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Comment by llm_trw | Hacker News Reader

I think there needs to be a word like "Paris syndrome" for when Americans meet actual Europeans and find out their politics.

I've not met anyone who doesn't work in Brussels who thinks the EU isn't a dysfunctional pile of shit. The most spirited defense I've heard of it is "Well at least it keeps the Germans from invading again.".

> The EU, it's better than genocide, by a bit - probably.

-- Enthusiastic EU supporter, 2024.

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Great term. Sometimes, I think I must live on a different continent.

It comes down to interest I think, for someone with a bunch of devices and online all the time it sounds great when the EU forces USBC through for example. Even though they don't generally have a good view of how ordinary people interpret it either.

But at the far end something like the damage the common agricultural policy has for ordinary europeans is completely lost on them. There would never be any interest in how it impacts people.

> for someone with a bunch of devices and online all the time it sounds great when the EU forces USBC through for example

Have you never met an Apple user that carried around both Lightning and USB-C cables? This sort of sentiment confounds me, everyone I knew that had seen a Macbook was waiting on a USB-C iPhone for years. The only people I saw defending Lightning were Apple devotees online.

> There would never be any interest in how it impacts people.

You're free to use the extra comment space to explain it to us.

> Have you never met an Apple user that carried around both Lightning and USB-C cables?

Have you ever met someone that just has an iPhone? There are considerably more of them than those carrying ipads and MacBooks and switches and the like.

I have, and I didn't hear one of them complain when USB-C iPhones were released worldwide.

I am an iPhone-only person complaining! The physical USB-C connector sucks. They wiggle loose, stop connecting properly after just months of use, and are more delicate. I have 10-year-old lightning cables that still work great in my kid’s 6-year-old handed-down iPhone. Meanwhile I have been through multiple USB-C cables that last only months, fall out of the ports easily, and can’t be used to charge or even physically stay in the port of my Dell laptop reliably despite looking the same as all other USB-C cables.

Those are good reasons to be mad. It's a shame Apple refused to submit Lightning to USB-IF, licensed the connector design, and then added additional DRM on top of the license fee.

They did a good job with Thunderbolt in the past, hopefully they get the memo and take a similar road in the future. It would really suck if future conveniences get blocked because Apple ignored the standardization process.

> I've not met anyone who doesn't work in Brussels who thinks the EU isn't a dysfunctional pile of shit.

Then you live in a very biased bubble.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/24/people-br...

Most people who aren't working in Brussels have zero idea about how the EU functions at all.

Brexit voting towns that were shocked to find various programs shuttered once they got what they'd voted for are a great example of this.

Were they? Or did a Yankee journalist write another hit piece about rednecks (with a funny accent to boot) getting what they deserved?

At any rate relying on EU programs is a fools errand, they pull them up at the drop of a hat to discipline governments. Imagine if Trump could block all federal spending in California because he didn't like their politics.

Which towns? Which programmes?

I feel the complete opposite. I think the EU is the most efficient and enlightened bureaucracy there is, and it is going to save our ass, and maybe the ass of the rest of the world too. I have more trust in the EU techno-bureaucrats than in the government of my own country. The more EU the better as far as I am concerned. The EU is awesome.

I agree it is dysfunctional, but it is often less dysfunctional than a lot of local government.

- an Italian-living-in-UK that is a somewhat enthusiastic EU supporter

>Italian-living-in-UK

Sounds like someone voted with their feet.

I moved well before brexit and got rag-pulled.

It's been a while since brexit, surely if it was that bad you could go back home by now.

That may be a valid point, but notice that the GP wasn't about the EU government, it's about governments in general.

And notice it isn't exactly about how people do think they are good, but it's about how people are open to the idea that it can do good here or there.

Or, in other words, it's a much more nuanced point than the one you are replying to.

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