Buy European Made. Support European Values

https://www.buy-european-made.eu/

by doener • 1 year ago

477 259 1 year ago

buy-european-made.eu

praptak3• 1 year ago

From #1 to flagged in minutes. The times are not very peaceful.

suraci• 1 year ago

I didn't see the flag

was it flagged then was unflagged by others? can it be flagged back? what it will be if some keep flagging and unflagging it?

praptak3• 1 year ago

I saw it [flagged][dead] and vouched for it but I also understand those who flag.

dickiedyce• 1 year ago

Ah ha. Is this the start of MAIA - "Make America Irrelevant Again"? Do they really need the help? Seems like their about to do a great job on that already... ;-)

DHolzer2• 1 year ago

I don't see this as an attack, but rather a push for independence from the US. I don't want America to be irrelevant, but i don't feel like I can trust them as much as I did before. Both private and in business.

lpcvoid5• 1 year ago

Yeah. I feel great common ground with half of the American people, who share European values such as democracy, right to self defense and striving towards a sustainable future.

It's the other (republican) half which is in power every 4 years which makes cooperation on these issues almost impossible, and you can't just ignore the US every 4 years. We need independence, and the US needs to think about where they want to be as a nation in 20 years.

rf15• 1 year ago

Any great power when they see a previously smaller player pull remotely even: "This is an attack! They're destabilizing the region!"

soderfoo• 1 year ago

Why would anyone put so much trust in to the US in the past?

I'm American, an army vet, and proud. Yet, I fail to identify anything other than the US acting in their own self interest since WW2. The list is long, but to name a few, Vietnam, War on terror, mass surveillance network, etc...

People are waxing poetic about an America that never was.

devn0ll• 1 year ago

"Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake." -- Sun Tsu

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

Where do you see them being interrupted?

fsflover9• 1 year ago

amarcheschi8• 1 year ago

I just suggested via the form bpm power, an Italian electronics e-commerce. Sometimes Amazon isn't the cheapest choice, even when taking into account shipping costs

zoul• 1 year ago

Not every european company embodies european values. As an example, Signal is listed as a US company people might want a european replacement for – and yet Signal represents european values much better than many of the alternatives.

c033• 1 year ago

This is a great point where nationality does not reflect political values. Many Americans exist that do not carry the opinion of their government, as do many Russians.

If a global set of "Don't be an asshole" values could be defined, put into words, shared and progressed, it would have much greater value to a consumer and the world than merely going back to nationalism and protectionism.

a12k• 1 year ago

Many Americans exist that do not carry the opinion of their government, as do many Russians.

I can’t speak for Russia because I have no data, but most Americans don’t carry the opinion of this government.

roenxi• 1 year ago

If a global set of "Don't be an asshole" values could be defined, put into words, shared and progressed...

Being a cynic, I expect the speeches to start with that then smoothly translate into "and therefore we have to spend more money on waging war in foreign countries". The US is exemplifying some of the best international values right now of trying to find a sharp end to all the meaningless dying we've been seeing for the last few years.

If it takes nationalism to make people serious about avoiding WWIII, so be it. Vote nationalist.

rapnie2• 1 year ago

But it is not nationalism as the set of common shared values aren't bound to nations. And neither is it protectionism in the traditional meaning of the term. If you don't participate in upholding the value system (or worse actively seeks to destroy it) then you don't get to reap the benefits. I read this "buy European" initiative as a "don't buy American" in light of the current political situation. Withholding trade is an incentive to US voters to fix their system and tap into the benefits once again as a reward.

ajuc5• 1 year ago

Many Americans exist that do not carry the opinion of their government, as do many Russians.

Their taxes still support their governments and so do your purchases if you buy there.

hayst4ck• 1 year ago

If a global set of "Don't be an asshole" values could be defined,

The history of "rights" is what you're looking for, and this would come in the form of a list of rights.

You would probably get a lot out of reading The Declaration of the Rights of Man (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp), as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...).

Thomas Paine wrote about the philosophy of rights as well, and you would probably get a lot out of reading his works such as The Rights of Man (https://www.ushistory.org/paine/rights/c1-013.htm)

Something being a right means that law does not grant it. If law granted it, it would be a privilege rather than a right. Governments exist to protect rights, but they don't grant rights. That's the solution to the bootstrapping problem for non authoritarian forms of government and why it is always OK to defend your rights, even if they are illegal under a specific form of government. America's founding document, the declaration of independence, is explicit about this idea.

shared and progressed

No, this is where you are wrong, you didn't use the word defend, and that's really where the problem with liberal ideas starts and ends. They must be defended, at personal cost, with force.

