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Europeans were perfectly happy to buy American tech und military exports, thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from t

• flowerlad 2y ago
  > Your boy trump did do deliver, is the US now GREAT enough for you yet? Not our boy. Trump was elected by uneducated farmers, not by HN crowd. Almost 78% of farmers endorsed his most recent presidential run. https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210000721.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-farmers-voted-trump-feeling-210...
  • zwnow 2y ago
    Its always the farmers fault... Like it was in Germany back in the day. Keep people uneducated, dont support the poor and then act like you will solve these issues, its conservative 101
    • Yeul 2y ago
      Seems to me America is a pretty shitty country to live in if you're not rich so I am not too mad that they protest vote for Trump. Ofcourse in Europe we learned that socialism improves the lives of the proletariat not national socialism.
      • flohofwoe 2y ago
        There isn't a single socialist country in Europe since around 1990 (and good riddance). I think the term you're looking for is social-democracies (for the political system) or social-market-economy (for the economic system).
        • tsimionescu 2y ago
          "Socialist" is such a loaded term it's kind of best to avoid it in any discussion where you aim for clarity. The original definition, which is where it got its lasting popularity, comes from the popular workers' movements of the 1910s and 20s: workers owning the means of production. That is basically describing an economic system in which enterprises, particularly factories, are democratically controlled by the people working in them, who would have a say in how the enterprise is run. This notion of socialism was corrupted by Lenin and his ilk when they essentially seized the worker's revolution that tore down the Tsars of Russia and founded the USSR. However, instead of decentralized workers' councils actually owning, profiting from, and controlling the factories (and farms and other enterprises) that they worked for, the state was put in charge of all of these. Ostensibly the state represented the will of the people, so that is how this leap was justified, but of course in reality it was one of the most heinous dictatorships that the world had seen in a long time. But because worker's rights were a popular idea at thrle time, the new absolutist monarchs of the "Soviet" empire kept claiming they are "socialists", just as they claimed they are "democratic", and no one bothered to contradict them. In the meantime, in the West of Europe, particularly Germany, the same basic workers' movements were co-opted by Hitler, here claiming that he represents the people of Germany in their interests against the bogey-men they hated, the Jewish people (and Armenians and a few others), identified as evil Capitalists that had to be combatted. So they also named their movement "socialist", while in reality having an iron grip and military-like complete top-down control of the means of production. Finally, more actually democratic forces that were nevertheless interested in keeping the capitalist status quo came up with a series of more minor reforms that would give some more resources, better lives, and rights to workers without actually putting them in full control of the enterprise they worked for. This movement ended up calling itself social-democrat or democratic socialism. Being very much similar to the previous status quo, and keeping the wealthy in power and in control of enterprises, while also not egregiusly oppressing workers to the point of revolt, this proved to be the most enduring form of "socialism" that persisted.
      • briandear 2y ago
        Here’s a counterpoint: https://fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20-of-americans-are-richer-than-most-nations-of-europe/ https://fee.org/articles/the-poorest-20-of-americans-are-ric...
        • flohofwoe 2y ago
          This doesn't quite match the rhetoric of the current US government though, does it? Listening to them one could think the US is on the brink of collapse unless some 'strong leader' steps in and 'makes America great again'.
      • zwnow 2y ago
        So protest vote people that'll make your own situation 100x worse? This is logic that never checked out for me.
        • malka1986 2y ago
          These people feel that they are in the losing side of a win/lose situation. So they are going for a lose/lose situation out of spiteness. The solution is to always go for the win/win situation, even if it leads to smaller wins. It avoid building up resentment, that will always lead to a lose/lose situation.
  • LightBug1 2y ago
    I always say ... there are obviously many, many great people in the USA. You're likely one of them. But your democracy has spoken now. The first time can be waived off as an aberration. The second time you have to own it. Now, either you're commenting reactively on HN about it, or you're doing something about it and not taking it personally.
    • Macha 2y ago
      Not only that but the "system" has failed to stop his actions, even those it has branded illegal. If the system is deciding that presidents are kings, then America is only as reliable to the rest of us as those it elects as president.
