Hacker News Reader

Comment by giorgioz | Hacker News Reader

Italy is barely mentioned in the whole article. Today Italy is the biggest shipbuilding manufacturer in Europe: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/countries-dominate-global-s...

I feel the double standard of such articles quick in pointing out Italy being behind in many statistics (which it is and is fair to point it out). When it's Britain behind the whole article is written only from the point of view of the UK and avoids mentioning what other countries did better. This is unfair.

Italy manufacturs the Costa Crociere cruise ships and many other things. Everyone loved to laugh when Costa Concordia sink. It made them confirm their bias that Italian are funny and bad at technical things. While other metrics of Italian excellency are ignored.

View on HN

There are few ships ever built that don't sink when you ram them properly into rocks. I don't think that I have read a single article that faulted the shipbuilder for the disaster.

It's true the shipbuilders were not critized but they were also not praised in this very specific article. Good and bad results should be both noticed. Times in the articles countries are mentioned: Japan 17x Germany 6x USA 4x China 3x France 3x Italy 1x South Korea 1x

compare that with the current tonnage of shipbuilding production: 1 China 32,859,862 51% 2 South Korea 18,317,886 28% 3 Japan 9,965,182 15% 4 Philippines 805,938 1% 5 Italy 402,164 0.62% 6 France 326,680 0.50% 7 Germany 289,666 0.45% 8 Finland 261,654 0.40% 9 Taiwan 187,558 0.29% 10 Russia 177,571 0.27% 11 Netherlands 90,596 0.14% 12 Türkiye 79,032 0.12% 13 Indonesia 75,979 0.12% 14 U.S. 64,809 0.10% 15 Iran 64,760 0.09%

Italy produces 2x ships than Germany but Germany is mentioned 6x. Stereotypical bias of German being engineers and Italian being funny/pizza makers.

South Korea is also freaking awesome and shipbuiling and it's mentioned 1x. Maybe also the reason why the UK is behind is their arrogance in dismissing competitors that they have stereotypically decided they are not good at shipbuilding.

The Brits don't produce anything anymore except money laundering in the City of London (where i work btw) and some cattle, so you should expect that kind of biased narrative from them. We in Italy are among the best and most profitable in the high-tech mechanical manufacturing industry, but we also have the worst paid engineers and technicians of the western world. The Italian Miracle.

England is an island, both geographically and culturally. This is the culture from where Brexit comes.

They still think that the world spins around their navel, that football (soccer) is their game and the sun never sets in their empire.

At the end of WWI, 4 empires collapsed: the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian tzar, the Ottoman Empire and the British. The Austrians accepted it and moved on. The Russians and Turkish are in denial and resisting to accept what they already know. The British didn't even get the memo, they're totally oblivious, in a "Downtown Abbey" fantasy.

> While other metrics of Italian excellency are ignored.

Bullshit. People know about Ferrari, Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, Maseratti, Ducati, Beretta (guns), Carpiggiani (ice-cream machines), La Marzocco, De Longhi (espresso machines), etc.

The Premier is the largest soccer league by revenue. England also spends the most on players. So yes, soccer is 'our' game currently.

And the sun still doesn't set on our Commonwealth.

Also, Great Britain is an island, not England.

We can't win in the UK: if we cheer on our achievements and be positive, we're accused of being stuck in a "Downtown Abbey" fantasy. If we get depressed about our economy, we're told we're not being positive enough and are 'talking down' the UK.

> We can't win in the UK: if we cheer on our achievements and be positive, we're accused of being stuck in a "Downtown Abbey" fantasy. If we get depressed about our economy, we're told we're not being positive enough and are 'talking down' the UK.

If you want others to cheer you on when you do great you should do the same to others (when they deserve it). Human behaviour is mostly imitation.

I respect you for your knowledge of Beretta, La Marzocco, De Longhi and Carpiggiani. I was not aware of Carpiggiani. Ferrero is also Italian. Kinder Surprise is Italian (from German branch) and Ferrero Roché is Italian (from French branch). Italy has also a massive monopoly of glasses lenses in Luxotica.

I deeply admire the UK, the USA and anything great in any other country. Even when I disagree with their leaders I still admire their technical achievements and the great men that work hard for it. We should strive to admire, applaud and copy the best in each other. Pushing each other forward in a upgoing spiral of betterment.

I don’t think that modern Turkey thinks of itself as an empire. They overthrew the Sultanate themselves, seems they were glad to be rid of it.

I doubt any sensible modern country wants a physical empire, they’re much too much trouble to maintain. You basically get the same benefits with outsourcing and cheap imports, without having to maintain garrisons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com