Comment by rdm_blackhole | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdm_blackhole | Hacker News Reader

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> Exactly. Because the EU law makers are incompetent and they lack technical understanding and the ability to write laws which clearly define what is and what isn't okay.

I am sorry but I too agree with OP's statement. The EU is full of technocrats who have no idea about tech and they get easily swayed by lobbies selling them on a dream that is completely untethered to the reality we live in.

> The next person initiating a EU procedure to correct the current error with the popups will have the burden of doing everything perfectly right, all at once, thought through front to back, or face the wrath of the all-knowing internet.

You are talking as if someone is actually looking at the problem. is that so? Because if there was such a feedback loop that you seem to think exists in order to correct this issue, then where is it?

> In my mind, the main issue is not that the EU made a mistake. The main issue is that it is not getting corrected in time and we will probably have to suffer another ten years or so until the error gets removed.

So we should not hold people accountable when they make mistakes and waste everyone's time then?

There is plenty of evidence to show that the EU as a whole is incompetent when it comes to tech.

Case and point the Chat control law that is being pushed despite every single expert warning of the dire consequences in terms of privacy, and setting a dangerous precedent. Yet, they keep pushing it because it is seen as a political win.

If the EU knew something about tech they would know that placing back-doors in all communication applications is non starter.

> You are talking as if someone is actually looking at the problem. is that so? Because if there was such a feedback loop that you seem to think exists in order to correct this issue, then where is it?

Yes, the problem is known and actually worked on. There are several approaches, some being initiated on country level (probably because EU is too slow) some within the institution, as this one:

https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-work/subjects...

No, I don’t think that institutionalised feedback loops exist there, but I do not know. I can only infer from observation that they are probably not in place, as this would, I would think, show up as “move fast and break things”.

> So we should not hold people accountable when they make mistakes and waste everyone's time then?

I have not made any direct remark to accountability, but I’ll play along: what happens by handling mistakes that way is accountability through fear. What is, in my opinion, needed is calculated risk taking and responsibility on a base of trust and not punishment. Otherwise, eventually, you will be left with no one taking over the job or people taking over the job who will conserve the status quo. This is the opposite of pushing things through at high speed. There needs to be an environment in place which can absorb this variety before you can do that(see also: Peter Senge’s “Learning Organisation”).

On a final note, I agree that the whole lobbying got out of hand. I also agree on the back-door issue and I would probably agree on a dozen other things. I am not in the seat of generally approving what the European Administration is doing. One of my initial points, however, was that the EU is not “the evil, dumb-as-brick-creator” of the cookie-popup-mess. Instead, this is probably one of the biggest cases of malicious compliance in history. And still, the EU gets the full, 100% blame, almost unanimously (and no comment as to what the initial goal was). That is quite a shift in accountability you just were interested in not to loose.

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