6 ms·

Such a shame that so many U.S. citizens do not see the ramifications of their political decisions. Each one of these actions is a stepping stone the world is t

Such a shame that so many U.S. citizens do not see the ramifications of their political decisions. Each one of these actions is a stepping stone the world is taking as a direct consequence of U.S. political negligence. And however difficult it was to render this consequence, it will be tenfold, or hundredfold, as difficult to reverse course.

iancmceachern 9mo ago
Many of us see them and are fighting the fight if our lives against it
- wrqvrwvq 9mo ago
  The US has openly spied on nato allies via msft for decades, and this was widely reported long before Snowden. All us tech is a tool of government surveillance and has always been. msft has also been repeatedly sued and sanctioned for corruption and bribery and coercive practices across europe over the past two decades. The fact that europe views trump as the threat but not the system he represents is cynical but the move towards autonomy is long past due. aws and msft etc all get away with overcharging for often terrible services is largely due to a lack of viable competition. europe has had great open-source offering for many years, but has "strategically" starved all of them of funding and credibility. This is as much a result of eu scleroticism as it is msft's bullying and anti-competitive practices. If trump makes it easier for them to get their act together it is to his credit.
mesk 9mo ago
Being Great doesnt comes with Best to Live with, Best to Work with, Best to make Business with etc... US will be Great like all Giants are - terrifying and alone ;-)
burningChrome 9mo ago
>>> Such a shame that so many U.S. citizens do not see the ramifications of their political decisions. Most US Citizens are not voting on what you think they're voting on. Most are worried about things that affect their day-to-day life like cost of eggs, the cost of gas, taxes going up, my 401K going in the dumpster. I live and breathe tech everyday. I see the dangers of it all around me. Day in and day out. You try and talk to people about how dangerous some of this stuff is. Unless people feel it somehow like having their identity stolen and they spend three years trying to fix it all? Nothing will ever change. People are 100% immune to this stuff now. Its the old frog in boiler water analogy.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  Well, that's the problem, these people are wildly uneducated and unsophisticated. They are voting their feelings. Prices levels do not come down without a depression, even if inflation slows. Their only solution is wages going up. Do they have a mechanism to push wages up? Taxes must go up, they have been too low for too long and the debt has accumulated (~$38T in US treasuries alone) and will need to be paid back or defaulted on. Insurance costs continue to rise due to rapidly increasing costs of materials and labor, as well as climate change (the US is currently spending ~$1B/year on climate driven events). Growth is over because the US population is not growing (tangentially, total fertility rate is below replacement rate in more than half of countries in the world, and this trend will continue). 401ks predicated on the S&P500 are held up by AI investment (which is outpacing consumer spending, the primary driver of the US economy, over the last year to the tune of ~$400B) and the Mag 7. When this stalls, everyone is going to be sad and not feel as wealthy as they did previously (“wealth effect”). Happiness is reality minus expectations, and the future is not going to be as good as the past, based on available data, evidence, and trends Everything is downstream of that. The vibes might be bad, but they ain't gonna get better. Financial Times: The consumer sentiment puzzle deepens - https://www.ft.com/content/f3edc83f-1fd0-4d65-b773-89bec9043987 https://www.ft.com/content/f3edc83f-1fd0-4d65-b773-89bec9043... | https://archive.today/nFlfY https://archive.today/nFlfY - February 3rd, 2026 (some component of price increases has been predatory monopoly gouging covered extensively by Matt Stoller on his newsletter https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/, but for our purposes, we can assume this admin isn't going to impair that component of price levels and inflation with regulation for the next 3 years)
  - xienze 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - emsign 9mo ago
      Strawman
  - jandrewrogers 9mo ago
bryanrasmussen 9mo ago
I mean this is essentially the same situation anyone is in when they have vendor lock in, they know it's a problem, but it is always just not worth it to get out, only this vendor lock in is all vendors from a country lock in and now it is not just worth it but imperative, absolutely necessary. And of course once you have gotten out of vendor lock in, you never go back. If you do go back to that vendor that locked you in before, because of some sweetheart deal, you make sure to set up all sorts of escape hatches so if you need to bounce quickly you can. The vendor lock in of the EU to the US for so many things is being dismantled.
giantg2 9mo ago
How someone voted has almost no bearing on the dangers of tech. The dangers were there before the last election and none of the candidates had strong positions regarding tech privacy. Microsoft would still be doing what it has been doing regardless of the election outcome. I wouldnt hold my breath that a European Teams/Zoom replacement will have robust encryption and privacy protection based on all the backdoor stuff I've heard being pushed in some European countries.
lenerdenator 9mo ago
1) Most US citizens don't care for what's happening right now. That's why there's people protesting while armed in major cities. 2) Continental Europe has shown a willingness to continue dependency on other countries in the face of far, far worse national behavior. NordStream 2 planned after the invasion of Georgia and was still under construction after Putin had invaded and annexed Crimea. Not "threatened" to do so, he had actually done it. There was a body count involved. So it's not too far off-base to think that despite all of the foolishness from the Trump administration, the US could seek some slack for its technology sector. It's not like you need Teams to keep your factories running and to avoid freezing to death in the winter, but that was the sort of integration with the Russians that Europeans were seeking to maintain while Putin was redrawing the map, at least until the Ukraine invasion, and even then, it took clandestine activity to permanently take NordStream offline. People like Trump will almost certainly point at this and say that this shows Europeans to be allies of convenience, not true partners. People like him love to cry about double standards.
