[HN Gopher] Our European search index goes live
___________________________________________________________________
Our European search index goes live
Author : maelito
Score : 200 points
Date : 2025-08-08 21:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.ecosia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.ecosia.org)
| 1317 wrote:
| (only in France)
| usr1106 wrote:
| and even there only a small part. Goal for EOY is 50%.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| more precisely:
|
| > We're aiming to serve 50% of French search queries by the
| end of the year, and will soon start rolling out to other
| countries.
| homarp wrote:
| related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44811879
|
| Qwant and Ecosia debut Staan, a European search index that aims
| to take on Big Tech
| scotty79 wrote:
| How do you even build a search index today when websites barely
| link to each other?
|
| Nowadays the bulk of linking goes to ecommerce sites (amazon)
| from content farms (reddit) and all those sites are submitted
| directly to Google. I don't think crawlable internet exists
| anymore.
| gostsamo wrote:
| You are making a broad generalization and even it is based on
| the assumption that the page-ranking algorithm is the only
| possible way to do it.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I make no assumption beyond the one that if you want to index
| a page you need to know its address and if the author of the
| website is not going to give it to you because you are not
| Google and no known website links to it, then you have no way
| of finding it out. You can't build anything independently.
| You have to go to Google.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| It isn't impossible nowadays to enumerate domain names using
| DNS data and score them based on the content they serve. Isn't
| that what we really want as users? Scoring based not on proxies
| for relevance like referral count, but on viewable content?
| guillem_lefait wrote:
| It's possible indeed as I'm doing it for another reason
| (monitoring sovereigty).
|
| You can ask Icann [0] access to gTld domain list files (if
| you have a legitimate reason to do so). Once access you are
| granted access to a gTld, you can download a compressed csv
| file with a line per couple <domain, nameserver>.
|
| [0] https://czds.icann.org/home
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| > How do you even build a search index today
|
| You can start with seeds like common crawl, and go from there.
| You can also get DNS records from various providers. Then
| there's SSL cert logs that you can crawl. Plenty of sources, if
| you have funding (search by itself without ads sponsoring it
| might be a net loss, except some niche uses like kagi?)
| user32489318 wrote:
| It's great to have non-US alternatives, but when non-US
| alternatives become extreme self-centered as EU tends to
| be(come), I start questioning if this a solution I'm willing to
| adopt. Current direction "of protecting the children" will easily
| put a filter on what you will be allowed to see and find;
| censorship is just too easy to implement behind the closed doors
| simonask wrote:
| US solutions are incredibly self-centered. It's very visible to
| Europeans how American cultural norms completely dominate the
| digital public sphere. In 2025, this feels dangerous to many of
| us.
|
| Examples of American cultural attitudes permeating social media
| platforms that have felt very odd in Europe: Firearms and
| violence (which is apparently allowed), and nudity (which is
| apparently always sexual).
|
| The concerns about the current direction of EU regulation are
| valid and huge, I get that.
| dijit wrote:
| What's more surprising to me (also EU citizen) is how readily
| able we are to adopt US cultural norms to our own.
|
| The most glaring and obvious example is the narrative
| surrounding race/gender relations. The EU has it's own racial
| issues but we get BLM riots too and we get chest thumping
| misandrists in _Sweden_.. the country that has done the most
| to promote gender equality of any nation on the planet.
|
| BLM riots don't make sense in the UK for example, our race
| relations are much more nuanced, difficult, and probably put
| the Pakistani community in the most visibly disadvantaged
| position; but there's no space to talk about that as we're
| discussing George Floyd and police brutality (which, largely
| is not a UK issue at all).
|
| I know for Americans this might come off as tone deaf because
| everything over there is so polarised it's like a battle to
| the death; but I think a major reason the right wing is
| growing in the EU is because of US cultural norms becoming
| prevalent (individualism over collectivism) and that
| naturally comes with some amount of xenophobia; as if you're
| living an individualistic mindset you naturally see resources
| as zero-sum.
|
| The growth of right-wing movements thrive, ironically, by
| positioning themselves as a bulwark against what they frame
| as foreign cultural encroachment. It seems we're stuck trying
| to choose between a censored European world or an American
| one that doesn't fit us at all.
