Not only is the EU miles behind the US, the US is accelerating faster towards more surveillance. Historically PRISM and the US Cloud act. More recently DOGE's recent actions in centralising data and a new crop of private enterprises working on surveillance tech like CCTV facial recognition.
I don't see the federal government applying any breaks on this development. However, I note some states are. But we do see clear attempts from the EU attempt to attempt to curb this. E.g. parts of the AI Act.
While I'm not enjoying the development certain factions are pushing through in the EU either, it is hyperbole to say that the EU is attempting to make a surveillance state, especially in this context.
I know more than a few career lawyers who worked or currently work at NSA. It would blow your mind how rigidly they follow the laws and rules when it comes to US citizens.
Of course I don't expect you to believe me because "I said so" or anything like that. I can tell you definitively that when it comes to US citizens NSA is pretty neutered.
You may be thinking of the FBI...
The US is doing that too, and has been pretty open about it for years.
"Oh no some immigrant stole something out of my garden, time to vote a party that not only introduces inhumane immigration policies but also undermines the countries whole social security net due to my inability to think outside the box and personal vendetta against immigrants, surely this will improve things" - 90% of millennials and gen x people I see. People just get dumber and dumber again, education systems are failing since decades. Politicians benefit off of that because its so much easier to introduce propaganda and introduce strawman arguments for their bullshittery. It will get so much worse globally because everyone is frying their brains with smut newspapers, social media, trash tv, youtube, twitch etc etc. Most people my age (~30) dont even have opinions anymore, they just echo whatever their current favorite influencer throws out there and call it "their" opinion without being able to elaborate on it if questioned. Also everyone takes everything so personal too, you cant have arguments anymore without one party feeling personally attacked. I literally had someone say to me (not online) they'd like everyone to be chipped so missing people could be found easier, which left me pretty baffled given that 80 years ago my country tried to find and eradicate every jew. Humanity is beyond broken.
As for the rest.... given that my country Belgium nearly balkanized in the past due to sectarianism and it's influence on politics this kind of stuff was a pretty obvious big downside to the migration of the past 2 decades from the start. (It really does become a ball and chain on every kind of effective policy) Especially since we're a bit ahead of many countries on the migration front too.
The mistake one should not make is thinking that those parties have any policy for the common good. People, from journalists to the man on the street, ignore all the lies, the crazy things, the falsehoods refuted by science, the attacks on the rule of law--only to discuss their political marketing flyer like it would constitute any real policy, as if these parties leaderships are sponsored just for that. And when these populists get in power and do the complete opposite of everything they had promised, then the press will miss that, because the press is so easily distracted by the bullshitting clowns. In the mean time, fewer and fewer people believe in democracy anymore.
His whole argument is extremely solid. I am sorry.
His argument implies it is because of these parties when again. It's countries where they are not in power leading this charge and this started well before the increase in popularity of said parties.
Meanwhile these parties typically vote against.
>get in power and do the complete opposite of everything they had promised, then
I even acknowledge that in the next sentence.
I can't comment on whether or not they believe it, but it's certainly repeated by some here in Ireland.
To be fair to Ireland and history they have a valid complaint going back centuries wrt outsiders taking their lands, language, governance, food and labour all while debating "the Irish Question" and reaching for eugenic "solutions".
Odd then, that they didn't notice when this happened post GFC when basically all of the land banks and large assets were sold off to (predominantly) US based private equity funds.
And honestly, Irish anti-immigration sentiment is far more driven by both our complete failures at building infrastructure for a growing population (which we've never had before) and the fact that all refugees are housed in poor areas (which already had much worse services).
But it's very important that no residents of South Dublin should be inconvenienced, even at the cost of our society.
> Irish anti-immigration sentiment is far more driven by both our complete failures at building infrastructure
Yeah, I'd largely agree it's a services issue, and most people I speak with correctly direct that anger at the state.
I definitely was upset at the time, but didn't really notice many people paying attention. We basically sold off our future development policy to get out of the Troika bailout (and I understand why this happened, but I think the long term consequences of this are have been shown to be really, really bad).
