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"From my point of view as Polish citizen 911 is a problem that US developed for itself through their actions in the Middle East."

Dude, from my point of view as an American citizen, I agree.

Same

> I think it is preposterous for US citizens to get obsessed after this one when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.

Heck, many US citizens don't seem to care that about the same number of people killed on 9/11 are dying every 2 days in the US from a virus that their leader continually downplays as he dithers about recommending quack "cures" that will somehow magically make up for his incompetence in handling said virus.

[deleted]

Edit: to be clear, I was not defending Trump. I've never supported him, although I'm not afflicted by this burning obsession with him so many have. I'd delete this comment if I could.

I was just confused about the fact that the user referred to "we" Americans a few comments ago, and now used the term "they". I thought it was some kind of trolling - someone taking on different personnages in different comments.

It honestly didn't occur to me that there would be a political reason for it, or I wouln't have bothered responding.

Yeah. Really not a fair equation when more than half of us didn't want the guy.

I do agree with your sentiment here, but to clarify: 272,000 children died of maleria in 2018, or 745 per day. Still a terrible number, and I don't think anyone would say that its okay if it takes a week for as many children to die from malaria as were lost on 9/11, but statics do matter

Yeah, you are right. I thought I remember the number but was too lazy to actually find it again. You caught me:) Still, not too far off.

But death is just one aspect. The kids could be better educated and really, this doesn't cost as much as one would portray especially now with remote schooling when a single teacher can "service" a large number of kids with no need for physical presence. The technology is there, we just need a little push to make better use of it. Better educated populations tend to produce less violence and I like to think better future.

I agree with some of your foundational sentiments, but as long as we're deviating from the topic of discussion, Poland's hands have been far from clean, too, the past 100 years. What Poles did to European Jews was truly horrific (US immorally turned many of them away, but we didn't slaughter them wholesale like many Poles did in places like Jedwabne).

By the way, as you likely know, it's illegal now in your country to even mention the fact that Poles willingly participated in the Holocaust in such places (whereas I'm free to describe My Lai and Abu Ghraib).

Right now, the US has power, and often misuses it just like Poland has at times when it has had power. China often misuses its power. It's almost like there's something to do with power, abuse, and corruption.

> it is that US rallies for some causes where it seems to suit US interests

Let me introduce you to the concept of the nation-state.

> to get obsessed after this one when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.

For the same reason as we treat murder victims differently than people who die from some tragic but preventable disease. Are those two on the same moral plane to you?

> validates the whole point that US doesn't like to acknowledge resentment it gets from most of the world

Interestingly, the US is up and awake, yet you have not been downvoted into grey, and many of the comments disagreeing with you have been. So you were wrong here.

Edit: To the folks downvoting because I mentioned downvotes, I respect and applaud your adherence to HN guidelines. But please be sure to downvote the parent comment for moral consistency, since he brought it up in the first place.

I am well aware of my country's history.

Do you know what happened in Jedwabne? That was not an organized nation state attack on its minority, it was pent up hate in the local population that was released with an aggreement of o Nazi occupation force because people felt they can do whatever they want and decided to act on their hatred.

For hundreds of years Poland did not govern its own territory and was split between neighbors who were not interested in resolving any of the growing problems between minorities and poles.

At the time of Jedwabne Poland as nation state did not exist, the government was truly symbolic, on emigration. Before II WW there was barely 20 years of Polish government during which time there was much other problems (ever heard of Russia invading Poland after WW1?) There was in fact a lot of racism towards Jews in that time but no organized efforts or pogroms. This only came after the government was removed and replaced by Nazi occupation.

If you compare it to current US situation, if the government stopped working completely, I am sure as hell there would be civil war between white and black population. Without damper from effective government there would be no more civility that was here during Nazi occupation.

Also, regardless,

one nation state abusing power is no excuse for another doing the same.

Resolving any kind of problem with a background of hostilities must start with ceasing of at least some of them. You can't keep escalating the conflict under pretense the other side did that in the past and call yourself peace force at the same time.

> Do you know what happened in Jedwabne? That was not an organized nation state attack on its minority, it was pent up hate in the local population that was released with an aggreement of o Nazi occupation force because people felt they can do whatever they want and decided to act on their hatred.

