7 ms·

This is just nuts. Stuff like this is what made the US a leader. I bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money. That's how you lose world leader

This is just nuts. Stuff like this is what made the US a leader. I bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money. That's how you lose world leadership.

evan_ 2y ago
don't give them any ideas.
kevmo 2y ago
Does Peter Thiel still get a piece of all the YC startups?
DidYaWipe 2y ago
Our "world leadership" is rapidly becoming a distant memory.
- metalliqaz 2y ago
  it's already gone. as soon as we re-elected the felon, everyone knew they couldn't trust us
  - wraaath 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Sabinus 2y ago
      The sense I got is that it could be overlooked as an anomaly. The second time he was elected, and the actions he has taken since, have absolutely ended all that. The Allies are truly incensed, the US's reputation won't recover for decades.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        It’s a loss of trust. We were in the process of getting better relations with Russia, but then when Putin goes and invades Ukraine you can sort of rationalize it. Communist gonna communist right? All the actions potato head has taken are a deliberate slap in the face of all their allies. Maybe something we’d expect from potato head, but not from the United States. Even given he was elected we’d expect the rest if your political system to stop a single man from burning down all bridges. Clearly that was an incorrect assumption.
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        Putin isn’t in any way a communist.
        wraaath 2y ago
        He's an autocrat acting on delusions of empire building. That is the root of Russia invading Ukraine. All the other excuses are ancillary or nonsense (Nazis etc)
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        True, but unrelated to whether he's a communist. There are authoritarian and libertarian communists but Putin is neither.
        Braxton1980 2y ago
        As a former KGB officer wouldn't he be the most likely to want a return to the old ways?
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        What does the KGB have to do with communism? A lot of countries have had draconian secret police and spy agencies, regardless of whether those countries were communist or not. For example, the Gestapo in Nazi-era Germany.
      - catdog 2y ago
        Exactly that. Not only he got re-elected, during his first term he did bad things but what he did now while not even 2 months in office seems way worse. Also it's clearly visible that the checks and balances are now severely broken, you have an administration not even abiding its own countries laws in very fundamental areas, that does not spark trust. Heck he even discredits and breaks trade deals signed by himself, who can trust such a country? It was easy to justify sitting out Trump I as a (former) US allied, Trump II demands immediate action.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      Biden was elected in 2020.
      - wraaath 2y ago
        Highly likely that Trump's bumbling of COVID resulted in Biden's election. In NYC there were refrigerated tractor trailers parked outside of hospitals for the overflow dead. I'm sure it was just as bad in other parts of the country during those months. Curious how quickly people forget, and I'm sure we'll have to relearn these lessons yet again.
        tdeck 2y ago
        > Curious how quickly people forget, and I'm sure we'll have to relearn these lessons yet again. I think some of this forgetting was attributable to the Biden administration's decision to suddenly start acting like COVID didn't exist. It's pretty hard to remind people of metrics from the past when you're also simultaneously trying to avoid talking about those same metrics in the present.
    - jajko 2y ago
      Nah its much much worse now. Personal, humiliating, watching literal elephant in porcelain shop fucking up everything and everybody in all directions (apart from russians and israelis, I guess like-minded leaders). He got way more senile, but in his case its not movement to incoherent bumbling but more hatred, pettiness, little napoleon complex etc.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - DidYaWipe 2y ago
      Actually, re-electing GWB was the early confirmation to the world that something was very wrong here.
  - graeme 2y ago
    This is downvoted but for those outside the US it's actually true. Or more specifically once the new admin began acting erratically. For instance, in Canada he has repudiated a trade agreement he himself negotiated in his first term and threatened repeatedly to annex us. Americans who treat foreigners as abstractions shrug off that sort of thing and assume you can go back to normal but reliability is shot and trust is broken. In term one the remaining vestiges of Republican and state apparatus ensured continuity on many fronts. That's all gone.
epistasis 2y ago
The elites of the country that are now in power don't care about world leadership, much less the soft power that we had that made us all very rich, that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month. They care about enriching themselves as much as possible. It's all short-term gain, without any view for the future. Get those tax cuts, reallocate money away from the government and away from those who work for a living and make a true oligarch class. If events continue down this route, the US is looking at a lost decade or even permanent loss of leadership, letting China catch up and then step up, or maybe India.
- 9283409232 2y ago
  The view for the future is cutting the US into city-states that they control. They are just following the playbook of Curtis Yarvin.
