Perfect name. Who in their right mind would ever vote against the Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse? Imagine if your voters heard that
What's perfect is the marketing campaign to call it by what it actually wanted to do, ie Chat Control. Whoever did this was so successful that we didn't even know the bill's official name, instead knowing it by what it actually wanted to achieve.
Good thing the EU didn't take a page out of the US' book, because things like the PATRIOT act are already pithy and hard to outmarket.
If RPCCSA were actually called PROTECT, the nickname "Chat Control" would have been fighting a losing battle.
Ask a European who isn't in tech, and they won't know what you're talking about. Maybe they will today specifically, this vote is bound to get some press, but in general, mainstream media doesn't care much about this bill.
Even Europeans in tech who aren't in the "tech equivalent of gun nuts" culture that HN seems to exemplify are 50/50.
It’s not. People on Reddit, Mastodon, and other websites are also aware (of course not everyone, but not everyone on HN either).
> Ask a European who isn't in tech, and they won't know what you're talking about.
People who haven’t heard about Chat Control haven’t heard the bill’s real name either. That’s true of the overwhelming majority of EU regulation, Chat Control isn’t special in that regard.
Yep, and it will make it more difficult to pass legislation designed to actually help combat child exploitation when a large(ish) portion of the population immediately equate "for the children" with a power grab.
Unfortunately, that population immediately equates the two for good reason. Bills that are presented as "for the children" usually are a power grab.
Even more unfortunately, the issue is so emotional that we can't have a reasonable discussion on it. This limits the discussion to proposals that sound good to angry people. And the opposition to those who can get angry about something else. Which limits how much reason is applied on either side.
For example, look at the idea of a national sex offenders registry, like we have in the USA. The existence of such a registry is reasonable given that we're no more successful at stopping people from being pedophiles, than we are at stopping them from being homosexuals.
But the purpose of such a list is severely undermined when an estimated quarter of the list were themselves minors when they offended. The age at which people are most likely to land on the list is 14. But a man who liked 13 year olds when he was 14, is unlikely to reoffend at 30. What is the purpose of ruining the rest of his life for a juvenile mistake?
> The age at which people are most likely to land on the list is 14. But a man who liked 13 year olds when he was 14, is unlikely to reoffend at 30. What is the purpose of ruining the rest of his life for a juvenile mistake?
am I like misunderstanding or what does this mean exactly? I'm so confused. "reoffend" what kind of offense are we talking about here?
this is litterally what they do. point at opposition and try to imply they are pro child abuse. actually really sick to use such a method. I suppose that is what u get for decades long degradation of education and other things. A bunch of childish freaks in power who can only try to chuck eachother under the bus instead of doing something actually good.
they care less and less about it being obvious too.
our new prime minister (NL) was asked about some campaign promises recently (ones important to a lot of his voters actually) and he justs plainly said somethin like: yeah well sometimes u just gotta say shit to get votes.
i mean, its not news ofc... but now they dont even care to mask it. They know the public will just bend over and take it anyway.
Not really. Unless the restriction is to take a generic lane and dedicate it to buses. But if restriction is to take a generic lane and give it to bicycles, then both cars and buses sit in the same traffic jam.
So, first, it would be rare to bring in restrictions of this sort without doing something to buses. But even if you _don’t_, reduction in traffic helps buses (assuming you already have bus lanes, which any city doing this stuff generally would, the main problem for buses is intersections, which this helps with)
My city excels at this. We are at level where bus system is not enough at all. But the municipality is trying to avoid it since it’s seen as politically tricky. Nobody wants to start it, take the beating and then let opponents cut the tape a decade later. The bus system is struggling too. Old buses, incomplete bus lanes and so on. When one jackass got an idea to reduce car traffic and started with adding obstacles to cars without improving public transit… Traffic did not better. And buses get stuck with the rest. Thankfully remote/hybrid work is all the rage. In recent decade quite a few offices and other workplaces moved away from urban core. That helps the situation a bit.
