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It's explaining the motivation behind the policy choices. You don't have to agree with the motivation or the choices for this to be helpful. Being able to bet

by mst 3y ago

It's explaining the motivation behind the policy choices. You don't have to agree with the motivation or the choices for this to be helpful. Being able to better predict both implementation of current policies and what policy choices are likely to be made going forwards is useful and the author's description of the world view driving them seems to me to be accurate. > I doubt you actually read it. Saying this in a conversation about denying parts of reality you don't like verges on performance art. > you can’t convince me Evidently, but hopefully other readers will still derive value from what I've written here.

ltbarcly3 3y ago
You are the one who is not really understanding here. The article again and again wonders why Americans are so aggressively resistant to the EU policies, instead of just trying to optimize within them. This is just a cultural difference and you aren't going to talk Americans out of having an American culture. Once, a long time ago, when I was in Sweden a friend of a friend said that "The government told us we shouldn't have cars so I sold my car" and I laughed very hard, then realized none of the Swedish people were laughing. From an American point of view, saying that could only have been a dry irony, and could never have been meant as a serious statement by anyone, even the people who would most support not owning a car. That level of trust in government is wildly unamerican and could never be expressed in that way by anyone and understood to be a serious statement by other americans. Even a Canadian wouldn't be able to say something like "I did this because the government advised us to do it" without then giving a culturally valid reason and not be considered very odd. In fact, this under states this cultural difference, if I said to basically any American "the government said to do X, so I'm not going to do it" they would immediately recognize and more or less agree with the general sentiment, even if they thought there were other, actually valid reasons to still do X. I think the behavior of Americans confuses you because you have grown up in a European monoculture (yes you have seen lots of different costumes and heard lots of languages, but western europe is largely all the same in this respect) and lack perspective on actual differences in how different cultures around the world relate to authority.

by mst 3y ago

ltbarcly3 3y ago

You are the one who is not really understanding here. The article again and again wonders why Americans are so aggressively resistant to the EU policies, instead of just trying to optimize within them. This is just a cultural difference and you aren't going to talk Americans out of having an American culture. Once, a long time ago, when I was in Sweden a friend of a friend said that "The government told us we shouldn't have cars so I sold my car" and I laughed very hard, then realized none of the Swedish people were laughing. From an American point of view, saying that could only have been a dry irony, and could never have been meant as a serious statement by anyone, even the people who would most support not owning a car. That level of trust in government is wildly unamerican and could never be expressed in that way by anyone and understood to be a serious statement by other americans. Even a Canadian wouldn't be able to say something like "I did this because the government advised us to do it" without then giving a culturally valid reason and not be considered very odd. In fact, this under states this cultural difference, if I said to basically any American "the government said to do X, so I'm not going to do it" they would immediately recognize and more or less agree with the general sentiment, even if they thought there were other, actually valid reasons to still do X. I think the behavior of Americans confuses you because you have grown up in a European monoculture (yes you have seen lots of different costumes and heard lots of languages, but western europe is largely all the same in this respect) and lack perspective on actual differences in how different cultures around the world relate to authority.