- bruce511 2y ago
  >> that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month. I'm not trying to derail the thread, but framing your point as "magnitude of salary" is meaningless and perhaps reflects one of the issues. It's not the size of the salary that's important- it's the quality of life. Salary is one factor in the equation, but it's not the only factor. For example, in the US the plumber pays for health care. In Europe he mostly does not. There are a million things that go into a very subjective quality of live assessment. Salary is part of it, yes, but ultimately only a part. And, if we're being honest, the US certainly acts the part of leader, it talks a good game, and everyone is happy to take their money. But is anyone actually following their lead?
  - epistasis 2y ago
    Quality of life is something that many people evaluate along very very different metrics at different weights. But losing that $7k and bringing it down to $3k does not look like it will be accompanied by plumbers no longer paying for healthcare out of pocket. One measure of the lead of the US is how it is a destination for those looking to create great science, a great startup, build a business, or otherwise build a long-lasting contributor to our institutions. Europe, Japan, other places certainly rank highly here too, but the US is by far the biggest player and attracts the most people as far as I can tell.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation towards a better place. To do so, people need access to information, need access to information on what the state of their nation and the state of the world is. These acts that teardown the information that the US makes available, that help us shape our decision making & view of the world, are deeply horrifically un-democratic. To march us from a nation that advocates sunlight & democracy, back into the dark is horror.
- bruce511 2y ago
  >> In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation Yes. >> towards a better place. Weeelll, where the population steer it to isn't really determined by any principles. Rather it goes wherever the population steers it to. Sometimes the population gets it wrong, and with open eyes pick an option that takes them to a worse place. Yes, information helps (hence campaigning) but that information has always been gate-kept. That was seen as a flaw. Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown. Anti-vaxers don't exist because of a lack of information. People who voted for tarrifs don't have restricted information. People have shown over and over a willingness to vote against their own best interest, as long as you provide someone else to blame.
  - tuan 2y ago
    > Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown. How do we slow down or control the flow of information ? Genuine question. I'm just asking to see if there are any studies or proposals that already exist out there. I've heard people talk about education. But this seems to be part of a long term solution. How can we solve this problem now so that in the next election (next 2 or 4 years) people will not vote against their own best interests ? Convincing people to quit social medias or stopping listening to TV pundits ? So far that hasn't worked. Facebook/Tiktok just keeps growing.
    - bruce511 2y ago
hello_moto 2y ago
Makes the Krasnov theory even stronger... how the tide has turned in terms of Conspiracy Theory no?
Freedom2 2y ago
The US can still be a leader, I think. I'm curious as to if this is the time for a YC-funded startup to take the reins for a lot of the programs and policies being cut. As geohot showed unequivocally yesterday, who else is better to lead than the technical minds of the 21st century!
- epistasis 2y ago
  What sort of startup could ever replace the services that are being performed? The point of a startup is increase value massively by building revenue. The services that are being cut are meant to be public infrastructure upon which everybody else builds their startup, that enables all the innovation that makes the US a leader.
- maigret 2y ago
  You’ll see people not wanting to buy a lot of US stuff soon. I definitely increased my activities around that lately. Netflix is next to go.
- consteval 2y ago
  You can’t replace infrastructure with the private sector because infrastructure doesn’t generate any money. Instead, it works like a velocity multiplier that helps others generate money. Infrastructure is also dependent on centralization. As opposed to some industries, the free market actually makes infrastructure less efficient. Imagine there are 1000 companies developing roads and they all use different signage. All use different licenses. Would that work? Could you live your life? Probably not, and if you did, it would be absurdly expensive. Some things MUST be a centralized public service. Pretty much all countries, independent of each other, figured this out 150 years ago. But here we are, still arguing the point.
  - Freedom2 2y ago
    I don't know if I agree, but I'm not as smart as PG or Garry Tan to evaluate what incoming infrastructure startups could make the cut for YC funding. Put it this way, if we as a tech community can band together and create protocols for various bits of infrastructure, then each startup is free to build upon that protocol so we can standardize what we need. That way we get the benefits of the free market while also gaining efficiency in government. Eventually I envision a world where the best implementation wins, but others are still free to compete. If I wanted to create a startup if I had better ideas for road protocols or standards, then I am blocked by government. It's effectively a non-starter, and a gap in the ability for the US to innovate.
