And this is another example of foreign interference at EU level... How can Europeans trust the EU after so many incidents like this one?
It is always a shame when governments get corrupted, but the European view is usually not "welp, the experiment failed, let's get rid of the government completely", but rather "we need to make the government stronger, to have it resist interference harder".
US constitution has "We the people", but Americans don't really see their government as "We", but rather as some incompetent entity they're forced to live under.
Europeans more strongly see governments as their representation. The government is seen as people banding together, through their representatives. Governments exist to resist undesirable forces, like exploitation of people by commercial entities.
This is also the reason why Europeans like regulations, a thing unfathomable in the US. It's not "oh no, those dumb politicians stifle our precious job-creating businesses", but rather "we're the labor force, we're the consumers, and the businesses depend on us, so we won't let them fuck with us". So US firms fucking with us is a terrible thing, but the reaction will probably be to make more regulations to resist US tech even harder.
I think you misunderstand. I'm an American, so I should probably clarify a typical American perspective. Caveat: you probably can't find any statement all Americans agree on :-) ).
The US Constitution does begin with the phrase "We the people", but I think you misunderstand its context. It never says the US government and its people are the same. I can quote that sentence from memory. The text follows with the goals for creating a federal government (e.g., "establish justice" and "provide for the common defense"). It ends by saying that We the People "... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America". In other words, it's clearly stated that the government is not the people. The US federal government is instead an organization established by the people under rules defined by the Constitution.
So Americans would generally agree that the US government is NOT the people. The US government is instead an organization set up by the people, in order to accomplish certain goals. If we don't like how its current leadership runs things, the intent is that We the People can change the leadership via an election (as established by the Constitution).
> but rather as some incompetent entity they're forced to live under.
You'll find lots of claims about incompetence, especially at political rallies where someone is trying to convince everyone to vote for them. But while many people want someone or other voted in, and there are always proposals for changes, few call for the elimination of the US government. They just want "their side" voted in.
> Europeans more strongly see governments as their representation. The government is seen as people banding together, through their representatives. Governments exist to resist undesirable forces, like exploitation of people by commercial entities.
Americans also view their government as necessary to resist undesirable forces. Per that sentence, the government exists to "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare".
However, the American view is that governments can also be the source of tyranny. This is not a crazy view; see the various dictatorships around the world. Governments can be powerful entities. Therefore, there needs to be a way to ensure that they are (1) representative and (2) constrained so they don't become tyrannical.
> This is also the reason why Europeans like regulations, a thing unfathomable in the US.
The US has lots of regulations, so it's not that the US doesn't have any. However, Americans are generally more skeptical of regulation than Europeans. All regulations have unintended consequences; if the regulation is not carefully crafted, the regulation can be worse than the problem.
For example: I would instinctively ignore the goal of any proposed law or regulation. I don't really care what its goal is. That is mostly irrelevant. What is the actual impact of the law or regulation? If it does something good, but overall makes things worse, then it should be rejected even if it has a good goal.
> In 2008, the eurozone and the US had equivalent gross domestic products (GDP) at current prices of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion respectively (€13.1 trillion and €13.6 trillion). Fifteen years on, the eurozone's GDP is just over $15 trillion, while US GDP has soared to $26.9 trillion.
Seems like they are not protecting their citizens interests nearly so well as they believe they are.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/09/04/the-gdp...
The stereotypical view the other ways is "yes, salaries in the US are way higher, but if I go there and get cancer, I'll bankrupt my family for three generations, and still die while on hold angry-calling my insurance provider".
What other metric would you propose? Considering we are on HN maybe laughable SDE salaries in EU would be a more relevant metric?
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/oops-it-looks-like-the...
It's not the SDEs who keep you alive in this world.
Indeed
> were paid more or less the same and don't want to go back, thank you very much.
Let me guess: because now you're paid ridiculous amounts of money and you couldn't care less about other human beings.
Also Canada has a higher real population growth which skews the data (per capita would be better), and on the per capita basis Canada looks pretty bleak.
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
(nominal)
Canada: 2000: 742B 2018: 1710B (230% growth)
Germany: 2000: 1940B 2018: 3940B (203% growth)
France: 2000: 1360B 2018: 2018: 2770B (203% growth)
Poland: 2000: 198B 2018: 585B (295% growth)
Canada: 2000: 916B 2019: 1970B (215%)
Germany: 2000: 2390B 2019: 4693B (196%)
France: 2000: 1683B 2019: 3241B (192%)
Poland: 2000: 451B 2019: 1316B (291%)
Canada: 2000: 29900 2019: 51600 (172%)
Germany: 2000: 29400 2019: 56400 (191%)
France: 2000: 28600 2019: 49800 (174%)
Poland: 2000: 11700 2019: 34700 (296%)
I think part of the problem is that the EU can't work in the same way the US federal government does or ever did. Culturally the countries are too dissimilar. There are many friction points that make a closer union very difficult to swing without trying to pull a fast one over the population (like they did with the vote over the EU constitution).
One friction point is the "liking of regulations" you mention. Some European countries seem to like that but others don't. People absolutely laugh at the ridiculous German bureaucracy, how dated the way is that the French run things (cheques!!!) or how naive the Swedes are. And they usually do not want that in their own country.