> Yeah, I'd largely agree it's a services issue, and most people I speak with correctly direct that anger at the state.
And they are correct to do so. Basically all FFG have done is wait until the housing issue had gone way too far (and started impacting their voters) and then done a bunch of demand side initiatives which have just pushed up prices rather than focusing on the development side.
Not to mention the absurdity of our national spatial strategy where we won't zone more in Dublin and instead want people to move to Meath & Wicklow and commute for hours to their jobs.
But at least no-one's left in negative equity. FML.
> for a growing population (which we've never had before)
and feel I might remind you that in the time span of my comment (past centuries) Irelands population nearly tripled in the 40 years following 1700 to a peak greater than the current population number.
True, the political system was very different then though, and the government of the time (to put it lightly) was not concerned with the needs of those citizens (c.f. penal laws etc).
What's that supposed to mean?
It's a comment on the geographical inequalities and their impact on politics.
Don't get me wrong, I live in a similar Northside enclave, but it's really upsetting to me that much of the media and political elite live in bubbles where they don't see the consequences of their (bad) decisions.
Is the system perfect? No, of course not. But the Us vs Them polemics are unfair.
Fair enough, I recognise that I may have been unfair to many residents of South Dublin in my generalisation. That being said, there is a really common pattern of anything that inconveniences higher income voters being pushed into poorer areas.
For a good example, look at where all of the large apartment buildings are being actually built (as opposed to being judically reviewed). There's a pretty clear pattern of them being built in poorer areas relative to richer ones, and I guess that's where I'm coming from here.
Like, I live in a similarly leafy suburb (but on the Northside) and they wanted to build a set of high rise apartments on a junction next to the N3, and it was shut down with many angry comments. Meanwhile, over by Blanchardstown shopping centre (a much poorer area) they're building a similarly sized apartment block with local objections being steam-rollered.
The UK is immigrant wave after wave all the way back to when it was nothing but solid ice pressing down the entire landmass and practically all the islands.
Every other ethnic doesn't surpass 4%.
Being an open and multicultural country kinda implies that other ethnics have a place here, and that's a good thing. Nationalism is the last thing my country needs.
>Being an open and multicultural country
This is begging the question.
>Nationalism is the last thing my country needs.
Whatever genes made you say that are maladaptive.
To clarify: Although it follows mathematically with constantly low birth rate, dying out is, of course, not a likely consequence. It seems likely that at some point when the economies shrink poverty would hit so seriously that the birth rates would start increasing again, as they seem to be negatively correlated with standards of living. However, we're talking about levels of shrinkage that feel like a collapse of the economy and social security/pension systems.
IMO the problem lies with this statement. For people like OP any "control" of immigration is going to be responded with the same criticisms. Because if you take a stance hard enough, any of these controls can be spun into anti-immigration.
That's just another way of saying "replace themselves."
/s
I thought it was more because of them driving over people at Christmas markets, forming rape gangs or stabbing random people on the streets. It's deep intellectually dishonesty like yours that is driving them to that "party". Which is a bit ironic isn't it?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dz7r708dxo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Berlin_truck_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Magdeburg_car_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s_E...
>> Are you this retarded?
You win!
The EU is also not a monolith, it’s different entities with not perfectly aligned interests, some of which representing member states, some of which citizens, again with significant divergence of opinion. The court of justice frequently finds against member states governments, for example.
TL;DR: "the EU" does not want things. Different participants want different things and what happens in the end is the result of a consensus building process.
I guess what the OP meant is that in EU you might have the police knocking at your door for some reasons you don't have in the USA, not because they don't have data about you, but because in the USA you have some very strong constitutional rights that are really hard to bypass.
Twitter, Tiktok, etc could never be created in the current EU.
It exists, but it is being selectively ignored by those in charge. Don't assume it will automatically defend you, especially not pre-emptively:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail...
https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-fire-challenges-unconst...
And when, rarely, they do apply, you get no restitution or relief.
