7 ms·

It's not just who owns the sites, the majority of the English discussion on the web seems to be very US centric (of course, they are the majority of the userbas

• causi 3y ago
  I just don't think soaking in the latest US drama is great for your mental health or a good use of your time, unless you actually live there. It's not good if you live here either.
  • hospitalJail 3y ago
    Wow, I basically came here to say this. Heck, me and my Dad can't even talk politics because of how toxic it is. The worst part is that, if you live here, you need to pay attention for economic reasons. As much as fund managers tell you to 'not time the market'. It seems obvious to pay attention to things like interest rates, stock market prices, etc... before making major purchasing decisions. If I ignored the news, I'd be buying a lake front property at 8% interest rate, instead I'll wait for a collapse. (Did it with COVID in April 2020 and got ~30% off on my indexes)
    • suddenclarity 3y ago
      > instead I'll wait for a collapse I've been waiting for the housing market in my country to go bust since 2008. Any day now.
      • hospitalJail 3y ago
        Oh man, you missed the 2020 collapse. It was only a blip. We got our real estate absurdly cheap at 3.1% interest rate. Makes it really hard to find a bigger place when everything is 3x more expensive now. We tell our real estate agents how much we pay now, and they are mind boggled.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      > instead I'll wait for a collapse. (Did it with COVID in April 2020 and got ~30% off on my indexes) What does this mean? You were invested in equities before Jan 2017, then sold them, then held cash between Jan 2017 and Mar 2020, and then bought equities again precisely at the bottom in mid Mar 2020? Does the 30% off factor in missed dividends?
      • hospitalJail 3y ago
        I basically held cash from 2018 to 2020. Prior to that, all of my money went into my wife's doctorate degree.
        • lotsofpulp 3y ago
          Supposed you had had cash to invest in early 2013, at what point would you have invested it in equities?
          • hospitalJail 3y ago
            Immediately. I'd probably start pulling back about 10 years after 2008. Basically, when times are too good, that is when to sell. Although, selling means you have to pay tax, so I'd probably just horde cash more than selling. I've only played the market on a few different 'news' things that I'm an expert in, put like 2k in, stock price goes up 10%, make $200... Too high risk for $200. Right now I'm dumping everything I have into stocks and resource based trusts. (and as mentioned, looking for more real estate)
            • lotsofpulp 3y ago
              > Basically, when times are too good, that is when to sell. And your metric for this is what? An even sounding number in base 10 after an arbitrarily chosen dip? > Although, selling means you have to pay tax, so I'd probably just horde cash more than selling. So you would bet the drop in prices will be less than the 20% tax on the capital gains just before the drop in prices? > I've only played the market on a few different 'news' things that I'm an expert in, put like 2k in, stock price goes up 10%, make $200... Too high risk for $200. I do not understand. If it was too high risk, why did you do it?
    • jncfhnb 3y ago
      [flagged]
    • j33zusjuice 3y ago
      Of course they say that, they make a percentage on the money you invest with them. But it feels like a really obvious piece of any risk assessment. And your risk tolerance heavily depends on how much you can afford to lose. But I guess that’s the idea. You never bet more than you can afford to lose (stocks are gambling, idc if anyone disagrees). So it’s hard for a lot of people to consider entering right now when they’re sure they have very little they can afford to lose, and the probably of total loss seems exponentially higher now than two years ago, and it’ll likely be exponentially lower in a few years. OTOH, you might be wrong, and you might miss the best opportunity of your life.
  • alphanullmeric 3y ago
    Usually said the loudest by people that refuse to leave for countries they claim are better.
    • causi 3y ago
      I don't claim any countries are better. I'm saying an addiction to spending all your time following current events is unhealthy.
• PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  > I think that's why you get Australians who seem to care more about the US election than our own, and every second conversation seems to have an American controversy slipped into it here. The US for better or the worse is the 'world leader', the current big 'empire', every country in the world reports on US news. Of course in Australia it doesn't help that you have Sky News (Fox News for Australia) riling people up over stuff that doesn't concern them at all.
  • andyferris 3y ago
    Eh, it seems to me even ABC News follows it closer than necessary.
    • lmpdev 3y ago
      I think that's more to do with their reporting standards It's very easy as an ABC journalist to rehash Reuters and AP without fear of incorrectly publishing something That's why you'll often see domestic Australian stories reported in all other outlets except for the ABC - they do not trust other domestic news sources
  • lmpdev 3y ago
    Lots of people in this thread are discounting the importance of Pax Americana Every country's stability, for better or for worse is at least significantly affected by US Politics and their foreign policies In Australia it's been that way since well before LBJ. But even far flung states in different continents are directly affected by US foreign policy, perhaps even moreso than Australia
    • Dalewyn 3y ago
      >Lots of people in this thread are discounting the importance of Pax Americana I don't think so; what people (not necessarily in this thread) are discounting is the importance of Pax Americana coming to a close. Like all other empires and world superpowers that came before us, the Age of America will almost certainly end, likely some time this century, whether any of us like it or not. The writing is on the wall for anyone who cares about it, and no it doesn't take a degree in geopolitics or economics to see it. Who's going to be up next to bat? Personally I don't know, though odds seem good it's probably China. Whoever it's going to be though, we will be living our own flavor of an interesting time.
