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Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

> ... But getting to that point needed a serious mandate from the European Union, years of planning, and cooperation by the various governments. The effort was worth it

I'd take my EU strong from an economic point of view and without "yay sunday SEPA transfer" any day over the EU we have today. The EU is a massive failure and it's going to fall into oblivion versus the US and China: especially now that the EU voted to kill its main economy, Germany, by destroying german automakers (with the mandatory shift to EVs).

The EU produces metric shittons of rules and legislation which brings absolutely nothing of value to its citizens.

If anything I don't think the EU is something to strive for: on the contrary, it should serve as an example of what not to do. Even if this means no "yay, instant sunday payments".

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Sure, they gave us 100 years of peace on the European continent, and hassle-free commerce, travel and communication across borders, and the freedom for any of its citizens to study and work anywhere within its borders, and modern mobile phone networks [1], and universal phone chargers, and strong protections of our personal data, etc., etc., etc.

…but other than that, what has the EU ever done for us?

https://genius.com/Monty-python-what-have-the-romans-ever-do...

[1] GSM was created as a European standard by the EU

> 100 years of peace on the European continent

Absolutely, if you discount minor regional conflicts such as Word War II.

The first version of the EU is about 70 years old, so it surely can’t be blamed for WWII either.

No matter which way you slice it, 100 years of peace in Europe is an absurd claim.

OK, I admit to being (more than) a bit overzealous on that point. Still, peace has existed within the borders of the EU and its predecessors since the formation of the ECSC (one of the EU’s predecessors) in 1951.

Even if you disregard that point, though, the overarching point of my comment still stands.

After WWII Europe was occupied by the allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other side. It was called the cold war and peace was guaranteed by mutually assured nuclear destruction. Not by the European Union.

So, the EU is 70 years old. But we should thank them for bringing 100 years of peace. From 1924 to 2024.

I'm starting to understand why the sentiments around EU here on HN is completely different from what I hear from anywhere else.

> Sure, they gave us 100 years of peace on the European continent

Ah, the famous European continent that includes only Western Europe. Approximately one million people died in the process of breaking up Yugoslavia.

Even if you disregard that point, though, the overarching point of my comment still stands.

Technically speaking, you're still incorrect. Algerian War happened inside the ECSC borders, however outside the European continent. Then, there were much smaller Basques-Spain and IRA-England conflicts.

The right wording might be "there were not yet a war between internationally recognized acting EU member states". That may still be an achievement, because you cannot say the same for a lot of other alliances, e. g. for NATO.

Source?

> The EU is a massive failure and it's going to fall into oblivion versus the US and China: especially now that the EU voted to kill its main economy, Germany, by destroying german automakers (with the mandatory shift to EVs).

German auto makers did that all by themselves. The first Tesla Roadster was released in 2011, it took a whole goddamn decade for the German industry to react.

And now the Chinese are churning out cars at a ridiculous speed.

The german car industry killed itself by being complacent and ignoring the writing on the wall.

Now innovative companies like Tesla and BYD come and just eat their lunch.

I remember being at a robotics conference in 2014, chatting with an engineer from some German car company. He was saying that EV would never break through, because "who doesn't love the sound and feel of a combustion engine."

Of course the engineers that work at German car manufacturers love combustion engines. That is why they chose to go work there in the first place. That is why they had (and have) such a disconnect from the consumer market. Cars are built by people that love cars, not by people that want to get you from A to B. They're people that love the solution, not the problem.

The inertia of big companies starts even in people who are not part of the company yet. It is the people who love finicking with the intricacies of combustion engines that end up at car manufacturers, not the other way around.

you're forgetting about the massive value add in cars due to custom infotainment systems.

you are right thou, solutionists love problems and will even create new problems if their solutions no longer apply.

Right now, the profits and revenues of the German car industry are multiples of Tesla and BYD.

> The german car industry killed itself by being complacent and ignoring the writing on the wall.

"Killed itself"? Do you know VW is the largest car company in the world?

tl;dr: EU is a massive failure because Germany is phasing out new combustion cars over the next 11 years.

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