Defending an idea that can't reward or punish you will not be as profitable or safe as defending a man who can reward or punish you. It is much easier for a man to build an army than for an idea to build an army. It will always be painful to defend your rights in the short term, but if you don't you will never have rights in the long term.

Solidarity, risking your own safety and well being for the benefit of someone else, is the only way to achieve a world you want to live in, but some of the builders of that world won't get to experience it, and that's a hard sell to people who just want to see their kids smile.

galfarragem• 1 year ago

Many Americans exist that do not carry the opinion of their government, as do many Russians.

As do many Europeans...

FirmwareBurner8• 1 year ago

Not every european company embodies european values.

What even are "European values"? Is there such thing? Every EU country I know has varying values to the other members, that's why we have separate borders, languages, religions, cultures and laws with autonomy over them.

The EU is not one-nation one-culture like the US, but an org that doesn't impose any kind of universal values across the different diverse members except some laws that ease trade, labor movement and cooperation and that's it, but every country, and even every citizen has wildly different things they value based on culture, economy, history, social class and upbringing.

amarcheschi8• 1 year ago

While every country has its own culture and values, the European union is founded, at least theoretically, on some shared values such as promoting peace, democracy (...)

Well, one might say that we sell weapons to dictatorships (and they would be correct), but at least on paper there are some shared values we more or less share throughout European union. Full list here: https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...

Edit Wikipedia page as well https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_values

zaruvi• 1 year ago

Please don't conflate Europe (the continent) and the European Union.

meijer5• 1 year ago

There is broad consensus in Europe that we don't want to be like Trumpist America.

oytis2• 1 year ago

There is a lot of history and values behind the "org that eases trade". It even has its own anthem, and the Treaty of Lisbon explicitly lists what values it is founded on.

rsynnott6• 1 year ago

but an org that doesn't impose any kind of universal values across the different diverse members except some laws that ease trade, labor movement and cooperation and that's it

Also human rights, democracy, anti-corruption stuff. Now, as we've seen with Orban, Europe's mechanism for actually _enforcing_ this is basically defective.

And peace. Like, the original stated intent of the Coal and Steel Treaty (the EU's ultimate predecessor) was to prevent another European war (largely by making it economically impracticable).

amarcheschi8• 1 year ago

While I do agree with what you say, I feel the og post is more in the spirit of "buy local, support your local x/y/z" rather than just sharing values. At least, this is how I see it, even if the title says support European values, which is surely much more inspiring

timeon2• 1 year ago

It should not be just about values but also security. Well I use Signal but what if their servers are sized or blocked for EU users? (This is also valid for many companies listed in the page that are hosted on US clouds).

lynx97• 1 year ago

What are European values, actually? I don't think there is a lot that all member state citizens actually share, except for a lot of wishful thinking.

simion3145• 1 year ago

What are European values, actually?

We accept that each European country people are equal, we agree to collaborate and not screw each others for land.

Also we in majority are against fascism,racism and discrimination though social media managed to make a portion of idiots to hate LGBTQs and wokes so they want they adopted fascist values. We as citizens we re doing our best to fight aginst this fascists groups.

And before some MAGA will calim that right wing extemists are not fascists, I remind you that supporting assassinations, deportations, killings while at the same time pretending to be Christian is fascist (at least in my country, in USA might be labeled different)

kharak• 1 year ago

Replace European with Cosmopolitan values. There are no unified European values, as the states of Europe are quite diverse. But there is significant cultural homogeneity for a subset of the population, the cosmopolitans. They tend to be the elites and form these kind of discourses. They use the term European values, mostly unaware of their cosmopolitan nature.

tpm• 1 year ago

All member states share the European Convention on Human Rights.

ivan_gammel• 1 year ago

That’s the question that is easy to answer with a single document:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/treaty/char_2012/oj/eng

closewith3• 1 year ago

I'm not sure that's the best example, as Signal places a strong emphasis on personal freedoms which is _not_ particularly representative of European values at this time.

simion3145• 1 year ago

Yeah, you can't be a nazi in Europe, promoting political assasination and genocide has consequences there,

finnjohnsen23• 1 year ago

DuckDuckGo is another such example

kkarpkkarp• 1 year ago

Signal comes from the country where the Prism [1] is still functioning. While it has open source, NSA can request from deployers on any stage to inject surveillance functionality: request from Signal authors, from Android / Apple Store repository maintainers and probably many other actors on the deployment chain to my mobile phone.

