Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyzsparetimexyz | Hacker News Reader

Europe is never going to have sovereignty in a lot of areas. A vassal of the US or a vassal of China. Pick your poison.

A vassal of California. I know we like to say that tech is the US but that's not true. It is almost completely focused around a small part of California. Take that out and Europe and the US are comparable with respect to software tech at least.

Europe has a golden chance with the current mass outflux of talent from the US and I really hope we grasp it. I just don't see my country (NL) doing that as our political class are nearly as stupid as the Americans.

This is wildly out of touch. More than half the jobs in software in the USA are not even on the west coast, let alone California.

The broader business world isn't "big tech", but it's still bigger than it.

If California would burn down, the scene would recreate itself somewhere else (ny, austin, boston).

The tech companies could all move to Texas and the power would be there. They've all won. They all have their monopolies / duopolies.

They would never have been the success they were in the first place without California. It was the culture, the conditions (no non-competes) and the lax regulation (non-enforcement of rules aimed at avoiding monopolies which allowed Facebook to buy any emerging competitor not owned by the Chinese government) which created them.

If Europe were smart they’d play both parties against each other.

right it totally makes sense because it's the third biggest economy in the world, it has to be a vassal of number one or number two, because there has been a situation where number three in anything tries to move up, if you're third in line you must submit.

If it ever comes to that, we'll pick China, thanks

So you’d enjoy being like the free and happy people of Tibet then, eh?

As opposed to the free and happy native Americans? Oh wait, they were all murdered and their culture destroyed.

Lesser of two evils etc. How about south america as a counterexample?

Is it lesser?

Up until the 2010s the US was generally pretty good with EU & EU adjacent. It’s likely to return too, as there remains a strong societal will for it.

I ask this - which has the more persistent track record of a free or more free society?

I think recency bias and online discourse has polluted perceptions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com