I have no idea why but the EU/Brexit is one subject where HN comment quality falls apart. I would have assumed most people here are Americans, so not really emotionally invested in their 'side'. But this comment section is full of Twitter hot take type stuff.
To be honest, there is little emotional investment in Europe regarding Brexit. People wanted to be done with it as the process was wasting valuable union time and there was a feeling it was needlessly draging on but from what I have seen Europeans actually care very little about the UK.
Brexit mostly was and remains a domestic issue which is why it's such a touchy subject on HN where there is probably a significant number of Britons commenting.
> there is little emotional investment in Europe regarding Brexit
As someone from the continental Europe, this is not at all my experience, but I'm sure this depends on the specific social bubble I'm in. There are plenty of people around that had their lives complicated because of it, enough that most people I know have very strong feelings about it.
In my rural/coastal bubble, people seems to believe than UK homeowners will suddenly have to sell their properties and that prices will drop, and are pretty much happy about brexit. I know it won't happen, but hey, at least its cheap joy and hope.
Foreigners and foreign countries can be proxies for domestic arguments. My favorite example is how the ancient Romans would talk about the non-Roman "barbarians." It might be they described them as they were but it's more likely they used them to make a point about what was wrong with their contemporary Roman society.
The barbarians are good, loyal and brave. They don't spend their time with cultural frivolities like theater, bathing and running a shop.
I think given the timezone difference, most people on here this time of day are probably in the UK/Europe. I guess the emotive nature of the subject is showing through.
I actually think it's because so many people here are Americans that the hot takes on the EU don't fall foul of the "no political battles" rule as often as they should.
> I would have assumed most people here are Americans, so not really emotionally invested in their 'side'
Similar to how broadly views on Trump outside of the US tended to be similar, when people have some distance from a debate they do tend to fall down on one "side".
I presume by "Twitter hot take" you just mean "takes I personally disagree with", right?
I don't. I think I've noted some egregious comments and posted opinions, yes, but my complaint isn't about people having opinions. It's about, for example, the top level comment being gleeful about the sky falling without really having any valuable content. Or another which lazily dismisses this as corruption with no further engagement needed.
"I think it's hilarious that Britain will fail. Who agrees?" is not really what I consider a good seed comment. It's fine to think Britain will fail, but at least provide something for people to discuss with you.
Using quotes to paraphrase your own interpretation of what OP posted (and then ignoring the last sentence which had more meat) is exactly the kind of low value comment you're talking about.
I think you're reading way to much into this. Most people don't care. I have a friend from my school that went to work in the UK around 2015, even he doesn't care (he is making a lot of money though thanks to brexit so he only care that the online services equivalence negotiations stay unclear or at least not done after June). We might have cared in 2018, its 2021 now. We are ready, we do have border checks, we do have 3rd party ruling applying to UK resident, a trade agreement.
Also the quotes are from "Blind's man brexit", and if anybody is interested, this is probably the best geopolitical book i've read so far, and it is not at all limited to the four quotes.
The quote about the colony is in the opening, and what's funny is that less than 5 pages later, Barnier complains about the English cherry picking. Is this something that's taught in "public" schools in England?
>>I do believe that one of the major reasons the UK voted to leave was the realisation that other European countries were not in fact friendly allies as the Remain campaign tried to portray, but rather arrogant and complacent takers that saw the UK as a resource to be exploited and abused.
This is certainly the case in the way the EU tried to treat the UK after their own COVID vaccination programme descended into farce.
