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

#251

Post by vonnik » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 12:59 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #36

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…

> Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. Quite the opposite, and an old Murdoch quote resurfaced[0] covering exactly that: > I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.” [0] http://www.standar…

Rupert Murdoch is a special interest with access in London. Other special interests have access in Brussels. Just not the warmongering Australian.

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

#252

Post by vonnik » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:01 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #28

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…

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.

There are always benefits to being inside something. If you are a citizen of the EU, you have the right to work in any of the member states. US citizens do not have that right, and many waste long years trying to acquire it. It is likely that UK citizens will now face the same battle when they seek the right to work outside the UK, because the Leave vote was driven by racist impulses to keep the others out. The others will reciprocate against England.

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

#253

Post by vonnik » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:05 AM UTC

James001 wrote: post #186

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…

"it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded" You couldn't be more wrong here. If anything the creation of the EU makes war much more likely, precisely because of the inevitability of its breakup. The UK is just the first to go, but many more countries will leave too, effectively finishing off the EU project. And with the end of the EU, comes the bitter divorce between European countries,…

Europe's longest period of peace correlates with the existence of the EU. Most EU citizens have never known war. Not knowing what the EU protects them from, they feel they have nothing to lose by leaving it. There is nothing "inevitable" about the breakup of the EU, just as there was nothing inevitable about the Brexit. These departures require massive efforts on the part of small, motivated groups, who rely on enormous falsehoods to draw the vote of ignorants. Nigel Farage is already backing away from Leave's promises on healthcare.

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

#254

Post by RickHull » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

jpdus wrote: post #228

RickHull wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK left screaming, huffing and smashing the door Huh? This is your characterization of a referendum on membership?

Well, actually it is a good characterization of the leave campaign, which won the vote and thus a valid analogy.

If that's a valid characterization of the internal debate, of what concern is that to the EU? So far, I don't see the UK screaming, huffing, or smashing doors with respect to the EU.

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

#255

Post by kaid » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:14 AM 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…

it's good to see uk leaving eu, any efforts in establishing universal ideas will almost likely result in failures if not disasters. and uk's classical liberalism tradition seems never compatible with eu's social democractic perspectives.

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

#256

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:16 AM UTC

gutnor wrote: post #51

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…

> Otherwise, the UK will compete against other startup place like Berlin where any European can freely go.

As a non-EU or non-UK citizen, I guess that's good? It means competition. Perhaps UK would try to make a better environment to attract startups to compete? I don't think it is too crazy of a thought.

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

#257

Post by rhblake » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #237

rhblake wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that the president of the European Commission is proposed by the [democratically elected] heads of state of the member states, and that their proposed candidate has to be accepted by the [democratically elected] members of the European Parliament, and that each member state nominates a commissioner, and that this group of people as a whole have to be accepted, again, by the the European Parliament.…

That's not what a representative democracy looks like. In a representative democracy, every citizen has equal power to have a say in how the country runs, but they loan that power to people that they believe will represent their interests. To illustrate what's wrong with the EU model of representative democracy, let's use an analogy... imagine you're a football manager and you choose 11 players to play a game of foot…

I agree that there are indeed many problems with the commission. (And I so wish that Viviane Reding had been president rather than Juncker.)

Just wanted to clarify how things work, as many have no idea. And for all its faults, I certainly don't think it's reason enough to leave the EU.

(Personally, as a Swede, I'm very happy to have the CJEU which is the only thing that can stand between Sweden and mass surveillance, as Sweden lacks a constitutional court, as - apparently - our local politicians cannot make bad laws.)

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

#258

Post by white-flame » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:24 AM UTC

rwhitman wrote: post #199

cromwellian wrote: post #128

Right now, among all industrialized economies, there is a crisis happening as deindustrialization is taking place. This has fundamentally altered the assumptions of steady and stable middle class economic growth that was an anomaly mostly between the 1940s-1970s. As a result, people are mad "at the system", what what we're seeing is political movements redirecting public anger at whatever target they wish. In the US,…

I think this is a portion of what's going on. I'll prefix by saying I'm no expert in history or political science but I believe through the larger lens of history, the big picture is that the West is undergoing an acceleration of empire collapse in several places. Overall, the lessons of history teach that geographically large, wealthy, socially advanced empires don't actually survive all that long on average. They a…

There's also the fact that a larger empire can be more easily corrupted, because nobody can pay attention to all the moving parts, and corruption once established is harder to flush out because of the size of the running systems at stake.

The individual is far less connected to the government, the larger and more diverse it gets.

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

#259

Post by spoonie » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

James001 wrote: post #186

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…

"it was created to prevent another world war and in that it has succeeded" You couldn't be more wrong here. If anything the creation of the EU makes war much more likely, precisely because of the inevitability of its breakup. The UK is just the first to go, but many more countries will leave too, effectively finishing off the EU project. And with the end of the EU, comes the bitter divorce between European countries,…

So NAFTA means Canada, the USA, and Mexico are more likely to go to war now?

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

#260

Post by oska » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 1:29 AM UTC

vonnik wrote: post #251

masklinn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every power structure is co-optable by large corporations and special interests. The Leave leaders are no different. Quite the opposite, and an old Murdoch quote resurfaced[0] covering exactly that: > I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.” [0] http://www.standar…

Rupert Murdoch is a special interest with access in London. Other special interests have access in Brussels. Just not the warmongering Australian.

Murdoch renounced his Australian citizenship in 1985. He's been a citizen of the US of A for over thirty years now.