Are you sure? Several months ago I've woke up to learn, that my country start to kill civilians of other country with bombs, missiles and shelling, to become "top player". And, what is even worse, many of my fellow citizens support it.
Now I'm trying to leave this country for some other, which don't have ambitions to be top-player but don't kill civilians and don't attack malls and hospitals.
Счастливо тебе, и если тебе надо помочь, послай мне dm, не знаю что могу делать, но могу стараться помогать.
Прости за мой плохой русский, меня научали мальчики когда я жил в Украине на обмене в средней школе.
All will be well soon - the world is changing fast, and there are opportunities to work anywhere you want.
So long, and if you need help, send me a dm, I don't know what I can do, but I can try to help.
Sorry about my bad Russian, I was taught by the boys when I lived in Ukraine on a high school exchange.
Avec la technologie actuelle, nous devrions pouvoir parler dans la langue de notre choix sans problème.
Well said.
I wrote a bit about this the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32131878
Good luck man, there aren't many such countries. I live in slovenia, we're like tiny, point a finger at putin and meanwhile have soldiers in syria.
> Are you sure?
Would you rather have someone else / some other country (other than the US) be the hegemon? If so, who? And are they willing to do it?
But this is just an examination of practical reality. Ideally we wouldn't have a hegemon. Ideally maybe we wouldn't have countries either.
The wildly different allocation of resources and population (on a country border basis) suggests some country will always have the means to be hegemonic (especially if other contenders all decide not to be).
Which in practice means there will always be a hegemony.
If the US ceded its role tomorrow, China would step into it. If China ceded it the day after, Russia or the EU would step into it. (I'm skipping over India and Japan, as both seem to have cultural aversions to strongly projecting power overseas)
As an American, I would love for the EU to get more unified and take the reins, but in the mean time, a US hegemon is required for global stability
This is laughable. The US initiated way too many wars and other offensive / disruptive actions. If you call this stability then I have a bridge to sell. The only stability it provides is it's own. Well maybe some to the allies.
During pax americana, we've seen massive increases in quality of life around the world. Do you think the world is going to be more stable as the US retreats and other players fill the power vacuum and we have to deal with the rising threat of climate change?
Until one thinks they can get an edge over another one by jumping them:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_history_by_c...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_history_by_p...
You have your own take on a subject and we do not have to agree
Do you think the world would rather have China in charge?
I assume you are going to claim that we can either have no major power or that the EU could be that major power. I highly doubt either of those could occur.
I believe some wars can be just and as such enforcing things through the military can be just. The idea that military use has to be bad is ridiculous.
>"Do you think the world would rather have China in charge?"
I prefer the world "ruled" by few major entities / blocks. No need to be either US or China alone.
>"I believe some wars can be just and as such enforcing things through the military can be just."
Like bombing the country that refuses to trade in certain currency?
Typically when that happens I have to click the time posted on a post and then I have the option to reply. Not sure what causes that.
>I prefer the world "ruled" by few major entities / blocks. No need to be either US or China alone.
I don't think that is possible.
Do you have any historical examples where this has happened? Please don't bring up a time when there were multiple major powers but they were so far away they couldn't reach the other, assuming they even knew the other existed.
If you do not have any examples of this occurring, why do you think it would work in the present?
>Like bombing the country that refuses to trade in certain currency?
I am not suggesting that the US has only done good and just things. Only that the US is better than China.
China is currently taking over Hong Kong (despite having a 50 year agreement for autonomy starting in 1997), attempting to take land from India, trying to dam a river that provides water to India, is consistently threatening Taiwan, etc. China does the same crap. And all of that is within the last few years. If you want to go back further we can.
I would also note several of the US invasions were not in fact US invasion but NATO invasions. This likely means one of those blocks of country you support to be a world power were involved with these invasions.
Let's talk about internal affairs. China has a terrible record and potentially holds the record for causing the most deaths of its own citizens. Obviously they don't care about the people. What about freedom? Do Chinese citizens have more freedom than US citizens? Why would China treat people who are not its own citizens better than the citizens?
The US is better for the world and the people under its control than China.
Once again you are pushing a choice that should not be there in a first place. I do not want to choose between either. Period. If you let any country run free and control the others it will devolve to a dictator. So I prefer to have the US, Europe, China, BRICS and whatever else is coming.
Do you have any historical examples where this has happened? Please don't bring up a time when there were multiple major powers but they were so far away they couldn't reach the other, assuming they even knew the other existed.
Also, you are advocating for more than 2 blocks. As far as I can tell there are only two super powers right now.
You can believe whatever you want. We have totally different point of view on subject and do not have to agree.
Non military conflicts could be better than being poodle under the threat of war which will happen if the world is ran by a single country
And many top players.
MAD, as insane as it may sound, actually works. Everyone being fearful of massive retaliatory strikes keeps everyone in line. You get all sorts of bad behavior when nations have no fear of massive retaliatory strikes.
Regional powers (which is what we would devolve to) are demonstrating exactly what the world would look like without America running the show: conquest and genocide in Ukraine, saber rattling in the south china sea, genocide of the Kurds.
We don't have an interest in solving for all the world's ills, and we are the source of many.
But the world has been less stable and more dangerous in the past.
What you are espousing is a luxury belief.
War is a constant.
It was in the past.
It is a constant today.
And it will be in the future.
All nations are, at heart, "evil" in this regard. Essentially, nations are just scaled up street gangs with more destructive weapons.
The only proven method of keeping these street gangs from getting too far out of hand, of keeping all our war at the level of low intensity conflict, is MAD. Nations behave only at the barrel of a gun. To argue that America is "evil" is as irrelevant as it is to argue that America is "good".
For instance, I know that all nations can be said to be "evil" at root, and "good" at root. Here's the thing though, do you think it matters to me if China is "evil" and "good"? Of course not, they're just a different street gang. The US has a responsibility to humanity to keep them in line. Should it matter to China that the US street gang is "evil" and "good"? No. They have a responsibility to humanity to keep the US in line.
In the age of weapons of mass destruction, only mutually assured destruction has ensured these street gangs don't come into conflict. Relying on sunshine and rainbows and unicorns that crap out skittles is nonsense. This is not a children's game of "good guys-bad guys". There are no good guys or bad guys. Only nations, (street gangs), pursuing interests. They are kept in line only at the barrel of a gun. Take that gun away and they will run rampant.
