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Europe is going to need to cut itself off from the rest of the world if it really wants a market with much stricter rules than its global competitors. It alread

Europe is going to need to cut itself off from the rest of the world if it really wants a market with much stricter rules than its global competitors. It already has totally asymmetric relationships with its trading partners, where Europe sells mostly luxury goods which can easily be boycotted. Germany, of all countries, is unwilling to acknowledge a genocide to protect their auto industry. It wont be a total segregation, but it will start to look something like the Amish. A functioning way of life, cottage industries and great donuts, Don't expect any rockets to Mars though.

bigfudge 6y ago
Sounds good. Respect for employment standards and the environment with fewer billionaires’ vanity projects. Sign me up.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  These vanity projects hold the potential to massively improve quality of life for people across the world. Look at the Starlink high-speed satellite internet network, and what that can do for internet access. Energy generation could also become massively cleaner and more affordable with advances in reusable rockets, as space-based solar power generation affordable.
  - bigfudge 6y ago
    They could. But there are also large potential benefits from state funded basic science, which all of these startups depend on, incidentally. Musk, Bezos et al are doing cool stuff, but they are basically parasitic on a system which provides the people and conditions in which they can operate.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      That's unrelated to the fact that we are better off having these projects than not. As for being 'parasitic', that goes both ways. Taxes are not a voluntary system, and much of the resources extracted are wasted and/or used to enrich rent-seeking insiders who are close to the government.
      - AstralStorm 6y ago
        Voluntary or not, at least anyone has a degree of control over what governments do... Though that has slipped way too much in places. Almost nobody has any control over billionaires, not even legislature apparently, much less taxpayers.
        CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Consumers have total control over what market players do, and the public has total control over whether market players generate any negative externalities, as it constructs the law enforcement and judicial system. A once-in-every-four-year election, involving millions of poorly informed and easily manipulated voters, provides far less accountability than individuals making decisions every day on how efficiently their dollars/euros are being spent. As for wealthy interests, whether it's billionaires, or massive blocs of highly paid unionized civil servants, where do you think the malevolent ones can do more damage: in a rules-based free market, where consumers control their own money, or in a government controlled market where controlling the consumer is only a matter of gaining political clout and dictating to private citizens how their wealth will be spent? In a rules-based free market, it's irrelevant that Apple is worth $1.5 trillion. It can't force me to buy Apple products. Once the free-market ruleset is undermined, then Apple can, through taxing authorities and regulatory gatekeepers and the armed government agents that enforce their taxes and restrictions, force me to buy its products. The free market ruleset protects our most basic rights, and is the most important institution for protecting the weak from the strong. That you believe otherwise is a deliberate outcome by those who want to abolish those safeguards.
- qaq 6y ago
  It's trivial to move to EU but I don't see US tech people actually taking advantage of that, even though large proportion in theory supports EU style policies.
  - bigfudge 6y ago
    That’s because people live in communities and families, even in the US. People are not just economic optimising units.
    - qaq 6y ago
      Right everyone who moved to SF obviously optimized for family and quality of life.
      - AstralStorm 6y ago
        Did they actually have another choice though? Or perhaps all other business sectors are choked and on life support?
        qaq 6y ago
        Given the labor market they sure did
