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Comment by ramblerman | Hacker News Reader

I am originally from Europe as well. And still living there (not sure if that’s why you phrased it like that) but how many innovations from the us are really adding to the value of life vs just forcing eyeballs to screen.

Linux came from Europe. A lot of open source does, see blender.

I know VC money is sexy but does it add real value

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Huh?

That is a strange way to dismiss the innovation from the country that brought to market:

- the light bulb

- the mass produced car

- the airplane

- the artificial heart

- the gold standard in Covid vaccines

- the personal computer

- the smartphone

- the internet

- email

- GPS

- MRIs

- consumer grade LLMs

- the world’s largest public cloud providers

- TCP/IP and BGP

- the web browser

- the most popular search, social media, and e-commerce companies in the world

I know it feels good to say “but did they really make human kind better off?” and dismiss American innovation as another goofy VC-funded cash grab iPhone app; but the US is responsible for technology that has made the world better many times over.

This mentality is why Europe will never replicate the success of the US technology sector.

inb4 “but we don’t want that success!”

Lmao. Germany invented the car, most modern automotive technology (fuel injection, front wheel drive, all wheel drive, and more) were invented in Europe, the web was started in the UK, personal computers were also made in Europe by European companies to fairly widespread success, not to mention such fundamental innovations like engines and railroads

No country has a monopoly on innovation, you're being absolutely ridiculous

Eta: the tape recorder was invented in Europe. The compact cassette and compact disc were developed by Phillips to unimaginable commercial success. I'll keep coming back as i think of more :)

There is no denying that the US has done great stuff over the last 100 years or so. I don't understand this weird flex from some Americans to always claim US is the best at everything at the exclusion of everyone else. Same with the second world war; there are Americans who seem to think they somehow single-handedly won that.

My American ex said she had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day at school. Apparently this is law in most states. I suspect it might be related.

I mean yeah we are forced to recite the pledge daily, and our elementary school history classes are full of stuff like "the US has invented every great thing you love! The Internet, cars, planes, TV, etc etc"

I mean the comment i replied to basically comes across as a 11 year old who just aced their last history exam for the year.

It's just tragic that most Americans grow into adults without ever learning anything more about the rest of the world, or realizing how narrow and biased their baseline education was

American support before the US entered was crucial on the western front. But it's generally agreed that the turning point of the war against the Nazis was the Battle of Stalingrad, which the US played no part in (other than occupying Nazi forces elsewhere). However, a great effect of the US joining was that the USSR didn't conquer France. The second half of the the twentieth century could have looked very different if the US had stayed out. In other words, it might not be really accurate to say the US beat Hitler, but it is accurate to say they halted Stalin's advance. It could be argued that D-Day won the Cold War, it just took a long time for that to play out.

> USSR didn't conquer France

What a shame

> - the gold standard in Covid vaccines

Huh? Wasn't that BioNTech, a german company?

Yes and it wasn't Americans who pioneered the leading vaccine during the crisis. It was based on research by a Greek and Turkish person...

The web was British. The computer owes a lot from German designs. The car was a German invention. The smartphone had European pre-designs. And, on 'the cloud'... that just rehashing more than 50 year old mainframes' design. Were's the actual innovation? Again, as I said, Bell Labs/MIT with Unix and Lisp which were groundbreaking aren't hip any more.

Even 9front with namespaces has tons of European collaboration.

This reply absolutely stinks of LLM output.

Your AI is hallucinating

Compared with Europe that invented and delivered:

English.

Democracy.

The Enlightenment.

Modern Science.

Modern Religions.

Modern Medicine.

The School System we are all still using today.

The Industrial Revolution.

The Share Market.

Modern Corporations.

The modern legal system.

etc. etc. etc.

> Modern Religions.

One of these things is not like the others...

You were asked if VC really added value, and rearranged the words in the question to read "Did the US ever invent anything worthwhile?"

Interestingly enough, I am not originally from Europe, but chose to move here over the US.

In no small part because I utterly despise the VC fueled hustle culture winner takes all disruptive bullshit from the US. I don't want to be anywhere near that particular toxic wasteland.

Sir, are you aware that this very website is run by VCs as an advertisement for hustle culture? You are, in fact, “anywhere near” this particular vast wasteland.

Yes, I am.

I don't work for it, I just post shit here.

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