6 ms·

Well it’s not necessarily a good thing. In Europe we are traditionalists and we retain a lot of spirit (Geist) by not striving for pure progress

mrtksn 2y ago
Yes, there are advantages of a stable and well functioning systems that don't have disruptors and we indeed benefit of it as having good lives but unfortunately this can't last as those who go hard on progress and tear down everything and rebuilding again will eventually get ahead on everything and won't let us just be as we now see with US billionaires having impact over Europe. Americans feel more pain but are also rewarded, Europe has no option but to become progressive - otherwise tere will be no more Europe and the Americans and Chinese will make us adopt their ways. Oh, BTW, America is also struggling. The latest political developments are an attempt to change course - they are trying to become a bit more like Europe with the race and class based politics holding roots. They say they are anti-regulation anti-discrimination(of whites specifically) but the core MAGA movement is all about putting barriers and preserving old ways for the benefit of a subset of people. Americans are too in soul searching. Their MAGA literally means fixing what is no longer great but their demands are actually quite conservative and they already begin falling off with their accelerations partners.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >Yes, there are advantages of a stable and well functioning systems Current EU is definitely not a stable and well functioning system. Look at economic conditions, political outcomes, illegal immigration, wealth inequality, societal and political trust, homelessness rates, birth rates, free speech suppression, welfare austerity, etc Everything has been going downhill since the 2008 crash. It's a powder keg. >they are trying to become a bit more like Europe with the race and class based politics holding roots. What are you on about? Europe doesn't have much race based politics, that's a thing America keeps pushing.
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    Yeah right, Reform AFD Rassemblement national Fratelli d'Italia and other risings stars have nothing to do with race and even if they do it's Americans behind it. Everyone knows that Europeans are much more racist than Americans, it's just that we are much less explicit about it and its issues are different than the issues in the USA.
    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
      You might want to look more at why people are against the waves of illegal immigration and less on the color of their skin.
      - mrtksn 2y ago
        Illegal immigration is a BS term, make immigration legal if you don't want illegal immigrants. It's not like people choose the hard, dangerous and expensive ways instead of buying a Ryanair ticket. When the illegal immigrants BS doesn't hold they all start complaining about legal immigrants as with the UK and their core Brexit reason.
        worthless-trash 2y ago
        Immigration is legal though, in most countries.
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        > make immigration legal if you don't want illegal immigrants As a philosophy of law point, aren't laws passed to make things illegal if they aren't wanted? Rather than legal?
        mrtksn 2y ago
        That's the point, illegal immigration is just a veil so some people can feel better for them selves. "it's not that I don't like them - I am not like that, its just that I don't want illegal immigration"
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > unfortunately this can't last as those who go hard on progress and tear down everything and rebuilding again A notion of "bare progress" is the elephant in the room. Progress is a vector. It has magnitude and direction. People talk of moving "forward or back", but science also has a steering wheel. > and the Americans and Chinese will make us adopt their ways. This very notion of "progress" as a totalitarian force is also dangerous. The boot is on the other foot from 80 years ago. When Europe was starting a 1000 year technological master-race, more measured minds had to extinguish that fire. I see many similarities today - people seeing "progress" simply as dominance. I liked the brain-dump in TFA, but I think it's over-complex and too tied to a contemporary interpretation of capital investment. We've been spooging away our talent for generations here. Look at how we treated Turing. We mismanage or sell-off everything cool we invent. What Britain still suffers from is class disloyalty. We still have a strong but invisible class system which is now international financiers. Those sorts "float above" the ordinary economy, they are disconnected from UK interests and don't give a toss about engineering, science, knowledge, education...
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > When Europe was starting a 1000 year technological master-race, more measured minds had to extinguish that fire A lot of the measured minds were saying eugenics was a good idea. It took the horror of seeing experiments and concentration camps to make it so deeply unfashionable the idea couldn't even survive in academia.
    - nonrandomstring 2y ago
      I believe you're right. Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust" and Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day" both played their part in revising my naive ideas about simple narratives of WW2. But look at this post made here a couple of days ago [0]. It's absolutely back in fashion. I think technofascism really is a thing now - you can feel certain people getting quite giddy with thoughts of power. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42735539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42735539
      - 2y ago
ttoinou 2y ago
What is this spirit we retain that US looses ?
- geraldhh 2y ago
  humanism
- bowsamic 2y ago
  Leisure, that is, truly retaining time to encourage and develop the spirit that is not just work > There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work - the characteristic vice of the New World - already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange loss of spirit (Geistlosigkeit). One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing" - this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §329
- jajko 2y ago
  Quality of life, if you define an actual proper life as something happening outside of work hours and sleep. We don't worry whether my insurance will cover the next health issue that will happen to me, be it broken leg or lifelong costly treatment. I don't have to desperately try to save maybe 1.5 million $ to put my kids through decent university, if they desire to do so. I am not brutally tossed on the sidewalk when I am fired, both employer and state gives a LOT of support to not fall off the societal cliff and end up as typical US homeless person. We have way more resting time to recharge via holidays (this fellow from 1.1. is running on 90% corporate work contract and thus sporting 50 vacations days per year - now thats QOL improvement, I've already planned 6 week+ vacations for this year). We have on average simply healthier lifestyles and it shows literally massively. I could go on for a long time. But you can ignore that - compare usage of mental health medication, from what I've seen its much more massive in US, manifesting the additional stress that US population is cca exposed to. Its a balance - you add more money, you remove more 'humanity', and the additional stress is there and very real. Everybody has different ideal spot, and this also changes a lot during life. Isn't it better to have 2 systems next to each other, and everybody can pick how they want to live your life? Focus purely on money is stupid, their added value in life quickly diminishes once a person is not poor, then other aspects of life become much more important. The complete opposite is same, 0 progress. Something in between, as always, is the best road for most.