- 8note 9mo ago
  note: the europeans didnt particularly mind maduro's kidnapping, and crimea isnt a part of the EU nor NATO. putin still has not gone to war, nor threatened to invade the EU yet to the point of international incident. the US has both sent politicians and other operators to try and fail at formenting rebellion in greenland against denmark, and has readied troops to invade
  - lenerdenator 9mo ago
    > putin still has not gone to war, nor threatened to invade the EU yet to the point of international incident. Russian agents are thought to have committed numerous acts, almost all of which could be considered acts of war, on EU/UK soil, or against EU/UK nationals * Poisoning of the Skripals with a chemical warfare agent, one dead, 2018, Salisbury, England, UK [0] * Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with a radioisotope, one dead, 2006, London, England, UK [1] * Vrbětice ammunition warehouse explosions, one dead, 2014, Zlín Region, Czechia [2] * Jamming of GPS signals used by EU President Ursula von der Leyen's jet, 2025, Bulgaria [3] * Arson of the Marywilska 44 shopping center, 2024, Warsaw, Poland [4] * Shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Donbas, 2014, 283 dead, most of them Netherlands citizens [5] * Sabotage of underwater telecommunications cables, railway lines, cyberattacks, probing airspace with armed aircraft, and on and on - just Google it, I don't have enough time to mention all of these. ... you were saying? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrbětice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrbětice_ammunition_wareh... [3] https://apnews.com/article/russia-europe-jamming-spoofing-gps-satellite-b6d48d7d515f7edb48c7241f13a22851 https://apnews.com/article/russia-europe-jamming-spoofing-gp... [4] https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/05/12/poland-confirms-russia-behind-fire-that-destroyed-warsaws-biggest-shopping-centre/ https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/05/12/poland-confirms-russi... [5] https://www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-17 https://www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-17
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
maxloh 9mo ago
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that people don't necessarily vote for the "best" candidate. Instead, they vote for the candidate who is "least bad" and do the minimum amount of damage to their interests. It is always a matter of compromise. As a counter-example, you cannot expect an LGBT person to vote for a right-wing conservative who advocates against their own rights, even if that candidate makes the "right call" on every other issue.
- klaff 9mo ago
  >As a counter-example, you cannot expect an LGBT person to vote for a right-wing conservative who advocates against their own rights, even if that candidate makes the "right call" on every other issue. I can't think of a candidate that fits this description.
  - speedgoose 9mo ago
    Yeah, isn’t the point of extreme right to make the wrong calls for the majority of the population? Historically, the right side was pro-monarchy. Then, you go extreme.
    - hunterpayne 9mo ago
      Terms like left and right only have meaning in one place at one time. So just because European conservatives 100 years ago believed something doesn't mean American conservatives today believe in that thing. That's why political scientists have terms like socialist, fascists, libertarian, etc. That's how US right (libertarian) is basically nothing like the right in Europe (conservative). That's because the basic axis of differences in the US is larger vs smaller government and in Europe it is completely different as both sides like larger government. I have tried to explain this to many Europeans over the years; somehow you are all allergic to understanding it. Its probably the only thing you all have in common.
      - speedgoose 9mo ago
        The French Revolution, when left and right started, was 237 years ago by the way. I agree about the scale being different across countries. The american politics would be only right on a common European left/right scale. If everyone doesn’t understand, have you considered that another thing in common is what you try to explain?
adventured 9mo ago
The French have created Mintel. May the world tremble. It's a shame the Americans don't see the ramifications of their political decisions.
- nradov 9mo ago
  Why did the French never follow up and improve Minitel?
- alamortsubite 9mo ago
  It's fun to think about what Minitel might have become if it had been born when today's Leopards Eating People's Faces Party had been in power, rather than the early 80's when Silicon Valley was dunking on everybody. It was way ahead of its time.
- palata 9mo ago
  Minitel, when it was created, was great technology. Sounds like you are proudly uninformed.
PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
A reminder that in the last presidential election, the winner was decided by one of the smallest margins ever, and the winner only won a plurality, not a majority. Almost as many people voted against the current US administration as voted for it, so although it is true that "so many US citizens do not see the ramifications", there almost as many who do (or some version of them).
- MiiMe19 9mo ago
  Almost as many, but not more than :)
  - rootusrootus 9mo ago
    Fewer than 50% voted for it, which means more than that voted against it.
    - irishcoffee 9mo ago
      Negative. I encourage you to go look at the election results.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
        Kamala Harris/Tim Walz 75,019,230 48.34% Donald J. Trump/J.D. Vance 77,303,568 49.81% Various Others 2,878,359 1.85% So, 50.19% voted against Trump, 49.81% voted for him.
        irishcoffee 9mo ago