The best way, in my mind to minimize conflict is through a global monopoly on violence, one street gang to rule them all
This is what the last 30 years have been
Only they haven't.
The reason the US and Russia haven't run rampant the last 30 years is because the US and Russia can blow each other away. So Russia satisfies itself with Georgia and now Ukraine. And the US satisfies itself with those nations in the MidEast region. Remove Russia, and the US would have been all over the yard. Remove the US, and Russia would have been all over the yard.
And now with the rise of China, mankind is even safer. Not only that, but more of mankind have begun to enjoy the benefits of safety. The US and Russia were perfectly willing to fight a proxy war in Korea 70 years ago. They wouldn't dare do that today. Why? The Chinese presence in any MAD calculations.
Today Africa is much safer, it is developing much faster. A large part of the reason for that is the presence of China. Now instead of proxy wars, the great powers compete to see who can deliver Africa the most undersea bandwidth for instance. This is a much better situation for Africans than the situation that existed when only the US and Russia were superpowers. And this situation exists because of MAD. It proves that an armed society is a polite society.
The US, China and Russia are all fulfilling their responsibility to keep the peace by maintaining lethal arsenals of weapons of mass destruction so that they are each confident in their own ability to destroy the others. And that is good for all of us "little people" in the world. Whether we are American, Chinese or Russian. (And even good for us if we are Korean, African, or from South America.)
North Korea is insane in its own way, but hereditary personality cults do have a history of acting in the interest of self-preservation.
Basically, betting that there were scenarios where the US wouldn't risk escalation to nuclear war in response to a calibrated Russian tactical nuclear strike in a third party country, thus allowing Russian nuclear effects to nullify superior western precision weapons without consequence.
https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/russian-military-doctrine-ca...
At this point there is no support for the idea that US weapons have superior precision. The Russian campaign is showing the opposite.
Here’s a good video showing the difference.
https://mobile.twitter.com/revishvilig/status/15402647613292...
A) NATO's air campaign in the Kosovo War (1999) certainly scared the shit out of Russia.
B) That Russia is currently bombarding Ukrainian cities with repurposed surface to air missiles doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in their ability to produce sufficient quantities of precision missiles for even a moderate scale conflict.
C) The majority of Ukrainian platforms at this point still aren't Western, and thus incapable of firing NATO precision ordinance.
"Stable" in some kind of Platonic absolute sense, or "more stable that things would have otherwise been"?
The only difference is that they were careful to not do it directly, or do it in secret. Exactly the same way they are doing in Ukraine now, where they avoid giving the weapons directly to Ukraine, but instead they use the well exercised muscle of influence.
Promoting a better way for countries to adopt, partnering with them in economic activity and education, and helping them to defend themselves when neighbors try to use aggression to oppose that partnership is a much better mechanism for bettering the world than outright war and conquering other nations.
Does the US do shady stuff that bites them later? Yes. Is the world overall better with the US as one of the biggest out there for now? Also yes. Both things can be true.
By all means shine a light on, and oppose the shady stuff but don't make the mistake of thinking that the world doesn't need a strong entity who can both promote and also defend better ways to govern.
We're less extractive than the alternative, and the US having an effective monopoly on violence has been a stabilizing force.
Europeans really don't deserve a voice in this whole conversation given that they rely entirely on the US for protection. Germany's decision to build Nord Stream 2 demonstrates how detached they are from realpolitik.
Meanwhile with America running the show: entire regions - South America and Middle East - largely destroyed, with tens of millions of victims.
America isn’t the “world police”, they are just the main bully.
Middle East has also been invaded by Europe and Russia
China has been running concentration camps on middle eastern (for now the ones within their borders)
The effect of their existence as a power base then cascading into politics, etc.
That said, most of South America's recent woes have generally been economic (Guatamala, Venezuela), and the rise of Chavez (and the US not directly acting against his movement for decades) undercuts the "US is responsible for what happens in South America" position.
You should stay and make a change.
When Putin captured all the power in the country, rigged the elections, killed journalists no one cared at all. US, EU, UK, etc - no reaction at all. War with Georgia - no reaction.
When Russia actually started this war 8 years ago and annexed Crimea there been really weak reaction and after everyone just did business as usual. EU even sold Kremlin equipment to fight protesters as well as military weapons on condition they will only be used "inside the country".
When Russian opposition leader Navalny was poisoned again no real sanctions were introduced. Now US, EU and UK expect people to go on streets and protest.
PS: I am from Russia and I immigrated to Turkey on 25th of February and there is nothing fun about going into unplanned political immigration. I dont try to remove all responsibility from myself or someone else, but even I as software engineer have very limited capacity to do political activity. Since I have a job and my family to feed.
Now from abroad I help my friends from Ukraine when I can and I publicly share my political statementa that will land me to prison if I ever come back. But sorry I'm not going to destroy my life for the cause.
> When the war began, some sensible Russian people had stated that they were ashamed to be a Russians. Others had stated that they were not responsible for Putin's actions, because he was always a usurper and they were always against him. I think the both sides are wrong. On the one side, it is foolish to be ashamed of your nationality, just as to be proud of it, because the origin of a person does not depend on his will. Only your actions can be a sources of your pride or shame. On the other side, unlike the legal responsibility that may be personal only, moral responsibility may be both personal and collective. Personal responsibility is a responsibility for own acts that constitute the objective aspect of a crime. Collective responsibility is incurred when a persons have not done all measures within their power to avoid the situation in which the crime is committed on behalf of society of which these persons are a part.
> Just some examples. Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov are not responsible for this war, because they resisted Putin's regime, fought for Russian civil society, and, as a result, gave their lives. Alexei Navalny is alive but he survived an assassination attempt, was imprisoned and is still fighting Putin's regime, so he is not responsible for this war. Yuri Nesterenko is not responsible for this war too, because he distanced himself from Russian society in advance, stating in 2010 that Russia was always absolute and pure evil growing out of mentality of Russians, and he had for ever left Russia and was granted asylum in USA.
> Quite simply, if you want to avoid the collective responsibility you should stake your life on the line fighting for your society and become a hero or sever all ties with your society in advance and become an outcast.
> As for me personally, I have not severed all ties with Russian society and I'm alive and even not jailed. Therefore, I share collective responsibility for all what is going on now.
