QA问答：为什么欧洲人认为他们比美国好太多了？（上）

Mark Fortner, works at Aspen Biosciences
Well, let’s see:
No one goes bankrupt from a cancer diagnosis there. Everyone has access to healthcare.
The quality of the educational systems aren’t tied to where you live. You can get an outstanding education pretty much anywhere. In Germany, you can get a PhD without taking out student loans — higher education is either low-cost or free. Which means that your potential as a human being is greater. Admittedly, people come here looking for the Great American dream, the ability to achieve more than your parents and grandparents. But that’s difficult to do without getting into debt, and without the proper qualifications, it’s very difficult to get the job you want, and to fulfill the dreams that you have. Educational debt also means delaying or foregoing purchasing that first house, and/or delaying having kids. Since so much of our economy is tied to home ownership, that has real repercussions. And delaying or not having children, means that we have a falling birth rate, and that we could end up like Japan, having a society whose birth rate has fallen below the replacement rate. You have an aging population that can’t be supported.
Which brings me to child care. Without quality, low-cost child care it’s difficult (if not impossible) for people to look for work, seek advancement, have fulfilling careers. Even if you have a great job, most jobs do not provide child care, and do not provide paid time off when you have a child. Without that early bonding, the family structure is strained. You have greater incidences of child neglect, divorce, emotional and psychological problems and crime. And if you don’t have the support you need to raise your family, you may decide not to have one (which brings me back to my earlier point). You just don’t see those kinds of problems to the same extent we see them in the US.
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在欧洲人们不会 因为得了癌症就破产。大家都有医保。
教育质量不是根据所你在的地方决定的。几乎在所有地方你都可以获得很好的教育。在德国，你不用靠学生贷款就可以一直读到博士，欧洲的高等教育不是收费低就是免费的，这意味着你的潜力可以得到更大的开发。人们来美国寻找美国梦，但是这是需要通过债务来实现的，而且如果不具备一定的资格，你是很难获得自己想要的工作的，从而无法实现你自己的梦想。学生贷款意味着你得延迟或者放弃购买自己的第一套房子，或者延迟成家生子。由于我们很大一部分的经济都与房屋所有权绑定在一起，所以这产生的影响是巨大的。而延迟生子或者不要孩子，意味着我们的生育率在下降，最终我们可能变成日本那样，生育率降到替代率之下。那么老龄化人口就没有人照顾。
现在我们再来谈谈儿童照料。如果没有高质量低成本的儿童照料，人们很难去找工作实现自己的职业梦想。即使你拥有很好的工作，但是大部分工作并不提供儿童照料方面的福利，也不提供带薪休假。如果没有和孩子建立早期的纽带，那么家庭结构是有问题的。你更有可能忽视孩子，离婚，情绪和身体上的问题，甚至是犯罪。而如果你没有获得支持来抚养你的孩子，你可能就不会去生了（所以这就回到了我上面提到的生育率下降的问题）。欧洲这方面的问题根本没有美国那么严重。

For whatever reason, we can’t seem to invest in infrastructure. Which means we have aging highways that are falling apart and crammed with cars. Passenger trains that compete with freight for the same rail lines, resulting in delays. In Europe, it’s much easier to get around without a car. In the US, the further West you go, the less infrastructure you have. Which means you sit for hours in your car commuting, rather than sitting in a train or a bus, getting your workday started by answering emails, reading and generally stressing out less.

还有，不知道为什么，我们好像不喜欢投资基建。这意味着我们的公路在老化，在分崩离析。旅客列车和运货列车使用同一条铁轨，导致经常延迟。在欧洲，大众交通更加方便。在美国，你越是往西走，基建就越少。这意味着你要在自己的汽车里坐上好长时间，而不是做列车或者巴士去。那么欧洲人就可以在公共交通上回邮件，看书，压力也更小一点。

Rudi Pan
I’ve never heard Europeans say that they are better than Americans. What I do hear them say is that they have it better than Americans; more rights, more freedom, better living standard, better food, better education, better roads, etc.

我从未听哪个欧洲人说过自己比美国人好。他们只是说自己的生活比美国好：更多权利，更多自由，更好的生活标准，更好的食物，更好的教育，更好的道路等等。

Lea Sing, lives in Germany
upxed Sep 14
First, I want to say that I don’t in no way want to generalize Americans. I know not all of them are delusional or uneducated. I am going to answer from a German point of view, since you can’t generalize all of Europe either.
So why do Europeans (in general) think they are better than America?
Americans don’t have a proper healthcare system. In most European countries, you can actually allow yourself to get sick without getting broke within a couple of months.
Americans don’t have a good education system. I am from Germany, and I have to admit, we also have a really shitty education system, but it is nothing compared to the American one. You know something went wrong when a university student almost failed her class because her professor thought Australia was a continent, not a country (Professor Didn’t Think Australia Was A Country, Almost Failed Student Who Pushed Back).
The US gun laws are a joke. It is ridiculous that it is possible for any civilian to buy a gun or even a rifle at wallmart. No tests to determine if the person might be mentally unstable, no license, nothing. Children are getting shot at school, and what does the US government do? Sending “prayers” to the survivors.

首先我想说我不想对美国人一概而论。我知道并非所有美国人都是缺乏教育的。我将从德国人的视角出发，毕竟我也不能代表全欧洲。
那么欧洲人大体上觉得自己比美国好吗？
美国人没有一个体面的医保系统。在大部分欧洲国家，你不会因为生病了就导致破产。
美国人没有一个良好的教育系统。我来自德国，我必须承认我们的教育系统也是很垃圾的，但是美国更垃圾。美国教授竟然认为澳洲是一个大陆而不是一个国家。
美国的枪支法律就是个笑话。每个人都可以在沃尔玛买到枪甚至是步枪，这实在是太荒唐了。没有测试某人的精神状态是否稳定，也不要求获得许可，都没有。学校里的学生被枪击，美国政府做了什么？对幸存者做祷告。

A good-for-nothing political system. What do Americans expect from a two-party system with one party being a shitfest of far-right neo-nazis? Both parties do shit for the average citizen and lie their ways into office. Americans have no choice. They can’t vote for the good option, just the less bad one. Meanwhile, most European nations have multiple parties to choose from, with very different interests. Sure, there are also parties on the extreme left or right, but atleast these aren’t the only options to choose from.
Americans pretend they are the best country in the world. Yes, this is a reason why Europeans think they are better. Despite all the obvious things the US is worse, if not even one of the worst at, they still claim they are superior to anyone else. This just makes Americans a huge laughing stock for Europeans.
Last, but not least, it was Americans who elected Trump as their president. After the presidential election of 2016, you can’t really blame anyone anymore for saying they are better than the USA.

一个一无是处的政治体制。美国是两党政治，其中一个是极右翼的新纳粹党，美国人期望从中获得什么？两党都不为普通公民做实事，靠谎言入主白宫。美国人没得选择。他们无法选出好的领导人，只能在两个差劲的选项中选一个不那么差的。同时，大部分欧洲国家有多个政党可以选择，每一个政党的利益都非常不同。当然也有一些极右或者极左的政党，但至少他们不是唯一的选项。
美国人假装自己是世界上最好的国家。是的，这就是欧洲人觉得自己更好的原因了。尽管有那么多明显的事情表明美国更差劲，美国人还是觉得自己优越于所有其他人。所以在欧洲人看来，美国人实在是太好笑了。
最后，是美国人让川普成为了总统。2016年的总统选举后，你再也不能责怪他人说自己比美国好了。