I could install it from sources but I do not have any guarantee my message sent to my friend is not eye-picked by PRISM on his phone.

Open-source + marketing copy != final product

Just a regular reminder, guys.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

kreetx2• 1 year ago

I wonder why can't we have a fully open source e2ee that would be easy to use?

rsynnott6• 1 year ago

Am I missing something? The only alternative offered for Signal is a Matrix client. Matrix is open-source and federated, so, well, can really embody whoever's values you feel like. Though it, ah, certainly lacks something in _usability_.

UncleSlacky• 1 year ago

Threema should be there as a European alternative to Signal:

https://threema.ch/en

whiplash451• 1 year ago

Some US companies may represent European values but are still operating under the thumb and law of the US.

The philosophy here (as I understand it) is to list companies that operate under the EU rule of law.

arghwhat• 1 year ago

*Support European values financially.

Local circulation and tax payment does make a big and positive difference for many things (e.g., less transport for physical goods). Doesn't require the first recipient to be aligned with your values to have an effect.

It's just unfortunate that it had to be forced for stupid reasons, especially as it doesn't necessarily make sense for everything. This timeline sucks.

mrweasel• 1 year ago

You also have the issue that a company like Ecosia is listed as a German company, but their search is powered by Bing and Google, so does it really make much of a difference?

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

Bing and Google will always be powered by Bing and Google. Ecosia can bootsrap itself with their services until its value is great enough that it can fund itself a solution. That would be the ideal here anyway.

fsflover9• 1 year ago

Signal forces you to use Apple or Google phones (which enable spying on users via, e.g., push notifications [0]), actively fights with third party clients and servers, goes against decentralization. They want to be the single point of failure or attack. They also use the AWS. This is all too suspicious for me.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38543155

anonym29• 1 year ago

Not if you're using Molly-FOSS, which strips all Google integrations down to a shared library level. UnifiedPush instead of Firebase. OSM for location sharing instead of GMaps. There are de-googled AOSP-based mobile OS's such as GrapheneOS that can be used with Molly-FOSS as well.

It's not necessarily the perfect end goal, but for those who are at an earlier phase of their privacy journey, GrapheneOS + Molly-FOSS is a massive improvement over stock Android + stock Signal, while maintaining a relatively minimal disruption to their ordinary workflows with e2ee messaging on an android-based smartphone.

https://molly.im/

https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android

jxjnskkzxxhx5• 1 year ago

You said "not every European company embodies European values", but as an example you mentioned an American company.

BoingBoomTschak2• 1 year ago

Why add "Support European Values" to the title when I can't find it anywhere on the page? Pointless inclusion for something with quite the potential for polemics...

EDIT: whoops, either I'm blind or some JS blocking hid it from my eyes...

amarcheschi8• 1 year ago

I see it when I click, it's literally big black text on white background, both mobile and desktop view

meijer5• 1 year ago

For me, "Support European Values." is prominently displayed on the page.

OvbiousError2• 1 year ago

At least on the desktop the prominent greeting text is "Buy European Made. Support European Values"?

pastage4• 1 year ago

Is this polemic? Seem more like it is a choice people can make, same as American freedom fries.

mardifoufs• 1 year ago

Yes, and it's just as cringy as freedom fries.

rapnie2• 1 year ago

Also the entire site keeps in the dark who is behind this initiative. You can become a coordinator / collaborator and "Reach out to our team at catzlaura@proton.me". Whose team? I always find campaigns like these with anonymous groups behind it kind of fishy. Have a honest campaign? Make yourself known.

SSLy2• 1 year ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1iwwqxr/wwwbuyeu...

zo13• 1 year ago

It's not just you. The title in the html is different to the "text" that's put as the title in the actual document.

In terms of plain HTML, all you have is:

"<title>Buy European Made</title>"

And all the meta tags for social media:

stunami• 1 year ago

Sure, but its turtles all the way down.

How many are hosted on AWS, Google or Microsoft? How many are using Windows or macOS? How many use nvidia, etc.

