| ▲ | clarionbell 14 hours ago |
| Europe is entering a crisis of unprecedented proportions. This isn't just an isolated incident, one bad company, this is a trend. It used to be that subsidies managed to balance out the over-regulation, high labor costs and powerful pressure groups Europe was known for. Now it's no longer the case. There used to be a technological edge European countries (especially in the west) could rely on, which made them more suitable for some business. But now it's gone, almost everywhere. Exception is couple of important, but niche industries, which are seen as being of strategic interest (Airbus, ASML, Arianne). But they too feel the pinch now, as the supply chains get more fragile, new talent leaves, or doesn't even show up, and foreign powers prop up their own alternatives. Add incapable, or shortsighted, political leadership, aging population, hostile, or at least unfriendly, neighbors and rising political extremism, and you get a particularly deadly mix. Unfortunately, the top institutions have shown almost zero acceptance of the fact.
In that sort of situation the only "hope" is that the collapse will be relatively quick, allowing for some rebuilding to start before the next decade ends. If we are lucky. |
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| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Sadly but true. The latest issue is that the EC would rather see the auto industry fail than to change its climate objectives. It looks like it gotten so bad that Germany started speaking up against emissions goals and most likely would try to block any measures. I don't think Arianne is successful as it relies on traditional technology to launch things into space and they can't be competitive with SpaceX. The EU is the laughing stock of the world: AI regulation is in force, but no single AI company in Europe :)) - just to name one example. |
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| ▲ | wkat4242 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Those climate objectives are necessary. Soon we will be spending a lot more on disaster mitigation than we would have on some EV subsidies. If anything the transition is not fast enough. I'm living very close to Valencia with its recent flooding disaster, that it didn't happen here was just a matter of chance. That week alone has cost the country more than 10 billion in damage payments and the actual damage is a lot bigger than that. And that's not even considering the hundreds that were killed. And cars aren't as important here as in the US. I haven't owned or driven one in 7 years. I agree that ariane isn't doing well but it's really niche anyway. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They can prepare better for natural disasters. And while climate change is an issue, we have the technology to fight it and not bankrupting entire industries to achieve some far fetched green goals. You might not like cars, but a lot of other people do. | | |
| ▲ | wkat4242 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | These goals aren't far-fetched though. We're really far behind the curve as humanity. We need to do this sooner rather than later. Don't forget there is a huge latency in CO2 emissions and their effect. The CO2 we're saving now will only take effect in 20 year's time. The next 20 years of increasingly worst disasters are already locked in. In 20 years doing what we should do now will feel easy. I know the US will probably pull out of the climate accords again now that trump will be president but that's no reason for the rest of the world to do nothing. Even China is making lots of headway. But it also means we can't really keep living as we are. People really need to switch to EVs if they want to have a car. Also sooner rather than later. But here in the cities in Europe we're seeing less people owning cars and more and more excellent public transport. Which is even better, you can use it after drinking, you don't have to pick it up from the place you left it off, you can read a book while using it, there's no maintenance or insurance. It helps climate and it's an easier mode to travel. |
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| ▲ | Cumpiler69 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Those climate objectives are necessary. They're worthless if the rest of the world is not on board with you. If you're the only one on board, all you're doing is making your domestic industry uncompetitive and your working class citizens poorer via high energy prices, while the largest polluting nations are destroying the planet further while also getting richer thanks to not giving a crap about the environment and eating away your share of world GDP. What EU is doing is like trying to loose weight by cutting your own legs off calling it a good policy. | | |
| ▲ | wkat4242 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > They're worthless if the rest of the world is not on board with you. Not really. The EU is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Our change will help. And the rest will have to follow eventually because they are also affected. And they will be in a bigger hurry and it will cost more. > If you're the only one on board, all you're doing is making your domestic industry uncompetitive and your working class citizens poorer via high energy prices, while the largest polluting nations are destroying the planet further while also getting richer thanks to not giving a crap about the environment and eating away your share of world GDP. Also, it's not a race we have to win. Life is not about becoming the richest. | | |
| ▲ | Cumpiler69 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Also, it's not a race we have to win. Life is not about becoming the richest. It is, if you want to maintain the generous welfare and high standard of living the EU is used to. Where do you think that money comes from, the sky? It comes from having a world dominant economy. Without that, there's no more money for good wages, pensions and welfare and the people won't be happy with that. Otherwise, the EU citizens will either have to be contempt to being poorer, OR, more likely, they'll vote another Austrian painter to power to upset the apple cart. | | |
