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Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

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Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#51

Post by gutnor »

volatilitish wrote: post #2

As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge. Long term, we now have control of our future. In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If y…

If you assume the UK still participate in the single market, then the majority of the stuff you don't like about Europe are still going to be there. Except that the UK would have lost any kind of direct influence on its rules and regulations.

Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go. That's a huge pool of talent that is no longer directly accessible. Then for global talent the UK will still need to compete with place like the US.

It is not strange how it is spun. There are people that are paid to analyse the stuff you are talking about and they unanimous conclusion is that the outlook look bad short term, medium term and long term. My hope right now is that the next PM will be a cunning genius that will negotiate incredible deals for the UK and prove the economists and analysts were wrong. But let's face it, have you seen genius in the winners today: they all looked like like a kid that managed to stole the cookie jar and don't know what to do with it.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#52

Post by masklinn »

djschnei wrote: post #32
Scirra_Tom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...

No, free trade did that. The EU does not have a patent on free trade. In fact, they are pretty horrible at it.

> No, free trade did that.

No, free trade did not do that, the seeds of the EU were sown at the Hague Congress for the express purpose of European integration as an antidote to nationalistic extremes. The Economic integration started being added with the Treaty of Rome.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#53

Post by yummyfajitas »

masklinn wrote: post #42
yummyfajitas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU will make the UK pay a price for Brexit, and rightly so, otherwise all member states would leave and still enjoy the free movement of goods and people. You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!" Do you believe that if the UK leaves the EU, France and Germany will go to war? If not, I don't see how "created to prevent another world war" is relevant.

> You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!" The UK decided that it could tell the EU to get fucked and get all the benefits of the relationship without any of the drawbacks, it is not in the EU's interest to confirm that and it has very little reason to bend over for the UK. To reuse your ménage analogy, it's more like one spouse deciding to up and go and asking for the house, c…

It's more like one spouse saying "I'm leaving you, please don't hurt the children".

(By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#54

Post by IkmoIkmo »

vonnik wrote: post #14
volatilitish wrote: post #2

As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge. Long term, we now have control of our future. In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If y…

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

This really is a key point. The UK contributed a net of something like 140m pounds a week or so to the EU, that's about 7b pounds on a 1.8 trillion pound economy, or a small (0.3%) fraction or so of the GDP. For that they got 10% or so of the votes in all European affairs, and access to a market (50% of UK exports are to the EU) under favourable trade agreements, which are easily worth 0.3% of GDP in and of itself.

Now the UK will not contribute 0.3% of its GDP, lose some of its favourable deals that far exceed 0.3% of GDP, and lose the 10% vote in EU affairs, yet will be subjected to those affairs as part of the inevitable effort of negotiating to keep many (though impossibly all) of the benefits the UK now has as a member.

That's not independence, really. That's losing 10% influence in a union which you'll still be trading and working with, and who will still be subjecting you to lots of requirements under this new partnership, which you'll have a reduced say in.

Unless the UK actually wants to be independent in the semantic sense of isolationism, i.e. not deal with the EU at all anymore. Yes, then you'd have independence, and you'd also have a country that'll be completely wrecked, for the same principles that a broad boycott (e.g. Cuba for many decades, North Korea, Iraq during some of its harshest years etc) is so devastating, because interconnectedness is extremely valuable. That interconnectedness will still be sought for by the UK, but now it can't vote and is at the mercy of the largest economy in the world. Obviously the UK's economy and power will play a significant role in negotiations, no doubt, but the UK outside of the EU needs the EU more than vice versa.

So the independence argument I agree, is quite flimsy.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#55

Post by masklinn »

searine wrote: post #46
Scirra_Tom wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was created as an amalgamation of post-war globalist trade deals. To deincentivise countries going to war with each other...

To make money. Deincentivising some kinds of war might have been a unexpected benefit, but it wasn't the motive.

> Deincentivising some kinds of war might have been a unexpected benefit, but it wasn't the motive.

That's complete ahistorical nonsense.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#56

Post by masklinn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #53
masklinn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make the EU sound like an abusive spouse. "Don't leave me or I'll hurt you!" The UK decided that it could tell the EU to get fucked and get all the benefits of the relationship without any of the drawbacks, it is not in the EU's interest to confirm that and it has very little reason to bend over for the UK. To reuse your ménage analogy, it's more like one spouse deciding to up and go and asking for the house, c…

It's more like one spouse saying "I'm leaving you, please don't hurt the children". (By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.)

> It's more like one spouse saying "I'm leaving you, please don't hurt the children".

No, it really isn't.

> By analogy, the citizens of Britain/France/etc are the children, who'd like to continue to play with one another, but perhaps one of their abusive parents will use violence to prevent this.

So the UK left with one of the children and is telling the others they can't see them anymore.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#57

Post by djschnei »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #26
djschnei wrote: post #12

A bureaucracy in Brussels is hardly necessary to enact simple pan-European tariff reductions. It is necessary, however, to begin building what globalism truly demands: a de facto European government, complete with dense regulatory and tax rules, quasi-judicial bodies, a nascent military, and further subordination of national, linguistic, and cultural identities.

Why should the people of England care what globalism "demands"?

I think you took it that I meant they should? I ensure you, I do not.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#58

Post by badsock »

raverbashing wrote: post #3

There's some talk that immigration from the Commonwealth will be facilitated. I don't buy it. It's already difficult to find talent from the block, and several people come to Europe with a visa Yeah, I think the UK shot themselves in the foot with this

As a Canadian, I want nothing to do with a country where a party like UKIP has the kind of sway they demonstrated yesterday.

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#59

Post by [deleted] »

vonnik wrote: post #14
volatilitish wrote: post #2

As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here. The majority of people voted to leave the EU and to regain independence. There will be a little volatility until some facts about how that divorce happens, emerge. Long term, we now have control of our future. In terms of startups though, the EU is there to serve big businesses and powerful establishment. It's there to hinder startups and small businesses. If y…

Independence is a mirage, as is control. No individual nor country in the world is independent. We are all interdependent on one another, and ever more so as the movement of data, goods and people accelerates. The EU is a framework is facilitate that interdependence, and while it has many faults, it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded. Great Britain's future is very dependent on the…

[deleted]

Re: Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit

#60

Post by protomyth »

illumin8 wrote: post #21
dr_ick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> full on collapse of the UK banking system Hyperbole much? Stop with the fear mongering. Also, which "large companies" have announced they are moving? Source?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36623723 "American banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are able to sell to the rest of Europe from London under special "passporting" arrangements. Even before the negotiations with the EU begin, both have said they may need to move staff to the EU to serve their European customers. JP Morgan alone has warned up to 4,000 jobs could leave the UK. Airbus employs 15,000 people in the UK a…

no horse in this race, but here is the JP Morgan statement to its staff: http://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-internal-staff-memo-...
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