Europe is breaking its reliance on American science | Hacker News Reader

Europe is breaking its reliance on American science

reuters.com

102 pointswhynotmaybe66 comments

I think it makes sense. Europe and other countries need to boycott the US based on how the US is negatively affecting the world and driving consumption. Similar to how many countries boycotted Russia.

You really think what the US has done is remotely on par with what Russia is doing?

Not necessarily but nobody was trusting Russia.

Not at all but it seems reasonable to set some standards for the game (e.g supporting free trade) and stop playing with those that do not respect the rules.

Unfortunately with both China and America not respecting the rules that's not realistic for Europe at the moment but one can dream.

Yes. Russia has been threatening invasions for years. Now for 7 months America has started doing it too.

It's a much worse feeling being threatened with military invasion by someone your own government tries to continue insisting is a close ally

Absolutely, yes. In terms of encouraging environmental degradation, which to me is even worse than genocide in some ways (because it destroys our home, often permanently), it's up at the top!

The U.S. should pull out of NATO and leave Europe to deal with Russia, and the inevitable World War 3 that would ensue. The U.S. isn't driving consumption, we plateaued on that basis years ago. However, we're not so suicidal as the Europeans, who have resigned themselves to wring their hands and mock Americans as they get leapfrogged by China, India, and the rest of the rapidly developing world while contributing little but feckless regulatory edicts.

I don't understand this resentment you Americans have with Europe, there's plenty of technologies you depend on that have been developed by European countries and companies. Semi-conductors, advanced optics for military and scientific use, high-precision machinery for manufacturing of advanced materials (physically and chemically), pharmaceuticals, the list goes on and on.

European countries have been your allies for over 70 years, they've been molded by your policies on trade, to consume and to provide what you consumed.

And now you (and quite many others) come back to complain that you're being mocked? Yes, you are being mocked because your country behaves like a spoiled brat, a fickle-minded nation which only manages to measure "progress" through "how much money you make", a nation who decided to spread the motto "greed is good" without caring about your own citizens for the past 40+ years.

You do not survive alone, you cannot sustain your level of development without allies, and even adversaries, participating in the game you created to become a supremacy, and you are choosing to destroy this out of a sense of entitlement?

Your kind of comment is exactly why Americans are losing respect outside of your own borders, you are behaving as if the world was the same as in the 1980s.

The more I see this kind of comment the more I wish for the USA to meet its reckoning, to lose its status and meet reality. You're not what you once were, the greed game has eroded your society, your businesses, your infrastructure. Yes you are wealthy with some of the highest market cap companies in the world while having a sick, divided society, you fight amongst each other because unlimited greed will cause that: fractures, anger, and immense wealth for a lucky few.

You could be better yet you choose not to, repeatedly, and for what? More money? At some point that ends, it always ends...

This kind of threat that we would suffer without the US help is so infuriating.

When Russia started the war with Ukraine, they we're saying that it would be a blitzkrieg. It wasn't. And we're talking about a country which doesn't have any nuclear weapons, who's fighting with shitty FPV drones.

And you're here, telling us that Russia would even dare to set a single foot in any of the European country ? While they're in reach of French nuclear arsenal ? Without the ability to even know where "Le Terrible" is on earth ?

Come on kid, be serious for a minute.

You are everything wrong with America, uttering yet more threats at their "allies" because they refuse to bend the knee to your pedophile president.

I thought the results of science are free for everyone to see. That's how science works.

So isn't it optimal to depend on science someone else does? They spend the money, but you both reap whatever knowledge is obtained.

No, “science” often produces results favourable to those who fund it.

So, the results aren't published? How is that consistent with how science is supposed to be done?

Or do you mean there are spinoffs? But then how is science supposed to be superior at producing these compared to directed development of actually useful things?

Depends. The control is on what research is done in the first place. For example, effectiveness of ivermectin was not even studied during Covid. New treatments that can be patented however was.

That’s what I thought. It’s nonsensical.

It doesn’t always work like that in practice. I can’t read a bunch of papers on fluid dynamics and composite materials and then build a modern airliner wing. If you fund the science, you get the experts.

But often it is like that. I point to the US before WW2, and China more recently. Scientific spending seems a consequence of economic dominance, not a cause. It's a kind of potlatch, a demonstration that the society has the money to burn for a status activity.

Science has more value than just economic value. But I think it’s rather obvious that a lot of large European and American industries exist largely as a result of scientific and military spending. Boeing and Airbus are the examples that spring to mind. China is still quite a long way from competing with either, and it’s not for want of smart people or general manufacturing expertise.