BoingBoomTschak2• 1 year ago

You could say that ASML (Netherlands) and TSMC (Taiwan) are the final turtles though.

timeon2• 1 year ago

Yes, but still important question for the future.

torlok3• 1 year ago

There's a size point at which rolling your own infrastructure is worth it, and may get government support. Help grow companies you want to see succeed.

ssssvd6• 1 year ago

"Don't rent from Amazon! Buy from Dell, HP, SuperMicro, Cisco, Juniper, Intel and Nvidia instead."

It's all American below AWS/GCP abstractions as well.

meijer5• 1 year ago

It's not all or nothing.

OvbiousError2• 1 year ago

Absence of a (high-level services) cloud provider is a big problem. I hope that changes at some point, but probably impossible to start something like that without measures in place to make the existing offering less attractive.

ssssvd6• 1 year ago

Imagine GDPR, but for infra — that's the stuff of nightmares.

"EU Committee on Kubernetes."

By the way, that's exactly what China and Russia did — no AWS, GCP, or Azure there.

GreenWatermelon2• 1 year ago

Who says it's not all linux and Hetzner/OVH? No need to assume the worsr based on no data.

achempion• 1 year ago

It’s so iconic that they have a cookie banner covering 60% of my phone screen.

torlok3• 1 year ago

[deleted, can't read, sorry]

Kiro• 1 year ago

They said "iconic".

GreenWatermelon2• 1 year ago

BUT, and this is important, there is a big clear "Reject all" button.

My problem with cookie banners isn't their mere existence, but that the scum if the earth make it almost impossible to reject data collection.

63stack• 1 year ago

I know there is some rule about commenting about this on HN, but a website about "buy European made" that immediately starts with _two_ cookie banners about "Your privacy rights under _US_ state privacy laws" does seem weird. (I'm not in the US)

belter• 1 year ago

"We Are Fighting Against a Dictator Backed by a Traitor" - https://youtu.be/j51HZncBvEI

https://www.independants-senat.fr/post/claude-malhuret-situa...

zoobab• 1 year ago

We should migrate away from Github, an american company.

tasuki• 1 year ago

And stop posting on this american forum. Sheesh.

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

If every discussion like this continues to be flagged we should consider it.

ssssvd6• 1 year ago

Wouldn't you implicitly support Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, Dell/HP, Snowflake/Databricks, Datadog, etc. with almost every sale though? For many European businesses, infrastructure and platform costs likely exceed their own margins. In that sense, a lot of European businesses are really just "value-added resellers" of US hardware and platforms.

pastage4• 1 year ago

Agreed Europe has never had to care about that because we have always supported the US. Now there is always Loongson/Zhaoxin to base your infra on. Considering the way the US is heading you might see people considering a "neutral party" in the war.

AWS is nice and all not unique though.

ssssvd6• 1 year ago

You absolutely could go bare-metal with emerging local platforms and a Chinese stack — that’s the path Russia (and obviously China itself) is heading down. But...

Equinix? US. Digital Realty? US. NTT? Japan. Interxion? US. CyrusOne? US. That’s your top five DC/colo operators in Europe.

Same story with Tier-1 and Tier-1.5 ISPs.

It’s not just software. It’s not even just hardware. It’s the whole stack — down to power grids, land property rights, and regulatory frameworks.

Nationalization? Multidecade supply chain reconfiguration? Trillions in investment to rebuild local capacity — likely still with deep reliance on China for core infra components.

Europe isn’t just "a bit dependent" — it’s completely entangled.

eye-scuzzy• 1 year ago

What kind of values? Hypocrisy at scale?

jxjnskkzxxhx5• 1 year ago

Go on, tell us more.

nonrandomstring• 1 year ago

Keep supporting the values of freedom, democracy, self-determination. These are not national or cultural preserves.

There are plenty of fascists and mean-minded frightened little people here in Europe, just as the body of US America remains founded on liberty.

josefrichter• 1 year ago

Could we avoid politics on the tech scene? I think we're all better than that, and we know the tech scene thrives through collaboration, not isolationism.

coffeeaddict1• 1 year ago

Could we avoid politics on the tech scene?

In the situation we are in currently? It's almost impossible unfortunately due to our political leaders.

wk_end• 1 year ago

Could you tell that to Peter Thiel or Elon Musk, please?

inductive_magic2• 1 year ago

Startup CEO from Europe here. How am I supposed to turn a blind eye to the risk that the dependency from the US has become lately?

nc• 1 year ago

How is US dependency a risk?

philipwhiuk• 1 year ago

Is avoiding politics what Zuckerberg did when he rolled back fact-checking?

