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If you want to truly understand the difference. You'll have to travel far back in history. America did not exist yet and Europe was a poor place. India and Chi

If you want to truly understand the difference. You'll have to travel far back in history. America did not exist yet and Europe was a poor place. India and China were rich and had a huge trade surplus, they were getting richer and Europe was getting poorer. And they were not interested in invading other countries. Europeans invaded and robbed India and Africa from where they got most of their wealth. This wealth helped Europe industrialize. During this time someone looking to travel to India accidentally discovered America. I'll leave rest on you to research. Fast forward today, American companies (facebook, google) have succeeded in extracting huge value from the European continent. Partly due to their economic policies and immigration of talented labor from other countries. Europeans do not welcome immigration, considering the fact they are the nations who've robbed developing nations. And Europeans do not like it because they've rapidly aging population, they are not in a position to compete with America and rising nations (India/China etc...) Europe is now in wealth preservation mode. They want to stop wealth from leaving their shores. As Europeans come together to protect the wealth and they've somehow made a case for the welfare state. Today, Europeans ride their moral high horse and advocate for high standards, but why should anyone give them any creditability when their roots are imperialism / plundering poor nations. GDPR is yet another unreasonable and difficult to comply with policy coming out of Europe. It's their wealth preservation plan.

xstartup 8y ago
As a European, it might hurt your feelings but you should blame it on your ancestors. Europeans have never been apologetic towards the nations they've robbed during Imperiasic Era. Until they correct their mistake. Only nation who we should trust the ones who have never robbed other nations. I would love to know how Europeans can defend their actions of past.
- olivierduval 8y ago
  Quite funny: you're more describing the US than Europe. Maybe because you're only interested by US and not by Europe..? ;-)
  - xstartup 8y ago
    No, I am describing Europe only. Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations of South Asia and Africa. Winners write history, but still, it's damn too hard to make elephant in the room disappear.
    - badpun 8y ago
      > Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations of South Asia and Africa. Do you have some data to back it up? Because there are some quite prominent examples that seem to contradict this claim. Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe.
      - xstartup 8y ago
        If Poland did perfect industrial processes where did it got the natural resources from if not from rest of Europe which were brought into Europe through imperialism? Becoming an Industrial power is not possible without importing resources. >> Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe. It seems to support my claim perfectly. Poland was only able to become a major power because it did not have an excess of those resources, partly because it did not venture outside Europe. It had no option but to polish its industrial strength in order to compete with rest of Europe. There was literally no incentive for other European countries of that time to become a major industrial power, they were awash with wealth and resources.
        badpun 8y ago
        Poland was a major player in the pre-industrial era (the period that you referred to in your original comment, I am not saying anything about the industrialization period). It accomplished it without any ventures to Asia or Africa. Your original claim still looks invalid to me.
mraccount 8y ago
> Today, Europeans ride their moral high horse and advocate for high standards, but why should anyone give them any creditability when their roots are imperialism / plundering poor nations. How is it different from Asian imperialism? (Genghis Khan, Imperial Japan, Soviet Union). We must judge nations by todays standards, not by that of centuries ago.
- xstartup 8y ago
  Genghis Khan (1206-1368) Imperial Japan - 14th century The Soviet Union - They mostly annexed poor territories. I am not sure, how much wealth they extracted but 2 bads don't make 1 good. In comparison, European Imperialism started at 1400 ended just 70-years ago. Till then the world had a global currency, industrialization had started. Heck, we even had structures representing modern companies, banks, and the stock market. So, yea something which ended roughly 70 years ago is too old on nation timescale? According to your argument, is it ok to rob your grandfather, so that your father and you are born in near poverty and judge you by your success today? No one can deny, Europe has robbed other nations of their prosperity.
  - mraccount2 8y ago
    > In comparison, European Imperialism started at 1400 ended just 70-years ago. As did Asian imperialism. Look at Japan just about 70-years ago. > No one can deny, Europe has robbed other nations of their prosperity. No one can deny, Asians and Arabs robbed other nations of their prosperity.
    - xstartup 8y ago
      >> As did Asian imperialism. Look at Japan just about 70-years ago. 2 wrongs don't make 1 right. >> No one can deny, Asians and Arabs robbed other nations of their prosperity. Scale vastly differs. You should be checking how much Europe extracted out of Asia/Africa before bringing Japan into the discussion. I bet most Europeans are not taught about Europeans atrocities committed in Africa/Asia at school. That's why you are not able to even perceive scale of exploitation correctly. Europeans killed 4 million people deliberately engineering famine in South Asia. Pretty, sure they've removed these things out of their textbooks but feel free to do your own research. These things are less than 100 years old. Yes, Japan/Europe are both rich today so are those Arab nations too. What about the countries who they robbed?
romanovcode 8y ago
Haha, you had to put GDPR in this, didn't you?

