7 ms·

Hacker news: the place where Americans find out about current and future EU legislation through the lens of propaganda from American corporations.

by oblio 2y ago

realusername 2y ago
That's called the Brussels effect and I'm not sure why it's still relatively unknown. The EU has a massive influence on standards all around the world
- PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago
  Don't tell the Brexiteers
  - ozim 2y ago
    Real Brexiteers were bankers. There were rumors that because UK is leaving many banks from London City will move to Germany or Belgium or the Netherlands. They did not because they actually did not want to be regulated by EU and UK can serve rich people better while poor people got it worse. Under the guise that poor less educated people wanted brexit… where they were brainwashed.
    - red_admiral 2y ago
      Some of them. There are not enough bankers in the UK to produce the turnout for leave that we saw. There were also a lot of people whose main motivation was "f*** the system", and they sort of succeeded, even if they ended up worse off as a result. It makes me think that the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system". It turns out a mob with torches might also set fire to the parts you like.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system" They are the most obvious example of "saw off the branch you're sitting on" I can think of.
    - alt227 2y ago
      Which might be true if they werent all now leaving https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/18/business/uk-millionaires-loss-record/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/18/business/uk-millionaires-... https://www.ft.com/content/383587ee-5b31-4549-9392-2f0b4612ef8b https://www.ft.com/content/383587ee-5b31-4549-9392-2f0b4612e...
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      The british financial industry has been one of the harder hit by brexit: London has effectively lost its status as the biggest financial hub in Europe. So if that was their plan it was a bad one.
      - mminer237 2y ago
        London is still the biggest financial hub in Europe: https://www.longfinance.net/media/documents/GFCI_34_Report_2022.09.28_v1.0.pdf#page=6 https://www.longfinance.net/media/documents/GFCI_34_Report_2...
    - lucozade 2y ago
      > They did not because they actually did not want to be regulated by EU That's not how banking regulation works though. If a bank wants to do business in the EU, and all the big banks do, then they have to have entities regulated by the relevant EU regulators. Prior to Brexit, it was ok for a bank to be regulated by the PRA or FCA to trade in the EU. Post Brexit, they need to have entities with banking licenses that are subject to EU regulators. And that's what they did: they set up banking entities in Germany, France, Ireland etc. And they moved/hired staff into those countries to support that activity (if they weren't there already). They didn't wholesale move out of London for 2 reasons: The UK is a big market and there is a large pool of skilled people in London that it wouldn't make sense to ignore. > Real Brexiteers were bankers Right. Bankers famously want their ill gotten gains to go to taxation, duty and red tape rather than into their own pockets. They lobby hard for extra regulation, multiple, diverse, enforcement regimes and multiple, diverse taxation regimes. They also want their customers' money to be going to taxation, duty and red tape so that they can't spend it on banking services. Because bankers are famously altruistic like that. To paraphrase Pauli, the idea that the finance sector, esp in the UK, wanted Brexit is not even wrong.
    - panick21_ 2y ago
      No. Not really actually. Brexit was a democratic vote. Maybe some banks invested some money to push Brexit. But its pretty clear that overwhelmingly immigration was what the Brexit voting base actually cared about. Overwhelming most people in banking are conventional liberals. They live in big cities and are internationalists. Maybe the very elite of the richest banks thought that way, but not bankers broadly.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > That's called the Brussels effect and I'm not sure why it's still relatively unknown. Even before the EU existed, certain American states ended up as de-facto national standard setters for certain products. If that phenomenon was destined to become a popular term with broad awareness and acceptance, I think it would have happened already.
isodev 2y ago
News are always easier to ingest as short, reactionary comments.
- oblio 2y ago
  I'm guessing you're making fun of me, too, for my reaction? :-p I'll expand, then. The EU demands USB charging for mobile devices, Apple didn't suddenly become good. The EU demands longer software updates for mobile devices, Samsung nor Google didn't become angels all of a sudden. Similar situation here. Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. And then corporations turn it around as their "largesse".
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. But the anarcho-capitalists told me that market will fix it all on its own if only we let corporations do whatever they want and not burden them with regulations! It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right?
