I think it makes sense. Europe and other countries need to boycott the US based on how the US is negatively affecting the world and driving consumption. Similar to how many countries boycotted Russia.
Not at all but it seems reasonable to set some standards for the game (e.g supporting free trade) and stop playing with those that do not respect the rules.
Unfortunately with both China and America not respecting the rules that's not realistic for Europe at the moment but one can dream.
Absolutely, yes. In terms of encouraging environmental degradation, which to me is even worse than genocide in some ways (because it destroys our home, often permanently), it's up at the top!
The U.S. should pull out of NATO and leave Europe to deal with Russia, and the inevitable World War 3 that would ensue. The U.S. isn't driving consumption, we plateaued on that basis years ago. However, we're not so suicidal as the Europeans, who have resigned themselves to wring their hands and mock Americans as they get leapfrogged by China, India, and the rest of the rapidly developing world while contributing little but feckless regulatory edicts.
I don't understand this resentment you Americans have with Europe, there's plenty of technologies you depend on that have been developed by European countries and companies. Semi-conductors, advanced optics for military and scientific use, high-precision machinery for manufacturing of advanced materials (physically and chemically), pharmaceuticals, the list goes on and on.
European countries have been your allies for over 70 years, they've been molded by your policies on trade, to consume and to provide what you consumed.
And now you (and quite many others) come back to complain that you're being mocked? Yes, you are being mocked because your country behaves like a spoiled brat, a fickle-minded nation which only manages to measure "progress" through "how much money you make", a nation who decided to spread the motto "greed is good" without caring about your own citizens for the past 40+ years.
You do not survive alone, you cannot sustain your level of development without allies, and even adversaries, participating in the game you created to become a supremacy, and you are choosing to destroy this out of a sense of entitlement?
Your kind of comment is exactly why Americans are losing respect outside of your own borders, you are behaving as if the world was the same as in the 1980s.
The more I see this kind of comment the more I wish for the USA to meet its reckoning, to lose its status and meet reality. You're not what you once were, the greed game has eroded your society, your businesses, your infrastructure. Yes you are wealthy with some of the highest market cap companies in the world while having a sick, divided society, you fight amongst each other because unlimited greed will cause that: fractures, anger, and immense wealth for a lucky few.
You could be better yet you choose not to, repeatedly, and for what? More money? At some point that ends, it always ends...
This kind of threat that we would suffer without the US help is so infuriating.
When Russia started the war with Ukraine, they we're saying that it would be a blitzkrieg. It wasn't. And we're talking about a country which doesn't have any nuclear weapons, who's fighting with shitty FPV drones.
And you're here, telling us that Russia would even dare to set a single foot in any of the European country ? While they're in reach of French nuclear arsenal ? Without the ability to even know where "Le Terrible" is on earth ?
Yeah, it was a mistake taking this free trade, globalization, UN, WTO, basic human rights, ICC, change through trade, nuclear disarmament etc. stuff seriously. Cost us bigly.
It really did cost you bigly. Compared with 25 years ago, Europe is less safe, less powerful, and more dependent on other countries for very important things.
The problem is that for a lot of these problems Europe hasn't had that much self determination over the last 75 years. The US had to intervene twice in world wars that started in Europe. And after WWII the US did, arguably, a reasonably noble thing in how it provided investment to rebuild Europe. No more wars out of Europe and a market to sell US goods to, and then a bit later a bulwark against the USSR. All these things meant a forced dependency. And the US still wants to sell its military equipment, and under Trump very very keen to sell more goods. I would argue that this situation also contributed to Europe losing it's initial developments in computing with brain drain to the US.
75 years just isn't that long in geopolitics, and it's a hard ship to turn around. Only 25 years ago the relationship between the US and Europe was still very strong and it didn't look like there was any pulling back.
You mention buying Russian gas. Again, it's very hard to suddenly stop that gas flow. Even Ukraine didn't shut down the gas pipelines going from Russian to Europe while they had existing contracts in place, it's happening this year. Gas from Russia was 40%, is now less than 11%, is forecast to drop much further this and next year. These kind of economic dependencies also continued for surprising long in previous wars between countries that were actually in hot wars with each other.
The kind of changes you're talking about are slow. The US also has it's dependencies on Asian manufacturing that it is also now trying to turn around, and that will also be slow.