        Voting for a 3rd candidate isn't a vote against one of the other two, or does your logic work both ways? so 51.66% of people voted against Harris? You know what, I don't even care if you respond. The election is over, and we can twist these numbers until the next election. The logical leaps taken about voting for/against someone are troubling. The tropes around this are disturbing. The emotional vitriol around all of those are even worse. The dude is the sitting POTUS. He stinks. Bitching about meaningless percentages isn't productive... at all.
quadrifoliate 9mo ago
Shame that so many EU citizens do not see the ramifications of theirs. EU citizens have elected ineffective leaders for decades -- leaders that ignored the potential to set up homegrown cloud providers, software suites or tech companies. They have elected leaders who were until very recently heavily dependent on Russian energy. As a result, EU dependence on US tech is near-total. I remember hearing a few months ago that companies in the EU still have to use Dun & Bradstreet (a US company) for routine government filings! Some minor headlines about civil servants stopping their usage of office sound impressive but isn't really making a dent in Microsoft's bottom line. If and when Microsoft's revenues from the EU start dropping by double digits or more, I am sure they will contribute large amounts of money to make the US government more civil and normal than it's being today. > And however difficult it was to render this consequence, it will be tenfold, or hundredfold, as difficult to reverse course. As a software consumer, if this takes off, I don't see any reason I would want the course to be reversed. More adoption and support of open software and standards is beneficial for consumers. It might even get Microsoft and the rest of US Big Tech to actively compete for a change rather than relying on their near-total monopoly.
- anon291 9mo ago
  Europe's main strategy these days seems to be blaming others instead of looking at themselves. For example, they blame America for their own issue of lacking tech companies, despite Europe taking credit for having fewer work hours, more 'equitable' societies, etc. They blame China for their own issue of lacking domestic manufacturing, despite their pride at having strong unions, supposedly good labor protections, and vacations. They blame India for the bogey of 'buying Russian oil', instead of blaming themselves for being the LARGEST purchaser of refined oil products from India. As if India, one of the hottest countries on the planet, actually needs heating oil. At this point, which country / region does Europe not blame? It's always someone else's fault. No one even thinks to look inside themselves.
  - bborud 9mo ago
    You are framing this as moral blame. It isn't about that. It is about strategic risk. Why would we blame the US for our own inability to build a viable software industry? Europe has been painfully aware for years that this is self-inflicted. The reason there is now serious talk about reducing dependence on the US is not resentment, it is risk. Dependence used to be a convenience. It is increasingly a liability. Trust in long-term stability, rule continuity, and alignment of interests is no longer something we can assume. That changes the calculus, regardless of who is "at fault". From the perspective of someone who works in software, I’m glad this conversation is finally happening. It’s not about assigning blame. It is about taking responsibility for capabilities we should never have outsourced so completely in the first place. If this looks like blame from the outside, that’s a misunderstanding of what self-correction looks like.
skippyboxedhero 9mo ago
Failing to make xenophobic choices when it comes to...enterprise software, is the issue? The US has spent tens of trillions defending Europe indirectly subsidizing social policies despite this the US has persistently been unpopular with Europeans because, obviously, they are a political target for domestic politicians (btw, you see this almost everywhere...if country A gives country B subsidies, you will almost always find that country A's people are virulently hated by a significant proportion of country B's population, the US was more unpopular than Russian before the Ukraine invasion in Germany...let me just repeat: a country which invaded Europe was more popular than a country which gave hundreds of billions a year in defence subsidies). Acting as if xenophobia towards the US hasn't always been part of the European political climate is not based in reality. Europe has been trying to protect its own market for decades, unsuccessfully. What is more, there is very limited trade WITHIN Europe in certain industries because of the hurdle of national xenophobia and protectionism. Europe has made an industry out of failure and greivance...and, for some reason, part of this narrative is that no country contributes as much as Europe. Reality? Iran...continued to break US sanctions for years so that failing European defence companies could sell their junk, investigations of Iranian politicians bribing EU parliamentarians. Russia...continued to break US sanctions after Ukraine invasion, had an extremely subservient relationship with Russia despite being repeatedly told by the US that NordStream 2 would lead to Ukraine invasion, former German president actually works for NordStream. On and on, the same mistakes being made all the time because there has never been any real strategy apart from extreme short-term political advantage to protect continued failure to generate social or economic gain in most of Europe (not all tbf, but the executive polling numbers that you see in some countries is incredible, you wouldn't think they have elections).
- lkjvkbn 9mo ago
  Stop with this nonsense. You know it is false. USA is not defending Europe from anyone.
  - intrasight 9mo ago
    It's crazy that this nonsense is still promoted - both by Republicans and Democrats, and leaders in Europe. WTF is wrong with people. If Americans are stupid enough to buy into the military-industrial conspiracy that we have to spend 10% of our GDP on defense, then they get what they deserve. The EU is right to call BS on that whole paradigm.
PeterStuer 9mo ago
I do not think many U.S. citizens were consulted on the decision to blow up Nordstream.
alamortsubite 9mo ago
I remember a conversation I had with my uncle before the 2024 election during which I told him Donald Trump's leadership would result in a no-less-disastrous American version of Brexit, if he were somehow elected a second time. My uncle's an avid Fox News/Newsmax watcher, and had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

