Brexit: Conservatives winning majority in UK parliament | Hacker News Reader

Brexit: Conservatives winning majority in UK parliament

bbc.com

47 pointslate29 comments

This has bigger and impact on startup ecosystem worldwide than say a new framework etc but no one is discussing this. I wonder if people gave up on the idea that tech can help make informed decisions ? It looks like people voted off their emotions and based on what they would like to happen (UK being a sovereign empire again) and not based on what is realistic- a bunch of trade deals that are worse off than being in the EU

What do you reckon the impact on the international and national startup ecosystems will be?

Startups are cheap for a government to support. I expect the Conservative government will make the UK even more attractive as a location to start a business in an attempt to counter Brexit's negative effects.

It seems these days like every time someone sees an election that doesn't go their way, they assume that the voters on the other side were clearly all imbeciles voting for their own destruction.

That's an incredibly naive and narcissistic view of the world.

I'm tired of this radical subjectivism anytime people vote for something stupid. Sometimes people cut off their nose to spite their face. Reading convoluted reasoning about how it was really actually rational from their perspective because reasons and values never adds anything, either.

That's a very convoluted way to say you aren't interested in debate or having an open mind. So be it.

I really wish your comment wasn’t downvoted. I hear you.

The parent comment was condemning people for deigning to criticize sacred cows like Brexit. People are free to have stupid, wrong opinions, but they shouldn't whine when people point out they're stupid, wrong opinions.

Debate is great! But you really need a thicker skin and can't demand safe spaces to protect every intellectual vanity you hold.

What would be the pros to Brexit?

not being in the EU

But what would be the pro?

Apart from not being part of the beurocracsy, corruption and propping up a failed experiment alongside Germany and France?

Ah, okay that makes sense. I hadn't heard of any corruption in the EU, do you have examples?

Moving to a more positive relationship with Europe.

What do you mean by this? How would Brexit make the relationship positive, because the UK doesn't want the same things as the EU so they won't be in conflict?

The UK has always been a reluctant partner holding back EU ambitions of ever closer union. The EU will now be much freer to pursue federalism. The UK will now be a friend and partner, but no longer in the dysfunctional relationship.

It's like how divorced couples can often have a more positive relationship after the divorce than during the unhappy marriage.

Not as close a relationship, but a more healthy one.

Stand by for a smashing Anglosphere trade deal.

Power being more local and closer to the people. This is the fundamental advantage from which all others flow.

The EU is a highly centralising project. In many ways it's more centralising than the US federal government is, because the USA has a constitutional balance of powers (in theory) and has a tradition of state's rights. EU ideology recognises neither: there is no limit to the extent to which EU federalists wish to centralise power in Brussels. Some of them have talked about reducing national parliaments to the status of tourist attractions.

It's funny - usually the Hacker News set is excited about decentralisation, peer to peer networks, end to end encryption, and all other projects that give people control over their own digital lives. But when the British vote for more control over their lives, outside of the internet context, suddenly it's all obvious stupidity and can't ever be better than being controlled by a foreign power.

If you can't see any cons to the EU, you shouldn't be able to see any cons to Google completely controlling the internet. After all, it's rather convenient in many ways to have them do so: all very consistent, one passport for every website etc.

> Some of them have talked about reducing national parliaments to the status of tourist attractions.

Cite?

But surely this can happen? It's clear social media marketing teams were used to go after the uneducated with slurs and memes in order to benefit the rich.

Voting Conservartive in this election was very much an informed choice for many. The alternative was voting in a marxist.

The real alternative was a coalition government, surely?

Well, FWIW, there are a _lot_ of startups setting up offices in Portugal these days. Mostly as quasi-nearshoring, but many as a serious endeavor (CloudFlare is an example of the latter).

As a Brit this is utterly heartbreaking. The Conservatives tried every trick in the book in the last parliament and fought a dirty campaign that has set an awful precedent for future politics in the UK.

That remain-backing and second-ref parties actually got the majority of votes makes it even worse. First past the post is not fit for a modern democracy.

It’s amazing to me that tech people can see that monoculture makes systems fragile in security yet long for it in geopolitics. Brexit should happen. Catalan independence should have too.

The EU is not like the USA. We can have regional independence/self-governance and international cooperation, prosperity and peace, without needing a controlling national structure.

Britain is and always has been a European island. We’ll be back in the EU in a generation or less.

The EU was a historical anomaly. A reaction to WW1 and WW2.

The tech cynicism that’s growing in me is just waiting to see if it was fakenews on Twitter, or Russian ads on Facebook, or Macedonian teens with clickbait, Nazis or something entirely new to blame these elections on. It seems there is always a “reason” to lose elections now.

I don’t know when everything had to become a scandal and “well, it seems less people agree with me than it took to elect the side I preferred” became an unacceptable thought.

Edit: even a thought about that thought is unacceptable to some here :)

I second the „meddling“ in elections part. If we accept the notion that it’s easily possible to manipulate the people into voting for whomever then the problem is not the meddling but the possibility of people being manipulated.

As this means anyone could do this. I vote for a Marshall Plan for general education.

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