Comment by Fokamul
4 days ago
I wouldn't touch anything US-based with 10m long pole.
At this this, US is basically enemy to EU. Good for us, we will be less dependent on US global oil police.
I hope EU companies will stop manufacturing US airplanes and other things.
That the relations between EU and USA are not in an historical maximum, no discussion... but enemy? The hyperbole is a little big too far fetched.
> I hope EU companies will stop manufacturing US airplanes and other things.
Independent of how little we may like current US politics: a) it will probably change, more sooner than later. And b) starting a trade war with the US is not very good idea. We like it or not, there are many things that we need desperately to be able to produce. Starting with computers and SW. And please don't start with "OOS SW" as much as I like the idea, and I constantly advocate for it, even if we start yesterday, it will take decades to build everything again.
> The hyperbole is a little big too far fetched.
Sure.
Though I think the EU is thinking that blowing up critical energy pipelines and seriously damaging Europes economy through the resulting much higher energy prices wasn't too friendly.
All to boost US energy exports, make US manufacturing more competitive and met US geopolitical goals.
ie that's not declaring war - but's it's a pretty big FU wake up call. Turning a blind eye when the US treats central and south american countries with contempt is one thing, but it's a bit of a shock when it openly does the same to you - cf Greenland as another example.
> Though I think the EU is thinking that blowing up critical energy pipelines and seriously damaging Europes economy through the resulting much higher energy prices wasn't too friendly.
Although if you ask "cui bono?" there are some pointers in that direction, is not proven, and there are also pointers in other directions. I refrain of accusing without reasonable proof.
>All to boost US energy exports, make US manufacturing more competitive and met US geopolitical goals.
I cannot blame them for that. Of course anything they do is in their benefit. Some may argue, is precisely what the government should do. It is clear, that while the action in Venezuela was against a very shady government, was done thinking in US interests (as can be clearly seen by titles as "Trump Says Venezuela Will Buy Only US-Made Products From Oil Deal Proceeds").
So yes, they do all in own interest, and the EU isn't and wasn't very different. Alone if you consider the long colonialism years. Now the EU is acting poorly, but I would say not out of altruism, but incompetence and bureaucratic stagnation.
I will not say "is impossible" they do the same in Greenland... For good reason I think. BUT comparing the 2 is also farfetched. I know plenty of people from Venezuela, and unless you were part of the government, you were strongly against it. I know no venezuelan (from the at least 100 I know) that wanted Maduro there. And many are still in party modus. Granted, I know primarily expats, so, survivor bias may apply... but still.
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The US administration is threatening to invade the territory of an EU member state, so I'm not sure the use of 'enemy' is too hyperbolic.
> That the relations between EU and USA are not in an historical maximum, no discussion... but enemy? The hyperbole is a little big too far fetched.
You know the US is explicitly threatening with military action on Greenland, which is part of Denmark, which is in NATO, just like the US?
The US's international appeal (especially for EU countries) is crumbling by the day.
> That the relations between EU and USA are not in an historical maximum, no discussion... but enemy? The hyperbole is a little big too far fetched.
Is it, given this kind of talk from POTUS preceding the more recent threats?
> Let's be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That's the purpose of it, and they've done a good job of it.
And https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-putin-russia-eu...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/05/a-warning-no...
It looks mutual between EU citizens and Trump.
https://www.politico.eu/article/half-europeans-see-donald-tr...
Every Canadian I know will chime into conversation about how we'll resist when your batshit crazy authoritarian leader decides to invade us. Your government is behaving like an enemy. It's not hyperbole when they're actively waging economic warfare and making worst threats.
> we will be less dependent on US global oil police
EU, Germany especially Loves Russian oil.
So congrats?
People like you drive EU to China instead.
USA an enemy to EU because of Venezuela? LMAO, EU has said nothing. In fact we agree. We have no relations to Venezuela. Now if the USA attacks Greenland, that is different.
