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Comment by zanellato19

1 day ago

Brazil is trying that and getting a bad look from the USA. Can you imagine a smaller nation doing the same? What would the USA do?

Exactly, what are we going to do? Impose sanctions? Tarriffs? We do that anyways without recourse. Bomb you? We might do that anyways without reasonable impetus. Y'all have no reason to temper your actions for fear of retribution; our President is threatening to rename a lake to Lake America because we "won't be doing business with Ontario anymore". Why? Does it matter? Could anyone have done anything that wasn't just abject groveling? No.

To hell with us. The rest of the world needs to move on from giving a crap what our government thinks of you.

The US is fighting wars with everyone on everything at the same time. They don't have the resources to do anything about it. Every country will develop their own independent payment networks.

China was right to block US tech companies to promote their own, most large and capable countries will do the same over time.

  • I wouldn't cite China as the example. If they had their way, every country would have its own firewall just like them, giving them significant control over information flow to their citizens. It works very well. That's why they have been pushing "internet sovereignty" for years.

    • Meanwhile the US who currently has their way will block European judges from using banks, credit cards and all online services after they investigate Israel for war crimes.

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    • Whilst USA has the same control over information flow, but their sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) extend across the whole World.

      USA have used media projection (heh!) for decades to extend their soft powers.

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Doctorow's point is that the USA's trade policy is unilaterally capricious and malevolent toward the best of its allies, so other nations' actions ultimately cannot be said to have any mitigating causal effect. Might as well just go for it. F the DMCA.

  • Unfortunately, DMCA isn't just in the USA's interest and the copyright situation is actually worse in some other countries, notably Germany which, which means I wouldn't have too much hope on the EU moving in the right direction on that front.

i remember when, after 9/11, the US introduced webcams and fingerprint scanners, at airports to take pictures of incoming travellers and Brazil had a similar lo-fi response, with ink blots and cameras only for Americans. Something like this needs to happen more and everywhere now.

Brazil is close with Russia, and Russia does a lot more harm to the world than the US even under Trump.

  • What would be your principal point to persuade someone Putin is worse than Trump?

    Invading a country, pretending it's not a war of aggression, letting your own soldiers die, and killing many innocent people with no authority from your democratic houses... USA would not do that!!! /s

    Trump stood to avoid prison, he's used the stock markets to steal from his own people. It looks like the wars against Venezuela, and against Iran were/are solely to enrich himself. Honestly, Putin looks more moral here (a phrase I thought I'd never even contemplate) unless he was also in a club of prolific paedophiles?

    I guess Putin has perverted a super power into an oligarchic dictatorship...

    • > What would be your principal point to persuade someone Putin is worse than Trump?

      They’re the same kind of nasty. What differentiates them is the constitutional system around them. Putin is in for life. Trump is about to lose, at the very least, the House.

      If the midterms are perverted, yes, there is no difference.