Just don't watch the news and problem solved.
Life is great here and I rarely come across divisive political fights except on TV and the internet. The media thrives on it, so that's what they focus on.
Life is great here and I rarely come across divisive political fights except on TV and the internet. The media thrives on it, so that's what they focus on.
I'm not sure how seriously other people take this, but I find it curious that a huge part of entertainment in movies, shows and games made/consumed in the US is about violence horror, and/or the end of society or even the world (oh and "heroes" of course - always coupled with violence). That is not a global phenomenon, or it only is in as far as Hollywood has always been exporting culture. It also is not normal, I can say from my own (almost half a century) life experience (first part of it on the Eastern side of the German border).
Myself, I can empathize with scenarios of the post-apocalypse as shown e.g. in "The Last Of Us", especially the violence and distrust between surviving groups - imagining myself in the area of the US in such a world. I can't imagine the same scenario in Europe, at least not on the same dystopian level. I would feel significantly safer in Europe after the collapse of civilization (said this commenter before getting murdered an hour later by another desperate European end-of-society survivor, haha - yeah, sure, can happen, it's just my gut feeling).
I have to balance my post by saying I still feel strong and positive about many things in the US. I'm not a "dark side only" guy when it comes to the view of that country. Still, even if I were rich I would not go back to live there, I don't feel good about the overall direction, even if a lot of things were to improve. All this darn celebration of violence and "heroes", for example, and as was pointed out here, science (so many immigrants holding it up), economic policies, politics (result of a feedback loop with economics and business policies, e.g. incentives for the media - what kind of news sells? Plus incredible concentration in a few hands).
In contrast, small villages in New York State or California only have around 300 years of history at best, and most residents were uprooted from their ancestral homes less than a century ago, so the same sense of grounding and appreciation for history is not there. Even the wounds of the American Civil War have not fully healed and probably won't fully until a few centuries from now.
It is a global phenomenon. Chinese 'Three-body problem' and wuxia/xanxia flicks. Japanese films and animes. Also numerous books and films from France, England, Russia, Australia...
> I can't imagine the same scenario in Europe, at least not on the same dystopian level.
Well, two most bloody wars in past century were in Europe... and they were pretty dystopian.
Maybe now, but as I already said in my comment. It was not so when I grew up, and I would dare to claim that much of what you mention is based on aping Hollywood success, especially as a business model.
As for the wars, what exactly is the connection to the phenomenon we discussed? Those were state-sponsored wars. Not that it changes anything, I stand by my gut-feeling based claims that I trust civil society in Europe more - not if war(!) breaks out, not sure why you try to change the topic - but when society breaks down as in those mentioned stories and people are left on their own. Also, since you want to go after who has done more wars, did you compare Europe's wars and the US's wars since WWII too? Statistics that selects only the data that happens to support what you would like to show is dishonest at best. Let's not even mention the story of how the US was made - with guns, by individuals as well as the state.
Not that I have anything to criticize, I would not have mentioned any of that because it is not relevant to what I said. It's just that you brought it up for whatever reason, being very selective.
From media produced in other countries from now and before it is clear that it is not a national phenomenon. It's more than likely your experiences are purely anecdotal and dont even represent the norm.
This. This applies to your post as well, don't you think?
> Let's not even mention the story of how the US was made - with guns, by individuals as well as the state.
Let's not, since I don't think there's a country in Europe (bigger than Monaco/Lichtenstein, ofc) or even in the whole world, that wasn't made "on guns".
You are very strong in whataboutism, it's just that I don't see a trace of substance in any of your silly replies. Instead of coming up with ANY useful point at all, all you have is "but what about this or that", none of which has any relation to the discussion. Is you name Dick? http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-06-07