4 ms·

There is no "Europe", especially not in these matters that are so strongly, if not almost exclusively, determined by cultural and economic factors in sovereign

There is no "Europe", especially not in these matters that are so strongly, if not almost exclusively, determined by cultural and economic factors in sovereign nations. Please stop doing that, comparing the USA to some fictional country called Europe to prove a point. I agree with many of your arguments, but where the author of this piece is generalizing based on anecdotes, you're generalizing based on stats. And opportunistically picking and mixing stats from different countries on top of that. For someone who likes to throw around stats and pretend to make a scientifically based argument, what does a conclusion like "most European countries are behind the USA" even mean? Europe has countries the size of a few football fields. It has large, thinly populated countries, small, densely populated countries and everything in between. I would really appreciate it of people would stop using this fictional Europe for their ideological political arguments about the USA. Full disclosure: I happen to be from a country in Europe that has higher participation rates for women than the US, is not Scandinavian, doesn't have particularly strong supportive policies (better than the US, but that isn't saying much) and on top of that: despite these stats women in this country are leaving the labor force in large numbers when they get kids, which particularly shows up in a lack of women in senior leadership positions. These things vary wildly per country and culture.

coldtea 12y ago
>Please stop doing that, comparing the USA to some fictional country called Europe to prove a point. There IS a place called the European Union, which tries to unify things in those regards though. Sure, the European Union is not Europe, but that's like saying "America is not the US, it's the whole continent" (that is, correct, but nobody cares, people will still use the name). >Europe has countries the size of a few football fields. It has large, thinly populated countries, small, densely populated countries and everything in between. So, sort of like the states? New Hampshire is not really the size or population of Texas or California. And not all of them have the same rates and policies. Besides, he did gave listings and talked individually about different european countries. It's not that big of a stretch to then check the aggregate, and speak of how "Europe" is doing. The European Comission does exactly this all the time.
- Dewie 12y ago
  > Sure, the European Union is not Europe, but that's like saying "America is not the US, it's the whole continent" (that is, correct, but nobody cares, people will still use the name). I think that is a bad comparison. When anyone says "America", they almost always mean "USA". There are also a lot fewer cases in which most people want to talk about the Americas as a whole, and each continent tends to be denoted by South- and North-. "Europe", on the other hand, seems to always refer to the whole continent (people can disagree about where the Easternmost point is, but other than that the usage of the word is very crisp). I don't see how conflating the EU and Europe is appropriate at all, and I haven't seen much of it.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >I think that is a bad comparison. When anyone says "America", they almost always mean "USA". There are also a lot fewer cases in which most people want to talk about the Americas as a whole Perhaps that's a bias from being in the USA? In Latin America it's far more often to want to talk about Americas as a whole (or about North/South America as a whole).
    - Dewie 12y ago
      > Perhaps that's a bias from being in the USA? That can't be the case for me.
stefanix 12y ago
You are asking an interesting question. What utility does it have to compare such large and diverse populations. Without further data like standard deviation of compared units this may be point-less. It's also not just Europe. The USA is similarly non-uniform. Coasts and Bible-Belt differ significantly, arguably more that certain European countries.

coldtea 12y ago

>Please stop doing that, comparing the USA to some fictional country called Europe to prove a point. There IS a place called the European Union, which tries to unify things in those regards though. Sure, the European Union is not Europe, but that's like saying "America is not the US, it's the whole continent" (that is, correct, but nobody cares, people will still use the name). >Europe has countries the size of a few football fields. It has large, thinly populated countries, small, densely populated countries and everything in between. So, sort of like the states? New Hampshire is not really the size or population of Texas or California. And not all of them have the same rates and policies. Besides, he did gave listings and talked individually about different european countries. It's not that big of a stretch to then check the aggregate, and speak of how "Europe" is doing. The European Comission does exactly this all the time.

Dewie 12y ago
> Sure, the European Union is not Europe, but that's like saying "America is not the US, it's the whole continent" (that is, correct, but nobody cares, people will still use the name). I think that is a bad comparison. When anyone says "America", they almost always mean "USA". There are also a lot fewer cases in which most people want to talk about the Americas as a whole, and each continent tends to be denoted by South- and North-. "Europe", on the other hand, seems to always refer to the whole continent (people can disagree about where the Easternmost point is, but other than that the usage of the word is very crisp). I don't see how conflating the EU and Europe is appropriate at all, and I haven't seen much of it.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >I think that is a bad comparison. When anyone says "America", they almost always mean "USA". There are also a lot fewer cases in which most people want to talk about the Americas as a whole Perhaps that's a bias from being in the USA? In Latin America it's far more often to want to talk about Americas as a whole (or about North/South America as a whole).
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > Perhaps that's a bias from being in the USA? That can't be the case for me.

stefanix 12y ago

You are asking an interesting question. What utility does it have to compare such large and diverse populations. Without further data like standard deviation of compared units this may be point-less. It's also not just Europe. The USA is similarly non-uniform. Coasts and Bible-Belt differ significantly, arguably more that certain European countries.