iancmceachern 9mo ago

Many of us see them and are fighting the fight if our lives against it

wrqvrwvq 9mo ago
The US has openly spied on nato allies via msft for decades, and this was widely reported long before Snowden. All us tech is a tool of government surveillance and has always been. msft has also been repeatedly sued and sanctioned for corruption and bribery and coercive practices across europe over the past two decades. The fact that europe views trump as the threat but not the system he represents is cynical but the move towards autonomy is long past due. aws and msft etc all get away with overcharging for often terrible services is largely due to a lack of viable competition. europe has had great open-source offering for many years, but has "strategically" starved all of them of funding and credibility. This is as much a result of eu scleroticism as it is msft's bullying and anti-competitive practices. If trump makes it easier for them to get their act together it is to his credit.

mesk 9mo ago

Being Great doesnt comes with Best to Live with, Best to Work with, Best to make Business with etc... US will be Great like all Giants are - terrifying and alone ;-)

burningChrome 9mo ago

>>> Such a shame that so many U.S. citizens do not see the ramifications of their political decisions. Most US Citizens are not voting on what you think they're voting on. Most are worried about things that affect their day-to-day life like cost of eggs, the cost of gas, taxes going up, my 401K going in the dumpster. I live and breathe tech everyday. I see the dangers of it all around me. Day in and day out. You try and talk to people about how dangerous some of this stuff is. Unless people feel it somehow like having their identity stolen and they spend three years trying to fix it all? Nothing will ever change. People are 100% immune to this stuff now. Its the old frog in boiler water analogy.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
Well, that's the problem, these people are wildly uneducated and unsophisticated. They are voting their feelings. Prices levels do not come down without a depression, even if inflation slows. Their only solution is wages going up. Do they have a mechanism to push wages up? Taxes must go up, they have been too low for too long and the debt has accumulated (~$38T in US treasuries alone) and will need to be paid back or defaulted on. Insurance costs continue to rise due to rapidly increasing costs of materials and labor, as well as climate change (the US is currently spending ~$1B/year on climate driven events). Growth is over because the US population is not growing (tangentially, total fertility rate is below replacement rate in more than half of countries in the world, and this trend will continue). 401ks predicated on the S&P500 are held up by AI investment (which is outpacing consumer spending, the primary driver of the US economy, over the last year to the tune of ~$400B) and the Mag 7. When this stalls, everyone is going to be sad and not feel as wealthy as they did previously (“wealth effect”). Happiness is reality minus expectations, and the future is not going to be as good as the past, based on available data, evidence, and trends Everything is downstream of that. The vibes might be bad, but they ain't gonna get better. Financial Times: The consumer sentiment puzzle deepens - https://www.ft.com/content/f3edc83f-1fd0-4d65-b773-89bec9043987 https://www.ft.com/content/f3edc83f-1fd0-4d65-b773-89bec9043... | https://archive.today/nFlfY https://archive.today/nFlfY - February 3rd, 2026 (some component of price increases has been predatory monopoly gouging covered extensively by Matt Stoller on his newsletter https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/, but for our purposes, we can assume this admin isn't going to impair that component of price levels and inflation with regulation for the next 3 years)
- xienze 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - emsign 9mo ago
    Strawman
- jandrewrogers 9mo ago

bryanrasmussen 9mo ago

