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Comment by boxmonster | Hacker News Reader

You may have noticed that people in America are very critical of America. Victor Davis Hanson explains it here:

"Critics of the West: From Tacitus to Michael Moore"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bao_YeH14RM

Basically he says we have the luxury of time and leisure to be self-critical and we believe we can achieve a utopian ideal but we fall short in so many ways.

Some people do not like VDH because he's a conservative Trump supporter, but that doesn't make him a bad historian.

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Americans are not the only ones being critical of America. Quite the opposite: My perception is rather that Americans have very high tendency to assume they are the greatest country in the world. And because of mostly learning about their own country and history in school it is harder to hold themselves to higher standards and compare with other nations besides the size of your army or the worth of the biggest companies (e.g. when you get cancer and lose your job, you somehow must pay for that treatment that is just how it is, better have something saved up. Whereas in many other developed nations that goes much differently)

Also regarding to GP: “working more” != “being more productive”

I agree that working more does not necessarily result in being more productive, but is there anything more specific you can add? Sometimes working more does mean being more productive. Sometimes it results in less output per hour, and depending on that haircut, can net at more or less productivity. Sometimes the working more is a prerequisite to learning something that you can leverage later on.

What was your point in mentioning that to OP? It seems like a bit of an aphorism that doesn't add much to the conversation except to dull GP's point.

work - "activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result"

Parent seems be trying to conflate/dull definitions in support of the efficiency decline curve related to fatigue or the inverse efficiency incline curve related to expertise. Most likely in an effort to negate the value of hard work or working more. Which is generally an argument for expert thought workers that want to think less in exchange for the hard work they already did in learning and keep the same compensation. ie elitism

Your comment would be stronger if it held back the psychological projection of an internet stranger. Ie it reveals more about you than about them or the topic.

For example in my country you go to work, eat lunch but you mostly work. In the US what I have experienced is a lot more “living” at the company and everyone stays long but people are not often actually getting work done. But staying late makes you look good. To me: if I go to work for 8h I might have 6 productive hours if even. If I would go to work for 10 hours I might not be much more productive. Problem solving sometimes involves time to come up with a solution from your subconscious (e.g. under the shower)

Well, my understanding as an outsider is the reason America believes it's the best is the capacity for self reflection, experimentation and change. It has huge problems and if they can solve them it reflects well on us as a species.

> My perception is rather that Americans have very high tendency to assume they are the greatest country in the world. And because of mostly learning about their own country and history in school it is harder to hold themselves to higher standards

Anecdotally, as an American, I meet many more Americans that are critical of America compared to Americans that regard America as the greatest country in the world.

But, hey, I’m just an ignorant American whose only lived here my whole life and was actually educated in the US so it’s not like I have any insight into what Americans learn/don’t learn and common attitudes of normal Americans.

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