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I wonder whyI always get downvoted into oblivion for stating that which to me is an obvious fact: The EU is too far removed from reality to legislate. It now ha

by lbj 8y ago

I wonder whyI always get downvoted into oblivion for stating that which to me is an obvious fact: The EU is too far removed from reality to legislate. It now has a long and sordid history of over-doing things to the extreme. In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. We had what felt like a complete shutdown of IT departments in the months leading up to the GDPR because, again, it was overreaching and too vague. (the idea was good though) I could write a list much longer, but in general I think the Unix approach works: Many small things that each do one thing well. The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well - If for no other reason, than the distance from the Parliament to a wooden cabin on the mountains of norway is just too great for them to regulate that cabin in great detail, but still this is what they attempt to do. And now, down to each word on each and every webpage accesible from the EU.

chosenbreed37 8y ago
> In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. Is this for real? I know it's anecdotal but I find it hilarious > I could write a list much longer, but in general I think the Unix approach works: Many small things that each do one thing well. The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well Well...I'm sure many could point out somethings that the EU has done well...I guess at the heart of regulating cinnamon buns is the issue of standards...that specific instance is probably an overkill but having a common standard of electrical equipment produced/imported to the EU makes sense...at the very least you could argue that some member states have benefited considerably although that may not necessarily be attributable to EU policy
- lbj 8y ago
  Yeah I'm afraid the example is quite real. But sure, example could be dug up of good things the EU have done. But even in those cases the cost is much too great. For instance, they built a really nice hallway at the Parliament, but when it came time to name it, they assigned 76 diplomats and the president of the EU to work through the name. That alone ended up costing something like 11 million euros. I can't think of anything they've done, which hasn't resulted in millions of taxpayers money being poured down the drain. Not surprisingly, the EU has the lowest growth rate in the world.
  - pas 8y ago
    > Not surprisingly, the EU has the lowest growth rate in the world. What would be the growth rate without the single market?
    - gdhbcc 8y ago
      Competition breeds excellence
      - sobani 8y ago
        The EU is big enough to compete with the US and China. Without the EU, the UK is about as big as California.
  - garblegarble 8y ago
    >For instance, they built a really nice hallway at the Parliament, but when it came time to name it, they assigned 76 diplomats and the president of the EU to work through the name. That alone ended up costing something like 11 million euros. Citation please? I can't find anything about that online, and I'd expect that to be a scandal that'd be easily found!
vardump 8y ago
Yeah. Remove EU and I'm sure Russia will be happy to take over your little countries. Individually European countries are pretty weak. They're only strong as a common entity.
- lbj 8y ago
  Pretty sure NATO would survive the dismantling of some bureaucracy.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Will it? Trump is already discussing how to step down Divide and conquer, one of the oldest strategies. Yes, I'm sure "countries can defend themselves alone" yup, right
  - msla 8y ago
    > Pretty sure NATO would survive the dismantling of some bureaucracy. Then that's the next Brexit target, innit? Gin up some "grassroots" support for leaving that Mean Nasty NATO What Is Bad And Mean and just never you mind that the original talking points were translated from the Russian. We know the Russians are working to dismantle everything on the European continent which could counterbalance their ambitions. NATO isn't any more immune than the EU is.
  - Ralfp 8y ago
    NATO is military pact. EU has economic advantages for member states like single market and trade union (so you can't create trade agreement in WTO sense with single EU member).
    - kazen44 8y ago
      Also, the EU has a common defence clause aswell, so all EU member states are practically under the same defence umberella, even if they aren't into NATO.
- morsma 8y ago
  Why on earth would Russia want to take over Denmark?
detaro 8y ago
> In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. So your government decided to go overboard with enforcement (instead of classifying cinnamon buns as a traditional good and exempt, like the Swedish did, if those are a big issue in Denmark) and that's purely the EU's fault? (Or did they did not go overboard and regular food safety inspections with one more thing to test on the list got styled as "cinnamon patrols"?) The EU certainly has very far reach and goes into pedantic detail, which isn't always good, but states love to redirect annoyance at their crap implementation on it. That's still partially a problem with it, but still annoys me.
