I find it deeply cynical that representatives of a federalized union call upon another union to disband in favor of national identity. It is a transparent ploy to sow division within another competing union for geopolitical gain.
Maybe breaking up the US would be a good idea. The blue states are funding the American government which is led by the people mostly popular in the red states. But you won't see EU politicians set up a well-funded plan to actually do it.
America has turned into a ridiculous cartoon of itself in such a short time frame.
See the fourth row.
My guess is as the American empire [slowly] declines that city states will become centers of power, perhaps with rural, conservative areas finding power via wealthy “lords” assuming the parts where the state decays. The groundwork for this new fuedalism is already being put in place.
Competition is necessary to keep these people remotely honest.
Edit: This comment has been flagged.
Instead the EU levied their own fines against VW and BMW including a €875 million fine in 2021. When can we expect the US to slap X with a multi-million dollar fine?
> Instead the EU levied their own fines against VW including a €875 million fine in 2021.
Only because the US found them out. The EU was quite happy with VW until then, and liked to act all smugly superior about emissions.
> When can we expect the US to slap X with a multi-million dollar fine?
For what exactly? What US laws have X, under Musk, broken?
And yet many persist in their delusions of EU infallibility.
It migh just be better than other alternatives ATM..
The point here is only geopolitical competition with the US has kept the EU remotely honest. They clearly cannot be trusted to enforce their own laws when it suits powerful entities within, and will lie to their population about doing so until it becomes impossible to hide.
Obviously the same applies to other geopolitical actors too. The EU trend towards bureaucratic rule by diktat is astounding though, and it's rapidly getting all the downsides of the Chinese system and none of the upside.
Whereas the US ignores the findings from the EU, refuses to take regulatory actions against big tech, enacts sanctions against EU officials and calls for the disbandment of the entire union.
A bit of an overreaction at the very least wouldn't you say?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...
That's the UK, France and Germany lobbying to keep the emissions tests inadequate so VW can continue.
> Whereas the US ignores the findings from the EU
What findings? That X acts as a forum for openly contradicting centrally decreed EU dogma and thus needs to be shut up? That's not a winning argument.
Does that sound reasonable?
> That's the UK, France and Germany lobbying to keep the emissions tests inadequate so VW can continue.
I'm sure there are many states within the U.S. that are currently lobbying for even less regulation of Big Tech.
If the EU want to block parts of the Internet off then go for it. Just don't pretend it's everyone else's fault that it's embracing mass censorship and that this is in any way compatible with the values of the enlightenment.
Why is whatever law VW broke "real", while these are "nonsense"?
I'm using words to say what I mean, not what you are hallucinating, so I will clearly state for the final time:
VW was caught, by US authorities, violating EU laws, and it transpired that EU officials had been lobbying to enable VW and other EU champions to continue to do so.
The equivalent would be the EU catching US companies violating freedom of speech in the US, and clearly pointing this out. This is not what the EU have been doing.
My root reply in this thread was flagged, despite being stunningly milquetoast, in a transparent attempt to hide any inconvenient dissenting view, which is precisely what the EU are trying to do.
X was caught, by EU authorities, violating EU anti-trust laws, and US officials are lobbying to enable X and other Big Tech companies to continue to do so.
> My root reply in this thread was flagged, despite being stunningly milquetoast, in a transparent attempt to hide any inconvenient dissenting view, which is precisely what the EU are trying to do.
To the contrary, the DSA would've likely protected your comment. It requires that if content was flagged or removed a clear reason has to be stated for its removal with the ability to appeal it. Neither of which is offered by Hacker News because the DSA does not apply to it and so your comment was removed without a stated reason nor the ability to appeal it.
Big Tech companies don't want to protect free speech, they just want to maintain their unchecked moderation power on their platforms.
But where have X violated US law? It clearly continues to confuse that EU law does not, in fact, have any relevance outside of the EU. If the EU want to start blocking things on the net then just shut up and do it already.
VW were breaking EU and US law, but the EU were actively enabling them continuing to do so until the US pointed it out so that it could no longer be swept under the carpet.
> To the contrary, the DSA would've likely protected your comment. It requires that if content was flagged or removed a clear reason has to be stated for its removal with the ability to appeal it. Neither of which is offered by Hacker News because the DSA does not apply to it and so your comment was removed without a stated reason nor the ability to appeal it
More rule by hopium nonsense.
Plenty of people already have experience of being deplatformed with zero explanation by this same lobby, there is no chance that would not continue, they would simply find their complaints also deplatformed so you would have no idea.
HN probably would be covered by the DSA too, it's just off the radar for now. If ever this became a hotbed of widely taken seriously EU criticism you can bet it would suddenly get the book thrown at it.
US law is not relevant in the EU. As long as X makes itself available in our sovereign lands, they have to follow our law our bear the consequence.
As a parallel, fresh raw milk cheese is not allowed to be sold in the US despite being very popular in France (and tasty!). That means French cheesemakers need to limit which cheeses they sell over there, even though their local laws don't restrict them.
Then why did the US fine VW if US law does not have any relevance to companies headquartered outside of the US? The US did not, in fact, fine VW based on EU law.
So why were EU regulators all A-OK with this until the US pointed it out?
I'm certain that if VW was a US company the current administration would've been A-OK with them flaunting regulations and would've defended US economic interests against fines from the EU.
Only the competing forces with other geopolitical actors keep them remotely honest. The EU, demonstrably, is not an honest organization without this.
If competition between unions is important, then why not allow the EU to set up its own rules? Perhaps the US is wrong this time and the DSA will result in a more fair market and better online discourse as promised.
Or it will turn into a authoritarian censorship machine, then at least the US will know never to adopt something similar. But we won't solve anything by just maintaining the status quo and attacking anyone that tries to enforce their own set of rules within their own jurisdiction.
If X doesn't want to deal with those rules they are free to leave.
the entire EU couldn't even defect Russia that has a GDP smaller than a single state of the US.
If they're saying this to undermine Europe, their track record suggests that it might strengthen Europe. If it is coming from the US State Department they are so bad at international politics that there is a pretty good chance that the path to thwarting them is following their plan. The most powerful era of Europe was literally when they had lots of small but technically and socially advanced countries competing with each other. It was literally a world-conquering combination that put them centuries ahead of everyone else. In some sense the reason the EU exists is to try and hold the Germans back; talking about breaking it up is one of those careful-what-you-wish-for requests.
The main problem with US international politics is that they are looking on the problem through American lenses, i.e. why would Afghans refuse liberal values and either choose or tolerate theocracy? Does not make any sense from view of an average American.
Same like it makes no sense for average American why states in EU are banding together and slowly shedding its nationalistic values? What if same would be done by Latin America? Wow scary, need to throw a spanner into the things!
Not surprising at all considering that socialism and centrally planned economies are inherently more efficient than liberal free markets - by removing the constant pressure for quarterly profit and removing or severely limiting the bourgeoise who only exist to take the value generated by companies for themselves, you have a system that does a much better job of allocating labour and resources. For example, imagine how much better Windows 11 would be if Satya Nadella wasn't taking home a $100m salary and that money was spent hiring or paying developers.
Frankly, American capitalists got so high on their own supply after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that they thought they didn't need to keep the boot on the necks of the communists any longer. As soon as the pressure came off the superiority of the Chinese communist system became evident and is virtually impossible to stop now.