Is there any significant difference where the law gives you fewer rights in the EU in this regard? Very unlikely that in the EU some SWAT team will knock down your door because someone anonymously told them on the phone you're dangerous, kill you, and suffer no consequences.
> but because in the USA you have some very strong constitutional rights that are really hard to bypass
Other than the right to have guns, which keeps everyone happy and gives the SWAT team a legitimate reason to go in guns blazing I'm having a hard time finding some right that isn't routinely subject to some major exception. Especially when you ultimate authority on the constitution is staffed by yes-men.
You might get a few more of them. Recently a bunch of French people received jail time for repeatedly posting how the president was a pedophile and his wife was a man. Because, you know, harassment is illegal in many European countries. But the only obligation by the service provider, if asked, would be to delete the posts and give the user's IP address.
The EU Digital Services Act is actually a much wider liability shield than the USA's Section 230.
I never heard of American presidents going after individuals on Twitter or other platforms. Neither Obama, nor Biden and also not Trump who is receiving so much hatred and bad words, without even touching the assassination attempt. Which is probably the only reason why they threatened to go after people, but that seems to be understandable - and I think that's the line you should not cross in a forum/platform.
The mindset is completely different.
Even during the Roman Republic people could make fun of or heavily insult politicians, and also with ugly things that we could never say today. Even Julius Caesar was mocked heavily (the famous "every woman's man and every man's woman")
...unsurprisingly, this changed when the Republic ended and the Empire started.
And here we're today thinking about our sensitive politicians :)
The country with the worst “bad opinion, police comes knocking” is the recently seceded UK.
And I guess Germany has something against nazism?
As an European it was always hard for me to understand American culture. What was fascinating for me is that they like bragging about their freedom which was weird for me, because I didn't think that I have any less freedom than them. I always thought 'What is the difference'. However after this game I finally understand it. NA is just so fucking free.
[PDF] https://historicalarchives.europarl.europa.eu/files/live/sit...
> Come on, do you honestly believe the NSA's echelon system isn't already reading your e-mails, and recording your phone conversations? It's all designed to frighten us so we don't complain about our rights being taken away in the name of fighting whatever boogeyman they come up with today.
Regulated, constrained versions of Internet are being built by governments and some large corporations, to meet their needs. While EU's constraints may look benign (even though they are not), the versions built in PRC, Russia, India, Türkyie are in various degrees openly anti-citizen. As long as citizens' needs (like privacy and unrestricted access) do not align with the ideas of the governments and corporations, we, citizens, are usually the losing side.
The fix is obvious: regulations should be liberty-preserving, and for that, governments that are better aligned with our, citizens', interests should be voted in.
And here we encounter a hard problem.
The people that govern Big Tech have said as much as that they don't believe in democracy, they show they don't believe in fair markets, and they are put to work to implement the threats of a crazy but powerful clique, attacking free and social democracies with an endless stream of sponsored garbage. If the EU had any leaders instead of weasels, they would have closed the sewers that brings lies, hate, conspiracy theories and division. If the EU does not act, it will go down, taken apart by the oligarchs.
> you are no longer liberal - hence the paradox.
A dilemma is a hard choice. A paradox is a principle that undermines itself when applied consistently. It doesn't "seem" like it - it is. In this case, if you stop intolerant ideas, you are no longer tolerant. That's quite simple, and Popper named it correctly as such. Now, if I put my 2c on it, the danger of this arbitrary "Tolerant except for the Anti-tolerant" idea is that, the tools you use to stop the Anti-Tolerant will one day turn around be used against the Tolerant as well, because these definitions are fluid.
When the example are "People from X are vermin" - yes this is anti-tolerant. But when "We should first create jobs for people born here"; is this anti-tolerant? It's a slippery slope where all ideas except the ruling one can be muted.
Besides, Popper isn’t a god nor is he the only one with an opinion on this problem. Rawls for instance thought that only in exceptional circumstances should intolerance be suppressed. Popper’s paradox also isn’t anything special, literally every theory of human rights can be attacked by finding specific cases in which exceptions must be made for self protection. These exceptions do not invalidate those rights nor the necessity for them.
