Europe is not as different from the US as it likes to pretend, especially politically.
Racism is not a unique or exceptionally American phenomenon, and the things I’ve heard from otherwise progressive Europeans can fucking curdle milk equal or in excess to what people in my ultra-rural ultra-conservative home region of the US can say.
I’ve had good friends who were Europeans studying here, and they can definitely be very insensitive and racist. What makes the two flavors of racism different to me is American racism is typically very confrontational, tribalistic. White man calling a black man a slur, and there’s something cavalier about it, maybe even humorous on the part of the racist.
Europeans have a much more “it is the way it is” attitude. I’ve heard friends talk very disparagingly about interracial couples, or blacks in general, and the attitude is less “hate for hate’s sake” but instead “it is the wrong way to be and my way is correct”. Fascinatingly, when you point out the bigotry, my friends have typically refused to accept their bias (at best), and will deny they’re racist.
I’ve heard Europeans call Turks ‘filthy’ and ‘roaches’ and Africans ‘monkeys’. And don’t get me started on the things said about the Romani.
I don’t think there’s a difference in how tribalistic or vicious it is.
Weird. I haven’t.
Making sure I’m reading this right…I know a guy who claims he isn’t sexist but that it is OK to pay women less because they aren’t as good at some things as men. So in his mind, it isn’t sexist to pay women less or even claim they should be paid less - even though it is.
Is that similar to what you’re saying?
Not a bad way of comparing it tbh
Did you type ‘females’ instead of ‘women’ for the sake of the argument or did you get caught up in it as well?
Guess I got caught in it. Just looked it up and didn’t realize until now that female wasn’t an acceptable word to use. TIL. Thanks!
The easy way to understand and remember is that “female” is an adjective the vast majority of the time, and it’s usually misogynists and incels using it as a noun.
I think mysoginists just have a lot of spotlight on them, or are vocal. I hadn’t been aware of “female” being used as a slur before it was pointed out here on Lemmy. I think “female” as a noun is still used neutrally far more often than as a slur.
As an adult female human, I have never been called a “female” in a positive or neutral tone. The key point is that you basically never hear people calling men “males” anywhere outside of scientific discussion.
blacks
While we’re on the topic, I think “black people” is the preferred term (in general it’s adjectives over nouns, like “gay people” vs “gays”)
I’ve heard people of all types use the word ‘blacks’ I think it’s a regional thing.
It’s more likely a field thing. People who work in fields highly dedicated to equity (esp. those working in healthcare) are especially concerned with their language and so create style guides that people outside those fields have gleaned from.
Example:
Hey fair enough. I use whites so I tend to use the same kind of term in the other direction, too. I don’t mean anything insulting by it
Wow, you’ve really succinctly put it best! Being a European myself, this is how I constantly feel when I hear racist shit in my daily life (mainly from family).
It’s like, people here just can’t even fathom that what they’re saying is racist, that they’re racist, because to them what they’re saying is just a simple fact of life that everybody accepts. They don’t show open animosity towards minorities or throw racial slurs like you’d see more in America (though there is definitely some of that here too don’t get me wrong), but it’s a very casual, low-key form of racism where folks comment on X group of people all being one way and no one batting an eye for example.
And if you so much as suggest they’re racist, or the country they’re in has or had issues with racism and other issues of oppression, a lot will legit fight you tooth and nail over it because they can’t handle the notion of it.
It’s really freaking weird and took me a lot of time to be conscious of it myself, since I grew up surrounded by this sort of attitude.
And it’s not just right-leaning people doing this. Some minorities like the Romani are openly discriminated by just about everyone across the political spectrum, the degree just varies. And then based on the country you’ll typically see a lot of Xenophobia towards the bigger migrant groups.
And even then the European countries that feel they’re ahead of the rest tackling racism it’s usually only the urban university educated talking with their fingers in their ears ignoring the majority of the rest of their country.
The things I’ve heard far too many Europeans of various nationalities say about MENA, Desi, Turkish, and Romani folk just… makes my skin crawl.
