eu/acc

I would argue innovate, regulate innovatively. (Not like the ill advised Chat Control proposal.) Guess Europe has some catching up to do. To innovate yourself also means you can do it on your own terms.

The question of course would be where to accelerate to? And why accelerate at all?

If the aim is to save the world from all kinds of doom the opposite argument might be just as valid, to slow down and do less? Or to be conscious and go step by step?

My acceleration list is pretty short:

- cheap energy,

- more tech startups,

- more lean EU government.

I think the problem with slowing down is that even if we do it, the US and China will not. So our moves will have a limited impact.

Of course good point, EU has to join the rat race or be trampled. So EU is forced to in a way, not by own choice.

From USA we might expect to see some slowing down with the conservative and protectionist agenda of Trump presidency. But China is accelerating with high speed. If you see what they accomplished in last three decades it is dazzling.

Counter to idea that government should be lean in order to be able to accelerate, China is actually big gov. In China acceleration is purely government driven. This is of course not the liberal ideal of acceleration but it is still acceleration.

You could also question if the Western capitalist idea of acceleration is actually liberal, since in capitalist society it is supposedly driven by market forces, but the question is, is the market actually a free market or an illusion of a free market, and in fact driven by a few players who control most of the capital (like big tech)?

I’m just questioning if just accelerating because you need to accelerate is the right way. I don’t know and I surely don’t have the answers.

If I see this website (eu/acc) and both of your comments I can't help but think that the proposal is totally misguided. In my perception of how the current political system works, it's neither the arguments in the proposal, nor the arguments for or against acceleration in Europe. What's upstream of politics is culture - and culture in Europe is kinda cooked.

When I watch state funded media, what do I see in Germany, but probably elsewhere in Europe too?

I see that Germany accepts and welcomes alternative living concepts where young people take drugs, move into functional flat shares, where they divide their income and try to "exit the capitalist system." I see documentaries of old fat men selling meat balls in kiosks, somehow we love to romanticize this? I see how some mountain climber youth is shown as heros because they dare to go where noone else (on the mountain) went. I admit, it's nice to watch. But culturally it sets entirely the wrong tone.

And then I, of course, see the portrait of Elon Musk and others in tech as evil billionaires who try to cynically destroy societies fabric because of their greed.

I personally consider myself a earnest person and I have dedicated a considerable amount of my career towards doing the right things.. I think I have also achieved some successes. They are surely comparable with climbing certain mountains etc. They've come both with physical and mental dangers too. Yet, nobody wants to promote a guy like me in German/European culture. The PoV is that we need to find back to nature and that we need to find piece and prosperity with our families and living off the land. Not through evil and extractive capitalism. And that only this re-visiting of living with nature, a hippy 2.0 life style is the way to fix the climate.

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, but... it's a bad idea because to me it is like closing our eyes in Europe and pretending that outside of our borders the world doesn't continue to evolve. What's the point of moving back to nature when the US and China are going to max-industrialize and leave us behind a destroyed planet? We co-inhabit this planet.

I think a reformation of European politics cannot change with proposing a set of specific solutions.

It has to start by fundamentally changing culture. It has to start by highlighting stories that we think are important to us. We have to cut stories that don't represent us well. And it has to happen on a much broader scale as nobody knows levelsio and since most people get their political opinion straight from TV, or TikTok or Instagram.