European countries are very different. I'm not sure if more than California vs Alabama. However, people remember that European countries used to have actual wars with each other throughout their history, up until not that long ago, so it's preferable to have disagreements worked out bureaucratically, even if that's a lot of bureaucracy.
So you are saying that one of EUs main purposes is to allow politicians to circumvent the democratic process and so act against people's best interest.
It's a different, bigger forum. This doesn't subvert the process. It may bring additional scrutiny and require international consensus. This is usually a higher bar for ramming bad laws than in local parliaments that may have dodgy deals or loyalties between parties/president/courts.
There are unpopular laws because they are bad ideas (like all the "think of the children" surveillance). There are also laws that are good for society long term, but unpopular due to short-term inconvenience (e.g. pollution limits raising prices, or anti-smoking laws vs smokers' freedoms).
When the EU had some countries do a referendum and the result was something they didn't like, then they just had the people do another referendum.
Oh, and laws are created by people that are appointed, not elected.
The chief problem is different languages - you can't have a debate for an EU level party easilly televised, etc.
The cultural differences are not any worse, than chasms splitting the US, like go ask someone in Alabama and in New York aboit trans people or whatever.
Like sure the food in Romania and france is differrent but its not a relevant issue at election time
The Spanish will occasionally celebrate communism. They even have communist party members in the EU. Meanwhile communist symbols in a country like Lithuania are literally illegal. And this isn't some government holdover.
Things like education, childcare and even a general outlook on life is very different between EU countries.
There are things where you can't trust "the EU" (whatever this is supposed to be, the Parliament? The Commission? The countries?) and there are things where you can and absolutely should.
Generalizations are propaganda, and this is what you do here.
I'd never trust neither the commission nor the parliament. They have so many ridiculous failures under their wings, that nobody well-informed would. The best you can hope for with new legislation is that it's so vague and incomprehensible that in practice it's going to be unenforceable. But that's only so long as the judicial stays sane, which you can only hope for.
In addition EU is working hard to gain control of information flows at the moment. Censoring and cooperating with censors to block information providers in EU. All of this happens very discreetly and very silently. And I'd wager 95% of citizens are unaware that their right of free speech and information about events is being curtailed to degrees that is completely incompatible with a free society.
How you can even begin to trust a creation acting like this, is beyond my imagination.
The main difference between a law by most national parliaments and EU legislation is that the EU legislation is usually wildly more complex, oftentimes to the extent that nobody anywhere really can understand it. E.g. take a look at the GDPR or the EU electricity regulation. You will be getting wildly different answers to many questions, depending on who you ask. And the reason is clear: The regulation is unreadable and inconsistent.
On top of that, one would be thinking that EU should be painting legislation with broad clear strokes, for the national parliaments to implement the specifics. But they don't, often the EU commission goes down to a level of detail that you'd never even see in specific national legislation.
I can understand how lawyers see this monster as a great. It's an infinite source of income. But for the average citizen and cooperation, the good EU legislation would have been much better, had it been implemented by national parliaments. And much of the bad legislation would not have been possible in the national parliaments, where completely obscure nonsense usually is read by at least someone, that will call it out.
Isn't this true of any complex law anywhere? The interpretation varies and is eventually decided upon by the courts and following that sometimes additional rectifying legislation.
>On top of that, one would be thinking that EU should be painting legislation with broad clear strokes, for the national parliaments to implement the specifics. But they don't, often the EU commission goes down to a level of detail that you'd never even see in specific national legislation.
I'm curious about what you mean here, do you have any specific examples?
I'm from a country that would benefit immensely from EU laws in pretty much every area, but I also recognize the hazards of pushing legislative decisions too far away.
But for all the criticism the EU gets on that point, it is actually much easier for individual countries to disagree and do their own thing in the EU than it is for states in the United States, it seems to me. It's not like there are "federal" EU agents running around and arresting people.
Yes, but it'd definitely be nice if the lawmakers put some effort into avoiding it. E.g. by considering, whether we really need one more law for this situation (which is probably covered by 20 others anyway)
> I'm curious about what you mean here, do you have any specific examples?
There are many, a famous example was the regulations with regards to size and shape of fruits and vegetables, one example here for bananas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Regulation_(EC)_No.... but there are many more. Standards to this level of details is definitely uncalled for.
But you can find these tidbits around a huge amount of legislation. See e.g. section (20) of the ePrivacy directive:
"(20) Service providers should take appropriate measures to safeguard the security of their services, if necessary in conjunction with the provider of the network, and inform subscribers of any special risks of a breach of the security of the network. Such risks may especially occur for electronic communications services over an open network such as the Internet or analogue mobile telephony. It is particularly important for subscribers and users of such services to be fully informed by their service provider of the existing security risks which lie outside the scope of possible remedies by the service provider. Service providers who offer publicly available electronic communications services over the Internet should inform users and subscribers of measures they can take to protect the security of their communications for instance by using specific types of software or encryption technologies. The requirement to inform subscribers of particular security risks does not discharge a service provider from the obligation to take, at its own costs, appropriate and immediate measures to remedy any new, unforeseen security risks and restore the normal security level of the service. The provision of information about security risks to the subscriber should be free of charge except for any nominal costs which the subscriber may incur while receiving or collecting the information, for instance by downloading an electronic mail message. Security is appraised in the light of Article 17 of Directive 95/46/EC."