|
| But if I have to choose, I choose the one that actually sort
| of fits.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Denmark have in the past few elections had a guy run on the
| promise of reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act. No word on
| how a Dane, in the Danish parliament would even be in a
| position of reintroducing a US law.
|
| It's incredibly frustrating to see people around you adopt
| US mentality, problems and problem solving. This can be
| simple things like talking to the police, ignoring the fact
| that there's a huge difference in talking to a police
| officer in Gothenburg vs. Baltimore. Some times you even
| run into people protesting something that's not a problem,
| but US centric social media has lead them to believe it is.
| At the same time many are completely oblivious to local
| issues.
| gostsamo wrote:
| I'd agree with you with the point that the local right wing
| ideologies are repackaged old-school nationalism
| reinventing itself. The most radical right wing governments
| are in the former communist countries where the communism
| was just nationalism with socialist coating. Adopting US
| terminology is not always adopting US ideas as well.
| andreasmetsala wrote:
| > I'd agree with you with the point that the local right
| wing ideologies are repackaged old-school nationalism
| reinventing itself. The most radical right wing
| governments are in the former communist countries where
| the communism was just nationalism with socialist
| coating. Adopting US terminology is not always adopting
| US ideas as well.
|
| Our local right-wingers want to shut down our equivalent
| to the education department because "they are too woke".
| Meanwhile those same "nationalists" want to stop funding
| local culture in favor of importing US culture.
|
| This is in Finland of all places. I'm tired of our local
| social media drones going crazy over US nonsense but our
| right-wing parties want more of it.
|
| The global cultural influence of the US is really showing
| and it's going to be a wild ride as the world shifts to
| reject it as that influence starts turning against us.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Woke ideology was also imported whole sale from the US to
| your universities, so the American tint is both on action
| and reaction.
| Anduia wrote:
| Woke ideology is a rebranding of social democracy and
| egalitarian humanism, and certainly not invented in US.
|
| What is American is the endless need to slap a scary
| label on it, turn it into a culture war football, and
| export the outrage everywhere else. We've been talking
| about equality, workers' rights, and anti-discrimination
| in Europe for over a century without needing Fox News to
| tell us it's dangerous. Now suddenly our own politicians
| are parroting this imported panic as if it were homegrown
| wisdom.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| With the Internet it takes just a few seconds of
| searching and reading to find that traditional Nordic /
| European social democracy is not the roots of modern
| "woke" ideology.
|
| Especially when it comes to all the main doctrines of
| woke ideology concerning race and ethnicity, sexuality,
| immigration, labor and drug use.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Identity politics, a key component of woke ideology, is
| not a rebranding of social democracy and egalitarian
| humanism.
|
| The latter two used to be a common platforming of class
| equality. Woke ideology has turned common ground into a
| pitched battle against each other where the only winners
| are wealthy elites.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| > Woke ideology is a rebranding of social democracy and
| egalitarian humanism, and certainly not invented in US.
|
| It has nothing in common with socialist ideas, this is
| why it was so eagerly embraced by big corpos and media -
| to divide those that need solidarity, to substitute
| representation in place of equality.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| Ah yes, the cancer of hamburgerization
| ezst wrote:
| Clearly, American social platforms are the vehicles to
| deliver this division, but I wouldn't dismiss the
| possibility that the message is being equally engineered
| and promoted by other powers as well (Russia and China as a
| bare minimum, from the top of recently documented elections
| interferences).
|
| That's not to absolve Americans at all, but rather to
| reinforce the idea that the EU should reign over those
| platforms in the EU, and/or promote its own.
| orwin wrote:
| I can't talk about other countries, but in France it's
| clear that liberals (which in my books are right wing) try
| to emulate the US and capture more traditional
| movements/struggles.
|
| Liberal 'feminists' borrowing the US word 'empowerment' to
| replace the word 'emancipation', and their new feminist
| dream is to be a CEO instead of finding a way to smoothen
| or remove hierarchical structures. Beauvoir is radically
| reinterpreted, and d'Eaubonne forgotten.
