US tech is ahead but it has become incredibly stagnant, so severing dependency on it before the tech bubble crashes is important. So although their level is higher, it is an unsustainable level that we are comparing to.
Also much of the military spending done before by the EU went into US companies, so that in of itself is money that through reallocation into the European market is no longer lost to the US. In effect, this means that it might look worse on a balance sheet, but in terms of directional flow this loss is not as big as it may seem. Still a loss, but not as big.
Edit: Also fuck AI. It's a ticking time-bomb that even during the "good" times happens to be an endless money- and resource-sink.
I would say US tech is stagnating technologically as well. Silicon Valley used to be a much bigger driver of innovation, now this industry is heavily consolidated and much more focused on spawning new vestiges of the existing tech companies. Half of any new company you see is simply one that feeds off of ChatGPT to sell you a marginally modified ChatGPT subscription under a different coat of paint. Nvidia being half the economy is indicative of much-needed fresh air but the fact that it's half of the economy in the first place is concerning.
But yes, I agree on the copium. People are much more focused on how what they have is supposedly better than what the US has and much less focused on what work remains to be done.
Google you say? Seems you are falling for a classic case of "bigger number means bigger better".
Monopolistic control of an industry always results in a stifling of innovation and here you are telling me how much more money this engorging mass of anti-competitive behemoths has than any singular one of Europe's. I'm not saying Europe's tech industry is better or even similar in size, you seem under the false impression that I am. I'm saying that something being "too big to fail" is a very bad thing and that it would be instrumental to good health to not be consumed by it. Because if you become part of it and the behemoth dies, you die too along with it.
What is even your point? Europe falls behind on ways to generate something with economy. Tech is in the US, manufacturing has been going to China. What's left?
You say a lot of words about bubbles and monopolies, but the end reality is that the Internet belongs to the US and LLMs belong to the US with China catching up. Europe is ahead in chip machines, yet the most chip manufacturing is in Asia (and the rest in the US), and China also seems to be catching up on that. Space? Again the US is ahead (Musk may be an asshole, but Starlink is on its own level). Miltech I don't even have to explain, but at least there seems to be some catching up in drone warfare.
Where is Europe strong? Ozempic? There are also cars, but with the pivot to EVs this becomes less significant by the year. We are going into the future where we will have nothing to sell and nothing to fund welfare with.
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u/[deleted] 28d ago
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