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> A political organization like EU has no say in this. EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.
by doikor 4y ago
> A political organization like EU has no say in this.
EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.
- blue_light_man 4y ago
- palata 4y agoDoes it? I mean China is not exactly as free a market as the US, and I wouldn't say they are lagging horribly behind... on the contrary in many cases
- manuelmoreale 4y agoWhat does it mean to ”lag behind” when it comes to technology at a country/continental level?
- jonwinstanley 4y agoLack of legislation
- mburee 4y agoSomething to do with massive brain drain after/during WW2 and the Holocaust? At least for the atom bomb and spaceflight that seemed to be the case...
- nickpp 4y agoBrain drain continues today. Innovation happens in the US while EU... mandates charging connectors.
- PeterStuer 4y agoNo, that would be the US buying up every EU tech company that dares to become successful with free helicopter money.
- nickpp 4y agoOr maybe every EU tech company approaching success will voluntarily move to US, since that is where the (free) market is and that is where it can become successful.
- danielbln 4y agoWhere is this free market you speak of? Even the gung ho market of the US is regulated and by no means free. This thread really brought out the libertarians in droves.
- nickpp 4y agoThere are multiple markets and varying degrees of regulating them. But the universal constant is that the less regulated a market is the better for consumers and society.
- danielbln 4y agoThat's a bold statement and by no means a universal constant. If your rivers are on fire because there is no environmental regulation, then that is not good for society.
- nickpp 4y agoGood example! Environmental regulation managed to drive manufacturing out of developed countries making them vulnerable to less scrupulous, unfriendly regimes while merely shifting the environmental impact elsewhere. The correct solution was, of course, taxing externalities like pollution and CO2. That would've allowed the free market to search for solutions naturally and locally. That is my main qualm with regulations: they are a brute force imposed solution which solves the perceived problem on the short term while doing damage and 2nd order effects on the long term.
- danielbln 4y ago
- remus 4y agoYou could flip it round and say that's why the US is lagging behind the EU in environmental protection and consumer rights. I suspect the correct answer is somewhere between the two approaches.
- School-Cotton 4y agoThe amount by which the EU is better than the US in environmental protection is basically a rounding error relative to what’s actually necessary to stop climate change. You might as well say they’re equal.
- _abox 4y agoClimate change is far from the only environmental problem have. Sure, it's the biggest but also the biggest to solve. And the EU has had a consistent push to solve it, unlike the US, which for instance during the Trump era pulled out of the Paris accord.
- blue_light_man 4y agoThe solution for climate change would come from technology. Not random politicians virtue signalling and signing useless agreements which doesn't make any meaningful difference.
- p_j_w 4y agoWe've known about climate change for decades and global CO2 output has only increased. Just assuming technology will solve it is foolish.
- palata 4y agoTechnology is the problem, not the solution. Doing more technology increases the problem, as can been seen from the data over the last decades. What you're looking for is magic. Magic would solve it.
- 4y ago
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- poulpy123 4y ago
- nosianu 4y agoThe continent that provides companies like ASML and plenty of machinery in general, and is regularly in the news - not just now with the Nobel Price - when it comes to bio-tech? Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, sure, but there is plenty of IT inside the machines. You are too concentrated on some very hip consumer companies and don't see the vast ocean of important businesses in the middle, that don't have much or any consumer contact. Where is your evidence? What a horrible contribution to the discussion, both divisive (and without reason, out of nowhere), and of the lowest quality. I actually went through the trouble and looked for the evidence missing from your post. If anything we need to look at Asia most of all. Also because at least for Germany, where through decades long contacts I witnessed some of it personally, we (Germany) transferred significant know-how to China quite voluntarily, and our big companies still insist on continuing to invest there even when many smaller businesses have become far more cautious. Link: https://www.reuters.com/world/german-dependence-china-growing-tremendous-pace-iw-2022-08-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/german-dependence-china-growin... (German dependence on China growing "at tremendous pace" - paywalled) Here's some, mostly opinion pieces so YMMV (I'm missing rigorous data and statistics with explanations of what they measured, these article are all too "freeform" for my taste): - https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/securing-europes-competitiveness-addressing-its-technology-gap https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate... - https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40865726.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-4... Somewhat better: - https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/europes-capacity-act-global-tech-race https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/europes-capacity-a... However, we also have https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03318-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03318-w so it's not so easy to make definitive statements about everything.
- jiscariot 4y agoWhat about the EU contributions to the web stack, like requiring every website on the internet forcing an accept cookies mouse click?
- throw0101a 4y ago> Sure. It also explains why EU is lagging horribly behind the US when it comes to technology. Probably because the EU (government(s)) doesn't sink as much money in to research as the US government. The technology of the US was built on Cold War spending: * https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ Most of the tech we used in our day to day lives was also created with government spending: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State
- mountainriver 4y agoI think you would have a very hard time proving this without leveraging monetary policy. Sure some low level components are and companies built on top of that but it doesn’t mean the tech I’m using is supplied by the US government. Pretty much all the tech I use comes from the private sector
- palata 4y agoYou mean, like the Internet? Or GPS? Also the US government is injecting a ton of money into private companies, so it's not necessarily visible.
- mountainriver 4y agoyes the internet and GPS were created by the government, but a bunch of other stuff isn't
- GoldenMonkey 4y agoAnd why do I have to click on the stupid popup on cookies for every freaking website. Thank you EU...
- triceratops 4y agoAt least now you have a choice. If you don't like the popups, there are extensions to kill them.
- crote 4y agoThank the website instead. They only have to ask you if they want to track you. Hacker News does not show a cookie popup, for example, because they have no intention of tracking you.
- palata 4y agoWell the stupid popup is coming from the stupid website. If they stopped collecting data they mostly don't use (let's be honest, most websites probably don't do anything useful with most of the data), then they would not have to show the popup.
- triceratops 4y agoLagging horribly in what way?
- kmlx 4y ago> and most people living within it without a referendum on such issues these kinds of statements are moot. i'm also an EU citizen and this thing (along with many other EU decisions) are in the same dystopian vein as the covid fiasco in europe.
- muro 4y agoIt's not that different than saying what the power plug need to look like.
- kmlx 4y agowe do not have the same power plug in all of the countries as every country has it's own requirements, sets of rules etc. in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best. the EU should probably force everyone to adopt it, no? :)
- rcarr 4y agoGiven the state of the world it’s never going to happen but I honestly think that there should be an attempt at standardising plug sockets across the world. It is kind of ridiculous that that there are 15 different types of socket. What is anyone gaining from this madness?
- MichaelCollins 4y agoA one-to-one mapping between standard plugs and standard wall power makes a lot of sense. But different standards of wall power should not share a single plug; that's just asking for trouble. As for global standardization of wall power; maybe in an ideal world. But in reality, it would cost a ton (way more than merely replacing plugs and outlets) and doesn't seem worth it.
- palata 4y agoWhile entire countries will keep the imperial system versus the metric system, I'll never believe in global standardisation. Even if it's strictly better, there will always be a cost to changing, and therefore not everyone will agree.
- zamalek 4y agoExactly, which means the political system is doing its job. Politics was invented to most efficiently express the desires of the people. If the people want more political control, then it is the job of politics to do so. If they don't, then politics should avoid it. The only reason this is muddled in America is because the people don't agree on to what degree the politics should control things.
- enriquec 4y ago