[woodruffw]

> Right now, Europeans are still living off past prosperity, but if they don't build a real technology industry and innovate, then future Europeans will be much worse off.

As an American, I've heard some variant of this for literally my entire life.

Europe is technologically conservative in ways that the US is not. It's unclear that this has, is having, or will have any impact on the actual material wellbeing of the people who live there.

Compare life expectancy[1], or just about any self-reported QoL metric[2] (where the US doesn't perform badly, just not better!).

[1]: https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/data/euro...

[2]: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

[marcusverus]

It seems odd that the Europhiles always fall back on such oblique support. Life expectancy, for example, is heavily impacted by things like demographics and obesity. The 'better life index' is literally editorial content. Its outcomes are driven by its creators' choices with regard to the wording/framing of their questions and the weights of the various components of their scores. The US, for example, has an average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita of >60% the OECD average.. but gets an "8.5" on income? Weird.

[woodruffw]

I'm not any particular Europhile. The closest derisive (?) term would be an American urbanist; I'm very happy where I am in the US.

I don't think it makes sense to wave away life expectancy as a demographic anomaly: there are counterbalancing anomalies that favor the US (such as tobacco and alcohol consumption), and yet Europe still averages out on top. But even if it was: obesity (and societal compromises made to accommodate it) are part of self-reported QoL metrics. Why ignore that?

The same is true for the Better Life Index: Europe is not exceeding the US in many (or even a majority) of metrics, but is consistently at par with them. The conclusion to draw is that the OECD's framing can be biased, but that bias doesn't actually appear to favor Europe.

As for income: it turns out that perception is everything. Joe Schmoe in America might have more disposable income than the average German or Italian, but he's also aware of his country's lopsided income distribution[1]. That kind of inequality permeates through QoL perceptions.

[1]: https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm