Doom, Gloom and Unease: London's Tech Scene Reacts to Brexit • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by unholythree » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

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"?

Hear, hear! Late last night I read a LA times Op-Ed (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-klaas-dirsus-leav...) That presupposes globalization is good. Lists problems they allege only it can fix, and ignores globalization role in those very problems.

Additionally they never specify the recipient of globalization's "unprecedented wealth". Why should it motivate the average UK voter if they don't profit?

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

#62

Post by nickbauman » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

x5n1 wrote: post #18

Scirra_Tom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're pro-small business, then you should be excited about the opportunities we have now. Such as? Please elaborate. One thing we can look forwards to is paying VAT to every EU country individually. That's going to be fun.

Yes right now. This can be fixed without giving up sovereignty. Many things that the EU is supposed to be solve can be solved via individual treaties. There is no need to give away the farm to get small benefits. At the end of the day the world is better off without conglomeration of power. Any of them are a bad idea. Individual treaties for problem points are the way to go.

Except the EU charter expressly forbids Britain from making trade agreements with individual member states. So Britain will have to negotiate trade deals with the union as a whole anyway. Vie La Difference ?

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

#63

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

djschnei wrote: post #50

dragonwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU is a vast bureaucracy, not a "framework for interdependence." Frameworks for interdependence and vast bureaucracies aren't mutually exclusive (in fact, they often go together: the US federal government is both of those things, too.)

I suppose, semantically you are correct. I would suggest that a framework for mutually beneficial interaction (interdependence?) doesn't need a bureaucracy to be enforced. In fact, the need for a coercive third party proves the shortcomings of said framework.

> I suppose, semantically you are correct. I would suggest that a framework for mutually beneficial interaction (interdependence?) doesn't need a bureaucracy to be enforced.

That's an interesting theory, but I would suggest that most successful such frameworks in human history have included some form of bureaucracy.

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

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

djschnei wrote: post #57

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, I see. I misread you.

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

#65

Post by zeveb » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

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…

> As a brit, it's strange to see how it's being spun here.

Yeah, the spin annoys me too.

Had things gone the other way, there'd be patriotic Englishmen experiencing doom, gloom & unease today. There'd be folks who love the U.K. who could say, 'I'm devastated, I think this is a complete disaster.' There would have been folks stunned and appalled that a microscopic majority had managed to end their nation's thousand-year sovereignty. Who knows? There might even have been tons of folks Googling to see how the Leave faction were handling things now that they'd lost, or what their arguments had been.

But would we have seen those articles today? No, because the people who feel those things and think those thoughts are looked down upon by the article-writing and -reading classes. They literally don't matter.

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

#66

Post by djschnei » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #52

djschnei wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, because prior to the Hague Congress the countries that now inhabit the EU were shining examples of free trade. With the exception of Ludwig Erhard in Germany (which despite losing the war, had the strongest economic recovery), protectionism and regressive economic policy crippled the region. The EU initially healed some of those wounds, but what it was going to become was inevitable and predictable.

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

#67

Post by evgen » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #54

vonnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. N…

I think you have fundementally mixed things up here. The UK is (was) the second-largest economy in the EU. If you want to talk about percentage contribution to the EU budget the UK was a net contributor of 8.5 billion pounds (after "rebate") more than it received from that same EU budget that totals around 125 billion pounds. So they put in about 7% of the budget and get about 10% of the votes. Definitely a deal that favors the UK, but let's please stick to reality and facts here.

[Expat in the UK who could not vote but followed this all quite closely... All of the numbers I quoted can be found in wikipedia if you want to go digging.]

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

#68

Post by masklinn » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #48

This may mean the breakup of the United Kingdom, too. Scotland and Northern Ireland mostly want to stay in Europe, and may choose to leave the UK, leaving Britain and Wales as the UK.[1] As a practical matter, it will become harder to do business into the EU from Britain. Visiting the EU from Britain may require a visa, and visiting Britain from the EU almost certainly will. This is really about Keeping Britain White…

> Scotland and Northern Ireland mostly want to stay in Europe

NI is in a real bad situation though, they mostly want to stay in the EU but I don't think they can survive as an independent country[0], so they're stuck between their Unionist majority / Out minority on one side and the In majority / Nationalist minority on the other. Historical polls put the Union majority as comparable to the In one but United Ireland polling pretty badly[1], it'll be interesting to see whether that evolves.

The latter would also require Ireland to accept them "back in", but I think the Irish constitution would only require a majority Northern vote.

[0] and historically they show almost no interest in doing so anyway

[1] ~15%, same as direct UK rule

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

#69

Post by zeveb » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

So it was always about power, then? Why shouldn't all states enjoy the free movement of goods & people without giving up their sovereignty?

The EU should have required only as much authority as it absolutely needed; instead it demanded too much.

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

#70

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

return0 wrote: post #47

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…

> to regain independence. I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric. > Long term, we now have control of our future. I would like to hear one concrete way in which the future is going to be, after the negotiations, substantially different than what it is today. > And can anyone on here really stan…

> I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric.

Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-determination independent of other states.