Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by WarmWash 60 days ago
>Good on Europeans for rejecting this American blight.

Reject it? They pay hundreds of billions for it. Every year. For decades now.

Europe runs on American tech, using American and Chinese hardware, powered by American energy, and protected by American defense.

Surely you're confused here, because Europe didn't reject these things, they offshored them and then teased Americans about working so hard. Europe's economic situation right now is borderline catastrophic, mostly because they built a society on someone else's support in the uncannily calm times after the wall fell.

2 comments

True we pay for it so we don't have tu subject our own people to the horrible working culture of the US. No maternity leave is diabolical. No money when you're sick for a month? How do you accept this
For dead-end/entry level work, the laws are not great.

Once you get off the ground though, you get most of the same benefits as Europeans, while taking home much more income. Especially in tech, the benefits and pay can be extravagant (Netflix famously had a year of maternity leave). Although you will likely work more time overall.

Keep in mind that generally social media is full of young American people. Once people get into their career, they don't spend much time on doomer social media. It's also socially taboo to not jump on the "conditions are so hard now" bandwagon.

If you can get into the top 40% in America, you will have what you need to live a pretty decent life.

What you are calling extravagant is the norm in some European countries, even if you don't work for Netflix.
Europe is great if you don't have very valuable skills, you are pretty much guaranteed at least a decent quality of life.

The US sucks if you don't have very valuable skills, there aren't many guarantees.

But if you do have valuable skills, it's very hard to make a case for living in Europe. Once you reach the top 30-40% of Americans, you're living like the top 10% of Europeans.

That's why the US has been draining EU tech workers for a few decades now. The value prop from the US is much better if you're a strong player.

But I'm also not supposed to be saying any of this, because like a good little medium 6 figure household, I'm supposed to be wearing the mask of "difficult economic times" so as to appear virtuous and sensitive to others.

Note that, in the Netflix example, this is at (or mostly) full pay.
Show me one US tech company that does not give generous maternity leave.

Besides, if you work for 10 years in US big tech, you can retire after that.

and european investors invest more money in usa than eu
Given the US has a money making culture that is very business friendly, it completely makes sense. The "American Blight" could roughly be translated as "Investor Returns".