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The thing about Europe: it's the actual land of the free now

(www.economist.com)
160 points cruzcampo | 4 comments | 11 Apr 25 08:04 UTC | HN request time: 1.763s | source
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palata ◴[11 Apr 25 08:15 UTC] No.43651526[source]▶
> There are few unicorns in Europe, alas, and too little innovation.

There is most definitely innovation in Europe. It just gets bought by the US, who is quick to forget where the technology came from.

As for unicorns and trillion dollars companies... some may say it's a feature, not a bug. It's great to claim to have free speech and competition, but when a few people own a few big monopolies and control the media, is it real? Regulations are not bad.

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mentalgear ◴[11 Apr 25 08:37 UTC] No.43651631[source]▶
Exactly, regulation benefits the consumers by allowing for a competitive playing field on innovation, cost and labour.

Deregulate the market and you get the oligopoly US of today (not the "great" version of the 1950s that had regulation which distributed the wealth much more equally).

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1. aaa_aaa ◴[11 Apr 25 08:53 UTC] No.43651779[source]▶
Regulations by state just brings regulatory capture. It is always the case in EU or US. Both are lost to China now.
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2. watwut ◴[11 Apr 25 09:02 UTC] No.43651853[source]▶
China, famously unregulated country full of freedom.
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3. spwa4 ◴[11 Apr 25 09:52 UTC] No.43652175[source]▶
How is this a mystery? What matters is whether the state provides funding for innovation. The market will never support a first moon landing. The market will not even support something like starlink, where the use is obvious. The US' technological advantage is the result of massive continuous state investment after WW2 and through the cold war. There were periods of such investment in Europe, but they have been over for decades now. The only places where some lasted during the cold war were the UK and France, and both of those are well and truly over. In the US they're only now dropping fast under Trump.

The CCP is providing absurd amounts of funding for commercial innovation. Not just money either. Everything from monetary stimulus, tax exemptions (and strategically forgiving outright tax evasion) even "honey traps" (hiring prostitutes to entrap foreigners, even long term), even kidnapping foreigners.

4. intended ◴[11 Apr 25 10:46 UTC] No.43652448[source]▶
This is doctrine.

The same way you make sure your planes fly, your code is updated, and you improve your product - you pay attention to your regulators.

The SEC was defanged for years. The pendulum swung to low regulation, and lower taxes, leading to greater wealth concentration via asset purchases.

These are all rectifiable. At all levels. It just not going to happen if we are listening to zero information news sources and disengage with everything but rage.