I mean this is essentially the same situation anyone is in when they have vendor lock in, they know it's a problem, but it is always just not worth it to get out, only this vendor lock in is all vendors from a country lock in and now it is not just worth it but imperative, absolutely necessary. And of course once you have gotten out of vendor lock in, you never go back. If you do go back to that vendor that locked you in before, because of some sweetheart deal, you make sure to set up all sorts of escape hatches so if you need to bounce quickly you can. The vendor lock in of the EU to the US for so many things is being dismantled.

giantg2 9mo ago

How someone voted has almost no bearing on the dangers of tech. The dangers were there before the last election and none of the candidates had strong positions regarding tech privacy. Microsoft would still be doing what it has been doing regardless of the election outcome. I wouldnt hold my breath that a European Teams/Zoom replacement will have robust encryption and privacy protection based on all the backdoor stuff I've heard being pushed in some European countries.

lenerdenator 9mo ago

1) Most US citizens don't care for what's happening right now. That's why there's people protesting while armed in major cities. 2) Continental Europe has shown a willingness to continue dependency on other countries in the face of far, far worse national behavior. NordStream 2 planned after the invasion of Georgia and was still under construction after Putin had invaded and annexed Crimea. Not "threatened" to do so, he had actually done it. There was a body count involved. So it's not too far off-base to think that despite all of the foolishness from the Trump administration, the US could seek some slack for its technology sector. It's not like you need Teams to keep your factories running and to avoid freezing to death in the winter, but that was the sort of integration with the Russians that Europeans were seeking to maintain while Putin was redrawing the map, at least until the Ukraine invasion, and even then, it took clandestine activity to permanently take NordStream offline. People like Trump will almost certainly point at this and say that this shows Europeans to be allies of convenience, not true partners. People like him love to cry about double standards.

8note 9mo ago
note: the europeans didnt particularly mind maduro's kidnapping, and crimea isnt a part of the EU nor NATO. putin still has not gone to war, nor threatened to invade the EU yet to the point of international incident. the US has both sent politicians and other operators to try and fail at formenting rebellion in greenland against denmark, and has readied troops to invade
- lenerdenator 9mo ago
  > putin still has not gone to war, nor threatened to invade the EU yet to the point of international incident. Russian agents are thought to have committed numerous acts, almost all of which could be considered acts of war, on EU/UK soil, or against EU/UK nationals * Poisoning of the Skripals with a chemical warfare agent, one dead, 2018, Salisbury, England, UK [0] * Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with a radioisotope, one dead, 2006, London, England, UK [1] * Vrbětice ammunition warehouse explosions, one dead, 2014, Zlín Region, Czechia [2] * Jamming of GPS signals used by EU President Ursula von der Leyen's jet, 2025, Bulgaria [3] * Arson of the Marywilska 44 shopping center, 2024, Warsaw, Poland [4] * Shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Donbas, 2014, 283 dead, most of them Netherlands citizens [5] * Sabotage of underwater telecommunications cables, railway lines, cyberattacks, probing airspace with armed aircraft, and on and on - just Google it, I don't have enough time to mention all of these. ... you were saying? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrbětice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrbětice_ammunition_wareh... [3] https://apnews.com/article/russia-europe-jamming-spoofing-gps-satellite-b6d48d7d515f7edb48c7241f13a22851 https://apnews.com/article/russia-europe-jamming-spoofing-gp... [4] https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/05/12/poland-confirms-russia-behind-fire-that-destroyed-warsaws-biggest-shopping-centre/ https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/05/12/poland-confirms-russi... [5] https://www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-17 https://www.britannica.com/event/Malaysia-Airlines-flight-17