  • concerndc1tizen 2y ago
    Europeans had to fight for our rights and freedom. In this sense, it is your civic duty to ensure order in your own country. The critique is that too many Americans have become complacent and allowed the political system and media landscape to evolve as it has. The Democrats are also corrupt and need to be replaced, but it requires a sacrifice of wealth that people aren't willing to give, for selfish reasons. But you will experience the consequences.
    • radicalbyte 2y ago
      They have also been the main target of Soviet/Russian/CCP information operations designed to cause the current mess and live in a democratic system where the (ultra)wealthy have had far too much power.
      • concerndc1tizen 2y ago
        You could argue that it goes back to when Bush became president despite losing the election to Al Gore, by suppressing recounts that later proved that he lost. The Democrats have been allowing this for too long and are equally complacent. Nancy Pelosi doing insider trading is just the tip of the iceberg, quite literally speaking as the house speaker. Americans should join Serbia and Turkey in their revolutions.
        • radicalbyte 2y ago
          > You could argue that it goes back to when Bush > became president despite losing the election > to Al Gore, by suppressing recounts that later > proved that he lost. That was the day that I lost all respect for America and I fully agree that it was the day when the Republicans saw that you didn't need to win an election you needed to game the system. From that point onwards is when the Red states went ham on targeted voter suppression and made a number of extremely anti-democratic moves. The current situation is at least 25 years in the making.
  • Teever 2y ago
    You misunderstand. While America is internally divided between rural and urban, or red and blue, or Woke and MAGA, the rest of the world is becoming united in seeing it all as just those damn Americans, and a growing threat. The world at large has stopped caring about the petty squabbling that goes on in America, the boorishness and the melodrama. America is the house down the street that always has shouting and screaming coming from it, someone throwing someone elses crap on the front lawn and the cops getting called to it every other week. It is embarrassing and no one cares who started it anymore. We just want peace and quiet.
    • graemep 2y ago
      I do not agree. The same division is spreading throughout the west, if not the world. From the very woke education system in the US to the electoral success of the AfD in Germany we seem to be following the US. Woke has not spread into Asia, but nationalism and racism were there already.
      • pjc50 2y ago
        Trying to parse a comment where someone implies that nationalism and racism are bad but also that ""woke"" (diluted into meaninglessness by over use) is .. also bad?
        • graemep 2y ago
          Yes, exactly my view. I am not signed up to a side and feel no need to follow a particular set of views because they belong to a group I identity with.
          • Moomoomoo309 2y ago
            I'll bite: What is "woke" to you? The term's history has basically no bearing on what it means now. Preferably a definition, not examples, because often the examples, when you list enough of them, contradict.
        • sfn42 2y ago
  • nkmnz 2y ago
    There are like… 2% farmers in the US?
    • JdeBP 2y ago
      Bear in mind that the President of the United States is not directly elected by a popular vote. The mathematics of who gets the largest voice are distorted, intentionally so by the Framers. They did not want low-population agrarian states to be permanently in effect disenfranchised. It is ironic after all of these decades of originalism being seen as a reactionary thing against minorities that the Framers put positive discrimination for (economic and geographic) minorities into the Constitution explicitly to prevent "tyranny of the majority". The U.S.A. is full of such ironies at the moment.
      • hypeatei 2y ago
        > explicitly to prevent "tyranny of the majority" Yep, as if tyranny of the minority is better. Of course Republicans think it's good because it gets them elected but this country is regressing because of the status quo.
      • chgs 2y ago
        When the framers were setting out their ideas the rural states had large populations. However the framers declared great swathes of them to be worth 60% of others.
    • Jean-Papoulos 2y ago
      A lot of these 2% live in states whose influence on the outcome of the presidential election is disproportionately high due to the electoral system. So you have a high influence of farmers on states that have a high influence on the election outcome and those 2% end up looking more like 4% in terms of practical influence. It is disingenuous to lay the results at their feet only like the comment you're responding to suggests ; Trump did win the popular vote. The dems fumbled this one, plain and simple.
      • krapp 2y ago
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  • jemmyw 2y ago
    > Almost 78% of farmers endorsed his most recent presidential run Which is surprising because they were bitten by his tariffs last time round. What made them think he'd do better for them this time?