This is all good and fine advice. But for a small company it's really not clear when it's appropriate to give advice on proper security habits for users. More, the vast majority of companies, dealing with communication, will be completely unaware of this law (and the 1000s of others similar provisions in other laws). This level of detail and vagueness should definitely not be in legislation.
A third recent example is the infamous AI act:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/202...
See e.g. any AI system used in education need to be registered in a EU registry. In general there is a lot of good intentions, but there is simply no clear reason why there is a need for special regulation on AI. Everything that is forbidden to do without AI is also forbidden with AI. But EU constantly sees the need to spin new regulation, and all companies without an army of lawyers will be breaking one rule or another entirely without intent.
And these were just the ones on top of my mind. Go dig yourself, there are hundreds of thousands of pages of it.
Please stop spreading FUD. Here's a good overview of the AI regulation including the reasons why it's needed: https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/the-truth-about-the-eu-ac...
What it certainly does is put burdens on small companies, independent developers and open source projects. For no benefit whatsoever. And this is just the start.
Have you read the link I provided? What exactly do you see as immature or ridiculous?
> What it certainly does is put burdens on small companies, independent developers and open source projects.
Of course it doesn't. That's why the major AI industries are so up in arms about it: because they have to document and describe their foundational models, and make sure their data is sound: something that they definitely don't want to do.
Independent devs and open source will be fine: they already (mostly) do that.
It's GDPR all over again: the industry fights it tooth and nail because they couldn't be arsed to play nice. This time the FUD has been launched preemptively in hopes to stifle this.
This is now true for any 1 or 2 person startup. Making it completely impossible to succeed without huge amounts of capital. Congratulations on completely stifling innovation and making life a lot worse for everyone.
> Independent devs and open source will be fine: they already (mostly) do that.
They are now running the legal risk of the EU commission or some national bureaucrat thinking their models training data are not representative enough or documentation insufficient. How can these things even begin to become judicial questions?
I am also however aware of how much the average person has benefitted from EU regulation such as retail warranty laws and data roaming expense laws.
I think it would be a good thing for some of these laws to only start applying once a business has grown to a certain size. In practice I think it usually is not enforced too harshly for small operators but nevertheless it should be explicit.
Very surprised there are hn comments regarding the gdpr as unreadable and inconsistent.
Which particular parts are you referring to?
Define "broad clear strokes" for, say, food safety. "Make your food safe, EU commission"?
> And much of the bad legislation would not have been possible in the national parliaments, where completely obscure nonsense usually is read by at least someone, that will call it out.
What makes you think that:
- EU legislation is not read by anyone when we're literally discussing the issues in one such legislation?
- National legislation is any better considering reality (how many national laws have you read and discussed?)
> EU legislation is usually wildly more complex, oftentimes to the extent that nobody anywhere really can understand it. E.g. take a look at the GDPR
Tell me you're parroting someone else without telling me you're paring someone else.
GDPR is really clear as day compared to most legislation, and you yourself could read it in one sitting, and understand it, if you ever bothered to do so.
Instead, you're complaining that no one reads EU legislation
We are discussing a marginal part of the total EU regulation. A lot is slipping by, that most people in the EU are unaware of. Btw, I don't think this proposal is being mentioned in any mainstream news.
News don't pay attention to major pieces of legislation unless it can be farmed for clickbait and outrage, news at 11:05.
Give any country (including the one you live in), and I can bet you I can find a major legislation you are not aware of, and news aren't talking about. Why is EU singled out again?
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/report/?source=nav-head...
What's the problem with that?
In several countries, they even put up billboards next to projects they paid for.
Many things actually since most people know not enough about what, why or how they do things. See my billboard example.
> Second, this is EU taxpayer money they are spending, to american companies
It's not their fault that those popular companies are from the US. What's your point?
> Third , EU having such financial relationship with facebook is problematic, given their legal fights.
Why?
I don't have a Facebook account and even if I had, they seem not to run them in Germany.
I've taken Poland as an example.
You can see the Ads here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t...
With which of those do you actually have a problem?
The EP and the EC don't need an advertising budget, just like how national governments don't need it (and the data shows they don't spend on it) - because they are judged by their outcome.
Now I see where you're coming from and why you're offended.
I'd lie if I'd say that I'm surprised.
I'm in favor of education.
We're not the same thing.
You can "say the same thing", but only within your bubble would that be a valid argument. Everywhere else, it would be an joke or insult.
So please, save me your pitiful excuses. You are the one who, pressed on concrete evidence and examples, ran away into generalizations and Anti-Semitic stereotypes.
You mean when Brexit compaign was financed by dark money, broke electoral law, they were fined wopping £50,000, the parliament has asked Zukerberg to testify and he simply refused to come to uk?
Or how the failure of brexit is good pro-eu propaganda?