Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46534886

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

In the EU, they've had the GDPR – a big, muscular privacy law – for nine years, and all it's really done is drown the continent in cookie-consent pop-ups. But that's not because the GDPR is flawed, it's because Ireland is a tax-haven that has lured in the world's worst corporate privacy-violators, and to keep them from moving to another tax haven (like Malta or Cyprus or Luxembourg), it has to turn itself into a crime-haven. So for the entire life of the GDPR, all the important privacy cases in Europe have gone to Ireland, and died there:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/01/erin-go-blagged/#big-tech...

Now, again, this isn't a complicated technical question that is hard to resolve through regulation. It's just boring old corruption. I'm not saying that corruption is easy to solve, but I am saying that it's not complicated. Irish politicians made the country's economy dependent on the Irish state facilitating criminal activity by American firms. The EU doesn't want to provoke a constitutional crisis by forcing Ireland (and the EU's other crime-havens) to halt this behavior.

Trump being thin-skinned does not explain much. The latest strategy document where the US administration explicitly says it will do its utmost to bring far-right parties to power in Europe goes far beyond that. It's clearly not just Trump. And again, it definitely does not help keep friends to face China. Neither does twisting Ukraine's arm to accept a disastrous deal in exchange for vague promises of riches for Trump and his clan. History shows appeasing an aggressor invites more aggression. Russia's partner, China, is watching, will sense weakness and draw conclusions neither Europe nor America will like.

There is not shortage of narratives Russian propagandists disseminate via influencers or useful idiots, tuned for the appropriate audience. You identify as a pacifist? Russia is a peaceful nation, it's its adversaries that are the warmongers! (Don't ask how Russia became so large.) You oppose colonialism? Russia stands against US hegemony, demands a multi-polar world! (In reality Russia behaves as a colonial empire and has a long history of oppression of the nations it has conquered.) You identify as a conservative? Russia is the main defender of order and traditional Christian values! (Well, the Russian Orthodox Church is just an arm of the state security services; church attendance is low; crime and divorce rates are high; Russia has no problem with Islamic regimes like the Taliban, Iran, Hamas or Kadyrov's Chechnya.)

I do not deny the threat China poses and that the way the West approached globalization was naive. Indeed, China has close ties with regimes of Russia, Iran and North Korea. Given this reality, what I don't understand is the policies of the current US administration. China is churning out missiles, warships etc. at an alarming rate, yet the US reduces military spending. China's reach via TikTok is growing yet the US administration does next to nothing about it. The US sided with Russia and North Korea on UN votes about Ukraine (https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160456). Trump antagonizes traditional EU allies, except those with authoritarian tendencies like Orban's Hungary. On the other hand, he has only kind words for Putin, Xi, Kim; his only complaint seems to be that he's not a member of their club.

Definitely! Because they did the exact same thing in France, where I lived at that time, and probably other countries. I remember op-eds in French newspapers, Russia-friendly politicians on TV with the same talking points.

My wife and I go married on Oct 31st, 2004, the day of the first round of this election. These are things I can't forget, like her voting in Kyiv in her wedding dress.

Thinking the US ambassador could gather crowds of hundreds of thousands during long winter weeks all by himself, even with a few million USD is ridiculous, especially when you know the country. This is not at all how it works.

There was massive fraud during the second round, evidence of it was abundant, election monitors and independent organizations like OSCE witnessed it.

Yushchenko, controlled by the US government? There is no indication of that. And when his term ended, power was transferred peacefully to Yanukovych.

Ukrainians are educated people and just like anywhere else do not like to be told what to do from abroad, be it from Washington or Moscow. Now that the US government sides with that of Russia and Ukrainians continue to resist the pressure, it is even more obvious that these narratives were completely false.

Besides, did you know that the Kuchma government sent Ukrainian soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_involvement_in_the_I...)? Why would the US government want to overthrow a sympathetic regime?

I'm quite sure none of my friends knew any CPU opcode; however, people usually remembered a few phone numbers.

She also received the Sakharov Prize not long ago; if she had to receive only one, the latter would be easier to explain.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143

Points: 263

# Comments: 332

At the time fictions like "Russian-backed separatists" were made up to deny the reality: that it was a foreign invasion. Yet all the signs were there: for example, "separatist" leaders like Igor Girkin were citizens of Russia, not Ukraine; OSCE observers found military vehicles containing documentation indicating that the equipment had been maintained in Russia.

European leaders called for "deescalation", "political resolution"; seeing weakness and appeasement in the Minsk agreements, Putin escalated. That's the problem with aggressive leaders like Putin: if you look weak and vulnerable, they will attack you.

Russian leaders see Russia as an empire and regularly say Eurasia should extend from Lisbon to Vladivistok. Putin tries to terrorize us, stating that if we resist it will lead to "World War III" or "nuclear apocalypse". We must not fall for this, or we will gradually lose our freedoms.