America has a deep racism problem, and it is both right and necessary to acknowledge it. But those who pretend that Europe doesn’t have a deep racism problem are either not paying attention or in denial - especially considering recent political developments.
The things I’ve heard far too many Europeans of various nationalities say about MENA, Desi, Turkish, and Romani folk just… makes my skin crawl.
Very true
Just ask a Mexican person what it’s like to travel to Spain
Ask a Spanish or Portuguese person what it’s like to travel to France or Belgium. Italians used to face racism in other European countries a few generations ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Dogs_or_Italians_Allowed
I have been surprised by how racist many Brits are
sexist too.
Definitely agree on the “Europe is just racist in a different way.” Outside of the obvious ones (like Middle East & Africa), I’d also add racism/xenophobia against “Eastern” Europe (like Poland), which might surprise Americans because they’re still white.
yall need to get off the high horse and take a joke sometimes. you terrorized the entire world via colonization for hundreds of years through modern day, if people harmlessly stereotype the german or french, make fun of british people, or tease the dutch language, yall can handle it
for context, im american. we get bullied all the time, and while not all americans are fat and stupid, the combination of that many are and that we’ve terrorized the world plenty make me think a lil teasing is fair
Yes it’s perfectly fair and most of us don’t mind.
I think the issue, especially on Reddit, was the over-representation of US Americans compared to the other countries.
It gets old quite fast to get called a “surrender monkey” or a Nazi on a regular basis in a space where most of the audience is on the other side and I’m not even French or German.
On Lemmy it’s probably a bit more balanced.
Well you sound fat and stupid.
Based on the comments it looks like Europeans weren’t ready to hear some of these things. 😉 Let me pile on…
Innovation in Europe is stiffled due to a risk-averse culture, complex regulatory environments, fragmented markets across different countries, limited access to venture capital, and a tendency for established companies to be less receptive to new ideas from startups, making it harder for innovative companies to scale up (compared to the US).
regulatory environments
Regulations are written in the blood of the victims.
And other regulations are written by the lobbyists of big companies.
Here in Germany we have so many regulations that don’t help anyone, except big companies who can circumvent or deal with them.
I don’t want to reduce environmental or worker protection, but we need to simplify a lot of regulations so that the time to do the paperwork is reduced, one of the solutions should be good digitalisation.
Some are, sure. I think most on Lemmy support those kinds. While I enjoy the effects, USB-C mandates aren’t written in blood, and I suspect the majority of regulations are of that variety.
The USB-C mandate is a direct result of it being actively ignored by Apple. The way to universal chargers, first through micro USB and then USB C was also championed by the EU but only as a loose industry agreement or so. Definitely not enough to reign in Apple which is why it was now made mandatory.
The main motivation was to reduce electronic waste due to every device having a different charger and often not even standardising in the same company.
I support the mandate. Just pointing out that the whole “blood of victims” thing, while true of some very important regulations, is nonsense for most of them. There were no victims of lightning ports. There was no blood involved in generic Champagne being called Sparkling Wine.
Start-ups in the US benefit from an immediate market of 400 million people. The EU should be able to enjoy a similar benefit but you are right about the red tape. Obviously Brexit in the UK was a total anathema to that as well.
From what J can see innovation is happening just fine
Tell me one big innovation of the last 30 years where Europe is leading
na-euv
Doesn’t really count if you have to google it first to know what it is, that’s not what will save the European economy in the future. In the mean time other regions of the world dominate battery technology, battery-electric vehicles, handheld devices, social media, semiconductor technology, quantum computing, and basically the whole internet
Doesn’t really count if you have to google it first to know what it is
Are you saying that semiconductors and chipset manufacturing is not a critical domain today?
battery technology
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umicore
social media
Ironic as you are using a Lemmy instance based in Austria
A few other companies in the fields you mentioned:
- Spotify
- SAP
- Volkswagen
- BMW
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-most-valuable-european-tech-221145055.html
Yes, and as we all know, feddit.org absolutely dominates the social media market.
