley is not normal for the USA. Boston, for example, has a disturbingly "German-sounding" attitude towards computing, "Oh, yes, we have tech companies here, but the Real Deal of Boston is the universities and biomedical firms."

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#287

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:06 AM 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.

Several dozen? Probably only in New York.

Three to five separate languages per day, as you would encounter in any other moderately multicultural/multinational locale? Yeah, any large urban area will do that.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#288

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:07 AM UTC

mbell wrote: post #24

neumann_alfred wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you'd be right. But you'd also have admit that Americans tend to do that to themselves. "The American Way" and whatnot; less bright people even saying "Unamerican" as if that was a thing. Those aren't labels others gave you, Americans proudly confess them. And then there is this ever-present flag and/or red-white-blue. From far away those similiarities seem to kinda outweigh the differences, it's just real hard t…

Honestly this post is a perfect example. You've classified "Americans" as one group when your really talking about "American Nationalists". It sounds like your attributing nationalist propaganda you see on Fox News to all Americans. This is also a great example of state/city variation. Living in Boston for 7 years I can probably count the number of times I've heard someone talking about "The American Way" or using th…

I think you'll need several more hands if you count the times when Bostonians talk like that to mock Texans.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#289

Post by davedx » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:09 AM UTC

pelle wrote: post #139

_delirium wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs I haven't found this to be the case in the Nordic countries, at least. You can't walk around a corner without tripping over a startup incubator, and there's a lot of interest, among both techies and the public (and the government), about where the "next Nokia", "next Spotify", "next Rovio", etc. are going to come from. Germans also lionize their famed "Mittelstand", which is…

In Scandinavia there is a small vocal subculture talking "startup". It is however a very small subculture. The majority of employees you will encounter will not be very entrepreneurial.

But they won't be 'ambivalent', will they? I mean, I've never met anyone here in the Netherlands that has negative feelings or things to say about startups or the like. In fact quite the opposite: my partner's entire family are all involved in them.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#290

Post by eli_gottlieb » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 10:10 AM UTC

neumann_alfred wrote: post #36

mbell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly this post is a perfect example. You've classified "Americans" as one group when your really talking about "American Nationalists". It sounds like your attributing nationalist propaganda you see on Fox News to all Americans. This is also a great example of state/city variation. Living in Boston for 7 years I can probably count the number of times I've heard someone talking about "The American Way" or using th…

I didn't say all Americans are that way, I just said some (rather loud, rather constant) Americans generalize themselves; while I don't quite get that vibe from Europe. Movies, presidential speeches, whatnot... it's really not just some nationalists, you export that a lot. That doesn't say anything about those who have no use for that stuff and see through it, I'm just claiming you have a lot of people who don't. I c…

As an American currently living outside America, I would like to emphatically state that America's cultural exports almost always represent Eagleland (check TVTropes... or don't waste half your Friday!) rather than the actual United States.

The problem is that it has taken a convergence of demographic tip-over into a mostly urbanized population and a major political/economic/cultural crisis to stop large portions of the American population from deluding themselves into thinking of America as Eagleland.