• pif 3y ago
  > the majority of the English discussion on the web seems to be very US centric This is one of my two pain points on Quora: not even trying to split among US-related content and international content. Reading all those question where "we" implies US residents is as annoying as those US citizens not understanding that calling themselves American/Italian/Irish in an international discussion can lead to some light backlash.
  • unmole 3y ago
    > This is one of my two pain points on Quora I thought Quora was overrun by Indians?
    • pif 3y ago
      Not in my experience.
• onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Of course the majority of discussions are US-centric when most major websites & apps started in the US, because it is/was the largest economy, and it's the largest primary English-speaking population in the world, and has a pretty high rate of Internet access and usage of those particular kinda of sites & apps. There's also the fact that what the US is just more important than other countries by virtue of being such a huge chunk of the global economy. What happens in the US has repercussions to people that live in other countries in a way that is much less true of almost every other country in the world. If the US had a population of 70M and the UK had a population of 340M and the GDPs were reversed - it would be the other way around.
  • the_lonely_road 3y ago
    Not sure why this comment is downvoted. It works the same even within the United States. There are 50 of them after all despite all conversation focusing on Florida, California, and Texas. We all know San Francisco and Austin but I couldn't name much more than that with a gun to my head despite knowing there must be dozens of cities in each of those states.
  • MrVandemar 3y ago
    Even if most major websites & apps started in the US this is a problem, because they're thinking is deeply limited, they think small, they think United States, when their reach and audience is fundamentally every country on Earth, instead of one or a small handful. The number of times, on UK websites or US websites, something is advertised as "Coming in Spring 2024", it baffles me. What months happen to be defined as "Spring" is dependant on which hemisphere of the planet you happen to be on. It's parochial and wierd.
    • Philadelphia 3y ago
      But there’s no reason the rest of the world has to use the same web sites. It’s “parochial and weird” to expect that everything on the internet will be tailored for every country automatically.
      • 3y ago
• nirui 3y ago
  > I think that's why you get Australians who seem to care more about the US election than our own, and every second conversation seems to have an American controversy slipped into it here. My guess is, in that context, the US is a neutral target which everyone can have a grab without too much risk of ...say... awkwardness. Plus, as the world's most powerful nation, the US did many talkable things. It's like a gift that keeps giving, and as soon as you think the topic is finished, the US just stands up and tosses you more. But I don't think talk == care, though.
• bluetomcat 3y ago
  What's more pervasive is the predominantly American views and values that get amplified through these discussion sites, HN included. Almost any discussed topic will attract a majority of US commenters, projecting their utilitarian and outwardly-expressive worldview on worldly matters.
• BariumBlue 3y ago
  The US has the largest cultural blocks on the western internet, but I don't think they quite form the majority, just a plurality. There's a lot of internet out there, but usually it's easiest (for consumers, and for content creators) to focus on the overall "biggest" things, which is often-times the US-thing.
• unmole 3y ago
  This is how you end up with South Bombay folks organising a march protesting gun violence in the US.
• bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  Partially it's the dramas, but for me it's that people get the idea that U.S law is the way the law works in their country, it's very tiring when the subject is a complicated one - for example every time there is copyright discussion, the perception seems to be that the purpose of copyright is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" because that is the American (and I guess also English) purpose.
  • Hamuko 3y ago
    I feel like a lot of non-Americans also seem to think that "fair use" is an international copyright doctrine.
    • gdprrrr 3y ago
      Also "public domain"
  • kiklion 3y ago
    What is the purpose of copyright in other countries?
    • pjc50 3y ago
      French style systems are more focused around the "moral right" of the author. Some of the "moral right" rights are inalienable and cannot be sold (e.g. right to be identified as the author). In fairness, most of this stuff is globally harmonised, such as by the Berne convention.
    • ohgodplsno 3y ago
      To add to the other comment, the concept of copyright _does not exist_ in France, and is purely a common law concept. Author rights, our equivalent, are justified so: L'auteur d'une oeuvre de l'esprit jouit sur cette oeuvre, du seul fait de sa création, d'un droit de propriété incorporelle exclusif et opposable à tous. Ce droit comporte des attributs d'ordre intellectuel et moral ainsi que des attributs d'ordre patrimonial, qui sont déterminés par les livres Ier et III du présent code. L'existence ou la conclusion d'un contrat de louage d'ouvrage ou de service par l'auteur d'une oeuvre de l'esprit n'emporte aucune dérogation à la jouissance du droit reconnu par l'alinéa 1er. tl;dr: you're allowed to make money off of it because you created it. You cannot give away those author rights. They include moral rights and intellectual rights (intellectual rights are your IP, which can be sold. Moral rights are and will always be yours.)
