alt Hacker News> The arguments that some put forward against the eu are as educated as the people declaring fiat money a scam back in the Bitcoin hype phase. > > While there are reasons not to join, most commenters against it have no clue what they are talking about.
Indeed! As I just learned in this comment, the EU is about to collapse and Iceland would be stupid to board an already sinking.
Makes me wonder where these commenters get their information about Europe/EU from, and whether these comments are a projection of either ignorant or ideologically motivated animosity towards the EU.
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I imagine every time they see a cookie banner they feel a chunk of the EU crumbling.
Currently, the EU is in a de facto war with Russia, in a trade war with the USA and China, and previous colonies don't seem to care too much for the West either.
The USA would like to see nothing more than an explosive end to the EU and the Russians have been trying to kill any united front against their invasion plans for longer than the EU has been around.
Every major world power has the money and motive to spread misinformation about the EU. They're influencing extremist European parties to repeat their talking points so they can point at a source on the "inside" as well.
The more people think the EU is some kind of awful oppressive regime, the more power the other world powers will gain over Europeans.
Why do you think you're not biased towards the EU? The EU's share of the global economy has fallen from something like 30% to around 13% (PPP). Not all that long ago they even had a larger economy than the US. They've already had the third largest economy within the EU leave, approved overthrowing the results of an election that would have viably set another [strategically critical] country on its way out, and now the EU's largest economy is having an anti-EU party gradually come to be the top party in the country.
Here's another interesting datum. In 2004, 3 of the top 5 economies in the world were part of the EU. [1] Today? 0. [2] So you have sharp decreases in global relevance paired with significant increases in internal issues and pressures. Perhaps you think the EU will overcome this, but to me at least - that's the view that doesn't align, at least not in an 'obvious' fashion, with the data.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
There are obscene amounts of money involved in financing anti-EU marketing. The European unity is a thorn in the eyes of Russia, the US and China. A (reasonably) united Europe is the fourth major player on the global scene. 27 individual states aren't influential by themselves and are much easier to be influenced.