YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Countries like China, Russia have largely blocked western tech and as a result domestic technology companies developed to suck up demand. Some things like having a unified capital market would help Europe. This is something they could work to solving, it's more a political question.

It's already happening.

> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like datacenters which are essentially just industrial compute factories and the foundation for anything pertaining to data sovereignty and technology sovereignty.

No, they are not entirely blind to the consequences of this buildout and are trying to find a balance between environmental concerns and technological progress.

I agree that we should probably do more but to use words like 'societally paralyzed' is rather uninformed about what actual democracies look like.

edit: never mind, I just checked your comment history, this seems to be some thing that you are repeating over and over and getting the same kind of answers but you just keep doing it.

Last I checked they were everywhere in Europe.

How did they get there in the first place if they're so allergic to them?

The only reason the US is not paralyzed is because the government is completely disregarding the views of voters on the topic. I struggle to see that as better.

(before someone says it: yes, I think the anti-data center sentiment is overblown. But the answer is convincing voters of why it’s good, not ignoring them)

Lmao. Says the country that is to politically paralyzed to even maintain roads and sewers.

It seems you've been living under a rock. Europe is already started investing those billions on non-US providers, and the US is already complaining it's not fair.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/30/us-ambassador-slams-eus-...

> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like (...)

You're spending too much time in your alt-right pipeline. Europe already mobilized to cover around 80% of Ukraine's external aid, and is providing Ukraine with long range missiles and even drone technology, which the US conspicuously lacks.

Even this week there were news reports that Ukraine was now looking at Eutelsat to replace StarLink.

Trump,remaining true to his Russian asset fame, has been undermining the US in multiple fronts including diplomacy and defence treaties, and is literally pressuring Ukraine to capitulate to Russia. The sole reason why this plan hasn't succeeded is the fact that, unlike your claim, Europe stepped up and silently filled the role and responsibilities that the US held previously in NATO and Europe's security infrastructure. Therefore, Trump's threats to withhold support now lack any weight, rendering these threats completely ineffective. Thanks to Europe.

Europe's work was so successful to the point where Trump himself is throwing desperate lifelines at Putin's regime with actions such as lifting self-imposed blockaded to buy diesel straight from Putin, and demanding Zelensky resigned for Ukraine's success in attacking Russia's critical infrastructure. That tells you all there is to know on how far Europe stepped up.

Everytime something about EU tech sovereignty is posted, comments with sentiments like OP are posted within the first several minutes. Because they're outrageous (anger-inducing) they get a lot of comments telling them off, an resultingly will be presented prominently on the page.

How much effort and resources does it really cost to have some bots doing this kind of stuff on a couple of well-visited platforms? As techies we should understand that it's basically costs no resources, time and effort. Therefore we should expect these kinds of influence operations on public forums like these.

It's _been_ happening. Why do you think something that delivers jobs, boosts the economy, and is an easier and easier political and popular sell everyday, is unlikely?

> They are politically and societally paralyzed from building even basic things like datacenters

That's also happening. It's just that we're not as gung-ho about doing things at any cost.

While the overarching opinion of AI might be more negative, there's plenty of people pushing for exactly what you're describing, despite hurdles in regulation and also a fragmented market.

What's pretty clear from talking to companies of every size is that most leaders now understand how important it is.

Your enemy is always your best teacher. Pay attention when they demonstrate a new skill.

That is the reason why europe is falling behind. System. Not people.

It's not impossible to overcome, but it is an added commitment for any new company. Founding is not very attractive and that's why we don't get that many crazy wild bets here (Tesla was one initially too).

Yep, so saying Europe can build software is pretty much like Western factories trying to compete with slave or child labor in some developing part of the world.

I mean most Americans probably don't want to open their own sweatshop garment factories. But it does mean that if we start ww3 that shirts may be harder to come by. I think it's probably a good thing that the entire world is too interdependent to want to start shooting at each other? (G10 at least)

Or maybe, just hear me out, that's an American delusion, promoted to justify the oligarchy here.

European companies can still build software in different countries. Nothing stops them from building their software in an US subsidiary they fully control. A lot of good software developers are currently looking for a job.

Don't forget that US can always strong arm Canada and make it bend to its will. We are too dependent on them. It's nearly impossible to disassociate with United States due to our proximity.

The timeline has changed before, like the ASIC issues pushed full service into 2028. Also scale and capability obviously differ, but it could be a good starting point.

Regardless, I think Europe is better served focusing on its own tech like IRIS and Eutelsat.

Powerful people got together and decided the world would be a nice place if everyone worked together. Their solution for ensuring that happened whilst taking human behaviours into account was global capitalism.

Despite its downsides (some of which we're only starting to see the consequences of) you have to admit that it was doing its job. Countries were cooperating because it was in their best interest. It was always a delicate thing though, and the orangutang broke the trust it relied on.

It might seem naive now, but "bro, of _course_ you can rely on us for service X, why are you even asking?" was an believable response before the orange.

Oh we absolutely are building replacement stuff for a lot of American things. IRIS2 for example is our Starlink alternative. OVH, Hetzner and a bunch of other smaller players can provide hosting. Mistral is our AI model. Cars, trucks and farm equipment can be/are made in Europe. We have our own nuclear weapons, warplanes, navy, tanks, satellite based surveillance, and sooner rather than later (via Ukraine) viable replacements even for missile defense. That is the last thing we truly are depending on the US, but eh, after Trump wasted the entire US stockpile on the Iran clustercuck they again left us no choice, and the Ukrainians are busy by necessity developing something useful.

A lot of the major players in software are Europe-based too. SuSE, GnuPG, KDE, LibreOffice and I think also Samba are German. VLC is French. MariaDB is at least partially based in Finland. Spotify is Swedish.

The only thing we do lack is a fully integrated hardware and software manufacturer similar to Apple, but I think we could set up something based off of the open source parts of Framework and Raspberry Pi should the need arise.

> The only thing they can do these days is imposing new regulations of bottle caps.

Have you walked alongside the Isar river at least once in your life? I personally am happy to no longer see plastic bottle caps littered around, and the magnetic ones can be picked up easy enough with a magnet. I don't see the problem.

> They turned themselves into the laughing stock of the all world: willingly.

The laughing stock of the world is the US President who regularly shits himself in his diapers.

Not a lawyer, but wouldn't an illegal immigrant owe no allegiance to breach and therefore couldn't commit treason?

Have you seen what crap cars even german manufacturers produce lately?

Apparently Ukraine does use already use Eutelsat in addition to Starlink, but it's utility is limited due to number of satellites and bandwidth, as well as the current weight of terminals (presumably an issue for weapons-borne receivers).

what and when is the the "next" economic cycle?

Do you think you would stand even the tiniest chance of hiring European tech workers into a company run the way they are in the US?

https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...

These are political and societal issues that are very difficult to solve. Not to mention that energy insecurity and cost makes Europe non-competitive from the outset.

1. Ukraine is in an offensive position

2. Ukraine is in a defensive position and thus it was indeed Musk

To me these are both very dumb stances. Lose lose statement

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-starlink-elon-musk-trump-d...

Not sure why so many people here are defending him as though his word is authoritative. The guy's as big a liar as Donald Trump.

When did Doctorow coin enshittification?

When did Zuck call his users stupid fucks?

When did Amazon start comingling counterfeits with originals?

When did Google buy DoubleClick?

When did Google start reading your Gmail?

When did Boeing start skimping on safety?

This is a decades long trend. Don't be giving Trump credit he doesn't deserve, otherwise the lessons of history will not be learned. Blaming Trump is yet another easy answer that allows for all of the other things to be swept under the rug.

What a great point you’re making here!