Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#81

Post by robenkleene » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

piker wrote: post #34

lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around…

It's hilarious that the author is citing television. Is there anyone on the Earth who believes, e.g., British television is better as a whole than US television? They must really like slow-to-never-developing low budget, single camera angle crime dramas. [Edit: Apparently so! Quite the controversial statement. However, when voting, do consider what percentage of television consumed outside of the US was produced IN t…

One, the sentence you’re responding to doesn’t say anything explicit about TV being better there, and two, I haven’t lived lived in Europe for over 15 years now, but yes when I did, the television was incredibly different and yes of course that ends up having a cultural impact. Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine[1] does a brief analysis of this between the US and Canada.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#82

Post by tonyedgecombe » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #44

lupire wrote: post #19

This is the blathering of spoiled rich kid on vacation. > In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around…

Absolutely, lets sweep the pandemic of knife crimes currently sweeping Europe - among a whole host of other related malaises and social evils too long to list here - neatly under the rug and call it a day.[1] [2] [1] Ten charts on the rise of knife crime in England and Wales https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42749089 [2] Germany: Stabbings and Knife Crimes at Record High https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13802/germany-sta…

UK homicide rate: 1.20 per 100,000

German homicide rate: 1.18 per 100,000

US homicide rate: 5.35 per 100,000

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#83

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

Many, dare I say the majority, of Americans don't have any desire to have the European way of life, culture or institutions. We like heavily processed Walmart peanut butter on our goddamn Wonderbread made from GMO wheat with jelly sweetened with corn syrup. We like our Budweiser and $10 "Chinese" buffet. We like driving our cheaply registered, insured, and fueled cars. We'd prefer to sit in traffic than wait for a train.

Sure our healthcare could be better but we're working on it and pretty much nobody expects the current situation to persist for all that long.

I and millions of other people like out way of life. I get that the author is entitled to his opinion but my opinion is that his opinion is crap. I hate to be this guy but if he likes Europe that much he should move there, or at least move to a state that's more like it.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#84

Post by airstrike » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #53

EliRivers wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not being hosted on a Linux box somewhere? Sure, it may well not be, but Linux is common enough that it could be.

I can claim that for the list if you want. Torvalds is American and lives in Oregon; most of the major Linux contributors were sponsored by American companies if I recall correctly. Red Hats and IBMs of the world. America must be doing something right.

> America must be doing something right.

Since Europe gets to enjoy all those benefits without lifting a finger, I'd say they're doing it righter.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#85

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

cribbles wrote: post #63

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

There's obviously a pretty tight feedback mechanism between the startup trajectory and the VC environment. (I believe the former drives the latter in the long-run, rather than the opposite.)

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#86

Post by dsfyu404ed » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

cribbles wrote: post #63

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

Our quality of life is not poor. We just have different prioritizes. See the guy who lives in a double wide but has a Corvette in the driveway.

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#87

Post by EliRivers » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

radicalbyte wrote: post #73

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

It's more because European capital is more risk averse and the labor laws here are very strong when compared to the US. That increases the risks involved in new ventures. The other thing is that Europe may have 500 million people, most of them speak a different language/culture. The US is one massive market who broadly share the same mother tongue. In the US you can have one company market to all states (and the 51st…

Although interestingly, the internal US market is in some ways less free, less competitive and suffers more regulatory barrier than the internal EU market. Here's a piece on it: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/are-eu-markets-more-c...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#88

Post by wozniacki » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

cribbles wrote: post #63

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

   It may be that Europeans are deincentivized
   from creating enormously overvalued startups
   because their quality of life is much better

Come on you didn't even have a ride-hailing service like Uber and relied on those stodgy black cabs.

Ireland still doesn't have Uber or Lyft.[1]

[1] Does Uber or Lyft exist in Dublin??

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g186591-i88-k11258020-...

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#89

Post by microcolonel » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:53 PM UTC

danjac wrote: post #64

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. > No, not everyone in Europe gets to live white-collar worker dream of writing poetry at the coffee shop and coming in late Um,so which is it?

I think more precisely it would be "that everyone who can, is at the coffee shop writing poetry, and ironically the people who can afford to do that would otherwise be productive."

Re: Why Don't Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are?

#90

Post by shraremywin2 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 12:53 PM UTC

cribbles wrote: post #63

seibelj wrote: post #20

> In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe not until 10 — order a carefully made coffee and a newly baked croissant, do some writing, pick up some fresh groceries, maybe a meal or two, head home — now it’s 6 or 7, and everyone else has already gone home around 5 — and watch something interesting, maybe a documentar…

> One reason that Europe has very few innovative new companies created in the last 25 years is that everyone is at the coffee shop writing poetry. This does not dispute the central point of the quoted piece, which is that the quality of life of most Americans is very poor contrast to that of the average person in some subset of European countries. I would wager that most coffee shop employees are more concerned with…

You forgot the biggest reason. Antitrust enforcement. Would facebook be facebook had it had to compete with instagram?

Would google be google without youtube or doubleclick?