3 ms·

Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. So, what's next? Demanding mcdonalds to pay the

Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. So, what's next? Demanding mcdonalds to pay the highway operator money, because people use a highway to drive to a mcdonalds?

sgift 4y ago
> Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. Because outrage motivates people. First, it motivates writers to write articles, so you even get to have an insight into law making without being motivated to research it yourself. Next, people who read something they don't like are motivated to post it here. For most topics at least one of these two steps is missing. Either no one writes about it (or only very niche websites without much reach) or people read it and "yeah, okay, nice" and go on with their day.
pornel 4y ago
It's a proposal, in a very early stage. There are lots of steps before any proposal can become a law. It's already strongly opposed, so it's very unlikely to go anywhere. It looks like the system is working fine. This proposal is pretty tame compared to proposals coming from the QAnon branch of the US government.
richrichardsson 4y ago
How exactly is this article painting the EU in a bad light? The Commission has proposed something that MEPs have pushed back against. Is that not democracy working? This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected. If anything the worst thing about the EU is that EU citizens generally can't be bothered to engage with that level of politics; this is how UKIP managed to appear like a real political party because they required relatively little support to get elected to the EU Parliament.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Because they can try many times, and it takes only one time for them to push it through.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected. But it is worrying that so often it is Parliament that curbs the EC. The EC is by design appointed not elected. This is a point of concern on democratic representation. The assumption is that the EC is appointed as a panel of experts. If our 'experts' are so often incompetent or worse pliable to industry lobby then it begs the question of who are we appointing to the EC?
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Yep, plus they can propose the same thing (stuff like this, or one of the many attempts to stop e2e encryption) many many times, and they only need for it to pass once, to make "going back" really hard.
  - richrichardsson 4y ago
    I can only speak with any kind of knowledge about the UK system, but doesn't it work with basically the same system? There are unelected bureaucrats appointed by the government who advise them on policies and how they should be implemented. If anything because of first past the post it's a worse system because those policies are likely to become law with the party whipping system. At least the EU is more broadly represented in the parliament, or have I misunderstood? Also my understanding was that the EC is appointed by the member state governments, so to some degree there is a slight aspect of democracy in that the member states governments were democratically elected. I'm not sure how exactly an individual EC representative holds their term? Can a newly elected member state government replace the existing EC member with a new one if they didn't like the one their opponents had installed?
    - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
      My issue is not so much that the system lacks democracy. In principle, EC members are appointed by government who consequently was elected into power by the people. What is worrying is that even for fairly low corruption countries, EC places have basically become 'jobs-for-the-boys' rather than appointing subject matter experts. You look at the bios, very few have taken a job other than professional politician, some have never left the brussels circle in their proffessional lives. These people can never be Healthcare experts, or Energy experts, or Environment experts. It's nonsensical!
krzyk 4y ago
Why every time? What about forcing usage of USB-C - this one is good, it lacks debth (e.g. I would extend it to e.g. trimmers) What about forcing Apple to open up to other payment providers and other app stores? What about slamming Google for anti competitive behavior (e.g forcing their product comparison)? What about slamming MS (and Google) for forcing preinstall of single browser? List goes on and on.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Meh, google and MS still do a lot of bad stuff, and forcing a browser is miniscule compared to all the personal data of EU users that they still gather. USB-C was somewhat better, but usb cables, be it micro, C or lightning are cheap, and light (not a lot of waste)... if they mandated user replacable batteries (the thing that usually fails first on a phone and is a pain to replace), the situation would be a lot better, from a consumer and also ecological standpoint.
  - lillecarl 4y ago
    Are you nullifying all the good things mentioned that EU has done because: "Meh those megacorps from shiny America are still doing shit"? The same goes for USB-C, forcing an interopable cable is easier than forcing replaceable batteries. * Integrated batteries occupies less space * Integrated batteries makes waterproofing phones easier There will be trade-offs people nor manufacturers would be willing to pay for serviceable phones. I have a Fairphone 4, and it's twice the thickness of another phone, worse battery life, camera, display (Though all are still good enough for me) but many people would not want a Fairphone.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      On one side you have megacorps gathering personal data of millions of europeans daily, even very private data, and EU is bothering with choosing default browsers, a thing that can be mitigated literally by just opening IE, typing "mozilla.org" in the url bar and pressing enter. So what if integrated batteries occupy less space, so do proprietary charge ports, and we used to have waterproof phones even with removable batteries (atleast a few samsungs could do both, back in the time). Replace the glued on back panel with a screwed in glass panel and a rubber gasket, and your 2year old phone will be given a new life in five minutes, compared to literally >100eur service job, making it usually not worth the replacement. I have no idea why your shitty camera has to do with newer phones being glued back together instead of scewed together. And yes, i'll stand my ground with batteries, because the battery is the only part of your phone that's guaranteed to fail with time, and with phone prices nearing 1k eur, not having easily replacable batteries is just another thing companies do to screw the user. I'd also mention headphone jacks, but some hipsters "assure" me that their mini bluetooth pods or whatever are comparable or better to wired high quality headphones.
krisoft 4y ago
> Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. Except this is not the EU doing something bad, but preventing something bad from happening.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Who proposed the "something bad"?

