Europe: How to Become Poor Peasants Again | Hacker News Reader

Europe: How to Become Poor Peasants Again

senecaeffect.com

29 pointsterseus65 comments

To sum up the article, they claim:

  * Somebody (probably America) sabotaged the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline.
  * That's related to the war in Ukraine because? wars are always about resources?
  * The EU doesn't have any options to replace the gas that needs to come from Russia.
  * That's going to drive all EU citizens back to an agrarian lifestyle.
  * And also, the EU is too weak of an institution to defend its citizens.

It reeks of conspiracy theory to me. EU citizens should hate the US for driving them into poverty and should embrace Russia invading their neighbor.

One of the first results that comes up for me when I search "Nordstream 2" is the Brooking institute discussing similar conspiracy theories spreading among podcasters in the US, parroting the Kremlin: https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/u-s-podcasters-spread-k...

I'm curious what the alternate theory of Nord 2 sabotage is? Does anybody other than the US benefit?

It lets plenty of EU politicians off the hook for the upcoming winter of suffering.

The narrative will no longer be "Why did we get in bed with the Russians for our energy?" and instead will be "Too bad about the broken pipeline!"

could as easily(likely, in my opinion) be Russia. Putin knows that the bridges to Europe are already burnt - might as well try to hurt the Europeans as much as they can for supporting Ukraine. Yes it hurts Russia economically, but for Europe it’s even worse.

Putin controls the valves, he doesn't need to blow it up to hurt the Europeans. As it turned out recently it is quite easy to come up with a ton of excuses to stop the supply. With the NS blown there is no leverage anymore. So, IMO this version doesn't hold to scrutiny.

> Putin controls the valves, he doesn't need to blow it up to hurt the Europeans.

If the plan is to come in later as the savior of an impoverished Europe then yes, he does need to blow it up. Shutting off the valves makes him the bad guy, and people will remember. Having it blown up by some unknown party, ideally the US, lets him pretend it was all out of his control and he's doing the best he can to help his dear friends in Europe.

>Shutting off the valves makes him the bad guy

Nothing in the world could make him not look like the bad guy in the west. Shutting/not shutting valves would change zero opinions of Putin.

There's a sucker born every minute, and betting against human gullibility rarely works out well. You'd be amazed how many people can be taken in after a year or two, let alone longer time periods.

Why would the US only blow up one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipelines?

Pipeline B of Nord Stream 2 is unscratched and can deliver 30 billion cubic meter of gas per year.

Gazprom now says that two of three "destroyed" pipelines are now in a stable condition hinting that they can be repaired.

Why would the US only destroy 1/4 of the pipelines?

I'll ignore the fact that you responded to my question with other questions instead, and actually answer yours. It's a proxy war. We're pretending we're not actually at war with Russia and this is all the heroic effort of Ukrainians. So the same reason we don't impose a no-fly zone over parts of Ukraine - we're trying to balance escalation that achieves a goal without escalating too far that there is no return.

Now your turn. Who other than the US benefits from this?

I'm sorry, why are you using the term conspiracy theory as a slur, here?

Blowing up an underwater international gas pipeline requires planning. Doing so in such a way that the public doesn't know about it in advance requires secrecy. The public not knowing the reason for blowing it up also requires ongoing secrecy.

Admittedly, I'm not the smartest person in the world, but this seems like a fairly cut-and-dried conspiracy to me.

  * Somebody (probably America) sabotaged the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline.

Ok that's possible

  * That's related to the war in Ukraine because? wars are always about resources?

Its feesable that its Russia/Ukraine war related

  * The EU doesn't have any options to replace the gas that needs to come from Russia.

This is just wrong. Its just that options are expensive both fiscally and politically. Though some of the options are better for them in the long run by making them green independent. it just takes too long...

  * That's going to drive all EU citizens back to an agrarian lifestyle.

Just a silly notion.

  * And also, the EU is too weak of an institution to defend its citizens.

Also very silly.

I’m currently in Chiang Mai, a city known for its digital nomad/entrepreneurship scene. Lots of European natives here who’ve been in the city for months. Many have even moved here permanently.

Talking to them, there is a definite sense of pessimism, bordering on fatalism, about them. Some of this is reflected in salaries - skilled white collar workers get paid well on average in Europe, but their salaries haven’t kept pace with the rest of the world, including (and especially) America. Even as an Indian, most of my peer group makes similar wages as their European counterparts, without even factoring in purchasing power.