> These exceptions do not invalidate those rights nor the necessity for them.
My point is that Anti-Intolerance is the essence of Tolerance, not something outside of it.
> , the tools you use to stop the Anti-Tolerant will one day turn around be used against the Tolerant as well, because these definitions are fluid.
That is the big rift. And that is why I want to give this tool to the online HN reader, because the learned Rigid Beliefs only serve to destroy common principles needed for a just society. (Especially in the US context, where boolean thinking is imho very prevalent, which I see as the fruits of political marketing.) People reading about the Paradox might get some proper mind frame for the first time to escape the nihilist narratives.
> When the example are "People from X are vermin" - yes this is anti-tolerant. But when "We should first create jobs for people born here"; is this anti-tolerant? It's a slippery slope where all ideas except the ruling one can be muted.
a) Are people born here disadvantaged and do you bring balance, or
b) Do you think citizens not born here are less worthy than
those who are?
In the case of (b), this would not be a discussion in my country as the constitution stipulates that everyone being in this country will be treated equally in the same circumstances, reasoning from "equal value". There is also the declaration of Human Rights. So I would say it puts a real burden on the proponent to defend why seeking inequality at the detriment of a group is justified.
I see tons of parallels with today’s world, on both sides of the spectrum (left/right, woke/unwoke etc).
Like, I do agree that most speech should be free and that dark humour and unpopular ideas and whatnot should be allowed even if you or a portion of the population don’t like it.
However I also think you can’t just say whatever you want and hide behind that free speech protection, because that opens the door to really nasty stuff that the human species has lived through.
But where’s the line?
That comedian arrested in the UK for a tweet[0], for instance. Do I agree? No. Do I think it was an intolerant thing to say from my POV? Yes. Do I think it is in fact inciting violence and deserves arrest? No.
On the other hand, you have people preaching white supremacy and talking about inferior races. We know where that led us.
So where’s the line? Same thing applies for these “regulated” surveillances. CSAM sounds like a good reason, but the same tools can be used to limit or monitor other speeches and behaviors. (Not to get into the debate of effectiveness, since bypassing is doable if you really want to).
I don’t have an answer, and I don’t think there is a clear line to be drawn.
Here is the goal post. Have at it.
Unfortunately that's just one piece of the puzzle. They also need a level of physical infrastructure that will take ages (or a miraculous breakthrough) to build. That too is a hard problem.
Almost always easier to pick a new company than a new government.
As long as the company you left doesn't buy the company you just picked.
And I know someone's going to say "not using a phone might look _more_ suspicious!" I suppose but the needle does need to turn at some point, right? This risk was pretty easily foreseeable. If you got arrested for what was found on your phone during an arrest would you ever look at the device the same way again? In 5 years, would you be using it for meaningful or private communication whatsoever?
Depends on when that goes into effect and how thoroughly it's actually implemented.
At that point Google would probably turn even more hostile to the open source nature of Android, leading to some sort of fork
There are lots of other problems. As discussed recently the HSBC app will not work if you have installed any software at all from another app store.
US has it. There are some non-US contributors, but, the Linux Foundation is in US, Linus is in US, kernel.org is in US.
This is a Danish blindspot, Europeans do not trust their governments in large (France is fractured, Southern Europe has endemic corruption, Germany is increasingly authoritarian in order to keep heterodox parties out) and this is in part the source behind the flare up of "far-right" movements in the continent. The infamous EU chat law doesnt help either, and all the abuses of Germany in their misuse of hate speech to punish speech is not a positive development. We do not have real alternatives to most American tech services, and administrations are unwilling to move to Linux based alternatives.
The EU is also not interested in strengthening the domestic software market by engaging in selective protectionism like the Chinese, because of the extensive lobbying by foreign and domestic actors which are the incumbents and see no interest in a competitive and dynamic environment which would destroy them.
They don't need to though, just require all government software to be released under a free software license, with limited exceptions for national security. The US does very well in software, so the EU should commoditise their complement and focus on free software services. This is both cheaper than the current services, and produces lots of employment for EU based tech people (probably at less money though, unfortunately).
