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Comment by xwolfi | Hacker News Reader

Well Im european and I can tell you from the inside, it's not the same mindset at all. We dont want to grow companies, in fact we barely give a fuck at all. It s hard to understand for capitalists, and I disliked this mindset so much I moved to Hong Kong, but that s what the people vote for: they d rather have no growth and no Microsoft 365 than put their data there.

People in most of Europe are truly convinced finance, money and growth are mirages made to enslave them in eternal pursuit of an unreachable state, and instead prefer to cool it down. It's not a pragmatic strategy because it ignores we re not alone.

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I’m also European. Thanks for the insight.

I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.

What's funny is that many Europeans I have spoken with from across the continent have the attitude that you come to the US when you are young to make money then retire to Europe to take advantage of the social safety net.

Perhaps not yoir personal opinion, but definitely one that is anecdotally common among white collar workers.

@tomrod is completely right. Here in Bulgaria people have this exact mindset. Some also might just never return.

Indeed. I've heard it from Serbians, Bulgarians, Irish, Scottish, Swedish, German, Italian, Romanian, and Belgian folks that I can recall offhand, maybe more that I'm not completely recalling.

I'm actually surprised of this since I've always though of Sweeden, Germany, Italy, Belgium as very good countries. I can only speak for bulgarians as I know how the mass thinks here.

Maybe they’re good precisely because of this mindset?

That’s very unsustainable for Europe and great for the US since the latter gets the most productive years.

Right? European policy makers should look to determine what incentives they encourage that generates this fairly common attitude.

Maybe they just cater to their electorate. Democracy etc.

Did the electorate vote on gdpr directly?

If so, I stand corrected.

If not, it was performed by representatives whose incentives are not aligned to the electorate (see Arrows impossibility theorem).

More direct democracy would be nice.

However, as a citizen of EU member, I’d say GDPR pretty well aligns with the general notion of the people.

Sometimes people ain’t happy when government uses GDPR as a scapegoat to keep iffy data private. E.g. hiding final beneficiaries of companies. But I don’t see people unhappy that GDPR prevents crappy software practices.

Same deal as credit cards. Here in Europe cards processing fees are capped. Thus we don’t have US-style kickbacks or points programmes. Which probably limits credit card issuers innovations and business models. But I don’t see people complaining about that.

I am an European, too, and I do agree with xwolfi. Therefore "most European" is an accurate statement.

Yeah. It’s called the European way of doing stats.

It's a vast place, maybe you're german. They're pragmatic and care about work, efficiency, building stuff, growing companies.

I'm French, the motherland is a constant source of sad despair for me.

Just because you disagree doesn't contradict "most Europeans".

Or how many are you?

That was exactly my point.

> It's not a pragmatic strategy because it ignores we re not alone.

It's worse than that, it's delusional and hypocritical. Here in Sweden people will proudly write "We are not like the Americans" on their iPhones, drive Teslas and generally base their whole lifestyles on the foundation created by the American capitalism and possible thanks to the protection of US military.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Amen.

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