Why this European never wants to live in America

http://www.fluentin3months.com/no-usa-for-me/

by nether • 13 years ago

23 32 13 years ago

nether• 13 years ago

The article was very different from what I expected, and as an American I agreed with pretty much all of it.

VLM2• 13 years ago

One thing that I did catch that was pretty funny is he only spent time in our biggest most urbanized cities, yet he thought those were a bit too car oriented. His head would explode with surprise if he visited an area that wasn't one of the 10 largest cities. If he thought Chicago was a little too car dependent, try rural ... anywhere.

Several of his comments boil down to a fanatic root belief in proceduralism. Who cares if the food sucks as long as the checkbox "waitress smiled" is checked. Also applies to a bunch of other examples, like you can be a jerk and thats OK as long as you go to church on Sunday, obsession with money, annoying advertising, consumerism/all you need for happiness is the latest iDevice, etc. The core belief being that success just means having the right checkboxes checked. That observation would shorten his list considerably.

A couple of his other comments dance around Americans being the most ignorant western culture out there (what you say Ireland has airports, and you're not all potatoe farmers?) Several of his other comments fit into this category. We really do encourage stupidity as a culture to keep the consumerism and gullibility toward advertising going. Whole classes of people who basically only exist to be milked as cash cows. Just kinda how we are, I guess.

So for those who can't get thru, these three above themes summarize his observations reasonably fairly, or at least I hope fairly.

bct• 13 years ago

Rural areas come with other benefits. Urban and suburban areas that are too car-centric are the worst of both worlds.

Aaronontheweb• 13 years ago

Didn't take long for that website to 503...

claudius2• 13 years ago

And there’s not even a version in Google’s cache due to a restrictive robots.txt.

x0054• 13 years ago

Because this happens on occasion, maybe HN should add a feature that takes a snapshot of a website when it starts inching to the top of the list and delete the cache when it falls off.

javert• 13 years ago

It seems like somebody could create a pass-through site (e.g. whatever.com/<url>) which forwards to <url> if it is available, and if it is having problems, just presents a cached version with advertisements inserted (because hosting would, by definition, be expensive). Probably been done already though?

general_failure• 13 years ago

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3ee_1381017749 is a copy of the article. Please correct if I am wrong.

heyalexej• 13 years ago

That's correct. I know this article very well. It's like one or two years old and had something like 2000 comments.

lomegor• 13 years ago

I agree with some of the points, but the first one really put me off with reading the article. I've never suffered over sensitivity from Americans, and in fact, I see just the opposite. This could be my biases crawling in, but it really bothered me (and I'm not American) reading "(oversensitivity with not telling obese people to get their act together is a major contributor in my opinion to why there are so many of them in the states)" because it was just a cheap shot, especially since it may very well be the opposite from the truth: http://www.businessinsider.com/weight-discrimination-linked-...

mahyarm• 13 years ago

Talking about someones weight really offends people. Or weight loss in general. People mentally shut down about this bad habit vs many other habits, especially women. If people weren't overly sensitive about fatness, that behavior effect you linked about would probably NOT happen.

It's extremely frustrating, because you understand people's eating habits just regress to the mean, and if the 'mean' set by a countries food culture to be absolute shit with huge portions, then a country will get predictably fat.

When I go to a gas station in the USA, every single food is basically candy, high calorie nuts or expensive beef jerky. In south east asia, there are healthier options in the gas station, and often there is some person in a food cart selling home cooked healthy small portion food cheaper than McDonalds will ever be in that country. That is just one example.

devgutt• 13 years ago

All points in my opinion are cheap shots. With over 300 million people, over generalization is silly.

krylonkid• 13 years ago

A Euroweenie is his natural state, whining. Whilst they whine the rest of the world builds useful things.

Zikes4• 13 years ago

1. Americans are too sensitive

This is a common misconception, which colors a few other items in the author's list, but the real reason they don't see many people speaking their mind is because for the most part nobody cares. Which brings me to:

2. Everything is "awesome"!

So the USA is the only country in the world that has mindless small talk? Really?

We don't ask "how are you?" and expect a literal answer, we just want to hear "fine" and have you acknowledge our existence just as we've acknowledged yours. It's a simple greeting, not an offer for your autobiography thus far.

3. Smiles mean NOTHING

I honestly find it difficult to imagine you ran into an overabundance of smiles. I live in a fairly "southern" region where smiles are quite common, but even then I don't see everyone just walking around with a big toothy grin all day.

