Measuring things at @spindl.

My FID is lower than all but 52 of you.

Fun pastime: any time you see a tweet making fund of Europe, post in the group chat and let @antonio defend the entire continent.

The problem is that I'm basically 100% right, and nobody I ever debate this with knows enough about Europe to recognize that.

Our debate in that GC was totally ridiculous, BTW.

I'm absolutely right about both the quality of life in Europe, and how American intellectual influence abroad (beyond popular culture) is surprisingly thin given the very real geopolitical dominance in the past few decades.

Americans don't quite realize that basically nobody reads any of their literature, politics, or general intellectual discourse (other than those focused on learning English or into American studies). Maybe a smidge when it comes to geopolitics since it's directly relevant to US foreign policy (which is important).

Growing up in the UK, not quite Europe, I can’t recall any generation I’ve come in contact with (born in 1910 maximum) have any respect for American Intellectualism — It’s often the butt of a joke.

But as you said, popular culture is easily the biggest export the US has when it comes to global mindshare

build things /someone-build go /higher talk /brypto walk /thewalkingclub or appreciate /stuff

To be clear, there *is* American intellectualism, in the sense that there are American versions of (almost) all the intellectual fashions that swept the wider world: romanticism, futurism, sci-fi, sociology, etc. Just that nobody but Americans read them. It's like baseball or american football that way.

this makes me realize I’m not entirely sure what I would classify as American intellectualism 

infra wise, capitalism & democracy sure but ‘in the weeds’ of it feels vague & v melting pot like our pop culture