As ex-iOS dev, usually it's because devs want the new shinny APIs. And after some point stakeholders are OK to stop supporting a tiny percentage of users stuck on old iOS versions. In my experience it was never because of Apple.
More like this is a small piece of the puzzle in Russian-Ukraine war. Iran plays quite a big role in supplying Russians. If Iran is taken out, power balance in that war may change too.
Then apply for citizenship, take language and, usually, constitution exam and get the citizenship.
If somebody doesn’t care enough to prove they know the basics of the language and legal system in the country… Maybe they shouldn’t have voting privilege either?
With the modest size of the monthly checks, most of them may need to do that anyway.
But the obvious point is to help "artists" in Ireland. It's pretty normal for small nations to want to cultivate / protect / subsidize their arts / culture / language / whatever. The Irish gov't isn't trumpeting this program because they think it'll annoy Irish voters.
But I think people who benefit from this won’t be artists. But people who are good at making money off artsy projects.
I’d see much more value in investing in supply and demand. First, provide free studios with arts supplies, music instruments and so on. Next, force government agencies to hire local artists. Make municipalities have live music for local events and hire local musicians. Make gov agencies buy local art for decorations etc.
325 Euros/week sounds like basic rent & food & transportation. Not artsy projects with enough spare Euros for someone to skim serious money off from.
Providing "free" studios, supplies, instruments, etc. sounds like a scheme to give politicians more photo ops and bureaucrats more jobs. Why can't the artists just source exactly what they think they need from existing supply chains?
> 325 Euros/week sounds like basic rent & food & transportation. Not artsy projects with enough spare Euros for someone to skim serious money off from.
Exactly. But it's a nice addition for „project-conscious“ crowd who can add one more income stream.
> Providing "free" studios, supplies, instruments, etc. sounds like a scheme to give politicians more photo ops and bureaucrats more jobs
Some libraries here started providing free studios with some basic instruments. I hear it was a hit with long wait times. It's awesome for artsy people who want to get together and jam with friends on saturday morning. Artsy people neighbours also love it that they don't have to hear said jams too :)
It's also great for kids who want to give it a shot. It's easier to come in and find some instruments than try to get some used stuff just to play.
I'm all for enabling people to do artsy stuff en-masse. The more people give it a shot, the better. Results don't matter, playing and creating something (no matter how crappy) is important.
IMO „mass-playing-with-art“ has much better ROI than handouts to let a selected crop of people pretend they're living off their art.
Yes, supporting en-masse stuff is important. Artsy or not - playgrounds, parks, football pitches, and other things count. Or spaces for civic choral groups and painting clubs, repairing old church organs, ...
For the arts, free studios & such are both en-masse support, and a wider part of the talent funnel (vs. basic incomes).
Biggest problem that I see with basic incomes is in selecting who gets those. The article notes they'll pick randomly from 8,000 applicants - but there's judgement and selection somewhere. Otherwise, the scheme would implode politically after giving money to folks whose "art" was offensive graffiti, or appreciating expensive whiskey, or whatever.
That is a problem too. Offensive art is art too. I'd even argue that offensive art in many cases is better than non-offensive one. But yes, I guess at best „politically correct offensive“ artists will get approved.
It brings another problem that this may become sort of hush money government-at-the-time friendly artists.
Here it's already a problem for culture-ministry-financed projects. When some artists get funding, others don't... And then some people cry foul that it's because they crossed ways with some politician. Wether that's true or not, when arts funding and politics go together, it's a recipe for some sour FB posts.
Yes, and Ireland is not famed for its "all one big happy family" politics. That might be one of their reasons for drawing 2,000 winners at random from 8,000 applicants.
But in a democracy, gov't-selected art has a failure mode more fundamental than mere political bias - the voters may decide they're paying too much for really crappy "art". That's what killed the public art program in the city I live in. In hindsight, the city's Art Committee was dominated by cutting-edge academics, big-ego art snobs, and well-intended persuadables.
