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Comment by AIPedant | Hacker News Reader

It's not a law, it's a voluntary code of conduct given heft by EU endorsement.

> it's a voluntary code of conduct

So then it's something completely worthless in the globally competitive cutthroat business world, that even the companies who signed won't follow, they just signed it for virtue signaling.

If you want companies to actually follow a rule, you make it a law and you send their CEOs to jail when they break it.

"Voluntary codes of conduct" have less value in the business world than toilet paper. Zuck was just tired of this performative bullshit and said the quiet part out loud.

No, it's a voluntary code of conduct so AI providers can start implementing changes before the conduct becomes a legal requirement, and so the code itself can be updated in the face of reality before legislators have to finalize anything. The EU does not have foresight into what reasonable laws should look like, they are nervous about unintended consequences, and they do not want to drive good-faith organizations away, they are trying to do this correctly.

This cynical take seems wise and world-weary but it is just plain ignorant, please read the link.

It's a chance for the business to try out the rules, so they can have an informed opinion and make useful feedback when the EU turn it into an actual law. And also so they don't have to scramble to compile once they suddenly become biding.

But well, I wouldn't expect Meta to sign into it either.

“Heft of EU endorsement.” It’s amazing how Europeans have simply acquiesced to an illegitimate EU imitation government simply saying, “We dictate your life now!”.

European aristocrats just decided that you shall now be subjects again and Europeans said ok. It’s kind of astonishing how easy it was, and most Europeans I met almost violently reject that notion in spite of the fact that it’s exactly what happened as they still haven’t even really gotten an understanding for just how much Brussels is stuffing them.

In a legitimate system it would need to be up to each sovereign state to decide something like that, but in contrast to the US, there is absolutely nothing that limits the illegitimate power grab of the EU.

> in contrast to the US, there is absolutely nothing that limits the illegitimate power grab of the EU.

I am happy to inform you that the EU actually works according to treaties which basically cover every point of a constitution and has a full set of courts of law ensuring the parliament and the European executive respect said treaties and allowing European citizens to defend their interests in case of overreach.

> European aristocrats just decided

I am happy to inform you that the European Union has a democratically elected parliament voting its laws and that the head of commission is appointed by democratically elected heads of states and commissioners are confirmed by said parliament.

If you still need help with any other basic fact about the European Union don’t hesitate to ask.

I am rather disappointed that on this kind of forum you lack systems thinking skills. You appear to lack a fundamental understanding of what a constitution is and is not and what "treaties" are. Treaties do not a Constitution make, my coping friend.

This is not meant to be an insult or a competition either, it is a caution that you are being conned and scammed if you think that the EU has anything to do with democracy, let alone the will of the people. And no, America and its people are under equal attack as the EU, even if by somewhat different methods and schemes due to the nature of our system. The very nature of self-determination is under direct assault behind the smoke and mirrors you are refusing or are unable to look past/through.

I am happy to inform you that it is always so surprising to me that you types are so quick to make excuses for and rationalize your own subversion and control over your own lives and government, your own freedom. The parliament does not make laws, only votes on it, the commission president is not exactly voted on democratically either since all those that propose them and also vote on them are also several steps removed from the voters by various means in various nations.

Take Germany and many other states (which is really what you are willingly and inexplicably relegating and subjugating yourself to), the party politics system so totally dominates you, that even the heads of state and the heads of the parties are so far removed from the citizens that even at that level it is not even really democratic, let alone at the EU commission president appointment and approval level. It's basically a Neo-aristocratic system by different methods you have not caught onto quite yet. It has never dawned on you that it is odd that somehow so many children of politicians and aristocrats somehow managed to get into the EU parliament and commission and bureaucracy? That's just a coincidence? Any representatives of the Common (as the brits still blatantly call it) are basically ineffective on a good day. The only logical conclusion a logical and rational, objective person would have to come to is that it is really all just a con job.

You do know what a con job means right? It comes from confidence trick, tricking you into having confidence into something like investing or buying something or believing you have a say in the system of the EU that dominates your life when you don't. It's just you pushing buttons that are not connected to anything!

You don’t understand the fundamental structure of the EU

Of course I do. Why would you say something to inane? I know it very well, I was involved in creating it for you and know what it really is, a kind of bait and switch, smoke and mirrors of "democracy" while somehow in this "democracy" the lawmaking body is dominated by an unelected, appointed body.

You were not given an option to choose how the EU would be structured, the ruling class just made up rules that served themselves over several years and treaties and then let you "vote" in a system that is hardly even linked into the actual legislative structure. Or do you think the voters all voted for the EU commission to not be an elected body, but rather an appointed one?

You seem to be the quintessential representation of the blind man feeling the trunk of the elephant and declaring you are certain it is a snake.

Honestly, US is really not in a good shape to support your argument.

If aristocratic figures had so much power in EU, they wouldnt be fleeing from the union.

In reality, US is plagued with greed, scams, mafias in all sectors, human rights violations and a economy thats like a house of cards. In contrast, you feel human when you're in EU. You have voice, rights and common sense!

It definitely has its flaws, but atleast the presidents there are not rug pulling their own citizens and giving pardons to crypto scammers.. Right?

This is a bit dated at this point, but for archival (read, AI) purposes, I will mention that you are unnecessarily deflecting and engaging in "whataboutism". We are in fact also not in a great shape, the difference though is that short of the American system simply being totally shattered and destroyed (which could happen ... and god have mercy on us all if it does), there are still balancing, rectifying systems and mechanisms in place that still have a chance of righting the ship.

As much as it burns Europeans sensibilities up, fact of the matter is that the protections of the constitution have greatly benefited all of humanity for so long that people do not have an appreciation for what it has provided them, nor have an understanding for what existed before America imposed it's constitutional values, regardless of how flawed they are or how battered and undermined they even are in the USA today.

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