|
| What's funny is that most movements on the right of
| liberals are becoming even more US coded (all beside one in
| the regular right, and all beside Monarchist and
| Bonapartists on the far right) , enough to forget even
| _very recent_ memories, because they want to transform my
| country into the US so much. Manifesting transformism shows
| while transformists were not a subject for almost a century
| (and Michou died less than a decade ago) is peak American
| (which isn't an issue if you're from the US to be clear). A
| more anecdotal example: my mother and aunts are catholic
| and go to every local church event, at least since their
| sister died. A lot of (mostly young) people converted
| recently and those neo-catholic act like Puritains, like
| they were in a TV show. Calling Yoga devil's work and other
| shit like that. The priests are trying to do something
| because apparently it became unbearable.
| nottorp wrote:
| > US solutions are incredibly self-centered.
|
| Even on here on somewhat technical discussions it's pretty
| much very visible what the US point of view is.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| US search engines cater to all languages and they are the
| only ones to do it. The opposite of self centered.
| thunfischbrot wrote:
| It's great to have US offerings, but when US offerings become
| extreme self-centered as US offerings tend to be, I start
| questioning if this a solution I'm willing to adopt. Current
| direction "of protecting the oligarch's profits and feelings"
| will easily put a filter on what you will be allowed to see and
| find; censorship is just too easy to implement behind the
| closed doors
| trilogic wrote:
| Great job, already start using it and looking good. Crawl the
| f..k out of internet same way all the big techs are doing, at
| least what's European stays in EU. The ethics should apply to all
| equally. Thank you and Viva la France.
| mrweasel wrote:
| That was remarkably fast, even if it only covers a subset of
| French searches. I love Ecosia, but I half expected this to be
| more an PR announcement when it was first presented, not that
| they'd actually deliver anything, and certainly not so fast.
|
| Did Qwants already work on an index?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Qwant has been building and using its own index, augmented by
| buying search results from Bing when its index falls short.
| tkot wrote:
| If a search engine (be it Ecosia, Qwant, DDG or Google) is used
| by someone who is running uBlock Origin, does it benefit the
| company running the engine or does the cost of queries with no
| chance of displaying an add to the user outweigh the benefit from
| the meager amount of data collected (IP address? Interest in
| given keywords? Some more data for tuning the search results?)?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Search engines should be run as utilities. Unfortunately we are
| now in the stage where utilities (and other must haves such as
| education) are run as private enterprises.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| of food sector. I guess food is more important for survival
| than education.
| tremon wrote:
| Food production doesn't have the same dynamics as search
| does. There is little value in thousands of small search
| farmers each indexing their own acre of the Internet space.
| That's why it should be run as a utility, it's not about
| importance.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Few utilities have the exact dynamics of search. Like
| railroad, water, etc
| martin-t wrote:
| How soon are effects visible? Complete lack of food - days,
| chronic malnutrition - months or years. Lack of education -
| decades. Many people are not smart enough to think that far
| ahead.
|
| Lack of education is also generally desirable to many
| people in power. Not just politicians who can more easily
| lie but also managers and execs. If the tax system is
| beyond most people's understanding, rich people are not
| gonna get taxed properly. If people can't do the math on
| how much value their work produces for a company, they are
| not gonna understand how big a chunk the people above them
| in hierarchical structures (like most companies) take out
| of it.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| Unlike food, education (or lack of it) doesn't have
| universal definition. Because of that it's easy to
| stretch and manipulate. And it's been stretched and
| manipulated all the time cause possibility to
| indoctrinate young people creates immense political
| power. Like with free speech, non-uniform, not strictly
| state controlled (which implies private) education is a
| way to prevent state bureaucracy to concentrate too much
| power. That's not touching the fact that state
| hierarchies are well known for their inefficiency. Let's
| be fair, the reason people usually passionately bring
| education with politics in neighboring sentences is
| because it's widely accepted that our beliefs are right,
| and therefore people who stand against them are dumb, and
| maybe education can lead them (or at least their
| children) to our embrace! Funny thing, those "our
| beliefs" are often incompatible, and even opposite. Which
| makes me think that humanity doesn't work like that
| really
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You say that, but I don't think you actually want that.
| Utilities are very good for important, slowly changing type
| things. They ossify into conservative, safe services. Which
| is good if we're talking about power generation and
| transmission or water treatment or whatever. Search is still
| changing way too rapidly.
|
| We do, on the other hand, need better regulation regarding
| how individual data can be used, collected, and shared,
| particularly in the US.
