Yeah, me too. But home automation has its usercase: just think about an holiday home where you want to turn on the heating and the boiler the day before you arrive.
Sure, you can ask a local friend to do it for you but being able to do it remotely is nice.

Millions of flats that are private properties, and people could do whatever they want with them.

But the assumption is that once AirBnb and the likes are regulated and somehow people could not short rent all these houses, they will be available in the long rent market. And that assumption is all but true.

Italy has about 30% of empty houses (and by empty I mean they are not even on the short term rental market) even with AirBnb around. And the reason is that is hard to get rid of a bad tenant once you rented the house, so people prefer to put houses on AirBnb or just keep them emply and take the temporary loss.

Sure, AirBnb let you make more money but the untold truth is that if you put an house on AirBnb you can have it back as soon as you decide it by just stop listing it. On a long term rent you need to wait months, if not years, and only if you have a good tenants, if you have bad tenants good luck.

They will clampdown on short terms rental only to end with a lot of empty houses. AirBnb and the like are only the wrong answer to a problem, not the problem themself

And just out of plain stupidity they’ve decided to reject the overwhelming consensus of US foreign policy for decades?

Obviously. They are stupid, they cannot understand, or don’t care about, the consequences of their actions.

Colour me sceptical. Where do the stupid people get those ideas from?

These ideas were always there, they think they are special. It is just that this time they elected the worst people possible.

I don’t think they come from where you think, it is just plain stupidity from people thinking that US could go better alone.

But imo simply talking about " the real issues " will not help us,

Probably it will not help to solve the problem, but at least it is a start. True, you need then to act on the issues…

and most solutions the (more) rightwinged parties offer are just false.

… and you are right here. The rightwinged often offer solutions that are doomed to fail but at least they try.

More importantly, if you talk and act on these, you don’t leave the scene to just one side.

The worries people have are real but comsider that this fear is also used for fear mongering and are often fed by propaganda.

That’s the point, but let’s be honest: if we ignore the extremists on both sides, the right began to win exactly when the left decide to commit suicide following ideas and objectives which, while obviously deserving, are not what people were asking to act about.

Nah, just make them pay the taxes in EU without any loophole to avoid them. And it could be done simply even without they collaboration.

How about falling to fascism

That would stop in the moment the other party (parties) would start to be a responsible party and not a driven_by_the_ideology_of_ the_day party.

What you call fascist in reality is mostly the right that started to talk about real problems that the left choose to ignore (if not making them worst) and then get elected.
True, there are some real fascists here and there and they are extremist but overall they are a minority of the right (and, tbh, these extremist are present also on the left and everything in between).

So what tech should we build in europe to counter all that crap?

A “google+facebook”? An AWS Amazon?

No new tech, just start to cut ties with US services.
There are alternatives to Github, for clouds and socials, eventually a Facebook-like site can be build is just some months.
It would be another problem to see an adoption if I should point out to a problem.

Last time we decided to create a cool new thing with came out with the World Wide Web after all.

I think that we, as EU, should just not care about it. They want, good, they follow our rules. They don’t want, still good, the still have to follow out rules to sell something in EU. I don’t see the problem here

I don’t think it is about this, the Taurus not working would not be the first nor the last weapon that does not work on the field.
It is the EU is replaying the 1930s, only with a different villain

Russian u-boats regularly violated Swedish territorial waters. Sweden complained to Russia increasingly persistently as the territorial violations went on. The Russians basically ignored them and continued.

Is is not Sweden that put an underwater signal saying “this way if you are gay” to deter Russia ?

Yes, Eu has roughly 4x the population of Russia but I don’t think EU is willing to use its population as cannon fodder, while Putin will do it without any second thought.

Russia would be stretched dangerously thin trying to fight on multiple fronts, it’s already putting serious strain on their whole nation.

True, but I am not sure that this would be a problem for Putin, he would not care about it as long as he can keep his rhetoric

More than that, it is the need to continually sell appliances. If you care to build to last (and we still know how to do it) then in the next quarter you sells will go down, the profit will go down and the board will go down.

There are only so many Russians to be sent as cannon fodder before you run out entirely.

True, but probably they are more than the ones EU can send.

Trying to do what’s being done in Ukraine with multiple fronts? Zero chance of any success.

From a pure logical point of view you are right, but in reality there is nothing that prevent him to do it. Which do not imply that he can win obviously, he just need to be able to go on longer than EU.

True. Problem is: how do you respond to someone that use a nuke ? If Russia use a nuke, it is the end either way: if other retaliate the situation escalates, if they do not retaliate Russia think they have free hand.

During the cold war the only thing that prevented a nuclear escalation is the certainty of mutual destruction, nothing else.

Technically is called “warning shot”…

I agree, they would not start. But if Russia start, they surely will retaliate: a nuke in the baltic states or even nearer will cause harm also to them. And France has a strange nuclear doctrine.

You mean the same France, Uk and USA had ?

Putin is not stupid enough to not understand that if he ever try to use a nuke he will be the first target of the retaliation.

Was not yet finished. And, aside him being alive at the end, every concession to Russia is a win for him, And to pull the trick again sometime in the future.