[falcon620]

It's interesting to see the HN reaction to this. The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living.

I guess Google is a lot less popular now compared to like two years ago.

[fwdpropaganda]

> The last time the EU fined Google a huge amount of money for anti-trust reasons the general sentiment here was that it was just socialist Europeans taxing American companies trying to make an honest living.

That was a common sentiment amongst Americans.

As a European, you don't really think "yeah, screw those American monopolies... but I like the European ones"

[justin66]

> I guess Google is a lot less popular now compared to like two years ago.

Or all antitrust cases are not identical on their merits.

[microcolonel]

HN has been slowly alienating the people who would disagree (mostly by downvoting without replying), it seems. If I were designing HN today, I'd probably make it only possible to downvote a post if you have either replied, or upvoted an existing reply.

[adventured]

I happen to believe the US should begin reciprocal economic targeting against the EU if they continue down the path of attacking our tech companies via massive fines as a means to offset their inability to compete. Indeed, this outcome is guaranteed to occur. The US isn't going to just watch as the EU continuously steals billions of dollars from its top companies.

They're so far behind in the EU, the US would have to stop all technological progress for at least a decade to allow them to partially catch up. When Britain exits the EU, the EU GDP per capita will nearly be 50% lower than the US. Realistically they have no means to keep up with the US over time, they simply don't have the financial capability to do it, I almost sympathize with their desperation.

The US is booming, it'll add a trillion dollars to its GDP this year alone. Meanwhile half the EU is a perpetual rolling economic disaster still, a decade after the great recession began. Populists keep gaining more and more traction in EU countries, with Italy looking like it might be the next to leave the EU. It really is hard to blame the EU leadership for trying to find some way to extract value from the US economic dominion, given how weak the EU outlook is.

[MBCook]

I think the US should control it’s own tech companies instead of letting them run wild so the rest of the world has to do it.

[fwdpropaganda]

You just have to briefly skim that guy's post history to learn that he's an ideological warrior.

[yesco]

How would his post history be relevant? Do you think only like-minded individuals should be debated with?

[fwdpropaganda]

> How would his post history be relevant?

Post history is relevant to assess if the person you're talking to has a very strongly set view on an extremely complex matter. If they do, that suggests that the reasons for the person spending time defending that view might not be motivated by exploration of ideas, but by evangelization of their view.

I think having an estimation of the person's motivation is important because conversations with people motivated by exploration of ideas can make for interesting, insightful and educational conversation, whereas the ones movitated by evangelization tend to be reduced to the same catchy but superficial arguments that they've learned over the years.

[yesco]

> Post history is relevant to assess if the person you're talking to has a very strongly set view on an extremely complex matter. If they do, that suggests that the reasons for the person spending time defending that view might not be motivated by exploration of ideas, but by evangelization of their view

Strange, perhaps we have different motivations for debating? My goal is generally to learn and understand why someone would think a certain way in contrast with my own way of thinking. Their motivations for the exchange are irrelevant to this, if at the end of it they agree with me that's nice but it's not the objective. Personally my favorite occasions are when I'm proven to be wrong.

> I think having an estimation of the person's motivation is important because conversations with people motivated by exploration of ideas can make for interesting, insightful and educational conversation, whereas the ones motivated by evangelization tend to be reduced to the same catchy but superficial arguments that they've learned over the years.

This is the part I'm finding confusing, the entire paragraph feels very hypocritical. How can you claim to be open to ideas while simultaneously dismissing the ones you deem unworthy? Is it that your own motivations don't matter but the ones you choose to speak to do? Superficial arguments don't matter when the goal is to understand the reason THEY believe something. If you believe you have heard it all before and choose not to spend your time on it then that's one thing, but you purposefully injected yourself into a discussion without adding anything other than a snarky comment that implied another poster was unworthy of being spoken to due to their more polarized views. How can you justify this?

[pjc50]

> When Britain exits the EU

This is looking less and less certain every day, not helped by the fact that the government has absolutely no idea what it wants or how to achieve it while increasing numbers of people point out that the "no deal" option results in total chaos: food shortages within a week etc.

[pjmlp]

I still believe even if happens, UK will eventually end up in a situation similar to Norway, Switzerland, with bilateral agreements, not changing that much in practice.

[fwdpropaganda]

Out of interest, why do you believe that?

I have no strong opinion either way. But I was wondering if your belief isn't motivated more by your familiarity (with those scenarios) than anything else.

Personally I would note that in those examples you mentioned you have freedom of movement, which to me seems isn't a politically unacceptable solution in the UK.

[pjmlp]

Not sure.

Yeah, I am familiar with those scenarios, which kind of allow those countries to benefit from EU agreements without losing too much of their independence, in comparison with other European countries.

I am also regularly in the UK, and for many people it wasn't clear what being outside EU meant regarding European companies with HQ in UK.

Having such agreements would allow a kind of win-win situation, leaving EU while allowing many of those businesses to stay in UK.

That is just a personal opinion, in any case I don't have any vote in UK matters.

[AnimalMuppet]

Off topic, but: I thought it was certain? That is, I thought that, once Britain invoked Article 50 (?), they were out in two years, guaranteed, no stopping the process, with the only question being what the new situation would be. Is there a path from here that doesn't result in exit?

I agree that the government doesn't know how to achieve anything positive out of the situation...

[detaro]

It seems like if UK and EU agree (which institutions exactly is a good question) the Article 50 notice can be revoked, at least there's lots of support of that opinion around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_U...

Maybe it can be done unilaterally too.

Even if that weren't the case, I think it'd theoretically be possible for EU and UK to have an exit agreement retaining full cooperation, the UK leaving and immediately applying for membership again. That process could be quick, if everyone (which in this case would involve all member states) agrees about it... but could also be a point where some governments might try to strip the UK of privileges from it's current membership.

[amaccuish]

Speaking of populists, remind me, who's your president again?