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I could go into a lengthy explanation on this point, but it boils down to a difference in culture primarily rooted in (1) available space and (2) historical lan

I could go into a lengthy explanation on this point, but it boils down to a difference in culture primarily rooted in (1) available space and (2) historical land usage. And what you're referring to is not a problem, because it is objectively useful to have a large truck in the middle of nowhere. I enjoy being able to move lots of things at once without asking another person for help. Also, have you ever had a tract of land in a rural part of the USA? It's quite nice. Europeans have a tendency to think they're superior to Americans, but that's just classist crap that needs to stop. The USA has cool things, and so do Germans and Austrians and Belgians and the French and so on. Why divide ourselves?

seibelj 6y ago
I agree - the media constantly posts these “other countries look at USA in bewilderment” articles as if anyone in the US should care what others think. I’m constantly amazed that Europe has insanely high taxes, low growth, and tiny innovation yet no one every speaks of my bewilderment. Everyone has cool stuff, but there are bad things to say about every country in addition to good things.
- ggm 6y ago
  as if anyone in the US should care what others think. American exceptionalism in one phrase.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    Germans don’t care what New Yorkers think about Germany. A news article about Americans taking pity on Germany would never land in Der Spiegel but we don’t call that German exceptionalism.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Germans may not care specifically about New Yorkers' every thought about their country but they do compare their results internationally. Here's a Der Spiegel article about how the German PISA results are good but could be better: https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/pisa-studie-der-oecd-deutschland-landet-im-oberen-mittelfeld-a-1299249.html https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/pisa-studie-der...
    - corty 6y ago
      Oh, there is plenty of German exceptionalism, it usually takes the form of moral, political or ethical snobbiness. Germany views itself as an exceptionally moral and civilized nation nowadays and strives to export that lesson from the past. Not only the Nazi past, mind you, the saying "Am Deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen" -German habit shall heal the world- is far older. Germans know they might be smaller or average in most things, but morally and ethically, we are Übermenschen...
  - AniseAbyss 6y ago
    If only it went both ways.
- pertymcpert 6y ago
  Maybe try living there? I have in both. Life is definitely better in Western Europe.
  - seibelj 6y ago
    Ah yes, the “true happiness is simply moving to another country” argument. The truth is that life is what you make of it - the happiness you seek cannot be provided by any government. Plenty of people are happy and plenty of people are empty, sad, unfulfilled, and depressed in every country on earth. That said, I will prefer to live in places that give me more choice - more economic choice, more living choices, more everything choices. I am by any global metric a wealthy person and my US tax rate is very low compared to every other western nation except for tax shelter countries. And I prefer to have less government mandating where my wealth is spent and retain more control over my life. What’s so wonderful is that apparently anyone (just like yourself!) can so easily uproot their entire lives to experiment living in two different countries! Although research tells me that Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands, and France have very difficult requirements for immigration. I need to learn Dutch? Huh? In the USA it’s so much easier!
    - supportlocal4h 6y ago
      I'm a bit unclear about your ending. You want to move to the Netherlands but don't want to learn Dutch? Are you one of those Californians who are desperate to escape California but then try to change all the rules of your new home to match what you had in California? Just so you know, this is very irritating to your new neighbors. I live in the USA. I like it here. But you say it is better because it has lower taxes and doesn't make you learn Dutch. Others point out that your taxes + your health insurance premiums + doctor fees are not less than Netherland's taxes that include healthcare. When I lived outside the USA I made a significant effort to learn the language. I've never understood why one would not. If these are your main reasons for preferring the USA they seem pretty weak. Your first paragraph is a much stronger position.
      - seibelj 6y ago
- eecc 6y ago
  Well, not everywhere in Europe has insanely high taxes and for a fair comparison I’d add what Americans pay in health insurance anyway. As for high growth, Europe doesn’t have the space to engage in pump & dump real estate and the same scale of military subsidies that made the fortunes of many US industries.
- iso947 6y ago
  Looking at 90%ile total income tax in UK it’s about the same as 90%ile in a typical US state, but you get comprehensive health care in UK
  - waterheater 6y ago
    If there's any common political rallying point in the USA, it's how expensive healthcare is! Relief does exist. I know two close people who each had around $70k of medical debt wiped clean by hospitals. But yes, healthcare costs need to drop. See this graph for a symptom of why healthcare is so expensive: http://www.ibj.com/ext/resources/blog/The-Dose/Physicians-Administrators.png http://www.ibj.com/ext/resources/blog/The-Dose/Physicians-Ad...
    - bumby 6y ago
      What’s interesting is that two sectors that have had costs rising much faster than inflation for decades are healthcare and college in the US. Replace “physicians” with “professors” and you have a visually identical graph for college costs