Yes, I'm well aware. That's a perfect example of absolute power. The local populace were free to do as they wanted, with no constraints.

BTW, do you know what happened in Iraq? It was "pent-up anger" about 9/11, directed at the wrong people.

But as you say, none of this excuses Jedwabne or Iraq.

> At the time of Jedwabne Poland as nation state did not exist, the government was truly symbolic, on emigration. Before II WW there was barely 20 years of Polish government during which time there was much other problems (ever heard of Russia invading Poland after WW1?) There was in fact a lot of racism towards Jews in that time but no organized efforts or pogroms. This only came after the government was removed and replaced by Nazi occupation.

And I could come up with a bunch of excuses here for US behavior. BTW, claiming Poland was a "people" and not a "nation-state" is a complete cop-out for Poland's Holocaust atrocities.

> If you compare it to current US situation, if the government stopped working completely, I am sure as hell there would be civil war between white and black population.

No. Black US population is about 15%. It wouldn't be a civil war - it would be a massacre, which is why I and many others have been trying against all hope to calm down current tensions. I've worked in an "intersectional conflict zone" - I know what people can do to each other. It can absolutely happen in the US if we don't take care.

> one nation state abusing power is no excuse for another doing the same.

Yes, I totally agree.

BTW, I noticed you didn't address any of my other points.

> it was pent up hate in the local population that was released with an aggreement of o Nazi occupation force because people felt they can do whatever they want and decided to act on their hatred

In my opinion much more damning than the actions of a government - not necessarily explicitly supported by the population.

You're missing the point. The reference to 9/11 was meant to indicate that since then tracing transactions worldwide got a lot stricter due to pressure from US to international banking systems.

> when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.

Not in America.

> US rallies for some causes where it seems to suit US interests.

Yes, we act in support of national interests, like every country.

> There are so many countries that need help but in recent years whether a country gets US presence seems largely dependent on whether there is oil there and US is all too happy to turn their face away if the government of the oil-rich country is collaborating with US.

America is not out to save the world and this is a good thing. There is nothing worse than some outsider coming in to save the poor savages from their own evil selves. It’s not our job to pass judgement on others or to fix every problem in the world, unless it is in the national interest (even then I’d say the US has too many interests but that’s another issue).

> This unfortunately adds fire to the trouble in the Middle East. If you are islamic radical it is extremely easy to recruit people by showing them factual, real, undeniable misbehavior of US.

This is laughable. Compare The US to the regimes in that area in terms of “misbehavior”. America has nothing to be ashamed of there.

> I think it is preposterous for US citizens to get obsessed after this one when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.

This is like saying it’s preposterous to get obsessed with kids dying from malaria when more people die from heart disease.

You can care about more than one thing.

Not surprising the one tragedy that happened in front of our faces on national television affected us a lot.

Currently, every person must die of something at some point.

The tragedy is when somebody's life is cut short well before their natural end for reasons that could be easily fixed / avoided if we just applied ourselves better.

That is why heart disease and malaria are two entirely different things in my opinion. Heart disease happens mostly to older people who had their entire life to make right choices but were maybe, like me, too lazy to do it, while kids who die of malaria are basically completely innocent and had no saying or influence on their situation.

It also seems fighting malaria is much easier than fighting heart disease.

Now, I agree that we could and should do better to invest more into researching how we can make advanced age more satisfying to population of the earth and this means also learning how to help with heart problems en masse and not just to people who have enough funds to get adequate care and enough intelligence to prevent large portion of the risk in the first place.

Malaria is just one of the examples. I don't say we should put everything away and just focus on it. I would like that we identified where we could spend a relatively small portion of GDP to get a lot of good. Just imagine how much good could happen if entire world spent 5 times more money on health and health-related research than on military. Would you be willing to spend 10% of your income to get better health and longer when you are old? I would, for sure.

> The tragedy is when somebody's life is cut short well before their natural end for reasons that could be easily fixed / avoided if we just applied ourselves better.

