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

61–70 of 369 posts

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#61

Post by hnriot »

loxs wrote: post #56
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…

> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the > Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, > and ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs in most of > its parts. Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit th…

Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity.

Bulgaria is a beautiful country, I visited it while living in Romania. Of course all the Eastern European countries like Bulgarian, Romania, Slovakia/Czech, Serbia etc are all different, but also very alike.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#62

Post by arctic »

kmfrk wrote: post #52

A good and bad article all in one. It's good, because it addresses some common misconceptions . It's bad, because it implies that you can't generalize about anything nor anyone. Obviously, there are - broadly - common traits in Europe. The point is fine, to the extent that the broader generalizations you make, the more people will be described incorrectly - and you cite some great numbers to emphasize that. The post…

Broadly common traits such as breathing and eating.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#63

Post by mattdeboard »

hnriot wrote: post #61
loxs wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the > Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, > and ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs in most of > its parts. Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit th…

Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity. Bulgaria is a beautiful country, I visited it while living in Romania. Of course all the Eastern European countries like Bulgarian, Romania, Slovakia/Czech, Serbia etc are all different, but also very alike.

> Louisiana is very different to California too, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to America as a general entity.

But when you're making generalizations about Americans or business climate -- which can vary widely from state to state -- you probably shouldn't. Which is what the author is saying.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#64

Post by antiterra »

kmfrk wrote: post #38
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…

Just like "America" is a synecdoche for "The United States". :) It depends on how the words are used; "Africa" to describe an area larger than a lot of continents combined, when you only mean a few countries - or just one! - is borderline offensive, though.

America is the name of the country. It's The United States of America, like the Federal Republic of Germany or The People's Republic of China, etc.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#65

Post by simonebrunozzi »

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…

Agree with you, $crazygringo. Most of the time, when people talk about it: Europe = DE, FR, sometimes UK, more rarely IT/CH/AT and scandinavian countries. Asia = "chinese" Asia, which is China and South East Asia. South America = Brazil

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#66

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#67

Post by pretoriusB »

Well, I'm a European myself, but the corrections sounds a little on the pedantic side:

>"Most of Europe has the euro as a common currency" -- Only 17 of Europe's 50 countries use the Euro.

Yes. Only some of the LARGEST countries, for a total of 332 million people. Not to mention that he did say "most".

>"Europe is great for an American tech entrepreneur because wealth is better distributed" The difference between the Scandinavian countries and, say, Russia is enourmous when it comes to wealth distribution.

That's one of the reasons most people don't include Russia when they talk about Europe. Not to mention that it can even refer only to the EU countries.

>"More consumers can buy your products and services" Certainly depends on whether you're selling to Swiss or Romanians.

The same point keeps repeated.

It's as if someone talked about investing in the US, and someone felt obliged to blog about the differences between Illinois and New York and rural Idaho, Mississippi, Alabama and South Dakota.

Yes, we got it already. It's not like someone will go to invest blindly to the _geographic region_ that is Europe. He will most likely go to what is called Western Europe, or the EU.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#68

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rmc wrote: post #43
outside1234 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But they all share a common language" Ha! You haven't been to Watsonville, California or just about anywhere along the border with Mexico, have you?

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).

Language isn't the only cultural barrier. Lets stop being obstructive - the argument is sound. There are many sub-cultures in North America. They have profoundly different outlooks.

The bigger lesson is, political boundaries suck at defining people or culture.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#69

Post by benatkin »

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…

Yes. We're talking about Western Europe, which doesn't include Scandinavia, which is where the author's from. And I don't think there's a conspiracy involved, I think it's just because that's where the largest economies in the area are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...

The author has visited Western Europe but many Americans have too.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#70

Post by pretoriusB »

loxs wrote: post #56
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…

> The Europe that Americans refer to does mostly use the > Euro, have better-distributed wealth, plenty of consumers, > and ambivalent feelings toward entrepreneurs in most of > its parts. Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit th…

>Well, no it doesn't. Italy and Greece are extremely different to Scandinavia. At least regarding to things like temperament and culture. They are much more like Bulgaria and Turkey, though they may not really be willing to admit that. You can't really sell to Italians by operating in Denmark.

Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Italians, for one, do plenty of business with European companies operating outside their country, be it Denmark of whatever. You know, companies like Nokia, Skype, et al.

>So no, you can't generalize. You will be wrong every single time.

Which doesn't matter at all, the only thing that matters is if you'd be closer to being right, with less effort, in _aggregate_ than when non-generalising.

Post reply on HN