alex_young 6y ago
Actually I’m speaking from personal experience with rural life in several places in the US and in Europe. While I agree that each has their advantages and disadvantages, transportation is something many places in Europe have something to show us IMHO. A small village would typically have a train station where you can quickly travel to a populated area and urban cores are often nearly completely restricted from cars excepting deliveries making for walkable daily life. It’s true that having a personal vehicle is more convenient, but in my opinion that is a bit of a tragedy of the commons. If everyone decides to have one then we all pay the price in needing one to get anywhere. I’m really not sure where class figures into these two different models honestly.
- waterheater 6y ago
  I've also seen rural US and Europe. Trains work well when you have enough people to care to use the infrastructure. But if not, you might try buses. I saw a rural village in Hungary (~80 people) which has a bus stop to the nearest town. That's very nice, but the village center is a mile walk from the bus stop on the highway. My point is that a train may not automatically work. (Some rural communities in the USA do have similar bus routes.) I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line? I'm asking because I just picked a random American town on the map: Spencer, Iowa. ~11k people, and it's about a two hour drive (~100 miles) in all directions to a larger city. A two hour drive is a decent drive, but it's not much overall, especially if you're comfortable driving. It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land. And that's my primary point: Europe's population is distributed more uniformly and densely than the USA. A blanket claim about how x transportation mode must be used in the USA ignores the stark regional variations. Sure, in certain large cities, widespread car ownership may lead to a tragedy of the commons scenario, but it's on a per-city basis. The vast majority of cities in the USA will never encounter this problem because their "commons" are just so big, all cows still find a spot to graze. The cities that do encounter large traffic jams eventually build public transportation infrastructure to reduce the burden on roadways. Playing out the maximal scenarios, I'd much rather live in a world where everyone drives cars than everyone rides trains. A mix of both is even better. Walkable downtowns are great, and cities of all sizes should have them.
pertymcpert 6y ago
It's not classist at all. Stop being so defensive about constructive criticism. It's defeatist and the US should welcome good suggestions about how to make life better. Good god the "cool stuff" that the US has in no way shape or form compensates for the poor lives that the majority of the country leads.
- autokad 6y ago
  I think the country needs less people telling them how they should live.
- waterheater 6y ago
  >It's not classist at all. Stop being so defensive about constructive criticism. If a train is the best solution for a USA community, by all means, make it happen! However, trains are optimal in the USA in far fewer scenarios than either automobiles, buses, or airplanes.
bobthepanda 6y ago
(2) - most "historical" land use differences that can be attributed to the automobile are recent, because the US did not even fully embrace the automobile until after the war. New Urbanism started because architects realized that postwar zoning codes made constructing a traditional New England town center illegal. And most rural towns today even have dead or dying Main Streets caused by the huge shift towards automobile dependent big box stores. This sounds like the rhetoric around gun rights, where any amount of regulation on guns becomes an absolute seizure of the right to have any gun. No one is talking about an absolute zero automobile society; even societies that deprioritize the car still have cars available, just not as the first choice. Cars don't have to be dominant to be available and usable.
- waterheater 6y ago
  >most "historical" land use differences that can be attributed to the automobile are recent, because the US did not even fully embrace the automobile until after the war No disrepsect, but did any country? Trains were used extensively, but the double-whammy of automobiles and airplanes did do a number on the attractiveness of trains. >And most rural towns today even have dead or dying Main Streets caused by the huge shift towards automobile dependent big box stores. Mmm. I feel that's a case of "correlation != causation." - The decades-long export of jobs (avoidable or not) depleted available capital in the community. With little money and work, supporting businesses (mostly those in town centers) greatly struggled, and many folded. - Big box stores use economies of scale to undercut Main Street prices, which further accelerates the collapse of small business. Dollar General is an interesting example, where they (in my view) have tried to fill the gaps these collapses left. - Big box stores are inherently large, so good luck finding a tract of land big enough in a rural downtown. If a rural community has a bus line, I'd wager good money that the Walmart has a stop. >This sounds like the rhetoric around gun rights, where any amount of regulation on guns becomes an absolute seizure of the right to have any gun. Gun rights are constitutionally protected, whereas no law says "the right to own vehicles, being necessary for the operation of a free society, shall not be infringed." Some people really, really love the law if it makes them feel more secure (and that's okay). Also, bear (heh) in mind gun rhetoric in today's age is manufactured for political purposes. >Cars don't have to be dominant to be available and usable. Agreed. If cars are less optimal than other transportation modes, people will chose otherwise. But in the vast majority of the USA, except for commuting, cars enable more liberty than trains at lower levels of efficiency. Not the worst thing, in my opinion.

