> I see very few Americans taking every possible opportunity to make bombastic statements about how their lives are better than everyone else's
Very few Americans have any experience about how life is in Europe, while the contrary is much more common.
Gemini says: Around 28% to 32% of Americans have visited Europe in their lifetime, while roughly 15% to 20% of Europeans overall have visited the United States.
Gemini is shit, just like other LLMs. Tourists don't have any idea how life is in a visiting country. How many US citizens have eve emigrated to Europe, vs European citizens that have emigrated to the US and have an idea of how day-to-day life is there ?
Gemini says: Over the past 20 years, approximately 1.8 million to 1.9 million Europeans have emigrated permanently to the United States (measured by lawful permanent resident status/green cards), while an estimated 1.6 million to 2.0 million Americans have moved to Europe on long-term residence permits and visas
I'll just say that I don't think the reason is a lack of knowledge and leave it here.
UK doesn't count, becausd it suffers of many of the problems that affect the US. And especially here on HN, there are almost no US citizens that have moved to Europe, and many European citizens that moved to the US, and can talk out of experience.
Proposition: Europeans have a better quality of life than Americans
Your observation: Online, Europeans assert they have a better quality of life than Americans, while Americans do not assert the reverse
Your conclusion: "idk maybe they're lying???"
I think there’s more nuance than that is the issue. The average European likely has a better QoL than the average American. If you go above average in wealth/salary, the US can be great.
Well my meta point was more that framing an apparent consensus as an "asymmetric conversation" seems pretty motivated.
But to respond to your point, most everywhere is great if you're rich enough. Saudi Arabia is pretty rad if you happen to be in House of Saud.
I wonder if this is actually true. I see very few Americans taking every possible opportunity to make bombastic statements about how their lives are better than everyone else's (at least on HN). This conversation seems quite asymmetric from my perspective.
> Maybe you're just bitter?
This comes off as psychological projection.