- CEOs of European technology companies told CNBC at the Web Summit technology conference this week that the continent should adopt a “Europe-first” approach to tech, after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory.
- Andy Yen, CEO of VPN maker Proton, said Europe should “step up” and “be aggressive” to counter U.S. Big Tech firms’ tight grip on many important technologies, such as web browsing, cloud computing, smartphones — and now artificial intelligence.
- Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Lithuania-based used clothing app Vinted, urged Europe to take the “right choices” to ensure it doesn’t get “left behind.”
How is that ‘protectionism’ if you develop your own technology to gain independence? As someone already wrote in this thread, Europe can support Open Source projects, decentralization. That’s good for everyone.
Don’t get me wrong, everybody should be trying to manufacture some microchips inside their own borders - access to microchips is a national security concern for every country.
How is that ‘protectionism’ if you develop your own technology to gain independence?
Any actions taken to promote domestic industry over foreign is protectionism, by definition. If a government encourages the growth of domestic producers via tax incentives, grants, tariffs, etc (anything that adjusts the balance really) that is literally protectionism.
Okay, you say anything that promotes securing domestic industries is protectionism. Fine.
But then you say protectionism is bad across the board but don’t give any reason.
At least you need to give some arguments why protectionism that is constituted of securing critical infrastructure, providing safe® access to technology, developing independent, decentralised and open technology, etc would be worse than keeping sucking on the tits of US megacorps.
Why is the dependence on US tech corps different than the dependence on russian gas in the past (which I hope we can agree was bad)?
I work for a UK based company in the US. We also have scientists from all over the world working together. I think everyone working together for common goals is the ideal situation. Communication with people across the globe is one of the things that rocketed humankind forward in learning and technology. We don’t have pockets of people making the same mistakes and wasting the same time and resources trying to come up with all the new ideas; we get to collaborate. If we start hoarding knowledge and tech, we kick ourselves back to a worse point than where we are now.
I was watching a video this morning talking about China’s advancements in space exploration. It was talking about China offering to work with other countries, including the US, but there was a bill passed (2011?) that forbid space work with China without congressional approval. That seems like something that will hurt the US space program. The creation of the bill was due to the thought that China was doing mainly “taking” from the US and not giving back, which I don’t know enough to speak on, but now that China is in a position to “give,” we’ve already pulled back our hand and tied it. We can’t learn from China, and they can’t learn from us, at least by legal/above the table means.
It’s frustrating to see knowledge get locked away. I get there are valid and logical reasons to do it sometimes, but it is still sad to see. Most people here seem to be for or at least supportive of free information in almost every form, but then in situations like this, we fall back to nationalism for some reason or another.
It is good for countries to provide for themselves and their people, but when it starts to hinder another group is when we enter moral grey zones. When does it go from looking out for one’s own interest to hurting another group? Everyone will have a different answer to that, but I hope most individuals would prefer to collaborate and work things out with each other. I think that is common among individuals. Most of us are probably annoying at about half the things our countries are doing at any moment, and potentially cutting ourselves off from equally dissatisfied people that could help us from other places feels like a net loss for all parties.
@NaibofTabr@infosec.pub No, investing your money into your own hardware and software isn’t protectionism. That’s obviously the right thing to do, even more so with regard to the current geopolitical landscape.