What I mean to say is that it might all seem to be crumbling down now, but the decline seems to have started a while back.

Their views about the economic situation have no value unless they are economists.

You're dressing up what at best is anecdotal evidence, and at worst heresay, with a long post that sounds mature and well thought out but it's not.

As a European, there might be a stagnation for few years as energy sources will be needed to be resolved first, otherwise relatively low wages are compromise for relatively high taxation and thus bearable public services, like working public transport or public hospitals.

The Indian middle class makes about the same(and often more) money than their European counterparts, I agree. But the Indian middle class is a much smaller part of the population, and the working class in particularly Western Europe has a much, much, much higher standard of living than the working class in India.

One of the constant refrains in the Anglo-Saxon world is to describe Europe and the EU as permanently on the verge of collapse. It has not occurred so far, and it will not occur this time either.

Well, with inflation, war, various shortages, lack of power for the winter, I'm very trustful in human nature, but that may be a little too much for Europe.

They could always make a new deal with the Russians if they will face imminent famine and the collapse of industry (which I don't believe they are). All in all sounds like hyperbole to me. A harsh recession is very likely though. Seriously what is the theory here, they care about Ukraine so much they are willing to implode for it with no plan b? I find it hard to believe.

It's not that the other Europeans particularly care about Ukraine. They remember what happened last time they tried to appease an aggressive, expansionist dictator. If Ukraine is allowed to fall then next it will be Moldova, Lithuania, Poland, and so on. Better to take the pain now while the problem is still manageable rather than letting the situation spiral out of control.

I generally agree but I go back to the pessimistic article that (humorously?) predicts Europeans will go back to living conditions from 200 years ago. I don't think rational European leaders will let that happen. It could be that they completely lost their minds (there are signs...) but I give them some more credit for now. Even the Ukranians themselves probably have their limits on how much they care about Donbas and Crimea.

Last time it was Germany.

- It militarized Rhineland, nothing happened

- It got Luftwaffe operational again, nothing happened

- It annexed Austria, nothing happened

- It was given Sudetenland, it was even encouraged by allies

- It annexed rest of Czechoslovakia, nothing happened.

- It started war with Poland, Allies declared war and then nothing happened.

- Only when Germany started to conquer Norway, Allies have finally started to wake up.

There are parallels but also a whole bunch of differences between Nazi Germany and Russia.

They can't, with blown up pipes they can't just start receiving gas they need. That gives credibility to this theory - if there are mass protests and new EU governments as a result, they can't go back anyway as there is no longer infrastructure for gas delivery anymore. It really looks like some group wants EU all in, so we should be prepared for the worst possible outcome (WW3, some life remaining on the planet) if that's even possible.

> They can't, with blown up pipes they can't just start receiving gas they need.

Pipes can be reconstructed, peace deals can be made and shut down gas fields can be reopened (looking at you Groningen).

> It really looks like some group wants EU all in, so we should be prepared for the worst possible outcome (WW3, some life remaining on the planet) if that's even possible.

Well if that happens it happens - what's your idea of preparing? To me a quick death sounds pretty good in such a case.

Pipes can't be reconstructed quickly and can be blown up again later.

My guess southern hemisphere might have some chance of survival if SHTF so that's where I will be heading. Most people will die gruesome prolonged deaths from starvation, broken bones or radiation, only a fraction will be vaporized instantly.

You must be a hoot at parties! :)

Look I'm not saying it's an impossibility but I don't think it's very likely any time soon.

> Most people will die gruesome prolonged deaths from starvation, broken bones or radiation

Most people die a pretty shitty death from cancer / degenration / dementia. I can't see how you can escape that, it awaits us all .(btw why the south? Are they immune to nuclear winter / food shortages / climate change?)

Something with wind streams partially shielding southern hemisphere from winds in northern hemisphere. So by the time fallout reaches southern hemisphere, it will be partially diluted. Of course, assuming AUS/NZ/BRA/ARG won't get nuked as well, then it might be moot.

Maybe I am overly pessimistic, but I've seen my share of corp/gov dysfunctionalities and nothing gives me any assurance current "leaders" would stop before blowing up the planet.

Are you aware that nukes were set off forty to sixty times a year for two decades? In 1962, 140 nuclear explosions. Over 2000 nukes have gone off.

