Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

I find it somewhat odd that "European software/servers" has taken off for what is clearly political purposes, but without any clear definition of what "Europe" even means. How can you claim that "Made in Europe has stood for top quality and durability" if "Europe" is defined based on current political allegiance, not geography?

In fact, the domain "only-eu.eu" and the title, "European" are contradictory. Belarus and most population of Russia are unquestionable European, but not EU and clearly not something the author of this website would endorse.

For that matter, Hungary is both Europe and EU, but very likely not politically favorable by the author either. Does that make it not count as buying EU? On the other hand, I assume you support buying from Iceland and Norway, which are not EU (but are EEA and politically aligned). And of course, the biggest question is whether or not the UK counts as "buying European" -- it is not EU and arguably anti-EU but geographically European and aligned in being anti-Russia.

I believe there are two levels.

1. The US becoming relatively hostile even to countries that considered themselves allies means that being totally dependent on US monopolies (the TooBigTech crew) is a problem. So the first level is "it's important to reduce the dependency to US services". Doesn't matter if it's in the EU, Canada or Mexico.

2. When you start caring about digital sovereignty, or course it's better if you can depend on national services. But that's often not possible. The next best thing is to rely on allies, and diversify the risk.

So it's a gradient. What has taken off is "we need to care about digital sovereignty" and "the US has already used their monopolies against us, we need to do something about it". I think.

I guess you can make that same argument about USA and America. Canada is clearly America but a Canadian would not refer to himself as American whereas a US national would. Europeans hardly refer to themselves as such but when European countries are lumped together, it has become common to ignore geography and refer to those affiliated with EU membership or bilateral EU affiliation (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland) as European.

Europe is a geographical region, the only question is where does it border neighboring regions (Asia). There is no ambiguity about whether Switzerland or Norway and so on are in Europe. They are.

Eurovision includes Australia

Andisrael.

"only-EU.EU" indicates me their definition of Europe is EU, which is how is used sometimes casually, it's not about political or geographical correctness, just like America First does not mean Mexico First when it comes from the mouth of current POTUS.

"not US" is carrying an increasing amount of water. Rationally or otherwise.

Russia is definitely not unquestionably European.

Going to school helps.

No, I agree with him. Everyone knows Russia has territory inside Europe. Does that make it European? Post-Ukraine not a lot of people would call it European. It's just a word at the end of the day, the politics are more important to people that geography since both are made up. Why does Europe end at the Ural mountains? Because we said so.

Why is Europe a separate continent? Its one big land mass.

Show the world map to a child and one would have a difficult time explaining the idea of continents when they finally come to Europe and Asia.

Even better, Kazakhstan is also in Europe. Hard to find anyone who'd classify it as such, though.

Sure. Kazakhstan is also in Europe. Do you consider it European? Do you now understand where lies the problem with the use of "unquestionably" in this context?

If not, maybe going to school would help?

All Europeans know what is meant by Europe. We just don't agree on it. But it does mean "not US or someone hostile to us" and that's enough of a definition without splitting hairs about Belarus.

I think it’s fairly obvious it’s talking about the EU not geographically Europe.

That’s a lot of words to pretend that you don’t know what the European Union is

he clearly meant that all the servers and computers were manufactured in his non-EU village in Bulgaria

I for one want Pravetz cloud

Bulgaria is not Belarus though. Also, one is in the EU and one is a Russian vassal state.

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