An old rant from my time studying abroad…

A decade ago, Europeans looked at the US as cool and desirable, with a flourishing economy and a vibrant culture. Since the 2016 election and the George Floyd riots, people worldwide have come to look down on the US as unsafe and an unpleasant place to live. While the US has its problems, it is not comparable to an individual European nation, it is comparable to the European Union as a whole.

The US formed what the EU is trying to form now 300 years ago. Today, the EU is trying to negotiate interest between different nations, allow for the free movement of people and capital, and unify the economies. They have been trying to build a coherent state since 1990’s. The United States has been trying to form a singular nation since the 1770’s. It's in the name; the United States of America is a federation of states, which formed into a united union. The European Union has the same notion.

Negotiating a federation is the constant battle of US politics; states rights vs federal rights, and how to form a national identity between 50 distinct US states. When the colonies first formed, they had distinct cultures with cultures coming from the different European states of the Dutch, English, and Spanish. People have always had conflicting interests. We fought a civil war to get everyone into the same political system. Our most heated political debates, from the civil rights movement to the Trump election, has been a fundamental cultural divide between the distinct states.

Each US state has many times the number of ethnic groups as exist in the European states. While riots have broken out between these tense ethnic groups, we are ahead of the curve on issues Europe is just beginning to face. The EU struggled to take in the migrants from conflict in the middle east, causing intense disruption in many European states. Millions of people worldwide are going to be forced out of their homes because of climate change. The US is better positioned to adjust to taking in these migrants, because we have gotten used to taking in different migrant groups and accepting them into our culture.

Many leftist Americans look at the European socialist states with envy. They enjoy free college, free health care. Norway for example is famous for its socialist benefits. Europeans in these states look down at Americans as greedy, and not taking care of their fellow man. They forget that these nations are a fraction of the size of the US. In the UC system, fewer than half of the in-state Califorians pay tuition. California is a state of 40 million people, Norway is a nation of 5 million.

The scale of the US nation is a level of cooperation never attempted before in human history. The level of cooperation and social organization is a massive human achievement. Few other countries in the world are operating a democracy at this scale right now. Having empathy and identity in a group this large might be psychologically impossible, but we are trying.

The smaller the group, the easier it is to operate on trust and good faith. My family can compromise on where to order take out, because we are five people. We could navigate social relationships and negotiate interest because our brains can relate to each other person in the group. A classroom would not be able to reach consensus with the same level of ease; there are simply too many people with too many conflicting interests. Such is governing a European state versus America. There are simply more players, which makes for a more complicated game.

Driving a bus is a whole different class of license than driving a car. So while smaller nations like Sweden and Germany are able to zip by in sedans, juggernauts like the US and China are not able to move as fast. These nations are trying to unite hundreds of millions of people under one national identity. We are pulling people out of poverty and driving global innovation forward. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

The EU has not been able to govern at this scale. Germany and England subsidize Greece and Italy, and they are not happy about it. They are sick of subsiding states that did not pull their economic weight. This is exactly what states such as California and New York do for states like Mississippi and New Hampshire. Beyond this, we all follow the same legal system and the same set of federal laws. England left the Union because it did not want to cooperate, on a national level, with certain policies the EU passed.

While America has gotten a lot of bad press lately, remember that the problems that it is facing are on a different scale than the rest of the western world. The only nations that beat it in population are China and India, with about 1.4 billion people each. America's population is over 300k, on the same scale as the EU with 400k. The largest independent European nation is Germany, with 80k people.

Yes, America has rampant inequality that needs to be reeled in. But Europeans should not look down their noses at our urban decay, while they readily reap the benefits. This intense level of inequality and competition drives innovation, and the US shares these technologies which prop up the quality of life in Europe. Next time you scoff at the high price an American pays for an inhaler, consider how those dollars flowed into Pfizer to fund vaccine research.

We in America have our fair share of social problems. But instead of writing off one of the largest nations on the planet, consider why Americans are struggling with these issues and how other geo-political organizations have been able to cope. Organizing into larger groups is how we evolve as a species so let's think critically about how we solve these problems together.