That sounds more like applied science in support of specific (and large scale) development activities. That can't be used as a justification for science of any kind, and not as justification for pure science. To do otherwise is to engage in a kind of cargo cult reasoning, confusing correlation with causation.

I don’t think basic scientific research needs to be justified by narrow economic considerations as it has inherent value. But it’s a commonplace observation that you can’t predict what kinds of scientific research will or won’t have practical applications within a given time frame. Computer science started out as an extremely esoteric branch of pure math.

> inherent value

Hitchen's Law can be applied to such assertions. "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." It's an article of faith or of personal preference masquerading as an objective truth. Because there is no evidence backing it up, if some political party comes into power and wants to slash funding, what are you going to do to fight them? Proclaim your opinion more loudly?

> computer science

Wouldn't this have (and wasn't it largely) developed anyway once computers were being made for practical reasons, like thermodynamics came along because of steam engines? In any case, isn't math and CS theory a great example of the point that you can let someone else do it and then get it for free? If I invent an algorithm or prove a theorem, if it has any value other people can take it and run without my permission or knowledge. What I get is the ego boost of having been first, but is that sort of historical vanity a justification for expenditure of public resources?

No-one can rationally justify their basic values. If you think there’s no inherent value in learning about the universe we live in then I won’t argue with you. Just as you wouldn’t argue with someone who denied that money was valuable.

You’re assuming that modern programmable digital computers would have arrived at the same point in time even if the theoretical foundations from Frege and Babbage onwards had never been laid (and that we would have had just as much success programming them to do what we wanted). Possible, but hardly something that can be assumed. And of course, Church and Turing’s seminal work predates the advent of programmable digital computers, contrary to what you appear to be suggesting.

As for computer science, the US made the biggest investment in it and got the biggest rewards. It doesn’t seem like an example that supports your claim.

Nothing is free even scientific results. Patents, closed journals, industrial secrets.

> The United States funds 57% of Argo's $40 million annual operating expenses, while the EU funds 23%.

Why the hell is the US on the hook for practically 2/3rds the cost of a system that monitors the entire worlds' ocean?

1. Why should the EU monitor the Pacific? The Pacific is big.

2. The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.

3. The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important, so if you want to be big and important you gotta do more.

4. The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.

> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.

UK/France and I’m sure others have bases all over the world.

But that is their business and not the EU. And I have no idea why you included the UK anyway - not in the EU.

Here is a list, by the way: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/overseas-...

Something else: Let's also ignore (or not) that the headline of the submission is waaayyy too grand for what's actually in the article. It's only about meteorological data collection. As important as it may be, there's a lot more science than that.

Well France does, I do forget how pugnacious they are at times. UK obviously doesn't matter in discussion of EU. However here is a list of countries with overseas military bases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...

outside of France and Italy it seems all EU countries that have overseas military bases still have those bases in the EU, furthermore looking at that list you can see that the U.S has significantly more military bases in Europe than the EU countries have military bases outside of EUrope.

on edit: so in conclusion I am sorry about forgetting that there was in total 6 military bases outside of Europe maintained by EU lands (hopefully haven't miscounted here)

> The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.

The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.

> The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important

The EU isn't a sovereign country unto itself, so it either must be "big and important" or it has no other reason to exist. The EU is the second or third largest economy by GDP and not far off from the U.S. but it expects the U.S. to pay disproportionate levels for everything as if it's still 1946.

> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU

The EU doesn't have military bases.

>The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.

Like Kennedy invoking it during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Now it's true that John Kerry said the Monroe Doctrine was over in 2013, but John Bolton said it was "alive and well" in 2019. Bolton being National Security Advisor at the time to the guy currently occupying the White House.

>The EU doesn't have military bases.

hmm, you're right - obviously the EU should pay less.

on edit: added "at the time"

> Like Kennedy invoking it during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Kennedy didn't significantly reference it as far as I can tell:

https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-k...

The one question asked on Monroe Doctrine was not answered with precise reference to Monroe. Either way, JFK was responding to the challenges of the Cold War, which were altogether different than the circumstances under which Monroe opined on the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban nuclear missile crisis was sufficiently terrifying on its own, there was no need to harken back to Monroe to justify action there, even if he did at one point or another.

Part of Monroe's doctrine was for America to stay out of Europe and for Europe to cease colonizing the Americas. A lot changed since then, including World War I and World War II and then the ensuing Cold War. We ended up fighting two wars in Europe and establishing military bases there to fend off the USSR after WWII.