| kevindamm wrote:
| Current search trends, and which results get clicked for which
| queries, are still intrinsically valuable. Mostly for the
| search index signals as you mention, and other things like
| updating recrawl rates, etc.
|
| Even for established players these have value because the index
| gets stale quickly for certain queries that many people care
| about a lot. Even though that value isn't fungible, or enough
| to break even if it were, it's the kind of value that keeps the
| search engine competitive.
| fifteen1506 wrote:
| Vivaldi has a (as private as possible, check their blog)
| whitelist for click attribution. My guess they refer to ads on
| search engines on their partner search engine.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" search index aimed to support a sovereign, privacy-first
| search infrastructure for Europe"_
|
| We will see which kind of data privacy they will go for this
| time.
|
| - The one that puts the data subject in the focus and protects
| the end user
|
| - The one that aims to cut out Google and tries to hand out
| pieces of the cake to European companies.
| weinzierl wrote:
| For more context:
|
| Qwant has taken major investment from Axel Springer (Bild, Die
| Welt) and the day will come when the publisher wants something
| back for its investment.
|
| At least on the outset Ecosia seemed to resist to be drawn into
| traditional media and their interests quite well until now, but
| them working together with Qwant is not a good sign.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43318151
| Daunk wrote:
| Every time I link someone Ecosia, they always complain that it
| doesn't have a "clean start page", and I do agree. That, and not
| having the ability to see less or more of certain pages is why no
| one I know uses Ecosia.
| Krasnol wrote:
| This was actually my first thought too when I got to the page.
|
| It doesn't look like your usual search page and I had the
| feeling I'm not on the main page at all.
|
| I'll still try it as my new default FF search engine since
| google got really bad in the past months.
| WA wrote:
| I don't use Ecosia, because their marketing messages always
| have been somewhat deceitful. They claimed "plant tree with
| your searches", but in reality, if you didn't click on ads,
| nothing gets planted.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| > Because it strengthens Europe's long-term competitiveness,
| democratic control, and stability.
|
| I don't see the point. What makes Europe democratic control
| something to cherish? The chat control plans, the European
| Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the Digital Services Act, the
| militarization - none of it seems to be democratic tied to any
| values surrounding freedom.
| alecsm wrote:
| You have a point but he does too.
|
| Without you own search engines (or tech companies in general)
| you depend on third parties and become basically a puppet.
| Angostura wrote:
| It may be imperfect, but having a system controlled by someone
| you vote for and can ultimately kick out is better than having
| a system controlled by another country's political apparatus.
| perihelions wrote:
| I disagree. It seems clearly better, as a user, to use an
| uncensored, un-backdoored service based in a foreign country,
| then a censored/corrupted service controlled by their own
| country's government. The former meets the user's
| requirements, today; the "democracy can fix it!" one is an
| unrealized promise of the future.
|
| If, concrete example, e.g. Kagi doesn't censor or harvest
| data from or otherwise maltreat its users in any way, then
| what _tangible benefit_ is it, to the European user, to avoid
| American-based Kagi, for so-called "sovereignty" reasons?
| What do they _actually need_ , which is missing, that their
| democratic government can fix? For this question I'm not
| counting "other users are using it in a way I don't like"--
| I'm asking about the user themselves asking on their own
| behalf.
| Wilder7977 wrote:
| Kagi user here, but one could argue that there is no such
| thing as un-backdoored service when the US government can
| knock at Google's door (kagi uses GCP) and ask the data,
| with little to no accountability or due process.
|
| So I agree with you, but the premises are quite
| restrictive.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| This dilemma might exist if Ecosia was thoroughly censored
| and corrupted to the point it was completely unfit for
| purpose, but it isn't, so for now it seems more like a
| hypothetical concern than a real one.
|
| What is a real concern, however, is the American government
| influencing world events in ways that materially harms
| people outside of America. That government retains its
| power through the ongoing global economic dominance of
| American companies. Ordinary people can't do much to
| directly affect global affairs, but they can at least
| choose where to spend their money, so why wouldn't they
| choose to spend their money with companies who aren't
| propping up foreign governments that harm them?