Since when has the hypercapitalist Silicon Valley ever avoided politics?

dailykoder• 1 year ago

No, because politics are essential. Yes, they are annoying. Yes, they are difficult at time, but they are important.

masa331• 1 year ago

Buying from local vendors doesn't have to do anything with politics. From groceries to software it makes perfect sense to me to buying locally. The money i spend in my town or country will have much bigger effect here again than when i spend it in a different country or even a continent

netsharc2• 1 year ago

I remember hearing a talk of a tech guy who say why do techies like to talk about politics so much, and he said it's because tech-inclined people can see what the technology can do, and how it can be abused, and some want to warn the rest of the public.

Imagine if East Germany's state security service have the surveillance tech of China. Aha oops, I guess you don't need to imagine, you just have to look at China.

gizzlon3• 1 year ago

Only up to a point.

At some point "politics" becomes real and life changing, and ignoring it just becomes naive and spineless.

thegrim33• 1 year ago

It's up to us, the users, to flag the political content. It seems like we're losing the battle, there's more and more political stuff allowed on the front page every month. As it keeps increasing, people like me will give up on the site and go elsewhere, and then there's fewer users flagging political stuff, and it takes over. Either we nip it in the bud now or it's all downhill from here.

zo13• 1 year ago

As much as I agree that this forum shouldn't turn political, it's hard to ignore the metaphorical war that is happening on the internet at the moment. It's a revolutionary war for people to take back the narrative that's been imposed on them by the (what I would argue) trans-national, powerful and unelected monarchs.

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

There's often a cross-over between tech and politics, though. As more and more important tech news (DOGE in server rooms, the government crypto scams, even this list of European tech alternatives etc.) gets flagged here then people like myself will give up on the site and go elsewhere.

Etheryte• 1 year ago

All software is inherently political, whether it's possible to ignore this fact or not is up for debate and your personal situation. Much like a gun, if you look at it in complete isolation from everything else in existence, you might be able to make the case that it's just an object with no meaning attached. But just like guns, software does not live in isolation. In the same way that producing guns, access to guns, buying and selling guns, etc is deeply political, so is software. Pretending that it isn't is only hiding your head under the sand in the hopes that the world won't come knocking.

We need to accept this fact as an industry and take responsibility for our work. Whether it's tracking people online, facial recognition at protests, aggregate cellular data used to deanonymize or etc, all of this software was built by people and claiming it's just a tool with no harm no foul is trying to shed responsibility we should bear.

fergie• 1 year ago

"Not talking about politics" is one of the most profoundly political things you can do.

arkadiytehgraet• 1 year ago

Tech is partially, some would say even mostly, responsible for the current political atmosphere and climate, so no, neither we are any better than this, nor should it be avoided.

surgical_fire3• 1 year ago

Is it avoidable?

Tech is directly affected by policy. Hell, any mention of OSS is eminently political by definition.

The imminent trade wars that the current US administration is set to start will dramatically affect the tech sector. Discussion of region-based alternatives are not only relevant, but important in the current moment.

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

Could we avoid politics on the tech scene?

We can't avoid politics in any sphere of life, that's what makes it so important.

I think we're all better than that, and we know the tech scene thrives through collaboration, not isolationism.

And there you go, it doesn't matter what we know because the US government is going over our heads and taking isolationist measures. Even when we're "better than that" the reality is that our lives are shaped by the world around us as much as by our own initiatives.

jxjnskkzxxhx5• 1 year ago

"avoiding politics" favours the most aggressively dishonest party.

landsman• 1 year ago

Every country should be pround on theirs companies, producing good products and paying taxes.

Catalogs like this can be a good discovery that some company like this even exist.

jansan• 1 year ago

What are "European Values"? Are they identical to the values of the EU, that are in section 2 of the Treaty of European Union:

    "The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities."[1]

Also, did all the listed companies sign a codex that they will adhere to those values?

And finally, in which way do non-European companies, for example Amazon, violate those values?

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

netsharc2• 1 year ago

Honestly the way the EU pays countries to catch refugees leaving their shorelines headed to the EU, I'm not even sure the EU conforms to that statement...

Amazon makes their warehouse workers pee in bottles, much respect for dignity there. Oh wait I hear that happens in Non-EU Britain, so that's not a problem! /s

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

Amazon makes their warehouse workers pee in bottles, much respect for dignity there. Oh wait I hear that happens in Non-EU Britain, so that's not a problem! /s

Do you think the population supports that or there an inevitable lag between real-world actions and political responses?

fsflover9• 1 year ago

did all the listed companies sign a codex that they will adhere to those values?

