3 ms·

Europe is still very much pro-American: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/overall-opinion-of-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/

by mrtksn 2y ago

Europe is still very much pro-American: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/overall-opinion-of-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/06/27/overall-opinio... However, the numbers are much worse than before and on the previous Trump presidency they crashed(recovered with Biden but crashed again): https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/appendix-a-favorability-of-the-united-states-since-2000-us-image-2024/gap_2024-06-11_us-image-2024_a_a_01/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/appendix-a-fav... The anti-establishment movements in EU are also predominantly anti-US, leftists are often anti-US too. I got the impression of many Americans online believing that Europeans are tech and progress loving, bureaucracy hating people under tyranny of EU which is a building in Brussels that churns rules and regulations. However that's not true, most Europeans love the big government hate new tech and prefer the slow and worry free life over the daily hustling. If Trump follows up with its promises, I only imagine EU parting with US on more stuff. I also see many Americans apparently believing that EU is mostly museums and there's no technology. Also not true, EU is made of countries that are traditionally tool-makers and Europeans are anti-tech and anti-change only when it comes to adoption of tech into their daily lives, not when creating tools and machines. ASML is not a coincidence, all kind of precision tooling and machinery is the bread and butter of European industry. So, if EU parts with US, I imagine that American stuff will be quickly replaced with European made stuff. The dominance of American tech in the daily lives is mostly due to network effect, a forced change will result in what resulted in Russia and China: local alternatives. Europe is worse off than the US only in Energy and demographics. Two massive issues but there are no quick-fixes for those, so they are European realities with or without the US.

ttepasse 2y ago
> I imagine that American stuff will be quickly replaced with European made stuff. I am in the process of (very slowly) decluttering my life. One weird observation that I had, is that I have very few hardware from the USA, even when I think liberally about "from" as designed and not just manufactured. I found a (crappy) HP printer, (wonderful) Apple hardware and two Zippos. There may be more, but it's not obvious labelled. Software and some online services on the other hand are different. From this European perspective the USA is very much a service export and not a stuff export economy.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  I agree. The software is also possible to replace if forced. US invested huge piles of money on the computer age and they cornered the web and software markets and now extracting grotesque profits from it mostly because its a winner takes it all industry. It's not that Europeans don't know how to write software, it's that it doesn't make business sense to go after the established American companies. Linux is invented in Europe, just as the Web but the American entrepreneurs were those who turned these technologies into great businesses. If forced by blocking, it wouldn't take much time to create European alternatives as the hard work of discovering what works and what doesn't is already established. In fact, during the internet age there were many European alternatives for most of it, there's still local alternatives to many. Take Uber for example, it's not anything special. In places where it's banned, local entrepreneurs quickly made local alternatives. There's of course industrial software, gaming etc and that's also plenty in EU. It wouldn't take much time to replace everything. There are plenty of examples from the last 10-20 years where embargoes simply propelled local alternatives even in the most improvised countries. Americans will have to be stupid to ban software to EU, so it will have to be the EU who bans American software and that probably wouldn't happen until things get really bad.

by mrtksn 2y ago

ttepasse 2y ago

> I imagine that American stuff will be quickly replaced with European made stuff. I am in the process of (very slowly) decluttering my life. One weird observation that I had, is that I have very few hardware from the USA, even when I think liberally about "from" as designed and not just manufactured. I found a (crappy) HP printer, (wonderful) Apple hardware and two Zippos. There may be more, but it's not obvious labelled. Software and some online services on the other hand are different. From this European perspective the USA is very much a service export and not a stuff export economy.

mrtksn 2y ago
I agree. The software is also possible to replace if forced. US invested huge piles of money on the computer age and they cornered the web and software markets and now extracting grotesque profits from it mostly because its a winner takes it all industry. It's not that Europeans don't know how to write software, it's that it doesn't make business sense to go after the established American companies. Linux is invented in Europe, just as the Web but the American entrepreneurs were those who turned these technologies into great businesses. If forced by blocking, it wouldn't take much time to create European alternatives as the hard work of discovering what works and what doesn't is already established. In fact, during the internet age there were many European alternatives for most of it, there's still local alternatives to many. Take Uber for example, it's not anything special. In places where it's banned, local entrepreneurs quickly made local alternatives. There's of course industrial software, gaming etc and that's also plenty in EU. It wouldn't take much time to replace everything. There are plenty of examples from the last 10-20 years where embargoes simply propelled local alternatives even in the most improvised countries. Americans will have to be stupid to ban software to EU, so it will have to be the EU who bans American software and that probably wouldn't happen until things get really bad.