This is basically what China is doing with their open weights models.
... and those parties would be even more authoritarian if they got in. Which they might in part because of the reaction. It's possible to get fucked from both ends...
Please explain?
The Greens are doing well, and certainly are hetrodox.
Do you mean "keep fascists out"?
Or do you mean something else?
As for the fascists, when one looks deeper into the AfD (not that I like them, more the opposite) they are just the old right + immigration issues. Labelling them as fascist is a dangerous thing because it devalues the value of the word and opens the way for true facsicm to come.
In fact, a huge reason that the EU is looking to move away from U.S. commercial providers is that they can’t guarantee they won’t be giving the U.S. govt information about EU users even if they setup completely independent EU based entities.
The reason why it might appear that the EU is more heavy handed is because the EU is actually passing limited tailored laws, publicly, that explicitly state the limitations of those laws.
The US govt, on the other hand, has already passed broad blanket laws that allow them to get any data from any U.S. corporate entity with the flimsiest of warrants which those entities are not even legally allowed to publicly reveal.
The U.S. govt doesn’t need to pass any surveillance laws because they already essentially have unlimited power over the data being collected by US corporations.
Well yes, but that doesn't mean we want EU surveillance to replace it.
I agree, but what choice do we have? If we look at the way things are going, we see that the US is expanding its surveillance apparatus, China is expanding its surveillance apparatus, Russia is expanding its surveillance apparatus and the EU is following suit. Or at least is trying to, because previous attempts to implement surveillance policies have tended to reveal the incompetence of our representatives. Even leaving the EU is no guarantee that we will not become a surveillance state, as seen in the UK.
The only way to circumvent surveillance is to create and use communication channels where the government nor companies have any influence.
Those companies are less likely to imprison or censor me than the regime who rules over Europe.
You are much more likely to be repressed/harrassed/arrested by your local government than a foreign government. So a local government knowing your behavior is more likely to lead to bad consequences than a foreign government knowing.
Of course, that might change in the future. Hypothetical example, the US government bans you from using any US cloud services because of what you did in private.
Though that's not exactly exclusive to governments either, Google banning you from GMail and Google Docs because of your YouTube uploads is already a thing.
Prior to Trump, most of the ~15,000 individuals on the US sanctions list were members of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Mafia, or warlords and despot leaders of authoritarian regimes.
The state department justification relates either to their roles in the Afghanistan investigation or them facilitating the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity. As a result they now can't book a hotel, use credit cards or access everyday services. As Nicolas Guillou says 'You are effectively blacklisted by much of the world's banking system'
As the Le Monde article concludes, while it is the prerogative of the US government to exercise sovereignty on its own territory, it is unacceptable, however, that European citizens – some of them above any suspicion in the eyes of their own authorities – lose everything at home due to excessive caution on the part of European companies in relation to spiteful US foreign policy.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2025/07/26/europea...
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-u...
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
Also, if companies serve their customers, governments serve their civilians. If you want to argue bad faith, governments serve national interest, while companies serve themselves, and ultimately the jurisdiction they fall under. What do you think better aligns with my interests as a Dutch person: the interests of the Dutch government, or the interests of the United States government? Do you believe Google will best serve me as a Dutch person, or the US government?
All the arguments about 'European government bad' assume bad faith. They discount we have some of the most democratic, liberal governments in existence. Unlike countries such as Russia, China, and even the United States. But the only government (apart from a State such as California) which consistently protected civilian rights online is the EU, a couple of European countries, and some other ones in the free West (Canada, I am not sure about Japan and South Korea).
Totally agree that this is absurd and disportionate, especially as a consequence of a US decision.
I mean, it's one thing to sanction a foreign billionaire: freezing their assets, thus preventing them from wielding their power in our borders is perfectly reasonable... But for a normal citizen living within your borders, freezing everything and preventing them from working is disenfranchising them and denying them all personal property rights (without judicial process!)
