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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Regulators often barely grasp how current markets function and they are supposed to be futurists now too? Government regulatory interests almost always end up lining up with protecting entrenched interests, so it's essentially asking for a slow moving group of the same mega companies. Which is very much what Europes market looks like today. Stasis and shifting to a stagnating middle.

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The EU is founded on the idea of markets and regulation.

And also to prevent European powers trying to kill each other for the third time in a century, setting the whole world on fire in the process - for the third time in a century.

Arguably that worked. :-)

The EU is founded on the idea of useless bureaucracy.

It's not just IT. Ask any EU farmer.

Contrary to the constant whining, most of them are actually quite wealthy. And thanks to strong right to repair laws, they can keep using John Deere equipment without paying extortionate licensing fees.

They're wealthy because they were paid for not using their agricultural land, so they cropped down all the trees on parts of their land that they couldn't use, to classify it as agricultural, got paid, and as a side effect caused downstream flooding

Just to stay on topic: outside the US there's a general rule of thumb: if Meta is against it, the EU is probably doing something right.

Well, the topic is really whether or not the EU's regulations are effective at producing desired outcomes. The comment you're responding to is making a strong argument that it isn't. I tend to agree.

There's a certain hubris to applying rules and regulations to a system that you fundamentally don't understand.

For those of us outside the US, it's not hard to understand how regulations work. The US acts as a protectionist country, it sets strict rules and pressures other governments to follow them. But at the same time, it promotes free markets, globalisation, and neoliberal values to everyone else.

The moment the EU shows even a small sign of protectionism, the US complains. It's a double standard.

So the solution is to allow the actual entrenched interests to determine the future of things when they also barely grasp how the current markets function and are currently proclaiming to be futurists?

The best way for "entrenched interests" to stifle competition is to buy/encourage regulation that keeps everybody else out of their sandbox pre-emptively.

For reference, see every highly-regulated industry everywhere.

You think Sam Altman was in testifying to the US Congress begging for AI regulation because he's just a super nice guy?

Regulation exists because of monopolistic practices and abuses in the early 20th century.

That's a bit oversimplified. Humans have been creating authority systems trying to control others lives and business since formal societies have been a thing, likely even before agriculture. History is also full of examples of arbitrary and counter productive attempts at control, which is a product of basic human nature combined with power, and why we must always be skeptical.

As a member of 'humanity', do you find yourself creating authority systems for AI though? No.

If you are paying for lobbyists to write the legislation you want, as corporations do, you get the law you want - that excludes competition, funds your errors etc.

The point is you are not dealing with 'humanity', you are dealing with those who represent authority for humanity - not the same thing at all. Connected politicians/CEOs etc are not actually representing 'humanity' - they merely say that they are doing so, while representing themselves.

No, regulation exists because we all agreed it's not such a great thing to allow any company to do anything they want with no consequences. e.g, pouring toxic waste into rivers.

But what started as a good thing has become a tool of those same companies to prevent competition. How we regulate needs to be rethought beyond the simplistic "more = better"

That can be, however regulation has just changed monopolistic practices to even more profitable oligarchaistic practices. Just look at Standard Oil.

OpenAI was not an entrenched interest until 2023. Yahoo mattered until 2009. Nokia was the king of mobile phones until 2010.

Technology changes very quickly and the future of things is hardly decided by entrenched interests.

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Yes, a common rhetoric, and terrorism and national security.

They’re demanding collective conversation. You don’t have to be involved if you prefer to be asocial except to post impotent rage online.

Same way the pols aren’t futurists and perfect neither is anyone else. Everyone should sit at the table and discuss this like adults.

You want to go live in the hills alone, go for it, Dick Proenneke. Society is people working collectively.

> Which is very much what Europes market looks like today. Stasis and shifting to a stagnating middle.

Preferable to a burgeoning oligarchy.

eu resident here. i’ve observed with sadness what a scared and terrified lots the europeans have become. but at least their young people can do drugs, party 72 hours straight, and graffiti all walls in berlin so hey what’s not to like?

one day some historian will be able to pinpoint the exact point in time that europe chose to be anti-progress and fervent traditionalist hell-bent on protecting pizza recipes, ruins of ancient civilization, and a so-called single market. one day!

No, that... that's exactly what we have today. An oligarchy persists through captured state regulation. A more free market would have a constantly changing top.

Historically, freer markets have lead to monopolies. It's why we have antitrust regulations in the first place (now if only they were enforced...)

Depends on the time horizon you look at. A completely unregulated market usually ends up dominated by monopolists… who last a generation or two and then are usurped and become declining oligarchs. True all the way back to the Medici.

In a rigidly regulated market with preemptive action by regulators (like EU, Japan) you end up with a persistent oligarchy that is never replaced. An aristocracy of sorts.

The middle road is the best. Set up a fair playing field and rules of the game, but allow innovation to happen unhindered, until the dust has settled. There should be regulation, but the rules must be bought with blood. The risk of premature regulation is worse.

> There should be regulation, but the rules must be bought with blood.

That's an awfully callous approach, and displays a disturbing lack of empathy toward other people.

Calculated, not callous. Quite the opposite: precaution kills people every day, just not as visibly. This is especially true in the area of medicine where innovation (new medicines) aren’t made available even when no other treatment is approved. People die every day by the hundreds of thousands of diseases that we could be innovating against.

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