Exactly, which means the political system is doing its job. Politics was invented to most efficiently express the desires of the people. If the people want more political control, then it is the job of politics to do so. If they don't, then politics should avoid it.

The only reason this is muddled in America is because the people don't agree on to what degree the politics should control things.

> and most people living within it

without a referendum on such issues these kinds of statements are moot.

i'm also an EU citizen and this thing (along with many other EU decisions) are in the same dystopian vein as the covid fiasco in europe.

It's not that different than saying what the power plug need to look like.

we do not have the same power plug in all of the countries as every country has it's own requirements, sets of rules etc.

in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best. the EU should probably force everyone to adopt it, no? :)

The European Union looked into unifying Europe's plugs. They decided that the cost was not worth it.

I would have been happy to switch to a unified European plug. Iirc, the proposal was actually quite decent.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-6-2005-1731-...

Each country still mandates specific plugs.

And yes, if power delivery was still a relatively new industry, EU absolutely should have mandated a single universal outlet that's "good enough". But existing designs predate EU by decades and are already so well-entrenched that changing them all to standardize on a single plug is too much effort to justify the gains.

But it ain't so with USB-C. Mobile rechargeable devices are a relatively recent tech, and the market has already largely converged on a single design. At this point, making it into a real standard, with the result that it's guaranteed to work everywhere, is a no-brainer.

> in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best.

That's utter crap. We had this argument multiple times, and somehow people without proof call it "best and safest"... when facts state that it is just not the case.

Given the state of the world it’s never going to happen but I honestly think that there should be an attempt at standardising plug sockets across the world. It is kind of ridiculous that that there are 15 different types of socket. What is anyone gaining from this madness?

A one-to-one mapping between standard plugs and standard wall power makes a lot of sense. But different standards of wall power should not share a single plug; that's just asking for trouble.

As for global standardization of wall power; maybe in an ideal world. But in reality, it would cost a ton (way more than merely replacing plugs and outlets) and doesn't seem worth it.

While entire countries will keep the imperial system versus the metric system, I'll never believe in global standardisation. Even if it's strictly better, there will always be a cost to changing, and therefore not everyone will agree.

I live in US and all SAE measurements are expressed in metric measurements. I am studying structural engineering.

Even 3/4 plywood is always 18mm, not 19.05mm.

What was the Covid fiasco? Are you on novax positions?

Not the OP, but the current high inflation is partially caused by Covid-related measures.

The people who were saying early on during the pandemic (me included) that we have to put into balance the number of covid casualties with the longer term economic consequences of imposing harsh and long lockdowns were treated as assasins of our collective grandmas, and worse. If it matters I’m triple vaccinated.

Because surely you were an expert on covid and its consequences early on during the pandemic, and surely you have proven (and published) that the measures taken (given the knowledge at the time where they were taken) were counter-productive in the long run, right?

Didn't need to be an expert to see where all of this was going. Again, there were many calls of "you're locking us down -> very shitty economy going forward -> things will be shitty for everyone in terms of their physical existence, not only for grandma".

If anything, this should have put another big dent in experts' expertise, meaning if they knew what they were getting us into with their decisions (after all, they're experts) and they choose this high inflation route nonetheless.

> Didn't need to be an expert to see where all of this was going.

Sure, there is never a need to be an expert to claim knowing more than them.

Also, I'm not completely convinced that it's exclusively related to the Covid lockdowns in Europe. For instance, many companies were very quick to restart (or were not even stopped) in Europe, but struggle with the IC shortage... which is not coming from Europe, is it?

As far as I can tell it’s mostly related to the increase in the money supply that was generated/caused by the strict Covid measures, I’m talking both about the US, through the Fed policies, and Europe, through the ECB policies.

That increased money supply was at first not really felt because of the decreased money velocity caused by lockdowns and restrictions, but once things started getting back to “normal” in terms of lockdowns and travel restrictions and all that then money velocity got back closer to its pre-covid levels, and coupled with that increased money supply left us in the current situation.

Of course, the increased money supply is not the only explanation, there’s also the war in Ukraine which has put a tremendous pressure on energy prices, plus the supply crisis, but imo it’s still one of the main causes of what we’re going right now.

Right. Yeah it seems to make sense that a pandemic followed by a war would have an impact on the economy :-/.

You could flip it round and say that's why the US is lagging behind the EU in environmental protection and consumer rights.

I suspect the correct answer is somewhere between the two approaches.

The amount by which the EU is better than the US in environmental protection is basically a rounding error relative to what’s actually necessary to stop climate change. You might as well say they’re equal.

Climate change is far from the only environmental problem have. Sure, it's the biggest but also the biggest to solve.

And the EU has had a consistent push to solve it, unlike the US, which for instance during the Trump era pulled out of the Paris accord.

The solution for climate change would come from technology. Not random politicians virtue signalling and signing useless agreements which doesn't make any meaningful difference.

Technology is the problem, not the solution. Doing more technology increases the problem, as can been seen from the data over the last decades.