emptyfile 8y ago
>I wonder whyI always get downvoted into oblivion for stating that which to me is an obvious fact Well when you write obviously non factual nonsense like >The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well You tend to get downvoted. When you write hilarious nonsense like this >In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. And imply its the EU's fault, you get downvoted.
- morsma 8y ago
  >You tend to get downvoted. When you write hilarious nonsense like this Can you name anything the EU has done well?
  - pas 8y ago
    first Google hit for EU accomplishments: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/6-things-the-eu-has-achieved-60-years-on-from-its-founding-treaty-7609e02c-01bb-4763-8cbf-716d2287a647/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/6-things-the-eu-has-a...
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    GDPR
  - Ralfp 8y ago
    It forced my government to break national monopoly on internet access, bringing ASDL prices down from $265 month to just $8.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    "Europe is still the closest thing to paradise on Earth" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/europe-paradise-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/europe... It's from 2012, but the vast majority of what's said there is still true.
    - hollerith 8y ago
morsma 8y ago
As a Dane, I completely agree with this post.
megaman8 8y ago
which is doubly ridiculous: cinnamon is actually one of the few parts (probably the only) of the cinnamon bun which is good for you: it's high in fiber and has been shown to have numerous health benefits.
arama471 8y ago
> This particular kerfuffle comes because the Danish food authority recently classified kanelsnegler, or cinnamon rolls, as an everyday pastry https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/eu-worried-danish-cinnamon-rolls-could-cause-liver-damage/282678/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/eu-worrie... Sounds like this is more of a "Denmark problem" than an "EU problem", unless you think the EU should simply not legislate the use of products that can cause health issues when present in high quantities in food (in this case cinnamon)
- strictnein 8y ago
  How ever does the US survive this cinnamon overdose epidemic? The reaction to a bad regulation being passed shouldn't be "oh, well, the government can just exempt your specific product from that regulation".
  - detaro 8y ago
    The US regulates Coumarin (which is the actually regulated substance, but commonly found in cinnamon), although differently. (Tonka beans, which contain it in very high quantities, and pure Coumarin aren't allowed to be used in food stuffs, but unlike in the EU there's no limit on the actual content of the end product)
  - ethelward 8y ago
    The US are doing many things well, but the quality of their food in general is not really an example to follow.
Spacemolte 8y ago
.. As a dane I completely disagree with this post. The EU is a big machine, and yes some parts of it may seem outdated and or obsolete, and some parts of it may even be so. That's how it is with big things, but it doesn't mean that it's bad, just that we need to keep improving it. I have a really, really hard time understanding people that says we should leave the EU, especially when they hand out the same, or similar examples that you just did. Beside legislating the amount of cinnamon bakeries use, the EU handles so many important things that a small country like denmark will never have the resources to handle. This in no way means that they are perfect, but work to improve it instead. We have this big project, it has been running in production for 15 years, it solves a lot of problems, but there are of course some technical debt that we should find the time to improve and fix. In my head you are the new guy telling everyone that we should rewrite it.
fauigerzigerk 8y ago
You know why the EU overregulates? Because EU countries individually overregulate. And you know why that is? Because European people ask for new regulation every single time something goes wrong or might go wrong in the future or is a little bit unfair in some rare cases. In the UK, we now have a debate about regulating portion sizes of ready meals, because some people are overweight. If you have voters and politicians who will even start to think about regulating this sort of thing, you're bound to end up with massive overregulation. Sometimes the choice we have is between 28 different ridiculously convoluted and completely unnecessary laws or just one ridiculously convoluted and completely unnecessary law. Your Unix metaphor is flawed. Countries are not special purpose tools. They don't do different things. They all do largely the same things in slightly different ways. So each country on its own already comes with all the issues that we criticise in monolythic software.
- Swenrekcah 8y ago
  Don’t let the food processing companies derail that discussion. Decreasing portion size will just make people buy two. If anything should be regulated it would be the ingredients allowed in things that are called meals. Specifically sugar.

