This one is good but the content doesn’t speak to me like the above. Would have been nice if OP had added a writing style suggestion to the prompt. Vanilla LLM text is sad
If it's not in the EU parliaments jurisdiction, it's in the EU council's. As a rule, all members states have to be democratic and you can simply vote out your EU council member i.e. your head of state. It is democratic.
The EU Councils decisions are taken in secret. You have no idea if it's democratic or not, nor does it matter even if they do hold a vote because by convention none of them ever campaign on the decisions they make there.
To see this, try and find out how Ursula von der Leyen ended up the most powerful woman in Europe. What qualified her for that, who were the alternative candidates considered, what was said during the debate and by whom.
You can't because the entire process was secret from end to end. Was she even voted on? Nobody knows.
Again, the EU is designed to pass itself off as democratic without being so. But so is China.
Ah but look closely at those votes - do you see anything strange about them? Anything at odds with the idea that they are being cast by directly elected heads of government based on national policy programmes?
Edit: Nevermind, I'll be more direct.
What you linked to isn't the European Council that has elected heads of state in it. It's the votes of the Council of the European Union. Yes, this naming choice is astoundingly stupid, and because it's never been fixed despite many decades of confusion there are many who speculate the confusion is deliberate. It creates exactly the kind of false appearance of democracy that's tripped you up here.
The European Council, the one with Macron, Merz, etc in it, doesn't publish anything about their decision making process. There probably aren't votes. They don't approve or disapprove laws, either. Officially they decide things by consensus. Unofficially nobody knows because they all swear each other to secrecy.
The laws are approved by the Council of the European Union who are, theoretically, still ministers from the different governments i.e. a vote on a trade law would have trade ministers. In reality, that's not how it works either. You can easily verify it. Here's a random law that got approved recently by the 'democratic' parts of the system, on "the welfare of dogs and cats and their traceability":
1. Why does dog welfare have to be imposed on members via transnational law they can't change?
2. Why are nearly all the votes of the Council passing with 95%+ support, all the time? Aren't they supposed to be from different political parties in different countries?
3. Is it really plausible that elected trade ministers from all over Europe travelled somewhere, met and had a meaningful debate about dog welfare?
The answers are respectively:
1. It doesn't and shouldn't.
2. Because they aren't real votes.
3. https://agenceurope.eu/en/bulletin/article/13873/27/eu-counc... says "The EU Council adopted the regulation ... without debate." (note the same naming confusion in the EU's own websites - they use "EU Council" to mean the body that approves laws, which isn't the body made up of heads of state that calls itself the European Council).
This law was waved through by some low level civil servants on behalf of the ministers. Probably neither group even read it. As is true for almost all EU law: most of the work is done by lobbyists.
So, when people tell you the EU is a democracy because of the Council, think about that. Or just ask them which council they mean, because they probably don't know themselves. Fun fact: there's also the Council of Europe which isn't connected to the EU at all.
You're correct on me posting the wrong link sorry. Thank you for the detailed reply.
But I disagree slightly with your take on the secrecy thing. Many of those discussions are diplomatic or internal administration. It is normal for these things to be kept private even in domestic governments. As it can put the state at a disadvantage to have the matters disclosed publicly (the state acts on behalf of the people).
There seems to definitely be shortcomings in transparency however on legislative debates like you mention, and should atleast have a period of public consultation on all of them. Also the presidency sets the talking points and just ignore legislative proposals they don't like.
It is democratic but yes I 100% agree it's entirely open for abuse, and I'm sadly sure is being abused. Separately and unrelated, imo lobbyists should not feature on the system at all.
Legislative matters are supposedly not secret and appointments can be (whether it's wrong or right is a bit grey imo, and that isn't a good thing).
1. The European Council
The European Council primarily decisions by consensus. However, where the EU treaties specify a formal vote, certain appointments allow for or require a secret ballot.
When it is used: Secret votes are strictly reserved for specific appointments or personnel decisions, most notably the election of the President of the European Council.
Legal Basis: Article 4(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Council states that a secret ballot shall be held if requested by any member of the European Council supported by a simple majority.
2. The Council of the European Union
Because the Council of the European Union acts as a legislative body, its operations are bound by strict transparency requirements under the Treaty of Lisbon.
Legislative Debates: When the Council deliberates or votes on a draft legislative act, the meeting must be public, and voting records are made visible. Secret votes are prohibited for legislative matters.
Non-Legislative/Administrative Matters: Secret ballots are permitted only for specific appointments or selections to individual positions (such as nominating members of the European Central Bank Executive Board or Court of Auditors) if a member state requests it and the decision receives majority support to proceed secretly.
And dog welfare being across borders make sense legally (single market) and ethically.
I often won't look at it's route. If it seems like something's wrong along the way of course I'll double check.
Those folk driving off bridges and into ravines is scary as hell, it implies there's people driving around that don't look further than their car bonnet whilst driving (-+5 metres).
Yeah, it always seems weird to me how we deem most adults responsible enough to own a car and not drive into oncoming traffic or how people are allowed to buy actually dangerous tools from big tool stores without a second glance. And sure, there's safety training available and in the case of driving you gotta first prove you're able to follow the rules. But after that? You're on your own, only in computer land do the manufacturers and so on keep holding your hand trying to make sure you're not figuratively cutting it.
With that in mind it ends up being weird to me in a way I can't articulate because after all I can speedrun losing a limb if you left me loose in Harbor Freight or speedrun losing all my money and becoming debt-ridden if you give me a laptop with internet connection.
