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Europe has fallen behind America and the gap is growing
- theandrewbailey 3y agohttps://archive.ph/qkegI https://archive.ph/qkegI
- gumballindie 3y agoOf course it has, and it will further. EU countries are busy dominating each other. The EU is not about unity but rather about modern day colonialism. I think storm clouds are brewing over europe and wont be too long until things will blow up again.
- stev-0 3y ago> The EU is not about unity but rather about modern day colonialism. What does this mean?
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y agoIt doesn't mean absolutely anything.
- atlantic 3y agoIt means the central countries in the EU (Germany, France, Netherlands, Scandinavia) are mining the peripheral countries for resources and cheap labour, and placing them in a situation of permanent indebtedness, so they effectively become colonial outposts of Brussels.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoFrance might have some imperial/colonial intentions, rest of Europe is actively fighting against neocolonialism by supporting Ukraine against Russian imperialism.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mrbadger 3y agoThis is arrant nonsense. EU countries are NOT busy dominating each other nor are they engaged in colonialism, unless you think the Brussels Effect is about colonialism instead of the EU punching above its weight in setting norms and standards. The EU is actually a very effective mechanism for preventing countries dominating others. A current case in point is the EU acting as a restraint on the historic domination of Ireland by the UK. The UK expected Ireland to be forced out of the EU following the UK's exit or that the EU would sacrifice Ireland (compel it to have a trade border with the EU in order to protect the status quo of the open Ireland/NI border). Neither happened. Instead the British were obliged to uphold the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement -- a change from the UK's customary bad faith in dealing with Ireland. Very simply the UK couldn't and cannot afford sanctions the EU would impose if the UK repeated its colonialist behaviour. You'd be better off reading up on how the EU came into existence and on how it actually works (why VAT for tax eg) than making unsupported assertions.
- AntiRemote 3y ago[dead]
- massysett 3y agoThe point about the lifestyle industries is a good one. Europeans feel they have the good life, so why would they want to be more like Americans (who work like crazy, have no safety net, and live with random gun violence) or like the Chinese (who slide into even greater autocracy)? Perhaps the drawbacks of American and Chinese society are the very factors contributing to their economic growth?
- wkat4242 3y agoYeah I live in one of the lower-wage EU countries even though I'm from one of the higher-wage ones. Though in practice it doesn't really matter as cost of living is lower too, it just matters when buying electronics. Or a car but I don't need one where I live and I hate driving. And having completely free healthcare gives a lot of peace of mind. But I don't want to work harder to have more. I have enough to live comfortably. I don't get this whole ratrace thing and most people here don't. The Americans can have their expensive gadgets and double jobs to pay for it :) Though admittedly I'd love an Apple vision pro, I wouldn't want to live in American society so I could pay for it. There's a few things that I really don't like about it like the heavy income inequality and resulting crime, gun violence, heavy conservatism (eg pressure on gay rights which we can take for granted here - see Florida), lack of cheap healthcare and welfare safety net. The latter two are not things you always need but they're a great peace of mind knowing they're available when you do need them. It makes life less stressful. I don't want a loss of my job meaning I will lose my health insurance as well! And eventually they'll bring the price of gadgets down so we can afford it, after all the EU is too big a market to ignore. Ps: according to my American colleagues a lot of the US is economically worse off than we are, it's only a few central spots like silicon valley and New York that are bursting with money and bringing the average up? Here we have less differences in each country, though the difference between eastern European member states and northwestern is still huge. Ps.2: Sorry I wasn't trying to diss the U.S. but I really wouldn't want to live there. What might be a paradise society for some isn't the same for others.
- ChatGTP 3y agoI find American culture overall is really kind of pointless and rudderless. It’s a seemingly hyper competitive place built on the idea of having money and material possessions = good over all else, including environmental destruction, but to what end ? For the benefit of 1% of the population? America also seems to need an enemy, there’s something in that.
- reyostallenberg 3y agoWho had more dept?
- xqcgrek2 3y agoThe EU without a common language and government is a failed experiment
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoYou mean like Switzerland with 4 official languages existing in its current form since 1848?
- whynotmaybe 3y agoGonna need more info on that. The EU is rooted from the ECSC from 1951 that started with 6 countries and that many languages that quickly evolved to 11. 72 years, that's quite a long experiment.
- another2another 3y agoThe EU is in fact a resounding success of monetary integration and legal harmonization leading to a mutually beneficial zone of economic cooperation. People can travel, work and live in any member state with little or no barriers. Produce and sell their goods and services across the whole zone in one big legal bloc. The cost of being outside of that bloc is one that Britons are now starting to realise, and are beginning to bitterly regret leaving. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?
- blitzar 3y agoThe aqueduct?
- gumby 3y agoYes, but apart from the aqueduct?
- mullingitover 3y agoAnd the sanitation.
- spacedcowboy 3y ago
- DiscourseFan 3y agohttps://archive.is/vnFk8 https://archive.is/vnFk8 Is the artwork for this article AI generated?
- graypegg 3y agoThere’s a copyright notice for someone named James Ferguson directly under the artwork who seems to make similar art if I google around a bit.
- culopatin 3y agoIs moving to EU from the US a terrible move?
- johnnyjeans 3y agoNot at all, especially if you're an American working remote and you're bringing an American wage with you. You get a lower CoL and higher QoL in Europe. Life is more relaxed, more focused on living. I'm happier and healthier when I'm living over there vs here.
- trextrex 3y agoHaving lived in both the US and a couple of countries in the EU, one thing that struck me about living in the EU is how inwards looking and past facing the society is. And the general sense of European exceptionalism meant there was much less interest in attracting talent from outside the EU. I personally believe the latter is one of the major reasons for their decline. In many industries and in academia, not only don't they attract outside talent, but also lose a lot of European talent to the US and UK.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoAmerica, has for a long time, not been a country to emulate in all spheres. Some, perhaps, but definitely not when it comes to post-1960's cannibalism of community and commonwealth, i.e., government institutions, social services, common infrastructure and services, and ambitious projects and goals, often under a deluded notion that profit motive and unfettered greed creates handwaving "good" without externalities. Additionally, most empires in N. America and Europe are in decline and will only skip and bounce with a cultural revolution with a core hopeful outlook that is concerned that their neighbors aren't going bankrupt with medical bills, their kids aren't shot at school, and festivals aren't mass shooting galleries. Healthy societies don't have excessive violence, extremely large prison populations per capita, absurd income disparities, media full of superheroes and apocalypse fictions, populist "strongmen", millions of unhoused people living worse than IDPs without UN assistance, and don't know their neighbors.