sgift 4y ago

> Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. Because outrage motivates people. First, it motivates writers to write articles, so you even get to have an insight into law making without being motivated to research it yourself. Next, people who read something they don't like are motivated to post it here. For most topics at least one of these two steps is missing. Either no one writes about it (or only very niche websites without much reach) or people read it and "yeah, okay, nice" and go on with their day.

pornel 4y ago

It's a proposal, in a very early stage. There are lots of steps before any proposal can become a law. It's already strongly opposed, so it's very unlikely to go anywhere. It looks like the system is working fine. This proposal is pretty tame compared to proposals coming from the QAnon branch of the US government.

richrichardsson 4y ago

How exactly is this article painting the EU in a bad light? The Commission has proposed something that MEPs have pushed back against. Is that not democracy working? This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected. If anything the worst thing about the EU is that EU citizens generally can't be bothered to engage with that level of politics; this is how UKIP managed to appear like a real political party because they required relatively little support to get elected to the EU Parliament.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Because they can try many times, and it takes only one time for them to push it through.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> This is probably not the first stupid thing the Commission has proposed that MEPs have rejected. But it is worrying that so often it is Parliament that curbs the EC. The EC is by design appointed not elected. This is a point of concern on democratic representation. The assumption is that the EC is appointed as a panel of experts. If our 'experts' are so often incompetent or worse pliable to industry lobby then it begs the question of who are we appointing to the EC?
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Yep, plus they can propose the same thing (stuff like this, or one of the many attempts to stop e2e encryption) many many times, and they only need for it to pass once, to make "going back" really hard.
- richrichardsson 4y ago
  I can only speak with any kind of knowledge about the UK system, but doesn't it work with basically the same system? There are unelected bureaucrats appointed by the government who advise them on policies and how they should be implemented. If anything because of first past the post it's a worse system because those policies are likely to become law with the party whipping system. At least the EU is more broadly represented in the parliament, or have I misunderstood? Also my understanding was that the EC is appointed by the member state governments, so to some degree there is a slight aspect of democracy in that the member states governments were democratically elected. I'm not sure how exactly an individual EC representative holds their term? Can a newly elected member state government replace the existing EC member with a new one if they didn't like the one their opponents had installed?
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    My issue is not so much that the system lacks democracy. In principle, EC members are appointed by government who consequently was elected into power by the people. What is worrying is that even for fairly low corruption countries, EC places have basically become 'jobs-for-the-boys' rather than appointing subject matter experts. You look at the bios, very few have taken a job other than professional politician, some have never left the brussels circle in their proffessional lives. These people can never be Healthcare experts, or Energy experts, or Environment experts. It's nonsensical!

krzyk 4y ago

Why every time? What about forcing usage of USB-C - this one is good, it lacks debth (e.g. I would extend it to e.g. trimmers) What about forcing Apple to open up to other payment providers and other app stores? What about slamming Google for anti competitive behavior (e.g forcing their product comparison)? What about slamming MS (and Google) for forcing preinstall of single browser? List goes on and on.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Meh, google and MS still do a lot of bad stuff, and forcing a browser is miniscule compared to all the personal data of EU users that they still gather. USB-C was somewhat better, but usb cables, be it micro, C or lightning are cheap, and light (not a lot of waste)... if they mandated user replacable batteries (the thing that usually fails first on a phone and is a pain to replace), the situation would be a lot better, from a consumer and also ecological standpoint.
- lillecarl 4y ago
  Are you nullifying all the good things mentioned that EU has done because: "Meh those megacorps from shiny America are still doing shit"? The same goes for USB-C, forcing an interopable cable is easier than forcing replaceable batteries. * Integrated batteries occupies less space * Integrated batteries makes waterproofing phones easier There will be trade-offs people nor manufacturers would be willing to pay for serviceable phones. I have a Fairphone 4, and it's twice the thickness of another phone, worse battery life, camera, display (Though all are still good enough for me) but many people would not want a Fairphone.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    On one side you have megacorps gathering personal data of millions of europeans daily, even very private data, and EU is bothering with choosing default browsers, a thing that can be mitigated literally by just opening IE, typing "mozilla.org" in the url bar and pressing enter. So what if integrated batteries occupy less space, so do proprietary charge ports, and we used to have waterproof phones even with removable batteries (atleast a few samsungs could do both, back in the time). Replace the glued on back panel with a screwed in glass panel and a rubber gasket, and your 2year old phone will be given a new life in five minutes, compared to literally >100eur service job, making it usually not worth the replacement. I have no idea why your shitty camera has to do with newer phones being glued back together instead of scewed together. And yes, i'll stand my ground with batteries, because the battery is the only part of your phone that's guaranteed to fail with time, and with phone prices nearing 1k eur, not having easily replacable batteries is just another thing companies do to screw the user. I'd also mention headphone jacks, but some hipsters "assure" me that their mini bluetooth pods or whatever are comparable or better to wired high quality headphones.

krisoft 4y ago

> Why is it every time I see "EU" anywhere in the title here on HN, it's them doing something really bad.. again. Except this is not the EU doing something bad, but preventing something bad from happening.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Who proposed the "something bad"?