It seems the be explicit US policy to force people to choose between China and US.
This seems to come from the US obsession with hegemony as the only strategy ( without realising that only works for 1 out of 200 countries ) - everything is framed as a US/China tussle for top dog.
Note this isn't a purely a Trumpian thing - he is just being more open/less subtle about it.
The US has to realise that it's days of global dominance are coming to and end - just as the UK had to ~100 years ago. What I hope is this time we won't have a couple of world wars during the transition to a multi-polar world.
The interesting bit is that Trump and many of his supporters seem (to me) to be openly working to bring an end to US dominance and promote the likes of China to the top spot instead. The US got its global power by being relatively undestroyed by WWII, and thus both willing and able to pay to rebuild the rest of the world, while performing some very sneaky currency and political manipulations. Now the US wants to cut off our allies and strengthen our enemies.
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It is the US and its recent actions, including its rhetoric, that are driving people towards China.
Also, only reacting to US aggression after Greenland is attacked? Not prepare at all and then write a strongly worded letter after the fact?
If, after everything Trump has done, you still think he isn't serious about annexing Greenland then you and people like you, including the eurocrats, are truly hopeless.
Or to put it another way - is the binary US/China choice as top dog a false one?
I suspect most countries would prefer a multi-polar world where the majority is dominant ( democratic ), not one particular country ( autocratic ).
ie why do we have to choose to be under the heel of the US or under the heel of China?
The US has been playing the benevolent dictator role for the last 70 years, but when faced with losing the dictator role, the benevolent facade is dropping.
The US is mistaken to think that countries not wanting US dominance is the same as wanting Chinese dominance - they, in fact, want neither.
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>I wouldn't touch anything US-based with 10m long pole.
And yet, here you are...
Hackers -the ones from MIT- and smart people hate the US goverment snooping and Echelon like projects more than Europeans. These were either privacy first since forever. If not, they fought hard to say whatever they liked without consequences.
In current times, encrypted accesses to Usenet and IRC via I2P and the like will boost the platforms more than ever. Why? IRC and Usenet are dead simple, Emacs has ports to everything and among being a Lisp env, an editor and a minimal web browser, it's an IRC and Usenet client too even under Android. Oh, and you can set I2P under Android too. Thus, you just have to set Emacs against it. There are several guides online.
Rocksolid BBS' federate with the whole Usenet (and some newsgroups catch anything text based, no binaries). On I2P proxies to Libera.chat, it's just a matter of time to exist. Meanwhile, there's ILITA IRC with I2PD.
Difficult? A Chinese Bluetooth keyboard it's worth very little today, and the gains are enormous. You can chat with people with really small bandwidths but encrypted either with TLS or I2P. You don't have blocks (except bans under IRC), comment limits, enforced timelines and any enshittification coming from social networks. Also, you can short Usenet threads by score. That's it, it's there a brilliant poster and comp.misc, you set the score for all his comment to 1000; then that random Joe will always be on top in any group. Try that with X/Twitter, Reddit or whatever.
You will be able to chat with Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, the Japanese, anyone. Forget tribes, forget the bullshit made to earn zillions of cash from X with shitty fabricated polemics. Forget Meta's snooping and industrial stealing. You aren't enforced to give your real name and address.
Just when you think it's only the evil dictatorial regime trying to break up NATO along comes a helpful, presumably USA-based HN commenter, to remind you that a lot of USA citizens are also supportive of destroying any semblance of accord with former allied nations and spreading disharmony wherever they go.
It's right for all of us to consider whether our online presence supports fascist dictators be they from USA, Russia, Venezuela, or wherever.
Thanks for the reminder that even here people are sometimes shit, I guess.
> And yet, here you are...
I'm pretty sure you know what the parent poster meant, and you should take it as a compliment to you and our HN community that they didn't intend you, or us, to be included in that definition of 'anything US-based'.
Stirring the pot like that isn't helpful to you, to HN itself, or any of our community.