Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. There are too many countries within Europe but not in the EU to use the terms synonymously. For example:
Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City
I think it is pretty interesting that I got heavily downvoted for pointing out that the person above me conflated Europe and the EU and then tried to correct someone else based on that misunderstanding. This place is turning into Reddit more and more day by day, people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button... Which is exactly why Reddit has gone right down the toilet.
> "people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button.."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 2382 days ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 1898 days ago
(If you were not aware: pg is Paul Graham, the founder of YCombinator and Hacker News.)
FWIW I did not downvote you in this thread (I actually upvoted you.) I'm just informing you of the principle -- downvote for disagreement is totally cool on HN.
> FWIW I did not downvote you in this thread (I actually upvoted you.) I'm just informing you of the principle -- downvote for disagreement is totally cool on HN.
I disagree. From what I've come to expect from the voting behavior, downvotes are reserved for comments that are badly written (missing punctuation etc.), insulting or objectively false in an easily verifiable manner (like "Java does not include floating point numbers").
As far as I can overcome my personal bias I try to only upvote posts that contribute to the discussion or are greatly written and not those that only agree to my opinions. After all, having yet another echo chamber of the worldview of yet another community is way less useful than a greater diversity of ideas and ideologies. How else can we hone our arguments to make them convincing for anybody but us.
I realize I don't fall under the "older than a year" rule so let me quote the top voted comment on your first link:
> I have seen quite a few comments that were extremely insightful, and/or interesting that got downmodded due to an unpopular opinion. The reason this is unfortunate is not only that you tend to miss these (assuming that there is a higher probability that you read or think about comments that are rated higher, which I am surely not the only one that is guilty of) but also that it tends to promote groupthink . This is especially important on a forum like this where we are here to learn and share our thoughts, ideas and experiences for a very particular niche: Starting startups.
[...]
> So I think that the up and down arrows should not express agreement, but insightfullness or truth. Not opinion. That way I will be able to judge the validity of a comment in a field that I do not know well by its points. And hopefully learn something.
Sure, some people disagree. But the site founder has said it's OK and expected.
To be fair, I (and most people) don't downvote out of mere disagreement very often. I downvote comments that fail to add value -- because they're overly insulting, or wrong in ways that are not mere opinion, or so poorly expressed as to be useless.
I'm European and I conflate them all the time. You're getting downvoted because it's a pointless derailment, not just out of disagreement. You may also wish to read the guidelines, especially this one:
If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)
Yes, but a lot of those have strong bilateral ties to the EU. Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are part of the EEA, which means that this becomes law there. Switzerland has a ton of bilateral agreements, so this law should be expected there as well. Monaco, Mentenegro and San Marino have Association Agreements as well. The EU's reach is a bit bigger than it looks like.
> Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance.
Well, it's exactly the same as with America (the continent) and United States (a country). You can either argue that both calling EU Europe and USA America is wrong and we should stop, or accept that in both cases, people can figure things out from the context.
USA has always been called "America". Europe the continent has been Europe the continent far longer than the EU has existed. Both are incorrect, and thankfully "The Americas" has caught on to fix one of these wrong labels. Besides, the continent has always been called North America, not America. There is no other label of Europe the continent than "Europe", so it's a flat out wrong label of the EU at best, and at worst it's offensive to those not living in the Alliance.
I have never understood calling Europe a continent. The division strikes me as political rather than geographic. And no, I can't be convinced otherwise.
let's go with a practical definition like "within all living memory" which most people, I'm sure, presumed from context. very few people need their conversations to include the mental state of those dead for 200+ years simply to achieve some stringent ideal of correctness.
it's exactly the same as with America (the continent)
Where is this continent called "America"? I've never heard of it. I've heard of "North America" and "South America", but those are separate continents.
Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion.
If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you?
Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely.
People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales) and while it's probably fine as a mental shortcut, it can make you misunderstood or get on somebody's nerves once in a while. And that's a fact of life, too.
