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I'm a US Millennial and my impression is that the US has spent my adult lifetime destroying its soft power, and this week is really just a culmination of that.

I'm a US Millennial and my impression is that the US has spent my adult lifetime destroying its soft power, and this week is really just a culmination of that. US tech firms do not and have never (at least in my time working for them) cared about anything other than a pathological pursuit of profit that borders on nihilistic paperclip-optimization. I believe that US firms see European tech companies as slow/lazy and think that good engineers only seek high compensation which is available to them in the US. Certainly there are some who are motivated by that, but I have known some great engineers in Europe which was one of my reasons for cautioning my American peers about pushing too hard for WFH; if they can do the job from home, then so can others in countries with lower costs of living.

ben_w 2y ago
I'd say (as a European) most of the tech firms were seen as positive, for most of my life. Not perfectly so, but net. Even Facebook. Heck, even AirBnB and Uber — much as they also upset local communities that didn't want unregistered hotels, and taxi firms that weren't ready for app-based competition, people here made use of those apps to get trip options and travel options they didn't have before.
rsync 2y ago
“US tech firms do not and have never (at least in my time working for them) cared about anything other than a pathological pursuit of profit that borders on nihilistic paperclip-optimization.” Ahem … large US tech firms, that is. FWIW we have had two customers (apologetically) terminate service in the past month citing nationalist concerns.
threatofrain 2y ago
> US tech firms do not and have never (at least in my time working for them) cared about anything other than a pathological pursuit of profit that borders on nihilistic paperclip-optimization. If that were true then people wouldn't worry as much. It's because there is a fuck-you-and-the-world nationalistic theme going on and US tech companies are unable to escape — that makes people worry. No company in the world is a vehicle to pure financial rationalism, and no human or collection of humans are either.

ben_w 2y ago

I'd say (as a European) most of the tech firms were seen as positive, for most of my life. Not perfectly so, but net. Even Facebook. Heck, even AirBnB and Uber — much as they also upset local communities that didn't want unregistered hotels, and taxi firms that weren't ready for app-based competition, people here made use of those apps to get trip options and travel options they didn't have before.

rsync 2y ago

“US tech firms do not and have never (at least in my time working for them) cared about anything other than a pathological pursuit of profit that borders on nihilistic paperclip-optimization.” Ahem … large US tech firms, that is. FWIW we have had two customers (apologetically) terminate service in the past month citing nationalist concerns.

threatofrain 2y ago

> US tech firms do not and have never (at least in my time working for them) cared about anything other than a pathological pursuit of profit that borders on nihilistic paperclip-optimization. If that were true then people wouldn't worry as much. It's because there is a fuck-you-and-the-world nationalistic theme going on and US tech companies are unable to escape — that makes people worry. No company in the world is a vehicle to pure financial rationalism, and no human or collection of humans are either.