Yes the funding of Russia's war machine (by buying Russian energy) whilst expecting the US to fund the EU's defense takes some level of nerve. Nobody should take the EU seriously.
It doesn’t always work like that in practice. I can’t read a bunch of papers on fluid dynamics and composite materials and then build a modern airliner wing. If you fund the science, you get the experts.
But often it is like that. I point to the US before WW2, and China more recently. Scientific spending seems a consequence of economic dominance, not a cause. It's a kind of potlatch, a demonstration that the society has the money to burn for a status activity.
So, the results aren't published? How is that consistent with how science is supposed to be done?
Or do you mean there are spinoffs? But then how is science supposed to be superior at producing these compared to directed development of actually useful things?
> The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.
> The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important
The EU isn't a sovereign country unto itself, so it either must be "big and important" or it has no other reason to exist. The EU is the second or third largest economy by GDP and not far off from the U.S. but it expects the U.S. to pay disproportionate levels for everything as if it's still 1946.
> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU
$820 billion in hurricane damages since 2016, and the cost center we should focus on is some $40 million/year spent researching causes of that? That's roughly similar in proportionality—and in reasoning—to a datacenter deleting its smoke detectors. (If that is what you want for your discounts, there is OVH).
The hurricanes will continue, as they always have, as will aerial, satellite, and oceanic monitoring of hurricanes, but that is not what the OP article is talking about.
Why the hell should I have to live a worse life with more storm damages, less military preparedness, etc. etc. etc. just because sycophants are willing to make up ridiculous excuses for extremely unwise decisions? Such is the pain of democracy, while we still have one.
As an American citizen and firm capitalist, I welcome a technically strong and united European ally that contributes to a majority of its own defense and to the production of new and useful technology to the rest of the world at a fair price. The U.S. wants strong allies and trading partners.
WW2 was 80 years ago. It's time for Europe to reprioritize in favor of economic growth and development; deprioritize protectionism and bureaucracy; encourage investment in small businesses; unite politically instead of pretending to unite; and let go of the cultural past by looking to the future.
The U.S. is always changing, and will always be changing. That's the nature of the country and the source of its strength.
I'm ready for the downvotes--but I haven't said anything that is not true.
Not all change is good though. Stuff like attaching green energy and branches of natural science for ideological reasons only makes America weaker, its plain idiocy.
Making Europe pay more for its own defense is one of the few smart things Trump has done. The rest is almost universally harmful to both America and rest of the world.
I’m not sure how you summon up the nerve to ask Europeans to “deprioritize protectionism” given the economic policy of the current US administration. I think many Americans still don’t realize that the country has lost all credibility as an economic or societal model for others to follow.
Those things take time and have an inertia in both branches: it's easier to continue using the existing resources than standing up your own, but once you're committed to developing a replacement it's not easy to stop.
(EU already did it, however partially, with its own satellite navigation system.)
I think it makes sense. Europe and other countries need to boycott the US based on how the US is negatively affecting the world and driving consumption. Similar to how many countries boycotted Russia.
You really think what the US has done is remotely on par with what Russia is doing?
Yes. Russia has been threatening invasions for years. Now for 7 months America has started doing it too.
It's a much worse feeling being threatened with military invasion by someone your own government tries to continue insisting is a close ally
Not at all but it seems reasonable to set some standards for the game (e.g supporting free trade) and stop playing with those that do not respect the rules.
Unfortunately with both China and America not respecting the rules that's not realistic for Europe at the moment but one can dream.
Not necessarily but nobody was trusting Russia.
Absolutely, yes. In terms of encouraging environmental degradation, which to me is even worse than genocide in some ways (because it destroys our home, often permanently), it's up at the top!
The U.S. should pull out of NATO and leave Europe to deal with Russia, and the inevitable World War 3 that would ensue. The U.S. isn't driving consumption, we plateaued on that basis years ago. However, we're not so suicidal as the Europeans, who have resigned themselves to wring their hands and mock Americans as they get leapfrogged by China, India, and the rest of the rapidly developing world while contributing little but feckless regulatory edicts.
I don't understand this resentment you Americans have with Europe, there's plenty of technologies you depend on that have been developed by European countries and companies. Semi-conductors, advanced optics for military and scientific use, high-precision machinery for manufacturing of advanced materials (physically and chemically), pharmaceuticals, the list goes on and on.
European countries have been your allies for over 70 years, they've been molded by your policies on trade, to consume and to provide what you consumed.
