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Counterpoint from a fellow european. I found americans to not be more selfish, but more appreciative of self-reliance. In europe in most countries the philosoph

by Joeri 9y ago

Counterpoint from a fellow european. I found americans to not be more selfish, but more appreciative of self-reliance. In europe in most countries the philosophy is that of the nanny state, taking care of its citizens no matter what got them into a care-needing situation. In much of the US there’s much more a perception of responsibility for your own success, with negative individual outcomes being considered a necessary evil linked to personal freedom. Looking at the stats clearly the US needs a little more nanny state to generate better outcomes for the bottom half of the country. But equally europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture and let the EU become an economic leader instead of follower.

mrpopo 9y ago
> But equally europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture and let the EU become an economic leader instead of follower. Does it? Is the purpose of a nation state to compete with others based on economic metrics? Yes, I know that most countries are doing that, but in a thread where we compare individualism/selfishness with nanny/"charity" state, shouldn't this competition be questioned?
- spiderfarmer 9y ago
  Yes it should be questioned. Would I enjoy being filthy rich, while my neighbour is struggling with his hospital bills? Hell no. For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs.
  - logicchains 9y ago
    >Would I enjoy being filthy rich, while my neighbour is struggling with his hospital bills? Hell no. Nobody would stop you from helping with your neighbour's hospital bill if you were filthy rich.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      But couldn't his money go farther if we had a more efficient health care system? Do you realize that they passed a law specifically making it illegal for the government to negotiate the price for medicine.
      - spiderfarmer 9y ago
        If you lack compassion, like him probably, it's very easy to ignore how the system that's benefitting you is screwing over an awful lot of people.
    - spiderfarmer 9y ago
      Sure, I could add if/thens to my apps for each specific undesirable scenario, but I would much rather prefer to solve the underlying bugs.
      - gepi79 9y ago
        I prefer a consistent reliable efficient health care system and social security system to philantropy, charity and donations as well. The USA is still the violent prudish religious DIY Wild West compared to most areas in Europe (East-Europe excluded that is more like the USA).
        dnautics 9y ago
        > a consistent reliable efficient health care system what makes you think that this is reasonable for government to provide? How do you know that the era 1950-20xx is not an anomaly? If you look at the broad scope of history, governments are not very good at doing the things that you suggest they should be doing.
        TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        If you look at the broad scope of history, cannibalism is a good thing. I suggest you revise your argument to one that's more plausible and convincing.
  - Jedd 9y ago
    > For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs. For me, I'd say that society is about taking care of everyone -- government should merely (!) play the role of the administrator in that process. I always feel that way too many people I speak to think that 'the government' is some kind of independent force, rather than a reflection of what society wants. (Sure, in many cases, it really is a reflection of what a tiny handful of people orchestrate -- but since we're talking idealism here...)
    - spiderfarmer 9y ago
      For me, I don't think the driving forces of capatilism are always compatible with 'caring for people' and that there are tasks that are better left to governmental organizations.
      - Jedd 9y ago
        Yes, agreed entirely -- I didn't mean that more things should be privatised (I actually think many things should either remain, or be re-, nationalised). I meant that government should be acting in a way that reflects the will of an informed, thoughtful, responsible, empathetic society ... rather than 'inflicting' responsibility upon its citizens.
    - mcv 9y ago
      Exactly. The government should represent the will of the people. Too often I see people argue from the point that government is intrinsically some alien entity they have no control over, but when that's the case, that just means your government is wrong. Government should represent the people, and any government that doesn't, needs to be fixed. (The US government certainly needs to be fixed.)
