Hacker News Reader

Comment by rapsey | Hacker News Reader

You can take examples of working systems and adapt what works and discard what doesn't.

Europe has spent decades and trillions on programs that do not work and produce nothing but word documents. With no sign of anyone acknowledging the poor results of these programs.

Since I can't post on this thread anymore I will edit. I am talking about what this thread is about. Misguided and poorly designed industrial development programs that Europe has wasted trillions on with nothing to show for it. Not criticising every aspect of the EU.

View on HN

Now that’s just hyperbole, and factually wrong, too. The EU has managed amazingly much over its existence. After WW II, it managed to keep peace, establish the worlds largest single market, enabled free trade, allowed citizens to move, live, and even work in any member state; it implemented regulation that makes food, drinks, and products some of the safest to consume and use on earth; it devised standards that are globally adhered to; it funds art, research, and urban development across all member states (as the Brits painfully realised); it distributes wealth in Europe, making the union stronger overall; and that’s just a small sample.

There’s lots of things in dire need for improvement for sure, but downright dismissing the EU as having achieved nothing is just spite and not helpful. That attitude got the Americans where they are now, and I sure don’t want to go there.

> The EU has managed amazingly much over its existence. After WW II, it managed to keep peace

You misspelled NATO.

No, I didn’t. The EU contributed a lot to a stable Europe after the war, and having tight diplomatic relations and economic bonds was paramount to avoid conflicts within Europe.

> having tight diplomatic relations and economic bonds was paramount to avoid conflicts within Europe.

The diplomatic and economic bonds between the belligerents of WW1 and WW2 were very close indeed before war broke out. The post WW2 peace in Western Europe was a function of the fact that NATO did its job “Keep the Russians out, the French in and the Germans down.”

If tight economic and other links prevented war there would still bebe a country called Yugoslavia. You need either actual broad based buy in or an imperial power willing to stop people who would like to go to war from doing so. NATO keeps Bosnia-Herzegovina from collapsing and as soon as they stop it’s done. No doubt there are other obvious examples in Europe, and it’s not as if anyone thinks NATO means much without the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com