3 ms·

The problem is that we have spent 40 years adopting US technology, across multiple generations of software developers and decision makers, while everyone was su

by pjmlp 1mo ago

The problem is that we have spent 40 years adopting US technology, across multiple generations of software developers and decision makers, while everyone was supposedly on the same side. It will take similar amount of years to go back into the cold war heterogeneous computing landscape of the 60, early 90s. This assuming there would be an willingness across all European countries to actually push for that, and not jump out when it gets too hard and search for compromises instead. This is why most sovereignty initiatives focus mostly on SaaS products and hardly on actual computing devices.

sajithdilshan 1mo ago
Even if EU countries want to push for their own solutions, the biggest problem is the capital. The governments cannot fund this with tax payers money because they have other critical problems to solve and private companies only go far if they can make a profit. Only time will tell how far this sovereign movement would go. Maybe when the US would have a president/government from the Democratic Party someday in the future. EU would cozy up again to US and go back to how things were. There’s no permanent enemies or allies when it comes to politics and at the end of the day it all revolves around money
- pessimizer 1mo ago
  > The governments cannot fund this with tax payers money because they have other critical problems to solve The governments can's solve this problem because the entire economic model of the EU is that the core exploits the periphery, who don't have a currency that they can weaken as a response. If they had a strong democratic central government and a real central bank in the EU, they'd be forced to make transfer payments to the weaker members, and to bail them out (losing the leverage to make elite demands on them.) The EU as a whole could easily solve the problem, they have the population, the talent, and the infrastructure. They're just really docile from the CIA and their own elite cliques working on them for the better part of a century. > Only time will tell how far this sovereign movement would go. There is none. Blah blah blah in the media isn't a "sovereign movement." It's a campaign to get you to vote for the same middle of the road radical centrist neocons served on a substrate of normie-relaxing anti-Trump rhetoric.
mrits 1mo ago
The current Europe strategy seems to be to pay software engineers less money and hope for a superior product. I'm not sure how you'd catch up when some of your engineers literally make less than our fast food workers.
- pjmlp 1mo ago
  I rather have 30 day vacations, a proper life with 40h work week, healthcare, union membership, than SV salaries, which are nontheless an exception, most of the developers, that aren't even properly accredited Software Engineers, get the same salary as most office workers. In which country do fast food workers get higher salaries than office workers, unless we are talking about tourism industry outside Europe, with said workers getting tips in Euros and Dollars instead of local currency?
  - iteria 1mo ago
    I'm American and I take 30 days of PTO a year. I get paid the national median for pay, but that still puts me in the top 10% of _household_ incomes for my state. I have good healthcare and benefits. Hell, I got sick last year and took 2 months off from work paid because my company has the policies to cover that and then I came back and it was fine. Like, I find SV culture and living to be a cancer, but I'm just saying as someone who doesn't live in a top 10 city in the US with a MCOL, I struggle to think of how working as a software engineer in the EU would be better. It's been over 10 years since that 2 weeks PTO nonsense applied to tech. I don't even have a fancy job. I work for a bank.
    - mitxela 1mo ago
      Your bosses can only afford to give you that and high salary because they aren't giving it to everyone.
  - petcat 1mo ago
    > I rather have 30 day vacations, a proper life with 40h work week, healthcare, union membership, than SV salaries This is an appeal to mediocrity and it doesn't really hold when comparing EU to Silicon Valley tech jobs. Young engineers in the Silicon Valley (or NYC, or Seattle) have excellent health care, generous vacation and other benefits, and they also make substantially more money. Why would a young, ambitious engineering graduate care about taking 30 days off when they have the opportunity to work on frontier tech that is only available in the US? And make an absurd salary doing it? Healthcare is also less of a concern because 20 somethings and 30 somethings barely use any social benefits anyway. And like I said earlier, they also have exceptional private health care through their employer. This claim that the European lifestyle is somehow better despite the extreme salary difference really just doesn't hold when comparing to early/mid-career tech workers in the US.

by pjmlp 1mo ago

sajithdilshan 1mo ago

Even if EU countries want to push for their own solutions, the biggest problem is the capital. The governments cannot fund this with tax payers money because they have other critical problems to solve and private companies only go far if they can make a profit. Only time will tell how far this sovereign movement would go. Maybe when the US would have a president/government from the Democratic Party someday in the future. EU would cozy up again to US and go back to how things were. There’s no permanent enemies or allies when it comes to politics and at the end of the day it all revolves around money

pessimizer 1mo ago
> The governments cannot fund this with tax payers money because they have other critical problems to solve The governments can's solve this problem because the entire economic model of the EU is that the core exploits the periphery, who don't have a currency that they can weaken as a response. If they had a strong democratic central government and a real central bank in the EU, they'd be forced to make transfer payments to the weaker members, and to bail them out (losing the leverage to make elite demands on them.) The EU as a whole could easily solve the problem, they have the population, the talent, and the infrastructure. They're just really docile from the CIA and their own elite cliques working on them for the better part of a century. > Only time will tell how far this sovereign movement would go. There is none. Blah blah blah in the media isn't a "sovereign movement." It's a campaign to get you to vote for the same middle of the road radical centrist neocons served on a substrate of normie-relaxing anti-Trump rhetoric.

mrits 1mo ago

The current Europe strategy seems to be to pay software engineers less money and hope for a superior product. I'm not sure how you'd catch up when some of your engineers literally make less than our fast food workers.

pjmlp 1mo ago
I rather have 30 day vacations, a proper life with 40h work week, healthcare, union membership, than SV salaries, which are nontheless an exception, most of the developers, that aren't even properly accredited Software Engineers, get the same salary as most office workers. In which country do fast food workers get higher salaries than office workers, unless we are talking about tourism industry outside Europe, with said workers getting tips in Euros and Dollars instead of local currency?
- iteria 1mo ago
  I'm American and I take 30 days of PTO a year. I get paid the national median for pay, but that still puts me in the top 10% of _household_ incomes for my state. I have good healthcare and benefits. Hell, I got sick last year and took 2 months off from work paid because my company has the policies to cover that and then I came back and it was fine. Like, I find SV culture and living to be a cancer, but I'm just saying as someone who doesn't live in a top 10 city in the US with a MCOL, I struggle to think of how working as a software engineer in the EU would be better. It's been over 10 years since that 2 weeks PTO nonsense applied to tech. I don't even have a fancy job. I work for a bank.
  - mitxela 1mo ago
    Your bosses can only afford to give you that and high salary because they aren't giving it to everyone.
- petcat 1mo ago
  > I rather have 30 day vacations, a proper life with 40h work week, healthcare, union membership, than SV salaries This is an appeal to mediocrity and it doesn't really hold when comparing EU to Silicon Valley tech jobs. Young engineers in the Silicon Valley (or NYC, or Seattle) have excellent health care, generous vacation and other benefits, and they also make substantially more money. Why would a young, ambitious engineering graduate care about taking 30 days off when they have the opportunity to work on frontier tech that is only available in the US? And make an absurd salary doing it? Healthcare is also less of a concern because 20 somethings and 30 somethings barely use any social benefits anyway. And like I said earlier, they also have exceptional private health care through their employer. This claim that the European lifestyle is somehow better despite the extreme salary difference really just doesn't hold when comparing to early/mid-career tech workers in the US.