      - dnautics 9y ago
        that's really dangerous, because the will of the people can get really hairy. Besides, if the will of the people is to take care of everyone through social services, then why do you need a government to do it? It should just happen naturally. What you are saying, is that a few select people that are chosen by a popularity contest should be given the authority to make people do things against their will.
  - oreo81 9y ago
    >For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs. You're free to donate as much of your income to people in need as you want, but you need to stop thinking you should be able to make other people do the same thing. You may not like it but we have a right to our labor and freedom to spend it how we please.
Gustomaximus 9y ago
Sweden and Norway, both flagship nanny states are extremely entrepreneurial and not just by volume but success. This goes against the logic you can't have social support and people reaching for entrepreneurial success. I think, though know this is anecdotal, US startup success is based largely on its market size of both consumers and venture capital.
- spiderfarmer 9y ago
  That's true, a lot of European startups focus on making it in their local market and from there branch out to other countries, whereas startups in the US are from their inception focussing on their large, single market with no language barriers. I think that's slowly changing. Dutch startups are told to think big nowadays and access to venture capital is also improving.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Is that really true of Silicon Valley startups? It seems that they start focusing on international sales shortly after their inception, mostly from VC pressure. Most SV startups that get big are international by default (can you think of one that wasn’t?).
    - Retric 9y ago
      Uber then named UberCab was limited to just San Francisco at the start, they then did other US cities before going international over a year later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Uber Even international by default aka pure internet companies like Facebook start as English only and tend to stay that way for a long time.
      - monocasa 9y ago
        Facebook was far from international by default. They scaled very slowly, individual college by college (you needed an email address on a whitelisted .edu domain).
scarface74 9y ago
So how much time do these same churches spend supporting policies and politicians that are actively trying to harm people?
wsy 9y ago
> ... europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture ... A good social support system is not detrimental at all to a rich startup culture. It is financed by taxes, and as startup you only need to pay taxes on profit, so you don't bear any additional costs.
- jazzyk 9y ago
  This is a bit simplistic. If you are in a high-tax state, your employees will pay a lot in taxes, and the cost is passed on to you, their employer. You will need to pay them enough to pay 40% in taxes and have some money left for living expenses. Which may make your startup (or any business, really) uncompetitive, or even infeasible compared to low-tax countries/states. There needs to be a cautious balance between providing social support (which I am all for) and overtaxing. For me, the most important part is the amount of tax money that actually goes to benefit the people who need it, rather than the bureaucracy. In the US, the value we get for our taxes is VERY low.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > Which may make your startup (or any business, really) uncompetitive, or even infeasible compared to low-tax countries/states. Well, you could have a "unicorn or bust" strategy, chasing primarily high margin b2b and b2c products so big salaries aren't a dealbreaker. Of course, I just described the current SV startup scene, including why things like Juicero get funded while affordable real estate development is a comparatively unattractive investment.
  - myaso 9y ago
    That's the price you pay for having a big country, there are quite a few benefits you enjoy from this -- carve it up into more easily manageable jurisdictions or deal with it. A bigger fraction of your tax dollars being absorbed by the bureaucracy in the US compared to let's say Canada or Estonia isn't something that can be changed -- your Congress doesn't seem to have an appetite for trimming waste or implementing responsible oversight. How is the Great Wall of Trump doing btw? ;)
Feniks 9y ago
Looking at the stats the Netherlands had a small budget SURPLUS last year and national debt is only 60% of GDP. There are economic advantages to a high tax welfare state as well.
- refurb 9y ago
