Hacker News Reader

Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

> I think the right move for Europe and other countries would be to effectively ban US tech and follow the Chinese response to Nvidia (delivered personally to Trump: we want to build our own AI chips).

How would the EU replace US tech? There simply are no equivalent providers of such technology in the EU, regardless of pipe dreams in that respect EU representatives regularly conjure up (privacy industry, "European Google", "European Facebook", you name it ..,).

Maybe, however, such a move would actually be consistent with dominant EU policy. The EU seems hellbent on becoming poor and economically irrelevant, after all.

View on HN

The primary European failure here has been to allow the hollowing out of the EU tech space. There have been plenty of web tech players in the EU; the US policy over the last 30 years has been to absorb them into US companies or buy them off using US capital, and the EU strategy has been to very much encourage that.

But it is complete fantasy to use the current landscape as evidence of capability. It would be equally shortsighted to say "How would the US replace Chinese manufacturing? There simply are no equivalent supply chains in the US, regardless of pipe dreams that pedophile sycophants regularly conjure up. The US seems hellbent on becoming poor and economically irrelevant".

It never ceases to amaze me how people scramble to defend the EU's failed policies over the last three decades. The EU managed to regulate itself out of all relevant markets and it only has itself to blame.

The EU lost its manufacturing capacity to countries with cheaper labour, just like the US. The US has only succeeded in IT, everywhere else it struggles against Asia.

The ‘American dream’ attracted a lot of talent (look at how many tech leaders were immigrants), and once the network effects (both IT and social) kicked in it was hard to stop. This is a story that has unfolded many times throughout history. Talent moves to where talent is. And it will move if conditions change.

You’re missing their point, they’re not defending EU policy and in fact agree that current capability is poor. They’re saying that it can change and that the US is also self sabotaging in other ways.

Way to miss the point lmao

Care to elaborate?

China managed it by keeping US tech out despite, initially, not having alternatives to Google et al.

In winner takes all industries you MUST be protectionist and develop domestic alternatives.

> and develop domestic alternatives.

Therein lies the rub for the EU. They think they can just regulate such alternatives into existence, yet have time and time again failed to provide such alternatives.

With exceptions. Linux being the most obvious example.

Linux is no EU project, but very much global. It just happens that its originator (who, quite tellingly, has been living and working in the US since the mid-90s) is Finnish.

I was using Linux for work while Linus was still in Europe.

All the large US tech companies are also global. Cuts both ways.

Cory Doctorow gave a talk a couple months ago with the answer to how. Stop honoring US copyright.

I could start teaching bittorrent and adblocking in the local pub!

It's really not that bad of an idea. At least the adblocking part is justifiable considering considering how many times I see people (older/less tech savvy) getting caught with scareware from ads.

This would not end well.

> Stop honoring US copyright.

I suppose some people just want to see the world burn.

I'm by no means a supporter of copyright and copyright laws, but unilaterally terminating such agreements is a recipe for disaster. How do you think the US would react to such a move?

The us got those agreements in the first place in exchange for 0% tarrifs for international trade. Now that the US has dropped free trade, there's very little incentive for other countries to hold to their side of the deal. If europe wanted to, they could really go to 25 year on US copyright with a plan to go to 0 if there was retaliation

By baby steps, nonetheless an improvement.

Foster having Linux/BSD distribution available pre-installed in stores like FNAC, Cool Blue, Media Markt and co.

Push for FOSS programming languages, OSes, products and frameworks at very least on public sector projects.

Forbid outsourcing outside European countries.

Forbidding companies to have apps only available on Android/iOS, they must cater for a diverse system of desktop and various mobile OSes.

And plenty more possibilities that could be done, yes it isn't easy, then again Rome wasn't built in a day.

Regardint relevance, last stage capitalism above everything else isn't something I wish for my country.

It's way to late for baby steps. The EU is bound to become either a US or a Chinese protectorate in all but name in just a few years time now.

How isolationism and open source are supposed to stem that tide, is beyond me.

It is never too late for the Great Wall of Europe.

Like in each ones lives, sometimes hard decisions are only possible because they are forced upon us without alternatives.

Recent example, Ukraine would never gotten advanced drone technology, if it wasn't for the price they are being forced to pay to keep their country.

If unfortunately we're faced with similar hard decisions on who to depend on, they will have to be done, regardless of their cost to the local industry.

While advancements in drone technology in Ukraine certainly have been accelerated by the war, the country was by no means unprepared. They have been preparing for a large-scale war ever since the Russian occupation of Crimea (and the dismal international reaction to that).

The EU isn't even capable of ramping up its own defence capabilities when being faced with the very real threat of a Russian incursion in the next few years, which has me wonder what would be required for them to finally wake up.

> The EU isn't even capable of ramping up its own defence capabilities when being faced with the very real threat of a Russian incursion in the next few years, which has me wonder what would be required for them to finally wake up.

It is because EU is not a single state, and member states have very different perspectives not only on Russia threat, but also on "digital sovereignty".

Everyone saying "EU should do something" is just blind towards political reality.

Yet they keep yapping on about the EU being about tighter integration between its member states. If not in the area of defence, where else? So far, this has been an abject failure (recently, see: FCAS).

EU isn't a country, it is up for each European country to make up for itself first, for its European neighbours second.

Still, EU member countries even fail at cooperating where it'd absolutely make sense to do so (see FCAS, for instance).

A failure of each country protecting their own industry, unfortunately stuff that happens since Roman Empire downfall, yet eventually things came together, and falled apart multiple times.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com