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.
Small correction: for another adversary's clear geopolitical gain. While dissolving the EU has been Russia's wet dream for decades, there's not much to be gained from it by the US and very much to lose. In fact, the speed with which the US is giving up its influence over Europe of its own accord is bewildering.
Imagine the response to the EU calling for Texas leaving the US via that weird defunct line in their constitution.
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.
You are really on to something. Imagine if the EU ran ads in the US encouraging US states to join the EU. Advertise the benefits of membership: NATO protection, socialized medicine, less gun violence, worker protections, a higher average standard of living...
Red/blue is a cynical and false division. One can live in a blue state and vote red, and vice versa. In fact, some localities are nearly 50/50 or 45/55 when you dig into the data. Breaking up the union over statistical ignorance and false divisions is not a good idea.
Agreed it’s incredibly unrealistic, but something has to give. We’re quickly approaching a country where there are two overarching groups with near zero overlap on their vision for society. That cannot end well.
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.
The EU did not call upon the US to disband because of fines levied against Volkswagen. Nor did the EU say that the Clean Air act was only enacted to attack the European car industry.
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?
You are deliberately missing the point. The EU would have continued to conveniently ignore VW diesel emissions had the US, a competing power, not pointed them out.
> 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?
Per capita emissions in the US are what, twice as high as in the EU? And given that the US is ruled for the foreseeable future by outright climate change denialists, that's unlikely to change.
Just look at how the responses in here go to even the slightest criticism of the EU. (Particularly my original reply in this thread, which was even flagged for a long time).
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.
You are the one who's deliberately missing the point. The EU accepted the findings from the US and took regulatory action.
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?
You're still missing the point. Imagine an alternate reality where the EU denied any of the US findings and instead backed up VW in their assertions they've done no wrong. They then levied sanctions against multiple senators that advocated in favor of the Clean Air act and called for the US to disband.
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.
The US found VW breaking US and EU laws. The EU has found [tech cos] supposedly breaking EU laws only and keep inventing nonsense to try and force their ideals on the rest of the world. It's boring, hence the (minor) sanctions on these individuals to get them to stop wasting everyone's time.
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.
So you're saying that if the EU had less strict laws then such a reaction would've been appropriate? Then it would've been totally reasonable for the EU to sanction US senators to stop wasting everyone's time with their air quality standards?
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.
> 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.
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.
> X was caught, by EU authorities, violating EU anti-trust laws
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Because the car industry is incredibly powerful and an important of the European economy. Just like Big Tech is incredibly powerful and an important part of the US economy.
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.
This was my precise point in my original root reply to you which provoked this incredible meltdown from you lot to the point of even getting it flagged! (Someone has now unflagged it).
Only the competing forces with other geopolitical actors keep them remotely honest. The EU, demonstrably, is not an honest organization without this.
> Only the competing forces with other geopolitical actors keep them remotely honest.
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.
Lol what? This site gets off so hard on reminding everyone that the north won and we're no longer a federal union or anything other than a unitary state controlled by the northeast
Is the idea here to normalize what the Trump administration is doing as “what any hegemon would do”? As far as I’m aware, the US largely avoided using its power to directly prosecute one man’s personal vendettas?
The idea here is that all hegemonic power will eventually be abused, unless there's a system of checks on it. The same thing prevents "benevolent dictatorships" from existing.
The US has a system of checks, but 2.5 of the three of them are seriously compromised. A system of checks alone isn’t enough to prevent any abuse of power, and abuse of power isn’t limited to global hegemons. What really makes abuse of power dangerous is normalizing it. The more people expect power to be abused, the more likely it becomes that power will be abused.
Yeah, but geopolitics is a chaotic system and the US foreign policy has failed at pretty much everything for decades now - these are the people who managed to cement Taliban control of Afghanistan and appear to be losing the economic race of the 21st century to a literal communist party.
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.
> If they're saying this to undermine Europe, their track record suggests that it might strengthen Europe.
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!
> appear to be losing the economic race of the 21st century to a literal communist party.
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.