> My beliefs have evolved, and there are some things seemed right earlier but not seem right now. I was constant in one thing – in categorical opposition to Putin's regime. I always believed that the expression of discontent is not enough, because words don't change the world. I carried out actions using all tools available to me. I was a lawyer (even good, in opinion of some people) and tried to uphold the law, rights and freedoms, not just as a representative of a party to the proceedings – for money, but also on my own behalf – for an idea. Fight for an idea has brought nothing but problems; however, I knew what I was about. I wasn't naive man, I saw dictatorship, a priori incompatible with justice, was being established in Russia, but at that time I felt obliged to use all available legal arrangements. However, in 2020, after the amendments to the Russian Constitution was approved, I realized that I finally had enough. The country where the law was replaced by schizophrenic delusion of psychotic führer, really doesn't need lawyers, and, under these circumstances, I considered it shameful to continue to pretend that well-written legal document has any meaning. I saw that elections, mass protests, petitions, legal proceedings didn't work. I saw that attempts to change the situation through a violence against government structures (see this) did not work too, because it didn't resonate with society. I don't know what I should do now to change the situation. Anyway I realize that all things what I did earlier were inefficient - I haven't prevented the transformation my country into fascist dictatorship. And so, again, I share collective responsibility for all what is going on now.
Cut the crap. We are all part of a single society - people of the earth. Follow your logic we should be doing nothing else but trying to stop the world acting the way it does. The atrocities are everywhere. I would not be able to sleep and function at all if I've felt that "collective" responsibility. This is not how humans work.
Second, it's not necessarily in one's best interest to live in a "top dog" country. There are plenty of happy and prosperous people living outside the USA. The USA ranks 26th for median wealth. To give another example, even if China took the top dog spot, the average US citizen would still be better off than the average Chinese citizen.
Thirdly, I don't think the US remaining top dog is a realistic objective in the long term. In my opinion, it would be smarter to lead by example knowing that your successor will be judged by the standard you set.
Wealth is also a function of age - older people tend to have more - and that ranking is not normalized by such extraneous factors.
The US is number 2 by median income, and number 1 for median disposable income, both of which are pretty important, especially to younger people that want cash flow to enjoy life.
not sure how accurate wikipedia is here, but I've seen this claim elsewhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_and_discretionary_i...
Apparently what I meant above is discretionary income, which would include all fundamental bills/payments such as healthcare etc. Disposable income does not include those, it only includes income plus direct payments from the government.
What would interest me is discretionary income, which includes healthcare, mortgages etc. plus education, public transport, daycare, energy and I'm possibly forgetting some fundamental things.
"Disposable" is very much misleading here. If you have 1000$ "disposable" income but you still have to pay for or cannot afford all of the mentioned things then you are in worse shape than someone who has 500$ "disposable" income but can lean on public infrastructure and subsidies for those things. The difference can be quite massive.
The reason I'm specifically suspicious of the US here is that public infrastructure seems to be quite a bit behind and fundamental things like healthcare is substantially more expensive than in some of the most developed countries.
>The following table represents data from OECD's "median disposable income per person" metric, which includes all forms of income as well as taxes and transfers in kind from governments for benefits such as healthcare and education and is equivalised by dividing by the square root of household size. This metric, in addition to using a median rather than a mean, uses "data calculated according to the new OECD terms of reference"; compared to previous terms of reference, these "include a more detailed breakdown of current transfers received and paid by households as well as a revised definition of household income, including the value of goods produced for own consumption as an element of self-employed income." As OECD displays median disposable incomes in each country's respective currency, the values were converted here using the World Bank's PPP conversion factors, accounting for each country's cost of living in the year that the disposable median income was recorded. Unless noted otherwise, all data refers to 2019. Data are in United States dollars at current prices and current purchasing power parity for private consumption for the reference year.
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
[0,0,0,0,5,6,11,11,11,11]
Another example that I know fully well is Brazil: the mean is 8,560 BRL and the median is 8,220 BRL for monthly salaries, that is, very close. But these monthly salaries are known to vary widely from 2,170 BRL (USD 417) to 38,200 BRL (USD 7349), so hardly anyone is really making 8220 or close to that.
Yes, they do. I am a PhD mathematician with decades of work using these tools. I am quite clear on the meanings and shortcoming of all sorts of indicators. I am also aware how real world data trends instead of cooked up examples that don't match reality.
Median is a common value used by economists precisely because it more likely shows what a person makes as opposed to the mean, especially in cases of high inequality.
> If you don't believe
Yes, you can make up all sorts of nonsense. Not a single country follows the distributions you made up.
>Another example that I know fully well is Brazil:
You conclusion does not at all follow from your claim. Or from the actual data.
> so hardly anyone is really making [the median] or close to that
Well, by definition, over half of people make the median or more. Is that hardly anyone?
If you look at the data [1] (income by decile in Brazil), besides the 50% making median income or higher, another 30% of the people make within 30% of median. That leaves 20% of the people making under 70% of the median income.
What is your definition of "hardly anyone"?
Look at the data. Clearly median is much more accurate than mean for explaining how much people make, as this example showed.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1251075/average-monthly-...
???
Did you compute them? do you know how?
The Brazil data I just posted has median around 1383, mean of 2308.36, which is 65% larger.
An interesting test: compute with details the median and mean of the data I just posted. I already gave you the answers. I think you don't understand these terms.
That you don't like the outcome of the most two commonly used indicators is not the fault of the indicators - it's the result of you wanting to put things in the data that are not there.
Your claim about Brazil having "hardly anyone", which I showed was nonsense, shows exactly what you're trying to do - put things in data that simply are not there (and in the case of your claim, are mathematically invalid no matter the income distribution).
>Now, if you start using the percentiles as you're doing here, then you are looking deeper into the data
Percentiles have the exact same graph as dollars, or pesos, or anything you desire.
% = exact$ / total $.
So they have the exact same graph, merely a different label. Do you understand this? The % of total income versus income shows nothing different, there is no "deeper into the data" or "more accurate and reflective of reality" for this.
It's simply scaling ALL the numbers by a constant. No one changes place. No income compared to another changes in ratio. There is no subtle nuance pulled out of anywhere.
>which just proves my point.
Is your point that you don't know what any of these terms mean? Then yes, you proved your point. Mean, median, percent, ratio, decile, all the terms related to income - you have screwed them all up beyond reason.