I specifically wrote that in these areas other regions of the world are dominating. I’m well aware that there are some players from the EU in these areas. That’s not the point. Europe is not leading in any major development of the last 30 years while in other areas they lose market share to the competition like automotive or space (with the notable exception of aviation).
Let’s look at tech companies. Look at that list and tell me with a straight face that Europe is playing a dominant role:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/tech/largest-tech-companies-by-market-cap/
Out of the 100 biggest companies, there are only 10 from the whole continent.
ASML is such an undisputed leader in today’s chip ecosystem that it’s hard to believe the company’s market dominance really only dates back to 2017, when its EUV machine, after 17 years of development, upended the conventional process for making chips.
It’s also a testament to ASML’s dominance that it is for the most part no longer allowed to sell its most advanced systems to customers in China. Though ASML still does business in China, in 2019, following pressure from the Trump administration, the Dutch government began imposing restrictions on ASML’s exports of EUV machines to China. Those rules were tightened further just last year and now also impose limits on some of the company’s deep-ultraviolet (DUV) machines, which are used to make less highly advanced chips than EUV systems.
Yet although today everyone is banking on ASML to keep pushing the industry forward, there is speculation that a competitor could emerge from China. Van den Brink was dismissive of this possibility, citing the gap in even last-generation lithography.
“SMEE are making DUV machines, or at least claim they can,” he told MIT Technology Review, referring to a company that makes the predecessor to EUV lithography technology, and pointed out that ASML still has the dominant market share. The political pressures could mean more progress for China. But getting to the level of complexity involved in ASML’s suite of machines, with low, high, and hyper NA is another matter, he says: “I feel quite comfortable that this will be a long time before they can copy that.”
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/01/1090393/how-asml-took-over-the-chipmaking-chessboard/
Doesn’t really count if you have to google it first to know what it is
Maybe you have to Google it
You keep using your phone, and ignoring what tech allows all modern computers to exist. Tech isn’t a major industry, right?
And Europe is not dominating that industry
Just the foundation it’s build upon
Rather have stifled innovation than innovation running rampant like what the US is doing.
With stifled innovation you only get through if you have an actual good idea instead of just an idea that makes money.
Ain’t no way you gonna put all of Europe into that statement. You do understand that each country have their own system, policies and regulatory laws?
The problem here is that what you’re saying is maybe true for a handful of countries while completely false and inaccurate for a handful of others.
We’re not one single entity. Your statement is just not accurate as a whole.
Yea my healthcare one quickly got down voted. Someone used GPT to try to disprove it. I’m even a big propilonent of public healthcare, but you can’t assume it is perfect.
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As someone who isn’t a European, most of these comments are yanks being loudly wrong about something and the saying “see the europeans weren’t ready to hear it” when someone points out how stupid the thing they said was.
You guys should start bulking up your militaries. At best, the US will completely abandon you, and I really don’t want to think about worst-case scenario as I live in the US.
Already happening, keep up
I think Europe can defend itself, it’s not useless most countries have some military
completely abandon you
You write “attack you for water/oil” weird. Or did I write the quiet-part worst case out loud?
i dont get this comment, at the hypothetical best case scenario wouldnt abandoning be “better” than attacked for oil? therefore attacked for oil not being the best case scenario?
Unlikely. The cost/benefit doesn’t work for an assault on the EU. Most countries in the EU have to import oil and gas (Norway being a notable exception), which is why cutting off gas from Russia has been such a big deal. The cost of invading wouldn’t be offset by the oil gains unless oil got really scarce. A smarter move–if we had a president that didn’t give a fuck about our European allies–would be abandoning NATO, stop selling arms to EU members, and then buy oil and gas from Russia at a discount while Russia invades EU countries. (If, say, China didn’t beat this entirely hypothetical US president to the punch.) As far as water goes, it would be cheaper to built massive desalination plants than it would be to move water by supertanker.
