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There is always bashing if there is something about the EU and its national projects, not always deserved. However sometimes I wished HN showed more of local pr

by kensai 4y ago

There is always bashing if there is something about the EU and its national projects, not always deserved. However sometimes I wished HN showed more of local projects. For example: has there been a post about the European AI? https://www.aleph-alpha.com/ https://www.aleph-alpha.com/

js4ever 4y ago
Maybe because it's always in response to, and generally a failed copy costing billions to Europeans because of bureaucrats?
- jevgeni 4y ago
  Or maybe it's because HN crowd parrot the same groupthink like reddit? /s
- eastbound 4y ago
  or we need a European chip manufacturer, so we take the most pathetic legacy brand around, and give it billions to build chips from the old generation. Oh, hi Intel!
- justeleblanc 4y ago
  Any examples you'd care to elaborate about?
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    Galileo might be a good example to discuss in this context.
    - justeleblanc 4y ago
      Are you talking about the satellite navigation system that's been usable and widely used for about a decade? The one that gives location data ten times more precise than GPS (1m vs 10m)? That's a "failed copy costing billions to Europeans"? Really?
      - betaby 4y ago
        Galileo was down for 5 days in a row in 2019. I won't go in to the details of other issues of, for that Bert Hubert's blog is a good start.
        justeleblanc 4y ago
        Now that's an indictment! One major outage in nearly a decade. Better write off the whole programme as a waste of money. Meanwhile the whole US government gets shut down seemingly every other year.
        betaby 4y ago
        Are we still on the satellite communications subject?
        justeleblanc 4y ago
        Yes, we are. Why?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        Because GPS has never been shut down, to my knowledge.
        uoaei 4y ago
        Can you be more specific on how exactly this one-dimensional evaluation of a resolved issue contributes to your argument?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        Because who wants to rely on a navigation system which occasionally goes down for nearly a week?
- permo-w 4y ago
  “because of bureaucrats”. with such a nuanced justification, perhaps you should consider the solidity of your position
  - waihtis 4y ago
    Bureaucrats -> Horizon and the other incredibly murky EU funding programs that a good bunch of these projects come from, with the ”businesses” ending up only having the lifespan of whatever runway they have been able to build with EU funding I presume thats the gripe with a lot of these ”EU” technologies
    - sergiomattei 4y ago
      And that’s very different from all the startup grants every other country does?
- wafngar 4y ago
  US has no bureaucrats? All the EU member states, no bureaucrats? How many projects in member states cost the tax payer billions? Btw the EU budget is tiny in comparison.
Deukhoofd 4y ago
It's honestly got to the point where I barely open comments related to EU projects any more. While most of the time there's somewhat nuanced discussions in comments, once the EU gets mentioned for some reason most of the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better", and "Big government bad", completely ignoring the actual contents of what the post it about.
- PicassoCTs 4y ago
  A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? Both are heavily state subsidized, so it is not that. There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, and then runs without creating something for the value extracted. It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.
  - emilburzo 4y ago
    > Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely: > "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]" Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boeing#Summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
    - ginko 4y ago
      I've heard one theory that the merger with McDonnell Douglas swept the bean-counters from there into executive positions ruining the engineering focus at Boeing.
0xDEF 4y ago
Also Stable Diffusion is made by a German organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion
- hef19898 4y ago
  TIL!
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
mi_lk 4y ago
I mean... DeepMind has its fair share of AI exposure
mardifoufs 4y ago
This is a bit crazy to me since it seems like there is a constant, almost never ending praise for everything related to Europe here. But I totally get that it's probably a difference in what topic we browse and what comments we read, so your experience is just as valid. I guess it's just surprising to me!
- permo-w 4y ago
  that’s strange. every EU-related thread I’ve ever seen has had highly ranked comments poo-pooing whatever it is they’re planning to do. what’s your position on the EU? perhaps I notice the negative comments more because I’m very pro-EU, and vv for you?
  - Pungsnigel 4y ago
    Well EU != Europe for one. I’m positive to Europe, (mostly) negative on EU. Could be you are both right.
    - coutego 4y ago
      You are right: here in the EU we often refer to ourselves as 'Europeans', thus implicitly excluding people from the non EU part of Europe. That's inacurate (and a bit disrespecful to non-UE Europeans, if you ask me). For that reason I try to always use the expressions 'EU' and 'EU citizen' instead of 'Europe' and 'European'. Which reminds me that USA != America, also. It would be perfect we should not have to deduce from context when 'American' refers to anyone from the whole continent, from Canada to Chile, or just someone from the US. I guess it would be more practical to use 'US' and 'US citizen', for clarity...
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    I think the EU is ultimately the best option for europeans.Though I also think that it will always be prone to making super weird or counterproductive decisions by design (steering a ship with 27 different rudders will always be hard). I guess I have a generally slightly negative opinion of Europe (or more accurately, of the portrayal of Europe I generally see online), having lived there for a little while. I guess it's that I honestly see a lot, lot more of harsh america bashing than criticism of europe. But ultimately, I'm a bit of an outsider to both the US and Europe and it might be that the constant, louder "america bad" makes eu bashing less apparent to me.
dmix 4y ago
You're surprised a headline like "The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink" from "reneweuropegroup.eu" [1] stirs up nationalistic mud flinging? It's silly to blame HN for this. This sort of headline is just asking for the conversation to be derailed. Which is exactly why your comment is #1 and the comments below it are quickly derailing into it's own version of EU vs US. [1] which is apparently a political group's website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe
kypro 4y ago
This article and your link reek of, "but Europe can do it too". I don't know why the EU / Europe can't just do interesting things without coming across as so desperate to prove something – can we not just start a cool AI company without branding it a "European AI company", as if that's something so unlikely we should be proud of it? An AI company started by kids would be something worth noting, an AI company started by the world's most prosperous and well educated continent is kinda cringy. I can't think of a single American company which does this.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by kensai 4y ago

js4ever 4y ago

Maybe because it's always in response to, and generally a failed copy costing billions to Europeans because of bureaucrats?