Don't bother replying until you answer the questions I poste last time:
Do you admit 50% of people in Brazil make median income or more? What amount of people did you mean by "hardly anyone"?
Also answer: is the graph of income by % the same geometric shape as income by $, or yen, or peso, or any currency you care to pick, thereby giving no "looking deeper into the data"?
You're pretending to not understand what I said. The figure for median income of 8K is very different from what most people make in Brazil, because a lot of people will make less than that, and a lot make more than that. So, the median has little value, because there is just a small group that makes close to that figure compared to the other groups that make more or less. It is a society with large inequality that is polarized on the two sides, instead of concentrating on the middle. My point is that this measure is more useful for societies that have more equality, such as a few countries in Europe. For the US, the median is less and less useful to get a clear picture.
I see you've moved from "hardly any" to "a lot". Nice goal post move. I bet if you look at the actual data enough you might get to what the data shows.
The majority of people, for every country for which there is data, are close to the median income. End of story. You so far have posted so many simple math errors that it's hard to know where you got your understanding of these things.
> It is a society with large inequality that is polarized on the two sides, instead of concentrating on the middle.
There is no such country. Don't believe me? You can check this yourself:
[1] has all the data to check. Select the datasets showing income share. Select them, pick years, say 2016-2021. Download the CSV. There are 114 countries in the dataset for which all 5 quintiles of income are available for recent years.
For each compute the median. Then look at how close the middle 60% of the people are to the median.
If you really want to see that distributions are not what you believe, graph every single one. If you need tools, jupyterlab using python, pandas, and matplotlib make this task pretty easy.
In EVERY single one you will find the majority of people are decently close to the median. I just checked. Do it yourself so you stop believing all this mystical non-existent income distribution where people are not majority near the median.
I know you're convinced there are income distributions like those you made up, but there simply are not. It is empirical fact.
So, if you want to continue to claim what you are - do what I told you to do, pick the country you think best supports your claim, and post the actual data.
Until then you are simply wrong.
This is why economists, even those working in inequality, start with the median income when discussing income. It is the best point indicator of what the majority of people in a society earn.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/gini-index-coef...
Last I checked, poverty line in the US is at the 85th percentile in world income.
And most importantly, most of that inequality and poverty levels are what are called pre-tax-transfer: they do not account the value given the poor and lower incomes via benefits, which lowers a lot of that inequality (and makes our poor even richer than most of the planet).
For fun, pick a country that you think is better for lower income people, and let's look into it :)
Inequality is relative. Absolute income means a significant amount, even more so to the poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
Ito does, it's PPP adjusted. Just look it up instead of projecting flaws to obtain a result you desire.
>My point was that there are many countries, including ones that are tiny in comparison (definitely not "top dog"), that enjoy a comparable standards of living.
I agree completely. All the top countries would be good places to live, with tradeoffs here and there.
But for most of the world, the US is a terrific alternative to where they are, at least if one wants to raise their standard of living.
For example, in the US the median network for an 69 year old (right around retirement) is over 33 times as much as an 18 year old [1], with values in between spread as expected. So a society with significantly more old people (such as Japan) would have higher median wealth but not necessarily more income (for example, US pays more than Japan on average [2], but we're younger).
So, if you move to Japan from the US assuming you'll end up richer, you may be making a mistake because you made that choice based on comparing things incorrectly.
This is why it matters.
[1] https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/
[2] https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/japan/usa?sc=XE...
GP even mentioned the reason in their post.
I guess you'd have to be an idiot like Trump to even suggest such a thing.
Most of the studies about “people are irrational” are times psychologists fail to realize that people are acting on an iterated (rather than single round) game — and enforcing reciprocity through their “irrational” acts.
We know at an instinctive level that reciprocity is necessary in game theory — eg, Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma.
You always start out by cooperating but if someone defects on you, you defect on them.
Your argument is so general as to be almost meaningless. It can be used to justify not responding to almost anything.
The Chinese "elite capture" program is well-documented. They intentionally ensnare govt & business elites (and family members) in extremely lucrative deals with China to ensure they remain pro-China's interests. And there are some big names in there (Bidens, Pelosi, and McConnell etc).
The media doesnt talk about this corruption as they all have movie studios and want to sell their movies into China.
Its why there may be occasional discussion of the problem (like here) but for some inexplicable reason, simple and obvious steps are never taken.
The political will simply isn't there due to elite capture IMO.
This is true, but it only works if everyone does it. If one country is the main one that safeguards trade, releases costly scientific research (and open source codebases) for nothing and plays as well as it can, but others don't (and even look down on the safeguarding country for spending so much on defence instead of bread/circuses) then it takes a massive force of goodwill on the part of that one country to keep doing it.
(I am not a US citizen/resident, to pre-empt the standard ad hominem :)
By what metrics? As an example, longevity is slightly higher in China than in US (77.30 years vs 77), it is GROWING in China while decreasing in US, or china has a transportation system that is orders of magnitude better than the US one. Ever heard of the high speed train system and how quickly was it built?
Median income alone isn't enough to judge the quality of life of a country. I'd rather be poorer but live longer and in a country that works also for non-millionaires, but you can take more money with the lower longevity if you prefer.
So the answer is that even in purchasing power parity terms, the average American is 4x richer.
The pont being that you can still have somewhat higher life standards with less purchasing power but a stronger social state.
Not everyone lives in Shanghai or Beijing you know.
In China if you're the wrong religion they put your men in prison camps and assign a rapist to sleep in bed with your women and indoctrinate them into the communist party.
If you are in prison, China will murder you and sell your organs.
In China the labor conditions are so bad they have to install "suicide nets" in factories because so many people try to jump out of windows or off roofs to kill themselves.
America has MANY warts, but there's really no comparison.
And US is Russia with better PR? :-D
I think the parent post means top dog in military and power sense, not welfare of citizens which is all well and good until another nation is trying to undermine your core values.
> Your successor will be judged by the standard you set
What successor are we thinking of here? Is that China? India? Russia? These are all very scary regimes.
gp's argument has no parallel to appeasement.
That's what I was referring to. Not appeasement exactly but seems like similar logic.
Making enemies of people who are not enemies is one of the stupidest moves imaginable. It is hard to overstate how mistaken that sort of mistake would be.
All this ignoring for the moment the general Western enterprise of erstwhile colonialism and current economic neocolonialism that makes the destruction wrought upon developing nations by direct war/attacks pale in comparison.