> People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales)
More to the point, when I use "England" instead of "United Kingdom" I disregard the separation and jurisdictional peculiarities of Scotland, Wales and England and refer to the whole as "England". As neither I nor the great majority of people in my social circles know how their government works precisely and what their national identity multitude is about, the linguistic separation seems mood anyway. That's not to say that it is actually unimportant, though.
That's what it's like from your point of view, sure, but I'm kind of taking the point of view of someone who values Scottish (or Welsh) national identity and for them being labeled as "England" even for the sake of convenience could be a bit of a slap (and again, not that it's your intention, obviously).
For what it's worth: roughly 10 years ago, when Poland was about to join the EU, Yes supporters used a slogan "Yes, I'm an European" [and thus I vote for entering the EU] in the pre-referendum campaign.
I would see this slogan (consciously playing on the Eastern complex, to be sure) as somewhat offensive in its coarseness. What was it really saying? 1000 years of European history and heritage doesn't matter and you are disqualified from being an European if you don't support joining the EU? :)
> I would see this slogan (consciously playing on the Eastern complex, to be sure) as somewhat offensive in its coarseness. What was it really saying? 1000 years of European history and heritage doesn't matter and you are disqualified from being an European if you don't support joining the EU? :)
I'd see the slogan in a more positive light: After all, we are all Europeans and we have enough common heritage to work together. That's what I associate with the EU, the wish to overcome our historic differences and build a political union that is up to our globalized world, something strong enough to defend the values we share. And also the dream to live in a more united world. For example, when I worked in Switzerland for half a year, there were all those little things that acutely showed me that I was a second class resident. In other EU countries I've got more of a feeling of having a right to be there, not being just tolerated or granted a favor.
Maybe as a German I'm also a little bit insensitive to national identities. Having a glaring historical example in everyone's mind of what certain kinds of nationalism and patriotism can lead to has sure driven that kind of "belonging somewhere" out of me. Foremost I see myself as a European and as member of certain online communities that don't exist geographically and only then as a German.
So in that list you have three large countries that are famously not part of the general european political bloc, noted for usually being part of their own bloc. Then you have a bunch of countries that are so miniscule, that diplomatic relations are handled for them by diplomats assigned for other countries (Monaco? A couple of square kilometers. San Marino? Fewer people than my suburb). Then there's Turkey, which has a technical foothold on the continent, but has never been considered politically part of Europe. Then the Balkan states, most of which are trying to get into the EU (as is Turkey, to be fair). You're left with Norway and Switzerland, neither of which are in the EU, so there's some support there, but they do have strong bilateral links with the EU, such as with the Schengen Area.
I mean, you're so desperate to find counter-examples, you've even included an island nation (Iceland) that is nowhere near Europe, especially given your own definition that 'Europe' is specifically a continent. Iceland isn't even on the European continental shelf.
It's clear that there are multiple values for the term 'Europe', and that the socio-political one is a bit different to the is-it-on-a-connected-landmass one. Otherwise Ireland and the UK would not be part of Europe...
>I mean, you're so desperate to find counter-examples, you've even included an island nation (Iceland) that is nowhere near Europe, especially given your own definition that 'Europe' is specifically a continent. Iceland isn't even on the European continental shelf.
Plus Iceland is an EU candidate country and a member of the EEA (European Economic Area) so is a member of the EU's internal market.
For what it's worth when talking about things like consumer regulations talking about the EU is often not the most descriptive term, I'm not 100% sure about this topic but I'm fairly sure this applies to the entirety of the EEA, which is the EU + Iceland + Norway + Liechtenstein.
Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City
I think it is pretty interesting that I got heavily downvoted for pointing out that the person above me conflated Europe and the EU and then tried to correct someone else based on that misunderstanding. This place is turning into Reddit more and more day by day, people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button... Which is exactly why Reddit has gone right down the toilet.