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>I don't want to sound insensitive, 3 thousand people is of course a tragedy, but on a scale of entire Earth I think it is preposterous for US citizens to get o
by hoorayimhelping 6y ago
>I don't want to sound insensitive, 3 thousand people is of course a tragedy, but on a scale of entire Earth I think it is preposterous for US citizens to get obsessed after this one when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.
>will typically get a lot of upvotes during US night time and then gets suddenly killed when US wakes up.
I don't know about the downvotes, but you're presenting a false equivalency that doesn't make any sense and is kind of insulting to me as an American. Specifically about Malaria, which a US president has created a program to address https://www.usaid.gov/global-health/health-areas/malaria https://www.usaid.gov/global-health/health-areas/malaria. America sends billions of dollars worth of aid and supplies around the world every year. But to hear Europeans talk about it, the only thing America does is cause problems for them with our imperialism.
Sometimes I wish America would just listen to Europe and let them fend for themselves. Let their navies handle global piracy and securing global shipping lanes for their interests. Let their armies deal with Russian and Chinese saber rattling and the effect that will have on trade. Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell the government to let European militaries spend their own money to launch and maintain GPS systems that the entire western world has been given and using for the past 40 years, paid for by American taxpayers.
>A larger lesson is that you want somebody teach virtuous behavior you need to be able to show the virtue yourself or you are not going to achieve very much in terms of results.
Very ironic, since you're doing the same thing to America / Americans. What part of you and your society is so virtuous that you feel the need to give America a lesson on how to be virtuous?
- supportlocal4h 6y agoYour proposal that the US leave Europe to fend for itself was couched as a threat. I think it would be a worthwhile experiment. Not as a punishment, but as a liberation. Would bad things happen? Of course! Different bad things than happen now, perhaps. Then again, maybe a lot of the same bad things. Would good things happen? Who could doubt it? How absurd to think that everything is better if controlled by the US. And, as a USian, I'm willing to accept lessons on virtue from any corner. When you reach a point that you think nobody has anything to teach you, you're cooked. Virtue lives everywhere in the world. Seek it out. Foster it. Let it foster you. Virtue cannot be monopolized.
- monoideism 6y ago> And, as a USian, I'm willing to accept lessons on virtue from any corner. If that's the case, prepare to accept lessons from phony, hypocritical people, because in my experience those are the ones most eager to hand out lessons on virtue to all comers. > When you reach a point that you think nobody has anything to teach you, you're cooked Learning new knowledge is an entirely different dish than moral teachings. I'm 100% willing to admit it when I'm wrong and learn new facts and perspectives from all people, even folks that I have fundamental disagreements with. But I'm also very unlikely to accept any kind of teachings on "virtue" from such people. I find them generally to be not virtuous. Actually virtual people tend to be more humble, and you have to seek out their input.
- havetocharge 6y agoUS has lost its high moral standing in the world in the same way that Google lost its standing with the technologists on HN. But those on the inside tend to be oblivious to these facts.
- mcguire 6y agoWhat countries have high moral standing in the world?
- addled 6y agoI get the point you are trying to make, but the pedant in me wanted to point out that Europe does have a GPS alternative up and running (Galileo) so that they aren't dependent on US satellites.
- ivan1783 6y agoRussia has GLONASS and China has Beidou, nobody is dependant on US GPS.