throwccp 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
keybored 2y ago
The US is a world hegemon. That’s a well-defined concept. I don’t know what being a leader means in this context. It seems that it is just what the US and its cronies claim to be. Which works on any topic: 1. If it does something “good”: self-evident 2. If it does something “bad” or fails to do something good: just say that it is failing to be a “leader” like it obviously has been since sometime (post-WWII maybe). Yeah, even negative evidence can perpetuate the same narrative. Just wistfully look at the mythic past without questioning the premise.
hujun 2y ago
nah, GPS is needed by US outside US as well, I bet someone will propose a 'great' idea to start charging for it
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  or they could replace it with Starlink (no conflict of interest, obviously), which can be used for global positioning
  - simondotau 2y ago
    Galileo already exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      sure, but the US isn't going to switch to a network run by the ESA my point was regarding privitization of public goods (like GPS)
energy123 2y ago
To the populist right, everything is zero-sum, all effects are first order, all effects are immediate, and all effects only impact the parties to a transaction. Soft power doesn't exist. Iterated games don't exist. Long-term consequences don't exist. Externalities don't exist. Positive sum utility gains don't exist. Systemic effects don't exist. It's all too abstract and cognitively difficult, it's the business of the arrogant intelligentsia. The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview. The decline will eventually reach people's purchasing power. The laws of reality will catch up to them.
- ainiriand 2y ago
  You have put into words exactly my thoughts on this topic.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  > The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview. The perpetual problem is that it will in the short term! It’s just like the MBAs juicing profits by cutting R&D spending — this works every time! It works, and it works long enough for a few to reap the benefits at the expense of the many. This will play out over and over until we somehow magically achieve the Star Trek future utopia.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  I've said it before, it's like these guys turned up to study economics, learnt about free markets on day 1, then just went home.
  - aqueueaqueue 2y ago
    In a free market, Doge would fire Elon.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Soft power doesn't exist I just realised that per their own stories we’ve got a government headed by folks with extreme daddy issues. I’m not turning this into a Vox article. But perhaps there is overlap between leaders who can’t empathise and whose who admit to having had a trash upbringing.
brabel 2y ago
Well, it's a good thing that the US stop acting like the world leader/police in everything. The US is just a country among many and it is about time it starts acting like that. And it's about time the "Western world" stops relying on the US for basic stuff like national defense. More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing.
- Steve16384 2y ago
  > More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing. You answered your own question, but there are also other reasons; see the first post.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money Outside America? They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade.
- zfg 2y ago
  And then they will say, "You see? Government doesn't work. We must privatize this service." And they will hand that contract to their friends.
- cesarb 2y ago
  > They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade. AFAIK, the GPS system needs constant corrections, uploaded periodically from its ground base stations. Without these corrections, it will degrade very quickly (the satellites would still work fine, but their position estimate would no longer be good enough).
fundatus 2y ago
I've always wondered "Why would the EU spend so much money to build Galileo?". I now get it.
dragonelite 2y ago
It was mostly used to slow down development and industrialisation of nations. Probably by guilt tripping developing world with the idea that the developing world would need to get western loans and green technology from the west. That whole process is just a dirty process at least it still was during the 20th century. In 2020s there are other that came or are coming online with the Chinese and Russians willing to build nuclear power plants in the developing world and off course renewable energy is becoming cheaper every year thanks to Chinese industrial and research capabilities. It might be that China is the last country to go through an extremely dirty development cycle.
sega_sai 2y ago
I think GPS is a very good point. I wonder if the capability to disable it exists, and I don't know what effects that will have - i assume many new devices can now use European's Galileo system. (while writing this I can see GPS had 'selective availability' mode, but US claimed it is not possible with new satellites)
- simondotau 2y ago
  The essential question isn't whether selective availability could be reinstated (software can change, so the answer is yes, period, end of story) but rather whether there's any situation where it wouldn't also cripple a substantial portion of the US Government. How many GPS receivers even have support for military decryption these days, let alone contain keys which are ready to work in a crisis?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

