[mavdi]

If you bury your head in sand that's exactly what you'll think. Try getting out of Europe more often and see what the rest of the world achieves in a year and then you'll come to the same conclusion. Even in case of already advanced countries like Japan, in certain sectors, they are years if not decades ahead of Europe.

[m_fayer]

As the op said, there is no "Europe" and talking about it as if there's a single entity is, to European ears, quite ignorant. Practically the only thing Italy has in common with Poland has in common with France has in common with Holland is that they're all very generally liberal democracies. Otherwise, on the spectra of backwater-to-scifi, honest-to-corrupt, socialist-to-capitalist, religious-to-secular, nationalist-to-egalitarian, dynamic-to-sclerotic, authoritarian-to-permissive, you will find everything in every permutation, somewhere.

I get that the US is big and diverse and dynamic. But the EU is far bigger (population wise) and far more culturally / economically / politically diverse.

[spacecowboy_lon]

Japan is not a good example as it lags in many other areas Plumbing for one