Facists are spreading like cancer there too aren’t they? If that is the case they will lose any quality of life advantage soon because facist oligarchs only destroy.
Except for a few countries, Trump’s victory has slowed or even stalled the growth of fascist parties in Europe: what they want to bring is now in full display.
That’s good news
Yes, and they keep trying to destroy privacy at the EU level.
I agree and I hope you can fight it off because it’s bad over here
Western EU has a higher quality of life then the US for a long time and the east is catching up. Also yes GDP growth is slowing, but I would not be surprised if that starts to change soon. As in the EU does better then the US. For the EU an end of the war in Ukraine would be amazing and Trump is destroying the US economy for short term profit.
US has high GDP and GDP per capita only because of over inflated tech & finance valuations and PE firms dumping more and more money into these industries. It’s not sustainable.
Outside of the US, West and North Europe has pretty high GDP per capita and I don’t see the point in chasing high growth numbers.
One day we might have enough GDP too, right? I mean how much does every person need.
We have enough GDP, but the simple truth is that without GDP growth we get a system change and if it is not done deliberately it is towards fascism.
We don’t need low GDP growth to have fascist tendencies (esp. with the help from the Kremlin), but if people perceive their country as being injust against them, sure, so I get what you are meaning, or so I think.
NO! Infinite growth is the only way!
The data is only up to 2023. I’m sure the EU has surpassed the nazi USA by now which was ruined by the orange turd, even if narrowly in a few countries.
Are you for real? The US was a dumpster fire way before Trump. Infant mortality, litteracy, poverty, violent crime rates way worse than OECD averages.
The US doesn’t even belong in the OECD. Here’s a test: you are leader of your people and have a critical policy decision to make. Your advisors have kidnapped two people to help you make the decision. One is President Trump, the other is a Somali Pirate Captain. Which do you choose?
Yeah recently a lot of risk management policies which is a surveillance lifestyle.
Europe is what the Anglosphere could have been without Murdoch
Bit like Japan I suppose. Both regions have relatively low wealth inequality in contrast to other countries. Both have publicly accessible welfare systems. Both look for steady economic growth than getting high on raging steroidal economic growth that the US is obsessed with. Both have pretty good rule of law and human rights. Depending on where you are in the EU, some member states have a comparable toxic work culture as Japan. Both also whine about immigration despite the declining population.
I semi-joke about the latter but countries less obsessed with steroidal capitalist growth have a better quality of life. We may not have tech giants like Amazon and Facebook, but at least we don’t have tech bros buying out politicians to dictate policies.
The eu is continually trying to find ways around encryption.
Not arguing with your main points but that is a huge L
Yeah we gotta stop those fuckers. It’s not the EU per se IMO but a group pushing that crap again and again. Hopefully it’ll end with some personal souverain data law or something blocking things like that for good.
last time i bothered looking into, literally every EU anti-privacy initiative had links to either Putin or Thiel (or one of his puppets)
Fortunately for now people seem to show again and again that they don’t want this crap.
Yeah we’ve gotta stay vigilant with encryption and other infringements on our rights and freedom.
Tech firms that sell AI tools for content scanning (e.g., Thorn) are deeply involved in lobbying for these chat control policies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s driven largely by big tech.
USA: Ha ha you don’t have a facebook!
EU: Oh no. Anyways…
As a European, I find a comparison to Japan a bit offensive. Have we fallen that low?
Yes, Japan, economy that almost surpassed US, has fallen that low to be compared to western Europe. 🙄
I thought the topic here was quality of life, not economic output. And there’s simply no comparison to be made. Westerners like to fantasize about Japan being very cultured and civilized, unlike us barbarians. However, reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
No hate towards Japanese people, but the country itself is pretty much a dystopia, close to South Korea. Japanese society is filled to the brim with erotic and pornographic content, to the point where reading/watching hentai is sometimes considered a regular hobby.
They study more, work more and have less free time. “* Full-time workers in Japan typically work 44.9 hours each week.” (Source: https://electroiq.com/stats/japans-workforce-statistics/). This is considerably more than all of Europe.
This, and more, contributes to extremely high suicide rates among young people, breaking records every year (Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251027/p2a/00m/0na/005000c).
Recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUJaRHQhec8. I wouldn’t call it amazing, but does a good enough job of highlighting some of Japan’s pressing issues, most of which are unheard of in the EU.
Yes, go on, tell me how much of an expert you are, even though you neither speak the language and nor experienced life in Japan.
I lived in both western Europe and Japan, multiple cities. Life is great in both places. You highlighted few metrics that Japan is worse in. Can you do the same with western Europe? Otherwise, you sound ridiculously biased and delusional as the Internet expert.
You’re asking me to put forward arguments against my own thesis? That’s your job if you disagree. So far all you’ve contributed is “ackshually you can’t speak Japanese, so you don’t know anything”.
For your information, I’ve spent hundreds if not thousands of hours split across several years learning the Japanese language and culture, because in the past I was genuinely interested in moving there.
It’s to help your thesis be more sound and robust.
but at least we don’t have tech bros buying out politicians to dictate policies.
We have tech bros buying out US politicians who can dictate us what to do, as the EU is totally reliant, economically and militarily, on the US.
It all really depends on how much money you have and how you measure “quality of life”. My gut feeling is that lower class have it a lot better in EU thanks to social programs, healthcare and livable minimum wage. Middle class has it “better” in US because of higher purchasing power. The wealthy have it better in US because they pretty much run everything, don’t pay taxes and are above the law.
30 years ago the middle class in US was really big so people in US had higher quality of life on average. Since then the middle class shrunk and more people fell to the lower class while in EU a lot of people (especially in the East) were uplifted to middle class so now EU has higher quality of life on average.
I don’t care about the quality of life of the wealthy in the US. In fact, I hope it gets much, much, much worse and I hope many cease having a life with a quality to measure.
The US middle class is also dogshit to the point where it almst just doesn’t exist. It has no power and is constantly losing money, often propped up just by credit-card debt. They watch their buying power decrease every year and their job secuirty tank just like everyone else. Many have to live far away from nicer areas in order to afford the things that make them look like they’re middle class and the also means that they’re all forced to drive cars. They still get screwed by the US “healthcare” system and many will only tell others that they’re happy with things because they’re ignorant, voluntarily or otherwise, of anything better.
The only people in the US who have any real power can whether any significant storm are the very people who deserve to be shot in the street, not those who actually work.
Let’s give the ultra rich a quality of afterlife. And let’s make it horrible. Throw them in the trash compactor or something
Probably has to do with tackling hard hitting issues like… Checks notes… Ensuring that vegetarian meat alternatives can’t be called “steak”, “burger”, or “bacon”. Ah yes.
Couldn’t have to do with multiple countries going full right wing + corporatization being in a race to the bottom lol.
So funny when someone has to dig out some small annoyance and try to blow it up out of proportion.
We got other problems like lots of roundabouts, 5 weeks of mandatory paid holidays and healthcare!
“almost on par”?
I’ve seen US living conditions, we’re ahead…
you can really tell who has never been to/lived in the EU, when they make it sound like the US is even remotely in the same field as the EU far as QoL is concerned
Korrupter Überwachungsstaat trifft es wohl besser
My GDP could whip your GDP!