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      >It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. Because HN is full of 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires'[1]. A lot of people here are either vested in big tech or see themselves creating the next big-tech in the future hoping to become the next Steve Jobs. They saw how the likes of Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft got super rich through exploiting various legal and market loopholes, so they see these upcoming regulations as a threat to their own enrichment. Kind of like technological NIMBYism. It's difficult to have unbiased discussions on big-tech regulations when many here have built their wealth or careers on big-tech being deregulated and exploiting every trick in the book, and now suddenly get to watch as the ladder is pulled from under them shuddering at the though that SW engineering will be paid like other professions (like in Europe) instead of being a professional get-rich quick ticket it was/still is for now. [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_millionaire https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_mil...
ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
[flagged]
endisneigh 2y ago
The real irony is people from the EU frequenting a forum enabled by American Capitalism and likely using an operating system made by American capitalists. Why not use one of the many EU mastodon instances, with Maemo and exclusively open source and EU tech?
- oblio 2y ago
  America has a set of very specific circumstances out of which capitalism is only one big factor and most of the others can't really be reproduced elsewhere. Huge access to two oceans (basically can't ever be blockaded - not reproducible by say, Germany), massive amount of raw resources (probably only outdone by Russia - not reproducible by, for example, Japan), huge population (#3 in the world - not reproducible by, for example, Switzerland). The US has a large well educated middle class, which is probably it's greatest independent achievement, but let's not forget that other countries just couldn't do what the US did, due to factors outside their control. Germany could become hyper capitalistic tomorrow and it still couldn't frack its way to oil and gas independence. Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. I wouldn't just pat myself on the back as an American. Not everything is a factor of what Americans themselves did. On top of that, to put it in neutral terms, not everything given by the US is a net plus. The US invented the transistor but it also invented spam and selling private data.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Imperial Germany had a lots more people and lots more resources. Had they not totally and fundamentally fucked up (driven by their own zero-sum thinking) they could have absolutely been a global power not unlike the US. > huge population (#3 in the world - not reproducible by, for example, Switzerland) We are getting immigration, just give us time, we will catch up anytime now. > Germany could become hyper capitalistic tomorrow and it still couldn't frack its way to oil and gas independence. Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. Actually they could. Because there is plenty of Thorium. And if you have good nuclear and chemical engineering in Thorium there is absolutely no reason why you couldn't be 100% energy independent. Its not even that difficult I would argue, all the necessary technology has existed for 40+ years. It just requires long term sustained investment. France made itself independent of carbon based energy in its electricity sector within less then 20 years. And if they had just continued to push on that, 20 more years could have replaced all other uses of carbon power. They just didn't. Replace heat production with electric heaters and heat pumps. Electric cars wouldn't have been ready, but using high-temperature nuclear reactors to create chemical fuel is totally possible and pretty efficient when operating on large scale. Regulation to require cars to be able to operate with 80% methanol isn't that hard and most engines can handle that. Like not as cheap as Saudi oil. But with lots of follow on benefits from local investment. Being the most advanced country terms of nuclear engineering and green fuel production. Like well position for other chemical and nuclear advances. Fracking isn't the only way to energy independence. > Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. Food is something you can import, and Germany can import if from many different areas. Its hard to blockade Germany. It basically needs two other Great powers to be against them, and that only happens if they are trying to be expansionist. > also invented spam and selling private data. That is certainty not true.
dev1ycan 2y ago
Yep, I saw LTT talking about how Microsoft "improved" to an 8/10 and automatically knew this was another case of LTT USwashing EU regulations. Don't even get me started how they started using one individual incident about privacy to instantly say "well you know Apple with their garbage excuses might be right since this one individual incident showed the EU is evil!" It's really ridiculous, imagine being Apple and knowing that all it takes is to pay off one politician to propose a really dumb and intrusive law to discourage an entire movement pro user control and choice.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
What's an example of a better country? For people, not corporations.
- oblio 2y ago
  It depends on what you value. For rugged individualism, it's still the US :-)
MacD83 2y ago
Is this the EU regulation? https://repair.eu/news/new-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation-espr-what-does-it-mean-for-repair/ https://repair.eu/news/new-ecodesign-for-sustainable-product...
- oblio 2y ago
  Yes, that should be the one. The article seems fairly good, it even links the actual EU law: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0303_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0303...

