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by embedding-shape 37 days ago
Most of HN readers/writers are American, of course they won't do anything unless they personally profit off it, the entire culture is built around this mindset. Meanwhile, Mullvad is Swedish, and we tend to assume we all want to help build a better world together. Mix the two, and you get this conversation :)
4 comments

I would hesitate to make generalizations like that about a country with a population 35x larger than yours. There’s no US monoculture.
Great, thanks for the tip. I'd hesitate assuming what country people live in :) Seems we all have something to learn from each other.
> Meanwhile, Mullvad is Swedish, and we tend to [...]
So what, suddenly Swedes can't live outside of Sweden? Kind of interesting to make complaints about generalizations and in the same comment falling for the same trap yourself.
Come on.
Annoying, isn't it?
LOL. Sure there's no "monoculture" but there's certainly US culture and it's all about money and "screw you got mine" mindset.
Many Americans have contributed substantially to open source and free software over the past decades. What are you trying to say?
Interesting, I hadn't considered the bigot angle.
> Most of HN readers/writers are American, of course they won't do anything unless they personally profit off it, the entire culture is built around this mindset

American culture is highly varied. For some this is true, for others this is wrong and highly insulting.

Maybe try a narrower brush next time.

It's OK for the country to have a pervasive culture yet not every resident or citizen of the country to be a part of that culture, or even actively work against it. If you're not one of them matching that description, it shouldn't be insulting, as it's not about you in the first place.

Maybe not everything is aimed towards you, especially if you don't feel like the description actually matches you :)

Sweden, the entire country, has the population of New York City, and is about 3/4 the size of Texas.
Don't forget about Sri Lanka, whose population is around 21 million.
That is a lot of words for "my negative steroetypes about you and your country are fine, actually. Don't take it personally, bro. Maybe you're one of the few good ones!"
I'm American. It's the pervasive culture. The brush doesn't need to be narrower.
Every time someone makes a cultural comment here, the reply is always "America is a big country". America can be a big country and still have common cultural elements. It's not inaccurate to say that citizens of a large country mostly share some common characteristics. Those characteristics are what makes them one country.
I think the "others" should open their eyes to the world around them, then.
> should open their eyes to the world around them

Amazingly brazen assumption right there.