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231 points rntn | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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hunglee2 ◴[] No.35413150[source]
I think we (Americans and Europeans alike) wholly underestimate how Americanised European culture is becoming.

This is an observation rather than a criticism as I don't know whether this is 'good' or 'bad' but it is noticeable phenomena manifest through language, and probably an unintended consequence of the dependency of Europe on US communication technology, leading to the import of US communication styles, political priorities and cultural values.

France have always been conscious of this, no doubt as a result of their centuries old conflict with England, but it is interesting now to see Italian nationalists responding similarly. It's futile of course, as neither Italians, French nor any combination of European countries can or will make an internet independent of the US

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adventured ◴[] No.35413278[source]
Well you'd need a lot more than an Internet independent of the US. The same US cultural influence was prominent before the Internet became popular. You'd either need a new super popular language apart from the globally popular English, and or you'd need English to decline substantially (this would decimate the US cultural output/reach/influence).

It's worth noting that a variation of language collapse may be occurring. The English speaking part of the US is imploding (aging demographics, fentynal, Covid, mediocre healthcare for the bottom 1/2, etc), the Spanish speaking part of the US is rapidly taking marketshare (immigration being the only thing keeping the US population afloat). You can expect some decline in US cultural power accordingly, as Spanish is less popular globally than English (and far less potent as an entertainment, media force).

The EU will indeed end up more or less making their own Internet. That's happening gradually. Their own rules, laws, beliefs are increasingly governing their slice of cyberspace (and anything in tech broadly). That separation will only get wider. Over time, the laws governing the EU Internet end up making it quite distinct from the US Internet, from the Chinese Internet, from the Russian Internet, and so on (as different as the physical spaces are today, at least).

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1. hunglee2 ◴[] No.35413484[source]
very good point - I think EU bureaucracy may well create a version of the US internet which is at least a different flavour to that which the US citizens use have access to. Italy banning ChatGPT on GDPR grounds for example - surely there will be a (very bad) local replacement which Italians can then use. However rather than a different internet altogether, it might just be a washed out version of what the US uses