  Did you just cherry pick one country and make a claim that high tax welfare states have an economic advantage? Statiticians the world over are rolling over in their graves.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    One year in one country no less...
bobwaycott 9y ago
I think it’s more accurate to say we Americans expect/demand self-reliance than it is to say we are more appreciative of it. It doesn’t quite make sense to say we appreciate it—that’d imply we do not expect it, but notice and value it when it is present. Quite the contrary—our culture leaves very little room for appreciating, valuing, revering, looking up to, or attributing positive social accolades to anything but self-reliance. The general rule in America is that the individual gets all the credit for the great things they do, and doesn’t have to share it with any social inputs/factors—and the individual gets all the blame when society deems them worthless, and society doesn’t have to share any of that blame.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  You expect/demand self-reliance? Well, my father finished his studies and had a stable job as an engineer. Suddenly he got ill: Multiple sclerosis (MS). In the early stages he got called a fraud by his parents, people called him lazy. They didn't even know he had MS in the first place. He had tremors in his hands. He could barely walk. He could see less than 10%. He couldn't read anymore, except with special glasses. He couldn't drive anymore. (How this all affected me as a child is another discussion.) His disease slowly progressed. He eventually ended up in a wheel chair, ended up with dialysis, and the plaque in his brains made him look like Alzheimer's. According to the "American Way" [1] he should end up on the street, at the mercy of some philanthropist he'd have to know or magically meet, and if he failed to achieve that, well I guess he didn't pray hard enough? The "European Way" [1] shows mercy. I'm grateful my father lived in Europe when this all happened. The only sad part about the story, is that my father was so pro-capitalist that he voted on political figures who destroyed some bricks of the very system which supported him! > our culture leaves very little room for appreciating, valuing, revering, looking up to, or attributing positive social accolades to anything but self-reliance. Our societies are made up by individuals, but we are all in this together. All of us are human beings who are trying their best to succeed in life. I believe that someone like my father made no known mistake in his life to blame him for his disease (the cause of MS is still unknown), and I have zero understanding for someone who beliefs that he, in his situation, should've ended up on the street, forcing him to be self-reliant. Like, how? He'd have died rather quickly as a blind, homeless man who cannot walk. And his example is just one of the many. I have one word for a society in the 20th/21st century who pushes people towards that path: compassion-less. And I judge a society by the way it treats its weakest links. Because that is a sign of wealth. Not United_States_Dollar-wealth, but maturity of society akin to how a parent nurtures their child. (Its not the same in this context because the child has a chance to succeed in life, but its close, and in case of temporary illnesses its accurate.) [1] America is bigger than USA, and Europe isn't one nation either. These are caricatures of Europe and America. We're overgeneralizing, in so many ways.
reirob 9y ago
> to enable a richer startup culture Why is a richer startup culture considered something positive?
- myaso 9y ago
  It's HN, it's like a mandatory one liner to toss out -- the equivalent to "that's what she said" on here. A healthy diet of HN reinforces the reality from a couple of years ago when things actually seem to look more and more barren with actual opportunities scarcer than ever. But the answer is the idea that these words represent in the heads of the people who spout them doesn't actually reflect what it means in practice.
dclowd9901 9y ago
As an American, getting very sick or hurt shouldn't cause you to lose your entire livelihood. There's no choice there (except in some circumstances). Yet we also perceive "bad luck" as a choice or a matter of circumstances that were the natural outcome of choices either you made or your parents or their parents made. Unless, of course, you're the one who's afflicted, then all of a sudden, it's a great tragedy and it wasn't your fault. In other words, we're full of shit.
- oreo81 9y ago