Hacker news: the place where Americans find out about current and future EU legislation through the lens of propaganda from American corporations.

by oblio 2y ago

Hacker news: the place where Americans find out about current and future EU legislation through the lens of propaganda from American corporations.

realusername 2y ago

That's called the Brussels effect and I'm not sure why it's still relatively unknown. The EU has a massive influence on standards all around the world

PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago
Don't tell the Brexiteers
- ozim 2y ago
  Real Brexiteers were bankers. There were rumors that because UK is leaving many banks from London City will move to Germany or Belgium or the Netherlands. They did not because they actually did not want to be regulated by EU and UK can serve rich people better while poor people got it worse. Under the guise that poor less educated people wanted brexit… where they were brainwashed.
  - red_admiral 2y ago
    Some of them. There are not enough bankers in the UK to produce the turnout for leave that we saw. There were also a lot of people whose main motivation was "f*** the system", and they sort of succeeded, even if they ended up worse off as a result. It makes me think that the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system". It turns out a mob with torches might also set fire to the parts you like.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system" They are the most obvious example of "saw off the branch you're sitting on" I can think of.
  - alt227 2y ago
    Which might be true if they werent all now leaving https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/18/business/uk-millionaires-loss-record/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/18/business/uk-millionaires-... https://www.ft.com/content/383587ee-5b31-4549-9392-2f0b4612ef8b https://www.ft.com/content/383587ee-5b31-4549-9392-2f0b4612e...
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    The british financial industry has been one of the harder hit by brexit: London has effectively lost its status as the biggest financial hub in Europe. So if that was their plan it was a bad one.
    - mminer237 2y ago
      London is still the biggest financial hub in Europe: https://www.longfinance.net/media/documents/GFCI_34_Report_2022.09.28_v1.0.pdf#page=6 https://www.longfinance.net/media/documents/GFCI_34_Report_2...
  - lucozade 2y ago
    > They did not because they actually did not want to be regulated by EU That's not how banking regulation works though. If a bank wants to do business in the EU, and all the big banks do, then they have to have entities regulated by the relevant EU regulators. Prior to Brexit, it was ok for a bank to be regulated by the PRA or FCA to trade in the EU. Post Brexit, they need to have entities with banking licenses that are subject to EU regulators. And that's what they did: they set up banking entities in Germany, France, Ireland etc. And they moved/hired staff into those countries to support that activity (if they weren't there already). They didn't wholesale move out of London for 2 reasons: The UK is a big market and there is a large pool of skilled people in London that it wouldn't make sense to ignore. > Real Brexiteers were bankers Right. Bankers famously want their ill gotten gains to go to taxation, duty and red tape rather than into their own pockets. They lobby hard for extra regulation, multiple, diverse, enforcement regimes and multiple, diverse taxation regimes. They also want their customers' money to be going to taxation, duty and red tape so that they can't spend it on banking services. Because bankers are famously altruistic like that. To paraphrase Pauli, the idea that the finance sector, esp in the UK, wanted Brexit is not even wrong.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    No. Not really actually. Brexit was a democratic vote. Maybe some banks invested some money to push Brexit. But its pretty clear that overwhelmingly immigration was what the Brexit voting base actually cared about. Overwhelming most people in banking are conventional liberals. They live in big cities and are internationalists. Maybe the very elite of the richest banks thought that way, but not bankers broadly.
Terr_ 2y ago
> That's called the Brussels effect and I'm not sure why it's still relatively unknown. Even before the EU existed, certain American states ended up as de-facto national standard setters for certain products. If that phenomenon was destined to become a popular term with broad awareness and acceptance, I think it would have happened already.

isodev 2y ago

News are always easier to ingest as short, reactionary comments.

oblio 2y ago
I'm guessing you're making fun of me, too, for my reaction? :-p I'll expand, then. The EU demands USB charging for mobile devices, Apple didn't suddenly become good. The EU demands longer software updates for mobile devices, Samsung nor Google didn't become angels all of a sudden. Similar situation here. Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. And then corporations turn it around as their "largesse".
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Everything needs to be dragged away from them, one painful law at a time. But the anarcho-capitalists told me that market will fix it all on its own if only we let corporations do whatever they want and not burden them with regulations! It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. I get the aversion to taxation on a primal level, but surely nobody with any work and life experience can believe in that, right?
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >It's honestly shocking to me how many anarcho-capitalists there are, especially here on HN. Because HN is full of 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires'[1]. A lot of people here are either vested in big tech or see themselves creating the next big-tech in the future hoping to become the next Steve Jobs. They saw how the likes of Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft got super rich through exploiting various legal and market loopholes, so they see these upcoming regulations as a threat to their own enrichment. Kind of like technological NIMBYism. It's difficult to have unbiased discussions on big-tech regulations when many here have built their wealth or careers on big-tech being deregulated and exploiting every trick in the book, and now suddenly get to watch as the ladder is pulled from under them shuddering at the though that SW engineering will be paid like other professions (like in Europe) instead of being a professional get-rich quick ticket it was/still is for now. [1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_millionaire https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/temporarily_embarrassed_mil...