Limiting ourselves to the currently existing states, India has annexed Hyderabad, Junagardh, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli, while China has invaded India and Vietnam, and is presently annexing the South China Sea. This doesn't excuse the US actions in Iraq, but it does show that they are less unique than you claim.
Now compare this to Afghanistan.
The same Afghanistan that was invaded by the Soviet Union?
If you consider Taiwan a country, that's technically true but misleading. China would have invaded long ago if the US weren't capable or (claiming to be) willing to defend it.
Feel free to prove otherwise; note that Chinese statements are quite often misquoted.
“The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] would have no choice but to fight … and crush any attempt of Taiwan independence, safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/10/china-tells-us-it-w...
My biggest concern is domestic policy, given that being "top dog" would probably imply a general cultural and political movement towards whichever regime wins.
USA has done awful things, and nowadays seems to have a very uncertain future but values such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion are important to humanity and happiness imo and they still stand in the US despite all the craziness.
China and Russia shouldn't need any explanation in that respect, I can point to many sources. India's BJP is almost openly persecuting Muslims and doctoring history to be more Hindu.
The country or its people? This seems like a very selfish sentiment. Shouldn't we want everyone to prosper, no matter where they are from? There are countless who may not be able to afford to emigrate to the US
You accidentally revealed your own zero-sum thinking in associating “top player” with putting other people down.
Just show's how well they've integrated into American society.
Who loses out if I buy you a beer? Or if my wife and I love each other? Or if people are nice to others?
Like seriously - if I treat someone else with respect and dignity am I required to shit on someone else? Of course not.
The zero-sum game is life stuff is nonsense.
Even if it was a vegetarian meal, it got transported to you and dumped CO2 into the atmosphere. The truck probably hit bugs and maybe ran over some small wildlife.
If you didn't exist, there would be slightly less demand. If 300 million of you didn't exist, there would be a whole lot less demand. The world would be noticeably different.
Everything is energy expenditure and reallocation. Even hugging your son expends ATP that could have been used elsewhere. Hug him a million times and you will be very tired.
I'm not arguing that you shouldn't love your son. I'm saying that the world, at the most fundamental level, revolves around the availability of energy and resources. All of these things in the micro add up in the macro. And even if you aren't concerned about it, your government likely is.
Every single choice has some quantum of opportunity cost and will play out in butterfly effect fashion.
Hell, we don’t even know if the energy budget for the universe is a constant - we just haven’t observed the opposite yet.
Similarly, if I am good at making stuff but terrible at growing stuff, by being in a community I can survive despite an utter lack of agricultural abilities and produce stuff that the farmers would not know how to make. Again, not zero sum.
You could argue that this is civilisation and unnatural. But nature is full of symbionts, not only predator/prey dynamics. “Life is a zero-sum game” sounds like something a social Darwinist would say to justify their pre-existing beliefs. It is in some instances, but it also isn’t in quite a lot of cases. It comes from a very incomplete understanding of life and ecosystems in general.
What about the externalities of that transaction?
* If meat, what was killed to produce it? If veg, what was removed from the ground (and how will it be replaced)?
* Who was exploited in the production?
* What damage did you cause while traveling to the store?
* What damage was done while getting the goods/supplies to the store?
* What infrastructure was required to facilitate the transaction? What damage and opportunity costs did that inflict?
The economist would hand-wave all that away as being priced in by the "efficient" economy. Yet even the tiniest inefficiency (say, un/under-accounted damage to the environment caused by burning petroleum to power the vehicles involved) compounds over billions of such transactions every day over decades into massive debts that humanity must ultimately account for.
You’re entirely right, though for now I am indeed going to wave my hands and argue that it was a first-order simplification, and that externalities do not turn it into a zero-sum game :)
In the grand scheme of things, yes, lack of foresight is going to bite us in the backside.
> When I go shopping I give them a bill and I get something to eat. Both parties are better off after that transaction.
Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0. That’s why it’s zero sum. Of course, life isn’t truly 0 sum. Otherwise we’d have no total economic growth, which is clearly false. However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum.
“Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game
> Zero sum doesn’t mean you can’t exchange money for goods and services.
Zero-sum means that when I win, the other party loses. It means that there cannot be a voluntary exchange, because to agree about an exchange both parties need to see an upside.
> Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0.
That is not what it means, though. In any case, I am better off after the exchange because now I have something to eat. The merchant is better off as well because now they can buy an iPhone or something. We are both better off at the end, and nobody has to lose. A zero-sum game in this instance might be the farmer who was pressured to sell €10 cheaper so that the merchant can take these €10 as margin. There was a net transfer from one party to the other with no other upside. But it is far from the only type of situation in life.
The initial assertion was “life is a zero-sum game”. Not by a long shot.
> However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum.
Again, that is not what it means. Game theory does not need the concept of currency.
Besides, even assuming that it were the case, the fact that the amount of most currencies in existence just keeps increasing is a proof that it does not work like that. Someone, somewhere has to generate that money, therefore there are net emitters.
Money gets created from banks lending money from their deposits. This makes sense even in a zero-sum world.
Again, zero sum does not imply like for like trades are impossible.
Pricing isn’t perfect. It is typically the same for all. If I hadn’t been drinking water for a whole day, I would probably buy it anywhere I could and pay whatever the price. If I really need a medicine to live, I would probably pay whatever the price as long as I can afford it. And there are more examples of this
So, if something prices at 5 dollars, it can be worth more than 5 dollars to the seller and / or the buyer
The only source (I can think of) of positive sum benefits is innovation. I can, for example, take iron ore, learn how to smelt steel, and use steel to get more iron ore. Smelting iron is still zero-sum, but learning how to smelt iron is what increases the size of the pie.
Good for you, but try imagine hearing this from a Chinese national.
"Whatever it needs" to do...
And every single country on this planet has baggage. I have people in my family who are living who remember what it feels like to be considered sub-human by British imperialists as they allowed famines. On the grand scheme of things, if we add up the sins and good deeds, the USA has done more to improve the lives of people who are here than other places. It is one of the major reasons my family and I immigrated here. Is it perfect? No. But it is a place where a bunch of different types of people attempt to build something together. Gridlock sucks, sometimes it feels pretty awful, but just speaking personally for myself there's nowhere else in the world where someone like me (with my skin color, religious preferences, etc.) would be able to go as far, or further.
