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I'm frequently reminded how thankful I am to live in a country with a strong, positive international reputation. Even ignoring actual quality-of-life stuff asso

I'm frequently reminded how thankful I am to live in a country with a strong, positive international reputation. Even ignoring actual quality-of-life stuff associated with where I live - simply not being from a country with a "dodgy" reputation makes many things so much easier. I don't have to think about blocked websites. Companies accept my payments. Couriers ship to me. With my passport, I walk straight to the front of the fast lane, past the large queue of people who didn't happen to be born somewhere rich, western and politically stable. I don't take it for granted, and it makes me sad that this distinction exists.

Onavo 2y ago
It's more that you are on the right side in a unipolar world. When the world shifts to multipolarity in the next few years, the problem will solve itself.
- kiba 2y ago
  Multipolarity is a more dangerous world, as we have seen Russia asserts itself at the expense of Ukraine.
  - cabirum 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - buran77 2y ago
    Unless you happen to not be aligned with or really on the wrong side of that fabled ideal power monopole. It can quickly knock you from ignorance to reality. Imagine Russia was that monopole of power. Or look no further than a dictatorship. Great if your interests align or you're willing to bend them until they do, hell if they don't. The US is the closest thing we have to a monopole these days and I'm sure it's sweet for some and very bitter for others.
    - QuercusMax 2y ago
      "According to a 2024 analysis by The Washington Post, 60% of low-income countries were under some form of U.S. financial sanction. The analysis also concluded that the U.S. imposes three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body." - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions Really quite ridiculous that there are sanctions on something like 1/3 of the world.
      - nozzlegear 2y ago
        From that same link, financial sanctions against a country can be one of any of the following: * authority to prohibit U.S. citizens from engaging in financial transactions with the individuals, entities, or governments on the list, except by license from the U.S. government * requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, * diplomatic immunity waived, to allow families of terrorism victims to file for civil damages in U.S. courts, * tax credits for companies and individuals denied, for income earned in listed countries, * duty-free goods exemption suspended for imports from those countries, and * prohibition of U.S. Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies controlled by countries on the list. If we look at the map on that same page, we can see that very few countries have a total financial sanction such as the likes of Iran. > Really quite ridiculous that there are sanctions on something like 1/3 of the world. Sanctions are one of the de facto tools in the arsenal of American soft diplomacy. To be frank, the US has so many sanctions because the USD is so powerful.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > the US has so many sanctions because the USD is so powerful That's appealing to sanctions' effectiveness. It's unclear they are. Instead, they're a potent signalling mechanism that's more palatable than shipping arms or worse, soldiers.
        nozzlegear 2y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. That's exactly the point of sanctions, to use the power of the US economy and the USD to exert American influence. You're right, they're not always effective at achieving their immediate goals, but they signal US disapproval and help pursue long-term goals without shipping those arms or soldiers anywhere.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    Yes, but "safety" or "peace" is not always desirable. MLK himself said it best: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/when-peace-becomes-obnoxious https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/whe... A short snippet: > The next day after Autherine was dismissed the paper came out with this headline: 'Things are quiet in Tuscaloosa today. There is peace on the campus of the university of Alabama.' Yes things were quiet in Tuscaloosa. yes there was peace on the campus, but it was peace at a great price. It was peace that had been purchased at the exorbitant price of an inept trustee board succoming to the whims and carprices of a vicious mob. It was peace that had been purchased at the price of allowing mobocracy to reign supreme over democracy. It was peace that had been purchased at the price of the capitulating to the forces of darkness. This is the type of peace that all men of goodwill hate. It is the type of peace that is obnoxious. It is the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God. Of course, you could either view this sentiment as trivially applying to international politics or so different as to be a category error. But it's enough of an opening to suggest that these loaded terms are not as easily transferrable to ethical context as invested parties might want you to believe. It is difficult for folks to place their values firmly before external pressures when a country is much less empathizable with than an obviously abused person, but I think americans would be surprised at how giving a little might invite a larger revelation about their role in the world stage than desired by the powers that be.
    - rangestransform 2y ago
      I do not want to find out that hegemonic stability theory is false, that would definitely make the rest of my lifespan worse, even if the odds are remote
      - darby_nine 2y ago
        Sure, this is the natural reaction of people living in the imperial core, but this isn't true for the majority of people in the world, especially as global warming accelerates. World-systems theory is typically the alternative to the theory that pax americana (i.e. peace for me but not for thee) is universally desirable.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  I'm a globalist and all but when people say "multipolar" doesn't that usually mean "the USA shouldn't rule everyone, I want to also rule over some countries "
