Why does Europe suck at startups?
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@gleemonk said:
Here we are, forbes.com peddling conspiracy theories again.
The unit of the DEA that is conducting the surveillance is known as the Special Operations Division (“SOD”) and is made up of a partnership of numerous government agencies including the NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security.
Did some of those guys stop being government agencies and turn into private companies when I wasn't watching?
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that, as long as the sharing is confined to government branches, it is acceptable? And do you believe these hidden channels between branches are the only channels? It's incomprehensible to me how anybody could have so much trust when there are no means of control.
... how? The NSA doesn't share the data they collect with anybody; hell, for years they didn't even share the fact that they were capable of collecting the data.
That's what I responded to, and I don't consider the whole of the US government to be one body in this context.
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I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that, as long as the sharing is confined to government branches, it is acceptable?
We were talking about the NSA sharing data with US corporations. I'm not comfortable with the NSA operating domestically, period (maybe if they followed something from outside the country or something).
It's incomprehensible to me how anybody could have so much trust when there are no means of control.
What trust, exactly? I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
That's what I responded to, and I don't consider the whole of the US government to be one body in this context.
You missed the bigger context, as I stated above. But even if we're talking about sharing among government agencies, sharing with law enforcement is actually close to the spirit of what they're attempting to do. And that still isn't evidence of sharing with the people doing trade negotiations (another unsupported theory).
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125 posts were split to a new topic: Bomb not Bomb
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@gleemonk said:
It's incomprehensible to me how anybody could have so much trust when there are no means of control.
What trust, exactly? I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
The believe that the NSA uses their powers only for their stated mission. Here it was @blakeyrat saying "they're not sharing with anybody" even though there is evidence they do, the example I cited was the DSA.
You missed the bigger context, as I stated above. But even if we're talking about sharing among government agencies, sharing with law enforcement is actually close to the spirit of what they're attempting to do. And that still isn't evidence of sharing with the people doing trade negotiations (another unsupported theory).
I find it hard to believe that a spy organization would order other head of states to be spied on then do fuck-all with it. Why shouldn't maybe the NSA explain why they wanted french economic intel if not for leverage?
The documents establish that the US economic intelligence operations against France have run for more than a decade and started as early as 2002. Some of the documents are authorised for sharing with the "Five Eyes" partners – the group of Anglophone countries in close intelligence co-operation with the United States: Canada, New Zealand, Australia and France's fellow member state of the European Union, the United Kingdom, strongly suggesting that the United Kingdom has also benefited from the United States' economic espionage activities against France.
So they shared with other countries too. In the end when you say that there is no evidence of sharing with people doing trade negotiations you're only talking about the last link where evidence is scarce. It is hard to prove it happened there because of the few people involved. If you're waiting for those people to confess to it you're setting the bar too high. It may be another few decades.
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I find it hard to believe that a spy organization would order other head of states to be spied on then do fuck-all with it.
Me, too. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.
Why shouldn't maybe the NSA explain why they wanted french economic intel if not for leverage?
Frenchies are historically big time into stuff like Iran. We've been really interested in that sort of thing for some reason.
In the end when you say that there is no evidence of sharing with people doing trade negotiations you're only talking about the last link where evidence is scarce.
OK, I guess there is some evidence of that, now, if you believe wikileaks. I'm not sure what, exactly they'd do with it, but whatever, that's what governments do to each other. This is still a far cry from sharing with private companies.
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Did you even attempt to skim the article? I quote from the top:
The unit of the DEA that is conducting the surveillance is known as the Special Operations Division (“SOD”) and is made up of a partnership of numerous government agencies including the NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security.
That quote is self contradictory. The DEA, NSA, CIA, FBI, and IRS are all independent agencies. Yet the SOD is a unit of the DEA that is made of of all of those agencies. It really should have been worded as something along the lines of:
The unit conducting the surveillance is known as the Special Operations Division (SOD). The SOD is an interagency task force made up of a partnership of numerous government agencies, including …
Pretty shitty reporting there.