For all its faults, the USA has
- elected an African American president twice
- fought itself and destroyed its own people and cities over slavery
- helped stop 2 world wars
- most of the top companies and talent
- created a sense of world stability where people for the most part chill the f out when they see and want $USD
And it has also caused some problems along the way, I'm sure you can name many of them. But again, in 2022, when I do a simple calculation of where I (with my own baggage and attributes) would most prosper, I can't think of another country. I have been to Japan, loved it there, but it isn't the melting pot that America is. Again these are just my opinions, as someone who immigrated to the USA and is proud to call themselves a US citizen.
This is a bit of a fallacy. The institutions/administration from top-to-bottom is important. For example, Scandinavia never had a black/brown head of state but still the police would not treat you badly like it happens in US. Yes, I have lived there.
Another example, India had head of state from all different religions but does not mean all is fine and clean.
The institutions are important - not the person.
PS: In principle, you as US citizen want your country to top dog. All fine. At the end if every country thinks they themselves want to unilaterally be top - conflicts happen.
At some point one needs to think universally - and establish a level.
Realistically, you have it backwards. In some areas, the education is fine. In many - probably the majority - it simply isn't and you'll be indebted for the rest of your life unless you are really lucky. We (Americans) pay teachers poorly and treat a number of students like criminals while punishing those same students in ways that they cannot get the same education as their peers. And this is after we've failed to make sure children have food and housing so that they can put effort towards learning.
"Lacking in some areas"... yeah. With a generous definition of some.
Interestingly enough, this is the same pro CCP argument but applied to the US.
I will say that the melting pot is true and that the US is one of the most immigration friendly places I've been to. (from a cultural side, not from a paperwork side). In other places you can be there for 20 years and never be considered a true citizen while in the US people would consider you a true American.
As another European who lives in Asia, I don't understand this European love of blanket ranting against Americans. Yes, the US still has a racism problem. In fact, every country in the world has racism problems.
That doesn't make the topic of who can get elected irrelevant. Can you imagine ANY kind of foreigner getting elected into government in China? Or even in, say, Germany? These are different degrees of cultural openness.
Obama was/is african-american, not a foreigner
I'm curious how universal this is. The fascist regimes of the mid 20th century all demonized a large segment of their own population and put them outside the protection of the state, or rather, targeted them as enemies of the state and the "true" citizens. How does Marine Le Pen speak of the left-leaning French? Japan is a particularly ethnically uniform nation. Does the Right in Japan regard the Left as non-Japanese? If so, does the Left reciprocate, or does it regard the Right as Japanese but wrong?
> Who cares? Is this an American thing to always brag something about race, or how much "non-racist we are"?
It matters because it's unprecedented in the United States, which is far more diverse than any other country in the world by a long shot. Think about all the racial tension that exists in most European countries from some sizable "outsider" populations. Roma in most of Europe. Polish in England. Turks in Germany. The United States completely eclipses all of that because we have accept more refugees and immigration than any other country in the world and we have the largest immigrant population in the world.
> Nobody gives a sh* here.
Probably not if you are part of the roughly 90 percent of people in any given state in Europe that happen to be the right race.
> In my opinion, US is still racist AF.
Yes, which is why seeing a black president be elected is remarkable.
> And it can mean racist against all kinds of people, even against white people. But you don't want to hear that ;-P ;-P
Racism is a shared tradition amongst all people and ironically it does not discriminate.
Here’s one fundamental problems with many Americans: they know nothing about outside world.
Literally half of all the worlds countries is more diverse.
I'd urge you to pause your ignorant, inflammatory, and xenophobic takes for a moment to reflect on whether or not they're even true.
We have the largest population of immigrants in the world [4] and the nation is comprised almost entirely of non-indigenous people. The fact that the US is incredibly diverse is not controversial to anyone that is even modestly informed.
[1] https://www.mofa.go.kr/www/wpge/m_21509/contents.do
[2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2000/dec/phc-t-43.html
[3] https://archive.ph/20200212212204/http://factfinder.census.g...
[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...
Until you realize that metric would only be meaningful per capita, which again proves you’re talking rubbish:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
Why would this metric only be meaningful per capita?
Sure, you have no racial problems of your own to deal with... (http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/harvard-survey-over-15-yea...) There is an old saying about people in glass houses that you may want to consider. You may also wish to stop kidding yourself when raising the question of whether or not you are on your knees servicing American interests; if you did not see yourself in such a position then it would probably be unnecessary for you to act with such childish hostility.
I think OP is aware of this? The US is better to be beholden to than Russia or China, but ideally the EU would be the union it claims to be instead of a bunch of bickering city-states.
I resent that too. I think the US is objectively a worse country, but somehow, everything useful to the world happens there. I’m just sad that such an exploitative way of living is what apparently drives progress.
This is like the pot calling the kettle black.
Europe raped the rest of the world for nearly 500 years: the British Raj, the Belgian Congo, the Opium wars, the race for Africa, Apartheid are but a few examples.
Europe created modern chatel slavery.
Europe started the WWI and WWII.
Europe birthed Nazism and Communism.
Many of the problems we currently face are the result of European meddling: from the Sykes-Picot agreement, to Iran, to African civil wars.
The US has been a far more benign superpower than (collectively) Europe ever was.
UPDATE:
Even racism (scientific racism) is a European invention, mainly to justify why it was good for Europeans to subjugate the rest of the world.
If the US had been a super power in the 17th or 18th century you can be certain they would have colonized other countries as well.
Regarding WWI and WWII, Europe has never had the homogeneous culture of big states like the US. Again, wars have been the norm for most of humanity. The current peaceful era is really an anomaly.
It is like the bully who broke both legs and then goes around on crutches and tells everyone how great he is in that he doesn’t beat people up anymore.
Do you think the UK would have given up India if it were not for the devastation of two world wars?
Look at how France fought to keep its colonies in Algeria and Vietnam?
Look at how Germany bullies countries like Greece and Italy and cozies (up until very recently) to Putin.
You mean Dutch and British, right?
Not all Europeans are equal
- In 959, Doge Pietro Candiano IV emitted a decree stipulating that no Venetian citizen could lend money to a Greek slave trader, and no Venetian ship would be permitted to transport slaves in Greece. The ban on slave transport was later extended "Ultra Polam" or beyond the Venetian outpost of Pola
- In 1435 Pope Eugene IV condemned slavery, of other Christians, in Sicut Dudum; furthermore, he explicitly forbade the enslavement of the Guanches.