  - pphysch 2y ago
    Not really, it is just used to mean the termination of unipolarity. Though frankly it's looking more like a bipolar West vs. BRICS+ situation.
- rtsil 2y ago
  I doubt the "next few years", and if the world shifts to multipolar, it won't solve the problem, it will just move everyone to the "bad side" where frictions big and small abound.
- nradov 2y ago
  Nah. The other "pole" looks to be China. They aren't going to treat random people from poor countries any better.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
I live in a small EU country. There are many, many american sites that just block the whole EU IP ranges becaus they don't want to deal with GDPR.
- ttt3ts 2y ago
  I have done that exact configuration for several of my clients who didn't realize any/much revenue in the EU. For them it was the obvious best move but I wish there was a better option.
- poincaredisk 2y ago
  Are there? I only someones stumble upon some medical website that redirects me to a "tracking free" empty static page[1] if I come from Europe and opt-out of cookies (which I always do anyway). Maybe we visit other parts of the internet, I don't read a lot of non-IT English things. [1]A big troll that I respect.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Absolutely. Many small regional newspapers are inaccessible from Europe; omny.info (which would be very interesting to tourists visiting NYC, as you can pull your trip reports there) bans most EU IPs too (but weirdly leaves some countries open). Most frustrating is not even being able to cancel things like a US streaming service subscription from an EU IP (of course these things usually have no contact email address available either).
  - miki123211 2y ago
    A lot of local American newspapers do this. Europeans usually have no reason to read these, the only reason I know is that I googled a few of my American friends at one point and kept hitting these.
- throwaway920102 2y ago
  > they don't want to deal with GDPR or cannot afford to. add in DSA and DMA as additional burdens.
- 2y ago
grishka 2y ago
I live in Russia and I've never experienced most of the things you're describing. And it's become so much worse after 24/02/2022. We even had Spotify for a year! It was starting to genuinely feel like a first-world country. Now you have to open a bank account in a different country for foreign companies to consider taking your money at all. The internet is utterly broken. The government blocks quite a lot, AND some foreign services block Russian IPs from their side. I even made a thread about running into Cloudflare's "you're blocked" pages randomly throughout the web: https://mastodon.social/@grishka/111934602844613193 https://mastodon.social/@grishka/111934602844613193
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Do you think the sanctions are having a significant effect in terms of slowing down the war effort?
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Sanctions have an effect, the government complains about them a lot.
    - chipdart 2y ago
      Random people in Russia complaining about the inconvenience of not being able to travel to Europe because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and all around imperialism is also an expected effect. It's also telling that the reaction from those affected is to complain that sanctions should be reverted because they both don't work and are inconvenient and a nuisance.
      - grishka 2y ago
        I don't see how "they don't work" and "they are inconvenient" are contradictory statements. They would've been if there were feedback mechanisms that we could use to communicate our point of view the government, but there aren't any, so in the end it's just a punishment for having been born in a wrong place at a wrong time.
paraknight 2y ago
For half my life I had an Egyptian passport, and for the other a German passport. Having experienced both sides, that bit of paper is without a doubt the most valuable thing I own. It's hard to quantify the kinds of doors it has opened for me. I was able to get a scholarship to study in the UK that covered home/EU rates (a third of international rates, while I might not have been able to get even a student loan otherwise), get government funding for a PhD that would not have been accessible to me otherwise and other grants, travel to international conferences without thinking twice about visas (unlike many colleagues) meeting people that would impact my career and skipping all sorts of and barriers along the way, and never had to worry about deportation because of the EU settlement scheme, easily become a founder (no visa sponsorship needed), and so much more! Even travelling/business in the the middle East, being German rather than Egyptian is an entirely different life, one that my cousins cannot even begin to imagine. There's a parallel universe where I'm stuck making ends meet in Cairo where I was born, dreaming of a brighter future, feeling all my potential fade away. I know because my immediate family is that version of me - no less talented or worthy of the opportunities I got because of my nationality! I see the kind of freedom that I have because of that passport as one of the biggest modern injustices.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > I see the kind of freedom that I have because of that passport as one of the biggest modern injustices. I think you're confusing a vague and abstract problem of "injustice" with a very concrete and real difference in ways different countries manage their public services and institutions. You only listed personal benefits that a country like Germany provides to their citizens and the higher education institutions built up by the UK, and how it contrasts with the ones provided by Egypt. Quite bluntly, this is a discussion over privileges. Not injustice, but privileges. I assure you that countless people from Germany, UK, the EU, or anywhere in the world, would desperately want to have access to the same opportunities. Depicting this as a matter of being granted a passport is at best survivorship bias, and at worse an affront to those who had it but still weren't lucky enough to benefit from the same opportunities.
  - paraknight 2y ago