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

maxloh 9mo ago

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that people don't necessarily vote for the "best" candidate. Instead, they vote for the candidate who is "least bad" and do the minimum amount of damage to their interests. It is always a matter of compromise. As a counter-example, you cannot expect an LGBT person to vote for a right-wing conservative who advocates against their own rights, even if that candidate makes the "right call" on every other issue.

klaff 9mo ago
>As a counter-example, you cannot expect an LGBT person to vote for a right-wing conservative who advocates against their own rights, even if that candidate makes the "right call" on every other issue. I can't think of a candidate that fits this description.
- speedgoose 9mo ago
  Yeah, isn’t the point of extreme right to make the wrong calls for the majority of the population? Historically, the right side was pro-monarchy. Then, you go extreme.
  - hunterpayne 9mo ago
    Terms like left and right only have meaning in one place at one time. So just because European conservatives 100 years ago believed something doesn't mean American conservatives today believe in that thing. That's why political scientists have terms like socialist, fascists, libertarian, etc. That's how US right (libertarian) is basically nothing like the right in Europe (conservative). That's because the basic axis of differences in the US is larger vs smaller government and in Europe it is completely different as both sides like larger government. I have tried to explain this to many Europeans over the years; somehow you are all allergic to understanding it. Its probably the only thing you all have in common.
    - speedgoose 9mo ago
      The French Revolution, when left and right started, was 237 years ago by the way. I agree about the scale being different across countries. The american politics would be only right on a common European left/right scale. If everyone doesn’t understand, have you considered that another thing in common is what you try to explain?

adventured 9mo ago

The French have created Mintel. May the world tremble. It's a shame the Americans don't see the ramifications of their political decisions.

nradov 9mo ago
Why did the French never follow up and improve Minitel?
alamortsubite 9mo ago
It's fun to think about what Minitel might have become if it had been born when today's Leopards Eating People's Faces Party had been in power, rather than the early 80's when Silicon Valley was dunking on everybody. It was way ahead of its time.
palata 9mo ago
Minitel, when it was created, was great technology. Sounds like you are proudly uninformed.

PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago

A reminder that in the last presidential election, the winner was decided by one of the smallest margins ever, and the winner only won a plurality, not a majority. Almost as many people voted against the current US administration as voted for it, so although it is true that "so many US citizens do not see the ramifications", there almost as many who do (or some version of them).

MiiMe19 9mo ago
Almost as many, but not more than :)
- rootusrootus 9mo ago
  Fewer than 50% voted for it, which means more than that voted against it.
  - irishcoffee 9mo ago
    Negative. I encourage you to go look at the election results.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 9mo ago
      Kamala Harris/Tim Walz 75,019,230 48.34% Donald J. Trump/J.D. Vance 77,303,568 49.81% Various Others 2,878,359 1.85% So, 50.19% voted against Trump, 49.81% voted for him.
      - irishcoffee 9mo ago
        Voting for a 3rd candidate isn't a vote against one of the other two, or does your logic work both ways? so 51.66% of people voted against Harris? You know what, I don't even care if you respond. The election is over, and we can twist these numbers until the next election. The logical leaps taken about voting for/against someone are troubling. The tropes around this are disturbing. The emotional vitriol around all of those are even worse. The dude is the sitting POTUS. He stinks. Bitching about meaningless percentages isn't productive... at all.

