[veave]

I've read this comment (or variations of it) so many times I am starting to wonder if it's a joke that I'm missing. Or simply propaganda.

I understand that you are in tech and are happy with your position, but consider the lives of millions who are unemployed, or those who can't afford to turn their AC on or fix their car when it breaks down. Not to mention how much prices have increased.

[code-blooded]

There are poor people anywhere in the world. I have friends who only make a little more than minimum wage here in Europe and of course they cannot afford many things like nice vacations or perhaps even the dryer at home (people just hang clothes anyway - not a big deal :) ), but they don't live on the street, can still see a doctor, have a car or use the excellent public transportation, and are okay overall.

The last city I lived in the US was Seattle and there were people doing drugs on the streets in middle of the city and cops just walked by. Many homeless people actually have a job. Healthcare is insanely expensive. Education costs are a joke.

I'm not saying everything is great in Europe. The original point I was trying to make is that comparing salaries/wealth alone completely misses the point. Quality of life is more complicated than that.

[hcks]

Europeans have a strong ability to cope for their declining standards of life.

They’ll mention how about they have great cities/safety/etc but you’ll notice they never say which city/country exactly they’re talking about (as in let’s pretend all of Europe is Switzerland)

[klabb3]

Hard disagree. The ones who ramble about Sweden, Switzerland, Finland when they’ve reached some goal like “happiest people in the world” or “safest cities”, usually with some picture of a cabin in the alps, are Americans who romanticize Europe.

[FirmwareBurner]

> are Americans who romanticize Europe.

Indeed. They don't know that many people here still have 1h+ commutes to their soul crushing 9-5 jobs just like they do, and assume everyone has a 15 minute bike ride to work through a cobble stone street or working remotely with their MacBooks in hip central cafes.

[TMWNN]

I laugh while rolling my eyes whenever I read on Reddit that "Europe" has "good transit" so doesn't need cars. Such geniuses will, of course, never ever actually have to tell a rural Irishman or Spaniard or Frenchman that there is no need for the truck he owns for the farm and the sedan his family uses every day. Or the German or Italian who ackshually has no need for the automobile he uses to commute into Frankfurt or Milan every day.

[FirmwareBurner]

It's not just rural, but most smaller cities (usually less than 1MM people) that don't have great public transport connection with the extended zones that have developed around them for industry and living, where personal car ownership is the norm if you don't want to commute 2h+ via public transport.

Not every EU city has the public transport of Vienna and London, nor the cycling infrastructure of Netherlands and Copenhagen. And a lot of Americans miss this as they just look at the model cities where it's all perfect, but those are like what, 10%-20% of the EU.

[gfedtbyby]

> 15 minute bike ride to work through a cobble stone street.

That's a pretty awful experience. I'd much rather ride for 30 minutes on asphalt.

[ramblerman]

Swiss cities are consistently among the most expensive in the world. Food is bad. Very xenophobic society.

It has a lot of great things too ofc. But I wouldn’t consider it representative of the nicer parts of Europe (vs pure financial optimization) mentioned above such as working less, walking, biking in the city.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Food is bad. Very xenophobic society.

Where did you get your info? Swiss food quality is some of the best in the world, well regulated and mostly organic, that's why it's so expensive.

How did you measure xenofobia?

[ramblerman]

By food I meant preparation, i.e. cuisine. You are right that food quality in supermarket although expensive is not bad (I wouldn't say it's as amazing as you claim either though, any french/spanish market would knock switzerland out of the park for fresh produce/meats).

xenofobia is subjective, and maybe wrong word, but expat society is largely cut off from locals. I know many germans firsthand that feel they can't integrate.

[FirmwareBurner]

>expat society is largely cut off from locals.

I'm not Swiss but, I think you don't know what xenofobia means. Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of these tropes, of expats who think that because locald don't chat them up, and if the baristas never greet and smile at them like it's the norm in their home country they immediately take it as the country being xenofobic.

Expat societies are mostly isolated in most other countries, because the locals already have cemented family and social circles from their youth/childhood/university, especially in the Germanic/Norther-European cultures where small-talk and chit-chat is unpopular and people mostly keep to themselves and don't interact much with people they don't know out of respecting their personal space.

> I know many germans firsthand that feel they can't integrate

Then Germans get to experience exactly how expats feel in their country. Join the club.

Snark aside, a Swiss/German/Finnish person not chatting you up and not inviting you to hang out the moment they meet you is not xenofobia, it's people keeping to themselves. Every country and culture has completely different social norms which other cultures might find "unfriendly" but that's not xenofobia.

Xenofobia means something else. And I doubt you were a target of xenofobia too often in Switzerland.

[allarm]

> Then Germans get to experience exactly how expats feel in their country.

Not my feeling/experience at all. I’ve moved to Germany 1.5 years ago and the locals are the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. Especially comparing to Singaporeans, where I spent 6 years before.

I live in the North though, if I lived in Bayern my experience would probably be different.

[nvm0n1]

Switzerland has a massive foreign-born population compared to other places - their largest city is something like 30% foreign - yet very few problems caused by that even though those people often don't learn the local dialects or not even German/French at all. If it were actually a xenophobic society (spelled with PH not F in English) then they'd be having race riots all the time.

In practice Switzerland is one of the more accommodating societies in the world. Most Swiss people don't move far from where they grow up though, so often still have friends from school. It isn't a culture oriented towards chatting with strangers or making new friends at the drop of a hat, but that's not the same thing as xenophobia. Swiss who move abroad then back after many years experience the same difficulties with making new friends.

[sam_lowry_]

Swiss are also quite bullyish. The only time I saw two respectable white men get into a fight over a seat was in the train to Zermatt

[veave]

>Very xenophobic society.

Maybe that's why it works so well.

[Gud]

To paint Switzerland with such broad strokes… Switzerland is culturally very different, you cannot compare Zürich to rural Valais, for example.

I work for a small factory in Aargau and they send me across the planet to install their devices, but I live in Zürich.

It is genuinely one of the nicest place I’ve ever been and I would hardly describe it as xenophobic.

[pieter_mj]

Swiss wages are easily 20-30% higher than the rest of Europe as well.

[piva00]

To be honest, it seems that living standards are declining all around most of the developed countries. The USA is very much included in that.

Some developing nations have seen living standards raise, mostly because the baseline comparison to 20-30 years ago was pretty low (China, India, Brazil, etc.).