• da768 3y ago
  It's more than web discussions. People only care about American politics and controversies even in places that don't speak English.
  • frozenlettuce 3y ago
    Here in Brazil the left even imported the term "Uncle Tom". Our existing term for that ("Capitão do Mato") was deemed racist - so anyone that didn't got the memo from the American left was automatically in the evil person box
• dotandgtfo 3y ago
  Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs honestly and I hate how the American culture wars are seeping into the mainstream here in Europe. A lot of these things are completely irrelevant to life here but it seems like a certain subset of people lap it up. For instance, "Woke" has been a huge topic here in Norway the past ~3 months which is funny as it's close to completely irrelevant for the day to day life of 99.9% of Norwegians. I blame the shifting media incentives and hope that some new platforms pop up, or that the mainstream audience just gets tired of it and stops using it (but due to the addictive nature of these platforms I doubt that honestly..)
  • FlyingSnake 3y ago
    It's not only EU/ANZ that's receiving them. I have seen Indians also aware of US cultural jargons like Wokeism, TRAs and what not. This is indeed a weird phase.
    • screye 3y ago
      India's most elite have blindly imported Oxford/Cambridge culture to India for a good century. Doubly, social justice issues have been a major part of Indian political discourse for a good century too. So it's not surprising at all. What is surprising is how anyone who doesn't use "Pure English" is seen as less than in these circles. Local Indian primary source work is underrated in favor of sweeping generalizations made at invited talks in western universities. It is changing now, but mostly because the new 'tech money' is questioning the elite status of the previous class and soft replacing them.
      • FlyingSnake 3y ago
        > India’s elite have blindly imported Oxford/Cambridge culture… It’s changing rapidly and BBC accent isn’t cool anymore with the rise of a new class of self made elites. https://youtu.be/RNJ7yxJgcXo https://youtu.be/RNJ7yxJgcXo
  • thumbuddy 3y ago
    [flagged]
• FlyingSnake 3y ago
  Media narratives in Pax Americana are so strongly driven by the US that most of us non-USA folks are drawn to it unwittingly. I recently had this discussion with a EU resident who was very passionate about certain US issues like Trump's indictment or some events in Florida/SF. It was weird to see them discuss it so passionately as if it's happening in a Berlin Kiez. > ...soaking in the latest US drama is great for your mental health Touché. Might be controversial, but I believe that if you're not part of the USA and can't influence their political choices, it's better to ignore the chatter.
  • Brendinooo 3y ago
    I’m in the USA and I try to ignore much of the chatter. One rule along these lines: if a Congressperson is not in my state or district and he or she isn’t actually influencing legislation, there’s really no reason to pay attention. Obviously politics is important, but you can’t draw a straight line from that statement to the need to keep up with the US media ecosystem.
• pjc50 3y ago
  Yeah, once you think of "politics" as an entertainment product, like US-style professional wrestling, a lot becomes clearer. The US style just has heightened emotions: everything is the potential end of the world. The problem is that some of it really does have impacts on real humans, and potentially in non-US countries. US support for European security is pretty important, for example. As are US central bank rates. And if the Republicans ever win their debt ceiling stalemate and get a default, that would immediately blow up the global banking system far worse than 2008. There is also US "dark money" in UK politics (e.g. Turning Point and the various Tufton Street orgs). And some UK politicians have "made it" in the US market, such as Facebook VP Nick Clegg.
• frozenlettuce 3y ago
  Yeah, it's very annoying have any sort of discussion about a philosophical topic and someone comes with something like "BUT THE FOUNDING FATHERS"
• screye 3y ago
  This is most evident when it comes to English speaking nations that have separate internal cultures but also have an integrated American diaspora. India, Ireland, South Africa, and Philipines are some examples. The diaspora is loud, but views their country from an entirely American perspective. At the same time, Americans uphold the diaspora as defacto representation for the natives. Because English is an official language in these parts, the national news of these places gets cannibalized by American opinion and Americans look out for blind spots like would when talking about places that don't speak English at all.
• smcleod 3y ago
  I find it exhausting how much of the internet is dominated by certain aspects such as news, culture, websites, and apps that revolve around the United States. This dominance often leads to a digital monoculture where everything seems to be interconnected with US news, pricing, and the relentless pursuit of capitalist growth, which can overshadow other perspectives and cultures. It's important to recognise that if any other country had the same saturation on the internet, I would likely express similar concerns about its impact on our lives. I am, of course - a hypocrite as I sit here on a US VC focused website - I guess the chairs really are where the people go.