And before you go on saying that this is no evidence the NSA is sharing their data, read a bit further.
No one has denied that the NSA is sharing information with other government agencies. That's actually something that has improved a lot since 9/11. What people are contesting is the claim that the NSA is sharing any economic information with corporations.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that, as long as the sharing is confined to government branches, it is acceptable?
Yes, information sharing between government branches is acceptable. The failure of that kind of sharing is one of the reasons our government was unable to foresee 9/11. Several different agencies had bits and pieces that, if the data had been put together, may have been enough to intervene before the hijackings.
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OK, I guess there is some evidence of that, now, if you believe wikileaks. I'm not sure what, exactly they'd do with it, but whatever, that's what governments do to each other. This is still a far cry from sharing with private companies.
No one has denied that the NSA is sharing information with other government agencies. That's actually something that has improved a lot since 9/11. What people are contesting is the claim that the NSA is sharing any economic information with corporations.
Yes, information sharing between government branches is acceptable. The failure of that kind of sharing is one of the reasons our government was unable to foresee 9/11. Several different agencies had bits and pieces that, if the data had been put together, may have been enough to intervene before the hijackings.
I find your trust to be misplaced. When it will be shown that there indeed was information transfer to private companies you will
quickly tell us that it was illegal and how could anyone possibly suspect these upstanding citizens of such malfeasance. Do you think the NSA would ever be as stupid as doing this under the seal of the organization? I mean, maybe they are, but I expect such things to be done in a more informal way.“You’d be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.’ And so we’d alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it.”
That's how you do it. Perfectly extralegal. Deniable until the people themselves talk about it. If you believe similar sharing is not happening between NSA and private companies right now, you have a very rosy view of human nature.
I have no reason to doubt that their spies are instructed to look for intel that is none of their purported business. But of course if you believe them when they say they are only interested in catching terrorists (and drug dealers), you're welcome to wait for more confirmation.
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When it will be shown that there indeed was information transfer to private companies you will quickly tell us that it w
Oh, it's not true now, but it's scheduled to be true in the near future.
Well, that changes this whole conversation. I thought there were a bunch of insane conspiracy theorists here, but I guess they just read further ahead in the "stuff that is sure to happen" calendar.
You're only TEMPORARILY crazy and TEMPORARILY spreading bullshit lies around!
Now I get it.
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I find your trust to be misplaced.
It's probably with your foil hat.
When it will be shown that there indeed was information transfer to private companies you will quickly tell us that it was illegal and how could anyone possibly suspect these upstanding citizens of such malfeasance.
I imagine I'll be angry about them endangering national security and taking another step down the corporatist / fascist path that we've been on for some time.
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If you would do your job, these posts would have already been Jeffed to a topic entitled "Gleemonk's tinfoil hat discussion".
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When it will be shown that there indeed was information transfer to private companies you will
quickly tell us that it was illegal and how could anyone possibly suspect these upstanding citizens of such malfeasance.
So you're using individuals who misused the system (and were disciplined or already left the NSA) as evidence that the NSA as a whole must be collecting and passing trade secrets to US companies? Or are you saying that there are rogue individuals within the NSA who are collecting and passing on this information? Because the conversation has been that the NSA is doing this as a matter of policy, but the link you provided only indicates that there is a chance that individuals employed by the NSA could be doing this without authorization. That's a totally different discussion, and it's still not got any actual facts to support it.
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If you would do your job, these posts would have already been Jeffed to a topic entitled "Gleemonk's tinfoil hat discussion".
What? Work‽
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If you would do your job, these posts would have already been Jeffed to a topic entitled "Gleemonk's tinfoil hat discussion".
I've thought about doing so...not sure why it hasn't happened yet.
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I've thought about doing so...
not sure why it hasn't happened yetbut then I went and made fried chicken for lunch.FTFY
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Hmm....it's about that time....