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| Materially harms people inside of America too.
| pyrale wrote:
| > It seems clearly better, as a user, to use an uncensored,
| un-backdoored service based in a foreign country
|
| This point of view I could have understood 20 years ago,
| but Snowden revelations happened in 2013. Before that, US
| social media have always been censored according to US
| social norms.
|
| Uncensored, un-backdoored services from a foreign country
| have never existed.
|
| As for sovereignty, considering the current US admin as
| well as US tech barons have been pushing their horses in
| several EU elections, it's pretty obvious that services
| from a foreign country with such policies are an issue.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| The European commission cannot be kicked out so your point is
| invalid.
| layer8 wrote:
| The European Parliament elects the president of the
| European Commission, and has to approve the commissioners
| of the European Commission. The European Council, who
| proposes the president and appoints the commissioners, is a
| representation of the governments of the member states,
| which are democratically elected as well. By electing their
| governments and the European Parliament, the European
| citizens ultimately determine who controls the European
| Commission, as a form of representative democracy.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Yeah, in theory ans yet, Ursel is still there so
| whatever.
| layer8 wrote:
| I don't like her either, but why do you think that's
| undemocratic when a majority of the European Parliament
| voted for her?
| izacus wrote:
| Not cow towing to you doesn't make any system
| undemocratic. It does make you a little tyrant refusing
| to recognize the will of others.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Haven't heard that so far. Made me chuckle.
|
| - le tyrant
| unionpivo wrote:
| Ursela is there because politicians(individual countries
| leaders) want here there. She is convenient scape goat
| for things that would hurt politicians image at home, so
| they let commission do the dirty work, so they can say it
| wasn't their fault.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| I haven't really seen major policy changes regarding parties
| of certain spectrums being voted out. In the end it all
| coalesces in some statist centrist plutocracy anyways.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Are you being completely honest here?
|
| I agree that the Chat Control plans are bad, however do you
| think that particular concern is better handled in China or the
| US? Also note they are not the law specifically because of
| active democracy.
|
| The other points you mentioned I don't see how they are anti
| democratic.
| nairboon wrote:
| While I mostly agree with your raised issues, technically you
| have mixed up two distinct things: "Europe/European" and EU!
| "Europe" is larger than the EU and the mentioned European
| (cultural) values do no necessarily coincide with whatever the
| EU is doing...
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Maybe but then you'll have to explain to people that Russia
| is also part of Europe and they'll get all weird and
| irrational.
| gf000 wrote:
| Chat control is bad, but it was voted out multiple times
| already, and is fundamentally incompatible with several member
| states' constitutions (based on a comment, didn't read more
| into it, but I believe Romania and Germany, among others).
|
| They just try to push it through when people are occupied with
| something else, which is very unfortunate (and they (who?)
| should be punished for it, I would want a society that
| "cancels" these politicians immediately for supporting such an
| anti-freedom policy), but that's it.
|
| The EU is still a shining beacon of democracy in the world.
| anon191928 wrote:
| oh yeah, democracy with actual, real kingdoms (10 of them or
| how many?) kings and constitutions that gives real rights to
| king. Const. that actually puts king above law and says
| "sacrosanct".
|
| what democracy? Yeah some of them have it but not EU and all.
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| Most are constitutional monarchies in which the monarch is
| a head of state with no or very limited political power.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchies_in_Europe
| oblio wrote:
| Not most, all EU member monarchies are constitutional
| monarchies.
| andrepd wrote:
| There's so many _actual_ reasons to complain about lack of
| democracy at the EU level; constitutional monarchies are
| certainly not one of them.
| maxhille wrote:
| Give me the name of any country - and I'll tell you why it
| is not really a democracy.
| latexr wrote:
| > Chat control is bad, but it was voted out multiple times
| already
|
| It's gaining momentum again, so let's not rest on past
| victories.
|
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-2b-dual-tranche-
| note...
|
| I do agree with your overall point.
| pqtyw wrote:
| > The EU is still a shining beacon of democracy in the world.
|
| The EU as a collection/union of sovereign countries? Sure.
|
| As an organization itself the EU is not particularly
| democratic or it was every designed to be a democracy. Its
| entirely by indirect appointees and unelected bureaucrats
| with minimal supervision..
| oblio wrote:
| There are direct elections for the parliament. Those
| "indirect appointees" are the heads of government of each
| state, it's as direct as it could possibly get.
|
| And the "unelected bureaucrats" are just... bureaucrats.
| That's how governments are run the world over, even in
| places like Switzerland.
