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Comment by meowface | Hacker News Reader

Don't get me wrong, I get why they want to and it is probably a justified security concern, but it's also things like that which will probably cause Europe's economy to continue to stagnate while the US's will probably continue to soar even with Trump (and perhaps, later, Vance) completely destroying our international reputation and credibility and our most important political and scientific institutions.

The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.

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Europe could be more competitive but then they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Just in the past week they're meddling with the infinite scroll feature and then the unrealized taxes in the Netherlands. Why would a tech company wanna operate in such an environment?

Why would we care about competivity where it doesn't benefit society? Addictive social media and wealth accumulation actively harm society

You have fun with that. Lemme know how it goes.

What for an answer is that?

It's not like it's going real well here in the U.S.

Obviously one cannot simply accept any potential societal trade-off in favor of benefitting the economy, but going too far in the opposite direction eventually manifests as worse living standards for the average person, which is not beneficial to society.

How does banning intentionally addictive media-feed apps (they are not social media, they are parasocial at best) make society worse?

"How does banning unhealthy food make society worse?" "How does banning unhealthy habits make society worse?" "How does banning harmful/hateful speech make society worse?" "How does banning things and, as a result, our economy stagnating, make society worse?"

Pam Bondi suggested that it would be impossible to prosecute the pedophiles, because the economy would collapse. To which many people reacted: then let it collapse. You remind me of Pam Bondi.

Except Bondi was wrong and I am right, and also letting the economy collapse actually would be really, really bad and saying things like that is something only children and economically illiterate people do.

Also, most of the things I listed in my previous post had absolutely nothing to do with the economy. It's just that it's unethical and tyrannical for the government to dictate people's behavior in this way. "How is it unhealthy for the government to ban alcohol?" These statements would apply whether in a socialistic or fully neoliberal country.

Infinite scroll? Just ban social media algorithms you buffoons. Then u can even let kids use it.

> The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.

It's not sad, it's strong evidence (I hesitate to call it proof, but...) that a federated model of governance with limited regulation is the most resilient and successful form of government.

All the EU states need to do is learn that regulation is not the solution to every theoretical problem any bureaucrat can imagine, and they too can experience meaningful economic growth.

I agree that if you want to pursue economic growth laissez-faire is possibly the best course of action, but economic growth isn't the only metric worth pursuing.

> economic growth isn't the only metric worth pursuing

It's not, but the absence of it makes it much harder to pursue the many other worthy goals. Which again, is a lesson the EU seems to refuse to accept.

I have no idea where you got that idea from. If anything the EU has been focused way too much on the economy, hoping trade and economic growth will solve all problems.

Probably one of these scissor statements where economic leftists think that obviously the problem is focusing way too much on [X] and the others saying the problem is focusing far too little on [X].

To some extent yes, but the issue the leftists have in this case is that X = money (or the equivalent in resources) which is absolutely required in large quantities to enact their political agenda.

Is it? When the political agenda is "no infinite scrolling" it seems they can just ban infinite scrolling, and that doesn't cost any money.

You'd think so, but paying all the people who sit around and think of things to regulate, the people who actually write the regulations, the people who enact the regulations, and the people who enforce the regulations is not a trivial cost, especially at the scale that the EU wants to regulate things.

Also, the actual political agenda is based around a welfare state, which absolutely costs money to maintain.

I like infinite scrolling. Probably most users like it. My country's government banning apps from letting me infinite scroll in them sounds very paternalistic and silly.

I make apps for myself above all else. I always add infinite scrolling support to all my apps. It's just a better and smoother experience than pagination.

I got it from two places:

1. Watching the standard of living in the US outpace the EU for decades and comparing their economic systems.

2. Basic common sense tells you that you need resources in order to fund a welfare state, a long list of positive human rights, and all the other things that the EU states want to do. Money buys resources, especially when you don't have direct access to them (which is the case for most EU states).

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