And now you (and quite many others) come back to complain that you're being mocked? Yes, you are being mocked because your country behaves like a spoiled brat, a fickle-minded nation which only manages to measure "progress" through "how much money you make", a nation who decided to spread the motto "greed is good" without caring about your own citizens for the past 40+ years.
You do not survive alone, you cannot sustain your level of development without allies, and even adversaries, participating in the game you created to become a supremacy, and you are choosing to destroy this out of a sense of entitlement?
Your kind of comment is exactly why Americans are losing respect outside of your own borders, you are behaving as if the world was the same as in the 1980s.
The more I see this kind of comment the more I wish for the USA to meet its reckoning, to lose its status and meet reality. You're not what you once were, the greed game has eroded your society, your businesses, your infrastructure. Yes you are wealthy with some of the highest market cap companies in the world while having a sick, divided society, you fight amongst each other because unlimited greed will cause that: fractures, anger, and immense wealth for a lucky few.
You could be better yet you choose not to, repeatedly, and for what? More money? At some point that ends, it always ends...
You are everything wrong with America, uttering yet more threats at their "allies" because they refuse to bend the knee to your pedophile president.
This kind of threat that we would suffer without the US help is so infuriating.
When Russia started the war with Ukraine, they we're saying that it would be a blitzkrieg. It wasn't. And we're talking about a country which doesn't have any nuclear weapons, who's fighting with shitty FPV drones.
And you're here, telling us that Russia would even dare to set a single foot in any of the European country ? While they're in reach of French nuclear arsenal ? Without the ability to even know where "Le Terrible" is on earth ?
Come on kid, be serious for a minute.
Lol, I'll believe it when I see it. Is this the same Europe that despite everything going on in the world is:
- Still buying Russian gas
- Dependent on U.S. Military bases for their own security
- Dependent on Chinese manufacturing for consumer goods
- Dependent on the U.S. for software and cloud infrastructure
- Dependent on the Chinese for computer hardware
Best of luck Europe, you've had a good run, but you've gotten yourself into a fine mess here.
Yeah, it was a mistake taking this free trade, globalization, UN, WTO, basic human rights, ICC, change through trade, nuclear disarmament etc. stuff seriously. Cost us bigly.
It really did cost you bigly. Compared with 25 years ago, Europe is less safe, less powerful, and more dependent on other countries for very important things.
1 reply →
Not everything but in alot of cases yes it was a mistake. Trade has never been free, globalization has been a negative for alot of people etc
The best will be when they turn away from the US and start infighting.
As an American, I think the US as EU scapegoat mechanism is so cute.
No history, no bad blood. Those centuries old rivalries and wars have all been forgot about lol.
The problem is that for a lot of these problems Europe hasn't had that much self determination over the last 75 years. The US had to intervene twice in world wars that started in Europe. And after WWII the US did, arguably, a reasonably noble thing in how it provided investment to rebuild Europe. No more wars out of Europe and a market to sell US goods to, and then a bit later a bulwark against the USSR. All these things meant a forced dependency. And the US still wants to sell its military equipment, and under Trump very very keen to sell more goods. I would argue that this situation also contributed to Europe losing it's initial developments in computing with brain drain to the US.
75 years just isn't that long in geopolitics, and it's a hard ship to turn around. Only 25 years ago the relationship between the US and Europe was still very strong and it didn't look like there was any pulling back.
You mention buying Russian gas. Again, it's very hard to suddenly stop that gas flow. Even Ukraine didn't shut down the gas pipelines going from Russian to Europe while they had existing contracts in place, it's happening this year. Gas from Russia was 40%, is now less than 11%, is forecast to drop much further this and next year. These kind of economic dependencies also continued for surprising long in previous wars between countries that were actually in hot wars with each other.
The kind of changes you're talking about are slow. The US also has it's dependencies on Asian manufacturing that it is also now trying to turn around, and that will also be slow.
Yes the funding of Russia's war machine (by buying Russian energy) whilst expecting the US to fund the EU's defense takes some level of nerve. Nobody should take the EU seriously.
Could you show the numbers in 2018 and the numbers in 2024 so we can compare?
I thought the results of science are free for everyone to see. That's how science works.
So isn't it optimal to depend on science someone else does? They spend the money, but you both reap whatever knowledge is obtained.
Nothing is free even scientific results. Patents, closed journals, industrial secrets.