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Because the conversation has been that the NSA is doing this as a matter of policy, but the link you provided only indicates that there is a chance that individuals employed by the NSA could be doing this without authorization. That's a totally different discussion, and it's still not got any actual facts to support it.
They lie about their actions as a matter of policy, just in case you forgot about that. When some of the abuses come to light they will be attributed to individuals, as per policy.
- I've given evidence that some information collected is not related to the purported mission of NSA.
- I've shown ways in which information is shared in deniable fashion.
- I've also expanded a bit on how human nature tends to disregard institutional scope.
- I assumed the incentives to be clear.
Then I implied a tacit agreement within NSA to share information with interested parties outside NSA or government. In your imagined world of governmental efficiency, what reasons prevent this?
Sense of duty?
Fear of disciplinary action?
Lack of motivation?
Incompetence?I have nothing.
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In your imagined world of governmental efficiency, what reasons prevent this?
Already answered. For me. I'm not speaking for @abarker.
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I must have missed that part of your answer. Except if it was the part where you said you'd be angry about it
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It was a while ago and somewhere upthread. I CBA to look for it now.
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Oh ok. I'll remain ignorant.
/me adjusts tinfoil hat.
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@gleemonk said:
In your imagined world of governmental efficiency, what reasons prevent this?
Already answered. For me. I'm not speaking for @abarker.
Quick check (you only have about 2 dozen posts in here) points to this:
https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/why-does-europe-suck-at-startups/51245/71
Seems pretty solid to me.
There's also the consideration that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that US based companies are getting such advantages. If the NSA were providing significant advantages to American businesses, wouldn't you expect multi-nationals based outside the US to experience setbacks from being consistently outmaneuvered by US companies? Or to see US citizens making huge sums of money regularly betting on the behavior of non-US companies? Forget direct, concrete evidence, if this were going on, there would likely be highly visible circumstantial evidence. But there isn't.
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I must stress that the original quote I responded to claimed that NSA doesn't share with anybody. I think I've given sufficient proof that they do share plenty. There is no reason to assume that anybody knows the full extent.
Maybe someone else claimed that the purpose of NSA was economic espionage. I made no such claim. All I'm saying is that it's happening inadvertently. If the NSA were serious about preventing this, they would be more restrictive about the data they collect.
If the NSA were providing significant advantages to American businesses, wouldn't you expect multi-nationals based outside the US to experience setbacks from being consistently outmaneuvered by US companies? Or to see US citizens making huge sums of money regularly betting on the behavior of non-US companies?
Why should it to be consistent? Why expect it to be US companies? I'm not crazy enough to pull in random examples from stock markets around the world to try prove my point. Insider trading is easy to hide.
Their mission is to spy on other countries for defense purposes. This doesn't sound too much like that. They are very jealous of the information they have and one reason not to let it out of the bag is to reveal their sources and methods, which are typically the holiest of holies for an intelligence agency.
That is actually a good reason not to share. Yet I think a lot of intel can be communicated without revealing your sources. If I told you that tomorrow would be a good day to have sold some VW short, you wouldn't know how I got the intel you will subsequently read in the news.
We have no reason to assume the NSA would publicize breaches of trust precisely because that would reveal what their capabilities are and it would erode trust. Notice how with insider trading, all involved parties have every reason to not make the sharing public.
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Obviously, sharing information with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a mistake, since she shared it far and wide.
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Another possible reason...
London taxi hire proposals would 'be an end' to the way Uber operates
Uber says a consultation on private hire regulation could spell an end to the way the taxi-hailing app operates.
London taxi hire proposals would 'be an end' to the way Uber operates
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The London one is obviously job protectionism. I don't know about Holland.
"The Knowledge" has been obsolete since GPS became reasonably accurate. It's fucking useless now, just a pointless barrier to keep competitors out.
One of London's new rules is you can't pick up a passenger faster than 5 minutes. Because fuck serving the public!
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The London one is obviously job protectionism.
FWIW, Uber operate around here and aren't exactly ground-shaking. So they have an app. Big whoop. They weren't even the first taxi firm in the area to do that.