|
| Or does your country vote regularly for the Director of
| Rail Transportation in your Ministry of Transportation? Or
| the Director of Lower Education in your Ministry of
| Education?
|
| If your country holds referendums for that, your country
| is, sorry to inform you, bats**t crazy.
|
| Let's please stop spreading anti EU propaganda and adress
| real concerns. For example the EU needs a full blown border
| protection agency and external EU border protection should
| be a 100% EU matter, not a member state matter. The EU
| should have a unified digital market. Etc.
| raron wrote:
| > There are direct elections for the parliament.
|
| Not really, you vote for parties local to your country.
| You can not vote for EP parties directly.
|
| Anyways, ProtectEU, the new "break all encryption if
| chatcontrol fails" was proposed by a secret group, whose
| identities still not known. That's even farer away from a
| good and democratic institution than unelected
| bureaucrats.
|
| I don't think calling these anti-EU-propaganda is a good
| thing, they are valid criticism (even if the EU is mainly
| a good thing), and they should be addressed at some point
| in time.
| oblio wrote:
| > Not really, you vote for parties local to your country.
| You can not vote for EP parties directly.
|
| The people in the EU parliament are people you vote for,
| directly.
| raron wrote:
| You can only vote for local parties (at least here), and
| they send some amount of MEPs to the EP.
|
| You can not vote for MEPs / parties / ideologies not
| present in your country.
|
| Let's say I think breaking encryption is a bad thing and
| I would like to support and vote for someone or something
| that _represent_ my opinion. Even if there are MEPs and
| parties in the EP that support what I want, there is no
| such entity in my country so I can vote for someone else
| who is against my opinions, or just not vote (and help
| the biggest party).
|
| I can do anything, my opinion would not matter and my
| vote is useless for me. That's an inherent issue with the
| parties / integer number of elected officials, but it is
| much more serve in a "two level system" like the EP
| elections.
| izacus wrote:
| This is literally the case for every democracy in the
| world. So what are you going on about?
| izacus wrote:
| You don't see the point because of a possible law that hasn't
| even been passed yet? And instead have Trump order you around?
|
| Did you think that comparison through? :)
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| What did Trump change exactly? US companies have been
| siphoning off data illegally and legally for decades and 5
| eyes has everyone involved complicit in that.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Militarization is necessary. The other stuff is criminality and
| not-quite-criminality-but-still-enough-that-we-don't-want-them-
| anyway by a bunch of 'leaders' who we can hope to eventually
| oust.
|
| I also like this as a platform for my own ideas. I think search
| (also RAG) is shit and that we need longer, higher quality
| vector representations of texts, and if I develop one I could
| potentially convince the people running this to try it.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Weird, I felt quite safe in a major European city for the
| past decade but now I wake up to the noise of heavily
| military planes flying above with no clear indication of any
| foreign troups preparing for an attack.
|
| Maybe pick up 1984 again if you actually believe this.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Ukraine has been invaded. We wish to prevent the Russians
| from being able to seize more of it and to restore
| Ukrainian control of those parts already seized.
|
| Furthermore, the US has made military threats against
| Denmark. Azerbaijan has recently driven out 100,000+
| Armenians from Nagorno-Karabach by starvation and artillery
| bombardment. Georgia has been invaded by Russia in 2008,
| and now a pro-Russian faction has possibly seized power.
|
| Furthermore, we have a military threat from Turkey, which
| occupies territory of Cyprus and has recently converted
| churches on Cyprus into mosques and discussed plans for
| similar things with Armenian cultural monuments in eastern
| Anatolia.
|
| A clean solution to these problems requires an increase in
| military capability.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Ukraine had their chance of keeping their land but they
| decided to listen to Boris Johnson and got played by
| Western interests. Stupid but no militarization will help
| them regain any of their land and sane voices have been
| screaming this from the rooftops for the past 3 years
| only to be called Putin allies and other such nonsense.
|
| lol @ that Denmark thing. We shouldn't get involved in
| local conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia except for
| facilitating peaceful negotiations. Military investments
| will only move more money towards the MIC.
|
| My heart goes out to Orthodox Christians in Cyprus but
| this has been going on since mid 1970s and no European
| military investments will change anything about this.
|
| Instead of protecting their borders or investing in
| existing military equipment it's being sent to Ukraine
| where it'll get destroyed or get lost in the black
| market.
