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Comment by byyll | Hacker News Reader

I am European and I've never even seen anyone talking about it outside the internet. Majority of people do not know and do not care.

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I am also a European and I've seen people outside of my tech/privacy bubbles talking about moving for example off of WhatsApp for the first time.

Great if that's the case. I am no fan of WhatsApp and I do think we should use and encourage more European tech but I don't think how important that is has changed recently.

Thanks for this, as an American I was stressing out. But if it's only Europeans with internet access talking about it we should be fine. Let's just hope Europeans don't start using the internet.

Assuming that you commented in good faith and legitimately didn't understand:

Their point is that OP likely underestimates the effect of their particular filter bubble on their perception of the universality of the discussion and sentiment.

Why do you think that's more likely than the top level comments underestimating the effect of "thought leaders?" Sure, "most people" aren't talking about divesting their stocks or moving their manufacturing contracts, but where they ever talking about investments in the first place?

I didn't weigh in on the merits of OP's argument, I'm clarifying what that argument was for the parent commenter, who apparently believed that the OP thinks Europeans don't use the internet (assuming they commented in good faith).

I'd be happy to see other people commenting on the merits of the argument instead of attacking at best a gross misunderstanding or at worst a straw man.

Apologies I mis-read "their point" as "the point."

It's only the terminally online Europeans.

What do you mean?

This is the reality. Most people even in the US don't care.

When you ask the extremists, like some of the people in these threads, to list specific concerns about specific things that the USG is currently doing that they're unaligned with, they struggle. The biggest concern is, I guess, that we've banned trans men from womens sports and removed the X option from gender forms? Look, I think its a distraction for either side to be worrying about this so much. Those actions are a very, very far distance from anything remotely resembling human rights abuse. We've been playing world police since WW2 and we're $35T in debt; we have bigger fish to fry.

If you're mad that the United States is asking your country to contribute more to its own defense; or that its no longer going to get that $50M USAID contract for gender fluidity studies or whatever; I don't know what to tell you. Growing up is hard, but necessary. Europe can't keep relying on the US for everything.

If its ending the war in Ukraine; I think judgement should be reserved until we understand the terms of how it ends. Ukraine could lose some territory. Sucks, but again, America voted and does not want to be the world police anymore. Supporting peace at the cost of Ukrainian territory is not automatically "omg Russia and US are allied". Its a sad, horrible outcome of Europe utterly failing its neighbor; but sure, they can blame the US, part of the job of being World Police is also being World Scapegoat.

Most everything else the Trump admin is doing doesn't impact Europe. Its vague generalities about "vibes". You're oversocialized, and those vibes are probably courtesy of Russian/Chinese disinformation propaganda, not reality. Its hard to hear, you aren't going to believe it, but please just log off the internet and orient yourself on what really matters in your daily life.

> The biggest concern is, I guess, that we've banned trans men from womens sports and removed the X option from gender forms?

Really? The biggest concern? Not wantonly cutting long-running programs (even international commitments) with no regard to consequences, just to see what happens?

Well, that's the thing; I don't know what peoples' concerns are. I hear a lot of complaints about vague generalities (like what you just said) and ominous future-fear about a dictatorship, but I struggle to connect any of those concerns back to specific orders. Much of them just sound like an expression of a generalized anxiety disorder tbh.

I think the spending cuts are generally justified under something akin to "we don't have the money to spend on a lot of this stuff", because we don't. I haven't heard any argument on how deficit spending is sustainable, and obviously Americans are tired of mortgaging their childrens' future for short-term gains.

I suspect we'll rebuild a ton of the programs, and I hope we do; but we need to reach a place of fiscal sustainability first.

If they cared about fiscal responsibility they wouldn't have passed the 2017 tax cuts, or be trying to renew them now. IMHO taxes were fine in the 2010-2017 era and if we'd just kept that, we'd be close to a balanced budget. Instead, they cut taxes (the popular part) without cutting spending (the unpopular part) and let the debt run wild under the assumption "well the economy will grow so much it will pay for itself". Well, they were half right - it caused so much inflation that the debt is effectively 30% less because dollars are worth 30% less. They want to pile on new spending (deportation) while keeping the tax cuts that they still can't find enough spending cuts to justify. The fiscal arguments are basically a joke at this point.

You must be against the proposed tax cuts as we do not have money for those either, right?

Ultimately I am supportive of a surplus budget. For the next fiscal year, it comes down to how much spending the government is able to cut. I will say, the whole idea of DOGE giving $5,000 to every American feels quite unrealistic and unnecessary; that money is far better suited being dedicated toward stabilizing the fiscal situation of the federal government.

You mention the stimulus checks but dodged speaking on the tax cuts proposed by the house. Tax cuts will cost far more than the stimulus checks.

> cutting long-running programs (even international commitments)

Can you name examples that you believe should not be cut?

To begin with, don't just blindly fire people who are maintaining nuclear weapons? The EPA? CDC? Park rangers?

I am not arguing against cutting your government spending,but you shouldn't just cut shit willy nilly without regard for how important work is.

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