This is just nuts. Stuff like this is what made the US a leader. I bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money. That's how you lose world leadership.

evan_ 2y ago

don't give them any ideas.

kevmo 2y ago

Does Peter Thiel still get a piece of all the YC startups?

DidYaWipe 2y ago

Our "world leadership" is rapidly becoming a distant memory.

metalliqaz 2y ago
it's already gone. as soon as we re-elected the felon, everyone knew they couldn't trust us
- wraaath 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Sabinus 2y ago
    The sense I got is that it could be overlooked as an anomaly. The second time he was elected, and the actions he has taken since, have absolutely ended all that. The Allies are truly incensed, the US's reputation won't recover for decades.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      It’s a loss of trust. We were in the process of getting better relations with Russia, but then when Putin goes and invades Ukraine you can sort of rationalize it. Communist gonna communist right? All the actions potato head has taken are a deliberate slap in the face of all their allies. Maybe something we’d expect from potato head, but not from the United States. Even given he was elected we’d expect the rest if your political system to stop a single man from burning down all bridges. Clearly that was an incorrect assumption.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        Putin isn’t in any way a communist.
        wraaath 2y ago
        He's an autocrat acting on delusions of empire building. That is the root of Russia invading Ukraine. All the other excuses are ancillary or nonsense (Nazis etc)
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        True, but unrelated to whether he's a communist. There are authoritarian and libertarian communists but Putin is neither.
        Braxton1980 2y ago
        As a former KGB officer wouldn't he be the most likely to want a return to the old ways?
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        What does the KGB have to do with communism? A lot of countries have had draconian secret police and spy agencies, regardless of whether those countries were communist or not. For example, the Gestapo in Nazi-era Germany.
    - catdog 2y ago
      Exactly that. Not only he got re-elected, during his first term he did bad things but what he did now while not even 2 months in office seems way worse. Also it's clearly visible that the checks and balances are now severely broken, you have an administration not even abiding its own countries laws in very fundamental areas, that does not spark trust. Heck he even discredits and breaks trade deals signed by himself, who can trust such a country? It was easy to justify sitting out Trump I as a (former) US allied, Trump II demands immediate action.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Biden was elected in 2020.
    - wraaath 2y ago
      Highly likely that Trump's bumbling of COVID resulted in Biden's election. In NYC there were refrigerated tractor trailers parked outside of hospitals for the overflow dead. I'm sure it was just as bad in other parts of the country during those months. Curious how quickly people forget, and I'm sure we'll have to relearn these lessons yet again.
      - tdeck 2y ago
        > Curious how quickly people forget, and I'm sure we'll have to relearn these lessons yet again. I think some of this forgetting was attributable to the Biden administration's decision to suddenly start acting like COVID didn't exist. It's pretty hard to remind people of metrics from the past when you're also simultaneously trying to avoid talking about those same metrics in the present.
  - jajko 2y ago
    Nah its much much worse now. Personal, humiliating, watching literal elephant in porcelain shop fucking up everything and everybody in all directions (apart from russians and israelis, I guess like-minded leaders). He got way more senile, but in his case its not movement to incoherent bumbling but more hatred, pettiness, little napoleon complex etc.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    Actually, re-electing GWB was the early confirmation to the world that something was very wrong here.
- graeme 2y ago
  This is downvoted but for those outside the US it's actually true. Or more specifically once the new admin began acting erratically. For instance, in Canada he has repudiated a trade agreement he himself negotiated in his first term and threatened repeatedly to annex us. Americans who treat foreigners as abstractions shrug off that sort of thing and assume you can go back to normal but reliability is shot and trust is broken. In term one the remaining vestiges of Republican and state apparatus ensured continuity on many fronts. That's all gone.

epistasis 2y ago

The elites of the country that are now in power don't care about world leadership, much less the soft power that we had that made us all very rich, that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month. They care about enriching themselves as much as possible. It's all short-term gain, without any view for the future. Get those tax cuts, reallocate money away from the government and away from those who work for a living and make a true oligarch class. If events continue down this route, the US is looking at a lost decade or even permanent loss of leadership, letting China catch up and then step up, or maybe India.