    • pjc50 2y ago
      > What made them think he'd do better for them this time? Same answer as for everyone else: Fox News.
    • speed_spread 2y ago
      "Think" is a big word here.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • 01jonny01 2y ago
    Cherry picking a 2 small demographics to validate your point is intellectually dishonest.
  • gadders 2y ago
    Always a surprise to see the contempt people in blue collar jobs are held in by Democrats.
    • niek_pas 2y ago
      Genuine question: is farming a blue collar job? My (possibly incorrect) image of farming is management of heavily industrialized processes, not of rolling up your sleeves.
      • pjc50 2y ago
        Careful study of farming often reveals that it's a mix of landowners (rich on paper, possible cashflow problems) and workers (usually immigrant, often undocumented, in which case they're not voting at all).
      • gadders 2y ago
        Fair point. I guess it is more like managing, say, a building or plumbing firm. I guess what I should have said is "contempt for people outside of the laptop class" (and yes farmers may use laptops but you get what I mean).
      • Jensson 2y ago
        Have you see any farmers with white collars? I haven't, they tend to wear working clothes even if they have lots of money.
    • pjc50 2y ago
      Prisoner's dilemma, innit. If people are going to use "I'm working class" as an excuse for holding other people in contempt, they shouldn't be surprised to see it reflected back at them. And contempt is one of the defining features of Trumpism/Muskism, far more than "blue collar".
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • goodcanadian 2y ago
    I grew up on a farm. Farmers as a class are not stupid, at least no more so than any other group of people I've dealt with. They do have different interests and priorities than city dwelling people which tend to be better represented by traditionally conservative parties, but that is not an absolute. In Canada, historically, farmers were also responsible for the social credit movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit). It's not a question of being educated/uneducated. It is a question of who is doing a better job of talking to them. "Urban elites" are just as ignorant when dealing with rural issues as farmers are when dealing with urban issues. It would be nice if more people were able to bridge the gap.
    • fifilura 2y ago
      Yeah, I see farmers here in Europe as one of the most educated groups. They need to be educated in politics and economy in order to navigate all regulations and subsidies.
    • Ragnarork 2y ago
      Thank you for saying that. I see this divide all the time, and I can't bear seeing this used time and time again to make the rural vs. the urban populations angry at each other, which in the end only detracts from trying to see how to make everything work together. I wish we'd be smarter and stopped just being condescending towards the other group. The only ones actively benefitting from this divide are not well-intentioned people in my mind.
      • DFHippie 2y ago
        One elaboration on your point: the rural and urban populations aren't mirrors of each other. The urban population generally ignores the rural population. The rural population pays attention to (a select subset of) what is happening in the city. I think this is an inevitable consequence of population size and density. People are interested in people. The people who generate new culture -- who attract the interest of other people -- thrive in the cities. They have a bigger audience and a bigger community of fellow creatives. They find more variety. They have more to work with. So in both the city and the country people pay attention to what's happening in the city and ignore what's happening in the country. More is happening in the city and it is more interesting. This isn't everything that makes cities tend to differ in their values and politics from the country, but it's the hotbed malign demagogues exploit to empower themselves. They tell the country, "Hey, the city people don't respect you. They have contempt for your values. Their politics are the reason for your suffering. You are the real people. They are parasites. Be mad!" The country is primed to rise up. The city isn't. So the demagogues make the country hurt the city. Then the city is mad as well, at people who have genuinely hurt them, whereas the country was fooled into being mad at the city and striking the first blow. It isn't necessarily the case that the people in the country are dumber. They're just the ones primed for a fight. But the con artists are working over the country people, so from the city's perspective the country people are fools.
  • dmos62 2y ago
    That's 78% of farming-dependent counties, not farmers. >78% of any demographic voting at all would be a phenomenal step for democracy.
  • gherkinnn 2y ago
    > not by HN crowd Maybe not the HN crowd (though that is debatable, there is no homogenous group here) but a seizable amount of the SV rulers have endorsed him.
    • flowerlad 2y ago
      SV billionaires did vote for him yes, but not HN crowd.
