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It's honestly got to the point where I barely open comments related to EU projects any more. While most of the time there's somewhat nuanced discussions in comm

It's honestly got to the point where I barely open comments related to EU projects any more. While most of the time there's somewhat nuanced discussions in comments, once the EU gets mentioned for some reason most of the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better", and "Big government bad", completely ignoring the actual contents of what the post it about.

PicassoCTs 4y ago
A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? Both are heavily state subsidized, so it is not that. There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, and then runs without creating something for the value extracted. It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.
- emilburzo 4y ago
  > Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely: > "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]" Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boeing#Summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
  - ginko 4y ago
    I've heard one theory that the merger with McDonnell Douglas swept the bean-counters from there into executive positions ruining the engineering focus at Boeing.
    - karmakaze 4y ago
      That's what I read and understood to be the cause. Prior to that Boeing had an engineering culture all the way up.
    - abudabi123 4y ago
      The Microsoft spreadsheet happy-hippos are relying on India to buy enormous sums of Boeing passenger planes is one headline the media is running with, and another line of propaganda is to not bet against India. They say.
- phkahler 4y ago
  >> There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, You just said it. When we prioritize the money over the activity that makes the money... We deprioritize the activity - it's at least second place if not worse.
  - flangola7 4y ago
    If there was a machine that increased a company's stock value by crushing orphans invented today, tomorrow there would be lobbyists in Congress pushing to allow corporations to directly apply for adoptions.
- belltaco 4y ago
  >A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Boeing was heavily criticized by HN in every thread I saw about it. You picked a wrong example.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  I can’t comment on the broader US/EU perception question, but I would partly attribute Airbus’ success to its harnessing of smaller scale engineering excellence always present in Western European aviation. Airbus merely solved the problem of risk of high scale production which has historically been a challenge for European manufacturers relative to Americans operating in their large, uniform market.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  I think pointing out Airbus is a bit questionable. Yes Airbus does well now, but Europe tried to do these kinds of things in many different places and most of them didn't end up so well. And at the same time, if we stay within Aerospace, why is SpaceX utterly dominating anything from Europe. Is US business culture to blame?
- eethawkey 4y ago
  Way to cherrypick - A380 wasn't exactly a masterpiece in economics. Should we discuss Airbus/Araine?
  - kazen44 4y ago
    not being a masterpiece in economics is not on the same scale as building an aircraft which is technically simply unfit to fly. Sure, you can make bad bussiness decisions but this doesn't mean you cannot build proper airplanes.
- jasmer 4y ago
  And Volskwagen cheating on it's emissions? This is bit of a glib view of Boeing. Boeng and Airbus will trade spaces for a while, until China starts stelling it's gear at 1/2 the price and then we will see some material changes.
alright_scowl 4y ago
The odd part is that these bad takes seem to typically come from people that don't even live the EU, and don't understand how it works. They just don't like that it exists.
- lokar 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - generalizations 4y ago
    > Most of them will grow out of it eventually. On the other hand, condescension is harder to grow out of.
    - alright_scowl 4y ago
      You're right, they will never grow out of it.
      - briantakita 4y ago
        Pot, meet kettle...seriously though, I don't think many people are inclined to "grow out of" advocating for their own self interests by giving up their freedoms to the state/bureaucracy. As long as there are power dynamics, those on the lower rungs will dare to annoy those on the higher rungs by sticking up for themselves...and vice versa Perhaps you meant "they will eventually sell their soul" instead?
        alright_scowl 4y ago
        Are you implying I gave up freedoms to state/bureaucracy? Which freedoms did I give up, exactly?
        briantakita 4y ago
        [flagged]
abudabi123 4y ago
the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better" Nothing stops the EU from landing a probe on the surface of Mars, successfully.
- atoav 4y ago
  I can't shake the feeling you have been baited successfully.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  Outside of the whole issue of Russia invading Ukraine instead of launching the damn thing like they were supposed to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover) Oh well, one way to avoid it crashing I guess. ;-) Still, Europe being responsible for Mars having two Shapirelli craters is cool as well. ;-)
dotnet00 4y ago
Not all too different from Europeans smugly commenting about how crazy Americans are for having different priorities in threads that happen to relate to American issues.
- peterashford 4y ago
  As a third party (New Zealander), I don't think that's correct. I think the US criticism of EU is much more often baseless compared to the reverse situation (as evidenced by the number of issues which are picked up by the residents of non aligned countries).
  - eethawkey 4y ago
    Also as a New Zealander - I think the opposite - EU criticism of the US really misses many points about the competitiveness of their society and burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies. I think it is really about people's personal politics - Kiwis generally are much more aligned (left) with EU socialism/interventionism and hence relate more and see US criticism as baseless. It's all a matter of perspective & personal politics vs one side being more baseless than the other.
    - IntelMiner 4y ago
      "burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies" As an Australian, that's a pretty glowing interpretation of the US intervening where they aren't wanted or needed Was the US protecting 'democracy' when they annexed Hawaii, or how they've treated Cuba? Or Vietnam or South America or Iraq or any litany of other countries Hell. They helped depose Gough Whitlam because he dared threaten to nationalize our mines ala Norway, not to mention that worthless spying ring that is Pine Gap
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        You’re completely disregarding that they’re talking about the US being the armed forces of all western democracies and strawmanning about 19th-early 20th century imperialism (which Western Europe took part in far more than the US did.)