mrtksn 2y ago

Yes, there are advantages of a stable and well functioning systems that don't have disruptors and we indeed benefit of it as having good lives but unfortunately this can't last as those who go hard on progress and tear down everything and rebuilding again will eventually get ahead on everything and won't let us just be as we now see with US billionaires having impact over Europe. Americans feel more pain but are also rewarded, Europe has no option but to become progressive - otherwise tere will be no more Europe and the Americans and Chinese will make us adopt their ways. Oh, BTW, America is also struggling. The latest political developments are an attempt to change course - they are trying to become a bit more like Europe with the race and class based politics holding roots. They say they are anti-regulation anti-discrimination(of whites specifically) but the core MAGA movement is all about putting barriers and preserving old ways for the benefit of a subset of people. Americans are too in soul searching. Their MAGA literally means fixing what is no longer great but their demands are actually quite conservative and they already begin falling off with their accelerations partners.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>Yes, there are advantages of a stable and well functioning systems Current EU is definitely not a stable and well functioning system. Look at economic conditions, political outcomes, illegal immigration, wealth inequality, societal and political trust, homelessness rates, birth rates, free speech suppression, welfare austerity, etc Everything has been going downhill since the 2008 crash. It's a powder keg. >they are trying to become a bit more like Europe with the race and class based politics holding roots. What are you on about? Europe doesn't have much race based politics, that's a thing America keeps pushing.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  Yeah right, Reform AFD Rassemblement national Fratelli d'Italia and other risings stars have nothing to do with race and even if they do it's Americans behind it. Everyone knows that Europeans are much more racist than Americans, it's just that we are much less explicit about it and its issues are different than the issues in the USA.
  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
    You might want to look more at why people are against the waves of illegal immigration and less on the color of their skin.
    - mrtksn 2y ago
      Illegal immigration is a BS term, make immigration legal if you don't want illegal immigrants. It's not like people choose the hard, dangerous and expensive ways instead of buying a Ryanair ticket. When the illegal immigrants BS doesn't hold they all start complaining about legal immigrants as with the UK and their core Brexit reason.
      - worthless-trash 2y ago
        Immigration is legal though, in most countries.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > make immigration legal if you don't want illegal immigrants As a philosophy of law point, aren't laws passed to make things illegal if they aren't wanted? Rather than legal?
        mrtksn 2y ago
        That's the point, illegal immigration is just a veil so some people can feel better for them selves. "it's not that I don't like them - I am not like that, its just that I don't want illegal immigration"
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> unfortunately this can't last as those who go hard on progress and tear down everything and rebuilding again A notion of "bare progress" is the elephant in the room. Progress is a vector. It has magnitude and direction. People talk of moving "forward or back", but science also has a steering wheel. > and the Americans and Chinese will make us adopt their ways. This very notion of "progress" as a totalitarian force is also dangerous. The boot is on the other foot from 80 years ago. When Europe was starting a 1000 year technological master-race, more measured minds had to extinguish that fire. I see many similarities today - people seeing "progress" simply as dominance. I liked the brain-dump in TFA, but I think it's over-complex and too tied to a contemporary interpretation of capital investment. We've been spooging away our talent for generations here. Look at how we treated Turing. We mismanage or sell-off everything cool we invent. What Britain still suffers from is class disloyalty. We still have a strong but invisible class system which is now international financiers. Those sorts "float above" the ordinary economy, they are disconnected from UK interests and don't give a toss about engineering, science, knowledge, education...
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > When Europe was starting a 1000 year technological master-race, more measured minds had to extinguish that fire A lot of the measured minds were saying eugenics was a good idea. It took the horror of seeing experiments and concentration camps to make it so deeply unfashionable the idea couldn't even survive in academia.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    I believe you're right. Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust" and Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day" both played their part in revising my naive ideas about simple narratives of WW2. But look at this post made here a couple of days ago [0]. It's absolutely back in fashion. I think technofascism really is a thing now - you can feel certain people getting quite giddy with thoughts of power. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42735539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42735539
    - 2y ago

ttoinou 2y ago

What is this spirit we retain that US looses ?

geraldhh 2y ago
humanism
bowsamic 2y ago
Leisure, that is, truly retaining time to encourage and develop the spirit that is not just work > There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work - the characteristic vice of the New World - already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange loss of spirit (Geistlosigkeit). One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing" - this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §329
jajko 2y ago
Quality of life, if you define an actual proper life as something happening outside of work hours and sleep. We don't worry whether my insurance will cover the next health issue that will happen to me, be it broken leg or lifelong costly treatment. I don't have to desperately try to save maybe 1.5 million $ to put my kids through decent university, if they desire to do so. I am not brutally tossed on the sidewalk when I am fired, both employer and state gives a LOT of support to not fall off the societal cliff and end up as typical US homeless person. We have way more resting time to recharge via holidays (this fellow from 1.1. is running on 90% corporate work contract and thus sporting 50 vacations days per year - now thats QOL improvement, I've already planned 6 week+ vacations for this year). We have on average simply healthier lifestyles and it shows literally massively. I could go on for a long time. But you can ignore that - compare usage of mental health medication, from what I've seen its much more massive in US, manifesting the additional stress that US population is cca exposed to. Its a balance - you add more money, you remove more 'humanity', and the additional stress is there and very real. Everybody has different ideal spot, and this also changes a lot during life. Isn't it better to have 2 systems next to each other, and everybody can pick how they want to live your life? Focus purely on money is stupid, their added value in life quickly diminishes once a person is not poor, then other aspects of life become much more important. The complete opposite is same, 0 progress. Something in between, as always, is the best road for most.