US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate • Hacker News Board

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#111

Post by karmakurtisaani » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:26 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #34

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is difficult to think of an economic region that is more opposed to free trade than Europe (that isn't a comedy country). Possibly some countries in South America? Trade within Europe has massive restrictions. I have no idea why, given the stated aims of Europe...we are posting this on a post about the Netherlands trying to protect office software ffs, people think this isn't the case. One of the reasons why the E…

> Hostile to all forms of change and innovation I don’t understand how you can believe that about the EU. The union has been evolving so much since its creation. It is itself one of the greatest innovation in governance ever created. GDPR is an innovative framework making the EU leader in privacy protection. European open banking initiatives/frameworks are unique and have been leading the way forward for the past 20…

These innovations don't count, since they didn't create any new oligarchs.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#112

Post by Fnoord » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:28 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #94

vanviegen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "faster growing economy" is basically 100% AI speculation now. If that gamble pays of the US is still in trouble (as is the rest of the world), as there doesn't appear to be even a hint of a plan of what a post-AI society looks like for anybody but the top 0.1%.

Well, Musk for one is promising not universal basic income, but universal high income. In a country where a lot of people don't even have health insurance. Let's see how that will work out, I'll believe it when I see it...

After the eradication of humanity as we know it, a few survivors can start their own country with a law defining the term high.

I don't believe it when I see it. I call it poppycocks. Because if you do want to argue such, you need to define the path to get there. Without that, it sounds like a pipe dream. Akin to say Leninism.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#113

Post by jbverschoor » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:32 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #108

rescbr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could simply give away $1 M per resident, removing the need for social policies and it would still come out cheaper.

Where does this ~$350 trillion dollars come from?!

Exactly where all the dollars came from :D

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#114

Post by sham1 » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #93

bob001 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason Germany didn't prepare for it was because multiple leading politicians were bought and paid for by Russia. Be totally clear about that. Former German president was working for Gazprom on the project whose stated aim was to facilitate an invasion of Ukraine at some point (which Trump pointed out, and EU politicians literally laughed at him). To add to your point, despite this the German population seems t…

They also work 400 hours less per year than their US counterparts and 1000 less than their Chinese counterparts. You might be comfortable in that life, but you won't be competitive.

And pray tell, what does the American or the Chinese worker in this case get out of their higher productivity and competitiveness? Because it really seems that it's not quality of life, that's for certain.

More money and material comforts? Well perhaps, but then again, I do wonder just how many would willingly take that rather than for example a proper work-life balance or clean environment. And we'll probably have to rethink the relationship of our societies with material consumption etc. in the coming decades anyway due to the climate emergency, and so maybe it'd actually be better for the US or China to adopt our "less competitive" stance rather than for us to try to agonise on trying to get ourselves competitive with them.

No one has yet figured out just what one's material possessions will do for them after they're dead. At best you can pass them to your next of kin, but that doesn't need the kind of hyper competitive, hyper capitalistic mindset espoused by the US or China.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#115

Post by dgellow » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:35 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #63

dgellow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries with different politics like China do not seem to suffer the same issues, or at least not yet. Or maybe the country is defending a different status quo (the mono-party)? But they seem to be eager to develop the infrastructure and country as a whole. Not that I would want to live under their political system, to be clear. I wish we could have a democratic system AND also be eager to develop our regions…

I don’t think it’s different politics directly in China. The people believe that change means change for the better. In the west people have lost all hope for progress.

The people of China don’t have much say, I’m not sure what they believe matters too much, the government has a strong control over the media and can and will silence dissenting voices.

In europe we’ve been generally pretty bad over the past decades at presenting positive arguments for liberalism, which is a shame. Similarly the EU is notoriously bad at communicating how it benefits the people, most of the communication assumes people already accepted it was a positive thing and already bought into European values, isn’t of arguing why they matter. The fact EU members blame EU institutions for their own local issues whenever something goes wrong doesn’t help…

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#116

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:36 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #14

miohtama wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only Dutch. Instead of building sovereignity, the EU thought they could regulate their way and force everyone to bend the knee because of their share as a trading partner. This started 20 years ago. However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumbling, but the politicians have hard to grasp with the reality they could somehow dictate things globally. AI will only further accelerate this. Only w…

> However what has happened is that the EU's soft power is crumbling Uh, no. The US soft power is turning to dust whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin. What has happened the past ±30 years is that most EU countries cut spending on their militaries to the bone, because big brother USA would take care of it anyway. Now that we are returning to a multi-polar…

> whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin

In the same way America is stuck in its military heyday past, the EU is stuck pretending its brand of multilateralism is still a thing outside its own borders.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#117

Post by dgellow » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:39 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #80

phatfish wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people that think global free trade is a good thing are the top .001% net worth individuals which use it to wield power. Trading blocks (like the European single market) are specifically designed to protect their members from shit that global corporations or other nations attempt to get away with. I'm not sure what "Trade within Europe has massive restrictions." means without context. Compared to some Randia…

They're letting Chinese cars in when automobiles are there last remaining mega industry. How can you take them seriously?

FWIW our local car industry had decades to prepare to compete in the EV sector and decided to do pretty much nothing + train China how to take over their market. We’ve been way too protective of that industry, I’m personally happy they finally have to face some real competition. Protectionism has its place in global trade but it should be with a very specific goal in mind, such as giving the companies some room to breath while transitioning to new technologies and avoid a complete disruption of your economy. You cannot do it just to keep a dying industry alive. But you’re supposed to replace the external economic pressure with internal political pressure (or similar), otherwise corporation just go with the status quo

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#118

Post by zugi » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

The article is thin on details about the sharing of names. If US companies responded to US government inquiries about speech regulation by forwarding the emails they received from Dutch regulators, those would unsurprisingly include regulators' names.

The article title seems like click bait, even though the article content goes on to have interesting details about EU attempts to reduce dependence on US technology companies.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#119

Post by vrganj » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #19

Eridrus wrote: post #9

I don't know what the US thinks it will gain by targeting civil servants. They are not the ones with the power to decide what happens, and retaliation would mean more anti-US people selecting themselves into these projects.

Yes, civil servants should be allowed to ply their trade without scrutiny.

Foreign authoritarians have no business scrutinizing our public servants.

Re: US tech firms share Dutch regulator officials' names with Senate

#120

Post by dgellow » Sat, May 23, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #57

ffaccount2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans (and not just the US) think they still have the influence on the world they had in the 1980s when their economies were a much larger proportion of the global economy. Americans have no idea what the world looks like from Asia which contains most of the world's population and generates a third of global GDP.

It is a general western problem to some extent, but the US has a a faster growing economy than any of the big European economies. It is still a super-power.

It’s fine, you don’t have to be the fastest growing economy in the world to be a meaningful global power and a good place where to live, get education, work. You need some level of growth, but it’s ok to no be at the top of the charts. The US has been the capitalist leader in the world for a long time and isn't going well at all, the country benefits its population very little. It’s not like only the actor with the top economic growth wins and all the other countries are losing.

The EU has some issues, the economy isn’t the most dynamic, but the quality of life is great and has been improving. It is a large global market and has cultural influence. Our democratic institutions have survived ok so far. I think we are doing quite ok. We will see if we can deal well with issues caused by our aging population, that’s pretty challenging but I think we are in a reasonable position (and actually a more than great position if we compare worldwide)