Hacker News Reader

Comment by langitbiru | Hacker News Reader

And there is a quote: "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there (compared to Europe).

View on HN

The primary advantage of the US is cultural. It is not just the anomalously high risk tolerance and wealth, but people who attempt audacious goals tend to be celebrated. Americans shed the Tall Poppy Syndrome that is a very visible feature of virtually all other European cultures, perhaps because the US was predominantly settled by "tall poppies".

After years of working in various parts of Europe, I think it distills down to this. Sufficient talent, desire, and capital exists in Europe -- it is missing no ingredients -- but society there pervasively and subtly undermines anyone who dreams of attempting something really bold. It is a shame.

To put it another way, European culture values humility over ego, and does not applaud those who manage to exploit those "lesser" than themselves quite so much.

No, you are not putting it another way. Achievement is not “exploiting those lesser than themselves”.

> Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there

Not really. My bet is on the abundance of capital (hello global reserve currency) combined with excellent universities and a cultural willingness to take risks and do bold things. People who need a safety net, such as food stamps or housing assistance, are rarely the people who start big companies. They're usually too caught up in just trying to survive day-to-day.

And a huge homogenous home market.

Yep agreed.

> they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Hey, the Swiss evolved the cuckoo clock into a wristwatch... nope, even this innovation was by two Polish and Czech immigrants.

That's from Jeremy Clarkson, innit?

Despite that quote being mostly wrong [0][1], a safety net might account for some idleness. But there's more. You might find a local variation of the Law of Jante [2], for example.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_clock#First_modern_cuck...

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

It's said by Orson Welles' character in "The Third Man" (1949). Famous quote, allegedly ad-libbed: https://youtu.be/I8RW3K3hhWU

Cuckoo clocks originated in the Black Forest in Germany, north of the Swiss border. People associate them with Switzerland because of innovative marketing!

It’s not like Switzerland has one of the highest number of nobel prize and patent per capita in the world... That’s really not a spot on cliché quote...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com