| ▲ | wkat4242 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | We don't need to get even richer is what I mean. It's fine. I even moved to a lower wage country within the EU (about half as much as I would be able to make at home) to get a better quality of life. There's enough flex, we are still one of the richest regions in the world. Also, a lot of costs scale with income anyway. | | |
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| ▲ | nope1000 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Flux (the image generator of xAI) is by Black Forest Labs - a german AI company for example. | | | |
| ▲ | jddj 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Mistral is french | | |
| ▲ | clarionbell 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | True, and in my opinion a proof that Europe has potential to recover. Unfortunately it remains to be seen if they manage to survive oncoming regulator onslaught. I hope they will. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | The way the current EC is set, fat chance of giving up regulating everything they can regulate. |
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| ▲ | Timwi 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How is AI regulation a laughing stock in the context of emissions reduction? | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | America innovates, Europe regulates and China copies. It was a parallel that in the EU we have regulations for things that there are no successful companies in the field and even if some companies will do AI in Europe, they will not be able to compete globally because they are chained by regulations. And with regulations that do not into account the economic realities, like the slow killing of the auto industry with the push for EVs even if very few people actually want them. | | |
| ▲ | wkat4242 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | As an EU citizen I really applaud the AI regulation. And I work on implementing AI too. If we look at how the big social media experiment panned out, polarising society through engagement-driven algorithms, it was important to prevent this happening with AI. The same with adtech which caused too much surveillance. Because it's much harder to put the genie back in the bottle when companies are already heavily relying on it for their business model. We try to steer the industry towards business models that benefit society as well. AI is nice but it's important to make sure it doesn't undermine society as social media certainly has done. And the regulation is not outrageous. It's mostly common sense. |
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| ▲ | Al-Khwarizmi 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The latest issue is that the EC would rather see the auto industry fail than to change its climate objectives. I don't think climate objectives are the problem. The auto industry wants to see them reduced because they want to keep pumping out diesel engine cars, i.e., making us buy obsolete technology while tariffs prevent us from buying cheaper and better foreign EVs. Do you really think that's the path to keeping our auto industry in the long term? If climate objectives were more ambitious and weren't being pushed forward all the time due to industry lobbying, we would probably see more innovation in Europe. |
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| ▲ | 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | baxtr 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| If Europe as major part of the West continues to fail this is going to happen - Russian influence will rise and dominate at least major parts of Eastern Europe - China will expand its footprint in Africa and increase its ambition in Asia - US and Japan will become more isolated than ever |
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| ▲ | clarionbell 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes. That is very much given. In fact some of it has already happened. Europe has effectively ceded it's position in Africa to others some time ago. Aid based approach has led to little tangible benefit for locals, and even less for Europeans. Furthermore, conditions the recipient needed to fulfill were, and still are, often hard to accept for cultural and historical reasons. Add to it the lack of actual power projection and all you have is contempt. It's pretty visible during any UN vote. Simply put, investment beats aid, every single time. The silver lining is that Russia is having it's own issues, not entirely different but similarly horrible. Namely demographic crisis, exacerbated by war and poor public health.
There is also demographic crisis in China, however their government has been wise enough to not go to all out war. | |
| ▲ | Cumpiler69 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Russian influence will rise and dominate at least major parts of Eastern Europe Definitely not, given how russophobic Eastern Europe is. They had enough of Russia to last them several lifetimes of misery. On the other hand, Western Europe, especially "neutral" Austria is a lot more pro-Russian than the East. | | |
| ▲ | baxtr 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Being russophobic doesn’t mean you’re safe. See Ukraine. | | |
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| ▲ | oezi 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nothing is going to stop China's rise but China's own failings (mostly demographically). Russia can't even beat a country one third its own size despite petrol dollars and legacy military stock. | | |
| ▲ | DoingIsLearning 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Russia does not need to win to still wreak havoc. Their hybrid warfare has created massive social rifts and political instability across all major Western Democracies. Unfortunately you do not need a lot of money to do evil, when the devil's whispers are enough to turn citizens of a nation against each other. | | |
| ▲ | sandos 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "Their hybrid warfare has created massive social rifts" - Really? Do tell. I haven't noticed anything like that. Nor political instability. | |
| ▲ | baxtr 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A great lesson in asymmetrical warfare. |
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| ▲ | baxtr 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I agree. But Russia is being backed by its Asian allies. They will grind forward albeit slowly. |
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