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

2025 Letter

danwang.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 340 posts

Re: 2025 Letter

#91

Post by tshaddox »

ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

> Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (which I assume is what he means by "Europe").

Nah, Americans aren’t particularly interested in which Europeans are offended by being identified as “Europeans” this week. If we say “Europe” without qualification we’re probably just talking about the continent. (And no, we don’t even use the word “continent” as a distinction within Europe, except when referring to hotel breakfasts.)

Americans don’t really have much of a concept of what European identity is, and we don’t really care (other than being grateful for a few decades of relative peace after 1,000 or so years of near constant war).

Re: 2025 Letter

#92

Post by tshaddox »

kubb wrote: post #86
ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

He’s a Chinese guy in the US. He thinks in terms of large monoliths. The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him. That’s OK. We all have some approximation of reality in our brains which is necessarily shaped by our life experiences.

> The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him.

I don’t know about the author in particular, but Americans are generally aware of the “nuanced” European history of near constant war between rival nations, states, factions, and religions.

Re: 2025 Letter

#93

Post by kubb »

kankerlijer wrote: post #89
kubb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s a Chinese guy in the US. He thinks in terms of large monoliths. The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him. That’s OK. We all have some approximation of reality in our brains which is necessarily shaped by our life experiences.

There is something very irritating seeing someone dismiss someone else on the internet using condescending therapy speak 'Thats Ok', nevermind the fact that calling him out as some ignorant Chinese guy while China has hundreds of cultures and languages, as if a Chinese person couldn't comprehend... Europe.

The way to respect isn’t through shaming people into it. It’s through demonstration of value, in this case understanding of nuance.

Instead we get an application of external logic and values which can’t be used to properly reason about the entity they’re applied to.

There’s no need for frustration. We take the stoic approach here. It’s OK. You are a product of your environment. Everything you’ve ever experienced told you this is the way to act.

Re: 2025 Letter

#94

Post by kubb »

tshaddox wrote: post #92
kubb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s a Chinese guy in the US. He thinks in terms of large monoliths. The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him. That’s OK. We all have some approximation of reality in our brains which is necessarily shaped by our life experiences.

> The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him. I don’t know about the author in particular, but Americans are generally aware of the “nuanced” European history of near constant war between rival nations, states, factions, and religions.

I think they could do a better job communicating that, but I’m glad that Americans are educated and curious about other parts of the world.

Re: 2025 Letter

#95

Post by verbify »

npalli wrote: post #84
ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

Just like San Francisco and Dallas/Texas (from his article) are very different in the US, we should expect lot of differences in Europe (as others mentioned, he clubs UK with EU). Housing is a general problem for all major cities though, not sure why you think it is unique to London in the whole continent. Stockholm, Paris, Dublin, Lisbon to name a few, are pretty bad for housing in their own unique ways. Certainly s…

> Just like San Francisco and Dallas/Texas (from his article) are very different in the US, we should expect lot of differences in Europe

Dallas and San Francisco are both English speaking cities with a shared recent history of being part of the same nation. Most cities in Europe are as close as New York and Mexico City - Dallas and San Francisco is probably more analogous to Milan and Naples (different cultures, different histories, but now speak the same language and are part of the same nation).

Re: 2025 Letter

#96

Post by verbify »

dzonga wrote: post #49

London has the house prices of California and the income levels of Mississippi. the UK is seriously broken, I always reflect on the energy generation statistics of the UK per capita while in the US you see automated car washes, in the uk most car washes are Albanians n other immigrants etc

I spot checked some of this and from what I can find, the median salary in London is about $12k more than Mississippi, and the median house price in London is about $100k less than California.

Bear in mind that obviously the mean salary in London is going to be far higher than the median (the finance industry will skew it), while I'm not sure that's as extreme as Mississippi. Additionally median salaries reflect a lot of service jobs and similar labour. Dubai has a lower median wage than either London or Mississippi, but people don't think of it as economically broken.

Comparing California (an extremely large state that I presume has cheaper housing outside major urban areas) to a city seems a bit of a poor comparison.

I don't disagree that the UK has high energy costs.

Re: 2025 Letter

#97

Post by [deleted] »

kubb wrote: post #86
ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

He’s a Chinese guy in the US. He thinks in terms of large monoliths. The nuance of 40 different cultures on a small continent might be lost on him. That’s OK. We all have some approximation of reality in our brains which is necessarily shaped by our life experiences.

[deleted]

Re: 2025 Letter

#98

Post by veritascap »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #10
kaonwarb wrote: post #2

I recommend Dan’s book ( https://danwang.co/breakneck/ ) to those wanting to better understand China - and the United States.

One of the best books I read this year. I think a lot of HN readers will like it. A really balanced take on China that also digs deep into the perennial question of “why can’t we build big infrastructure projects in the US?” that comes up here quite often.

We used to build those infrastructure projects.

Re: 2025 Letter

#99

Post by maxglute »

ceuk wrote: post #70

As a Brit, I struggled to get much interesting out of this considering how many times he mentions "Europe" (in that condescendingly general way that only US folks seem to manage). He talks about "European" prospects and his trip to Denmark but then cites London as a representative example? This almost broke my brain it felt so incoherent. Never mind that (despite my personal wishes) we're not even part of the EU (whi…

He's a Canadian in America writing about China. He writes about bloc strategic competition. EU+UK is treated as bloc in this context, individual European countries are generally irrelevant alone.

Re: 2025 Letter

#100

Post by constantcrying »

As a European, the commentary felt very biting and accurate. An entire continent defined by being smug about not being the USA. Where not competing is seen as a great virtue and where significant parts of the electorate are actively voting against fixing the glaringly obvious problems.

The supposed niceness of the cities also is just not true. Many European cities are awful places. Where, maybe with the exception of a few tourist areas, you will only find dirty streets, rows of old apartment building regularly smeared with graffiti, shops selling used phones and vapes and food stores competing over who can sell the cheapest, still edible Kebab.

Post reply on HN