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago

[flagged]

endisneigh 2y ago

The real irony is people from the EU frequenting a forum enabled by American Capitalism and likely using an operating system made by American capitalists. Why not use one of the many EU mastodon instances, with Maemo and exclusively open source and EU tech?

oblio 2y ago
America has a set of very specific circumstances out of which capitalism is only one big factor and most of the others can't really be reproduced elsewhere. Huge access to two oceans (basically can't ever be blockaded - not reproducible by say, Germany), massive amount of raw resources (probably only outdone by Russia - not reproducible by, for example, Japan), huge population (#3 in the world - not reproducible by, for example, Switzerland). The US has a large well educated middle class, which is probably it's greatest independent achievement, but let's not forget that other countries just couldn't do what the US did, due to factors outside their control. Germany could become hyper capitalistic tomorrow and it still couldn't frack its way to oil and gas independence. Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. I wouldn't just pat myself on the back as an American. Not everything is a factor of what Americans themselves did. On top of that, to put it in neutral terms, not everything given by the US is a net plus. The US invented the transistor but it also invented spam and selling private data.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Imperial Germany had a lots more people and lots more resources. Had they not totally and fundamentally fucked up (driven by their own zero-sum thinking) they could have absolutely been a global power not unlike the US. > huge population (#3 in the world - not reproducible by, for example, Switzerland) We are getting immigration, just give us time, we will catch up anytime now. > Germany could become hyper capitalistic tomorrow and it still couldn't frack its way to oil and gas independence. Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. Actually they could. Because there is plenty of Thorium. And if you have good nuclear and chemical engineering in Thorium there is absolutely no reason why you couldn't be 100% energy independent. Its not even that difficult I would argue, all the necessary technology has existed for 40+ years. It just requires long term sustained investment. France made itself independent of carbon based energy in its electricity sector within less then 20 years. And if they had just continued to push on that, 20 more years could have replaced all other uses of carbon power. They just didn't. Replace heat production with electric heaters and heat pumps. Electric cars wouldn't have been ready, but using high-temperature nuclear reactors to create chemical fuel is totally possible and pretty efficient when operating on large scale. Regulation to require cars to be able to operate with 80% methanol isn't that hard and most engines can handle that. Like not as cheap as Saudi oil. But with lots of follow on benefits from local investment. Being the most advanced country terms of nuclear engineering and green fuel production. Like well position for other chemical and nuclear advances. Fracking isn't the only way to energy independence. > Or produce food for 300 million people if it integrated that many immigrants. Food is something you can import, and Germany can import if from many different areas. Its hard to blockade Germany. It basically needs two other Great powers to be against them, and that only happens if they are trying to be expansionist. > also invented spam and selling private data. That is certainty not true.

dev1ycan 2y ago

Yep, I saw LTT talking about how Microsoft "improved" to an 8/10 and automatically knew this was another case of LTT USwashing EU regulations. Don't even get me started how they started using one individual incident about privacy to instantly say "well you know Apple with their garbage excuses might be right since this one individual incident showed the EU is evil!" It's really ridiculous, imagine being Apple and knowing that all it takes is to pay off one politician to propose a really dumb and intrusive law to discourage an entire movement pro user control and choice.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

What's an example of a better country? For people, not corporations.

oblio 2y ago
It depends on what you value. For rugged individualism, it's still the US :-)

MacD83 2y ago

Is this the EU regulation? https://repair.eu/news/new-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation-espr-what-does-it-mean-for-repair/ https://repair.eu/news/new-ecodesign-for-sustainable-product...

oblio 2y ago
Yes, that should be the one. The article seems fairly good, it even links the actual EU law: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0303_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0303...