When Monroe Doctrine is invoked, it's usually in reference to maintaining influence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere. WWII forced our hand to extend our power projection to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The most significant evidence of this is NATO, of which the U.S. carries 68% of the defense spending.

> Now it's true that John Kerry said the Monroe Doctrine was over in 2013, but John Bolton said it was "alive and well" in 2019. Bolton being National Security Advisor at the time to the guy currently occupying the White House.

Right, because Monroe Doctrine is just an opinion on how foreign policy and strategy should be played out and not a binding law of any kind, it can be invoked or uninvoked arbitrarily depending on whatever is convenient for the administration in power.

>The EU doesn't have military bases. > hmm, you're right - obviously the EU should pay less.

The OP article references deep water buoys being deployed for oceanic temperature measurements under the Argo program, with the primary aim being scientific and having nothing to do with national defense. If you want EU to pay less, this should probably just move to NOAA and cease to be an international collaboration.

$820 billion in hurricane damages since 2016, and the cost center we should focus on is some $40 million/year spent researching causes of that? That's roughly similar in proportionality—and in reasoning—to a datacenter deleting its smoke detectors. (If that is what you want for your discounts, there is OVH).

https://www.wunderground.com/article/storms/hurricane/news/2...

The hurricanes will continue, as they always have, as will aerial, satellite, and oceanic monitoring of hurricanes, but that is not what the OP article is talking about.

Why the hell should I have to live a worse life with more storm damages, less military preparedness, etc. etc. etc. just because sycophants are willing to make up ridiculous excuses for extremely unwise decisions? Such is the pain of democracy, while we still have one.

It is one of the side effects in terms of costs that a country has in order to enable the safe flow of global trade.

Because they chose too?

It more than likely has uses in defence?

Hegemony isn't free.

Lol, I'll believe it when I see it. Is this the same Europe that despite everything going on in the world is:

- Still buying Russian gas

- Dependent on U.S. Military bases for their own security

- Dependent on Chinese manufacturing for consumer goods

- Dependent on the U.S. for software and cloud infrastructure

- Dependent on the Chinese for computer hardware

Best of luck Europe, you've had a good run, but you've gotten yourself into a fine mess here.

Yes the funding of Russia's war machine (by buying Russian energy) whilst expecting the US to fund the EU's defense takes some level of nerve. Nobody should take the EU seriously.

Could you show the numbers in 2018 and the numbers in 2024 so we can compare?

I guess I could but why would I bother?

Because it would become clear to yourself and to the rest of us how dramatically Europe has pivoted away from Russia.

Yes and quite possibly alot of this was due to US pressure. The EU has been quite happy to freeload till very recently. It's possible that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine at all if the EU hadnt been so weak militarily and so stupidly vulnerable by being dependent on Russia for energy.

Yeah, it was a mistake taking this free trade, globalization, UN, WTO, basic human rights, ICC, change through trade, nuclear disarmament etc. stuff seriously. Cost us bigly.

Not everything but in alot of cases yes it was a mistake. Trade has never been free, globalization has been a negative for alot of people etc

It really did cost you bigly. Compared with 25 years ago, Europe is less safe, less powerful, and more dependent on other countries for very important things.

That is arguably incorrect and a matter of perception. Europe was perceived to be safer and more powerful 25 years ago. But is in fact, safer and more powerful now than it was then. Are you safer if the dependencies are unknown or if they're known and people are talking about them? Are you safer if you believe the US will have your back, not knowing that it won't really, or are you safer with better knowledge on how far support will go?

The EU countries are, right now, pumping up their military budgets. Russia has just spent several years destroying it's huge stock of soviet era equipment. 25 years ago, that equipment was in better shape and the EU was reducing military budgets all over the place, and Ukraine was closer to Russia's sphere of influence - potentially far less safe but nobody knew it?

The problem is that for a lot of these problems Europe hasn't had that much self determination over the last 75 years. The US had to intervene twice in world wars that started in Europe. And after WWII the US did, arguably, a reasonably noble thing in how it provided investment to rebuild Europe. No more wars out of Europe and a market to sell US goods to, and then a bit later a bulwark against the USSR. All these things meant a forced dependency. And the US still wants to sell its military equipment, and under Trump very very keen to sell more goods. I would argue that this situation also contributed to Europe losing it's initial developments in computing with brain drain to the US.

75 years just isn't that long in geopolitics, and it's a hard ship to turn around. Only 25 years ago the relationship between the US and Europe was still very strong and it didn't look like there was any pulling back.

