Americans corporations have shown they'll just pull out of countries if the law comes down on them too hard.
HN rightly didn't allow these type of generalization comments against Russians after it invaded Ukraine. HN rightly doesn't allow these types of generalization comments at Palestinians. It's wild to me the different standard applied lately to similar comments towards Americans. Definitely a discourse erosion/strain going on on this site when it comes to certain topics/nationalities/generalization of peoples and stereotyping/labeling.
In the link I gave dang set the rule that these sort of comments applied towards a nationality aren't acceptable here and an instance of dang actively stepping in to enforce it.
America is fairly exceptional in that it's not racist to say "Americans are ____" given it's a melting pot of so many different races and cultures. That's a beautiful thing, but something that the white supremecists in control of the US are working to erode.
Edit: damn I think this account is actually a bot. It's only pro Israel talking points, islamaphobia, and appeals to the mod to get people banned.
India is made up of an incredible mix of ethnic peoples. Yet saying 'the Indian mind can't comprehend' would be considered a slur.
Your thinly veiled attempt to align me with white supremacists is EXTREMELY out of line.
As is calling me a bot out of line. Ad hominems that I am a bot because I push back on topics HN SPECIFICALLY chose to make an exception for (look at my comments prior to that since you are digging through looking for character assisnations) is unreasonable on your part. Either discussion is open on the topic, or it should not be allowed. Not some weird space when only one sides perspective on the topic is tolerated and having challenging views makes one a bot. Again during discussion on Russia's invasion, it was not allowed to call people defending Russia/Russians bots. There seems to be erosion/strain of standards here since then.
Nothing I have said is islamaphobic. One can challenge ideas/religions. Bringing up their history/failings is not phobic but is needed to push for productive/healthy change.
As was recently pointed out to me, you might want to look to PGs thoughts on discussion and adjust how you respond to thoughts you disagree with. https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
I will admit I'm old so I don't have a lot relevant to ad to a lot of current tech discussions here but I will try to add more.
This kind of thing degrades discussion. Please don't do that here.
I'm American, and I wasn't offended. Because it's true, we actually can't comprehend this because we are the poster child of government via huge corporations. We literally don't know what it's like to have a functioning and trustworthy government handling these things, it's completely foreign to us.
American media may be less likely to share that narrative with you. But the actual people figured this out a while ago and they're mad.
Tin my observation the main advantage of swiss system is the institution of the referendum.
It means that every major decision is decided by the people. The elected government decides on the 99.9% other issues.
The consequence of this system is that absolute majority of public discourse focuses on the issues and problems and not party affiliation.
So e.g. the most consequential election isn't the one where you have to choose the guy who will make everything great again, but e.g. the referendum if the country should spend billions over the next decades on the new tunnel under alps instead of other infrastructure projects.
You can't just ramrod a cultural output into other cultures and expect it to work or even expect different voting demographics who might have individually accepted direct democracy to continue to do so once put in a more diverse country. They tried democracy in Somalia and it worked worse by most measured metrics (including economic) than the xeer system of tribal hearings and decentralized governance for which their culture had adapted.
But it's not the consequence of the skin color or the neutrality. All European countries have been practically 100% white until not long ago with vastly different outcomes.
I think the results have been pretty consistent that out of places 90+% euro-white voters in direct democracy and relatively neutral in WWII performed well (Lichtenstein was neutral in WWII too). I think it's harder to find examples of the creation and effectiveness of direct democracy in places where there is a lot more variance in culture -- Uruguay might be one good example but they are also probably the most guarded of citizenship in all of South America (you can very easily get residency but the judges will produce endless BS requirements if you try to become a citizen; they basically will not let it happen).
>But it's not the consequence of the skin color or the neutrality
Lets not pretend we're referring to the actual melanin in skin jumping out and doing something. No one thinks an albino kid of black parents is suddenly going to think like a Swiss voter.
>All European countries have been practically 100% white until not long ago with vastly different outcomes.
The outcomes of WWII ~neutral nearly all euro white fairly direct democracies (that's basically, switzerland and Lichtenstein) have actually been highly correlated with some of the best outcomes in the world, so I'm not sure how on earth you came to this conclusion or straw man argument that merely having white skin is magically gonna get you anywhere.
Swiss culture of democracy in unique in the world and is unique among 100% white countries. It's bread among others from its unique geography and history.
Swiss are genetically indistinguishable from French, German, Italian or Austrian neighbors.
When did culture developed, other 100% white countries (which many didn't exist in their modern shape) like Slavic states, Nordic states, Germanic states, French, Spanish, Portugal, Italian, Greek, Balkan etc. All of them have not developed anything like Switzerland.
Credit goes to very specific swiss culture, and the claim that it is what you get of you put white people together... just doesn't hold.
And the swiss neutrality was just a pragmatic decision at a time and today the concept of neutrality is often being questioned in Switzerland while the democratic system is not.
Of course I can't prove it, but it was absolutely magical how my comment was flagged the immediate moment after your initial comment posted. So I suspect, this was never a genuine response anyway, you just couldn't help yourself making your little note while flagging mine because if you had reversed the order your fake little straw man argument couldn't have been injected in. And don't bother with "it wasn't me" because it's really only you and I reading at this point and I'm not going be duped.
What we have is a story of direct democracy working in a remarkably insular voting block of 90-95+% white euro voters with a fairly organically evolved direct process going back to in at least various elements the middle ages. And relative neutrality in WWII. When your bullshit argument turned out to be false about varied results (Lichtenstein was consistent when they did the ~same thing) you tried to wash it away as Swiss-adjacent while also claiming swiss are just an indistinguishable mixture of French, German, Italian etc -- defeating your own argument.
The only consistent rebuttal you have is your absurd white supremacism straw man whenever the weaknesses of your argument is pointed out. Which really, just shows how laughably weak of a ground your thoughts stand on.
I do, too. I’m not sure I trust Brussels.
> A French court convicted the head of the International Monetary Fund and former government minister, who had faced a €15,000 (£12,600) fine and up to a year in prison. But it decided she should not be punished and that the conviction would not constitute a criminal record. On Monday evening the IMF gave her its full support.
> The verdict came as a surprise as even the public prosecutor had admitted the evidence against Lagarde was “weak” during a five-day trial last week. Jean-Claude Marin told the court Lagarde’s actions fell into the category of politics and not criminality and called for her to be acquitted.
If the public prosecutor admits the evidence is weak, then I take that at face value. I'm open to evidence of the contrary, but without such, I just have to assume the case was weak.
It does strike me as odd that she was convicted. I suppose the evidence wasn't negligible.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde#Conviction_o...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/christine-laga...
I agree: The comment from the public prosecutor is excellent. To me that is a very strong sign of a well-balanced, highly functioning democracy (and its legal system).
Donald Trump, convicted (pardoned everyone who attempted a coup on Jan 6 2021).
Victor Orban, surely he'll get convicted.
Benjamin N., Vladimir P.: wanted by ICC.
(This excludes cases like Jan Maršálek / Wirecard fraud / GRU spy. Also, have a peak at all the cleaning Zelenski's government had to do, including in his inner circle.)
Seems we in Europe at least are attempting to uphold the rule of law. I can't say the same for US corporations or US government, given the current administration. That being said... can we stop voting for these narcissistic criminals? Thank you in advance.
funny everyone forgot to bring guns for the coup
US corporations on the other hand get only my contempt and scorn.
It's honestly depressing no one talks about this, or even knows about this.
That is what government is for in a functioning democracy. A functioning government is of the people for the people.