Anyway, I know there's more nuanced discussion to be had still I sometimes wonder how would the ideal approach actually look like without requiring people to have a digital(ing) license before being allowed to connect to the internet.
To attack your specific example, cars have added all kinds of things that "hand hold" the user and keep them (and others) safe: Seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, automatic emergency braking, back up cameras, lane keep assist, blind spot monitors, etc, etc, etc. (Oh, and guess what, per-mile traffic deaths are WAY down from a few decades ago).
All of which are trivial for a user to override, disable, or ignore completely except the primary airbags, which I believe is the whole point. The user is in control and its all in the owner’s manual to boot.
Many are not, and ma y of the ones in the pipe line, like speed limiters and drunk driver detection are going to be legally mandated to be nondisableable..
> You're on your own, only in computer land do the manufacturers and so on keep holding your hand trying to make sure you're not figuratively cutting it.
Well, firstly, newer cars are now equipped with tons of safety features like various kinds of auto-braking, various warning systems which monitor blind spots in the car, and driving aids like lane assist, lane monitoring, what have you. And then they also have advanced telemetry features that don’t keep them safe, but their insurance company hopes will identify them as bad drivers if and when they get into accidents so they can be denied coverage. These could be analogous depending how you look at it.
Additionally while there’s not much out there for tools, I think that’s less to do with it not being an issue and more to do with it being kind of impossible? That said a few tools have things like sensors that detect the presence of fingers near saw blades and will not only stop operating, they’ll usually destroy the tool in the process to ensure the operators safety, because fundamentally, more saws exist, more fingers do not.
Like despite loving track driving, I wouldn’t think that everyone tearing around in V8 monsters with stripped interiors and roll cages is a good idea.
Huh, I always forget about the newer safety features of cars because I generally see older cars around me and I used to drive cars where ABS, ESC and beeping where as far as it went for safety. And sure you could argue that telemetry used this way could be a path to price bad drivers out, if I understood your point correctly, yet while it would be effective when deployed to this goal I still instinctively regard telemetry as an invasion of privacy (in a space I assume by default to be private) but that's veering towards a different discussion.
Generally I have to admit that society is trending towards making things safe(er) by default but as always with every trend some attempts at following or complying are executed poorly (intentionally or unintentionally). Here's where I agree that while some safeties are universally good and people that disable them suffer from overconfidence I have seen some examples like experienced people removing the shields from brush cutters because they can get in the way and increase the risk of a tangle when cutting overgrowth (though you have to be mindful and careful to not fling small rocks around afterwards).
And yeah, I see your last point and generally agree but for fairness sake I would like to present the other extreme end where a person on a bicycle against a pedestrian is also dangerous albeit less so. That said I'm about to accidentally argue in favor of the "guns don't kill people..." rhetoric and I really don't want that so I will concede that for the time being it's better to (thoughtfully) design safe systems instead of relying solely on operator diligence.
Oh how I dislike that objectively I recognize the need for safety yet subjectively I disdain the fact that my tools try to nanny me and I can't reconcile these two views :/
> And sure you could argue that telemetry used this way could be a path to price bad drivers out, if I understood your point correctly, yet while it would be effective when deployed to this goal I still instinctively regard telemetry as an invasion of privacy (in a space I assume by default to be private) but that's veering towards a different discussion.
A discussion on which I think we'd absolutely agree. But yeah, it's a thing, whether we agree with it or not.
> Generally I have to admit that society is trending towards making things safe(er) by default but as always with every trend some attempts at following or complying are executed poorly (intentionally or unintentionally). Here's where I agree that while some safeties are universally good and people that disable them suffer from overconfidence I have seen some examples like experienced people removing the shields from brush cutters because they can get in the way and increase the risk of a tangle when cutting overgrowth (though you have to be mindful and careful to not fling small rocks around afterwards).
Oh 100%. I would argue most safety features, even when implemented well, will encumber those who were already skilled, which is why you rub against the ones in MacOS. It just... I don't think there's a way around that, you know? Think it's just an immovable law of the universe.
> Oh how I dislike that objectively I recognize the need for safety yet subjectively I disdain the fact that my tools try to nanny me and I can't reconcile these two views :/
I struggled with this for a long time too, but for me, it kinda resolves with the following reasoning:
On balance, safer... everything... makes for a better society, because it enables more average people to do more things, to go more places, to use more technology, to make their lives better. And the fact is, for more experienced people, we can get around this.
Like the security constraints in MacOS are a great example: they are fucking ANNOYING when you're configuring a new Mac, completely agreed, because every last thing requires so many steps. However how often do you really find yourself needing those options in daily driver use? I can count on a hand the number of times I needed system access the last couple of weeks (and usually it's just an app update where I have to give the app the go ahead by typing in my password). The last time I had to open security options and do that whole procedure... it would have to be weeks at minimum, perhaps even months.
Except when it becomes a reputational problem for the OEM: Excel sucks at X (i.e., don't use it for that) and Excel sucks can become equivalent in many people's minds.
Sometimes it is actually a problem of people 'holding it wrong' (as the meme/trope goes). And who gets the blame?
*shrug* I bought my mom a specific laptop to prevent "them" problems. I'm sorry that you're mad that every laptop doesn't conform to your use case, but perhaps this is a good time to realize that not every product is for you, and not every product has to conform to your view of the world. Sometimes, you can just not buy things that don't function the way you want.
I suspect you're missing the entire point of my statement however, I also suspect your mother accessing a recovery boot mode intentionally is not on your list of concerns, if you're infantilizing her use to such an extent.
I appreciate this website. This format is intentional and serves a purpose.
It's great to see the small web in action.
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