  >getting very sick or hurt shouldn't cause you to lose your entire livelihood. We've had great mechanism to address this, namely insurance and savings. The underlying principle here is planning ahead, and sacrificing some of today's sweet instant gratification in exchange for protection tomorrow should you need it. This is a concept that people have seemed to lose sight of, so we're now seeing people want protection today even though they made no sacrifice yesterday. Those people with zero foresight have now ruined it for the people that did plan ahead.
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    Yeah, as someone who works in healthcare IT, what we call "insurance" in the US for healthcare in no way resembles a proper insurance model. It's heavily slanted in favor of the insurer, who have zero hesitation kicking people out of the pool, despite having accounted for their costs in their actuarial tables. Despite the fact that the risk of having condition X in the population doesn't change, you're subject to limitations and/or outright rejection should you choose to use that free market you seem so fond of. You can equally be kicked out of that pool despite having made that sacrifice you describe. For example, health insurers have been found to have done such things as kick cancer patients off insurance as a pre-existing condition, based on previous general practitioner visits. "Oh, we, and you, didn't know it was cancer at the time, you were just sick. But since you were sick shortly after getting insurance, you most likely already had cancer. Therefore it was a pre-existing condition, you didn't disclose it, whether or not you knew about it, and we are terminating your coverage back to the first physician visit about your illness". Or "We are refusing to cover the costs of the ambulance/air ambulance ride that ferried you to the trauma center after your MVA, because that ride wasn't pre-approved by a call to the insurer". Both of the above examples happened. I'm not sure what should have happened in either case, but I'm pretty sure in the latter it wasn't, "Hello, Blue Cross? This is John, I'm a paramedic working on one of your patients who was hit by a truck. We would like to fly him to the hospital due to his extensive multisystem trauma but we need your approval. His name? Hang on, let me find his wallet. No, that's Smythe, S-M-Y-T-H-E, sorry, it's a bit loud with the jaws of life in the background... Yes, I can hold for a nurse consult..." Health insurance in the US is amortization of costs, and has little to do with risk pooling and actuarials.
nolite 9y ago
Counter-counterpoint from an American. It actually is selfishness. Most people and fight and vote in their own self-interest, and only take note of the welfare of others when it affects them directly. Sad, but true..
vilmosi 9y ago
>>> But equally europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture and let the EU become an economic leader instead of follower Isn't the EU the biggest economy in the world? For now at least, Brexit and all that...
- AcerbicZero 9y ago
  Depends on how you measure economy size, but by most metrics the EU is a close-ish second.
lucideer 9y ago
> europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture A part of this is cultural (appreciation of self-reliance) but the other half of it (the state-/support-structure-influenced side, let's say) is surely the precise opposite of your suggestion? Countless studies have shown that support structures encourage risk-taking behaviour and entrepeneurship. Even in the US, entrepeneurship will be much more common amongst those with well-educated, supportive family backgrounds - the rags-to-riches stories are certainly highlighted as inspirational examples of the American dream but are minority cases in reality.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
Also speaking as an European immigrant who's been living in the US for nearly two decades. Both of you are right. Americans are not more selfish than other nations, individually. Culturally they do tend to hoist self-reliance up on a high pedestal. In theory these traits should be unrelated, more or less. However, it is a very unfortunate "feature" of the American political system that there are many, many demagogues who take things that are inherently good, virtues one could say, such as self-reliance, and weaponize them to serve the interests of some extremely selfish rich power brokers. Not every time, but in many cases when you hear the word "freedom" in the American political discourse, you might be close to an example of this pernicious distortion of basic notions. TLDR: Americans, stop obsessing over by now empty slogans such as "freedom", start thinking more about building a society that works well for all its participants.
jotm 9y ago
USA with a safety net like that of EU would be unstoppable. It's already sort of there business-side, now it needs the social side to work, so any individual who falls on hard times can get back on their feet fast. The EU is too risk averse.