I guess they must follow the EU laws.

gizzlon3• 1 year ago

Even ignoring the moral and ethical values, doing business with US based companies seems much more risky now. I'm specifically thinking of:

1) tariffs / trade wars and

2) The big tech's total and swift capitulation to Donal and Elon. They have shown themselves to be totally spineless and pathetic. Why is that a risk? Donald is erratic. What if you prime minister piss off Trump in some way, and he orders US companies to pause business with your country? What happens to you AWS? Or your Google account? Or even Office?

2) might seem far-fetched to you, but there's a million ways this could happen. Cutting off all support to Ukraine seemed far-fetched to me at least, just a few months ago :(

0xCaponte• 1 year ago

European values, like consumer protection, privacy, and environmental standards, are, in my view, among the best in the world. However, bureaucracy and politics push them in the wrong direction or tie everything up. I had never thought much about this before, but I now plan to look more into supporting European industries. However, only for products of comparable quality. If a product doesn’t measure up, I don’t see many people choosing it just for the sake of buying European.

kennethwolters• 1 year ago

not an attempt at rebutting or so, just adding my thoughts:

It doesn't matter if the product is great because of those values if there is a lack product (bc politics and bureaucracy make it infeasible to produce). Makes you think if those values might contribute to the bad politics and bureaucracy. And if so, how.

piva00• 1 year ago

Why is it always attributed to politics and bureaucracy when there's a much more obvious point on why European products take a long while to gain market share even inside the continent: the EU is made of 27 independent countries with their own culture, and language.

A consumer product created in the Netherlands needs to be adapted to be marketed across 27 different countries, sales teams need to know how to approach each of them, manuals, UI, etc. need to be translated into the customers' languages, so on and so forth.

Is there bureaucracy? Of course, some of it is to uphold values, some might be unnecessary but it's not the main obstacle faced by European companies to grow themselves into the whole of the EU.

Imagine for a moment that each US State had its own centuries-old way of living, its own language, and history separated from the US as a nation, there would be much more friction for products to spread around the whole country, there would be much more localised versions of the same market niche, exactly what happens in Europe.

A federalisation of Europe is a slow process, it will take generations to integrate all these different cultures, streamline production pipelines to allow products to be released across many different member-states at once, etc. Ironically the US becoming more insular and adversarial might be a catalyst for European companies to do so, there will be quite a few market gaps opening up in the wake of US's influence retraction.

ysofunny• 1 year ago

don't european values include Monarchy?

meijer5• 1 year ago

No, that has now become a value of American Republicans.

n4r92• 1 year ago

The opposite. European values are closely tied to enlightenment and the republicanist ideas that came out of the French revolution.

xxs3• 1 year ago

I guess that's joke - indeed, in the EU - Northern counties + flat lands + Spain[x] are monarchies where the monarchs have all but representation powers. You can add Monaco (which is not an independent State), if you really wish.

Then there is France and the revolution in 1789 which (outside the US) is considered a big thing.

[x]: Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands; Norway's also a monarchy but not an EU member state.

rsynnott6• 1 year ago

There are no 'conventional'/old-fashioned monarchies in Europe (except, arguably, for Liechtenstein). Some European countries have monarchs, who are powerless figureheads; executive power rests with the government (even in most European republics, executive power rests with the government, not the president).

Aloisius2• 1 year ago

Not really powerless. They have powers, but people see them as ceremonial. They're not of course ceremonial, rather it's traditional that they don't fire the loaded gun they're given and everyone pretends like they're not only incapable of it, but doing so would end the monarchy.

The truth is, a monarch with significant ambition could, if the right situation arises or is engineered, convince the populace that their exercise of power is necessary to save the country.

zo13• 1 year ago

As a general rule, I find that the "left" is always guilty of every single thing they accuse the right of doing. They just don't phrase it that way and think that they can control the narrative forever. The narrative, unfortunately, is crumbling and people are waking up. The only way they can stop it is by silencing and downright banning social-media, because that's currently the main vehicle for un-approved opinions spreading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_7_of_the_Treaty_on_Eur...

tomashm• 1 year ago

The Norwegian King's speech on love, religion and acceptance (English subtitles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQtLxYde-rw

Quote: "Norwegians are girls who love girls, boys who love boys, and girls and boys who love each other. Norwegians believe in God, Allah, the Universe, and Nothing."

finnjohnsen23• 1 year ago

I am working on this, and here are my personal observations thus far;

# Low hanging fruit:

- Food and clothes, like Coca Cola, Snickers, Nike, Levis, The North Face etc

- Mondelez. This is hard because they own so much. But obvious things like Oreo and Corn Flakes are easy.