You mention buying Russian gas. Again, it's very hard to suddenly stop that gas flow. Even Ukraine didn't shut down the gas pipelines going from Russian to Europe while they had existing contracts in place, it's happening this year. Gas from Russia was 40%, is now less than 11%, is forecast to drop much further this and next year. These kind of economic dependencies also continued for surprising long in previous wars between countries that were actually in hot wars with each other.

The kind of changes you're talking about are slow. The US also has it's dependencies on Asian manufacturing that it is also now trying to turn around, and that will also be slow.

The best will be when they turn away from the US and start infighting.

As an American, I think the US as EU scapegoat mechanism is so cute.

No history, no bad blood. Those centuries old rivalries and wars have all been forgot about lol.

As an American citizen and firm capitalist, I welcome a technically strong and united European ally that contributes to a majority of its own defense and to the production of new and useful technology to the rest of the world at a fair price. The U.S. wants strong allies and trading partners.

WW2 was 80 years ago. It's time for Europe to reprioritize in favor of economic growth and development; deprioritize protectionism and bureaucracy; encourage investment in small businesses; unite politically instead of pretending to unite; and let go of the cultural past by looking to the future.

The U.S. is always changing, and will always be changing. That's the nature of the country and the source of its strength.

I'm ready for the downvotes--but I haven't said anything that is not true.

I’m not sure how you summon up the nerve to ask Europeans to “deprioritize protectionism” given the economic policy of the current US administration. I think many Americans still don’t realize that the country has lost all credibility as an economic or societal model for others to follow.

We can also add “unite politically” to the list.

Not all change is good though. Stuff like attaching green energy and branches of natural science for ideological reasons only makes America weaker, its plain idiocy.

Making Europe pay more for its own defense is one of the few smart things Trump has done. The rest is almost universally harmful to both America and rest of the world.

Yeah, just like they're breaking their reliance on the American military /s.

Yes. Very similar actually. Most of Europe is increasing spending on military defence.

So they finally are doing what trump asked them to do?

No, they've been doing it since Russia's war in Ukraine.

3 days after the start of the invasion, Germany announced a €100 billion increase to military spending.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitenwende_speech

The fact that you think that's a big number just underscores how dire Europe's security situation is at the moment. One hundred billion Euros sounds like a lot, but China spends two and a half times that much on defense every single year, the U.S. spends 10X that much every single year, and even the Russians spend more than that every single year. Nevermind the fact Europe needs to play catch up here, not just keep pace.

Wikipedia says Russia spent 100 billion in 2023, so increase of 100 billion should be more than that don't you think? Are you misinformed or deliberately lying?

You have to adjust figures for PPP, or Purchasing Power Parity, due to exchange rate differences. In 2024, Russia's PPP adjusted military spend was somewhere between $300B and $400B [1][2]. Their technology is also vastly superior to Germany's and they have a much larger personnel. It doesn't matter how much you spend if you don't get your money's worth.

The 100B euro investment was also a temporary one-off budget allocation that had been distributed over the past 2 years and to little effect: https://www.grosswald.org/eu100-billion-later-fixing-the-bun...

[1] https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/debating-defence-budgets-why-... [2] https://militaryppp.com/blog/

By promising to buy more american weapons, more american LNG and investing in american companies.

We europeans are having a really hard time breaking our US addiction. I mean what are we even doing in here

Europe is deciding that US technology addiction is better than Russian subjugation.

It's not a time to be playing political games buying sub-par weapons. Bad for Saab, but that's reality. The world is dangerous again.

If your weapons can stop working according the whim of America, that would be seriously subpar.

The reality is that European solidarity is not ironclad either. Is the US, or Germany, or Sweden more likely to fold and deactivate* weapon systems under nuclear blackmail?

It sounds hypothetical but seriously, what would Gripen do if tactical nukes were dropped on Estonia and Putin threatened the same on Sweden if they didn't back off? I don't know, and you don't either.

*I've not seen credible accusations this is possible, but assuming it is

Those "promises" were meaningless BS. Every European should know that the EU cannot make such promises, because it has no power in those matters. Defense policy is up to the member states, while investments and energy purchases are mostly made by private entities.

*Most of Europe has promised to do something... in the glorious future, where anything is possible. Anything at all!

Those things take time and have an inertia in both branches: it's easier to continue using the existing resources than standing up your own, but once you're committed to developing a replacement it's not easy to stop.

(EU already did it, however partially, with its own satellite navigation system.)

Yes, they will divert money from their social welfare spending into military spending any day now.

Any. Day. Now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com