xstartup 8y ago

As a European, it might hurt your feelings but you should blame it on your ancestors. Europeans have never been apologetic towards the nations they've robbed during Imperiasic Era. Until they correct their mistake. Only nation who we should trust the ones who have never robbed other nations. I would love to know how Europeans can defend their actions of past.

olivierduval 8y ago
Quite funny: you're more describing the US than Europe. Maybe because you're only interested by US and not by Europe..? ;-)
- xstartup 8y ago
  No, I am describing Europe only. Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations of South Asia and Africa. Winners write history, but still, it's damn too hard to make elephant in the room disappear.
  - badpun 8y ago
    > Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations of South Asia and Africa. Do you have some data to back it up? Because there are some quite prominent examples that seem to contradict this claim. Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe.
    - xstartup 8y ago
      If Poland did perfect industrial processes where did it got the natural resources from if not from rest of Europe which were brought into Europe through imperialism? Becoming an Industrial power is not possible without importing resources. >> Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe. It seems to support my claim perfectly. Poland was only able to become a major power because it did not have an excess of those resources, partly because it did not venture outside Europe. It had no option but to polish its industrial strength in order to compete with rest of Europe. There was literally no incentive for other European countries of that time to become a major industrial power, they were awash with wealth and resources.
      - badpun 8y ago
        Poland was a major player in the pre-industrial era (the period that you referred to in your original comment, I am not saying anything about the industrialization period). It accomplished it without any ventures to Asia or Africa. Your original claim still looks invalid to me.

mraccount 8y ago

> Today, Europeans ride their moral high horse and advocate for high standards, but why should anyone give them any creditability when their roots are imperialism / plundering poor nations. How is it different from Asian imperialism? (Genghis Khan, Imperial Japan, Soviet Union). We must judge nations by todays standards, not by that of centuries ago.

xstartup 8y ago
Genghis Khan (1206-1368) Imperial Japan - 14th century The Soviet Union - They mostly annexed poor territories. I am not sure, how much wealth they extracted but 2 bads don't make 1 good. In comparison, European Imperialism started at 1400 ended just 70-years ago. Till then the world had a global currency, industrialization had started. Heck, we even had structures representing modern companies, banks, and the stock market. So, yea something which ended roughly 70 years ago is too old on nation timescale? According to your argument, is it ok to rob your grandfather, so that your father and you are born in near poverty and judge you by your success today? No one can deny, Europe has robbed other nations of their prosperity.
- mraccount2 8y ago
  > In comparison, European Imperialism started at 1400 ended just 70-years ago. As did Asian imperialism. Look at Japan just about 70-years ago. > No one can deny, Europe has robbed other nations of their prosperity. No one can deny, Asians and Arabs robbed other nations of their prosperity.
  - xstartup 8y ago
    >> As did Asian imperialism. Look at Japan just about 70-years ago. 2 wrongs don't make 1 right. >> No one can deny, Asians and Arabs robbed other nations of their prosperity. Scale vastly differs. You should be checking how much Europe extracted out of Asia/Africa before bringing Japan into the discussion. I bet most Europeans are not taught about Europeans atrocities committed in Africa/Asia at school. That's why you are not able to even perceive scale of exploitation correctly. Europeans killed 4 million people deliberately engineering famine in South Asia. Pretty, sure they've removed these things out of their textbooks but feel free to do your own research. These things are less than 100 years old. Yes, Japan/Europe are both rich today so are those Arab nations too. What about the countries who they robbed?

romanovcode 8y ago

Haha, you had to put GDPR in this, didn't you?