There are a bunch of examples of people in Europe who have also been sanctioned because of their political work. The first two that come to mind:
- Hüseyin Dogru https://theleftberlin.com/red-media-hueseyin-dogru/
- Nathalie Yamb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Yamb
If we're moving away from USA tech, I hope that we're not blindly trusting stuff simply being hosted in EU, but rather use the opportunity to spread our eggs in more jurisdiction baskets (rather than only the EU basket)
We need to consider a few factors.
If you are from EU, and you want GDPR to be enforced, you need to work with countries which follow your local law. The USA is hinting at no longer doing so, since it retaliates with sanctions.
Now, where would you host, and why? Norway seems like an interesting target, since they are very high on renewable energy. Norway isn't part of EU, but part of the EEA. Latency with Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Australia isn't going to be ideal. But if the company behind it is from there, and they have a local presence in Europe, why not? Could even work with proprietary software. FOSS can help here.
Hardware is a difficult target. It is near impossible to avoid China in this regard. And if you do, you often end up with US products. OSHW can help, but it is rather uncommon. We also have a constraint: we need energy efficient in Europe.
It it's something public/political like a Lemmy/Mastodon instance, I would pick a foreign jurisdiction which is unlikely to enforce something like the UK's OSA or USA and EU sanctions... I don't know where it would be best, some country in the Balkans, maybe?
If it's a service (even commercial) meant to be used only by a few people that I have direct (personal or business) relationships, I'd just ask their preferences (and bias towards the cheapest jurisdiction for hosting).
If it's something B2C, hosting exclusively outside of Europe would probably just make things more difficult to me, so it'd probably be within the EU (Hetzner?)
Americans supposedly being outraged at other free, democratic countries (often in reality both more free and democratic than the US) having different laws regarding speech is really just a smoke screen for what they really want: for their social media companies and billionaires to completely control our media, so that we end up just as fucked up and insane as they are. Why would we allow that? What do you expect?
I would just like the early American project of liberal democracy and Constitutional rights to outlive American capitalism and American militarism, even if it means it survives it in some other country. Because it's looking pretty bleak over here.
If the likes of JD Vance are pushing for us to adopt his idea of free speech, you can be sure it's a bad idea.
Without the protections the Americans tried to shove into the First Amendment (which did not include anything about corporations at the time, as they did not exist) being enshrined into law, I worry that your issues with capital-government overreach will arise even faster than ours.
It came very close in the 1930s, it is arguable that the New Deal headed off revolution
The USA should have been considered a pariah state since the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, now it is rapidly becoming one
The USAnian system has been a corrupt oligarchy with only trappings of democracy since it's inception. Those "trappings" run deep, but are not allowed to unseat the true source of power: money
The Founding Fathers [sic] gave that a lot of thought and worked very hard to make it that way from the very beginning
> Without the protections the Americans tried to shove into the First Amendment (which did not include anything about corporations at the time, as they did not exist) being enshrined into law
If I recall correctly, Britain had joint stock companies from the 1600s, and Adam Smith and all that. They also even before this had “trusts” and “trusts which own trusts” which had certain rights, and the court of chancery had established precedent around these.
The French also had a massive state stock company in this time, and it became a massive bubble which imploded in XXXX. This attracted a lot of attention and commentary and it’s impossible that the American Founders were ignorant.
The Brit’s never had a freedom of speech, but in English common law, companies had property rights, standing to sue, and so on. Most activities a business person could take, they could take on behalf of their company instead.
So in the American context, it seems that the founders were likely aware of corporations. Why they didn’t put explicit limits in the first amendment, who knows. Maybe it just didn’t seem important at the time.
Jokes aside. Restriction of freedoms, including speech, is not bad by definition, it's the scale and intention behind it that matters but this aspect is always missing, kind of censored, in public debate. You may downvote me now :-)
Edit: In the same sense, Alon does not cry about specific and obviously unjustified cases of EU censorship on X.
To the point of the post though, please note that saying the internet is American (it’s not, it’s global) or publically giving up on the U.S. because of POTUS, three letter agencies, attitudes, etc. is not helping you win the many Americans over that may join you in some cause.