      - bigfudge 6y ago
        Moving to Europe is culturally very different though. Despite the language barrier, I feel a lot more at home in France and Germany than the US (I'm British). If the US feels so foreign to me I'm sure most European countries would feel equally weird to North Americans. I'm not saying weird is necessarily bad, but some people like familiar reference points, shared values etc.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sgt101 6y ago
    Of course there is the issue of learning and functioning in Italian or Spanish or German or French to stir in to the challenge of relocation. Also, Brazil and Angola have many of the values that the right wing of the tech community espouse, but they aren't moving either.
- thu2111 6y ago
  There are very few significant differences between EU and other parts of the world in regards to the environment, and the few large differences to do exist (e.g. GM foods) are pseudo-scientific excuses for defending local industry that would otherwise find it hard to compete for social reasons. Consider that total installed capacity of renewables is by far China, electric cars are being driven by the USA, and the country in Europe that has done best at reducing carbon emissions and coal burning (taking coal to zero) is the UK. Germany's energiewende meanwhile has been a failure. The EU has no notable wins to its name in the environmental space. As for employment standards, that's a double edged sword; making it harder to hire people also locks young people out of the job market. Where do ambitious smart young people with no familial ties go to seek their fortune? Not Italy.
  - sofixa 6y ago
    > Consider that total installed capacity of renewables is by far China, electric cars are being driven by the USA, and the country in Europe that has done best at reducing carbon emissions and coal burning (taking coal to zero) is the UK. Germany's energiewende meanwhile has been a failure. The EU has no notable wins to its name in the environmental space. If you ignore the countries that didn't rely on coal in the first place, like France, Belgium or Austria just to name a few, all of which fare better in consumption of CO2 producing energy like oil, coal and gas. Cars are are much more of a thing in the USA than in the EU, so slower electrical vehicle rollout is completely normal. And even then, sales are exploding. > As for employment standards, that's a double edged sword; making it harder to hire people also locks young people out of the job market. Where do ambitious smart young people with no familial ties go to seek their fortune? Not Italy Yes, that is indeed a problem many are trying to tackle ( via reform, encouraging hiring, startups, etc.). I don't think scraping all employee protections to make it easier for young people to get a shitty job is worth it.
  - bigfudge 6y ago
    > and the few large differences to do exist (e.g. GM foods) are pseudo-scientific excuses for defending local industry that would otherwise find it hard to compete for social reasons This is simply not true. The US industrial meat production system has no current parallel in Europe and is net negative environmentally, for health and (and is morally bankrupt to boot). We also have much tighter regulations on the environmental impact of development, greater recycling rates etc, better OSH protections, significant reductions in VOCs in consumer chemicals just to name a few examples. The US and Europe are increasingly different — which is where this conversation started. I'm glad we're diverging from the path the US is taking in a number of ways (and sad we left the EU for that reason... we should be modelling ourselves on northern Europe rather than Singapore).
mellavora 6y ago
No rockets to Mars because all of the luxury hotels are on the moon?
patates 6y ago
> Germany, of all countries, is unwilling to acknowledge a genocide genocide to protect their auto industry You mean the Herero? What does that have to do with auto industry? (I'm really asking, this was the first result I found)
- orbifold 6y ago
  Probably he is referring to a situation in China.
  - patates 6y ago
    Oh, so the one against Uyghurs? I didn't know Germany didn't acknowledge that.
why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
Mostly luxury goods? I strongly disagree. For example - many industries use/depend on machines and tools made in Germany.

