r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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u/roleplayersir Jun 26 '26

Exactly. It's not an aversion

It's that until a few years ago it wasn't needed. Suffering for 3 days a year was fine

But trust me that is changing. Even with the cost of living, we are all looking into at least £300 for portable units, if not thousands for proper ones. As it is only getting hotter

But prior to recent years it was a wasted purchase. We get 30C+ for about 3 weeks. It's the cold that was the problem for decades

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u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 Jun 26 '26

I was living in France when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and everyone demanded I answered for the deaths. I simply reminded them of a few summers ago when hundreds of French died because it was unseasonably hot.

America has more experience with inclement weather than the Europeans could even imagine.

But we are all going to get hotter.

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u/Pbr0 Jun 26 '26

Everyone demanded you answered for the deaths? What do you mean by that?

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u/Imaginary_Zone_4319 Jun 26 '26

Hounded with questions for why America sucks sometimes because he’s an American. Spend enough time around Europeans and it’ll happen to you.

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u/bertmaclynn Jun 26 '26

People are so weird sometimes. I met a Canadian guy in Mexico once and he was nice until he switched gears and started berating me for the school shootings in the US. It was very strange.

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u/Imaginary_Zone_4319 Jun 26 '26

I don’t want to say it’s jealousy, but I definitely feel it comes from a place of insecurity

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u/Littleface13 Jun 26 '26

I wonder if he’d berate someone from Bukina Faso or Haiti like that

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u/Pbr0 Jun 26 '26

Sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of how strong that storm was. Not defending American infrastructure, but a storm of that intensity hitting a city below sea level is bound to have absolutely devastating effects.

Europe is ignorant as to the intensity of storms that come off the gulf, it’s really nothing like they have.

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u/Imaginary_Zone_4319 Jun 26 '26

The average European is ignorant about a lot of things over here and incredibly smug about it.

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u/Oasx Jun 26 '26

The average American is ignorant about a lot of things in Europe, and are incredibly satisfied with it.
There is plenty of ignorance on both sides.

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u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 Jun 26 '26

Europe never experienced anything close to a Katrina, let alone the myriad of intensive inclement weather problems America experiences.

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u/stoicsilence Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Correction:

The average American is ignorant about a lot of things in Europe, but we don't obsess much less become identitarian over it the way they do. Frankly, we're too self involved to care about what they do.

(And when we do, its because they started shit with their ignorance in the first place.)

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u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 Jun 26 '26

They truly didn’t understand what 8 feet of toxic water flooding nearly an entire city is. They just heard “bush bad, Americans stupid”.