221–230 of 332 posts
A interesting point missing from the BBC article is that they have different levels of expectations between small to medium businesses and large ones, to avoid regulatory capture ? : > Platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU's population (45 million users) are considered systemic in nature, and are subject not only to specific obligations to control their own risks, but also to a new oversight structure. Another…
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Europe didn’t miss the internet bus because of regulations, there were no regulations until the dust settled. The thing is, there’s no US style capital in EU. The American capitalist bankrolled all the internet when there was no clear path to make money from it. I remember when YouTube was burning billions per year, Facebook being labeled as “would never be profitable”. Is there the kind of money in Europe that would…
I don’t think you’re wrong about the lack of VC funding having an effect on the European startup scene. That said, I’m a little baffled that Ottawa can produce a behemoth like Shopify which has a market cap ($130bn) larger than Spotify (~$60bn) and Adyen (~55Bn) combined.
Same thing with them building online shopping websites; Amazon and Etsy already did the market research for them. It's either go with Amazon, setup your online sales infrastructure really fast or get crushed.
Now, in terms of market defining companies like Google or Apple, Canada has none. BlackBerry got crushed and failed to innovate. Nortel was wiped by Cisco and Huawei. Finally Bombardier's flagship plane was pretty much gifted to Airbus by the Trudeau administration who immediately submitted to the Trump administration.
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The difference is that Apple is not a government. That means they are not an organization which can legally stop, detain, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, imprison, and kill you.
> The difference is that Apple is not a government Yes, and this is a key difference between Europeans and (at least the libertarian/SV type of) Americans. We trust governments more than corporations because governments were elected by us. It's really a difference in culture.
You can rapidly substitute one corp for another in America which is probably preferable to being permanently ruled by 51% of the people.
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> quite a big step in assuming control over the lives of residents. Have you heard of laws and governments before? This is exactly what they do, it’s also why democracy is such a big thing. If you’re gonna give that much power to an organisation, you want to make sure you can change it if start going off the rails. > The EU didn't create its citizens (unlike Apple which created its products); It might not have “creat…
Don't the citizens create the government in a democracy?
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Europe didn’t miss the internet bus because of regulations, there were no regulations until the dust settled. The thing is, there’s no US style capital in EU. The American capitalist bankrolled all the internet when there was no clear path to make money from it. I remember when YouTube was burning billions per year, Facebook being labeled as “would never be profitable”. Is there the kind of money in Europe that would…
> Europe didn’t miss the internet bus because of regulations, there were no regulations until the dust settled. False. In France at least, state-monopoly Minitel services shadowed early initial Internet development. Even as Internet took over, communication state monopolies clamped development with overpriced phone bills for a couple of years minimum. It is only when France Telecom got privatized and Free (owned by a…
I really wonder why it took PayPal and Ebay to demonstrate that the same thing could be done on the real internet.
> former Minitel erotic chat mogul
I had to read this sentence twice to make sure.
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Yes, exactly. Nations gave away sovereign, constitutional powers literally after their populations boldly rejected the terms, in a fair and open democratic processes. Other European nations, verging on 'voting no' were denied the chance precisely because the EU apparatus knew what the outcome would be. There's basically no defence of that issue, and the patronizing arguments defending 'indirect' nature of democracy o…
> ancestors literally fought for 2000 years to overcome, with literally millions dead. Not sure how good your history is. But the EU was built by an ancestors who were fed of fighting and dying by the millions in wars that did nothing to actually improve people lives. The whole purpose of the EU from day zero was to ensure lasting peace in Europe, and given there haven't been any domestic European wars since its crea…
?
You do realize the EU as a body politic is very recent?
(Not sure how good your history is. ?)
1) Yes, major powers who have economically integrated tend not to fight, that's great. It's the same all over the world. The US doesn't fight Japan either.
2) Europe's true sovereign guarantor, the US and their Nuclear Umbrella, which is the other 1/2 of the equation.
'The EU' is long after the fact.
Moreover - it's besides the point - as I articulated, the EU has fundamental flaws with respect to democracy that can't be addressed with any reasonable argument it seems.
EU citizens have little to no influence over their body politic, because all the power is a few points indirection away from their reach.
Europeans were told after the election who their anointed leader would be, what her political platform was, and what her vision for the EU was.
Just consider why for a moment the EU doesn't require leaders to be publicly announced and vetted before elections? Wouldn't that be a highly rational, reasonable, and arguably necessary element for legitimate democracy?
What were EU leaders thinking when they definitely decided that this would not be required?
It's absurd.
Many citizens saw it was absurd, voted against the Constitutional Treaty, and it was passed anyhow.
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>Another interesting tidbit is the answer to the common trope that 'private platform can act as they wish since they are private' : Now the EU is saying the same thing to Apple. It is their market, and they dictate the rules. Which is perhaps a taste of Apple's own medicine? I wonder what those people who keep saying it is Apple's platform they can do what ever they want had to say? I sometimes wonder had Apple not b…
The difference is that Apple is not a government. That means they are not an organization which can legally stop, detain, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, imprison, and kill you.
That means they are not an organization that is accountable to the public. That means they are an organization that cares more about profit and market share, than about human/civil rights.
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The difference is that Apple is not a government. That means they are not an organization which can legally stop, detain, arrest, charge, prosecute, convict, imprison, and kill you.
> "The difference is that Apple is not a government." That means they are not an organization that is accountable to the public. That means they are an organization that cares more about profit and market share, than about human/civil rights.
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Yes, exactly. Nations gave away sovereign, constitutional powers literally after their populations boldly rejected the terms, in a fair and open democratic processes. Other European nations, verging on 'voting no' were denied the chance precisely because the EU apparatus knew what the outcome would be. There's basically no defence of that issue, and the patronizing arguments defending 'indirect' nature of democracy o…
> It's mesmerizing to watch legions of young people defend an undemocratic system that their ancestors literally fought for 2000 years to overcome, with literally millions dead. It's mesmerizing to watch legions of young people defend a Union they grew up in with no wars, with relative economic stability, with open borders and unencumbered travel. Compared to their ancestors who literally sacrificed millions of peopl…
A little bit like a Chinese citizen, defending their lack of democracy 'because 7% growth every year and stability!'.
Not only are things things 1) possible without the EU, 2) they were mostly put in place long before the body politic existed (the EEC is a primary driver of the above) 3) it has nothing to do with the democracy deficit.
"UK has left the EU and it will be fascinating how it will function now that it has severed basically all ties with the EU."
The UK has not 'severed all ties' ... but, are you truly asking how it's possible for a sovereign nation to function without the EU?
How does Australia function?
How does Japan function?
?
They will all get along mostly fine.
Again - none of the arguments given point to any reasonable underlying motivation for denying EU citizens the right to chose their leaders.
--> EU citizens are denied the right to vet, or vote for the leaders and their platforms, their elected officials cannot enact legislation, and their ability to censure the non-elected leaders (this is maybe the most important power) is basically non-existent.
It's an existential problem.
Ok, I will probably get downvoted for this. But I will still speak my mind: I am an EU citizen and I don’t think that’s the right approach because it’s distracting from what really happened: We missed the big Internet bus because we were so much focused on keeping things the way they were. Now we try to regulate us out. It makes me unbelievably sad. And it continues. The car was invented here but it takes an Australi…