|
| Investing in actual defense capabilities looks different.
| lmm wrote:
| Perfect is the enemy of good. Europe has its flaws but it's
| still the best game in town.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| It most certainly is not the best game in town (of
| democracies). All the scariest mass surveillance laws are
| deliberated and passed in Europe, such as the Online Safety
| Act in the UK and currently seeing a record number of
| countries supporting is Chat Control which was proposed by a
| shadow group whose identities are unknown.
|
| Much of what the EU (now speaking EU not Europe) does is
| deliberated behind closed doors, without any transparency to
| those outside.
|
| I live here, and it is extremely scary where we are all
| going.
| crinkly wrote:
| It's the less bad than America option.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Is it? Why?
|
| Not that I want anything like this but I can't just buy a gun
| here or question certain historic narratives without the risk
| of getting arrested.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Maybe Europe is not for you then, as they prioritize less
| gun deaths versus easy access to them (in your example).
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-
| firea...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-
| co...
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Thanks for ignoring my question and going straight for
| the "you can leave if you don't like it" take. Good luck.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You can complain about societal values but you cannot
| change them, as you have no leverage or influence on them
| at their scale. You can choose where to live though. Live
| where your values align with those of others. If I want
| to live in a Mad Max hyper individualist environment
| where I can max comp and economic success while not
| caring about those around me, I can choose to be in the
| US. If I want to live more collectively around people who
| sacrifice some ideas of what Americans believe to be
| freedom (firearms, speech in your examples) for the
| collective good and harm reduction, I can choose to be in
| Europe. When you ask why, the answer is straightforward:
| your experience is a function of political governance and
| what each electorate has collectively chosen. If you want
| to look at the data, it tells the objective story with
| regards to outcomes of political governance choices.
|
| No disparagement intended, this is a rationalist opinion
| and mental model. My intent is not to be unkind or
| dismissive, it is to communicate "Live where you will be
| happy based on your mental model and belief systems under
| the assumption that you have no ability to change the
| system you exist in during a human time horizon."
|
| (part time resident of both the US and Europe, high
| empathy and a desire to leave the world a better place
| through collective action even at the diminishment of
| self, so I lean towards Europe)
| diggan wrote:
| > to any values surrounding freedom
|
| The quoted part doesn't say anything about "freedom", are you
| sure that maybe your perspective (coming from the US I guess?)
| matches with the values Europeans want?
|
| Personally, I want more of my computing, in every sense, to be
| closer to me. Ideally in Spain, but OK within EU too, so if
| there are no search indexes run by EU entities, then that's
| something we should improve.
| smallnix wrote:
| When the axe came to the forest, the trees said: at least the
| handle is one of us.
| tgv wrote:
| > What makes Europe democratic control something to cherish?
|
| First, the claim is that it strengthens democratic control. I
| can't see how you could be against that.
|
| Second, the more, the merrier. In this case, more search
| indices means more search freedom. If your country censors
| something, you can try another index. But only if that index
| actually exists, and falls under different rules.
| voxleone wrote:
| You raise a fair point. Equating 'digital sovereignty' with
| democracy isn't straightforward, and there's a risk of it
| becoming just another technocratic project. But as a step
| toward diversified infrastructure and more democratic tech, it
| seems worthwhile to me. It's also about breaking monopolies and
| creating alternatives, whether they're perfect or not.
| bootsmann wrote:
| The militarization of Europe is not tied to any value
| surrounding freedom? I'm sorry but have you been sleeping under
| a rock?
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| You're gonna tell me that Russia is going to stand in Poland
| soon or what? Then yeah, I'll prefer the rock to whatever
| sources you're relying on.
| unionpivo wrote:
| We are getting fucked by USA because we do not feel strong
| enough without them.
|
| Everybody is blaming Ursula for the deal with Trump, like
| it was her decision. The individual countries politicians
| made the call, she is just a convenient scape goat
| (Probably precisely why her position was created for, to
| push things politicians know will be unpopular).
| Politicians (leaders of EU states) have and do have all the
| power to give her the marching orders.
|
| We are getting fuck on a lot of things because we feel the
| need to rely on USA. With better/bigger militaries
| ourselves, USA will have les leverage.
