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Technology isn't the reason the US appears to lag in some cases - business and governmental policy decisions are behind everything you list, and plenty of peopl

Technology isn't the reason the US appears to lag in some cases - business and governmental policy decisions are behind everything you list, and plenty of people don't like it. The truth is that 20-30 years ago Europe was lagging behind the US in some respects - credit card acceptance, computer usage in some businesses, etc. But obviously they're on par with the US today, and where they're ahead or behind the US the reason isn't access to technology, rather it's usually government policy.

vertis 4y ago
It's quite nuanced, which of course the GP comment wasn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Government policy and societal attitude are two parts of the reason. It's not really fair to compare US and Estonia really, One is managing 350(?) million people and the other 1.3 million. Even comparing Australia to Estonia though, the differences in behaviour from the government entities are remarkable. Australia has a real "we're going to catch you" vibe to it's taxation and social services, where as, Estonia seems to really have an attitude of trying to build awesome things to make their citizens better off and to streamline things. Governments and their relationship to technology, both as a provider and also as a regulator is a complex beast. As you say, so many of the problems are manifestations in the imperfections of our democracies. Regardless of which AU, EU, GB, US all have flaws that we have to live with and work to improve.