by Joeri 9y ago

mrpopo 9y ago

> But equally europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture and let the EU become an economic leader instead of follower. Does it? Is the purpose of a nation state to compete with others based on economic metrics? Yes, I know that most countries are doing that, but in a thread where we compare individualism/selfishness with nanny/"charity" state, shouldn't this competition be questioned?

spiderfarmer 9y ago
Yes it should be questioned. Would I enjoy being filthy rich, while my neighbour is struggling with his hospital bills? Hell no. For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs.
- logicchains 9y ago
  >Would I enjoy being filthy rich, while my neighbour is struggling with his hospital bills? Hell no. Nobody would stop you from helping with your neighbour's hospital bill if you were filthy rich.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    But couldn't his money go farther if we had a more efficient health care system? Do you realize that they passed a law specifically making it illegal for the government to negotiate the price for medicine.
    - spiderfarmer 9y ago
      If you lack compassion, like him probably, it's very easy to ignore how the system that's benefitting you is screwing over an awful lot of people.
  - spiderfarmer 9y ago
    Sure, I could add if/thens to my apps for each specific undesirable scenario, but I would much rather prefer to solve the underlying bugs.
    - gepi79 9y ago
      I prefer a consistent reliable efficient health care system and social security system to philantropy, charity and donations as well. The USA is still the violent prudish religious DIY Wild West compared to most areas in Europe (East-Europe excluded that is more like the USA).
      - dnautics 9y ago
        > a consistent reliable efficient health care system what makes you think that this is reasonable for government to provide? How do you know that the era 1950-20xx is not an anomaly? If you look at the broad scope of history, governments are not very good at doing the things that you suggest they should be doing.
        TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        If you look at the broad scope of history, cannibalism is a good thing. I suggest you revise your argument to one that's more plausible and convincing.
- Jedd 9y ago
  > For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs. For me, I'd say that society is about taking care of everyone -- government should merely (!) play the role of the administrator in that process. I always feel that way too many people I speak to think that 'the government' is some kind of independent force, rather than a reflection of what society wants. (Sure, in many cases, it really is a reflection of what a tiny handful of people orchestrate -- but since we're talking idealism here...)
  - spiderfarmer 9y ago
    For me, I don't think the driving forces of capatilism are always compatible with 'caring for people' and that there are tasks that are better left to governmental organizations.
    - Jedd 9y ago
      Yes, agreed entirely -- I didn't mean that more things should be privatised (I actually think many things should either remain, or be re-, nationalised). I meant that government should be acting in a way that reflects the will of an informed, thoughtful, responsible, empathetic society ... rather than 'inflicting' responsibility upon its citizens.
  - mcv 9y ago
    Exactly. The government should represent the will of the people. Too often I see people argue from the point that government is intrinsically some alien entity they have no control over, but when that's the case, that just means your government is wrong. Government should represent the people, and any government that doesn't, needs to be fixed. (The US government certainly needs to be fixed.)
    - dnautics 9y ago
      that's really dangerous, because the will of the people can get really hairy. Besides, if the will of the people is to take care of everyone through social services, then why do you need a government to do it? It should just happen naturally. What you are saying, is that a few select people that are chosen by a popularity contest should be given the authority to make people do things against their will.
- oreo81 9y ago
  >For me government is about taking care of the sick, poor and vulnerable as much as taking care of wannabe millionairs. You're free to donate as much of your income to people in need as you want, but you need to stop thinking you should be able to make other people do the same thing. You may not like it but we have a right to our labor and freedom to spend it how we please.

Gustomaximus 9y ago

Sweden and Norway, both flagship nanny states are extremely entrepreneurial and not just by volume but success. This goes against the logic you can't have social support and people reaching for entrepreneurial success. I think, though know this is anecdotal, US startup success is based largely on its market size of both consumers and venture capital.

spiderfarmer 9y ago
That's true, a lot of European startups focus on making it in their local market and from there branch out to other countries, whereas startups in the US are from their inception focussing on their large, single market with no language barriers. I think that's slowly changing. Dutch startups are told to think big nowadays and access to venture capital is also improving.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Is that really true of Silicon Valley startups? It seems that they start focusing on international sales shortly after their inception, mostly from VC pressure. Most SV startups that get big are international by default (can you think of one that wasn’t?).
  - Retric 9y ago
    Uber then named UberCab was limited to just San Francisco at the start, they then did other US cities before going international over a year later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Uber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Uber Even international by default aka pure internet companies like Facebook start as English only and tend to stay that way for a long time.
    - monocasa 9y ago
      Facebook was far from international by default. They scaled very slowly, individual college by college (you needed an email address on a whitelisted .edu domain).

scarface74 9y ago

So how much time do these same churches spend supporting policies and politicians that are actively trying to harm people?

wsy 9y ago

> ... europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture ... A good social support system is not detrimental at all to a rich startup culture. It is financed by taxes, and as startup you only need to pay taxes on profit, so you don't bear any additional costs.

jazzyk 9y ago
This is a bit simplistic. If you are in a high-tax state, your employees will pay a lot in taxes, and the cost is passed on to you, their employer. You will need to pay them enough to pay 40% in taxes and have some money left for living expenses. Which may make your startup (or any business, really) uncompetitive, or even infeasible compared to low-tax countries/states. There needs to be a cautious balance between providing social support (which I am all for) and overtaxing. For me, the most important part is the amount of tax money that actually goes to benefit the people who need it, rather than the bureaucracy. In the US, the value we get for our taxes is VERY low.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > Which may make your startup (or any business, really) uncompetitive, or even infeasible compared to low-tax countries/states. Well, you could have a "unicorn or bust" strategy, chasing primarily high margin b2b and b2c products so big salaries aren't a dealbreaker. Of course, I just described the current SV startup scene, including why things like Juicero get funded while affordable real estate development is a comparatively unattractive investment.
- myaso 9y ago
  That's the price you pay for having a big country, there are quite a few benefits you enjoy from this -- carve it up into more easily manageable jurisdictions or deal with it. A bigger fraction of your tax dollars being absorbed by the bureaucracy in the US compared to let's say Canada or Estonia isn't something that can be changed -- your Congress doesn't seem to have an appetite for trimming waste or implementing responsible oversight. How is the Great Wall of Trump doing btw? ;)