What you're looking for is magic. Magic would solve it.

I'm surprised people still bring up carbon capture tech as a solution.

It happens a lot around here lately but it's just such wishful thinking IMO.

If you have that much carbon-neutral energy, carbon-neutral materials, space, maintenance to really make a dent... And all those things don't displace green resources that could have been used for other necessary things instead... You wouldn't have had any problem to begin with.

See how much shit we get here when we get a few % less natural gas here in Europe. We're in a huge crisis over just that. That's a promille of what we'd need to capture enough carbon for 0.01 degree cooling.

It's just some distraction from the hard things that are needed to solve it. And a big paycheck for the industry behind it obviously.

It's simpler to think "technology will save us" than "we as a species screwed up and have already destroyed 2/3 of wild life (not talking about the consequences of global warming, that's yet to come), maybe we should change drastically".

We've known about climate change for decades and global CO2 output has only increased. Just assuming technology will solve it is foolish.

The continent that provides companies like ASML and plenty of machinery in general, and is regularly in the news - not just now with the Nobel Price - when it comes to bio-tech?

Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, sure, but there is plenty of IT inside the machines. You are too concentrated on some very hip consumer companies and don't see the vast ocean of important businesses in the middle, that don't have much or any consumer contact.

Where is your evidence? What a horrible contribution to the discussion, both divisive (and without reason, out of nowhere), and of the lowest quality.

I actually went through the trouble and looked for the evidence missing from your post. If anything we need to look at Asia most of all. Also because at least for Germany, where through decades long contacts I witnessed some of it personally, we (Germany) transferred significant know-how to China quite voluntarily, and our big companies still insist on continuing to invest there even when many smaller businesses have become far more cautious. Link: https://www.reuters.com/world/german-dependence-china-growin... (German dependence on China growing "at tremendous pace" - paywalled)

Here's some, mostly opinion pieces so YMMV (I'm missing rigorous data and statistics with explanations of what they measured, these article are all too "freeform" for my taste):

- https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate...

- https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-4...

Somewhat better:

- https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/europes-capacity-a...

However, we also have https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03318-w so it's not so easy to make definitive statements about everything.

> Sure. It also explains why EU is lagging horribly behind the US when it comes to technology.

Probably because the EU (government(s)) doesn't sink as much money in to research as the US government. The technology of the US was built on Cold War spending:

* https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

Most of the tech we used in our day to day lives was also created with government spending:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State

I think you would have a very hard time proving this without leveraging monetary policy. Sure some low level components are and companies built on top of that but it doesn’t mean the tech I’m using is supplied by the US government.

Pretty much all the tech I use comes from the private sector

You mean, like the Internet? Or GPS?

Also the US government is injecting a ton of money into private companies, so it's not necessarily visible.

yes the internet and GPS were created by the government, but a bunch of other stuff isn't

What does it mean to ”lag behind” when it comes to technology at a country/continental level?

Lack of legislation

What about the EU contributions to the web stack, like requiring every website on the internet forcing an accept cookies mouse click?

No, that would be the US buying up every EU tech company that dares to become successful with free helicopter money.

Or maybe every EU tech company approaching success will voluntarily move to US, since that is where the (free) market is and that is where it can become successful.

Where is this free market you speak of? Even the gung ho market of the US is regulated and by no means free.

This thread really brought out the libertarians in droves.

There are multiple markets and varying degrees of regulating them. But the universal constant is that the less regulated a market is the better for consumers and society.

That's a bold statement and by no means a universal constant. If your rivers are on fire because there is no environmental regulation, then that is not good for society.

Good example! Environmental regulation managed to drive manufacturing out of developed countries making them vulnerable to less scrupulous, unfriendly regimes while merely shifting the environmental impact elsewhere.

The correct solution was, of course, taxing externalities like pollution and CO2. That would've allowed the free market to search for solutions naturally and locally.

That is my main qualm with regulations: they are a brute force imposed solution which solves the perceived problem on the short term while doing damage and 2nd order effects on the long term.

How is taxing externalities not a measure of regulation?

Taxation uses market mechanisms and thus encourages market solutions. Regulations impose politician-thought solutions directly on market participants.

Does it? I mean China is not exactly as free a market as the US, and I wouldn't say they are lagging horribly behind... on the contrary in many cases

And why do I have to click on the stupid popup on cookies for every freaking website. Thank you EU...

Thank the website instead. They only have to ask you if they want to track you.

Hacker News does not show a cookie popup, for example, because they have no intention of tracking you.

At least now you have a choice. If you don't like the popups, there are extensions to kill them.

Well the stupid popup is coming from the stupid website. If they stopped collecting data they mostly don't use (let's be honest, most websites probably don't do anything useful with most of the data), then they would not have to show the popup.

Something to do with massive brain drain after/during WW2 and the Holocaust? At least for the atom bomb and spaceflight that seemed to be the case...

Brain drain continues today. Innovation happens in the US while EU... mandates charging connectors.

Lagging horribly in what way?