Lots of great answers already, so let my add a quick comparison between cardano and eos the biggest 3rd gen chains. Cardano is developed by Charles, who famously supported ETC and stands for the idea that code is law. Instead of having reversible transactions as in EOS, he believes that the solution is making secure code in the first place and offer as much support as possible to do so.

Philosophically I think that EOS and Cardano are on the opposite spectrum, where EOS favours simplicity and relies on humans interference, cardano represents the more mathematical and deterministic approach.