Feniks 9y ago

Looking at the stats the Netherlands had a small budget SURPLUS last year and national debt is only 60% of GDP. There are economic advantages to a high tax welfare state as well.

refurb 9y ago
Did you just cherry pick one country and make a claim that high tax welfare states have an economic advantage? Statiticians the world over are rolling over in their graves.
- kbutler 9y ago
  One year in one country no less...

bobwaycott 9y ago

I think it’s more accurate to say we Americans expect/demand self-reliance than it is to say we are more appreciative of it. It doesn’t quite make sense to say we appreciate it—that’d imply we do not expect it, but notice and value it when it is present. Quite the contrary—our culture leaves very little room for appreciating, valuing, revering, looking up to, or attributing positive social accolades to anything but self-reliance. The general rule in America is that the individual gets all the credit for the great things they do, and doesn’t have to share it with any social inputs/factors—and the individual gets all the blame when society deems them worthless, and society doesn’t have to share any of that blame.

Fnoord 9y ago
You expect/demand self-reliance? Well, my father finished his studies and had a stable job as an engineer. Suddenly he got ill: Multiple sclerosis (MS). In the early stages he got called a fraud by his parents, people called him lazy. They didn't even know he had MS in the first place. He had tremors in his hands. He could barely walk. He could see less than 10%. He couldn't read anymore, except with special glasses. He couldn't drive anymore. (How this all affected me as a child is another discussion.) His disease slowly progressed. He eventually ended up in a wheel chair, ended up with dialysis, and the plaque in his brains made him look like Alzheimer's. According to the "American Way" [1] he should end up on the street, at the mercy of some philanthropist he'd have to know or magically meet, and if he failed to achieve that, well I guess he didn't pray hard enough? The "European Way" [1] shows mercy. I'm grateful my father lived in Europe when this all happened. The only sad part about the story, is that my father was so pro-capitalist that he voted on political figures who destroyed some bricks of the very system which supported him! > our culture leaves very little room for appreciating, valuing, revering, looking up to, or attributing positive social accolades to anything but self-reliance. Our societies are made up by individuals, but we are all in this together. All of us are human beings who are trying their best to succeed in life. I believe that someone like my father made no known mistake in his life to blame him for his disease (the cause of MS is still unknown), and I have zero understanding for someone who beliefs that he, in his situation, should've ended up on the street, forcing him to be self-reliant. Like, how? He'd have died rather quickly as a blind, homeless man who cannot walk. And his example is just one of the many. I have one word for a society in the 20th/21st century who pushes people towards that path: compassion-less. And I judge a society by the way it treats its weakest links. Because that is a sign of wealth. Not United_States_Dollar-wealth, but maturity of society akin to how a parent nurtures their child. (Its not the same in this context because the child has a chance to succeed in life, but its close, and in case of temporary illnesses its accurate.) [1] America is bigger than USA, and Europe isn't one nation either. These are caricatures of Europe and America. We're overgeneralizing, in so many ways.

reirob 9y ago

> to enable a richer startup culture Why is a richer startup culture considered something positive?

myaso 9y ago
It's HN, it's like a mandatory one liner to toss out -- the equivalent to "that's what she said" on here. A healthy diet of HN reinforces the reality from a couple of years ago when things actually seem to look more and more barren with actual opportunities scarcer than ever. But the answer is the idea that these words represent in the heads of the people who spout them doesn't actually reflect what it means in practice.

dclowd9901 9y ago

As an American, getting very sick or hurt shouldn't cause you to lose your entire livelihood. There's no choice there (except in some circumstances). Yet we also perceive "bad luck" as a choice or a matter of circumstances that were the natural outcome of choices either you made or your parents or their parents made. Unless, of course, you're the one who's afflicted, then all of a sudden, it's a great tragedy and it wasn't your fault. In other words, we're full of shit.