      • krapp 2y ago
        HN has a large Trumpist contingent, plenty of people here voted for him, if only to vote against "wokism."
        • flowerlad 2y ago
          And this is what they got: NIH cuts, US withdrawal from Climate Agreement, vaccine sceptic being made secretary of health, US alienating Europe, proposed ethnic cleansing of Gaza, lying about who started the Ukraine war. Cutting funds to USAID. Threatening to take Greenland by force. Threatening to annex Canada. Proclaiming himself to be King. Constantly "joking" about third term. In retrospect is this what you voted for?
      • dcow 2y ago
        There are more Trump supporters here than you probably realize. They just aren’t ones to wear their political affiliation as a badge for approval, and aren’t as loud, generally.
  • thrance 2y ago
    Farmers are not stupid. Read up on petty bourgeoisie and why they tend to support reactionary movements. Hitler too famously found a lot of support in farmers and small businesses. There are very good material reasons to this.
    • watwut 2y ago
      Material reason that they were more blood thirsty and hateful. More wanting to expand German, annex other countries and happy to turn other nations into slaves. They have seen empathy as a weakness, the same some current politicians do. Also, they gained about nothing and seem themselves as the victims by the end of WWII. (Yes, literally they have seen themsevelves as primary victims of what happened.)
• 7bit 2y ago
  I believe most users here are not in favor of Trump, and these snarky and confrontative remarks are generally a bad tone.
  • concerndc1tizen 2y ago
    There are plenty of pro-Trump users on HN.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • radicalbyte 2y ago
      There's a whole pipeline designed to capture young men (Tate for the dummies, Moscow-Lex for those who aren't) who are also a key demographic here. I understand it too having seen the fallout and overstep of the "social justice left" with the reading comprehension of sewer rats - almost all American - who themselves attack white men for the crime of being white men (I've been on the receiving end a few times and I was supporting them; if my profile was a black woman or a trans-woman then I would not have been attacked). Actually the average reading comprehension problem is really a thing, and Americans seem - anecdotally at least - to have the worst level in the English-speaking world. That or they outnumber the Brits by 100-1. This isn't just hyperbole - the numbers on reading comprehension have been dropping for years. We had to pay extra special attention to our kids to get them up to scratch.
      • spiderfarmer 2y ago
        My son has seen it happen on his high school. The victims proudly proclaim to be weaponized autists. They have an outlook on life that funnels them into an incel lifestyle. If you’ve seen the Netflix series “Adolescence“ you’ll recognize that it’s downright frightening. Talk to your kids, people.
        • radicalbyte 2y ago
          I've had that recommended to me before and it's not surprising. I was in that group myself at that age but the internet was a much nicer space. I'd break into computer systems (including USG) for the lulz. I'd get weirdos attempt grooming and hit them either with deletion scripts (deleting autoexec.bat and some key Windows files) or go full Back Orafice on them). I would take down the porn sites which kept spamming my gaming / book newsgroups. Now those groups have been weaponised. It started on 4chan / SomethingAwful - at that time Americans were so obnoxious that we simple banned them from our gaming servers - where the ARGs were tested out and perfected. Then it was pivoted to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and the other socials and perfected. We should have saw this coming. I even thought to myself back then: "it's just as well that the internet was just a nerds thing because this could change society if it was used to control the great unwashed". It looks like the evil people were also paying attention.
• dmos62 2y ago
  I liked a comment by Sarah C. Paine, about how Communism is a really great system for taking power from within a state (think Mao), and then staying in power, but it's horrible for generating prosperity. When evaluating the choices of certain people, it's clarifying to not think in terms of prosperity, but, rather, power. I think there's a case to be made about Trump seeing advantage in making enemies of his political rivals' allies, and then there's that whole weird situation about making Russia-favoring decisions, who knows why.
  • epolanski 2y ago
    The same Sarah Paine that speaks about how China lifted 1B+ people out of poverty and created tens of millions of millionaires?
    • bufferoverflow 2y ago
      Largely after abandoning damaging communist ideas and allowing private business to exist. China is no longer communist, it's this weird hybrid of capitalism with heavy government controls and heavy censorship.
      • GardenLetter27 2y ago
        In some areas China is even becoming more liberal than the EU. Look at DeepSeek.
