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My feeling is that when European policy is discussed on Hacker News, many Europeans reflexively become defensive and defend the European government's perspectiv
by returningfory2 2y ago
My feeling is that when European policy is discussed on Hacker News, many Europeans reflexively become defensive and defend the European government's perspective irrespective of the merits. There is this sense that Europe can never be wrong, and is always better than the US. I would strongly encourage Europeans to reconsider this approach. It is not in your interest or in the interest of Europe.
For context, I grew up in Europe and now live in the US. One major difference in the US is that people are often very critical of the general direction of the country. In many cases this is the key mechanism by which positive change is made. For example, in the US many of us are critical of the healthcare system's poor accessibility for lower income people. That criticism has been channeled towards some non-trivial positive change (Obamacare on the federal level, many other thing locally).
Imagine instead that Americans took the European attitude towards this issue. As soon as anyone criticized American healthcare they would get defensive, dig their heals in, refuse to listen, and insist that the American healthcare system is fine. This would be really bad for the US! We would never have made any positive change because we would have been in denial about there being a problem in the first place.
Of course some people in the US do this. But I feel for Europe the standard response to any criticism of Europe is to dismiss it out of hand and retreat to this attitude that Europe is superior to everywhere else.
- akmarinov 2y agoBut I want to be able to run any app i want to on my $999+ phone. Why am I not allowed to?
- dnissley 2y agoYou knowingly bought the phone that had that limitation, so presumably you had some other priorities
- returningfory2 2y agoMy comment is not about the specifics of this case...
- akmarinov 2y agoYes, you’re purposefully changing the subject, to avoid actually discussing the issue, since it’s not in your interest as a now American
- returningfory2 2y agoHN topics are not linear conversations. There is no notion of "changing the subject". We can simultaneously discuss the article and topics around the article on separate comment trees.
- akmarinov 2y agoGreat! So then why am I not allowed to run whatever i want on my $999 phone?
- returningfory2 2y agoMy comment is not about the specifics of this case...
- magarnicle 2y agoBecause Apple doesn't want their OS turning into Windows from the 2000s. Bad for you, good for all the non-tech people out there, or so the thinking goes.
- cbeach 2y agoIf you want to do that you're free to buy a phone (i.e. Android) that is has fewer safeguards and lacks vertical integration. For those of us who value Apple's approach, please let us choose the phone that works best for us, and stop supporting bad politicians who want to regulate our choices away.
- akmarinov 2y agoLol, you don’t have choices currently
- returningfory2 2y agoI would be interested in hearing why my comment is being downvoted.
- MattPalmer1086 2y agoI am not one of the downvoters, but I assume it is because you make unsusbtantiated accusations of defensive behaviour about most of the Europeans on HN. It's flame bait.
- returningfory2 2y agoDoesn't this whole HN post kind of substantiate it though? The article itself was incorrectly flagged. So far I see no comments addressing the content of the article at all. I think it's completely fair to describe the response here as reflexively defensive. I do agree that my comment is too broad in implicating most Europeans. I do think the standard European response on HN is how I described it, but presumably most Europeans on HN don't actually contribute to these discussions and it's misleading to extend the point to them.
- MattPalmer1086 2y agoI see a lot of posts saying they support this kind of regulation. Not sure how you know they are all European posters, or why supporting it should be seen as a defensive stance.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI have the complete opposite impression of European vs. American attitudes in this regard. It's a common belief here in the States that the Constitution was genius, that the healthcare system is "best in the world", that it's the "shining city on the hill" for the rest of the world. "If you don't like it, leave" is a fairly common response to criticism of US governance. In EU GDPR vs. Google/Facebook/Apple, I'm very comfortable with the concept that the EU is at least trying to protect consumers from what has been decades of clear overreach by the ad industry.
- returningfory2 2y agoYeah that's interesting - maybe I have some selection bias that leads me to a different sense. I do think though that there's a relation between attitudes and policy that gets enacted. So I agree many people do think that the US healthcare system is the "best in the world" - but if everyone thought that, we would never have had Obamacare, and Medicare for All wouldn't be a thing. I think these policies being enacted/seriously discussed is evidence that there's a non-trivial number of people questioning the status quo. Anyway, my overall point was that questioning the status quo is good for your country and reflexively defending it is bad, because then you don't find ways to improve it.
- pembrook 2y agoThe fact you got downvoted is very amusing and, ironically, perfect evidence of what you're describing. The problem is there's no HN equivalent for tech people in Europe. So they're stuck here, hanging out with a bunch of Americans bragging about how big their salaries are and how Americans in tech are all getting fabulously rich (and they actually are). Imagine the level of resentment that creates! You're just as competent an engineer, yet instead of financial freedom in <10 years, you get stuck making 1/5th as much in a lifer "IT" job at some lame industrial company running on autopilot just because you were born in the wrong country. So what do you do? Take a risk and build something of your own? Nahhh. Too much work. It's much easier to rationalize the discomfort away by recasting yourself as the hero of the story. "Sure, I have to ask my government for permission to retire at 70 (hopefully), but that's because I'm actually the morally superior one! Those American tech innovations are all evil, and the people who use them are getting duped by a bunch of conmen! LLMs are worthless, I don't need their latest tech fads anyways!" ...And so on, and so on.