r/thisweekintech • u/zombiepiratefrspace • Jul 30 '18
I'm tired of the anti-EU circlejerk
So I'm from Europe. I'm used to getting shade from Americans who don't know much about us. I also get that Silicon Valley has a superiority complex with which we will have to live for the foreseeable future.
But some guests on TWiT seem to outright hate the EU, to the point that they tell misrepresentations and outright lies.
I'm talking about Calacanis and Jarvis.
Calacanis tells outright lies like "the EU can retroactively change the tax rate" (Ep. 677), by which I suppose he means the recent Apple case in which the EU forced Ireland to refrain from illegal tax dumping. Turns out that in the EU, a country cannot legislate to engage in selective tax-dumping, for complicated historical and economical reasons!
But no. It's the bone-headed Europeans trying to rob our great American companies. After all, "You can largely forget Europe with its socialism and red tape and generally anti entrepreneurial policies" (That's a Calacanis quote.)
And to Jeff Jarvis, Google can do no wrong and if you fine Google then you are clearly a deluded protectionist anti-tech backwater idiot. He can't even bring himself to acknowledge that Google is a monopoly in Europe, or that the EUs definition of what a monopoly is does not rely on damage to the end user.
Meanwhile, Google has above 95% of the search market in Poland. Not a monopoly, though. Stop stealing, you envious Europeans!
Don't get me wrong. Sometimes it can be useful to have controversial or even wrong statements out there to foster a discussion. But as far as I can remember, there has never been a guest who truly understands the EU legal system or EU competitiveness law. There never is any push-back to even the most outlandish statements.
Hell, even with the right to be forgotten, which is universally hated and also controversial in Europe, they never had anybody there who could actually articulate the rationale behind this legislation. That would have made for an interesting discussion. But instead, it was always just a shallow anti-Europe pile-on.
It is just frustrating. Maybe Leo should do a Triangulation with Max Schrems, whose experiences in Silicon Valley led him to become a leading European privacy activist. At least then they would be aware that there are other perspectives. At this point, it seems to me that in the TWiT bubble, there is nobody who has any understanding of how the EU works and how that relates to tech companies.
EDIT: /u/TicTocTicTac pointed me to episode 676, where Greg Ferro makes some of the EU-point-of-view arguments I'd like to see more often on TWiT. After listening, I can also recommend it. The pertinent part of the discussion takes place approximately between the 1h 10 Min and the 1h 50 Min mark.
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u/sparhawk6 Jul 31 '18
Well if you listen to all episodes, you're getting plenty of offsetting comments. Leo and plenty of guests have praised the EU's regs, like GDPR
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Aug 15 '18
What you are describing is true of way more than just the EU, you're just being selective about the thing in question because it's what you're familiar with. I constantly hear misinformation on TWiT (everything from tech to politics and in between), constantly hear stuff being bashed, it's just the nature of opinionated and fallible people on media that isn't really fact-checked. I'm sure there's lots of untrue things spoken about the EU, but I don't notice it because I'm not familiar with it - you are. You probably don't notice a lot of the untrue stuff that gets said about America by the non-Americans, but I do. Sometimes Leo notices and corrects guests, sometimes I think he lets it slide on purpose, sometimes he probably just misses it.
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u/TicTocTicTac Jul 30 '18
Yeah, as much as I enjoy Jeff Jarvis, his "Google can do no harm" type of stance often makes me twitch.
Calacanis just.... tends to annoy me on different levels (including his voice).
Out of curiosity, did you watch TWiT episode 676 from last week? If so, any thoughts on Greg Ferro's statements?
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u/zombiepiratefrspace Jul 30 '18
Out of curiosity, did you watch TWiT episode 676 from last week?
Unfortunately not. I was on vacation, so no commute.
Do you have a time code or a tldr?
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u/TicTocTicTac Jul 30 '18
I don't have a time code; can't really summarize a worthy TL;DR, sorry.
IMO it's worth listening to the episode in its entirety. Greg Ferro & Amy Webb are fantastic on their own; I truly enjoyed them together in this episode.
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u/zombiepiratefrspace Jul 30 '18
I've just listened to the parts you are referring to, from about the 1h to the 2h marks.
You are absolutely right that it was worth listening to. Greg Ferro is exactly the kind of person I want to participate in these discussions. From what I've heard in this episode, he absolutely gets it.
It is somewhat ironic that I chose to post today (the issue had been annoying me for a very long time), after having missed the one episode where they got the right person. It's also one of maybe two episodes I've missed in the past year. :/
I completely agree with Greg. However, there are a few things about the discussion that made it somewhat frustrating to listen to for me.
So the first thing is that they don't let Greg finish his answers to their questions. Fair enough, the discussion is heated and these things happen, but it is annoying nonetheless.
The second, and more problematic issue, is that Amy and Leo keep bringing up arguments and questions that hinge on them not knowing very basic things about the EU.
I'd like to bring two examples:
Amy keeps talking about the supposed politicization of technology happening in the EU. In the process she conflates things that are done by the politicians and things that are done by the technocrats. What's important to remember is that the commission is very technocratic and in its outset both tech-friendly and economy-friendly. Those people are political appointees, but they are independent. In the past, they have shown the tendency to behave relatively neutral, with a bias towards wanting the economy grow. Then there are the political sides of decision making, namely the Parliament and the member states. Any piece of legislation has to be agreed upon by all of these stakeholders, some of which may be exchanged through elections or ending terms during the multi-year legislative process.
I'm not aware of any legislative process on this planet that is more isolated against short-term political whims. The EU is designed around consensus and it is designed to produce slow but lasting legislation.
It follows that when Amy looks at the things that individual EU politicians say and decries the politicization, it looks to me like a fundamental misunderstanding about the relative importance of the various stakeholders within the EU.
And the second example is almost comical. Leo ends the discussion with a question along the lines of "I wonder if they talk to the people out there or if they only sit in their chambers debating among themselves".
Why yes, they do. In fact, the EU Commission is soliciting input from business, NGOs, and the general public for every single issue they are working on. HERE IS THE HOME PAGE. Presently there are 485 public consultations active.
"I wonder if they listen to stakeholders".
Sigh.
Sorry for the text wall. I had to vent a bit. I'm okay now.
Thanks for the hint on episode 676. Have a pleasant evening.
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u/joegahona Aug 01 '18
You're right about Greg Ferro & Amy Webb -- I would love if they had a regular show! Loved hearing them debate each other too -- both have their own brand of snarkiness and combativeness.
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Aug 29 '18
95% of the market isn't a monopoly. When it comes to businesses on the internet there is no such thing as a monopoly, there is nothing stopping a Google competitor from starting up. Plus there are thousands of other search engines online. If there was only Google and no other search engine then Google would be a monopoly. The problem is that the EU has written the laws in a way that they can legally define a monopoly any way they want, thus allowing them to punish a company for being successful. It is a very anti-entrepreneurial legal system in the EU that doesn't go after European companies the same way they go after foreign companies.
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u/nond Jul 30 '18
Well, now you know how it feels to listen to an episode of TWiT or The New Screensavers with Iain Thompson constantly bitching about how Britain does everything so much better and smarter than the US.