Hacker News Reader

Comment by terminalshort | Hacker News Reader

And you think that Russia is a better option? I hope the EU isn't that dumb, but it's hard to underestimate them.

It is not a better option. It’s the way to have competition among suppliers.

If you think Putin and Trump will compete versus simply colluding against Europe then you're really delusional.

I see US made weapons destroying Russian assets in Ukraine every day. I see US troops facing off against Russia in Poland and the Baltics. This is a nonsense conspiracy theory.

One of those suppliers demanding you don't tax and censor their online services. The other is pointing weapons (that they buy with your money) at you. There is a time for market competition, but this ain't it. Now if you were suggesting developing domestic energy supplies, that would be a different story.

Please don’t expect me writing a full political program here elaborating all aspects of foreign and energy policy. It’s a forum. Domestic energy supplies won’t come faster than imports from existing sources. They are imperative but need time.

You don't understand. The situation in Europe is: the left has failed, and broken into pieces that are currently mostly still in a few parties, but those are ready to shatter into 100, at which point ... the extreme right has 35% of the vote, and the center parties has all but broken down.

That means the moderate right (think laissez-faire pro-immigration pro-business, the only remaining other voting bloc) and extreme right (hate based parties) control, easily, 50% of the vote. They are not currently allied but the problem is that a shattered left is not something the right (or anyone) can work with. If the left fully shatters, the right will be forced to join the extreme right.

So right now, it takes essentially EVERY small insignificant party cooperating not to hand EU countries to the extreme right (yes, in Germany there's more margin, in the Netherlands less, France is on the brink, ...)

That makes your "dumb" not dumb but a serious catch-22. Any compromise that makes ANY party that has 5% of the vote walk out is a total non-starter, because one vote of non-confidence and "hitler gets elected again" so to speak.

My "dumb" is what got you into this situation. I notice you left Denmark off that list. Wonder what's different there? Perhaps if your center-left / center-right parties realized, like anyone with a brain did well over a decade ago, that mass third world Muslim immigration into Europe is the stupidest political idea of the 21st century so far, you wouldn't be in this position. Perhaps if you realized your political foot gun is the real threat here, and not your own citizens who oppose it, you wouldn't be worrying about a "hitler gets elected again" scenario.

You're right, I guess, but ...

Mass immigration is the only thing currently saving Europe from demographic collapse in the working age population. It is the only thing keeping pension systems afloat for the moment. It is faltering, the working age population will still collapse (and immigration is not saving anything but the huge cities. In the south of Europe entire regions are essentially depopulated and those regions are growing despite mass immigration)

Yet another problem where there is no choice. Or there is a choice between "collapse now" and "collapse in 10 years".

We're seeing a repeating theme here.

And no worries: the EU governments are going to use spending cutbacks to get themselves out of this situation. Which again is the stupidest thing imaginable, because I can't even imageine a way to make that work ... but here we are.

Demographic collapse is a myth. Japan has been in it for a couple decades. Sure, their economy is stagnant, but their standard of living is still very high and it is nothing resembling a "collapse." Arguments that we must allow mass immigration or face dire consequences are nonsense.

I'd look up a few more stats and stories about the situation in Japan. Their economy has been stagnant ... well they call it a "lost decade". Despite the name, "decade", it's coming up on 36 years now. Outside of the major cities (and frankly inside, just to a lesser extent), everything has crashed - from education to grocery stores, to apartment sizes.

>The situation in Europe is: the left has failed

And why is nobody asking "WHY has the left failed" and explain it? Winning over voters to your side isn't that hard. You just have to talk to them, see what they want, and give it to them, or at least negociate a compromise. That's it.

So, have politicians on the left bothered engaging in conversation with the voters to discuss their grievances and work with them on their issues to win their votes back? Or have they ignored their citizens' issues from their ivory towers and resorted to calling everyone who disagreed with their unpopular polices "Nazis", "fascists" and "alt-right supremacists"?

Because I only saw a lot of the latter and none of the former. Isn't it wild how if you diss your electorate, they won't vote for you and cause you to loose elections? It's almost as if that's a known self regulating feedback mechanism of democracy, that the left refuses to acknowledge and seeks to blames someone else for their self inflicted failures.

The problem with the left is that they've been ideologically captured and refuse to acknowledge or even discuss the pressing issues the population wants to discuss because of the optics of those issues (like illegal migration and asylum abuse) go against the ideological purity tests of the left whose policies often are the root cause of those issues. Isn't it obvious that if run a country on optics instead of Realpolitik and common sense, shit will hit the fan eventually when the bill is due and people will vote you out with both hands?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com