The country for better or worse seems to be frozen in time - salaries have not caught up with the heady levels of SV (or even Europe) but neither have rents or prices for common goods.
This is not a judgment either way - but it does make Japanese exports a significantly more lucrative business - if only they could figure out how to sell more of their stuff abroad!
Rough - this is an ugly article, because like Ayn Rand it has the illusion of truth.
A bit like saying "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others."
Meritocracy is doubtless a fallacy, as anyone who has attended any kind of elite institution understands. That Xi or Putin or Trump or Clinton's children should get in despite their lack of ability is an affront to the notion of meritocracy itself.
We should therefore not ascribe moral value to meritocracy - it is an illusion. However, it is a worthwhile ideal to attempt to live up to. We attempt to rise to the level of our expectations - failing every time.
Confucianism is preferable to the robber's logic because we can see what happens when the robbers rule. The world is even more arbitrary, capricious and unfair.
You really look at my original comment and think - "yeah that deserves a BIIIIG round of downvotes?" And then I come back and engaged and then you think I'm digging myself in a hole?
I'm having a substantive debate on a difficult issue with different perspectives.
Woof.
And to be clear, I did engage with his point, if only indirectly.
Saying "noyb" isn't the EU is like saying a major influencer like Tucker Carlson isn't the U.S. government. Technically correct, but underrating the influence and alignment it has inside the bloc.
"Yes, noyb (None Of Your Business) is highly popular and influential in the EU. Founded in 2017 in Vienna by prominent privacy advocate Max Schrems, the non-profit organization functions as a leading strategic litigation center that enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)."
It really pains me that even after all this effort, you get downvoted 'for cause.' the discussion unfortunately continues to get worse here.
Mate if you're going to cherry pick about "markets and alignment"
-> More people have died in the EU from heat waves due to lack of air conditioning than gun violence in the US. Ratio is worse if you remove suicide gun death.
Societal choices do have consequences!
The EU doesn't have to kill jobs. The companies are doing that on their own because they cannot compete. Take a look at what is happening in Germany.
The whole point is the EU should be more competitive. It would be great if they could create jobs instead of giving them to Instagram.
That's what everyone wants. No one wants to live in the 9/9/6 grind hellscape.
But you cannot regulate the world there. EU has tried. It has not worked.
Obviously a caricature, but you must engage with the substance of the underlying issue.
If you have watched the EU's approach to U.S. tech cos (DMA, DPA) you can see a trend of increased regulation; to where it's not worth sometimes to release apps on the App Store initially to the EU due to GDPR and DMA restrictions.
Appreciate it if you take the technical bite out of the comment and engage in good faith here.
The regulators have repeatedly shown their willingness to look at the pure letter of the law and levy multibillion dollar fines.
Maybe the tech cos deserve it. But what's at hand here is where the investment of time and energy is going in the bloc.
My other comments address why this feels like an issue.
And the hilarious, (IMO) bad faith downvoting suggests the comment actually stings. We must ask why.
His reading of the letter of the law is probably right. Enforcement is a big question, but they'll hold their judgment given how mad they are generically at U.S. Tech cos.
People weaponizing the downvote here without good faith discussion is disappointing but expected on HN recently. It's OK, you can take my HN points.
> The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers.
Yes.
> They're more than capable of recreating the US tech stack locally.
No.
Where are the dozens of European tech winners? Seriously. They have the best education system in the world, strong social safety nets, cheap healthcare, and great lifestyles. Why have they not created innovative technologies that turn into worldbeating companies?
It's worth seriously asking this question. Many serious tech companies ultimately move to the U.S. because of capital availability but this should be addressable no? EU has big banks and pools of capital?
The ball has been there to take for 30-40 years. Europe has not consistently manufactured winners in the tech space.
> Opensource
Let's see. We hope. But this doesn't seem to have been a good strategy in Web 1 or Web 2 besides a couple of notable exceptions. But notable exceptions don't power an economy.
> Europe ends up richer
I don't see how. This is the problem. They cannot build. They don't have the raw materials. The land. The labor supply. The power. This is getting closer to the root cause.
Have spent many years in Europe. Rooting for them.