Exactly, which means the political system is doing its job. Politics was invented to most efficiently express the desires of the people. If the people want more political control, then it is the job of politics to do so. If they don't, then politics should avoid it.
The only reason this is muddled in America is because the people don't agree on to what degree the politics should control things.
And yes, if power delivery was still a relatively new industry, EU absolutely should have mandated a single universal outlet that's "good enough". But existing designs predate EU by decades and are already so well-entrenched that changing them all to standardize on a single plug is too much effort to justify the gains.
But it ain't so with USB-C. Mobile rechargeable devices are a relatively recent tech, and the market has already largely converged on a single design. At this point, making it into a real standard, with the result that it's guaranteed to work everywhere, is a no-brainer.
Given the state of the world it’s never going to happen but I honestly think that there should be an attempt at standardising plug sockets across the world. It is kind of ridiculous that that there are 15 different types of socket. What is anyone gaining from this madness?
A one-to-one mapping between standard plugs and standard wall power makes a lot of sense. But different standards of wall power should not share a single plug; that's just asking for trouble.
As for global standardization of wall power; maybe in an ideal world. But in reality, it would cost a ton (way more than merely replacing plugs and outlets) and doesn't seem worth it.
While entire countries will keep the imperial system versus the metric system, I'll never believe in global standardisation. Even if it's strictly better, there will always be a cost to changing, and therefore not everyone will agree.
> in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best.
That's utter crap. We had this argument multiple times, and somehow people without proof call it "best and safest"... when facts state that it is just not the case.
Not the OP, but the current high inflation is partially caused by Covid-related measures.
The people who were saying early on during the pandemic (me included) that we have to put into balance the number of covid casualties with the longer term economic consequences of imposing harsh and long lockdowns were treated as assasins of our collective grandmas, and worse. If it matters I’m triple vaccinated.
Because surely you were an expert on covid and its consequences early on during the pandemic, and surely you have proven (and published) that the measures taken (given the knowledge at the time where they were taken) were counter-productive in the long run, right?
Didn't need to be an expert to see where all of this was going. Again, there were many calls of "you're locking us down -> very shitty economy going forward -> things will be shitty for everyone in terms of their physical existence, not only for grandma".
If anything, this should have put another big dent in experts' expertise, meaning if they knew what they were getting us into with their decisions (after all, they're experts) and they choose this high inflation route nonetheless.
> Didn't need to be an expert to see where all of this was going.
Sure, there is never a need to be an expert to claim knowing more than them.
Also, I'm not completely convinced that it's exclusively related to the Covid lockdowns in Europe. For instance, many companies were very quick to restart (or were not even stopped) in Europe, but struggle with the IC shortage... which is not coming from Europe, is it?
As far as I can tell it’s mostly related to the increase in the money supply that was generated/caused by the strict Covid measures, I’m talking both about the US, through the Fed policies, and Europe, through the ECB policies.
That increased money supply was at first not really felt because of the decreased money velocity caused by lockdowns and restrictions, but once things started getting back to “normal” in terms of lockdowns and travel restrictions and all that then money velocity got back closer to its pre-covid levels, and coupled with that increased money supply left us in the current situation.
Of course, the increased money supply is not the only explanation, there’s also the war in Ukraine which has put a tremendous pressure on energy prices, plus the supply crisis, but imo it’s still one of the main causes of what we’re going right now.
The amount by which the EU is better than the US in environmental protection is basically a rounding error relative to what’s actually necessary to stop climate change. You might as well say they’re equal.
The solution for climate change would come from technology. Not random politicians virtue signalling and signing useless agreements which doesn't make any meaningful difference.
I'm surprised people still bring up carbon capture tech as a solution.
It happens a lot around here lately but it's just such wishful thinking IMO.
If you have that much carbon-neutral energy, carbon-neutral materials, space, maintenance to really make a dent... And all those things don't displace green resources that could have been used for other necessary things instead... You wouldn't have had any problem to begin with.
See how much shit we get here when we get a few % less natural gas here in
Europe. We're in a huge crisis over just that. That's a promille of what we'd need to capture enough carbon for 0.01 degree cooling.
It's just some distraction from the hard things that are needed to solve it. And a big paycheck for the industry behind it obviously.
It's simpler to think "technology will save us" than "we as a species screwed up and have already destroyed 2/3 of wild life (not talking about the consequences of global warming, that's yet to come), maybe we should change drastically".
The continent that provides companies like ASML and plenty of machinery in general, and is regularly in the news - not just now with the Nobel Price - when it comes to bio-tech?
Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, sure, but there is plenty of IT inside the machines. You are too concentrated on some very hip consumer companies and don't see the vast ocean of important businesses in the middle, that don't have much or any consumer contact.
Where is your evidence? What a horrible contribution to the discussion, both divisive (and without reason, out of nowhere), and of the lowest quality.
I actually went through the trouble and looked for the evidence missing from your post. If anything we need to look at Asia most of all. Also because at least for Germany, where through decades long contacts I witnessed some of it personally, we (Germany) transferred significant know-how to China quite voluntarily, and our big companies still insist on continuing to invest there even when many smaller businesses have become far more cautious. Link: https://www.reuters.com/world/german-dependence-china-growin... (German dependence on China growing "at tremendous pace" - paywalled)
Here's some, mostly opinion pieces so YMMV (I'm missing rigorous data and statistics with explanations of what they
measured, these article are all too "freeform" for my taste):
> Sure. It also explains why EU is lagging horribly behind the US when it comes to technology.
Probably because the EU (government(s)) doesn't sink as much money in to research as the US government. The technology of the US was built on Cold War spending:
I think you would have a very hard time proving this without leveraging monetary policy. Sure some low level components are and companies built on top of that but it doesn’t mean the tech I’m using is supplied by the US government.
Pretty much all the tech I use comes from the private sector
Or maybe every EU tech company approaching success will voluntarily move to US, since that is where the (free) market is and that is where it can become successful.
There are multiple markets and varying degrees of regulating them. But the universal constant is that the less regulated a market is the better for consumers and society.
That's a bold statement and by no means a universal constant. If your rivers are on fire because there is no environmental regulation, then that is not good for society.
Good example! Environmental regulation managed to drive manufacturing out of developed countries making them vulnerable to less scrupulous, unfriendly regimes while merely shifting the environmental impact elsewhere.
The correct solution was, of course, taxing externalities like pollution and CO2. That would've allowed the free market to search for solutions naturally and locally.
That is my main qualm with regulations: they are a brute force imposed solution which solves the perceived problem on the short term while doing damage and 2nd order effects on the long term.
Well the stupid popup is coming from the stupid website. If they stopped collecting data they mostly don't use (let's be honest, most websites probably don't do anything useful with most of the data), then they would not have to show the popup.
EU and most people living within it would disagree with this statement.