9283409232 2y ago
The view for the future is cutting the US into city-states that they control. They are just following the playbook of Curtis Yarvin.
bruce511 2y ago
>> that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month. I'm not trying to derail the thread, but framing your point as "magnitude of salary" is meaningless and perhaps reflects one of the issues. It's not the size of the salary that's important- it's the quality of life. Salary is one factor in the equation, but it's not the only factor. For example, in the US the plumber pays for health care. In Europe he mostly does not. There are a million things that go into a very subjective quality of live assessment. Salary is part of it, yes, but ultimately only a part. And, if we're being honest, the US certainly acts the part of leader, it talks a good game, and everyone is happy to take their money. But is anyone actually following their lead?
- epistasis 2y ago
  Quality of life is something that many people evaluate along very very different metrics at different weights. But losing that $7k and bringing it down to $3k does not look like it will be accompanied by plumbers no longer paying for healthcare out of pocket. One measure of the lead of the US is how it is a destination for those looking to create great science, a great startup, build a business, or otherwise build a long-lasting contributor to our institutions. Europe, Japan, other places certainly rank highly here too, but the US is by far the biggest player and attracts the most people as far as I can tell.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation towards a better place. To do so, people need access to information, need access to information on what the state of their nation and the state of the world is. These acts that teardown the information that the US makes available, that help us shape our decision making & view of the world, are deeply horrifically un-democratic. To march us from a nation that advocates sunlight & democracy, back into the dark is horror.

bruce511 2y ago
>> In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation Yes. >> towards a better place. Weeelll, where the population steer it to isn't really determined by any principles. Rather it goes wherever the population steers it to. Sometimes the population gets it wrong, and with open eyes pick an option that takes them to a worse place. Yes, information helps (hence campaigning) but that information has always been gate-kept. That was seen as a flaw. Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown. Anti-vaxers don't exist because of a lack of information. People who voted for tarrifs don't have restricted information. People have shown over and over a willingness to vote against their own best interest, as long as you provide someone else to blame.
- tuan 2y ago
  > Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown. How do we slow down or control the flow of information ? Genuine question. I'm just asking to see if there are any studies or proposals that already exist out there. I've heard people talk about education. But this seems to be part of a long term solution. How can we solve this problem now so that in the next election (next 2 or 4 years) people will not vote against their own best interests ? Convincing people to quit social medias or stopping listening to TV pundits ? So far that hasn't worked. Facebook/Tiktok just keeps growing.
  - bruce511 2y ago

hello_moto 2y ago

Makes the Krasnov theory even stronger... how the tide has turned in terms of Conspiracy Theory no?

Freedom2 2y ago

The US can still be a leader, I think. I'm curious as to if this is the time for a YC-funded startup to take the reins for a lot of the programs and policies being cut. As geohot showed unequivocally yesterday, who else is better to lead than the technical minds of the 21st century!

epistasis 2y ago
What sort of startup could ever replace the services that are being performed? The point of a startup is increase value massively by building revenue. The services that are being cut are meant to be public infrastructure upon which everybody else builds their startup, that enables all the innovation that makes the US a leader.
maigret 2y ago
You’ll see people not wanting to buy a lot of US stuff soon. I definitely increased my activities around that lately. Netflix is next to go.
consteval 2y ago
You can’t replace infrastructure with the private sector because infrastructure doesn’t generate any money. Instead, it works like a velocity multiplier that helps others generate money. Infrastructure is also dependent on centralization. As opposed to some industries, the free market actually makes infrastructure less efficient. Imagine there are 1000 companies developing roads and they all use different signage. All use different licenses. Would that work? Could you live your life? Probably not, and if you did, it would be absurdly expensive. Some things MUST be a centralized public service. Pretty much all countries, independent of each other, figured this out 150 years ago. But here we are, still arguing the point.
- Freedom2 2y ago
  I don't know if I agree, but I'm not as smart as PG or Garry Tan to evaluate what incoming infrastructure startups could make the cut for YC funding. Put it this way, if we as a tech community can band together and create protocols for various bits of infrastructure, then each startup is free to build upon that protocol so we can standardize what we need. That way we get the benefits of the free market while also gaining efficiency in government. Eventually I envision a world where the best implementation wins, but others are still free to compete. If I wanted to create a startup if I had better ideas for road protocols or standards, then I am blocked by government. It's effectively a non-starter, and a gap in the ability for the US to innovate.