An argument can be made the Internet is actually Chinese because the atoms your bit relies on are mostly produced in China or Taiwan.
Edit to clarify: I and many Americans are trying hard to be your allies, but it's not clear we have the leverage to be effective. Shit is locked down pretty tight over here.
So you are an enemy of someone because of where they were born?
This is making the mistake of trying to distinguish between what individual voters want and what the American government and large businesses do. If you’re, say, a Dane wondering if it’s safe to use Windows, iOS, or Chrome, you don’t care about a hundred million Democrats think but instead can only go by what you think the people in power will order and the odds that Satya, Sundar, or Tim will resist requests to compromise your interests. The number of people involved fit on a private jet.
That's not really a "mistake", though; that distinction exists and is important. I'd posit that the comment which reads "Americans are not an ally" should instead read "America is not an ally". The interpretation that they are talking about the American people is correct, from a literal reading. I suspect they intended to specify the American government ("America") rather than the American people ("Americans"), which makes the meaning more reasonable (IMO, of course). I agree with the rest of what you wrote; indeed, Satya, Sundar, and Tim both strongly influence and are strongly influenced by the government in question.
While true, that still leaves more than 100 million people who did not.
The fact is, the American electoral system is heavily stacked against the actual population due to...
- Citizens United allows individuals with sums of wealth which are nearly incomprehensible to literally drop hundreds of millions of dollars on a single election and not even have a dent in net worth
- The electoral college which may have made sense in 1796 or whenever they were deciding it means presidential elections focus on approximately 7 of our 50 states
- Many places like Puerto Rico, DC, the US Virgin Islands, and other territories just flat out don't have federal representation
- In the Senate small state citizens can sometimes wield up to 60 times as much representation as large state citizens (Hey guess which states those billionaires drop money to buy representation in... I'll give you a hint, it's not the populous ones)
- The House of Reps is capped in size which again hurts large states
It may be time to start talking about structural change here in the United States.
That being said... The United States and (most of) Europe have been allies for 8 decades, it's not like Europe hasn't had it's fair share of bullshit and far right parties.
The fact everyone in this thread is saying our relationship is done cause America's going through a rough patch is ridiculous. Especially given that a year ago our President was helping the expansion of NATO, and we're still sending arms to Ukraine (although the terms are differing), and we just took out Russian ally Maduro.
And I for one am happy that the outcome from this absolutely awful human being is increased European self reliance.
I'm hoping it shakes out that the US rebukes this awful party, and president (which many many people were duped into voting for cause most people are not paying as much attention as say... me and combine hundreds of millions from Musk, and misinformation flowing in through social media, and the stacked systems laid out above)
And when that's all said and done, and millions and millions of us are donating, and marching, and calling, and working to make that happen and there has been very real push back here, although slower than maybe some would hope
That then the US and Europe can be more equal partners than before this monster of an individual
It was a remembered stat, and there were more than 75,000,000 who “either directly voted for it or sat on their elbows and let it happen”.
A quick check of official stats:
The turnout of 64.1% and 49.1%/49.3%/1.9% “of the vote” figures means:
~32% rep
~31% dem
~ 1% other
~36% did not vote
> it's not like Europe hasn't had it's fair share of bullshit and far right parties.
True, and they are worryingly gaining ground in a number of places (here in the UK for one), but the whole EU (or Europe, or the EEA, depending on the exact set of countries we want to include in the pot for this discussion) has never been close to far-right in that time.
> That then the US and Europe can be more equal partners than before this monster of an individual
Eventually, hopefully. We'll see what happens in a couple of years. But the trust won't come back overnight even from where it is now, and there is plenty of time for the situation to get worse. I expect it will take a couple of terms at the very least for things to even out close to where they were before, if they ever do.
And for all the claims of “defending democracy and the free world”, the unilateral arseholery in general and active threats to other democracies (the EU overall, its individual states, and non-EU states), gives other regimes a loverly big mess to point at while asking “Do you really want democracy?”, so it might not even be possible for things to revert over that timescale because of the changes in balance elsewhere as less direct consequence.