      • navigate8310 2y ago
        Which is owned by the Government
      • flohofwoe 2y ago
        > China is no longer communist, it's this weird hybrid of capitalism with heavy government controls and heavy censorship. I think the established term is 'state capitalism'.
      • croissants 2y ago
        Yeah, The Economist regularly writes these articles that spend half the time praising the intense competition in certain sectors of the economy and half the time bemoaning the influence of state-owned enterprises (or other CCP instruments) in others. It seems to vary a lot by specific industry.
• ohgr 2y ago
  No we weren't really to start with. What happened was a lot of European business executives worked out the best retirement plan for them was to either sell off our industry or subcontract everything out. I worked for two companies in succession that were sold out to US defence ownership. Now their successors, who have been hoping that there isn't a tough discussion coming up, are now edging around that it was a terrible idea and backtracking as quickly as possible. Fortunately the US didn't move all the staff out so there are US subsidiaries in Europe which have staff in an uncertain situation who are probably quite easy to hire. It's a step in the right direction for Europe but only because it was historically a terrible step in the wrong direction. I think France are probably in a better place than most countries at the moment. That is it.
  • pjc50 2y ago
    > US subsidiaries in Europe which have staff in an uncertain situation Keeping an eye on this myself, as a Brit working in the UK for a US chip company; I'm wondering when the right moment to pull my RSUs from the US brokerage account and back across the Atlantic is.
    • ohgr 2y ago
      Yeah good idea. UK here working for a US company (different sector). Already pulled out my US investments and rode Rheinmetall, BAE and TSLQ hard.
• csomar 2y ago
  > hus forcing EU to invest in their own tech & military, thus becoming a competitor to the US products. Not sure how you made the jump here. EU is signalling increased military spending but there isn't really much talk about tech (beyond reddit-like enthusiasm which leads nowhere); which is funny because the top referrals for this site are .. american companies themselves. That being said, increased spending doesn't necessarily guarantee results.
  • lupusreal 2y ago
    Europe has cutting edge domestic military tech in almost all relevant categories but don't build enough of it to matter because until recently their people and governments haven't taken defense seriously. Europe doing so now is good for America because it reduces the risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war.
    • mixermachine 2y ago
      Is selling less product good for US defense companies?
    • tossandthrow 2y ago
      Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars.
      • messe 2y ago
        The only time Article 5 has been invoked.
      • 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
        >Last time Nato's article 5 was invoked it lead to Europeans dying in US wars. US service members represented about 68% of the coalition deaths in Afghanistan and about 93% in Iraq: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coalition_military_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Coa... The expectation for a European war should be similar. Europe should supply about 80% of the effort, since they're the ones directly affected. Even now, the US has supplied almost half the aid to Ukraine: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s... So the US pulling out of Europe could be considered a necessary correction to reach parity with the Iraq/Afghanistan situation. >We need to go back to WW2 for you comment to have any value. The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. The US has deterred the USSR/Russia in Europe for 80 years. What did that get us? HN comments about how we've supposedly "extorted" Europe. It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. This has been going on for years and years before Trump. There seems to be something uniquely dysfunctional about the Atlantic relationship, relative to other ally relationships the US has. >I think Americans can thank themselves and nobody else for their people dying in wars. Of course Europe's contribution to Iraq and Afghanistan should be acknowledged. Here it is on the State Dept website: https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-official-blog/9-11-2001-out-of-the-devastation-an-outpouring-of-support/ https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-offici...
• criley2 2y ago
  Both are a good thing? Even from folks in America who strongly dislike the fascist leadership, you'd be hard pressed to find folks who think "Europe should underfund their military and rely on the American tax payer for defense" or "Europe should be uncompetitive in technology and just buy American and Chinese solutions" I don't understand why Europeans have to blame Trump for "spending a fair minimum on their own defense in the face of existential threats" or "investing domestically in technology". These are things you always should have been doing.