'Course, climate change is going to render most of this moot in 50 years or so.
Europe has very little in the way of oil reserves. Norway has the most at 7 billion barrels. Greenland has 18. Saudi Arabia 267 billion. Venezuela 300 billion. If I was Venezuelan I’d be sweating pretty hard right now.
Venezuelan oil is “dirty” IIRC. Apparently it’s good for bunker fuel (imagine the dirtiest sludge ever used for pushing giant ships around the ocean and you’ve got a good idea of bunker fuel), but requires significantly more refining than Saudi or US crude oil. So yay for Venezuela, but also the US would rather just replace the government with the help of that three-letter agency that shall not be named and deal with someone who went to an Ivy but is “Venezuelan enough”.
The US has ever been a fickle bed fellow.
Too many people smoke in Europe and it’s too widely accepted.
Europeans like to pretend they’re innocent, but they are the benefactors of most the damaging empires to have ever existed. They colonized nearly the entire world, extracting value from other cultures while destroying them. They pulled out once it was financially wise, keeping the wealth they extracted and leaving behind the destruction they created. They then blame everyone else for their issues while bragging about how awesome the EU is while overlooking that the EU is only possible due to the wealth they stole from everyone else. Europe likes to discuss that they had their social hardship discussing WWII, but the origin and impact of WWII there was internal to Europe. Had Europe been subject to colonization from elsewhere, it would be just as much a mess as other places. Look at the situation in former Soviet Pact countries that were practically colonized by Russia for maybe half a century. Now imagine if instead of half a century, it was hundreds of years and 5 times as brutal.
Fun fact: The term “colony” comes from Christopher Colombus’ name, which is Spanish is Cristobal Colon. Even the term colonization derives from a European.Apparently, that was incorrect.tl;dr: Europe got to where it is by destroying the rest of the world while blaming the rest of the world for their issues. Their critique of USA is merely a distraction from their own responsibility.
Yeah I think they’re aware of colonisation
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NGL, it sounds like your describing Americans, sorry!
Which country did you live in?
American are a lot more willing to criticize our ruling regime and half of us talk about how us is doing crimes actively… We know where out daddies obtained their capital.
The same can’t be said about Germans for example or French.
Russians?
You mean the French who criticize their government all day long for the past hundred years?
Germans? Germans talk about the Nazi crimes every other year in history class. They’ll read at least two books in lit handling the Nazis and the fallout. They have holocaust memorials big and small in every city. German government is up Israel’s ass because they’re jews. Every video game that could even have a slight chance of glorifying Nazis is banned. When Coca Cola wanted to bring back Fanta like it was made “in the good old days” they conjured a huge shit storm, had to pull everything and issue an apology. Nazis are still being prosecuted and sentenced today. Every so often a new big book or movie is released to big media fanfare that deals with Nazi history.
Maybe you’re talking about other colonisation efforts and genocides. They are also actively being acknowledged by government and media alike. They do get lost in this little war that completely shaped the whole world for the next 100 and probably more years.
The French love to riot and protest the govt. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_France.
The British frequently review and criticise it’s past actions https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637720
Of course, we also acknowledge the Norman and Roman invasions of Britain, but it happened so long ago we don’t expect the Italians or French to apologise about it now…
Saying that with a straight face while a outright fascist is coming into power and every us billionaire is stepping in line to kiss their ring while the working class is doing nothing of importance. USians must be the most submissive culture in the world while actually thinking it’s the most revolutionary.
Really though?
Ah an aussie. Have clean hands do you? No racism there?
They’re still arrogant as fuck and most of the world can’t stand Europeans.
lol and what utopia do you hail from? bet it’s full of assholes and bastards too
Sounds like America
I’m not European, but do go off
I don’t think Columbus was the origin of the word “colony”
I guess Finland isn’t European by your description then 🤷🏻♂️
The word colony comes from the Latin word colonia. I guess you could say the Romans were “European colonizers” but their socioeconomic systems were fundamentally different from modern Europe.