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FWIW, Uber operate around here
Here? My toilet? Shit! I should close the door!
Look, I don't know where the fuck "here" is, so you might as well have just typed "derp derp derp" and it would have been exactly as useful to me.
If you live in an area where Uber service isn't better than normal cab service, then you must have extraordinary cab service. What really needs to happen is some kind of alliance or merger, so people can take Uber-style cabs whenever they like, but legally-required handicap accessible cabs are still available. One of the big problems we have in the Seattle area is that if cab businesses go bust, handicapped people will have no transportation options to a lot of places. And that's shit. And of course Uber doesn't give a shit, because it's run by Broheim Van Egostroke.
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If you live in an area where Uber service isn't better than normal cab service, then you must have extraordinary cab service.
We've got really keen competition.
The very worst of Uber's practices are illegal anyway; they have to operate as a cab firm or they cannot offer taxi service and their drivers have to be licensed to a certain level anyway (far too many cases where unlicensed drivers were committing sex assaults on drunk young women coming out of clubs late at night, and so we have draconian regs there). We already had a category that they could be slotted into, and using an app really isn't much different to phoning up someone sitting in an office, especially from a legal perspective. We also never had anything like the medallion system.
Given a big churn of taxi firms some of whom were already going into apps, Uber really hasn't had a big impact here, especially as they're just not that cheap. London was more restrictive (and a hell of a lot more expensive). Watch as I don't cry myself to sleep over such things.
handicapped people will have no transportation options to a lot of places
As noted, a keener market makes for less of an impact as there's less inefficiency and less space for profit. Might be a peculiarity of the area that taxis are so keen.
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As I understand it, the main problem in Holland with Uber is that it is considered a taxi service, but the people they employ do not have taxi licenses or certified cars. Those regulations are in place at least partially to protect the customers.
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We've got really keen competition.
This seems very far out of the norm for taxi services who have typically wormed their way into the local government far enough to prevent much of that.
Those regulations are in place at least partially to protect the customers.
I suspect that like most other places, mostly that's the stated reason but mostly as a beard for keeping competitors out.
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Wow, "here" sounds great. I admire the efficient "we" people of "here".
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I suspect that like most other places, mostly that's the stated reason but mostly as a beard for keeping competitors out.
If anyone can buy those licenses it's pretty hard to keep someone out. We don't have an artificial limit on those, unlike the US.
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We don't have an artificial limit on those, unlike the US.
"The US" is a huge nation. We don't have a single "Federal Taxi Commission", or whatever the fuck your ignorant Euro-ass is imagining.
EDIT: Oh let me guess, you think New York City is "The US"?
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Hey, I'm not the one who thinks that Europe is a country.
/looks at thread title
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I looked at the thread title and your complaint makes no fucking sense.
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If anyone can buy those licenses it's pretty hard to keep someone out. We don't have an artificial limit on those, unlike the US.
If there's no limit, then yes, it's less of a barrier. Depends on the cost. That also assumes there's nothing else involved in the licensing than the monetary transaction. My favorite example was eyebrow threading in Texas, which required some sort of cosmetology degree that didn't have anything about eyebrow threading in the curriculum.
Obviously, these examples are country specific, just like Uber's problems in the US are state and city specific.
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I looked at the thread title and your complaint makes no fucking sense.
You're talking about "Europe" as if it were a single country and apply problems which exist in one or more (but not all) countries in Europe to all countries in Europe.
As such, it makes it perfectly okay to apply the problems of New York City to all of the US.
Not to mention the idiocy of comparing a country to a loosely coupled conglomerate of countries. In which world did that ever make sense? But, okay, next time I'll include Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua (among others) to make it more valid.
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You're talking about "Europe" as if it were a single country and apply problems which exist in one or more (but not all) countries in Europe to all countries in Europe.
No I'm not, nor is the article I linked to that I took the thread title from. Go re-read it.