  • impossiblefork 2y ago
    For us Europeans it's a good thing. There have been sane people here in Europe who never wanted to be reliant on US subscription software etc., but who had no chance of getting their view through. For the US though, this European reliance on what is in effect rubbish is great. Rubbish in return for cars and all sorts of sophisticated technology. I don't like calling ad firms etc. 'tech'. Technology for me is things like new chemical processes, whatever TSMC is doing, etc. and the US does have that, but firms like Meta are not a big player outside of machine learning research.
  • whiplash451 2y ago
    > rely on the American tax payer for defense Not sure how much that's true. EU spends billions buying US military hardware such as the Reaper. It's unclear how the story will end up for US taxpayers here.
    • mschuster91 2y ago
      > Not sure how much that's true. EU spends billions buying US military hardware such as the Reaper. The thing is, West Germany alone had about 3000 tanks at the end of the Cold War, and reunified Germany nowadays has 300. Navies and air forces have been run to the ground across Europe, even the nuclear forces of UK/FR are nowhere near what they had once been. The expectation over the last decades, especially after the pacification of the Balkans, was that open war would not return to Europe any time soon - on the one side because almost all European countries were either members of the EU, EEA or Schengen and thus were likely to more integrate instead of going back to 19th century fiefdom wars, and on the other side because the only realistic opponent was Russia... which we thought we could handle by "peace by trade".
• logicchains 2y ago
  > thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. This came with a responsibility to provide military protection to the US via NATO. Trumps voters don't want America to be an empire, responsible for protecting a bunch of far-away places that don't share their values, that's why they called the movement "America first". Historically speaking being an empire generally turns out to be a terrible deal in the long term, with maintaining the empire eventually becoming too expensive and leading to collapse and reduced living standards back home, like happened to the Roman empire, and the British empire after WW2.
  • iammjm 2y ago
    >responsible for protecting a bunch of far-away places that don't share their values You mean Europe? There's literally not a place in the world (except for Canada and Australia) that shares as many common values with the US as Europe. Unless the very definition of these values suddenly changed for the US with Agent Orange. As far as "far-away places go", it might take a similar amount of time to get from east to west coast of USA as to fly from one of the US coasts to somewhere in Europe... Europe has been aligned with US culturally and politically for decades and it helped to promote US interests worldwide and to fight US wars. And when we need you the most for the first time since the 1990 you decided to fuck us. I feel personally betrayed, and I imagine there are many, many more like me. Your decisions will ultimately be bad for us all.
    • 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
      >There's literally not a place in the world (except for Canada and Australia) that shares as many common values with the US as Europe. I just don't think that's true. Europeans seem much more collectivist, whereas the US is more individualist. That's why Europeans express disdain for US policies around healthcare, guns, etc. Europeans express a tremendous amount of disdain for the US online, calling Americans fat, dumb, neo-imperialist, etc. That's been going on for ages before Trump. It's done a lot to undermine the transatlantic relationship, in my view. People-to-people connections matter for diplomacy. How would you feel if an American insulted your leader with a derogatory nickname such as "Agent Orange"? Europeans are so used to expressing disdain for the US that they hardly even notice themselves doing it. >when we need you the most for the first time since the 1990 you decided to fuck us. From my perspective, we deterred Russia for 80 years following WW2, and provided almost 50% of the support for Ukraine to date. That's more than enough to account for European support in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US provided 80% of the muscle for Iraq and Afghanistan. For a fair relationship, Europe should expect to provide 80% of the muscle to deter Russia. A reset to fairness should not feel like betrayal. Europe gets most of the benefit from NATO, therefore Europe should do most of the spending in NATO. Fix this pie chart: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Nato-Defense-Spending_Site.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/...
• dachworker 2y ago
  There is a weird attitude among European elites where on the one hand, they point out how European countries have always been in a subservient position within the American sphere of influence, but then, instead of cheering that this era is ending, they seem to be all upset about it and want their collar to be put back on. Help me understand this. To me it seems that maybe the interests of EU elites differ from the interests of the EU common classes. The EU elites seem to have considered themselves as basically equivalent to American citizens in all but name, and were quite happy selling out their native countries in return for access to America.
  • MrJohz 2y ago
    Can you give some examples of this attitude? I'm not sure I've seen that behaviour anywhere, and it's very difficult to look up examples when your description is so vague.