Onavo 2y ago

It's more that you are on the right side in a unipolar world. When the world shifts to multipolarity in the next few years, the problem will solve itself.

kiba 2y ago
Multipolarity is a more dangerous world, as we have seen Russia asserts itself at the expense of Ukraine.
- cabirum 2y ago
  [flagged]
- buran77 2y ago
  Unless you happen to not be aligned with or really on the wrong side of that fabled ideal power monopole. It can quickly knock you from ignorance to reality. Imagine Russia was that monopole of power. Or look no further than a dictatorship. Great if your interests align or you're willing to bend them until they do, hell if they don't. The US is the closest thing we have to a monopole these days and I'm sure it's sweet for some and very bitter for others.
  - QuercusMax 2y ago
    "According to a 2024 analysis by The Washington Post, 60% of low-income countries were under some form of U.S. financial sanction. The analysis also concluded that the U.S. imposes three times as many sanctions as any other country or international body." - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions Really quite ridiculous that there are sanctions on something like 1/3 of the world.
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      From that same link, financial sanctions against a country can be one of any of the following: * authority to prohibit U.S. citizens from engaging in financial transactions with the individuals, entities, or governments on the list, except by license from the U.S. government * requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions, * diplomatic immunity waived, to allow families of terrorism victims to file for civil damages in U.S. courts, * tax credits for companies and individuals denied, for income earned in listed countries, * duty-free goods exemption suspended for imports from those countries, and * prohibition of U.S. Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies controlled by countries on the list. If we look at the map on that same page, we can see that very few countries have a total financial sanction such as the likes of Iran. > Really quite ridiculous that there are sanctions on something like 1/3 of the world. Sanctions are one of the de facto tools in the arsenal of American soft diplomacy. To be frank, the US has so many sanctions because the USD is so powerful.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > the US has so many sanctions because the USD is so powerful That's appealing to sanctions' effectiveness. It's unclear they are. Instead, they're a potent signalling mechanism that's more palatable than shipping arms or worse, soldiers.
        nozzlegear 2y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. That's exactly the point of sanctions, to use the power of the US economy and the USD to exert American influence. You're right, they're not always effective at achieving their immediate goals, but they signal US disapproval and help pursue long-term goals without shipping those arms or soldiers anywhere.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  [flagged]
- darby_nine 2y ago
  Yes, but "safety" or "peace" is not always desirable. MLK himself said it best: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/when-peace-becomes-obnoxious https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/whe... A short snippet: > The next day after Autherine was dismissed the paper came out with this headline: 'Things are quiet in Tuscaloosa today. There is peace on the campus of the university of Alabama.' Yes things were quiet in Tuscaloosa. yes there was peace on the campus, but it was peace at a great price. It was peace that had been purchased at the exorbitant price of an inept trustee board succoming to the whims and carprices of a vicious mob. It was peace that had been purchased at the price of allowing mobocracy to reign supreme over democracy. It was peace that had been purchased at the price of the capitulating to the forces of darkness. This is the type of peace that all men of goodwill hate. It is the type of peace that is obnoxious. It is the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God. Of course, you could either view this sentiment as trivially applying to international politics or so different as to be a category error. But it's enough of an opening to suggest that these loaded terms are not as easily transferrable to ethical context as invested parties might want you to believe. It is difficult for folks to place their values firmly before external pressures when a country is much less empathizable with than an obviously abused person, but I think americans would be surprised at how giving a little might invite a larger revelation about their role in the world stage than desired by the powers that be.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    I do not want to find out that hegemonic stability theory is false, that would definitely make the rest of my lifespan worse, even if the odds are remote
    - darby_nine 2y ago
      Sure, this is the natural reaction of people living in the imperial core, but this isn't true for the majority of people in the world, especially as global warming accelerates. World-systems theory is typically the alternative to the theory that pax americana (i.e. peace for me but not for thee) is universally desirable.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I'm a globalist and all but when people say "multipolar" doesn't that usually mean "the USA shouldn't rule everyone, I want to also rule over some countries "
- pphysch 2y ago
  Not really, it is just used to mean the termination of unipolarity. Though frankly it's looking more like a bipolar West vs. BRICS+ situation.
rtsil 2y ago
I doubt the "next few years", and if the world shifts to multipolar, it won't solve the problem, it will just move everyone to the "bad side" where frictions big and small abound.
nradov 2y ago
Nah. The other "pole" looks to be China. They aren't going to treat random people from poor countries any better.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

