Tuesday, 17 December 2024
Extinguished by the language
A new European Metacities Partnership takes shape to foster Metacity development in Europe
On October 30, 2024, during the leading 5G ecosystem event in Europe, Techritory, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to commit to forming a European Metacities Partnership. The Memorandum was signed by 15 public and private organizations from six European countries – Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Belgium, Finland, and Cyprus...
The organizations that signed the MoU have also committed to taking specific coordinated actions, such as sharing insights in technologies, use cases, and business models, identifying EU-funded projects and inviting partners in consortia to write and submit proposals, and organizing industry workshops and discussion forums.
There could be something in the European Metacities notion, but it is very difficult to read a piece such as this without seeing yet another gravy train. Another taxpayer-funded middle class talking shop riding on the back of developments which were probably going to happen anyway.
The clues are all over the place - "EU funded projects", "workshops", "discussion forums." It's not encouraging - any inclination to examine the idea further is extinguished by the language.
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10 comments:
I'm glad to hear that "Techritory" is doing well in Europe. Here in the UK, we have "DecrepiTory" led by "KemiTory", heading towards the"cemetory".
Bugger megacities! We need to sort out this sort of folly.
https://archive.is/0fnuu
Sam - ha ha, poor KemiTory, she has inherited DecrepiTory in such a poor state that it must be very discouraging.
dearieme - yes we do. Comparisons of new railway cost per mile compared to other countries tell a story which has to be tackled if governments expect to build anything. As well as stifling rules, it also smells of racketeering.
P.S. On the matter of propagandistic language: why do people insist on talking about the "Beeching cuts"? Beeching wrote recommendations; the cuts were imposed by Wilson's Labour government.
JH: Yes, the language is the giveaway all right.
dearieme - yes, Wilson's Labour government could have ignored Beeching's recommendations. It's the art of politics I suppose, saddling someone else with your own decisions.
JH - it's how they recognise kindred troughers.
Likewise the coal mine closures. Maggie gets blamed, but truth conveniently not mentioned. And now this "Labour" government would definitely have shut the mines, all that nasty heavy industry, nasty car industry, nasty flatulent cattle and sheep, nasty old folk wanting to keep warm while consuming resources and breathing out - horror of horrors - carbon dioxide with methane flatulence.
Doonhamer - yes, Maggie being blamed for coal mine closures is another example of lessons learned from Goebbels - repeat often enough and it becomes truth. I think they are just beginning to find out about that other nasty thing though - nasty economics.
A very good observational pointer to this, is the length of time it takes for projects to be completed in Britain. HS2 has taken way longer than it should and it's still nowhere near being finished. In the 70s and 80s it took them 15 years to complete the redevelopment of the West Way. A key component of British uncompetitiveness is the time it takes to do anything.
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