quadrifoliate 9mo ago

Shame that so many EU citizens do not see the ramifications of theirs. EU citizens have elected ineffective leaders for decades -- leaders that ignored the potential to set up homegrown cloud providers, software suites or tech companies. They have elected leaders who were until very recently heavily dependent on Russian energy. As a result, EU dependence on US tech is near-total. I remember hearing a few months ago that companies in the EU still have to use Dun & Bradstreet (a US company) for routine government filings! Some minor headlines about civil servants stopping their usage of office sound impressive but isn't really making a dent in Microsoft's bottom line. If and when Microsoft's revenues from the EU start dropping by double digits or more, I am sure they will contribute large amounts of money to make the US government more civil and normal than it's being today. > And however difficult it was to render this consequence, it will be tenfold, or hundredfold, as difficult to reverse course. As a software consumer, if this takes off, I don't see any reason I would want the course to be reversed. More adoption and support of open software and standards is beneficial for consumers. It might even get Microsoft and the rest of US Big Tech to actively compete for a change rather than relying on their near-total monopoly.

anon291 9mo ago
Europe's main strategy these days seems to be blaming others instead of looking at themselves. For example, they blame America for their own issue of lacking tech companies, despite Europe taking credit for having fewer work hours, more 'equitable' societies, etc. They blame China for their own issue of lacking domestic manufacturing, despite their pride at having strong unions, supposedly good labor protections, and vacations. They blame India for the bogey of 'buying Russian oil', instead of blaming themselves for being the LARGEST purchaser of refined oil products from India. As if India, one of the hottest countries on the planet, actually needs heating oil. At this point, which country / region does Europe not blame? It's always someone else's fault. No one even thinks to look inside themselves.
- bborud 9mo ago
  You are framing this as moral blame. It isn't about that. It is about strategic risk. Why would we blame the US for our own inability to build a viable software industry? Europe has been painfully aware for years that this is self-inflicted. The reason there is now serious talk about reducing dependence on the US is not resentment, it is risk. Dependence used to be a convenience. It is increasingly a liability. Trust in long-term stability, rule continuity, and alignment of interests is no longer something we can assume. That changes the calculus, regardless of who is "at fault". From the perspective of someone who works in software, I’m glad this conversation is finally happening. It’s not about assigning blame. It is about taking responsibility for capabilities we should never have outsourced so completely in the first place. If this looks like blame from the outside, that’s a misunderstanding of what self-correction looks like.

skippyboxedhero 9mo ago

Failing to make xenophobic choices when it comes to...enterprise software, is the issue? The US has spent tens of trillions defending Europe indirectly subsidizing social policies despite this the US has persistently been unpopular with Europeans because, obviously, they are a political target for domestic politicians (btw, you see this almost everywhere...if country A gives country B subsidies, you will almost always find that country A's people are virulently hated by a significant proportion of country B's population, the US was more unpopular than Russian before the Ukraine invasion in Germany...let me just repeat: a country which invaded Europe was more popular than a country which gave hundreds of billions a year in defence subsidies). Acting as if xenophobia towards the US hasn't always been part of the European political climate is not based in reality. Europe has been trying to protect its own market for decades, unsuccessfully. What is more, there is very limited trade WITHIN Europe in certain industries because of the hurdle of national xenophobia and protectionism. Europe has made an industry out of failure and greivance...and, for some reason, part of this narrative is that no country contributes as much as Europe. Reality? Iran...continued to break US sanctions for years so that failing European defence companies could sell their junk, investigations of Iranian politicians bribing EU parliamentarians. Russia...continued to break US sanctions after Ukraine invasion, had an extremely subservient relationship with Russia despite being repeatedly told by the US that NordStream 2 would lead to Ukraine invasion, former German president actually works for NordStream. On and on, the same mistakes being made all the time because there has never been any real strategy apart from extreme short-term political advantage to protect continued failure to generate social or economic gain in most of Europe (not all tbf, but the executive polling numbers that you see in some countries is incredible, you wouldn't think they have elections).

lkjvkbn 9mo ago
Stop with this nonsense. You know it is false. USA is not defending Europe from anyone.
- intrasight 9mo ago
  It's crazy that this nonsense is still promoted - both by Republicans and Democrats, and leaders in Europe. WTF is wrong with people. If Americans are stupid enough to buy into the military-industrial conspiracy that we have to spend 10% of our GDP on defense, then they get what they deserve. The EU is right to call BS on that whole paradigm.

PeterStuer 9mo ago

I do not think many U.S. citizens were consulted on the decision to blow up Nordstream.

alamortsubite 9mo ago

I remember a conversation I had with my uncle before the 2024 election during which I told him Donald Trump's leadership would result in a no-less-disastrous American version of Brexit, if he were somehow elected a second time. My uncle's an avid Fox News/Newsmax watcher, and had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]