I live in a small EU country. There are many, many american sites that just block the whole EU IP ranges becaus they don't want to deal with GDPR.

ttt3ts 2y ago
I have done that exact configuration for several of my clients who didn't realize any/much revenue in the EU. For them it was the obvious best move but I wish there was a better option.
poincaredisk 2y ago
Are there? I only someones stumble upon some medical website that redirects me to a "tracking free" empty static page[1] if I come from Europe and opt-out of cookies (which I always do anyway). Maybe we visit other parts of the internet, I don't read a lot of non-IT English things. [1]A big troll that I respect.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Absolutely. Many small regional newspapers are inaccessible from Europe; omny.info (which would be very interesting to tourists visiting NYC, as you can pull your trip reports there) bans most EU IPs too (but weirdly leaves some countries open). Most frustrating is not even being able to cancel things like a US streaming service subscription from an EU IP (of course these things usually have no contact email address available either).
- miki123211 2y ago
  A lot of local American newspapers do this. Europeans usually have no reason to read these, the only reason I know is that I googled a few of my American friends at one point and kept hitting these.
throwaway920102 2y ago
> they don't want to deal with GDPR or cannot afford to. add in DSA and DMA as additional burdens.
2y ago

grishka 2y ago

I live in Russia and I've never experienced most of the things you're describing. And it's become so much worse after 24/02/2022. We even had Spotify for a year! It was starting to genuinely feel like a first-world country. Now you have to open a bank account in a different country for foreign companies to consider taking your money at all. The internet is utterly broken. The government blocks quite a lot, AND some foreign services block Russian IPs from their side. I even made a thread about running into Cloudflare's "you're blocked" pages randomly throughout the web: https://mastodon.social/@grishka/111934602844613193 https://mastodon.social/@grishka/111934602844613193

aguaviva 2y ago
Do you think the sanctions are having a significant effect in terms of slowing down the war effort?
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Sanctions have an effect, the government complains about them a lot.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    Random people in Russia complaining about the inconvenience of not being able to travel to Europe because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and all around imperialism is also an expected effect. It's also telling that the reaction from those affected is to complain that sanctions should be reverted because they both don't work and are inconvenient and a nuisance.
    - grishka 2y ago
      I don't see how "they don't work" and "they are inconvenient" are contradictory statements. They would've been if there were feedback mechanisms that we could use to communicate our point of view the government, but there aren't any, so in the end it's just a punishment for having been born in a wrong place at a wrong time.

paraknight 2y ago

For half my life I had an Egyptian passport, and for the other a German passport. Having experienced both sides, that bit of paper is without a doubt the most valuable thing I own. It's hard to quantify the kinds of doors it has opened for me. I was able to get a scholarship to study in the UK that covered home/EU rates (a third of international rates, while I might not have been able to get even a student loan otherwise), get government funding for a PhD that would not have been accessible to me otherwise and other grants, travel to international conferences without thinking twice about visas (unlike many colleagues) meeting people that would impact my career and skipping all sorts of and barriers along the way, and never had to worry about deportation because of the EU settlement scheme, easily become a founder (no visa sponsorship needed), and so much more! Even travelling/business in the the middle East, being German rather than Egyptian is an entirely different life, one that my cousins cannot even begin to imagine. There's a parallel universe where I'm stuck making ends meet in Cairo where I was born, dreaming of a brighter future, feeling all my potential fade away. I know because my immediate family is that version of me - no less talented or worthy of the opportunities I got because of my nationality! I see the kind of freedom that I have because of that passport as one of the biggest modern injustices.

chipdart 2y ago
> I see the kind of freedom that I have because of that passport as one of the biggest modern injustices. I think you're confusing a vague and abstract problem of "injustice" with a very concrete and real difference in ways different countries manage their public services and institutions. You only listed personal benefits that a country like Germany provides to their citizens and the higher education institutions built up by the UK, and how it contrasts with the ones provided by Egypt. Quite bluntly, this is a discussion over privileges. Not injustice, but privileges. I assure you that countless people from Germany, UK, the EU, or anywhere in the world, would desperately want to have access to the same opportunities. Depicting this as a matter of being granted a passport is at best survivorship bias, and at worse an affront to those who had it but still weren't lucky enough to benefit from the same opportunities.
- paraknight 2y ago