SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The New York Times has a story that delves into a conundrum faced by Europeans: Why are there few, if any, technology companies from Europe with the size and reach of American tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Apple?
The article hypothesizes that, even though employment regulations and other business and legal factors play a role, it's actually deeply-embedded cultural differences that are the primary cause, citing less aversion to risk-taking, less stigma from business failures such as bankruptcies, little or no stigma from leaving and rejoining a company which is seen as disloyal in European cultures, more acceptance of disruptive innovation, and a less rigid educational system that allows individuals to find their own form of success.
(Considering the many indications that US schools now train for tests, not knowledge, perhaps alternatives to school are more attractive.)
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2015, @01:17PM
Your first post is too dramatic compared to reality, while the second does indeed make sense considering history.
The dividing lines in Europe are not only ethnical. They do exist but are not nearly as strong as you make them believe. Maybe you have too much attention to Spain (Good lord they are an unruly mass) or to United Kingdom but other countries do not have separatist motives.
There are rivalries, and economical and political divides inside each country but they are not the bloodthirsty kind. Specially the newer generations educated with Erasmus and Ryanair, have become much more open to different European cultures. It takes time, and the historical heritage being so prominent is due to the huge voting mass the elderly people represent in Europe. Go check the articles where the politicians prefer to keep the current pensions subsidized with the money that should go to future generations.They don't really have the power to motivate youngsters to raise arms against each other. You, yourself, say that since the 1990s things have been changing...well Erasmus student exchange started in 1989. I don't think it is a coincidence things have been improving.
I work directly with Erasmus students (Erasmus Student Network) in my university and while they sometimes have their misgivings with my country and vice-versa, I don't see them as hating my country. On the contrary, even though my country and university are normally the last of their choices, the idea I have is that they loved them. May be it is my perception but they would have to be very cynical in a large scale to invite their families and friends to come here or re-visit on later years. I see the same in other Universities.
Also, speaking with local government institutions they also perceive Erasmus students as being very important to refresh the local civil society.
My point of view as an European.
(Score: 1, Troll) by zugedneb on Sunday June 21 2015, @01:33PM
No, it is not dramatic. The clean and hard nazis in uniforms, the unshaved cold eyed russians, the hard slavs...
The people in the wars and the people living todays everday is the same people.
When you talk about people, talk so that your statement covers as much of the history as possibile.
Just look at yugoslavia 25 years ago and russia today... It is falling apart. And everyone is afraid of war in europe because everyone knows how hard and rutless we are.
Secondly, erasmus, or exchange students are an entirelly different thing. They are people with a certain mindset, who want to go abroad and meet "new and interesting people". Most of them are naive.
As educated immigrant, I can barely see the people I knew as child in these students, when they come from "my place". They are different. Sorry, bro, but you can not make any strategic assessment of the "thruth" based on exchange students...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 22 2015, @08:44AM
I think you are full of shit.
> No, it is not dramatic. The clean and hard nazis in uniforms, the unshaved cold eyed russians, the hard slavs...
> The people in the wars and the people living todays everday is the same people
You're saying that Germany is still full of Nazis? That Germans are all "Clean and hard"? Go to Germany. Meet some people. They are some of the most welcoming, humorous and fun-loving folks you'll ever encounter.
It seems like everything you've written is based on misinformed old stereotypes and panic-mongering Daily Fail articles. I don't think you have a bloody clue what you're talking about.
> Just look at yugoslavia 25 years ago and russia today... It is falling apart. And everyone is afraid of war in europe
Everyone's afraid of war in Europe because WAR IS FUCKING HORRIBLE. There's nothing more to it than that. Europe learned that lesson the hard way, over and over again, and these last 50 years or so we've actually being doing something positive about it rather than endlessly repeating history.
> because everyone knows how hard and rutless we are.
Sorry to burst your nationalistic bubble here but no one country or continent has a monopoly on ruthlessness. It was the Brits who started the firebombing campaigns of the second world war, but there is a far longer list of nastiness behind that. The Spanish butchered millions on the new world in pursuit of gold. The French showed how ruthless they can be during the revolution. Africans, Asians, Americans - I could give you list of atrocities as long as your arm from pretty much any nation on Earth. What's your point? That people can be bastards and that war is hell? Not news. But people - the same people even - can also be warm, inviting and compassionate.
You get the former when people don't know or trust their neighbours, when they let themselves be informed by propaganda and stereotypes rather than direct contact with other peoples. The solution to that is to get people out of their borders and meeting as many different folks as they can. The internet has helped a lot in that as well. See how much more popular opposition there is to every war now.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday June 21 2015, @09:13PM
While you and I, and many students, and most of our peers that we talk to feel that way, we're not the only ones that have been brought up in the last 20 years. It's not just old people that voted for UKIP, or for the Wilders and Le Pens of the world. Danish People’s Party have just done very well in Denmark, Golden Dawn, the NDP, and Jobbik are all attracting a disenfranchised youth.
Youth unemployment is terrible, house prices put the dream of owning a cardboard box out of reach for practically everyone, there will be no state pension, public services are being cut left right and centre, and there is little to look forward to for many people other than reality TV on a saturday night and perhaps a week in Shagalouf.
Immigrants are easy to blame, stirred up by hate rags like the daily mail who pander to the xenophobic "don't forget the war" bunch of pensioners.
There won't be a europe-wide country-level war, but unless there's major change there will be europe-wide fighting. While the poor overthrowing the rich may keep diamond merchants awake at night, they'll easily flee to the Cayman islands.