throwccp 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

keybored 2y ago

The US is a world hegemon. That’s a well-defined concept. I don’t know what being a leader means in this context. It seems that it is just what the US and its cronies claim to be. Which works on any topic: 1. If it does something “good”: self-evident 2. If it does something “bad” or fails to do something good: just say that it is failing to be a “leader” like it obviously has been since sometime (post-WWII maybe). Yeah, even negative evidence can perpetuate the same narrative. Just wistfully look at the mythic past without questioning the premise.

hujun 2y ago

nah, GPS is needed by US outside US as well, I bet someone will propose a 'great' idea to start charging for it

insane_dreamer 2y ago
or they could replace it with Starlink (no conflict of interest, obviously), which can be used for global positioning
- simondotau 2y ago
  Galileo already exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    sure, but the US isn't going to switch to a network run by the ESA my point was regarding privitization of public goods (like GPS)

energy123 2y ago

To the populist right, everything is zero-sum, all effects are first order, all effects are immediate, and all effects only impact the parties to a transaction. Soft power doesn't exist. Iterated games don't exist. Long-term consequences don't exist. Externalities don't exist. Positive sum utility gains don't exist. Systemic effects don't exist. It's all too abstract and cognitively difficult, it's the business of the arrogant intelligentsia. The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview. The decline will eventually reach people's purchasing power. The laws of reality will catch up to them.

ainiriand 2y ago
You have put into words exactly my thoughts on this topic.
jiggawatts 2y ago
> The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview. The perpetual problem is that it will in the short term! It’s just like the MBAs juicing profits by cutting R&D spending — this works every time! It works, and it works long enough for a few to reap the benefits at the expense of the many. This will play out over and over until we somehow magically achieve the Star Trek future utopia.
globular-toast 2y ago
I've said it before, it's like these guys turned up to study economics, learnt about free markets on day 1, then just went home.
- aqueueaqueue 2y ago
  In a free market, Doge would fire Elon.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Soft power doesn't exist I just realised that per their own stories we’ve got a government headed by folks with extreme daddy issues. I’m not turning this into a Vox article. But perhaps there is overlap between leaders who can’t empathise and whose who admit to having had a trash upbringing.

brabel 2y ago

Well, it's a good thing that the US stop acting like the world leader/police in everything. The US is just a country among many and it is about time it starts acting like that. And it's about time the "Western world" stops relying on the US for basic stuff like national defense. More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing.

Steve16384 2y ago
> More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing. You answered your own question, but there are also other reasons; see the first post.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money Outside America? They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade.

zfg 2y ago
And then they will say, "You see? Government doesn't work. We must privatize this service." And they will hand that contract to their friends.
cesarb 2y ago
> They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade. AFAIK, the GPS system needs constant corrections, uploaded periodically from its ground base stations. Without these corrections, it will degrade very quickly (the satellites would still work fine, but their position estimate would no longer be good enough).

fundatus 2y ago

I've always wondered "Why would the EU spend so much money to build Galileo?". I now get it.

dragonelite 2y ago

It was mostly used to slow down development and industrialisation of nations. Probably by guilt tripping developing world with the idea that the developing world would need to get western loans and green technology from the west. That whole process is just a dirty process at least it still was during the 20th century. In 2020s there are other that came or are coming online with the Chinese and Russians willing to build nuclear power plants in the developing world and off course renewable energy is becoming cheaper every year thanks to Chinese industrial and research capabilities. It might be that China is the last country to go through an extremely dirty development cycle.

sega_sai 2y ago

I think GPS is a very good point. I wonder if the capability to disable it exists, and I don't know what effects that will have - i assume many new devices can now use European's Galileo system. (while writing this I can see GPS had 'selective availability' mode, but US claimed it is not possible with new satellites)

simondotau 2y ago
The essential question isn't whether selective availability could be reinstated (software can change, so the answer is yes, period, end of story) but rather whether there's any situation where it wouldn't also cripple a substantial portion of the US Government. How many GPS receivers even have support for military decryption these days, let alone contain keys which are ready to work in a crisis?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]