    • _zamorano_ 2y ago
      With Nord Stream, the elites tried to gaslight their population using the media into believeng an stupid made-up story about how Russia blowed up their own pipe. Very convenient for the US, not so for the EU
      • ttyprintk 2y ago
        Only if it were Russia can Trump stay quiet about Nord Stream, which he has.
        • nbgtqrad 2y ago
          [dead]
    • galfarragem 2y ago
      Lol. Just listen to any ‘opinion maker’ on European media - they whine about it 24/7. They’re ‘not happy’ - to say the least - that the status quo has changed.
• TacticalCoder 2y ago
  You're giving a lot of credit to the EU. I'm european, I live in the EU. I talk with many other europeans and they all have the same point of view: the EU is fading into irrelevancy and most EU capital cities are quickly becoming complete, total and utter shitholes. > So now EU is investing in their own tech and military ... It's amazing that we're supposed to believe there's going to be a EU renaissance now that, for the third time, the EU wants to begin a world war. There's talks of gigantic investments in the EU war machine, talks of making the military service mandatory again in the EU, talks about how "wonderful" it is that so many young europeans are willing to go to war to save "democracy", etc. It's really nothing short of amazing that the warmongers are happy that the EU is planning gigantic investment in its military apparatus and that that is supposed to be where the EU's renaissance shall be coming from. What a future for the EU! Military investments! If I had 5 million USD to spare, I'd buy the US golden visa that Trump created and I'd GTFO of the EU in a hurry. I do believe things are going to turn from worse to shit in the EU and it's not the tens of millions of uneducated, unemployable, unwilling to adapt to western civilization armies of religious fanatics that the EU imported and keeps importing that are going to solve anything. The only outcome is that it'll accelerate the descend into shitholeness. The EU has its own problems and there's a reason so many countries started seeing the far-right gain lots and lots of votes and this started way before and has nothing to do with Trump. > ... is the US now GREAT enough for you yet? It's great enough for me. Way greater than the EU.
  • jensgk 2y ago
    > It's great enough for me. Way greater than the EU. Why are you still here?
• dcow 2y ago
  The situation laid out in the article doesn’t really indicate in any way that people are just mad at Trump and fleeing to EU alternatives. Yeah that’s obviously part of the acute response in 2025, but everything indicated by the data and the points made in the article seems to say that, whether Trump made people newly aware or motivated aside, people are looking for privacy-focused software products. Mind you, a spirited interpretation of recent EU regulations and law almost requires data to live in the EU. The US has done a terrible job regulating digital privacy irrespective of which party has held the office of president. The whole world absolutely should be challenging America to do a better job being the custodian of so much sensitive data. Competition in that market is very welcome and does not represent the death of American tech infrastructure. As an American citizen and alternative search user I love to see pressure on the Google and FB scale giants to compete at providing better privacy in their products. And I think that the only way to solve the data privacy issues rampant in our industry is through legal requirement and market pressure. Finally, please try not to cheaply patronize Americans and Trump’s foreign policy. We can talk about this issue without the political zingers insinuating that Trump and his supporters are a bunch of reckless ye-haw cowboys-idiots.
  • ttyprintk 2y ago
    Great comment. Would this have happened without the tariff whiplash? As in, Trump always brings unaccountability. But he placed a venal children’s book author and a podcaster at the head of FBI. Since the USA has no codified privacy rights, we can expect abuses. Also, these people don’t come from cowboys; they’re unrestrained salesman-on-TV personalities humiliated by poor competitiveness. I think that slightly matters; never seen it in a cowboy.
• vladimirralev 2y ago
  Predicating the argument on a unified EU is a mistake. US was a good ally in NATO, certainly better than most EU countries. If this split can occur between US and "EU", it's almost certain a similar split will occur within the "EU" itself, and quite soon. Romania is already leaning this way. But France and Holland also trending this way. EU politicians right now are trying to use this moment to unify the EU more and to justify more spending, but they way they steer the narrative is very awkward. They want to spend but only some regions will benefit from this spending as it stands and the others will only pay the bill further causing division. Private companies in EU face a different problem - switching away from industry leading vendors makes them less competitive. We will have to see how this plays out.
