tafox

As someone who has also lived in some of those places. This is always my reaction when I hear that quote.

It's like, no, some places really are just filled with assholes.

Maybe in America it's still true, but there I also feel like it's changing for the worse as well.

Not many friendly people walking around this planet anymore it seems.

I also live in Europe (Germany & Austria) and what you're saying is 100% true. I like Europe, but I really miss the positive everything is worth a shot attitude in America.

Everything here is no, no, no, why would you do that? It's so demotivating, and G-d forbid you make a tiny mistake! Long term I also don't see how this place won't just keep getting poorer... unless there is a major attitude adjustment in the near future.

Also, everyone just tries to dunk on everyone with petty status games like owning a fancy car... as if that's the ultimate achievement in life... really lame & depressing.

It's the main reason I would like go back home tbh. There are a lot of problems in America and a lot of things are okay here, so it's hard to say where it's really worse, but I just don't understand why they always need to have these negative attitudes all the time... it costs nothing to have a positive attitude...? Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand.

Maybe if we weren't treated like de facto slaves for the rich life would be worth living.

Exactly. Just like the financial crisis.

All those big CEOs getting caught on the hook.

This sounds a bit like it could be the prodromal phase in psychosis. I would take this seriously.

Surviorship bias.

Your parent is one of the few successful ones, whose niche paid off. You don't hear about the vast majority of researchers & scientists, all smiliarly talented and motivated, where at least in their lifetime, their research didn't payoff.

For the average person, the expected value of staying flexible and having decent breadth, is way higher than betting your entire life on some tiny niche.

Are you openly bragging about making more money while working half as much as the people you are supposed to be responsible for?

I would be embarrassed to write that.

I don't see life slowing down, maybe after some natural or man-made disaster wipes out half the population and most modern infrastructure, but until then, I only see things getting faster.

HFT is the perfect example of the benefits of being fast, literally by trading faster, not necessarily better, billions in profit are made. In other fields, first-movers often have a massive advantage, AWS for example.

Just look at Europe, things are slow and rather relaxed here... and as a result they've missed out on about the last 3 generations of technology.

I think many people won't be able to keep up, but the future of evolution is probably people who can sit still for days on end, just consuming information non-stop, with the ability to react very quickly as soon as the information signals opportunity for a reward. Some sort of really autistic apex predator stuff.

Ironically, even though computers can do so many tasks faster and better than humans, one would think we could all relax and let the computers work, but instead the trend seems to be, that we constantly have to be even faster in the remaining fields where computers are not yet superior.

The result of for-loops and automation hasn't been that humans no longer have to rush around doing mundane tasks, but rather that now we have to rush around writing for-loops and fixing all the bugs introduced by rushing... and so it continues...

Sounds like me. Moved to Austria, feel incredibly poor... but still making 1.5x the average local salary in my mid 20s.

Weird experience.

I mean, immigration is never a long-term solution.

Immigrants will soon be facing the same issues (high housing, high education costs, lower wages).

I reckon in about 20-30 years the arbitrage opportunity to immigrate to Western countries will be eliminated, it already is much reduced compared to 30 or 40 years ago. QoL in Western countries will be lower, and higher in the rest of the world.

I often think of a documentary I saw about Somali refugees who came to America in the early 2000s (sadly I can't find it anymore.) They ended up moving back to Africa because they hated life in America. Working two terrible minimum wage jobs just to pay rent and food. They made no friends and had no free time or money.

They were happier living in a UN funded refugee camp spending time with friends and family.

I think the only way Western countries have any chance of reducing the falling QoL is space exploration, but I don't think their is enough energy and motivation.

Thanks for this comment. Needed to read something like this today :)

I think anyone under 30 today who studies or has studied feels immense competition and pressure.

I started undergrad in 2011 and already getting in then you needed very good grades. Reading about the acceptance rates into my program and the grades now required, I feel really sad for current students, and I was already very unhappy during my undergrad...

Yes it is. That 3K is the average young person's only asset and it is just getting eaten by inflation anyway.

These people struggle to pay rent each month let alone think about "investments".

Nazi Germany declared war on the US first.

I pretty much did this.

Don't forget, there are tons of other amazing German authors, just to name a few: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Schiller, Goethe...

I think German literature is to this day still probably the best in the world.

I also find Math in German way easier and more beautiful than in English. If "clean code" was a thing for languages, German grammar would seem to me to be one of the cleanest.

"They are finally forced to pay attention to the person inside their minds ... and that can be frightening I suppose."

Or they start comparing their own internal values to those they see in the world and are truly disgusted by what they see.

Secondly, society and the economy are the systems demanding people never take a break. How many job descriptions require being able to "multi-task" or being "self-driven"?

I find it a bit sickening to see people reflecting these deep societal issues back on these individuals, as if it were their fault.

I agree, but luckily everyone is born with the ability to define what success means to them.

There are good people with high energy too, it isn't something reserved for just the jerks.

We'd have to do a study to know for sure, but as a North American having lived in Western Europe for several years now, I think you are massively overestimating the importance of the US in Europe or the world. Most people here know next to nothing about the US or the anglosphere, except for some stereotypes and exported cultural artefacts.

They know about as much about the US as the average American does about Germany or how to speak German, which is basically nothing.

One has to remember, English is a business tool here, the majority cannot speak English fluently, and they do not use it in their free time, or if they do it is to watch US TV shows or movies, not read American literature. Add to that, that more recently, a lot of the people I meet openly hate the US.

Most Americans who visit only interact with the segment of population which can speak English, not with the majority of locals who can't.

I had a boss that would try to bully employees into buying expensive cars they couldn't afford, just so they had too much debt and he could exploit them... because they could no longer afford to quit.

One might be disappointed how effective this technqiue can be.

Now imagine you have car payments, a mortgage, and a family to feed.