The French might ask why turning the like button into several different kinds of reaction is so much more "successful" than the baker who makes a perfect croissant.
Perhaps it's OK for a society to be... OK, instead of "the top", especially if top comes with a correspondingly distant bottom. Perhaps in 50 years we'll not see some of Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc. as quite so positive of achievements.
I fully agree thay it is absolutely OK for a society to be OK instead of "the top". That's a choice I can respect, as being at "the top" can come with its set of downsides that the society there might not want to accept. In fact, it might indeed be better to not be "at the top".
However, I was disputing it in the context of the claim that "France model is leading them steadily on the way to the top". To the top of what? To the top of being OK? That's a very questionable definition of "the top".
Meanwhile, sure, you can argue that some of "Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc." might end up not so positive of achievements in 50 years, but a lot of them quite are. Tesla, a non-european car brand, is one of the most registered new vehicles in quite a few european countries now, and I consider it a positive thing in comparison to ICE vehicles made in europe like bmw/audi/etc. SpaceX with its recent Falcon9-Heavy launch is quite positive. Which search engine do french people use? I bet it is Google. Which OS and office productivity suite does the majority of France currently run? I bet it is Windows with MS Office. Where are the majority of the websites and services that most people use are hosted? Most likely they are hosted at AWS.
Again, I dont subscribe to the notion that one has to be "at the top" in a bunch of arbitrary metrics to lead a great life, and it applies to both individuals and countries. However, I still disagree with the notion that France is anywhere on "the steady way to the top" when it comes to any of those metrics, as I see zero evidence to that.
Perhaps it's OK for a society to be... OK, instead of "the top", especially if top comes with a correspondingly distant bottom. Perhaps in 50 years we'll not see some of Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc. as quite so positive of achievements.