Still, kind of a silly criticism, isn't it? Who are you to say a smile isn't genuine, after all?

4. Tipping

Yeah, it's pretty stupid when places tack on "mandatory gratuity", usually hidden in fine print on a restaurant menu. Fortunately you can usually argue your way out of that if you were caught off guard, otherwise you learn what places charge it and what places don't, and everywhere else you can just make up your own mind about whether or not you want to tip.

5. False prices on everything

Our sales tax system is complex and different, and I think a lot of Americans would agree it's in dire need of an overhaul of some sort. That said, I don't see any issues with not including it on a price tag, because that's the established convention and what you see on the tag is representative of what the business is charging, not what you will pay.

6. Cheesy in-your-face marketing

http://reddit.com/r/wheredidthesodago

We're aware of this. Get a DVR or cancel cable and use Netflix, like a normal American.

7. Wasteful consumerism

Feel free to keep your 15 year old Nokia flip phone, if you want. Some of us have the means and the desire to experience the latest in modern technology, and quite frankly that's our business.

8. Idiotic American stereotypes of other countries

Your experiences are just as anecdotal as anyone else's, and your points are just as stereotypical.

9. Heritage

Most of us can trace our lineage back to another country, if we tried hard enough. That doesn't invalidate your own.

10. ID checks & stupid drinking laws

Short of a government issued ID there is absolutely no way for you to make an accurate assessment of someone's age. That's actually highly circumspect, still, but at least you can say you tried, which is half the point. The other, of course, being not to serve underaged persons alcohol which is against the law.

As for the nature of the laws themselves, yeah there's a few silly points, but I find it hard to believe there aren't equally silly laws regarding other matters in any of the other countries you've visited. Hardly a reason to rule out a country entirely, especially when you're not a drinker and those particular laws don't apply to you.

11. Religious Americans

I'm not religious. I know lots of people that are, and I know lots of people that are not. For the most part, if a person's religious beliefs clash with mine or I'm uncomfortable with the manner in which they express their religion, I simply choose not to associate with that person.

As we so often like to say, it's a free country.

12. Corporations win all the time, not small businesses

Sorry, this is a pretty long list, and I've found that actually reading your reasoning for these inane headlines doesn't really do anything to persuade me to your opinion. Suffice it to say that anecdotal accounts will not do, and while there are a number of large corporations that need taken down a peg they certainly don't win "all the time".

13. A country designed for cars, not humans

3.794 million square miles (9.827 million km²)

I'm open to alternatives.

14. Always in a hurry

Anecdotalism. Stereotyping.

15. Obsession with money

I'm so glad that greed is purely an American issue. I'll sleep better tonight knowing no other country in the world (or at least none you've been to) suffer from this problem.

16. Unhealthy portions

Try an unhealthy diet overall. Yes, we're well aware of the "obesity epidemic". Come back in a few years, see if we make any progress on that.

17. Thinking America is the best

Everybody knows that North Korea is Best Korea.

nagisa• 13 years ago

3.794 million square miles (9.827 million km²)

That's only area of USA. He was talking about the cities which have terrible conditions for transport by feet.

Or maybe should I give a counter-example of Russia (17 million km²) which is comparably fine albeit not being designed for cars?

Zikes4• 13 years ago

Some cities are better for this than others. Unfortunately many of them were built in the automotive boom where futurists predicted compact roads would dominate the ground level and everyone else would walk underground or in sky bridges between buildings.

Maybe we'll grow into a reasonable solution for pedestrian traffic in cities, but the population distribution outside of those cities absolutely necessitate a car to get around.

The Russian counter-example may be valid. Offhand I would wonder how much of that 17 million km² is actually habitable, but even halving that still puts it on roughly equal footing with USA. Having never visited Russia I have no idea how it compares with pedestrian traffic vs vehicular, except the craziness I see on the dashcam videos that have been popping up everywhere lately.

Maybe we have a few things we could learn from them, but the point I was trying to make was that one 9.827 million km² country has to be architected rather differently from one at 84,421 km².

thedufer• 13 years ago

Short of a government issued ID there is absolutely no way for you to make an accurate assessment of someone's age.

Worse yet, people from the British Isles look _really_ young to most Americans. The opposite is true, as well. I've seen friends who I think are obviously underage have no trouble ordering drinks in London. Most places have policies about carding people who look under 30, because it is so hard to tell amongst such diversity.

Doesn't make much sense to be happy about our diversity and then criticize the consequences.

jafaku• 13 years ago

- Someone on the internet says Americans are too sensitive.