Two cities have been nuked. They are thriving cities today. The planet has not been blown up. It is not a hellscape. Crops didn’t fail. Even the worst nuclear disasters have had very limited effect beyond their immediate vicinity.

Follow Dory’s advice: keep on swimming. The world is not ending this year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_s...

Those nukes went off sequentially, not all at once. Of course spreading effects across many years would lead small effects that could be mostly ignored.

Thats overstating it. Things aren't looking good here in Denmark, but it takes far more than some bad economic times to crush us. Inflation is bad, but not unprecedented, neither is energy price spikes.

We are not currently seeing a shortage of much, certainly things have gone up in price, but we do not have the shortages we had with Covid, there are no restrictions on what I can do and the war hasn't impacted me in any way, except that it is the thing on the news.

It is possible we will lack power for the winter, its also possible putin nukes somebody. Not likely.

Right!!?? You didn't die yesterday, so you won't die today.

In reality, countries collapse in all kinds of different ways quite regularly.

It is like Express.co.uk: EU on the brink!!!!!

Europe collapsed twice during the 20th century and several times before that. It will probably happen again but the exact timing is impossible to accurately predict.

Except it appears the author is Italian, not Anglo-Saxon.

The article just takes "cui bono" and runs with it. Nordstream blown up by CIA, wink wink. Also, obviously!, total collapse of industry within 2-3 years and return to serfdom.

Is it me, or does he skirt over Europe not working increasing the supply of gas locally? I'm not saying they could replace Russia or the US, but they could almost certainly produce more (whether via fracking or whatever).

They could also import from North Africa - Spain does it, Germany wants a pipeline, but France is inbetween these two and blocks such initiatives to try to keep a future for their failing nuclear industry (even if 50% of it is offline), under various fake pretenses.

It looks like a catastrophe in the making, and public opinion about say fracking or support for war sanctions might change when say grandmas start making the news for freezing to death due to prices/blackouts etc.

Fracking probably takes awhile to get started...also geological European conditions are not great for that. I do wonder why the Dutch won't reopen the Groningen gas field. Yes earthquakes I know but this is a real crisis.

Most of Europe doesn't have the natural resources to do that.

I also believe they could get all the gas they ever wanted by building a pipeline through Turkey to Turkmenistan. With this disaster of a war ongoing the Turkmen government might be willing to risk playing ball with Europe.

Isn't gas from that part of the world unfit for heating/production/food in the EU? I've read that basically Russia buys it all from those countries for their own specific industry/military purposes and then sends their own gas through their pipelines to export them as those countries' own gas.

No, Russia buys it for a song (since they're the only customer) and uses it domestically and possibly sells it along to Europe. I've certainly never heard of the Turkmen gas being unusable for regular purposes. There's a small pipeline to Afghanistan that supplies the border regions (when its running).

this is incorrect, there is a direct pipeline from Turkmenistan to China who buys about 6x more gas from Turkmenistan than Russia.

You are correct. I wasn't up to date on my Turkmen pipelines. I'm sure the Turkmen would be more than happy to sell to Europe though.

Yes, replacement is possible in years, as the article says.

https://infosannio.com/2022/10/01/lamico-tedesco/

(Massimo Gramellini - corriere.it) - For anyone who feels like a citizen of Europe, it was sad to see proof that our German-speaking compatriot Olaf Scholz essentially thinks of his own comforts. Not content with having backed the Dutch comrade in turning a deaf ear (it must be said) to the request to put a ceiling on the price of gas, the chancellor of Berlin hijacked two hundred billion of the German budget on the German bills, with many greetings to whom - for example the Italian budget - those two hundred billion do not have them.

NOKIA is pretty much a muster for the future of Europe. Made a headless chicken by US investors that needed to save their investments in Microsoft and going from a dominant force in one emerging market to an afterthought in two years.

This is a textbook piece of propaganda targeting the smart people, a real gem. The core principle lies in this sentence "The war in Ukraine is mostly a sideshow". With fascinating lightness it completely inverts the size of a story of one of the biggest countries in the world becoming fascist and attacking a neighbor in most boody war since WW2 which was several years in the making and a story of one infrastructure attack. The war and it's culprit is too obvious to attack directly, but what a propagandist can still try is to shift focus from the obvious main story to uncertain sidestory and switching their importance. Using the uncertainty of the sidestory it's then possible to use a lot of true arguments which convinces even the smart people if they miss the initial "significance inversion".