oreo81 9y ago
>getting very sick or hurt shouldn't cause you to lose your entire livelihood. We've had great mechanism to address this, namely insurance and savings. The underlying principle here is planning ahead, and sacrificing some of today's sweet instant gratification in exchange for protection tomorrow should you need it. This is a concept that people have seemed to lose sight of, so we're now seeing people want protection today even though they made no sacrifice yesterday. Those people with zero foresight have now ruined it for the people that did plan ahead.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Yeah, as someone who works in healthcare IT, what we call "insurance" in the US for healthcare in no way resembles a proper insurance model. It's heavily slanted in favor of the insurer, who have zero hesitation kicking people out of the pool, despite having accounted for their costs in their actuarial tables. Despite the fact that the risk of having condition X in the population doesn't change, you're subject to limitations and/or outright rejection should you choose to use that free market you seem so fond of. You can equally be kicked out of that pool despite having made that sacrifice you describe. For example, health insurers have been found to have done such things as kick cancer patients off insurance as a pre-existing condition, based on previous general practitioner visits. "Oh, we, and you, didn't know it was cancer at the time, you were just sick. But since you were sick shortly after getting insurance, you most likely already had cancer. Therefore it was a pre-existing condition, you didn't disclose it, whether or not you knew about it, and we are terminating your coverage back to the first physician visit about your illness". Or "We are refusing to cover the costs of the ambulance/air ambulance ride that ferried you to the trauma center after your MVA, because that ride wasn't pre-approved by a call to the insurer". Both of the above examples happened. I'm not sure what should have happened in either case, but I'm pretty sure in the latter it wasn't, "Hello, Blue Cross? This is John, I'm a paramedic working on one of your patients who was hit by a truck. We would like to fly him to the hospital due to his extensive multisystem trauma but we need your approval. His name? Hang on, let me find his wallet. No, that's Smythe, S-M-Y-T-H-E, sorry, it's a bit loud with the jaws of life in the background... Yes, I can hold for a nurse consult..." Health insurance in the US is amortization of costs, and has little to do with risk pooling and actuarials.

nolite 9y ago

Counter-counterpoint from an American. It actually is selfishness. Most people and fight and vote in their own self-interest, and only take note of the welfare of others when it affects them directly. Sad, but true..

vilmosi 9y ago

>>> But equally europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture and let the EU become an economic leader instead of follower Isn't the EU the biggest economy in the world? For now at least, Brexit and all that...

AcerbicZero 9y ago
Depends on how you measure economy size, but by most metrics the EU is a close-ish second.

lucideer 9y ago

> europe needs more appreciation of self-reliance and entrepreneurship to enable a richer startup culture A part of this is cultural (appreciation of self-reliance) but the other half of it (the state-/support-structure-influenced side, let's say) is surely the precise opposite of your suggestion? Countless studies have shown that support structures encourage risk-taking behaviour and entrepeneurship. Even in the US, entrepeneurship will be much more common amongst those with well-educated, supportive family backgrounds - the rags-to-riches stories are certainly highlighted as inspirational examples of the American dream but are minority cases in reality.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

Also speaking as an European immigrant who's been living in the US for nearly two decades. Both of you are right. Americans are not more selfish than other nations, individually. Culturally they do tend to hoist self-reliance up on a high pedestal. In theory these traits should be unrelated, more or less. However, it is a very unfortunate "feature" of the American political system that there are many, many demagogues who take things that are inherently good, virtues one could say, such as self-reliance, and weaponize them to serve the interests of some extremely selfish rich power brokers. Not every time, but in many cases when you hear the word "freedom" in the American political discourse, you might be close to an example of this pernicious distortion of basic notions. TLDR: Americans, stop obsessing over by now empty slogans such as "freedom", start thinking more about building a society that works well for all its participants.

jotm 9y ago

USA with a safety net like that of EU would be unstoppable. It's already sort of there business-side, now it needs the social side to work, so any individual who falls on hard times can get back on their feet fast. The EU is too risk averse.