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> we need the US to catch up with Europe Europe is on a path to technological stagnation and demographic collapse. There's a reason its economy is depressed, i
by rewqfdsa 11y ago
> we need the US to catch up with Europe
Europe is on a path to technological stagnation and demographic collapse. There's a reason its economy is depressed, its electricity fantastically expensive, its people angry, its programmer wages depressed, and its startup scene anemic.
Europeans refuse to embrace modern technology like genetic modification and nuclear power, much less allow the flourishing of information technology. They'd rather comfort themselves with their pseudoscience and their precautionary principle and their Luddite privacy regulations than join the rest of world in imagining something better.
Europe is absolutely no model to emulate.
- noir_lord 11y agoAs a European this post made physically laugh out loud, bravo!.
- acdha 11y agoA more careful reader might notice that I was specifically referring to privacy. If you wanted to have a conversation about something else, preferably involving citations not from U.S. political blogs, this is not the place for it.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoIrrational and emotional European paranoia on privacy chills technological development. Look at all the silly cookie warning on the European web. Now imagine having to "warn" users before applying basic algorithms to data they willingly provide.
- task_queue 11y agoLet it be known that an entire continent's economy has been suffocated because of warning boxes on users' computer screens.
- pjc50 11y agoI don't mean to derail a rant with inconvenient facts, but 75% of France's power comes from nuclear power and they have the ITER fusion research facility.
- rewqfdsa 11y agoAnd a big segment of the French public loathes nuclear: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/energy/article/French-bill-seeks-to-boost-renewable-energy-cut-6286570.php http://www.seattlepi.com/business/energy/article/French-bill... The shortsighted and fearful German Greens are making that country shut down nuclear plants and switch to filty brown coal: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-14/coal-rises-vampire-like-as-german-utilities-seek-survival http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-14/coal-rises... ITER isn't getting nearly enough funding, and it took a fucking decade to decide on the place to build it. Europeans have the same fearful attitude toward GMOs.
- Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y agoIt's not just the German Greens. There is a consensus on shutting down nuclear pants among basically all political parties in Germany. A conservative coalition was at power when Fukushima happened and the early shutdown of the plants was decided.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoA substantial number of people object the GM foods on the grounds that it will inevitably limit their freedom of choice. Americans are supposedly in favour of freedom of choice but it seems that such freedoms can only be exercised by large corporations.
- Houshalter 11y agoYou are free to buy whatever foods you want. If you only want to buy organic or non-GMO, then there is nothing preventing you from doing so.