It doesn’t always work like that in practice. I can’t read a bunch of papers on fluid dynamics and composite materials and then build a modern airliner wing. If you fund the science, you get the experts.
But often it is like that. I point to the US before WW2, and China more recently. Scientific spending seems a consequence of economic dominance, not a cause. It's a kind of potlatch, a demonstration that the society has the money to burn for a status activity.
5 replies →
That’s what I thought. It’s nonsensical.
No, “science” often produces results favourable to those who fund it.
So, the results aren't published? How is that consistent with how science is supposed to be done?
Or do you mean there are spinoffs? But then how is science supposed to be superior at producing these compared to directed development of actually useful things?
1 reply →
> The United States funds 57% of Argo's $40 million annual operating expenses, while the EU funds 23%.
Why the hell is the US on the hook for practically 2/3rds the cost of a system that monitors the entire worlds' ocean?
1. Why should the EU monitor the Pacific? The Pacific is big.
2. The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.
3. The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important, so if you want to be big and important you gotta do more.
4. The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.
> The EU claims the EU as its sphere of influence. The U.S claims The U.S and Central and South America by virtue of the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy from the 19th century. A lot has happened since then.
> The U.S wanted to be in charge and be big and important
The EU isn't a sovereign country unto itself, so it either must be "big and important" or it has no other reason to exist. The EU is the second or third largest economy by GDP and not far off from the U.S. but it expects the U.S. to pay disproportionate levels for everything as if it's still 1946.
> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU
The EU doesn't have military bases.
2 replies →
> The EU has military bases in the EU and the waters which touch the EU. The U.S has a military presence in every Ocean of the world.
UK/France and I’m sure others have bases all over the world.
2 replies →
$820 billion in hurricane damages since 2016, and the cost center we should focus on is some $40 million/year spent researching causes of that? That's roughly similar in proportionality—and in reasoning—to a datacenter deleting its smoke detectors. (If that is what you want for your discounts, there is OVH).
https://www.wunderground.com/article/storms/hurricane/news/2...
The hurricanes will continue, as they always have, as will aerial, satellite, and oceanic monitoring of hurricanes, but that is not what the OP article is talking about.
Because they chose too?
It more than likely has uses in defence?
Hegemony isn't free.
It is one of the side effects in terms of costs that a country has in order to enable the safe flow of global trade.
Why the hell should I have to live a worse life with more storm damages, less military preparedness, etc. etc. etc. just because sycophants are willing to make up ridiculous excuses for extremely unwise decisions? Such is the pain of democracy, while we still have one.
As an American citizen and firm capitalist, I welcome a technically strong and united European ally that contributes to a majority of its own defense and to the production of new and useful technology to the rest of the world at a fair price. The U.S. wants strong allies and trading partners.
WW2 was 80 years ago. It's time for Europe to reprioritize in favor of economic growth and development; deprioritize protectionism and bureaucracy; encourage investment in small businesses; unite politically instead of pretending to unite; and let go of the cultural past by looking to the future.
The U.S. is always changing, and will always be changing. That's the nature of the country and the source of its strength.
I'm ready for the downvotes--but I haven't said anything that is not true.
Not all change is good though. Stuff like attaching green energy and branches of natural science for ideological reasons only makes America weaker, its plain idiocy.
Making Europe pay more for its own defense is one of the few smart things Trump has done. The rest is almost universally harmful to both America and rest of the world.
I’m not sure how you summon up the nerve to ask Europeans to “deprioritize protectionism” given the economic policy of the current US administration. I think many Americans still don’t realize that the country has lost all credibility as an economic or societal model for others to follow.
We can also add “unite politically” to the list.
Yeah, just like they're breaking their reliance on the American military /s.
Those things take time and have an inertia in both branches: it's easier to continue using the existing resources than standing up your own, but once you're committed to developing a replacement it's not easy to stop.
(EU already did it, however partially, with its own satellite navigation system.)
Yes, they will divert money from their social welfare spending into military spending any day now.
Any. Day. Now.
Yes. Very similar actually. Most of Europe is increasing spending on military defence.
By promising to buy more american weapons, more american LNG and investing in american companies.
We europeans are having a really hard time breaking our US addiction. I mean what are we even doing in here
6 replies →
So they finally are doing what trump asked them to do?
5 replies →
*Most of Europe has promised to do something... in the glorious future, where anything is possible. Anything at all!