Andrea Contigiani
1.2K posts
@andycontigiani
Applied economist studying innovation, entrepreneurship, and tech change. Asst Prof @FisherOSU @OhioState. PhD @Wharton @Penn.
The attacks on Europe I've seen here the last couple of days, including from people I've generally considered interesting and sophisticated, have been getting unhinged... I get that EU has problems - GDPR clickthroughs are dumb, Chat Control is awful, they need to be less bureaucratic and supportive toward entrepreneurs, its kindness toward Ukraine often doesn't extend well to Gaza or Sudan or other places, people saying mean things about criminals getting longer sentences than the criminals is just crazy - but the apocalyptic attitude about the issues, evoking imagery of barbarians pillaging Rome etc, seems really over the top. It feels more like a coordinated attempt to delegitimize than constructive criticism. (I don't believe the line that "the target is not Europe, it's the EU": I've seen many instances of London specifically being targeted in the hate session, so no, much of it is an attack on Europe) It just does not match my experience from spending an average of two months every year there for the last decade.
@vonderleyen If democracy is the foundation of freedom, surely your position as leader of the EU should be elected directly by the people?
