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Comment by neals | Hacker News Reader

I like living in Europe most of the time. And I'm sure if we could get over a lot of petty, cultural, differences, we could build more amazing things and innovate at a much faster speed then we have been so far.

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Well nowadays it seems like EU is not going to survive as it is. Countries in the east seem to be more and more opposed to the idea of EU (some 1/4 - 1/3 of people IIRC). These are countries that most benefit from the EU, not only financially (funds and markets), but also need the external control to prevent the come-back of mafia, corruption, etc.

Russia is playing a huge role in this, modern information warfare. They want the people in countries that suffered for some 20 plus years last decade to again love the motherland. They play on nationalism (Slavs) mostly (thanks to refuge crisis, in which Russia is involved directly), and that most media are owned by the west (and thus lie), and only alternative media will tell you the truth. About Ukraine, about USA, about Syria, about everything. There are different levels for everyone to choose from, be it Jews being responsible for everything, or just plain Brussel Dictatorship.

This sounds like a wild conspiracy, but it's scary as fuck to see it. At first it seemed like a joke, or a way to make some money (like regular conspiracy websites would do), but I'm now convinced there are external motives and financing. And people are eating it up. Loving Russia and all. Country which is far worse off than any of the EU members.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that the EU is less popular in the east; according to these [1] surveys, Poland is the only large EU country where EU approval ratings have held up lately, while Hungarians also have quite good feelings on the subject - despite their governments' very public disputes with the EU on the erosion of democracy in those countries. The correlation is weak, but they're also less into decentralisation than others. And Spain and Italy are also relatively pro-Eu; their populist movements have been left-wing and pro-EU.

It's rich Northwestern states (and, understandably, Greece) that have big problems on the popular level with the EU.

[1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/07/euroskepticism-beyond-br...

It's actually quite the opposite: the eastern states are the most supportive while the Western states(i.e. UK, Holland and few others) are more pessimistic. It's usually because the richer states subsidize the poorer ones. There is also a doze of populism and lack of EU cohesion.

As a European living in the US I believe what is holding Europe back more than anything is the fragmentation. Companies like Google and Apple come out of the US because of the pro-business policies. However, I believe the gigantic, relatively homogenous market is by far the biggest advantage. If Europe spoke predominantly a single language and had largely the same regulations Europe could stand a much better chance. That's too often overlooked and the lack of a European Google or Apple is just blamed on socialism.

If market size is more important, we'd expect most European startups to come out of the largest countries, even after weighting by population, right? And if entrepreneurial culture or socialism was more important, we'd expect some metric for those to be correlated, right? Really curious as to whether this analysis has been done in an authoritative way.

One reason that's often put forward for why Sweden breeds a disproportionate amount of successful companies is that the Swedish market is so small that they have to quickly learn to expand and navigate the global market. Meanwhile in "big enough" markets like Germany and France there's enough room for expansion without going global. So it could go both ways.

Another reason that has been put forward is social welfare. It's easier to start a business if you can afford failing.

Market size enables huge companies. That's why Google isn't European. If you look at the list of largest companies by revenue, it's dominated by America and China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...

The list would be dominated by American and Chinese companies even if each person on the planet had an equal chance of founding a huge company. The question is whether big countries like the US and China would be overrepresented per capita. And looking at that list, it's not at all clear. UK, Switzerland, Germany, and South Korea all have companies near the top.

Yeah, I've long suspected the same, that the big market is a significant advantage. It's easier to grow in a big market, that's why the US has (seemingly) more big companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, McDonalds.

Don't worry, in face of the challenges that are ahead, we will be forced by circumstances to set aside our cultural differences to cooperate and find solutions.

Climate change, resources depletion, crops failing, famine, sea rising, environmental degradation, etc. These challenges are not for one nation only, but for the whole world.

It takes a crisis to wake you up from your illusions. It will be the same for humanity.

Don't worry, in face of the challenges that are ahead, we will be forced by circumstances to set aside our cultural differences to cooperate and find solutions.

If that happens, it will be the first time in the history of Planet Earth. Localized resource scarcity doesn't usually lead to peaceful cooperation. It leads to war.

It can lead to war, absolutely. Will we be wise enough to avoid it? I certainly hope so.

Couldn't you say that for just about anywhere?

No. I don't think I'd like living just about anywhere, tbh.

Not many places/regions are as advanced and have as a high quality of life and high percentage of educated citizens as Europe, so no. At this moment in time, not really.

OK maybe I was more glib than was fair but Syria, Israel and Iran are all full of smart people. Imagine if there were no cultural differences dividing the region. (I realize they're not neighbours.)

What is "smart" anyway? Lots of countries are filled with untapped demographic potential. To tap into that resource you need a highly advanced school system and a high quality of life (so that you don't suffer from brain drain). Syria is of course a no-no, I don't know much about Iran to comment on their school system but I don't think the quality of life in Iran is as good as say, in Italy.

Could say that for everywhere, all at once!

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