seibelj 6y ago

I agree - the media constantly posts these “other countries look at USA in bewilderment” articles as if anyone in the US should care what others think. I’m constantly amazed that Europe has insanely high taxes, low growth, and tiny innovation yet no one every speaks of my bewilderment. Everyone has cool stuff, but there are bad things to say about every country in addition to good things.

ggm 6y ago
as if anyone in the US should care what others think. American exceptionalism in one phrase.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Germans don’t care what New Yorkers think about Germany. A news article about Americans taking pity on Germany would never land in Der Spiegel but we don’t call that German exceptionalism.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Germans may not care specifically about New Yorkers' every thought about their country but they do compare their results internationally. Here's a Der Spiegel article about how the German PISA results are good but could be better: https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/pisa-studie-der-oecd-deutschland-landet-im-oberen-mittelfeld-a-1299249.html https://www.spiegel.de/lebenundlernen/schule/pisa-studie-der...
  - corty 6y ago
    Oh, there is plenty of German exceptionalism, it usually takes the form of moral, political or ethical snobbiness. Germany views itself as an exceptionally moral and civilized nation nowadays and strives to export that lesson from the past. Not only the Nazi past, mind you, the saying "Am Deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen" -German habit shall heal the world- is far older. Germans know they might be smaller or average in most things, but morally and ethically, we are Übermenschen...
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  If only it went both ways.
pertymcpert 6y ago
Maybe try living there? I have in both. Life is definitely better in Western Europe.
- seibelj 6y ago
  Ah yes, the “true happiness is simply moving to another country” argument. The truth is that life is what you make of it - the happiness you seek cannot be provided by any government. Plenty of people are happy and plenty of people are empty, sad, unfulfilled, and depressed in every country on earth. That said, I will prefer to live in places that give me more choice - more economic choice, more living choices, more everything choices. I am by any global metric a wealthy person and my US tax rate is very low compared to every other western nation except for tax shelter countries. And I prefer to have less government mandating where my wealth is spent and retain more control over my life. What’s so wonderful is that apparently anyone (just like yourself!) can so easily uproot their entire lives to experiment living in two different countries! Although research tells me that Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands, and France have very difficult requirements for immigration. I need to learn Dutch? Huh? In the USA it’s so much easier!
  - supportlocal4h 6y ago
    I'm a bit unclear about your ending. You want to move to the Netherlands but don't want to learn Dutch? Are you one of those Californians who are desperate to escape California but then try to change all the rules of your new home to match what you had in California? Just so you know, this is very irritating to your new neighbors. I live in the USA. I like it here. But you say it is better because it has lower taxes and doesn't make you learn Dutch. Others point out that your taxes + your health insurance premiums + doctor fees are not less than Netherland's taxes that include healthcare. When I lived outside the USA I made a significant effort to learn the language. I've never understood why one would not. If these are your main reasons for preferring the USA they seem pretty weak. Your first paragraph is a much stronger position.
    - seibelj 6y ago
eecc 6y ago
Well, not everywhere in Europe has insanely high taxes and for a fair comparison I’d add what Americans pay in health insurance anyway. As for high growth, Europe doesn’t have the space to engage in pump & dump real estate and the same scale of military subsidies that made the fortunes of many US industries.
iso947 6y ago
Looking at 90%ile total income tax in UK it’s about the same as 90%ile in a typical US state, but you get comprehensive health care in UK
- waterheater 6y ago
  If there's any common political rallying point in the USA, it's how expensive healthcare is! Relief does exist. I know two close people who each had around $70k of medical debt wiped clean by hospitals. But yes, healthcare costs need to drop. See this graph for a symptom of why healthcare is so expensive: http://www.ibj.com/ext/resources/blog/The-Dose/Physicians-Administrators.png http://www.ibj.com/ext/resources/blog/The-Dose/Physicians-Ad...
  - bumby 6y ago
    What’s interesting is that two sectors that have had costs rising much faster than inflation for decades are healthcare and college in the US. Replace “physicians” with “professors” and you have a visually identical graph for college costs

alex_young 6y ago

Actually I’m speaking from personal experience with rural life in several places in the US and in Europe. While I agree that each has their advantages and disadvantages, transportation is something many places in Europe have something to show us IMHO. A small village would typically have a train station where you can quickly travel to a populated area and urban cores are often nearly completely restricted from cars excepting deliveries making for walkable daily life. It’s true that having a personal vehicle is more convenient, but in my opinion that is a bit of a tragedy of the commons. If everyone decides to have one then we all pay the price in needing one to get anywhere. I’m really not sure where class figures into these two different models honestly.