We don’t believe in generational sin, forced upon you because your grandparents did something bad either.
Lol the downvote brigade is here +11/-7 and on my other comment too, if I’m so wrong tell me why!
The rest of your comment is great, but it would have taken a five-second check on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colony to make sure you got your etymology right (which you didn’t)
Had my Spanish brother in law over for the holidays. He says spanish schools teach that the spaniards were trying to civilize the natives and bring them a better life. And sure, some things went wrong, but that columbus should be seen as a hero. He strongly beleives it. I was floored. I thought that stuff was pretty settled. I showed him some info on the genocide of Hispanola, and he said he’d never seen that before, but that we cant judge what happened back then by todays standrads, and that the word genocide hadnt even been invented back then, and that method of conflict was normal back then.
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Idolizing the past (and long gone) ‘grandeur’ of some European countries is not the best way to prepare for the future.
edit: as a disclaimer, I’m European from one of those once important countries.
Romanticizing “past greatness” seems to always involve some very shit politics. It’s more obvious in these old empires, but it exists in more subtle forms elsewhere, too.
I was specifically talking about euros, but I guess a certain US president gets a honourable mention for his campaign slogan
Knackered, as t’were?
Such an underrated comment
How would people who live outside of Europe know what Europeans are not ready to hear? As someone who lives in the U.S. I know only a couple of people IRL who live in Europe.
The thing my European friend was not ready to hear was that all his complaining about the social programs in his home country and the high taxes and so on comes across as entitled and spoiled. Because he’s never lived without the benefits of a state that will provide healthcare and so on, he is free to complain about his privileges and glorify the U.S. as a place where individual citizens fill in the responsibilities that the government should fulfill. He sees this as an unmitigated good, because he thinks it means more civic engagement.
What he doesn’t understand is that this results in most people falling through the cracks, and until he falls through one of those cracks himself it won’t be real to him how bad it is to not be able to afford losing wages because you are sick or injured, or what it’s like when you can’t afford to see a doctor when you break a bone or get so sick you can’t leave your house.
That said, I’m not sure every European needs to hear this, or that they’re not ready to hear it - just this one person seemed to be a little delusional and to have idealized the U.S. as some kind of right-wing libertarian utopia.
How would people who live outside of Europe know what Europeans are not ready to hear?
-Goes on to do exactly that
Bröther
You take your lööps for granted, Eurøpeans. Your Sïster grows weary.
A Møøse once bit my sister…
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does she prowl the forests fighting bandits with her newfound møøse powers?
Just ignore he was talking about one specific european he knows, that was making out the states to be superior
Opinions differ from person to person, some people here really are a bit disconnected from reality
of course, I assume most Europeans are not like my friend :-)
Europeans are really fucking racist. Asians and Jews are cool and yet yall are really weird about them. and don’t get me started on how badly Islam is vilified…
I thought America was racist until I saw a member of UK Parliament tweeting about a boat of migrants sinking with “Good riddance”.
The question should read
“Americans; give us your baseless opinions of a continent you don’t understand, and then get a rage-on in the comments when you are laughed at”
European car manufacturers largely suck ass, I’d rather buy a Hyundai or a damn Nissan than some French or German piece of crap.
Europe as a whole is swinging too far too the right. Y’all all are descending back into Fascism. The recent popularity of the AfD in Germany being a prime example. My own parents - who immigrated from Germany - are deeply disappointed in the direction the country is taking.
It really does feel like online communities get more relentlessly xenophobic when they have more Europeans. It just seems like a lot of you can’t get by without mentioning where someone’s from. Like, no, someone not seeing the value in retro computing doesn’t say anything about “the intelligence of the average Scot.” And if you can’t tell where they’re from, American by default.
Wow that’s exactly the kind of thing a Scot would complain about
Really wish @notruescotsman was here right now
States in the southern U.S. are often the butt of the joke too.