- American is hurt so he writes a thousand lines comment trying to prove him wrong.

See the irony?

Zikes4• 13 years ago

Telling someone they're wrong is much more satisfying than caring about their opinion.

bladedtoys• 13 years ago

The article mentions sales/VAT/IVA tax. Perversely I think the US actually does this right:

In the EU, VAT tax is included in the displayed price while in the US, sales tax is not. As the article mentions this is convenient for EU consumers who clearly know the price of their purchase in advance.

But I think it has a bad side effect: consumers do not notice the size of the vat/sales tax as strongly and as a result, I conjecture, there is less resistance to hikes in that tax (which is roughly 20% now). Being a regressive tax, it is quite uncharacteristic of the EU. So I conjecture it may have gotten that high partially because it is not annoying consumers at every purchase.

claudius2• 13 years ago

VAT is explicitly listed on every receipt I have (and you are legally required to list it, I believe), so I know perfectly well that it is 19% at the moment (while it was 16% just a few years back…).

But even if it was not listed, I check the menu or price tag to learn how much I have to pay for an item, not to be educated on taxes on checkout.

paglia_s• 13 years ago

it depends from the country, here in italy from the 1st of october is 22%

DanBC• 13 years ago

The UK used to allow people to advertise prices without VAT. But that led to "people being confused" and a "broken free market", so a rule was introduced that if you're selling to end consumers (rather than B2B) you need to include VAT in all advertising to allow easier price comparison.

I've never thought about the hidden aspect of that tax. But then, we have very high tobacco duties and fuel duties and etc etc. People in general in the UK don't have much idea about how much tax they're paying. HN is going to be unrepresentative because of the number of people paying higher tax rates or people who are self employed with accountants.

owenjones• 13 years ago

I "lived" in Europe for three months and have spent time in almost all the western European countries. Would you guys be interested in my anecdotal stereotypical sweeping generalizations?

Zikes4• 13 years ago

Only if it's in an easily-consumed numbered list!

nsxwolf• 13 years ago

I had to throw my hands up in frustration almost immediately. Obese people are fat because no one tells them they are fat?

Obese children are brutally savaged by other children as well as adults. Adults who creep into obesity in their later years damn well know it.

I think it's a sign of good manners that we don't go around pointing out unpleasant things about other people's bodies that they are constantly aware of. It makes people feel like shit, and it doesn't do anything positive to encourage them to fix the problem (like it's just sooo easy, anyway, Mr. skinny European)

Reminds me of this Onion video:

http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-should-we-be-shami...

Anyway, I agree with a lot of the rest that was said - especially about sales tax and tipping.

moron4hire• 13 years ago

I read most of these points as, "Your culture is different than mine and it makes me uncomfortable."

sentenza• 13 years ago

Actually, for me personally, there are some parts of American culture that scare me because they are so similar to things that were once found in mine.

A personal favorite is this: Do you trust the police or fear them?

In cozy central Europe, where I live, I can trust the police more than I fear them (althoug, unfortunately, this slowly becomes less the case). The US-Police, as anybody who has read the "how to act around police"-part of a travel guide knows, is to be feared.

Bad sign.

BTW: The next stage, which is significantly worse, is when the typical member of the police and his family have only other policemen and their families for friends. Fortunately, this seems not at all to be the case in the US.

irishpolyglot• 13 years ago

Hi there Hacker News! Thanks for the interest in my article :) My site went down an hour or so ago because I'm making database changes - I'm actually HN proof, since I had an article do very well here years ago that is much more positive than the one linked to this time. Check it out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2780067

Some of you might have noticed that I changed the post title - this was coincidentally something I was doing just before I found out HN was linking to me. This article of mine from years ago sends me lots of traffic, but I do wish that my less controversial articles encouraging language learning would get more exposure too ;)

Along those lines, I hope you'll check out my TEDx talk (60k+ views): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x2_kWRB8-A

Thanks for all the comments, and I hope not too many arguments come about! I was only thinking out loud in that post, as you can see written at the end.

I loved the new readers I got from HN when my Life Lessons post went viral here, so I hope a few of you will stick around. Thanks again!

jinushaun• 13 years ago

Whenever I see Europeans complain about Americans smiling all the time, I wonder why I never hear the same complaint about Southeast Asians (i.e., Land of a Thousand Smiles). People always talk about it positively.

I'm American and SE Asian. Sorry Europeans, but my face rests smiling.

Why this European never wants to live in America

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