An old rant from my time studying abroad…

A decade ago, Europeans looked at the US as cool and desirable, with a flourishing economy and a vibrant culture. Since the 2016 election and the George Floyd riots, people worldwide have come to look down on the US as unsafe and an unpleasant place to live. While the US has its problems, it is not comparable to an individual European nation, it is comparable to the European Union as a whole.

The US formed what the EU is trying to form now 300 years ago. Today, the EU is trying to negotiate interest between different nations, allow for the free movement of people and capital, and unify the economies. They have been trying to build a coherent state since 1990’s. The United States has been trying to form a singular nation since the 1770’s. It's in the name; the United States of America is a federation of states, which formed into a united union. The European Union has the same notion.

Negotiating a federation is the constant battle of US politics; states rights vs federal rights, and how to form a national identity between 50 distinct US states. When the colonies first formed, they had distinct cultures with cultures coming from the different European states of the Dutch, English, and Spanish. People have always had conflicting interests. We fought a civil war to get everyone into the same political system. Our most heated political debates, from the civil rights movement to the Trump election, has been a fundamental cultural divide between the distinct states.

Each US state has many times the number of ethnic groups as exist in the European states. While riots have broken out between these tense ethnic groups, we are ahead of the curve on issues Europe is just beginning to face. The EU struggled to take in the migrants from conflict in the middle east, causing intense disruption in many European states. Millions of people worldwide are going to be forced out of their homes because of climate change. The US is better positioned to adjust to taking in these migrants, because we have gotten used to taking in different migrant groups and accepting them into our culture.

Many leftist Americans look at the European socialist states with envy. They enjoy free college, free health care. Norway for example is famous for its socialist benefits. Europeans in these states look down at Americans as greedy, and not taking care of their fellow man. They forget that these nations are a fraction of the size of the US. In the UC system, fewer than half of the in-state Califorians pay tuition. California is a state of 40 million people, Norway is a nation of 5 million.

The scale of the US nation is a level of cooperation never attempted before in human history. The level of cooperation and social organization is a massive human achievement. Few other countries in the world are operating a democracy at this scale right now. Having empathy and identity in a group this large might be psychologically impossible, but we are trying.

The smaller the group, the easier it is to operate on trust and good faith. My family can compromise on where to order take out, because we are five people. We could navigate social relationships and negotiate interest because our brains can relate to each other person in the group. A classroom would not be able to reach consensus with the same level of ease; there are simply too many people with too many conflicting interests. Such is governing a European state versus America. There are simply more players, which makes for a more complicated game.

Driving a bus is a whole different class of license than driving a car. So while smaller nations like Sweden and Germany are able to zip by in sedans, juggernauts like the US and China are not able to move as fast. These nations are trying to unite hundreds of millions of people under one national identity. We are pulling people out of poverty and driving global innovation forward. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

The EU has not been able to govern at this scale. Germany and England subsidize Greece and Italy, and they are not happy about it. They are sick of subsiding states that did not pull their economic weight. This is exactly what states such as California and New York do for states like Mississippi and New Hampshire. Beyond this, we all follow the same legal system and the same set of federal laws. England left the Union because it did not want to cooperate, on a national level, with certain policies the EU passed.

While America has gotten a lot of bad press lately, remember that the problems that it is facing are on a different scale than the rest of the western world. The only nations that beat it in population are China and India, with about 1.4 billion people each. America's population is over 300k, on the same scale as the EU with 400k. The largest independent European nation is Germany, with 80k people.

Yes, America has rampant inequality that needs to be reeled in. But Europeans should not look down their noses at our urban decay, while they readily reap the benefits. This intense level of inequality and competition drives innovation, and the US shares these technologies which prop up the quality of life in Europe. Next time you scoff at the high price an American pays for an inhaler, consider how those dollars flowed into Pfizer to fund vaccine research.

We in America have our fair share of social problems. But instead of writing off one of the largest nations on the planet, consider why Americans are struggling with these issues and how other geo-political organizations have been able to cope. Organizing into larger groups is how we evolve as a species so let's think critically about how we solve these problems together.