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You are paying more for everything because your country is extremely anti social, people alone have no leverage to negotiate prices with visa, pharmaceutics and

You are paying more for everything because your country is extremely anti social, people alone have no leverage to negotiate prices with visa, pharmaceutics and so on. Trump is only pushing that « free for all » policy even more, I wouldn’t expect to see things improve for you. Instead of fixing your country and making the rich accountable, you’re being manipulated to look elsewhere. Anyway, I believe that the eu cutting ties with the USA is the best thing that could happen to us and I’m glad you’re satisfied. We should have spent much more on military and put an end to the USA military supremacy across the world a long time ago.

0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
Yes, I am very happy to see Europe develop its own military-industrial complex. That way, whenever something bad happens in the world, you will be "complicit" if you sit by, and "imperialist" if you take action. It's a lot of fun!
- kergonath 9mo ago
  Come on, it’s already been that way for more than a century. Old imperial powers cannot do a thing or its opposite without endless recriminations. We’re used to it.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
    For the past few decades I've only seen the US constantly criticized as either "complicit" or "imperialist". We tried to take responsibility for everything and it got us nothing but hate. Hopefully it will be Europe's turn soon.
    - seba_dos1 9mo ago
      That's a very childlike understanding of the world around you, I'm afraid.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
        It goes to show how pointless it is to chase 'soft power' by appealing to global public opinion. Even in democratic countries, most leaders have sub-50% approval. So even if the US was run by a politician chosen by a global electorate, we would most likely still be hated. And of course good intentions are no guarantee of good results, e.g. I believe Bush had good intentions with Iraq, he was just incompetent. China is very smart to simply not get involved in much of anything. As soon as you do something, it gives people the opportunity to blame you, if even a single person thinks the result is even a little bit less than perfect. Switzerland is the smartest.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
        If you're trying to imply that I have a childlike understanding... in that case, I appreciate you reinforcing the points I've made in this thread, namely (a) Europeans are condescending jerks, and (b) Europeans will airily claim "Americans are ignorant" but rarely have much interesting evidence to back up their claims. Our relationship with Europe is not very important for American prosperity. The GDP growth trend is the same before and after NATO was founded: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_person_in_the_United_States.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_...
        seba_dos1 9mo ago
        These two comments you made above and the fact that you care so much about what a not very well-defined mass of people thinks about you and blames you of that you mistake it for soft power are the perfect illustration of my point.
        0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
        So, more condescension with no supporting evidence? Gotcha. Like the US benefit from NATO, "soft power" always remains a sort of esoteric wisdom which is mysteriously beyond the grasp of the average American. I've spent tens or even hundreds of hours arguing online with Europeans. They've never given a compelling explanation of how US "soft power" is supposed to work in a democratic country when the majority of the population dislikes the US. They just stick their nose in the air and say "too bad you're an ignorant American, if you were European like us, you would understand". Europeans think Americans are suckers, in other words. It's very ironic to me that Europeans say that Americans are purely self-interested, but when it comes to actually convincing to us, they are barely ever able to muster any sort of compelling appeal to our self-interest. (They don't just want us to defend them; they also want us to make the argument that it is in our national interest to defend them! It's rather astonishing.) At the end of the day, "Americans only care about their self-interest" is just another "America Bad" rhetorical point, as is proven by the actions of Europeans. If you want us to be benevolent to you, give us credit for being a benevolent actor in your region. If you truly believe we are self-interested, appeal effectively to our self-interest, and respect our decision if we conclude that your appeal is unpersuasive or the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But don't constantly talk about how we are evil and self-interested, and then de facto expect us to help you on the basis of altruism. That's what you've been doing for years now. At this point we are burnt out. "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
- 202508042147 9mo ago
  Besides the military-industrial complex, I am very happy to see Europe develop its own digital systems. That way we won't be totally dependent on Google, Microsoft, AWS, OpenAI, Apple, Visa, Mastercard etc.

0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago

Yes, I am very happy to see Europe develop its own military-industrial complex. That way, whenever something bad happens in the world, you will be "complicit" if you sit by, and "imperialist" if you take action. It's a lot of fun!

kergonath 9mo ago
Come on, it’s already been that way for more than a century. Old imperial powers cannot do a thing or its opposite without endless recriminations. We’re used to it.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
  For the past few decades I've only seen the US constantly criticized as either "complicit" or "imperialist". We tried to take responsibility for everything and it got us nothing but hate. Hopefully it will be Europe's turn soon.
  - seba_dos1 9mo ago
    That's a very childlike understanding of the world around you, I'm afraid.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
      It goes to show how pointless it is to chase 'soft power' by appealing to global public opinion. Even in democratic countries, most leaders have sub-50% approval. So even if the US was run by a politician chosen by a global electorate, we would most likely still be hated. And of course good intentions are no guarantee of good results, e.g. I believe Bush had good intentions with Iraq, he was just incompetent. China is very smart to simply not get involved in much of anything. As soon as you do something, it gives people the opportunity to blame you, if even a single person thinks the result is even a little bit less than perfect. Switzerland is the smartest.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
      If you're trying to imply that I have a childlike understanding... in that case, I appreciate you reinforcing the points I've made in this thread, namely (a) Europeans are condescending jerks, and (b) Europeans will airily claim "Americans are ignorant" but rarely have much interesting evidence to back up their claims. Our relationship with Europe is not very important for American prosperity. The GDP growth trend is the same before and after NATO was founded: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_person_in_the_United_States.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/GDP_per_...
      - seba_dos1 9mo ago
        These two comments you made above and the fact that you care so much about what a not very well-defined mass of people thinks about you and blames you of that you mistake it for soft power are the perfect illustration of my point.
        0xDEAFBEAD 9mo ago
        So, more condescension with no supporting evidence? Gotcha. Like the US benefit from NATO, "soft power" always remains a sort of esoteric wisdom which is mysteriously beyond the grasp of the average American. I've spent tens or even hundreds of hours arguing online with Europeans. They've never given a compelling explanation of how US "soft power" is supposed to work in a democratic country when the majority of the population dislikes the US. They just stick their nose in the air and say "too bad you're an ignorant American, if you were European like us, you would understand". Europeans think Americans are suckers, in other words. It's very ironic to me that Europeans say that Americans are purely self-interested, but when it comes to actually convincing to us, they are barely ever able to muster any sort of compelling appeal to our self-interest. (They don't just want us to defend them; they also want us to make the argument that it is in our national interest to defend them! It's rather astonishing.) At the end of the day, "Americans only care about their self-interest" is just another "America Bad" rhetorical point, as is proven by the actions of Europeans. If you want us to be benevolent to you, give us credit for being a benevolent actor in your region. If you truly believe we are self-interested, appeal effectively to our self-interest, and respect our decision if we conclude that your appeal is unpersuasive or the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But don't constantly talk about how we are evil and self-interested, and then de facto expect us to help you on the basis of altruism. That's what you've been doing for years now. At this point we are burnt out. "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
202508042147 9mo ago
Besides the military-industrial complex, I am very happy to see Europe develop its own digital systems. That way we won't be totally dependent on Google, Microsoft, AWS, OpenAI, Apple, Visa, Mastercard etc.