by lbj 8y ago

chosenbreed37 8y ago

> In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. Is this for real? I know it's anecdotal but I find it hilarious > I could write a list much longer, but in general I think the Unix approach works: Many small things that each do one thing well. The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well Well...I'm sure many could point out somethings that the EU has done well...I guess at the heart of regulating cinnamon buns is the issue of standards...that specific instance is probably an overkill but having a common standard of electrical equipment produced/imported to the EU makes sense...at the very least you could argue that some member states have benefited considerably although that may not necessarily be attributable to EU policy

lbj 8y ago
Yeah I'm afraid the example is quite real. But sure, example could be dug up of good things the EU have done. But even in those cases the cost is much too great. For instance, they built a really nice hallway at the Parliament, but when it came time to name it, they assigned 76 diplomats and the president of the EU to work through the name. That alone ended up costing something like 11 million euros. I can't think of anything they've done, which hasn't resulted in millions of taxpayers money being poured down the drain. Not surprisingly, the EU has the lowest growth rate in the world.
- pas 8y ago
  > Not surprisingly, the EU has the lowest growth rate in the world. What would be the growth rate without the single market?
  - gdhbcc 8y ago
    Competition breeds excellence
    - sobani 8y ago
      The EU is big enough to compete with the US and China. Without the EU, the UK is about as big as California.
- garblegarble 8y ago
  >For instance, they built a really nice hallway at the Parliament, but when it came time to name it, they assigned 76 diplomats and the president of the EU to work through the name. That alone ended up costing something like 11 million euros. Citation please? I can't find anything about that online, and I'd expect that to be a scandal that'd be easily found!

vardump 8y ago

Yeah. Remove EU and I'm sure Russia will be happy to take over your little countries. Individually European countries are pretty weak. They're only strong as a common entity.

lbj 8y ago
Pretty sure NATO would survive the dismantling of some bureaucracy.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Will it? Trump is already discussing how to step down Divide and conquer, one of the oldest strategies. Yes, I'm sure "countries can defend themselves alone" yup, right
- msla 8y ago
  > Pretty sure NATO would survive the dismantling of some bureaucracy. Then that's the next Brexit target, innit? Gin up some "grassroots" support for leaving that Mean Nasty NATO What Is Bad And Mean and just never you mind that the original talking points were translated from the Russian. We know the Russians are working to dismantle everything on the European continent which could counterbalance their ambitions. NATO isn't any more immune than the EU is.
- Ralfp 8y ago
  NATO is military pact. EU has economic advantages for member states like single market and trade union (so you can't create trade agreement in WTO sense with single EU member).
  - kazen44 8y ago
    Also, the EU has a common defence clause aswell, so all EU member states are practically under the same defence umberella, even if they aren't into NATO.
morsma 8y ago
Why on earth would Russia want to take over Denmark?

detaro 8y ago

> In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. So your government decided to go overboard with enforcement (instead of classifying cinnamon buns as a traditional good and exempt, like the Swedish did, if those are a big issue in Denmark) and that's purely the EU's fault? (Or did they did not go overboard and regular food safety inspections with one more thing to test on the list got styled as "cinnamon patrols"?) The EU certainly has very far reach and goes into pedantic detail, which isn't always good, but states love to redirect annoyance at their crap implementation on it. That's still partially a problem with it, but still annoys me.

emptyfile 8y ago

>I wonder whyI always get downvoted into oblivion for stating that which to me is an obvious fact Well when you write obviously non factual nonsense like >The EU is the opposite: One giant thing which does nothing well You tend to get downvoted. When you write hilarious nonsense like this >In Denmark, we've had 'cinnamon patrols' go from bakery to bakery to verify that only the allowed amount of cinnamon was sprinkled on buns. And imply its the EU's fault, you get downvoted.