- On 22 December 1741, Pope Benedict XIV promulgated the papal bull "Immensa Pastorum Principis" against the enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and other countries
Long before the USA was a thing (and Italy for that matter)
We can do this for so many countries, I mean some of them literally murdered millions of people in camps (Germany, USSR, China), some of them were so corrupt their entire nations failed (Sri Lanka, African nations with people like Mugabe, etc.), while others were quiet and complacent in the conquest and rape of the world (most European countries) and now tell others from a high horse.
As an outsider, to me the American society doesn't seem like a sustainable one. And it corroborates the fact that so many Americans are emigrating out of America.
https://www.city-journal.org/school-shootings-horrific-but-s...
“the annual odds that an American child will die in a mass shooting at school are nearly 10 million to 1, about the odds of being killed by lightning or of dying in an earthquake”
But keep in mind, while Americans find it to be a commonality, it's rare to see news like this in other parts of the world: "...but students don’t need the active-shooter drills now conducted in over 95 percent of the nation’s schools..."
Active shooter drills? In schools? You folk live in a first world country but act like you are living in an active warzone
"Active shooter drills? In schools? You folk live in a first world country but act like you are living in an active warzone"
These things happen due to the same kind of fear mongering and statistical illiteracy you demonstrate in your comments. School shootings are horrible, but extremely rare. It would, of course, be better if we didn't have them, just like it would be better if we didn't have earthquakes, electrical storms, plane crashes, etc. but it's not rational to make life choices based on 1 in 10 million events.
You're also wrong about support for gun control. A majority of the US population supports stronger gun control. Unfortunately, in our political system, that's not sufficient to make it happen.
> A majority of the US population supports stronger gun control. Unfortunately, in our political system, that's not sufficient to make it happen.
Isn't US a democracy? If majority of the population supports stronger gun control, it should be easy to pass.
Anyway, I don't mean to put you on the defensive. I understand that you love your country.
Also, it's a big country. When you have a population of hundreds of millions, a lot of things that are extremely unlikely to ever impact an individual citizen will nonetheless happen on a regular basis somewhere in the country.
"Isn't US a democracy? If majority of the population supports stronger gun control, it should be easy to pass."
If only it were that simple.
"Anyway, I don't mean to put you on the defensive. I understand that you love your country."
I love some things and hate other things. I just think the discussion should be based on facts rather than emotion and hyperbole.
I agree that school shootings are a problem here and would like to see stronger gun control as much as anyone, but it isn't helpful to exaggerate the (very low) level of danger kids face in school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
Like, for example, retake control of Taiwan.
https://eurasiantimes.com/perturbed-by-2nd-incursion-china-w...
China has unelected* leaders that at least in theory holds only Communist ideals.
While flawed, in a republic at least you get to vote for your leaders, and thus choose what ideals you like the best.
Of course republicanism or democracy does not preclude a country from committing horrible acts, but they are cleaned up much sooner, and those who are responsible for it are thrown out of office (and sometimes even into jail). Not so in authoritarian countries like China.
* You can technically vote in China, but due to its authoritarian nature only one party is allowed and you're expected to uphold the party line.
How so? Both parties are all in on the prison-industrial scam. Likewise for healthcare, etc. I agree that the US has a largely 'liberal' system, in the classical sense of 'liberal'. I.e. capital trumps human beings.
And you ignore the fact that the US imprisons a much higher percentage of its population than other countries. Part and parcel of the authoritarianism (which is only increasing).
Edit: To answer your claim that:
> “(...) the US imprisons a much higher percentage of its population than other countries. Part and parcel of the authoritarianism.”
No, it's not. Every guilty prisoner in the USA had a public trial with a lawyer before they were sent to jail. In other words they had due process which is the mark of a liberal democracy. On the other hand due process is constantly broken in authoritarian regimes. A great example is, again, China, where you can be "vanished" just for having the wrong opinion, if you're not simply sent to a re-education camp that is for all intents and purposes a modern style of concentration camp.
Before you even try, can the USA be accused of the same thing? Why yes, because it imprisons enemy combatants which are then subjected to cruel an unusual treatment, for instance at Guantanamo Bay (which is amazingly still open for business). But crucially the USA does not do this to American citizens, so while they act horribly authoritarian towards external enemies, they do not act authoritarian against their own citizens, not even towards domestic political opponents.
People online vastly overestimate the actual effect of money on political results, naturally disregarding all the donations made to candidates that lose and ignoring races where the lesser funded candidates win.
If Americans wanted a leftist government, they’d vote for it, simple as that. And yet even in the most left leaning states and cities in the nation , leftist principles have failed to gain much electoral ground.
-- Put a million Uighurs in camps
-- Persecutes followers of pretty much all religions --- Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong, etc
-- Flat-out censors anything that offends them in the slightest
-- Puts whoever they want into detention with no kind of due process, from small-time activists to billionaires
-- Harvests the organs of (not previously dead) prisoners
-- Had drones peering into apartment windows during the latest COVID lockdown, broadcasting the literal message "control your soul's desire for freedom"
-- and of course is an autocracy in which Xi Jinping has absolute power
The USA is far from perfect but one thing we learned from Trump in 2016 and Bloomberg in 2020 is that money isn't everything in American politics. The parties do have major differences and bad actors can be held accountable.
I'm not American, but this equivalence that some people like to draw between the governments of China and the USA drives me crazy.
(Though viewing China as a full autocracy with absolute power of a single individual is extremely simplistic)
> (Though viewing China as a full autocracy with absolute power of a single individual is extremely simplistic)
It's overly simplistic, but less "overly" than it was 10 years ago.
I get the paranoia around China, I honestly do. I'm not at all unsupportive of the Chinese regime either. But this "one rule for us another for them" principle really needs to stop.
We need to learn to find a saner middle ground if we're ever to advance as a species.
Edit: I guess we can just see if any research has been done. If you trust this source, Americans seem to support (60% supporting versus 10% against) GDPR style data regulations [1].
1. https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/americans-say-br...
I appreciate from a high level the two questions overlap in this specific case study. However it's the framing of the question which really matters here, not the practical overlap.