waterheater 6y ago
I've also seen rural US and Europe. Trains work well when you have enough people to care to use the infrastructure. But if not, you might try buses. I saw a rural village in Hungary (~80 people) which has a bus stop to the nearest town. That's very nice, but the village center is a mile walk from the bus stop on the highway. My point is that a train may not automatically work. (Some rural communities in the USA do have similar bus routes.) I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line? I'm asking because I just picked a random American town on the map: Spencer, Iowa. ~11k people, and it's about a two hour drive (~100 miles) in all directions to a larger city. A two hour drive is a decent drive, but it's not much overall, especially if you're comfortable driving. It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land. And that's my primary point: Europe's population is distributed more uniformly and densely than the USA. A blanket claim about how x transportation mode must be used in the USA ignores the stark regional variations. Sure, in certain large cities, widespread car ownership may lead to a tragedy of the commons scenario, but it's on a per-city basis. The vast majority of cities in the USA will never encounter this problem because their "commons" are just so big, all cows still find a spot to graze. The cities that do encounter large traffic jams eventually build public transportation infrastructure to reduce the burden on roadways. Playing out the maximal scenarios, I'd much rather live in a world where everyone drives cars than everyone rides trains. A mix of both is even better. Walkable downtowns are great, and cities of all sizes should have them.

pertymcpert 6y ago

It's not classist at all. Stop being so defensive about constructive criticism. It's defeatist and the US should welcome good suggestions about how to make life better. Good god the "cool stuff" that the US has in no way shape or form compensates for the poor lives that the majority of the country leads.

autokad 6y ago
I think the country needs less people telling them how they should live.
waterheater 6y ago
>It's not classist at all. Stop being so defensive about constructive criticism. If a train is the best solution for a USA community, by all means, make it happen! However, trains are optimal in the USA in far fewer scenarios than either automobiles, buses, or airplanes.

bobthepanda 6y ago

(2) - most "historical" land use differences that can be attributed to the automobile are recent, because the US did not even fully embrace the automobile until after the war. New Urbanism started because architects realized that postwar zoning codes made constructing a traditional New England town center illegal. And most rural towns today even have dead or dying Main Streets caused by the huge shift towards automobile dependent big box stores. This sounds like the rhetoric around gun rights, where any amount of regulation on guns becomes an absolute seizure of the right to have any gun. No one is talking about an absolute zero automobile society; even societies that deprioritize the car still have cars available, just not as the first choice. Cars don't have to be dominant to be available and usable.

waterheater 6y ago
>most "historical" land use differences that can be attributed to the automobile are recent, because the US did not even fully embrace the automobile until after the war No disrepsect, but did any country? Trains were used extensively, but the double-whammy of automobiles and airplanes did do a number on the attractiveness of trains. >And most rural towns today even have dead or dying Main Streets caused by the huge shift towards automobile dependent big box stores. Mmm. I feel that's a case of "correlation != causation." - The decades-long export of jobs (avoidable or not) depleted available capital in the community. With little money and work, supporting businesses (mostly those in town centers) greatly struggled, and many folded. - Big box stores use economies of scale to undercut Main Street prices, which further accelerates the collapse of small business. Dollar General is an interesting example, where they (in my view) have tried to fill the gaps these collapses left. - Big box stores are inherently large, so good luck finding a tract of land big enough in a rural downtown. If a rural community has a bus line, I'd wager good money that the Walmart has a stop. >This sounds like the rhetoric around gun rights, where any amount of regulation on guns becomes an absolute seizure of the right to have any gun. Gun rights are constitutionally protected, whereas no law says "the right to own vehicles, being necessary for the operation of a free society, shall not be infringed." Some people really, really love the law if it makes them feel more secure (and that's okay). Also, bear (heh) in mind gun rhetoric in today's age is manufactured for political purposes. >Cars don't have to be dominant to be available and usable. Agreed. If cars are less optimal than other transportation modes, people will chose otherwise. But in the vast majority of the USA, except for commuting, cars enable more liberty than trains at lower levels of efficiency. Not the worst thing, in my opinion.