David Heinemeier Hansson

Europe faces mounting challenges including aggressive tech regulation (€120M fine against X), declining economic competitiveness (1% GDP growth vs 3% US), energy costs 2-3x higher than competitors after €700B green energy spending, minimal defense spending below NATO targets, and stagnating innovation with few new $10B+ companies in 50 years. The continent's GDP per capita has fallen to nearly half of America's, while maintaining restrictive speech policies with thousands of yearly arrests for online posts. Despite these structural weaknesses in energy, security, software, and manufacturing, potential reforms around regulation, immigration policy, and market unification could reverse the trajectory.

Europe is weak and delusional (but not doomed)

This post looks like poor-quality propaganda spewed out by Trump or Vance. You can masturbate to statistics, but the question is how these indicators relate to the real life of an individual citizen.
The EU has some problems it is currently working on, but it seems that it is the US that is sinking deeper and deeper into chaos and heading for collapse. Above all, the US itself does not know what role it wants to play in the world; it lacks a strategy for itself. Unless, of course, it wants to join the world’s pariahs — good luck with that.
But let’s take it one step at a time:
<ul>
<li>In the US, politics takes place in the back seats - in reality, the US is ruled by tech oligarchs and various lobbyists, and this is not a conspiracy theory.</li>
<li>There is probably a bubble in the financial market - sooner or later there will be a correction.</li>
<li>If it weren’t for a few companies like Nvidia and Meta/Alphabet, the stock market and GDP growth would not look so rosy.</li>
<li>Social inequalities and class divisions are growing year by year, and the current situation in the US is more reminiscent of the pre-Civil War era.</li>
<li>Lack of social security - e.g., no paid vacation, maternity leave, or public health care - the most basic issues that are the norm for Europeans.</li>
<li>A huge problem with opiate addiction.</li>
<li>Mass shooting in schools, generally - many deaths with gun usage</li>
<li>Currently, people who made negative comments about Charlie Kirk are being prosecuted in the US, and Big Tech companies have their own censorship - and it is the US that accuses the EU of “censorship.”</li>
<li>Americans, especially those from MAGA, misunderstand what “freedom of speech” is, but why should we be surprised when the US is a young country that has never experienced the kind of violence that Europe has?</li>
</ul>
Once Europe has dealt with its current problems, it will manage without the US.
After losing its most important ally, the US will sink into chaos and lose its position as a global hegemon. And all this because of Trump’s concern only for his own interests and those of his family and friends. What we are witnessing is absolutely disgusting.

Most points mentioned are valid, but comparing only these points to how they are in the USA is extremely incomplete and does not say anything about what union of countries is worth living in.
One of the hugest examples for this is the human right to privacy. USA has none. They can do whatever they want to their own people and if European data is stored there, it’s even worse than that.
Then, look at all the corruption and olgarchical elements in the $$$ “democracy”. In Europe, the democratic systems are at least somewhat fair, whereas in the USA the biggest money wins. Look at how political campaigns are financed, etc.
Same goes for consumer rights, like right to repair, etc. US Americans are so brainwashed for so many decades, that they don’t even spot the bullshit company officials are shitting out of their mouths in the court of justice. As Europeans, every time we see parts of speeches done by company officials in US American courts, it is usually very absurd and ridiculous to us, how they could blabber such bullshit while it being taken mostly seriously during the trial, as if they had an actual point.
So, these are just a couple of points, which came to my mind, when reading the article. There are tons of other points, which make Europe much much better than the USA ever was.

David Heinemeier Hansson, Sir, I greatly appreciate your Technical Work. Please, for the sake of your reputation, do not write articles about Politics. Listen to the younger generations. Do not forget about the young people who must inhabit the Earth after you. Respectfully, Sir, you are clearly experiencing some kind of Cognitive Dissonance. Only minimal effort is required, to find contradictions in many Political Views. I would recommend an internal review of your Political Positions, in the privacy of your own mind.

First of all, you don’t have any idea of how Europe work. Second, you’re misunderstanding freedom of speech with menaces, insults, etc. In Europe people is not arrested for saying “I think this should be like this”. For example, you can say “I think we have to see the entire life of every immigrant coming to our country in order to decide whether we give them a visa” and you wouldn’t be arrested. But if you start going against other’s human rights, saying you want them dead or failing to their honor, then you’re arrested as you would be if you do this things publicly. That’s because your freedom ends when others starts. Europe as a union has things that USA can only imagine like, for example, an excellent welfare state, with mostly free healthcare, a good system of subsidies for unemployed people, nice retirement pensions, etc. And talking about military… I don’t think spending that amount of money says something about a country whose specialty is entering wars in other countries because they can. It’s so so embarrassing that one country with 90 year old people still working says they’re better because they have better army. And it’s clear that freedom of speech in USA is not there. The world have seen the military deployed just for some protests that go against Trump. We’ve seen the president of the USA threatening New York to cut their fonds just because he doesn’t like the new mayor. And let’s not begin with what fracking is making to the soil, to water reserves, etc. I prefer a small economy with a good welfare system in which everyone can afford to have a degree than a country in which everyone is in debt for years and years only to just have a degree when for every job a PhD is needed. I don’t want to live in a country when a new restaurant goes bankrupt selling the third of pound hamburger because people believe a third of a pound is less than a quarter, when people want to avoid the Arabic numerals (1234567890) to be taught because they’re Arabic (they’re indian but whatever), or a country in which 7% of the population thinks chocolate milkshake comes from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/15/seven-percent-of-americans-think-chocolate-milk-comes-from-brown-cows-and-thats-not-even-the-scary-part/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">brown cows</a>. A country that tolerates his president to attempt to annex Greenland, or just a president that has been declared in bankrupt several times. I don’t want to live in a country where some random teenager can enter his highschool with a gun and kill his school mates, or a country people call America, went USA even doesn’t cover all north America. Having an ego as tall as the mount Everest and trying to blackmail every other country in other for the others to do what USA wants is something I don’t want. They’re more things than GDP and the size of our companies. What would happen to USA if, let’s say, Meta goes down? How resilient is a government that with that big companies and all that power nearly falls under recession when the rest of the world is thriving? Sincerely, you don’t have an idea of how Europe works. I live in a country that suffered 40 years of dictatorship, where USA did what he wanted because we were starving. When you have a country that in recent times has never been annihilated by the war and just gives money for the Europeans only to buy US stuff, it’s normal that you end up with a bigger GDP. Plan Marshall only enriched USA with tons of money invested in the industry while Europe was just a barren wasteland. Just learn a bit about Europe before saying something about us, please.

Worth a mention that US GDP growth this year has been &lt;1% if you exclude all the AI spending