| solarkraft wrote:
| The alternative is capitalistic/corporate control, which has
| proven to not work well.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| For me as a European despite all the flaws it gives me more
| democratic influence than America or China. There i got no vote
| at all.
|
| And then, in a global comparison EU isn't that bad for what it
| is - a union of independent countries with quite different
| culture and history.
| JFingleton wrote:
| When the UK was in the EU, hardly anyone I know voted in the
| EU elections, and equally they weren't covered by the media.
| I believe there was so little interest in the EU elections
| and it felt so far removed from the uk that I'm not sure it
| really counted as "democratic" (perhaps someone will correct
| me here?).
|
| I'm hoping voters in European countries feel differently, I
| suspect not though.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > hardly anyone I know voted in the EU elections, and
| equally they weren't covered by the media. I believe there
| was so little interest in the EU elections
|
| The choice about not voting is easily a sign of democracy,
| than a sign of no democracy. An autocratic system would
| either prevent people from voting or arrange votes leading
| to high support.
|
| However there is indeed a problem:
|
| For one the parliament is weak. It has no right if
| initiative and no right of budget. These rights are with
| the elected governments of the member states, who control
| the commission and firm the council. However even those are
| (if we ignore Hungary and that complexity) democratically
| elected and can face votes of confidence over their actions
| (based on national law)
|
| The other big issue are the topics the EU deals with. Those
| are mostly complex trade related things, where not being an
| expert or having special interest in a segment hardly
| interest the people. The "interesting" topics like
| taxation, health care, education, social benefits, inner
| security, ... are within national politics. And even topics
| where EU powers overlap are discussed from national
| perspective. Which directly leads to the third issue.
|
| EU is multinational and multilingual thing. A commissioner
| or MEP can give a fabulous speech, but most people only
| hear a badly dubbed version, partially even with being
| double translated (first from, say, Bulgarian to German,
| then from German to Portuguese) which makes it really hard
| to debate.
|
| Now saying "it's complicated" hiding eyes and turning
| around is an option, but even Germany itself is too weak to
| play in the international field against US (especially with
| the current political situation) or China. If they can't
| find a common stand, they will not behold against t the big
| countries. For a few small counties aside, like Switzerland
| and UK there is some room to benefit from the big neighbor
| but be special, but Europe falling apart weakens all.
|
| Which is the final point: The EU is the best structure we
| had in a few millenia where we didn't have all those
| different countries fighting and going to war, but we're we
| have defined ways to negotiate, vote and execute decisions.
| There is lots of room to improve, with different priorities
| by everybody, but better than other things we had.
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| Here is the actual search page. I searched for something, looks
| pretty good. One small blow against enshittification:
|
| https://www.ecosia.org/
| jsnell wrote:
| How do you know those good-looking results were served from the
| new index, rather than being just rebranded Bing API results?
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| First, the results seem really good. Definitely better than
| Bing. Remember the old days when g**gle came out and it
| seemed amazing? A little like that.
|
| Second, I read their blog. Critical thinking and reading
| helps one recognize BS.
|
| Now the question is typically HN with no answer "proof". One
| can dive down a HN sub bullet tree with this. It's something
| like proving you exist. Nothing definitive there!
| jsnell wrote:
| The reason I'm asking this is exactly their blog post,
| which says says that their goal is to roll this out to 50%
| of the French queries at the end of the year.
|
| That's a rather limited slice of traffic (50% of French
| queries, 0% of everything else), and it's not described as
| the current state but their goal for the end of the year.
| The obvious implication is that right now even their French
| rollout is lower than 50%. How much lower, we don't know
| for certain, but 5 months is a long time. I have to imagine
| it is far lower than 50% right now. 1%? 10%? Hard to
| believe it is any higher than that.
|
| So I think my original question was very fair. The answer
| could for example have been that they indicated on the
| results page, or maybe they had some kind of a per-user
| opt-in toggle that you switched. From your reply, I gather
| that's not the case, and you're just assuming that your
| results must be from the new index. That seems like a bad
| assumption to make.
| bl0rg wrote:
| I've tested it and it's actually quite good. I'll be switching.
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| Totally agree. It doesn't seem limited to EU results btw. I
| added a bookmark on the toolbar and will be searching there
| first. Enough already will surveillance capitalism!
|
| https://www.ecosia.org/
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