• nodoll 2y ago
  > and they wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU Trump wants countries to lower tariffs and not steal US jobs. So he hits them with reciprocal tariffs and dis-incentives for making stuff out of US. Trump does not want other countries to think US will defend them. So he makes it clear to them. What is this deal about extortion and increase dependence?
• 2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
  well, eu still has to deliver. given the social and economic status quo, i am not sure they will be able to.
• deleted 2y ago
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• snickerbockers 2y ago
  IDK, contrary to popular belief we don't all work for lockheed martin so i really couldn't care less about the military-industrial complex losing business. I really don't see that as a bad thing; it's pretty obvious at this point that a significant amount of US sabre-rattling is a result of the incestuous relationship between politicians, high-ranking military officers and defense contractors. I suppose this could have down-stream effects for commodities like steel and that's unfortunate but there's no way the military-industrial-complex could possibly be reduced without that happening. But more to the point, you seem to be under the impression that Americans benefit on a personal level from our country's global empire. We really don't. Like I said above, there are a lot of fat-cats making big money grifitng off government contracts, often with overt conflicts-of-interest involving their connections in the government. Some of that money goes to their employees and ultimately into local economies but largely it's just a circuitous way to enrich assholes. If you ever visit America, try driving about 150 miles or so out of whatever major metropolis you're staying at and take a look at how depressing this country really is. These people don't look like they're living in the epicenter of the world's most powerful and influential empire. It does not matter to them if Europe buys up the new f-47 or whatever. They could care less if the EU becomes a major military superpower in its own right. That's why when you look at these election maps, it comes down to urban areas backing the democrats and rural areas backing the trumpublicans with surprising uniformity.
  • FeloniousHam 2y ago
    > But more to the point, you seem to be under the impression that Americans benefit on a personal level from our country's global empire. We really don't. I am routinely puzzled at the simple ignorance of U.S. citizens decrying the benefits of being the global hegemon: - global reserve currency: lower borrowing rates, allows us to set economic norms - massive military and power projections: maintains stability and provides influence wherever it's deployed - US culture: opens up the world market to US art and culture, all of which redounds to the benefit of industries and consumers inside the US. These benefits extend to all our allies and generally created an epoch of peace unlike any that existed before (this is including all the wars the US elected to engage in). You may not like all of the particulars (who would?), but there is no question US citizens are richer for our global power and reach. >These people don't look like they're living in the epicenter of the world's most powerful and influential empire. It does not matter to them if Europe buys up the new f-47 or whatever. They may not appreciate how much the military-industrial complex benefits them not, but I think they will experience directly how it had helped when the market is gone.
• giardini 2y ago
  A series of "just-so" sentences revealing more about the convoluted manner in which iammjm thinks than anything about the world. Sad.
• tim333 2y ago
  >[the US] wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU... I think it's more they are threatening to attack the EU (Denmark) and aid it's adversaries (Putin). I put that down to a Russian asset president rather than wanting money.
• EasyMark 2y ago
  This is an odd take when one considers we (the US) have a large trade deficit with the EU. I personally prefer that we have open and free trade with the EU with no protectionism at all. It's only our adversaries like China and Russia that I worry about trading with, and hence tariffs and restrictions be much more appropriate, the clown in charge in Washington seems to want the opposite.
• martin82 2y ago
  Are you living in a parallel universe? There is no conceivable path forward where Europe will somehow be able to compete on the world stage against US and China. Europe is more than two decades behind and in a death grip of the woke left, basically hell-bent on self destruction. All talent has left to US and Asia. Endless stupid regulations and crippling taxation make startups impossible. There is no way Europe will ever be able to compete.
  • frm88 2y ago
    Do you have a source for that last sentence? All I can find is the opposite: <<Universities around the world have reported seeing an uptick in applications from U.S.-based researchers, who face an increasingly uncertain climate under President Donald Trump’s administration. And some countries and their institutions are already looking to use the opportunity to attract new talent and reverse the steady migration of scientists to the U.S. in recent decades.>> https://www.science.org/content/article/overseas-universities-see-opportunity-u-s-brain-drain https://www.science.org/content/article/overseas-universitie...