211–220 of 479 posts
> If the EU repeals Article 6 of the Copyright Directive, some smart geeks in Finland could reverse-engineer Apple's bootloaders and make a hardware dongle that jailbreaks phones so that they can use alternative app stores Apple could easily block this, and in the situation described here of a complete rupture with the US, they would no longer operate and sell phones in the EU. If Google decided to do the same, that…
What I think most US people don't realise, is this would overnight start the slow but complete collapse of the US and it's economy. Europe can make alternatives to US tech, and with it's track record it will probably be more open with more legitimate options and less predatory monopolies. Once that is established with a home grown market of 450m people it will start competing with US in all the other markets. Let's n…
Then why are there approximately no European tech companies? You remember that FT graph....
European countries are de facto vassals of the US. Not because they have to be, not because it benefits them, but because this is what the politicians and their voters want. Instead of taking care of Ukraine themselves, and providing security guarantees to Ukraine themselves, they expect the US to do it. Instead of supplying Ukraine itself, they need the US to do it. And all of this against an opponent, Russia, that…
Europe is in a tough spot these days, trying to unwind decades of economic partnership with the USA while simultaneously trying to fend off Russia from Ukraine.
In a sense the EU is in a bind because it refuses to accept that the U.S. has moved on. If the EU does that they can throw off a lot of shackles that they’ve imposed on their relationship with China, and part of that deal could be China stopping funding Putin’s insanity.
The US put pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil, which cost the US diplomatic capital. It was showmanship and self-sabotage of an important relationship, but those aren't the actions of a sworn enemy to the EU.
The US also gave how much material support to Ukraine over the last few years? Volatility and unpredictability is not the same thing as an enemy.
There's also the self-interest angle. Who controls the oil corridors into Europe? It isn't China. China is an economic juggernaut, but they have little power projection beyond China except somewhat in Eurasia, and especially not naval. The US has the seas locked down.
The EU could consider doing the opposite to what you're suggesting. Help the US in the Pacific instead of being non-committal. Then maybe the US would be more willing to keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars in your theatre, rather than seeing it as a one-sided relationship that won't reciprocate in a time of need.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case, and all efforts must be made to increase self-reliance and disentanglement from the US. Both parties of the US disrregard european interests. An argument can be made the Internet is actually Chinese because the atoms your bit relies on are mostly produced in China or Taiwan.
> My POV is Americans are not an ally in any case So you are an enemy of someone because of where they were born?
Europe is in a tough spot these days, trying to unwind decades of economic partnership with the USA while simultaneously trying to fend off Russia from Ukraine.
But can't be bothered to avoid Palantir or Microsoft.. that would be TOO tough! Learn all those new buttons (once) and that confusion with ~ instead of C:\. Oh the difficulties! :D
IMO the scope and amount of these treaties have been unacceptable and the only reason they passed were due to the framing of thia magical thinking that any increased trade is always great "enlarging the pie" and everyone ignores the fact that it creates a huge monoculture that is unable to accommodate people's with vastly different needs.
These treaties alienate people in the same same supranational orgs like EU does.
The framing of "rules" based order masks the fact that its "rules set mostly by the hegemon in its favour"
I've spent a couple of decades in the Danish public sector of digitalisation and in the private sector for global green energy. 10 years ago people would've laughed if you talked about leaving Microsoft and iOS in enterprise. Now we all have contingency plans for just that, and a lot of organisations are already actually doing it. So I would argue that there is more of a crack, but I'm not sure the post-american inte…
The idea that EU surveillance is greater than US surveillance is almost certainly mistaken. In fact, a huge reason that the EU is looking to move away from U.S. commercial providers is that they can’t guarantee they won’t be giving the U.S. govt information about EU users even if they setup completely independent EU based entities. The reason why it might appear that the EU is more heavy handed is because the EU is a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With one hand they do so much to protect consumer rights for us citizens, but with the other hand they build a survailance state. The US is doing that too, and has been pretty open about it for years.
Europe wants so very much worse in many cases.
The EU is also not a monolith, it’s different entities with not perfectly aligned interests, some of which representing member states, some of which citizens, again with significant divergence of opinion. The court of justice frequently finds against member states governments, for example.
TL;DR: "the EU" does not want things. Different participants want different things and what happens in the end is the result of a consensus building process.