Do you agree Europe in some ways is better than USA?

[lightbulb27]

Ellen is right from what I've seen. If there was a competition, USA needs to "up its game". Awareness is step 1.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/entertainment/ellen-degeneres-left-us-tump-intl-scli

* Cleaner - less trash thrown about. USA areas I've seen are awful, people are trained poorly.

* Scenery - their architecture and history everywhere. USA should upgrade to project character and style.

* Roads - good condition

* Food quality - it's way better. people are skinny (not obese like USA).

* Trains - clean and safe, people are nice and talk... even to Americans.

There are opposite views and issues... I won't get into that yet..

USA needs to improve to be the best imho. I haven't touched on Asia, which is very freshly built and modern.

Wake up American... the good news is some of us are...

[DeeDeeDeVour]

* Cleaner - Not absolutely true. American news media is notorious for widely exposing garbage in metropolitan areas, particularly sanctuary cities which I agree are riddled with trash. However, numerous major European cities are no better. And, I have personally seen trash scattered irresponsibly while trash management was absent. As a tourist in Europe, I have no intention of scanning the news there looking for rubbish posted by the media.

* Scenery - I agree that Europe is a very diverse architecture and history. However, Europe is "crowded" with urban landscapes, not natural landscapes. The USA's natural scenery offers more for the eyes to see. You need to make more efforts to explore what we have to offer. Meanwhile, preservation and environmental protection are more important that projecting character and style.

* Roads - I have driven on a lot of bad roads in Europe. In fact, you have much more undeveloped roads than we do. Many public roads in Europe are mere trails.

* Food quality - Much of what Europe has can also be found here.

* Trains - Hands down, Europe wins. I won't dispute your claims about this category.

I will add that I love lots of Europeans.

I love how much friendlier most Europeans are compared to generally prejudice Americans.

However, prejudice does exist in Europe as well.

[purplepoppy]

We have plenty of shithole neighbourhoods too just like in the USA that the tourists don't get to see. I think the big difference between us is we're not as divided politically and it makes life better when your not surrounded by hate and people shoving opinions at you. Extremism isn't mainstream here

[DryGermanGuy]

I think Europe‘s advantage is that even in our shithole neighborhoods we don’t have 14 year-olds with guns, competing for gang membership.

[Levin]

@DryGermanGuy Err, pretty sure that goes on in the UK, Sweden, fucking bomb squad gets called in. Switzerland, pools have had to ban foreigners because they've been touching little girls. Riots in France. Many Western European countries have really gone down the shitter.

[Levin]

Also, hate is rife here. The gulf is widening between left and right, and there's a simmering anger and sense of injustice. I guess you don't feel it in the rural community in Wales, but it's going on.

[lightbulb27]

@DryGermanGuy The fast majority of that crime is descendants of slaves and mexican drug gangs. Otherwise, crazy people. You've got those as well... shooting up people, albeit, less so.

[DryGermanGuy]

Not even remotely comparable. I just checked the crime statistics, in Germany we have around 140-150 gun deaths per year. In the USA, that's roughly a good day's work. Also, we did not close down our public mental health institutions, like Reagan did. Encountering a crazy person with a gun has a ridiculously low possibility here.

[lightbulb27]

@DryGermanGuy Im sure it helps to collect all the guns and control, but never happen in usa. Probably helps in Europe to have armed guards with machine guns, I see them walking around important areas in France/Italy.

[DryGermanGuy]

Well, no one is collecting privately-owned guns in Germany, we do have strict weapon laws, though. The people with the HK MP5 machine pistols are federal police, guarding airports, major train stations and government buildings.

[lightbulb27]

@DryGermanGuy I kinda like it, as long as one of them doesn't go nuts. guess that's why ya have more than one.
there was a mass murder or two in recent Europe history.

[purplepoppy]

People are emotional creatures, when people get upset or angry they don't think clearly and do dumbshit. It's best not to have a gun on you or people get hurt. That's the real reason the murder rate is lower in Europe.

[lightbulb27]

sounds correct.

[lightbulb27]

and you don't have a bunch of people with slave history embedded in their culture?

[purplepoppy]

Why can't Americans let go of things and move on? Holding on to the hate of events hundreds of years ago isn't healthy. We don't bang on about the napoleonic wars or the world wars but Americans still live in the shadows of the civil war and keep guns under the bed in case the British come back.

[lightbulb27]

"People are emotional creatures"...
a good question. It's part of our heritage for generations. Europe lost their guns after USA invaded... ahemm, blehc ugh... came over and saved them from Hitler. I believe the guns were confiscated around that time, I could be wrong.

[purplepoppy]

Europe never had a gun culture

[lightbulb27]

That's the difference. In order for "us" to take over, we had to shoot and round up all the "indians". We also had to shoot a bunch of animals and sell their fur. Shoot all kinds of stuff like Buffalo, because they were hungry.
most people... don't use guns. In order to protect their property, many have guns.
I noticed the solution in France is to build metal gates around houses... rather than use guns. not a bad idea, but kinda resource intensive.

[purplepoppy]

I don't consider genocide or driving a species to near extinction a particularly admirable trait of a nation.

[lightbulb27]

nope, kinda more like locusts. really odd it started with "pilgrims" escaping persecution. go figure...
humans easily fall to their desires...

[purplepoppy]

That's a myth. The pilgrims were the persecutors. They couldn't stand the way we were becoming more tolerant and wanted to enforce hardwire Christianity on us. They fleed so they could be free to persecute.

