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Comment by stego-tech | Hacker News Reader

I hate these hit pieces against the EU, but I’ll give OP credit that theirs actually has a mixture of credulous proposals (Federal preemption, ending directives, commercial court) alongside the usual pro-billionaire insanity (a 28th regime just for business? Removing regulations on product standards? Are you fucking kidding me here?).

Europe has its fair share of issues, but a lot of them can still be traced back to unresolved wealth pumps and neoliberal policies weakening the state and labor force in favor of business and billionaire interests. There’s also unresolved questions about how much of America’s economic growth is tangible versus theoretical, given the dilapidated state of America’s infrastructure and ballooning national debt problem. Neutering what makes Europeans so much happier than their American peers just for the sake of “productivity” comes off as gallingly tone deaf to the practical realities on the ground.

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> “Europeans… so much happier than… Americans”

Citation needed, and not to a Facebook Quiz-tier “how happy are you on a scale of ten” questionnaire.

My experience is obviously anecdotal, but it is quite varied, and the exact opposite.

I am not your search engine. If you have data that refutes my position, share it. Otherwise, personal experience is not indicative of a larger consensus or observed attitudes and outcomes, nor are “grass is greener” lamentations an acceptable supporting argument.

Until we mass-scan people’s brains, there will never be reliable data on this. Facebook-tier research and anecdote is all we’ll ever have on happiness.

When “the larger consensus” is built on nothing but bullshit soft science coming out of the hard-left humanities departments and old Soviet propaganda that’s still echoing in people’s minds today, I’m just going to ignore it and form my own impression.

the 28th regime is a proposal from the former head[0] of the largest Italian left wing party.

It may be insane, but it's not something dreamed up by billionaires.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Letta

Thank you for the additional context! I had no idea it stemmed from Mr. Letta or his political positions that contributed to the pitch, but I must respectfully disagree with any notion that grants business interests free reign to do as they please outside the interference of policy and society, especially when existing Capital holders have a grotesquely unequal amount of resources at their disposal to already capture entire regimes for their own ends.

It’s a recipe for disaster, and I cannot support it. That’s just my personal position.

> Europe…issues… can still be traced back to unresolved wealth pumps and neoliberal policies weakening the state and labor force in favor of business and billionaire interests

Is it your position that Europe just hasn’t done socialism hard enough? Can you point to an example of a country who has successfully done what you’d like to see?

> Is it your position that Europe just hasn’t done socialism hard enough?

No, obviously, but I can see how folks who cannot grasp the complexity and nuance of geopolitics might reach for classic boogeyman arguments like this one.

> Can you point to an example of a country who has successfully done what you’d like to see?

If I could, then it’s a certainty others would have emulated them by now as well. Don’t you dare try and say that “because a prior example does not exist, therefore this idea is bad”, because the entire technology field is built on people trying the same old ideas in different ways and finding out something that works better in the process. Be better in your retort rather than try and throw cheap barbs for karma.

I don’t need the karma. I get downvoted on any comment that dares to suggest leftist ideas aren’t categorically correct and don’t care at all.

Sure it’s possible that no one has ever tried the flavor of socialism that bypasses the corruption and power-seeking all rulers have been prone to for millennia. But it is a weak argument to rely on that.

All we know is no one has proven a non-corrupt fully socialist state that actually has a good economy has been achieved. Both that and cold fusion might be someday achieved, but I think cold fusion is orders of magnitude more likely. All it takes is one bad-faith leader to bring down a political system, so even if it’s achieved it may not be worth it.

Why do I say a good economy? Because I assert that even with its flaws, it’s way nicer to be a very-low-wage earner here than even to be median in Mao’s China or modern-day DPRK. So if you have perfect equality with a worthless economy it’s not really a victory.

I agree with you. It's a shame the karma system appears to disincentivize sharing ideas others would like to shut out.

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