US needs friends just like everybody else, alone it can project only so much influence. You don't keep friends by screwing them over continuously and having an untrustworthy upper hand over you all the time. And once we're not friends anymore, china may be an attractive alternative, whether you like it or not.
> But this "one rule for us another for them" principle really needs to stop. Why would any nation treat foreign companies equal to their own? I don't see the problem especially when its from an adversary or a nation who's companies are an extension of their government.
I was talking about the commentary I see on HN. I don't think everyday Americans care what China does either, let alone the EU.
Because they don't operate under the same rules. Tiktok isn't some free market startup at this point. Their CEO is ex Xiami and clearly a party member. I would bet a lot of money the CCP is putting unlimited resources into spreading Tiktok and harvesting data, plus manipulating sentiment of tiktok users.
This is NOT what US based companies do. They don't have government resources, and they sell ads. And the US government doesn't give a shit if snapchat or whoever else destroys facebook. They are not going to bail them out, or help them.
So it's not the same, it's not a fair fight, and in the background what the data is used for is probably completely different.
The interests of your government might not necessarily be aligned with yours.
Likely, their personal gains or the interests of lobbyists would come first and not necessarily align with borders/the colour of your passport cover. If you wanna stay "top dog", perhaps think it through a bit more and think a bit broader.
I would argue that admitting that the only way to convince Chinese apps to not track American users is to ban them (mostly because it's eating their own dog food with TikTok that's nowadays much more popular than America's own spying apps) doesn't sound much top dog, more like small dog barking at the big one.
America's spying "apps" aren't "apps", they're called operating systems and firmwares.
I believe that America was founded on the idea that we could be great because we are free, and that giving our people the opportunity to thrive and be productive will only, in the long run, make our prosperity that much greater.
It's been said that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. You would interpret this, I think, to mean that we should toss out the Bill of Rights anytime it seems inconvenient to our short-term ends. But I see it as a statement that, even when it seems contradictory, investing in the people rather than the power over them will lead to a greater nation even when that seems counterintuitive.
We already do this. You have the right to bear arms - just not nuclear ones.
America has always had to place reasonable restrictions on rights to ensure the public good.
World is being destroyed because of this kind of view point. We need more collaboration, not 'me first'.
Speaking as a friend - this attitude is becoming an existential problem for the US abroad. More and more countries are wondering if it's the US that's the problem.
How far are you willing to go? Do you give a shit about people being killed so that your country stays rich and "on top"?
Facebook and Google have a NSA servers that get all the traffic even before they reach them and have complete access into their info, then you can't complain when Chinese do the same, after all, they are admiring USA and copying what we are doing.
If we want Chinese to do better, we need to do better, they will follow.
It is your data they are collecting, not some other dog's.
What do you mean by USA though? It's not a monolithic object and has plenty of rivals too. Also if USA is top dog, it may get freedom to do whatever it wants to you, be careful about what you want. When was the last time absolute power produced good results?
It never makes sense from a human rights standpoint.
You can still upgrade, you know.
And yet, Russia heavily used Facebook to influence/manipulate American behaviour during the election.
If not, do you distinguish between companies that are homed in the US and the US government?
This is not really about tik tok but more about the broader stance expressed by the comment they’re replying to.
I am really (I am european) pissed off by the fact that someone decided we needed a war with Ukraine when we do not have anything for/against Russia or Ukraine in principle and they start to make pressure to all private business, etc. to make them do what these people want us to do. Literally in Spain I saw even bad press for people selling clothes (Mango) or yoghurts (Danone) just because they kept selling those products to normal Russian people. So govts can sell/send weapons to Ukraine with our taxes and without our permission at the same time they encourage and point to private company doing regular business so that they stop selling there? Seriously?
I really do not accept that, I want to have friends from wherever, go with whoever and do business with whom I deem appropriate without asking permission to anyone. If I am not selling intelligence for spying or weapons, what is wrong? I really do not get it.
The reason that systems of economic sanctions exist is to provide alternatives to war. Europe learned some very rough lessons in the 20th century and earlier, leading up to the formation of the EU and before that the formation of the UN. These institutions and other institutions were created by people with memories of large-scale war fresh in their minds.
I am not talking about this. I am talking about the fact that it is an oligarchy who chooses whether we go to war or not. I do not think most spanish think that Spain should be involved in a war that is at the other side of Europe where either of those country did anything to us. This is what I mean.
These wars respond to oligarchies interests, not to normal citizens interests.
I do not know if you get my point. Maybe there are real problems in Ukraine, well there are. But how is that really a reason to involve Spain? Why? Diplomacy, yes, sending weapons no. What if Russia decides we are in a black list later? Were we able to make a choice? Bc this involves our security and our economy and affects normal citizens.
So there is necessarily someone interested in this that is not normal, average people like me.
If we are going to make mistakes, I hope we make new mistakes, instead of making the same mistakes from 100 years ago.
If you find this truth to be offensive, tragic, or overly inconvenient, well... so do all who live to see such times, as the guy with the long gray beard said.
Ask yourself what Ukranian citizens would answer to that question.
You are arguing you should continue to help fund the war, the weapons, the rapes and murders by Russian forces while they invade Ukraine.
You might have dressed it up in pretty prose, but your position is "guess a little genocide is just something we have to live with".
To me it makes no sense, honestly.
I declare myself neutral and the last thing I wanted is my country to be involved in this stuff (and others).
Of course, at the same time I think that Russian invasion was stupid and a mistake. This is a power game and nothing else. I just want to live normal, not to get into unnecessary trouble. Diplomacy would have been better. And if diplomacy does not work, I do not know why Spain should be further involved. I can understand that countries close such as Latvia, Finland, Poland, etc. take a non-neutral position on this. But Spain? Seriously...
Assuming you are actually German (based on your username), you really shouldn’t require a particularly deep history lesson to understand why Russia is a problem. Jesus fuck man, the brick line runs through the center of your own capital city.
Germán is a name, equivalent to Germain, Armand or Herman.
Until it is your ass that's on the line I guess?
From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people in your nation are behaving, especially when you consider how much data about sensitive information might be getting onto tiktok, like videos made by military service members on bases, videos showing gaps/issues/etc in infrastructure, or at ports and other locations.
As for me, I'm an American and it is in my best interests that USA stays top dog. I didn't immigrate here to downgrade lol, so I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player.