This is Russian/Tankie propoganda. Notice how the author subtly implies that America was the instigator in cutting Russian supplies to EU. Ignoring the fact that it was Putin who invaded Ukraine and Crimea, and started this whole sequence of events. It was Putin who decided to cut gas supplies, long before the pipeline was sabotaged.

This is motivated article which speaks half-truths with the goal of casting events in a particular light to advantage Russian interests. I would dig further into the author's motivations.

> It was Putin who decided to cut gas supplies, long before the pipeline was sabotaged.

That's factually incorrect. Germany said before the invasion, and followed through with it, that it would not allow NordStream2 to come into operation if Russia invaded.

Listen: Putin did start the war and caused most problems that are causing Europe's energy prices to skyrocket... but how can we just forget the order of event so quickly and start spreading fake claims when clearly it's not even necessary to make a point? Just say how it would be immoral to buy gas from Russia after the war was started regardless of consequences to the prices in Europe.

Nordstream 2 is not needed to supply Germany with enough natural gas. It‘s not even open, was never open.

Russia decided to cut deliveries (long before February, even) until eventually cutting them completely. Germany‘s stated policy is to buy gas if Russia wants to deliver it.

> Nordstream 2 is not needed to supply Germany with enough natural gas. It‘s not even open, was never open.

Who said it was enough?? What are you responding to?? Also, it was definitely ready to operate since September 2021, and that's why it was full at the time of the explosions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_2

> German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had been in favour of the project,[2] suspended its certification on 22 February 2022

> On November 16, 2021, European natural gas prices rose by 17% after Germany's energy regulator suspended approval of the Nord Stream 2

You can blame Putin for a lot of shit, but on this one, it was all Germany's fault.

> how can we just forget the order of events

A high IQ is neither a necessary nor sufficient defense against well-crafted Western propaganda efforts.

Hackernews falls for CIA talking points just as effectively as a Redneck falls for QAnon.

There should be no surprise here.

This is stupidity. Renewable energy will win in the end.

Without storage it won't

Also I don't believe for a minute that natural gas production in the US supplying Europe was the driver for this war. If it was, wouldn't have the push from Russia been towards securing the path of their pipelines instead of the Crimean peninsula?

The driver was to prevent the possible rise of Russia. Had Nordstream 2 been allowed to come online. Russia would have reaped enormous benefits and its influence in Europe would have strengthened.

This was clearly not in the US’s geopolitical interest.

From the article

"It seems clear that for us there are no other ways out than a decisive shift toward renewables, already today much cheaper than fossil fuels and capable of completely replacing them. Politicians have not yet understood this, but moving to renewables would protect us from new crises of energy availability and from blackmail by producers. But it's not something that can be done overnight."

Will that be soon enough for the Aluminium, steel and fertilizer plants that are currently idling and have fired 90% of their work force? In NL we even have food packing companies shutting down production this winter for 6 weeks.

How many months/years of idling will it be before they go bankrupt or the owners decide to pull the plug?

Renewable energy doesn't supply the chemical feed stocks that we currently obtain from fossil fuels. Those are essential to industrialized society and there are no cost-effective substitutes.

Good Article. No question the events in Ukraine coincide with Nord Streak 2 about to go online.

The amount of war time propaganda on the Ukraine conflict has hit overdrive status and I would expect this article to “disappear” quickly.

There is little room to discuss the larger geopolitic situation. Instead a simplified narrative of

“Putin is an evil dictator invading a peaceful democracy and must be stopped at all costs”

And

“Ukraine is winning and will reclaim all territory including Crimea!!”

Is all that is allowed.

What would happen if you tried discussing something outside of the allowed narrative?

Watch just immediate downvotes.. or often one liner replies. Essentially anything outside of the narrative = Russian sympathizer.

Reminds me of the bit activity around election cycles.

So your intelligent theory is that Putin is smart but USA outsmarted him and EU ? Or US and Putin are both controlled by Illuminati and the plan was to???

We in East Europe we knew all along that we need to get in NATO ASAP because Russia is actual evil and would not esitate to exterminate us just to take our land and resources, so fuck your Trumpan-Illuminati theories, the reality is in your face and you refuse to see it, Putin and Russia are evil, they will not hesitate to doe evil , US is not perfect but is not some super genius state where they played Putin as a stupid puppet all along.

Maybe we easter European are wrong, but for now we will curse Putin and Russia for all the shit is happening

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