morsma 8y ago
>You tend to get downvoted. When you write hilarious nonsense like this Can you name anything the EU has done well?
- pas 8y ago
  first Google hit for EU accomplishments: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/6-things-the-eu-has-achieved-60-years-on-from-its-founding-treaty-7609e02c-01bb-4763-8cbf-716d2287a647/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/6-things-the-eu-has-a...
- dmitriid 8y ago
  GDPR
- Ralfp 8y ago
  It forced my government to break national monopoly on internet access, bringing ASDL prices down from $265 month to just $8.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  "Europe is still the closest thing to paradise on Earth" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/europe-paradise-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/19/europe... It's from 2012, but the vast majority of what's said there is still true.
  - hollerith 8y ago

morsma 8y ago

As a Dane, I completely agree with this post.

megaman8 8y ago

which is doubly ridiculous: cinnamon is actually one of the few parts (probably the only) of the cinnamon bun which is good for you: it's high in fiber and has been shown to have numerous health benefits.

arama471 8y ago

> This particular kerfuffle comes because the Danish food authority recently classified kanelsnegler, or cinnamon rolls, as an everyday pastry https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/eu-worried-danish-cinnamon-rolls-could-cause-liver-damage/282678/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/eu-worrie... Sounds like this is more of a "Denmark problem" than an "EU problem", unless you think the EU should simply not legislate the use of products that can cause health issues when present in high quantities in food (in this case cinnamon)

strictnein 8y ago
How ever does the US survive this cinnamon overdose epidemic? The reaction to a bad regulation being passed shouldn't be "oh, well, the government can just exempt your specific product from that regulation".
- detaro 8y ago
  The US regulates Coumarin (which is the actually regulated substance, but commonly found in cinnamon), although differently. (Tonka beans, which contain it in very high quantities, and pure Coumarin aren't allowed to be used in food stuffs, but unlike in the EU there's no limit on the actual content of the end product)
- ethelward 8y ago
  The US are doing many things well, but the quality of their food in general is not really an example to follow.

Spacemolte 8y ago

.. As a dane I completely disagree with this post. The EU is a big machine, and yes some parts of it may seem outdated and or obsolete, and some parts of it may even be so. That's how it is with big things, but it doesn't mean that it's bad, just that we need to keep improving it. I have a really, really hard time understanding people that says we should leave the EU, especially when they hand out the same, or similar examples that you just did. Beside legislating the amount of cinnamon bakeries use, the EU handles so many important things that a small country like denmark will never have the resources to handle. This in no way means that they are perfect, but work to improve it instead. We have this big project, it has been running in production for 15 years, it solves a lot of problems, but there are of course some technical debt that we should find the time to improve and fix. In my head you are the new guy telling everyone that we should rewrite it.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago

You know why the EU overregulates? Because EU countries individually overregulate. And you know why that is? Because European people ask for new regulation every single time something goes wrong or might go wrong in the future or is a little bit unfair in some rare cases. In the UK, we now have a debate about regulating portion sizes of ready meals, because some people are overweight. If you have voters and politicians who will even start to think about regulating this sort of thing, you're bound to end up with massive overregulation. Sometimes the choice we have is between 28 different ridiculously convoluted and completely unnecessary laws or just one ridiculously convoluted and completely unnecessary law. Your Unix metaphor is flawed. Countries are not special purpose tools. They don't do different things. They all do largely the same things in slightly different ways. So each country on its own already comes with all the issues that we criticise in monolythic software.

Swenrekcah 8y ago
Don’t let the food processing companies derail that discussion. Decreasing portion size will just make people buy two. If anything should be regulated it would be the ingredients allowed in things that are called meals. Specifically sugar.