Though the fountain they built in front of City Hall - abstract, drearily convoluted, generally ugly, horribly expensive, and usually broken - could be seen as appropriate and spot-on symbolic political art.
artists dont do "normal" and generaly experience reality from a particular, and personal point of view, and grocerie store managers and young artists will almost certainly have mutualy antagonistic points of view. artists thrive in random spontainious environments, but forget about food, so we give them money, that they give to normal grocery store clerks, and we all forgo the seething frustration that would result from your suggestion.
What I see among artist friends, they have no problems holding a job. But their art is not exactly „bill-paying“. It's not bad, it's just not commercializable mainstream. At best it covers their expenses for studios, equipment and so on.
For that crowd, money for 3 years is not really interesting. It would ruin their existing (smaller or bigger) non-artsy careers. But their art, without significant mainstream changes, has no chance to cover a living. Even after focusing on it for 3 years.
I don't see a point to give such crowd a free ride either. They're fully capable society members. I don't see a difference between such artist getting a free ride vs me getting free money to ride my bicycle because I'd maybe do some cool shit if I had more time. Or maybe I should get a handout to do some opensource? Code is also art anyway.
The prices partially were affected by green deal stuff and other home-grown regulations. Maybe regulations should be lowered instead of letting in cheaper produce from locations where such regulations don’t apply?
Shipping food across the globe works great along with green deal. Such food quality is also questionable in many ways because transportability must be #1 priority.
As another commenter pointed out, beef is especially interesting. On one hand EU cries about greenhouse gas and how we should eat less meat. On the other hand goes to reduce price and increase production of beef which such moves. Pure hypocrisy.
I wonder if someone will double down on checking how Brazil is protecting its rains forests? Or will it just look the other way while Europeans eat cheap food that was grown in what was rain forest very recently?
If anything, deepening economic relationships will strengthen European influence over complex issues.
As for transport - enough of this stuff is already transported across the ocean (from LATAM but also South Africa, for example) that I doubt there will be much of a change.
I don’t think so. This is not first time euro bureaucrats pull off shit like this. Apply cutthroat regulations locally and push through cheap imports. Then cry about local industries struggling. Rinse and repeat.
To be fair, Europe is tired of its farmers rioting and the general public welcomes the trade deal. If the farmers are crying about struggling against competition, I have a tiny violin to play for them.
Maybe lift all the green deal stuff on our own farmers while at it? Let’s make it a fair competition.
What’s next, let in shitty US food?
I don’t see general public welcoming it. Most people don’t seem to even know about it. Out of those who do know, many don't seem to be happy about it.
Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do. It’s time to do opposite and double-down on sovereignty on all fronts. And food sovereignty was one of very few sectors where EU got it right. Our food is not cheap, but we got plenty locally and quality is pretty good.
I do not see any empty fields left and right. Despite farmers complaining since 30 years about every single trade deal. Honestly I have not seen an unused field ever. And as long the fields are producing food this is just a change in income or structure of an industry.
Coming from ex-USSR… I’m used to unused fields. Nowadays situation is better. Where soil is best, all (most?) fields are used. But in other parts of the country unused fields are not uncommon.
It doesn’t help that we are getting only a fraction of EU farming subsidies. While fancy machinery cost the same as for western counterparts. So Netherlands with higher wages are outpricing our farmers :D
I think it’s matter of time when more and more of those deals will reach the tipping point. And after that it will be very hard to restore local agriculture.
> Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do.
Everyone can solve this for their own farmers. Just buy local, problem solved.
Does that mean some things might be a bit more expensive? Yes, you're paying to keep them around just like you might want someone to pay for you to be employed.
If we don't it's a race to the bottom for everyone.
It works when eating at home and making from scratch. How about eating out? Good luck pushing cheaper part of the sector to buy local. And not just pay lip service. And reality is many many people will just buy cheaper option and won’t thin about the impact.
I’m against similar trade deal with US too. Or pretty much any other country. At best some shitty lobbyists used it as a scapegoat to push through a bad deal.
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