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Stop Generalizing About Europe

jonasbentzen.com

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Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#91

Post by klapinat0r »

pretoriusB wrote: post #67

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 t…

> 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.

This, exactly, seems to be the point OP is missing.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#92

Post by [deleted] »

pretoriusB wrote: post #67

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 t…

[deleted]

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#93

Post by loxs »

milesskorpen wrote: post #82
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…

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.

Correct regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA.

"The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but not only) the EU.

This is only the political situation. In terms of culture, language, religion, markets, laws, all the differences remain.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#94

Post by loxs »

loxs wrote: post #93
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.

Correct regarding the reasons and wrong regarding the current situation. You will be much more spot-on if you divide between the "former USSR" and "rest of Europe". Former USSR countries are mostly unified by the same language, religion (or lack of) and culture. They used to be the same country... much alike the USA. "The rest of Europe" is now mostly part of (or willing to join) the European organizations like (but…

Oh, and not to forget... this is a huge generalization on my side. There are huge exceptions to this, eg. the Baltic Countries.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#95

Post by grego »

jonascopenhagen wrote: post #55
grego wrote: post #51

As a European myself, I think it is fine to generalize* about Europe. Many points in Varsavsky's blog post were correct and it raised awareness of some things to consider. Sure, it had its omissions and errors, but also remember it was a blog post, not an article in a peer reviewed journal. Reading the article + the ensuing hacker news discussion one is already much better informed. What is naive is to expect some bl…

> Making generalizations is a wonderful property of the human brain. Without that we'd all be lost in the fractal complexity of everyday detail. Sure - the problem is when the generalizations are so broad as to become complete falsehoods. If I went to Upper East Side in New York and concluded that Americans are extremely wealthy persons who live in townhouses, I would be incorrect.

In my opinion Varsavsky's blog post was ok. Sure it mostly covered Spain and France, but that's where he's worked at. It conveyed actual experience from one person's perspective.

Some responsibility always lies with the reader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reading

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#96

Post by gyardley »

loxs wrote: post #77
hnriot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have…

Your ignorance of the respective areas is showing. It's hard to talk about a common culture between California and Louisiana when neither California nor Louisiana has a common internal culture.

In Louisiana, spend some time in Houma, and then some time in Shreveport. Louisiana has a Cajun-dominated region and a region that's very much part of the Old South, and they're not much alike.

In California, spend some time in Berkeley, and then some time in Redding, and then some time in El Centro. California has a relatively liberal coastal culture, a libertarian culture in its interior, and an almost exclusively Hispanic culture in portions of its south.

I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#97

Post by loxs »

elebertus wrote: post #84
loxs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things. How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have…

They're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different. The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.

Thank you for this. I was referring exactly to quantifiable traits.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#98

Post by adventured »

The comedy to this is the extreme generalizing that goes on globally when talking about America / Americans.

We're all cowboy surfer rednecks that love our guns and religion, are all broke with maxed out credit cards and overweight with a nasty case of diabetes.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#99

Post by pretoriusB »

jacquesm wrote: post #74
pretoriusB wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

> Really? As I Greek (with Italian acenstry), I really doubt this BS. Well, you can doubt it, but it isn't BS, it's the truth. I've been looking into the kitchen of a large variety of companies in size, product type, turnover and so on. The vast majority of intra-eu trade stays within the countries themselves with only a relatively small portion going to other countries, usually direct neighbours. Big trade partners…

>* Big trade partners within the EU are typically pairs dictated by geographic proximity (for instance the Netherlands and Germany, Germany and Poland and so on) or by the possession of some vast natural resource (eg. Germany - Russia in the case of natural gas).*

I'm not sure what you mean by big trade being between "pairs dictated by geographic proximity".

For example, Germany is the largest exporter to lots of countries in the EU, including Greece. I don't think we trade much with any of our "geographic neighbours". And Italy and France do quite well in exporting inside EU too.

Most importantly, I don't think he means this kind of industrial, agricultural trade, in his post. It's mostly about entrepreneurs in the tech field and new style businesses.

It should be also obvious that he knows what he's talking about (the original article that the post criticizes), because, unlike the critic, he has already created and worked with several companies in Europe.

Re: Stop Generalizing About Europe

#100

Post by jusben1369 »

Ok. Then what? Try and imagine an article written for US based entrepreneurs that didn't generalize about Europe to some degree? It would be awfully confusing (if written at all) So better to gently chide some of the more extreme generalizations than worry about stopping the practise entirely.
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