"This is what happened to the EU with battery technology, renewable technology, AI, digital services, and semiconductors."
I don't agree with the "semiconductor" take of that. ASML, a European company funded by a lot of private and non-European capital, is basically producing the machines that are making all of the high-end semi conductors of the past few years. They have received grants from the EU, arguably small in compared to the private funding though.
IMEC, and their NanoIC research on the other hand receives a lot of funding from the EU.
I don't see a diagram on page 13, but I read a few pages around there. I don't see anything about it not applying to micro-enterprises. I see one diagram (PDF page 14/page num 11) that says a farmer selling "under own name or trademark to end user in another Member State" (without saying there's an exception for a micro-enterprise) means that the "Farmer is producer," which sounds like the opposite of what you said.
Yeah, I did this at 16 at a gas station and got paid 8.75 an hour, there are lots of people out there doing this type of work in the private sector. Its not glamorous thats for sure but supply/demand will dictate the labor market. The government doesn't deem it infeasible because hiring is difficult, its because they aren't willing to pay a reasonable wage for the work.
Matrix is nearly as old today as XMPP was when the Matrix project was started, and Matrix is still such a pile of shit standard that there's STILL only one server implementation and one client. That's actually not how the standard was designed; if Matrix had been a successful project, according to their own goals, the ecosystem would look a lot more like XMPP than it does.
Comparing XMPP at 11 years old to Matrix today makes it abundantly clear that the main thing Element LLC does is waste European public grant funds
> And that issue is exacerbated in the U.S. with the worst parental-leave policy among developed nations.
NYC's TFR was 1.55 in 2021. London's TFR was 1.35 in 2024. Paris TFR was 1.27 in 2024. Other US cities are not really comparable to the European ones, but the broader point is that parental leave has nothing to do with TFR. Norway and Sweden have TFRs around 1.44 while the US has it 1.6-1.8
> it's more like "having a child could cost me my high-paying job so I better not"...having a child is an opportunity cost in an urban environment
At least in the US and speaking generally, people with high incomes in urban areas move to suburbs once they have kids. I would like to see a citation for your "opportunity cost" claim, because high income jobs also come with good benefits like generous parental leave policies.
And yet people will put forth dire predictions (drought, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, etc.) every chance they get. No wonder so many people think it is all a hoax.
If the government is underfunded enough to not be able to hire bathroom cleaners, how can anyone expect a barely surviving retail business to afford it?
EU web sites are such an epitome for the EU as a whole: Inscrutably bureaucratic.
Instead of a FAQ page that starts with, you know, the FAQ, the actual information is hidden in a PDF download. Once you click it, there is another popup to confirm. That then leads to a PDF with 9 pages of misc front matter before you can see the first question. And the answers themselves are completely unreadable.
Take for example "3) Are envelopes containing letters, invoices, statements and other correspondence which serve a communication function considered to be packaging under the PPWR? NEW!": Three paragraphs of legalese just to say "no" in the most complicated way.
And for extra hilarity, the page is also covered in so many popups and warts that fight each other that on mobile you have to accept all cookies because the decline button is covered.
I'm weird. Just to be fair I'll acknowledge that certain political actors in the US deny there's any man made climate change and fight renewable energy because it conflicts with some narrow business or political interests. I'm not denying that.
But...
The political criticism in the US (and in Canada where I'm from) against fossil fuel extraction makes no sense. We should want that fossil fuels are extracted here. Not overseas. It's true some element of the "right" are ideologically driven here in the wrong direction but many in the "right" are also pragmatic. Instead of fighting we need to get to common ground and the way to get there is by market forces. Most would prefer the get solar energy if it's cheaper vs. more expensive fossil fuels. And certainly if all else was equal (panels made in the US, American jobs, whatnot). So you can take the adversarial route or you can take the pragmatic route and make real progress.
The other stupid political battle here is boycotting Tesla. How does that make sense? We "punish" Elon by using more fossil fuels.
Automation just needs more automation, and access to energy and natural resources, both of which don’t require money if you have enough automation.
Ultimately, Money is only used to pay wages, nothing else… so no wages to pay, no money required. In the post employment scenario, money is not needed by industry. You don’t pay the forest to cut the trees, you don’t pay the dirt to mine the iron, and you don’t pay the sun to grow the crops.
Capital doesn’t need to produce goods for customers. It just needs coercive power to gain and maintain access to resources and energy. You know what gives you that power? An army of 20 million self manufacturering robots.
It’s the grey-goo scenario, only with a few humans nominally involved, and on a macroscopic scale instead of nanotechnology.
Humans are the main impediment to unchecked capital growth. Soon, that impediment could be largely removed. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
With automation, there is no need for the rest of us to exist in order to support the capital class. Ai enabled robotics won’t just eliminate employment, it will make money (and increasingly, people) irrelevant to capitalism. The new capital is automation capability, and you only need energy and raw materials beyond that.
You don’t buy a yacht, you build a one-yacht factory and build it from raw materials. With a few million self manufacturing robots, you don’t need money to have enormous wealth and power.
When they want money, they will mine it. Gold, bitcoin, whatever doesn’t involve hiring people. The rest of us outside the gilded walls will be increasingly irrelevant scavenging over the scraps and trying to maintain some kind of agrarian society since manufacturing will be largely pointless.
One of the primary goals of the pandemic and lockdowns was to eliminate cost centers for every business.
If you notice how courtesy services disappeared, and many facilities were closed, because of a lack of staff or funds to clean them and maintain them.
It has actually been difficult to get into a restroom at certain restaurants, even now; sometimes I will find a handwritten sign there like “Employees Only” which is against health codes.
I rode a scooter to a “Drive-In” burger restaurant last month. Not a drive-thru, mind you, but a place where folks pulled up in cars and carhops served them, and they ate while parked. And this place had picnic tables, so I ordered a burger combo and tried to wash my hands.
There was no restroom available, and I contacted the order-taker guy and asked to confirm, and then I asked to cancel my order. He said “Your order is ready!” and I said hell naw, if you don’t have a restroom then you’re not serving anyone, so I got my refund...
To say they’re winning the race implies there even is a race.
It’s a super car vs a snail.
[1] https://etangonam.com/?p=805