[Lliam]

I agree with that.

I've only had a chance to travel through parts of France, Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, England, and I spent a lot of time in the Irish Republic. I would like to see more of Europe.

I do LOVE that Europeans have retained much of their old architecture, history, beauty and grandeur, charming cities, ancient towns, castles, monuments and buildings. In that regard, America is shit by comparison.

I didn't have a chance to ride on trains. But it's true that Europe has wonderful mass transit.

I met some really friendly people who went out of their way to be helpful.

They did have good roads and things were neat, clean and tidy.

I had some great food, but there is great food in the U. S., too, if you ignore fast food and chain restaurants.

[lightbulb27]

Agree. We've met friendly people that reached out to us to engage, met long term friends. most people are friendly.
the only gripe I have is they smoke more than americans and it's everywhere. I really admire how they dine though... taking hours to enjoy drinks before dinner, sitting, talking. everyone is engaging here at dinner time. Wish I knew what they talked about.
The trains so far, very clean, most with bathrooms, feel good.

[OneViewpoint]

I agree on everything but the scenery. Yeah Europe has some beautiful scenery. But nothing like the USA. With the exception of your cities where the architecture stands out vs US cities that are all relatively new and have a completely different look. We tend to go vertical with skyscrapers. Cool from a distance but not as interesting at street level for pedestrians.

But you left out government in Europe where social programs like universal healthcare and maternity leave absolutely embarrass the USA and it's "for profit" healthcare system administered by private insurance as the absolute worst solution in the developed world.

Also our "for profit" prison system is thoroughly corrupt. It's incentivized to keep prisons operating at full capacity, not to reform criminals.

[Levin]

I do think Europe is better than America in most regards.

Don't get me wrong, we have some serious problems here.

Now it might sound trite, but life is about balance.

In the US you have no meaninful social security net. Your labour laws are shit. You all seem to work like 60 hours per week, literally have no annual leave which is shocking. You're a slave to your jobs.

In the UK, we have the opposite problem. The state has swelled to a grotesque level. And it no longer pays to work. British working people are effectively second class citizens, who work to fund, well, everybody else.

[contentious]

Europe is a joke. Their strongest economy Germany rivals our poorest state Mississippi. They slow walk everything. One of my brothers works for a German company. He finishes his work for the week in like a day or day and a half and has nothing to do for the rest of the week, but they keep paying him a six figure salary to do nothing because he's far more productive than the German workers. I guess that tells you how much Germans are slackers. They do nothing and can't be fired and that's the economy that leads Europe. Their military is week. Their people are pretentious, uneducated, not innovative, nor productive. They are basically a welfare protectorate of the USA. If and when we cut them off they will be nothing. It's Europe that needs to step up their game. America just needs to focus on America and stop be so charitable.

[contentious]

*weak

[AlenAHHHH]

No, Europe is equal to America. Both are fucked in different ways. Orange idiot is controlling one and the other is full of nazis and garbage.

[lightbulb27]

that's kinda a negative view. Lets hope it works out better than that. I'm in Europe and overall, everyone is enjoying themselves.
It's way better than living in Gaza or Myanmar.
I guess... everything is relative. Hope for the best.

[Stevepro68]

Right now the world in general is in a social decline of authoritarianism and class warfare. Europe has some significant pluses currently. USA is no longer a free land where it is ok to live love and practice your religion as you see fit, without being dragged off to a detention center It's one big selling point. So for now European life appears to be winning.

[DrPepper12]

I've advised my USA kids to live abroad. No one wants to live in the twilight of a declining empire. Smart people know how that story ends...

USA Americans sacrifice their lives on the altar of work. They do not know how to live.

[Pohjolan]

That's 44 countries. Obviously some are in some ways better than USA and some are in some ways worse.

by the way Europe is still playing catch up after WWII, communist autocracy and now Russia being a asshole.

USA is supposed to be better off than most of Europe and for a example in wealth this is hands down the case.

[Avicenna]

You know, it’s better for Europe (a much more diverse place culturally than the US) to be Europe and the US the US. Makes for a more diverse world. And some things from one place can’t necessarily be replicated in another.

[Spencer10]

Generally I have found that Europeans have a better perspective on life. They work to live not live to work. They also have societies that look after each other more. Less every man for them selves attitude of the USA

[Filthy_Immigrant]

aside from allowing prostitution in most places and not over processing their food I dont think Europe is anything near as good as the US

[Shiprex]

In most ways it is. US may appear eady to exploit workers and set up businesses to make money because it allows corruption.

[AngryCarl2]

In most ways actually. In fact under Trump's watch I don't see any area where the US is better.

[an_nMary]

Uhm…am not really sure because a lot of the Europeans enjoy staying in the America

[Dongie]

I can not think of a single one where they're better than America. Not ever in history even.

[beefcakebradybatson]

LOTS of ways, but Europe can also be racist.

[Anonymous]

Yes much better than the USA, the rich motherfuckers don't get to fuck the country like here in the USA.

[qwerty2469]

Not in any way. I've been to Europe its trash. Just a ghost

[Sal_Monella]

Some ways, some places.

[Kelly6]

@lightbulb27 totally true

[Razp_Sorbet]

I would say its better in A LOT of ways.

[shortster]

Some ways, yes; the important ways, nope.

[Anonymous]

Europe - Yes, but EU - Not.

[FunkyMonkee]

In a couple ways.

[Anonymous]

Many are socilaist.

[FenixG45]

Agreed