- Social Media I rarely use. For me this was Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, X, Bluesky and Messenger.

# Harder to ditch

- Facebook. Family :(

- Microsoft; Windows, VSCode, MS Teams, GitHub

- Google; Gmail is my primary for 15+ years, gDrive, gCalendar, google.com

- Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.

- Streaming: YouTube, NetFlix, HBO and Disney+. This will be difficult.

- LLM, Claude and OpenAI-things

- Steam

- Discord

- My Tesla model Y.

# Impossible

- Smart Phone OS: Google Android or Apple iPhone/iOS

- Intel / AMD, hardware in general is difficult

So, this is all work in progress, but I keep this document in my Google Drive (gah!) and I'm adding more stuff every day and trying to shift my habbits.

gizzlon3• 1 year ago

I would argue to that not all US companies are the same. Both ethically and based on risk.

Tesla is directly supporting Elon, and IMO much worse than, say, Netflix. Also probably more risky, as Elon is probably more pilled that the CEO of Netflix and Google

bambax• 1 year ago

I think an important distinction is whether you send money to those providers or not. Using free services with a strong adblocker is probably a net loss for them. And regarding streaming... the high seas are very welcoming ;-)

PS: Did you mean Mondelez? The only thing I ever bought on their list of brands[0] is 'Lu', but I will make sure I don't anymore ;-)

[0] https://www.mondelezinternational.com/our-brands/

finnjohnsen23• 1 year ago

Thank you; Mondelez

jisnsm2• 1 year ago

What are “European values”? I was born in Europe, been here all my life, and I don’t think such thing exists - values that are shared among all Europeans AND that set us apart from other regions.

Europeans are much, much more culturally segregated than people from outside Europe seem to think.

meijer5• 1 year ago

You don't see it, like the fish who does not see the water.

jisnsm2• 1 year ago

Very philosophical and completely empty. (Like almost everything in philosophy)

t_mann2• 1 year ago

I get why people might feel this impulse, but they should realize that it follows the same logic as tariffs. You do not gain by closing yourself off from the world. Having the choice among the best products in the world is prosperity. Whether you restrain yourself by choice or by force, it's the same zero-sum mindset. Free trade, with some exceptions for fledgling industries, is one of the rare cases that makes everyone better off. Unfortunately, even the simplest explanation [0] is a bit unintuitive, which may explain why trade restrictions are one of the few things popular among parts of the left and the right.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

baxtr2• 1 year ago

For me this is not about retaliation but about being self reliant.

t_mann2• 1 year ago

What you should really aim for is companies that can win in the market. "Found European" instead of "Buy European" if you will. Right now might be a good time to try and reverse some of the brain drain into US tech.

fsloth• 1 year ago

This is not about value signaling. It’s a reaction to the fact that US is willing to shutdown US service offerings and hardware owned by counter parties for political arm twisting.

US products are great. But suddenly they look just as risky as Chinese offerings for any critical infrastructure.

rndmio• 1 year ago

I think you're ignoring the externalities of supporting a business/country that is doing things you don't agree with. If ACo can sell me widget cheaper than BCo because they dump the polluting manufacturing waste in a local river it's perfectly rational to decide not to deal with them. The intent is to make them change their behavior by impacting their business. Should we ignore the effects of our purchases just because we can get something cheaper or better?

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

We still have free trade, we're just choosing to exercise our freedom as consumers.

BaudouinVH• 1 year ago

Digital products only : https://european-alternatives.eu/

fsflover9• 1 year ago

Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43104684

lou1306• 1 year ago

Nice initiative, but it is a bit naive to list Ray-Ban as an alternative to Oakley when they are both owned by (Italy-based) Luxottica.

benterix• 1 year ago

What is funny (or sad) is that this submission is now flagged.

A list with very interesting tech entries (I had no idea Poland had an actual RAM/storage factory, not just distribution).

q3k• 1 year ago

GoodRAM makes modules/drives but not the DRAM/NAND chips themselves.