I'll skip the philosophical argument for the absurdity of this view in general, because the numbers you provided speak even louder. Consider that both big parties got pretty much the same amount of votes[0] - so whether or not the 36% of population who didn't vote are seen as complicit villains, depended on how a different 0.5% of the population (or 0.15% of the voters) voted!
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[0] - I'd argue that 0.2% difference is within margin of statistical error, but that's a whole other discussion.
Not complicit villains, it isn't as black and white as that, but those who don't engage and then complain are pretty close. After the brexit vote a number of people said things along the lines of “if I'd know it would matter, I'd have bothered”, which is something I find difficult to respond to in a polite manner.
As a counter to what you say, that is true but in large most are ok with the current administration or the earlier ones. It was under Bush that there was a renaming of French fries to Freedom Fries as a backlash to Gerlany/France not joining the Iraq war. Not every German was a nazi in WW2, yet if you fought a German you will not stop and give him a questionaire to understand his ideology. You lump them as heuristic and act on that.
> Citizens of Greenland are full citizens of Denmark and of the European Union. Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union and is part of the Council of Europe.
I just mean... the point of marginalising reliance on USA and USA companies is that others don't need to care about winning American citizens to any cause they pursue, because American infrastructure has minimal [or no] power over their lives. As in, your response comes from the old world ppl are trying to leave behind, no?
I trust EU govs less than I trust US companies. At least I know that for the companies it's just about making more money and there isn't that many downsides for me outside of having to pay one way or another. EU govs are fundamentally destructive, so whatever they end up doing you can be sure it will terrible for everyone but themselves.
If, at long last, Trump doing insane things can help get rid of that piece of undescribable turd that Windows is in the EU, please just please Trump: go take the Groenland.
As an EU citizen I'm gladly giving Groenland up (even if it's not in the EU but belongs to Denmark which is, itself, in the EU) if in exchange I don't ever have to see a computer running Windows ever again in Europe.
Nitpicky, but I guess ultimately it kind of/might matter: Greenland belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark (Danish Realm), not Denmark. Denmark (often called Denmark Proper) is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which also Faroe Islands belong to. Denmark is in Europe + EU, Kingdom of Denmark isn't in EU, but main part of it is indeed in Europe.
I think if Greenland was actually part of Denmark, it too would be part of EU, as I don't think you can selectively "unmark" specific territories in a country to not be in EU if the country itself is in EU. But since Greeland isn't actually a part of Denmark, it isn't part of the EU.
Main part by population. By area, not so.
Yes, you can. Plenty of overseas territories span the complete gamut between autonomous regions outside the EU and overseas EU regions. Each one is a special case and has specific reasons why there are inside or outside the EU.
Due to their remoteness, they are exempt to some EU laws. But they are part of the European Union.
Then there are some regions which are part of the European Economic Area (EEA), but not the EU, like Norway or Switzerland.
And several further distinctions and special cases afaik.
I would rather say for quite a lot of people in Germany it's that they neither trust the Federal Government nor the EU government nor the US-American tech companies.
I think that is a healthy attitude.
I am British and do not trust my government or big tech (regardless of where it is based). IMO governments are easily lobbied to utimately tend to take the side of big business.
Who has actually done it?
What are you going to use instead? You could move servers off MS cloud platforms (although very little has actually happened and there seems to be very few places with a firm commitment to do it) but I am very sceptical that anyone is going to move client devices to anything other than MS, Apple and Google controlled OSes.
Its main purpose is to push different agendas upon EU members that would never pass in the majority of the national parliaments.
In its current state EU is deeply undemocratic and highly cleptocratic and corrupt regime.
Which part with direct power isn't elected?
It literally is. What a deeply misinformed and frankly misleading take.
You say this with no irony as an american..
Of course that is how democracy works. You'll have multiple factions working toward their own goals with very different ideologies, and the EU has a lot of that. For the most part what comes out is great, because compromise is how you get things done when there aren't just two sides. For survailance, however, there are really just two sides and the wrong one of them is winning.