You mean ... like 9/11?

of course you will be down voted (if not flagged) when americans wake up, its precisely their denial and ignorance which enable their government to continue to make the world a worse place through direct or indirect military intervention, hard/soft coups through support of opposition parties, systematic undermining of free press in other countries, etc. Be it the middle east, south america, africa, etc. while simultaneously being able to feel good about themselves or at the very least hold on to their delusional idea of american exceptionalism. Meanwhile the entire world perceives the US as a bully, liar and rogue nation that will only ever prioritize their own interests over anyone elses detriment.

To be honest, all people tend to be in denial and ignorant. You are ignorant. I am ignorant. Everybody is ignorant of overwhelming majority of what is happening in the world or our heads would immediately explode.

Singling out US and US citizens for this is wrong and unfair.

What I am talking about is a series of bad decisions with repercussions that should be predictable. I mean, if you constantly cheat and are dishonest with family you live with it is no surprise that at some point they will stop liking you? Don't act stupid repeating how good and fantastic you are. Don't blame the family for not liking you. If you want people to genuinely like you then start acting the part without strings attached and hidden interests.

FWIW I'm downvoting because your grab-bag of opinions about 9/11 and America is irrelevant to GP's point and high-grade flamebait, not because it's trite and poorly reasoned.

>I don't want to sound insensitive, 3 thousand people is of course a tragedy, but on a scale of entire Earth I think it is preposterous for US citizens to get obsessed after this one when more kids are dying to malaria every single day or for multitude of other problems.

>will typically get a lot of upvotes during US night time and then gets suddenly killed when US wakes up.

I don't know about the downvotes, but you're presenting a false equivalency that doesn't make any sense and is kind of insulting to me as an American. Specifically about Malaria, which a US president has created a program to address https://www.usaid.gov/global-health/health-areas/malaria. America sends billions of dollars worth of aid and supplies around the world every year. But to hear Europeans talk about it, the only thing America does is cause problems for them with our imperialism.

Sometimes I wish America would just listen to Europe and let them fend for themselves. Let their navies handle global piracy and securing global shipping lanes for their interests. Let their armies deal with Russian and Chinese saber rattling and the effect that will have on trade. Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell the government to let European militaries spend their own money to launch and maintain GPS systems that the entire western world has been given and using for the past 40 years, paid for by American taxpayers.

>A larger lesson is that you want somebody teach virtuous behavior you need to be able to show the virtue yourself or you are not going to achieve very much in terms of results.

Very ironic, since you're doing the same thing to America / Americans. What part of you and your society is so virtuous that you feel the need to give America a lesson on how to be virtuous?

Your proposal that the US leave Europe to fend for itself was couched as a threat. I think it would be a worthwhile experiment. Not as a punishment, but as a liberation.

Would bad things happen? Of course! Different bad things than happen now, perhaps. Then again, maybe a lot of the same bad things. Would good things happen? Who could doubt it? How absurd to think that everything is better if controlled by the US.

And, as a USian, I'm willing to accept lessons on virtue from any corner. When you reach a point that you think nobody has anything to teach you, you're cooked. Virtue lives everywhere in the world. Seek it out. Foster it. Let it foster you. Virtue cannot be monopolized.

> And, as a USian, I'm willing to accept lessons on virtue from any corner.

If that's the case, prepare to accept lessons from phony, hypocritical people, because in my experience those are the ones most eager to hand out lessons on virtue to all comers.

> When you reach a point that you think nobody has anything to teach you, you're cooked

Learning new knowledge is an entirely different dish than moral teachings. I'm 100% willing to admit it when I'm wrong and learn new facts and perspectives from all people, even folks that I have fundamental disagreements with.

But I'm also very unlikely to accept any kind of teachings on "virtue" from such people. I find them generally to be not virtuous.

Actually virtual people tend to be more humble, and you have to seek out their input.

US has lost its high moral standing in the world in the same way that Google lost its standing with the technologists on HN. But those on the inside tend to be oblivious to these facts.

What countries have high moral standing in the world?

I get the point you are trying to make, but the pedant in me wanted to point out that Europe does have a GPS alternative up and running (Galileo) so that they aren't dependent on US satellites.

Russia has GLONASS and China has Beidou, nobody is dependant on US GPS.