They're still pretty good products, though - as the name suggests :).

beretguy• 1 year ago

[flagged]

on_the_train• 1 year ago

It's just another thinly veiled politics post

dang• 1 year ago

Users usually typically flag advocacy/rallying posts on HN, especially if they make the frontpage. It doesn't have to do with the specific cause being advocated. It's because they're off topic on HN since they don't primarily appeal to intellectual curiosity. We also tend to ban such sites, for the same reason.

This has been the case for many years, and it isn't a judgment on either the site or the cause—it's just about the scope of this forum.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tdiff• 1 year ago

What is "european values", exactly? It seems to be used to mean something "good", as "democracy" nowadays.

fsflover9• 1 year ago

There are already comments discussing this here, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_values

baxtr2• 1 year ago

How come this is flagged now?

tmikaeld2• 1 year ago

Mistral uses Cerebras for their Lé Chat, which is even hosted in the US.

mogall• 1 year ago

I made an account specifically to post this comment here.

I went to this website because i've been looking to buy a non-chinese wireless keyboard and mouse lately. So i looked up "keyboard" in the searchbar and the first company that came up in the search results is Logitech.

And let me tell you, i spent last 2 months driving to every single tech shop and outlet imaginable(in a reasonable distance) and every single Logitech keyboard that i checked was made in china. Every single one. I'd know there were any keyboards not made in china, because i'd buy one on the spot, and i didn't.

I don't understand what's the purpose of this website then. What european values are bing spoken of here? Outsorcing everything to cheap chinese labour? Is this website a SEO backend? Some elaborate corpo prank?

Someone please explain.

tmikaeld2• 1 year ago

Probably SEO farm. Clearly not what it's purposed to be..

It's rightfully flagged

maxglute• 1 year ago

Manufacturing small % of value add. Spend $100 on keyboard, $20 goes to PRC, $80 goes to brand country. You pick whether $80 to goes to US company or Swiss company.

throwaway_20357• 1 year ago

"Solely made in China" is true for many electronic product categories, unfortunately. I love China but don't like any country dominating manufacturing to the extent we seem to have reached. For keyboards there is at least still the Topre Realforce. It is made in Japan. I am quite happy with it.

MasterYoda• 1 year ago

https://european-alternatives.eu/

https://isitamerican.eu/

Farfignoggen• 1 year ago

The EU and Canada, UK, Australia, Mexico/etc need some new Trade Pact to counter What Trump is doing and to reduce their dependency on the US as a trading partner longer term! The Social democracies around the world are Trump's/Crony Capitalists' target because the Social democracies provide for the health care for their citizens instead of those countries letting the Crony Capitalists bleed the citizens of those Social Democracies dry! The Social Democracies provide for other progressive social Safety Net programs and education benefits that benefit the Social Democratic societies as a whole and not just the 10% most wealthy!

Trump and the Republican Party wants to get rid of the Entire New Deal legislation and return the US back to a regulatory structure that existed in the Pre Sherman Antitrust Act(1890) days in America when the Robber Baron controlled Crony Capitalistic Trusts had free reign and the US Economy was effectively cornered by the Robber Baron Trusts and hardly free market at all!

The Social Democracies need look at the US as not sharing the same values as the Social Democracies in the world and those Social Democracies should have been taking measures since 1980 to reduce any dependency on the US economically!

The US Should be Actively Labeled a Crony Capitalist Country and one that is Oligarch Dominated and not really a Free Market Capitalistic country!

And Trump/Crony Capitalists are actively trying to destabilize the Canadian economy as well as the economies of Mexico and South America!

thunkshift1• 1 year ago

Atmanirbhar europe

attendant34463• 1 year ago

I don't see the point. Why should it be European (or American, Japanese, Chinese or whatever)? Shouldn't it be better value/quality? Not everything is better just because it's European. I believe that if someone is doing something great (incl. privacy policy, support, etc.) it shouldn't matter if it's European or from somewhere else.

I live in the EU and I often see this cult of people deliberately buying worse things just because it's European. Yet there are many areas where a European alternative is worse than the imported one. I'd say support quality and innovation, not nationality.

AlecSchueler16• 1 year ago

Have you ever heard the term voting with your wallet? Well, you're not only voting for the company whose product you're buying, you're also enriching the country that houses them. People in Europe are increasingly worried about hostility from the US and many people are rapidly trying to reduce their support for and reliance on the ruling regime.

attendant34463• 1 year ago

I understand that. But I also think that manufacturers in Europe should do better and not just try to survive on patriotism.

Better products == better sales. After all, we live in a capitalist world.

Buy European Made. Support European Values

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