PicassoCTs 4y ago

A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? Both are heavily state subsidized, so it is not that. There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, and then runs without creating something for the value extracted. It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.

emilburzo 4y ago
> Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely: > "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]" Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boeing#Summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
- ginko 4y ago
  I've heard one theory that the merger with McDonnell Douglas swept the bean-counters from there into executive positions ruining the engineering focus at Boeing.
  - karmakaze 4y ago
    That's what I read and understood to be the cause. Prior to that Boeing had an engineering culture all the way up.
  - abudabi123 4y ago
    The Microsoft spreadsheet happy-hippos are relying on India to buy enormous sums of Boeing passenger planes is one headline the media is running with, and another line of propaganda is to not bet against India. They say.
phkahler 4y ago
>> There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, You just said it. When we prioritize the money over the activity that makes the money... We deprioritize the activity - it's at least second place if not worse.
- flangola7 4y ago
  If there was a machine that increased a company's stock value by crushing orphans invented today, tomorrow there would be lobbyists in Congress pushing to allow corporations to directly apply for adoptions.
belltaco 4y ago
>A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Boeing was heavily criticized by HN in every thread I saw about it. You picked a wrong example.
1123581321 4y ago
I can’t comment on the broader US/EU perception question, but I would partly attribute Airbus’ success to its harnessing of smaller scale engineering excellence always present in Western European aviation. Airbus merely solved the problem of risk of high scale production which has historically been a challenge for European manufacturers relative to Americans operating in their large, uniform market.
panick21_ 4y ago
I think pointing out Airbus is a bit questionable. Yes Airbus does well now, but Europe tried to do these kinds of things in many different places and most of them didn't end up so well. And at the same time, if we stay within Aerospace, why is SpaceX utterly dominating anything from Europe. Is US business culture to blame?
eethawkey 4y ago
Way to cherrypick - A380 wasn't exactly a masterpiece in economics. Should we discuss Airbus/Araine?
- kazen44 4y ago
  not being a masterpiece in economics is not on the same scale as building an aircraft which is technically simply unfit to fly. Sure, you can make bad bussiness decisions but this doesn't mean you cannot build proper airplanes.
jasmer 4y ago
And Volskwagen cheating on it's emissions? This is bit of a glib view of Boeing. Boeng and Airbus will trade spaces for a while, until China starts stelling it's gear at 1/2 the price and then we will see some material changes.

alright_scowl 4y ago

The odd part is that these bad takes seem to typically come from people that don't even live the EU, and don't understand how it works. They just don't like that it exists.

lokar 4y ago
[flagged]
- generalizations 4y ago
  > Most of them will grow out of it eventually. On the other hand, condescension is harder to grow out of.
  - alright_scowl 4y ago
    You're right, they will never grow out of it.
    - briantakita 4y ago
      Pot, meet kettle...seriously though, I don't think many people are inclined to "grow out of" advocating for their own self interests by giving up their freedoms to the state/bureaucracy. As long as there are power dynamics, those on the lower rungs will dare to annoy those on the higher rungs by sticking up for themselves...and vice versa Perhaps you meant "they will eventually sell their soul" instead?
      - alright_scowl 4y ago
        Are you implying I gave up freedoms to state/bureaucracy? Which freedoms did I give up, exactly?
        briantakita 4y ago
        [flagged]

abudabi123 4y ago

the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better" Nothing stops the EU from landing a probe on the surface of Mars, successfully.

atoav 4y ago
I can't shake the feeling you have been baited successfully.
m4rtink 4y ago
Outside of the whole issue of Russia invading Ukraine instead of launching the damn thing like they were supposed to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover) Oh well, one way to avoid it crashing I guess. ;-) Still, Europe being responsible for Mars having two Shapirelli craters is cool as well. ;-)

dotnet00 4y ago

Not all too different from Europeans smugly commenting about how crazy Americans are for having different priorities in threads that happen to relate to American issues.

peterashford 4y ago
As a third party (New Zealander), I don't think that's correct. I think the US criticism of EU is much more often baseless compared to the reverse situation (as evidenced by the number of issues which are picked up by the residents of non aligned countries).
- eethawkey 4y ago
  Also as a New Zealander - I think the opposite - EU criticism of the US really misses many points about the competitiveness of their society and burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies. I think it is really about people's personal politics - Kiwis generally are much more aligned (left) with EU socialism/interventionism and hence relate more and see US criticism as baseless. It's all a matter of perspective & personal politics vs one side being more baseless than the other.
  - IntelMiner 4y ago
    "burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies" As an Australian, that's a pretty glowing interpretation of the US intervening where they aren't wanted or needed Was the US protecting 'democracy' when they annexed Hawaii, or how they've treated Cuba? Or Vietnam or South America or Iraq or any litany of other countries Hell. They helped depose Gough Whitlam because he dared threaten to nationalize our mines ala Norway, not to mention that worthless spying ring that is Pine Gap
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      You’re completely disregarding that they’re talking about the US being the armed forces of all western democracies and strawmanning about 19th-early 20th century imperialism (which Western Europe took part in far more than the US did.)