As such, it makes it perfectly okay to apply the problems of New York City to all of the US.
Even if I had made that error, two wrongs do not make a right. We learn that at the age of 5 here in the far-superior non-European US.
Not to mention the idiocy of comparing a country to a loosely coupled conglomerate of countries. In which world did that ever make sense?
There's no other valid way to compare the US to European countries. You can compare Florida to Germany, or you can compare the entire US to the entire EU. Nothing else makes sense.
US States are also "loosely conglomerated", to use your terminology. In fact, day-to-day, I virtually NEVER interact with the Federal Government. Except once a year to pay Federal income taxes. In fact, our Federal Government imposes FEWER laws that affect regular people than the EU Government does. For example, things like product labeling (generally) and putting a cookie notification on websites are all State-level in the US, not Federal-level.
But, okay, next time I'll include Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua (among others) to make it more valid.
Sure, go full-on NAFTA.
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No I'm not, nor is the article I linked to that I took the thread title from. Go re-read it.
Well, to be exact, you're veering from "Europe as a country" to "singling out countries and deriving broad statements for the whole" like a drunken sailor. And make about as much sense.
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In fact, our Federal Government imposes FEWER laws that affect regular people than the EU Government does.
I'm not sure on fewer, but definitely different things. I suspect many Europeans tend to assume the only legislative power in their own country is their national government, and the same is true in the US. In fact, of course, there are multiple levels of legislation in both the US and the EU, and the division among those layers varies on pretty much all levels.
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@blakeyrat said:
No I'm not, nor is the article I linked to that I took the thread title from. Go re-read it.
Well, to be exact, you're veering from "Europe as a country" to "singling out countries and deriving broad statements for the whole" like a drunken sailor. And make about as much sense.
So we cannot discuss specific things? You're coming across as butthurt about this for some reason. I guess you just don't like being associated with the Netherlands or London?
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Of course you can discuss specific things. But I dare say that lumping Cuba and the US together in one fell swoop is a bit absurd and yet that is done here.
I mean, blakey scoffed because I dared to paint the US as a single entity, using NY as the representant. Well, guess what: Germany also isn't a single entity - it's called the Federal Republic of Germany for a reason. And yet you guys always revert to Lederhosen and Schweinshaxen when you hear "Germany".
There is no "European" identity. As such, the direction of this whole thing here is misguided at best.
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There is no "European" identity
...made even more obvious by the total disunity while
handlingfucking up the current migration crisis.
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I won't disagree with you there. It's akin to herding cats.
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But I dare say that lumping Cuba and the US together in one fell swoop is a bit absurd and yet that is done here.
What?
There is no "European" identity.
Much much much more than there is, say, a North American identity. I'm not claiming homogeneity or anything, but it's not crazy to talk about Europe as a thing.
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By what metric is that exactly?
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Metrics such as your currency union or your political union whereby you actually have a parliament. There's a central bank. A court system. Granted, again, that's not all of Europe, but it's a hell of a lot more, I think, than any collection of nations on any other continent has.
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That's a weird metric.
It's a subjective opinion and we can now dance forth and back, exchanging differences and similarities. I don't really care much for useless crap like this. And I notice the goal posts have shifted again. Alright, I'm done with this topic.
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I don't really
care much for useless crap like thishave a clue what I'm talking about so I'm going to ragequit.
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I mean, blakey scoffed because I dared to paint the US as a single entity, using NY as the representant. Well, guess what: Germany also isn't a single entity - it's called the Federal Republic of Germany for a reason.
Then why were you posting as if every US city has taxi quotas? When that's a weird quirk of shitty east coast cities?
There is no "European" identity.
Right; but I'm also going to get pissed off if you clump me together with those rednecks in South Carolina. So.
I wager there's more similarity between, say, Germany and France than there is between Louisiana and California. Louisiana and California don't even share the same legal philosophy. (California's courts are based on English Common Law, Louisiana is based on the French tradition.)
Institutions of the European Union - Wikipedia