jevgeni 4y ago
Or maybe it's because HN crowd parrot the same groupthink like reddit? /s
eastbound 4y ago
or we need a European chip manufacturer, so we take the most pathetic legacy brand around, and give it billions to build chips from the old generation. Oh, hi Intel!
justeleblanc 4y ago
Any examples you'd care to elaborate about?
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Galileo might be a good example to discuss in this context.
  - justeleblanc 4y ago
    Are you talking about the satellite navigation system that's been usable and widely used for about a decade? The one that gives location data ten times more precise than GPS (1m vs 10m)? That's a "failed copy costing billions to Europeans"? Really?
    - betaby 4y ago
      Galileo was down for 5 days in a row in 2019. I won't go in to the details of other issues of, for that Bert Hubert's blog is a good start.
      - justeleblanc 4y ago
        Now that's an indictment! One major outage in nearly a decade. Better write off the whole programme as a waste of money. Meanwhile the whole US government gets shut down seemingly every other year.
        betaby 4y ago
        Are we still on the satellite communications subject?
        justeleblanc 4y ago
        Yes, we are. Why?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        Because GPS has never been shut down, to my knowledge.
        uoaei 4y ago
        Can you be more specific on how exactly this one-dimensional evaluation of a resolved issue contributes to your argument?
        sebzim4500 4y ago
        Because who wants to rely on a navigation system which occasionally goes down for nearly a week?
permo-w 4y ago
“because of bureaucrats”. with such a nuanced justification, perhaps you should consider the solidity of your position
- waihtis 4y ago
  Bureaucrats -> Horizon and the other incredibly murky EU funding programs that a good bunch of these projects come from, with the ”businesses” ending up only having the lifespan of whatever runway they have been able to build with EU funding I presume thats the gripe with a lot of these ”EU” technologies
  - sergiomattei 4y ago
    And that’s very different from all the startup grants every other country does?
wafngar 4y ago
US has no bureaucrats? All the EU member states, no bureaucrats? How many projects in member states cost the tax payer billions? Btw the EU budget is tiny in comparison.

Deukhoofd 4y ago

It's honestly got to the point where I barely open comments related to EU projects any more. While most of the time there's somewhat nuanced discussions in comments, once the EU gets mentioned for some reason most of the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better", and "Big government bad", completely ignoring the actual contents of what the post it about.

PicassoCTs 4y ago
A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? Both are heavily state subsidized, so it is not that. There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, and then runs without creating something for the value extracted. It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.
- emilburzo 4y ago
  > Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely: > "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]" Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boeing#Summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
  - ginko 4y ago
    I've heard one theory that the merger with McDonnell Douglas swept the bean-counters from there into executive positions ruining the engineering focus at Boeing.

0xDEF 4y ago

Also Stable Diffusion is made by a German organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion

hef19898 4y ago
TIL!

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

mi_lk 4y ago

I mean... DeepMind has its fair share of AI exposure

mardifoufs 4y ago

This is a bit crazy to me since it seems like there is a constant, almost never ending praise for everything related to Europe here. But I totally get that it's probably a difference in what topic we browse and what comments we read, so your experience is just as valid. I guess it's just surprising to me!

permo-w 4y ago
that’s strange. every EU-related thread I’ve ever seen has had highly ranked comments poo-pooing whatever it is they’re planning to do. what’s your position on the EU? perhaps I notice the negative comments more because I’m very pro-EU, and vv for you?
- Pungsnigel 4y ago
  Well EU != Europe for one. I’m positive to Europe, (mostly) negative on EU. Could be you are both right.
  - coutego 4y ago
    You are right: here in the EU we often refer to ourselves as 'Europeans', thus implicitly excluding people from the non EU part of Europe. That's inacurate (and a bit disrespecful to non-UE Europeans, if you ask me). For that reason I try to always use the expressions 'EU' and 'EU citizen' instead of 'Europe' and 'European'. Which reminds me that USA != America, also. It would be perfect we should not have to deduce from context when 'American' refers to anyone from the whole continent, from Canada to Chile, or just someone from the US. I guess it would be more practical to use 'US' and 'US citizen', for clarity...
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  I think the EU is ultimately the best option for europeans.Though I also think that it will always be prone to making super weird or counterproductive decisions by design (steering a ship with 27 different rudders will always be hard). I guess I have a generally slightly negative opinion of Europe (or more accurately, of the portrayal of Europe I generally see online), having lived there for a little while. I guess it's that I honestly see a lot, lot more of harsh america bashing than criticism of europe. But ultimately, I'm a bit of an outsider to both the US and Europe and it might be that the constant, louder "america bad" makes eu bashing less apparent to me.

dmix 4y ago

You're surprised a headline like "The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink" from "reneweuropegroup.eu" [1] stirs up nationalistic mud flinging? It's silly to blame HN for this. This sort of headline is just asking for the conversation to be derailed. Which is exactly why your comment is #1 and the comments below it are quickly derailing into it's own version of EU vs US. [1] which is apparently a political group's website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe

kypro 4y ago

This article and your link reek of, "but Europe can do it too". I don't know why the EU / Europe can't just do interesting things without coming across as so desperate to prove something – can we not just start a cool AI company without branding it a "European AI company", as if that's something so unlikely we should be proud of it? An AI company started by kids would be something worth noting, an AI company started by the world's most prosperous and well educated continent is kinda cringy. I can't think of a single American company which does this.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]