bigfudge 6y ago

Sounds good. Respect for employment standards and the environment with fewer billionaires’ vanity projects. Sign me up.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
These vanity projects hold the potential to massively improve quality of life for people across the world. Look at the Starlink high-speed satellite internet network, and what that can do for internet access. Energy generation could also become massively cleaner and more affordable with advances in reusable rockets, as space-based solar power generation affordable.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  They could. But there are also large potential benefits from state funded basic science, which all of these startups depend on, incidentally. Musk, Bezos et al are doing cool stuff, but they are basically parasitic on a system which provides the people and conditions in which they can operate.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    That's unrelated to the fact that we are better off having these projects than not. As for being 'parasitic', that goes both ways. Taxes are not a voluntary system, and much of the resources extracted are wasted and/or used to enrich rent-seeking insiders who are close to the government.
    - AstralStorm 6y ago
      Voluntary or not, at least anyone has a degree of control over what governments do... Though that has slipped way too much in places. Almost nobody has any control over billionaires, not even legislature apparently, much less taxpayers.
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Consumers have total control over what market players do, and the public has total control over whether market players generate any negative externalities, as it constructs the law enforcement and judicial system. A once-in-every-four-year election, involving millions of poorly informed and easily manipulated voters, provides far less accountability than individuals making decisions every day on how efficiently their dollars/euros are being spent. As for wealthy interests, whether it's billionaires, or massive blocs of highly paid unionized civil servants, where do you think the malevolent ones can do more damage: in a rules-based free market, where consumers control their own money, or in a government controlled market where controlling the consumer is only a matter of gaining political clout and dictating to private citizens how their wealth will be spent? In a rules-based free market, it's irrelevant that Apple is worth $1.5 trillion. It can't force me to buy Apple products. Once the free-market ruleset is undermined, then Apple can, through taxing authorities and regulatory gatekeepers and the armed government agents that enforce their taxes and restrictions, force me to buy its products. The free market ruleset protects our most basic rights, and is the most important institution for protecting the weak from the strong. That you believe otherwise is a deliberate outcome by those who want to abolish those safeguards.
qaq 6y ago
It's trivial to move to EU but I don't see US tech people actually taking advantage of that, even though large proportion in theory supports EU style policies.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  That’s because people live in communities and families, even in the US. People are not just economic optimising units.
  - qaq 6y ago
    Right everyone who moved to SF obviously optimized for family and quality of life.
    - AstralStorm 6y ago
      Did they actually have another choice though? Or perhaps all other business sectors are choked and on life support?
      - qaq 6y ago
        Given the labor market they sure did
    - bigfudge 6y ago
      Moving to Europe is culturally very different though. Despite the language barrier, I feel a lot more at home in France and Germany than the US (I'm British). If the US feels so foreign to me I'm sure most European countries would feel equally weird to North Americans. I'm not saying weird is necessarily bad, but some people like familiar reference points, shared values etc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sgt101 6y ago
  Of course there is the issue of learning and functioning in Italian or Spanish or German or French to stir in to the challenge of relocation. Also, Brazil and Angola have many of the values that the right wing of the tech community espouse, but they aren't moving either.
thu2111 6y ago
There are very few significant differences between EU and other parts of the world in regards to the environment, and the few large differences to do exist (e.g. GM foods) are pseudo-scientific excuses for defending local industry that would otherwise find it hard to compete for social reasons. Consider that total installed capacity of renewables is by far China, electric cars are being driven by the USA, and the country in Europe that has done best at reducing carbon emissions and coal burning (taking coal to zero) is the UK. Germany's energiewende meanwhile has been a failure. The EU has no notable wins to its name in the environmental space. As for employment standards, that's a double edged sword; making it harder to hire people also locks young people out of the job market. Where do ambitious smart young people with no familial ties go to seek their fortune? Not Italy.
- sofixa 6y ago
  > Consider that total installed capacity of renewables is by far China, electric cars are being driven by the USA, and the country in Europe that has done best at reducing carbon emissions and coal burning (taking coal to zero) is the UK. Germany's energiewende meanwhile has been a failure. The EU has no notable wins to its name in the environmental space. If you ignore the countries that didn't rely on coal in the first place, like France, Belgium or Austria just to name a few, all of which fare better in consumption of CO2 producing energy like oil, coal and gas. Cars are are much more of a thing in the USA than in the EU, so slower electrical vehicle rollout is completely normal. And even then, sales are exploding. > As for employment standards, that's a double edged sword; making it harder to hire people also locks young people out of the job market. Where do ambitious smart young people with no familial ties go to seek their fortune? Not Italy Yes, that is indeed a problem many are trying to tackle ( via reform, encouraging hiring, startups, etc.). I don't think scraping all employee protections to make it easier for young people to get a shitty job is worth it.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  > and the few large differences to do exist (e.g. GM foods) are pseudo-scientific excuses for defending local industry that would otherwise find it hard to compete for social reasons This is simply not true. The US industrial meat production system has no current parallel in Europe and is net negative environmentally, for health and (and is morally bankrupt to boot). We also have much tighter regulations on the environmental impact of development, greater recycling rates etc, better OSH protections, significant reductions in VOCs in consumer chemicals just to name a few examples. The US and Europe are increasingly different — which is where this conversation started. I'm glad we're diverging from the path the US is taking in a number of ways (and sad we left the EU for that reason... we should be modelling ourselves on northern Europe rather than Singapore).

mellavora 6y ago

No rockets to Mars because all of the luxury hotels are on the moon?

patates 6y ago

> Germany, of all countries, is unwilling to acknowledge a genocide genocide to protect their auto industry You mean the Herero? What does that have to do with auto industry? (I'm really asking, this was the first result I found)

orbifold 6y ago
Probably he is referring to a situation in China.
- patates 6y ago
  Oh, so the one against Uyghurs? I didn't know Germany didn't acknowledge that.

why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago

Mostly luxury goods? I strongly disagree. For example - many industries use/depend on machines and tools made in Germany.