> improving health and well being for all
Yeah, to me it looks like that is not fine under the new administration. If it would help only Americans, or those in power at least, it would be okay, but something for all the humans? Naaah...
Yeah, to me it looks like that is not fine under the new administration. If it would help only Americans, or those in power at least, it would be okay, but something for all the humans? Naaah...
Honestly, I think Trump is sending a deliberate message here and in a thousand other ways. If you trust the U.S. or rely on the U.S. for anything, no matter how tiny, the new U.S. is going to screw you. It doesn't matter if it was a mutually beneficial collaboration. The U.S. is happy to screw themselves in the process of screwing you. You can't bargain with them. Nothing you say or do will matter. They are going to hurt you because that is the U.S.'s new policy towards it's friends and especially its allies.
Trump is not being selfish or putting America's interests first. He's putting someone else's interests above those of the country he ostensibly serves. A lot of what he's doing makes absolutely no sense until you view it this way, and then it all makes sense.
This seems to be ending now.
Europe is being bombarded by fascist propaganda internally, from Russia and now the US as well (primarily perpetuated by Musk). For some reason everyone decided that breaking up and weakening Europe is a majorly important goal. I can't shake the feeling that this is a coordinated effort.
I know. This is why I added an "(overt)" here.
> For some reason everyone decided that breaking up and weakening Europe is a majorly important goal.
People might not know it much, but Europe has some silent power about some very important aspects of this world. Removing this power will allow seeding of infighting and removal of tons of regulations in physical and digital realm, allowing much more "monies" for the rich.
Plus, Europe is leaving fossil based fuels faster than anyone else.
It's all about monies now. The rest can be (modern) peasants and merely survive. It doesn't matter as long as monies keep coming.
It's a fusion of Brave new World and 1984. Look at Australian politics. One prominent figure allegedly told that $2/day is enough for many people.
If we assume that the US is in the process of moving away from being a democracy, or at least becoming an illiberal democracy (I personally think that this is _slightly_ pessimistic and that the Supreme Court may surprise us and save it yet, but it's an idea that's very much out there) then Europe (defined broadly) is left as the last major outpost of liberal democracy in the world (or second-last; you could argue India either way to some extent); it then makes some sense that it would be targeted by authoritarian and moving-towards-authoritarian states.
Calling the US an empire because it if friendly and does business with other countries is just propping up the fascist propaganda.
Under this plan, some countries are coerced to abandon building their own advanced goods (like planes), and given promises of supply from the US, fueling the technology gap with some countries in the mid-term.
This plan is what made Europe to be semi-dependent on US for defense and some advanced tech. My country had to re-invent the wheel countless times to close that gap, sometimes getting flak from the US, and even some technologies are outright denied to us to keep us vulnerable in some cases.
This plan is what made US a "soft-empire", though everybody signed into it because they had to. Now, the current US administration wants to discontinue these warranties, and Europe is starting the ReArm program.
Another face of the US (the Greater US) is discussed in this book [1], also worth reading, which is in my reading list.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater-ebook...
>An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries".
I've sort of argued with Russian propagandists going on about Europe being part of the US empire so the Russians are only doing the same by sending tanks into Ukraine but it isn't really like that. I mean the UK is obligated to help defend the US under NATO and we did sent troops to Afgansitan on their behalf so is the US part of the British Empire or is the the UK part of the US Empire and how can we tell? Where are the viceroys? At that point I mostly get blocked.
I mean you can redefine the words so everywhere that watches netflix is part of the US cultural empire but it's not empire in the traditional British Empire sense and gets a bit meaninless if you include everything.
US has several outlying territories. US has around 800 military bases around the world. In SK and Japan (and to a large extent in Australia), US dictates the policies. The world institutions have been mostly controlled by the US without putting itself under their jurisdiction. I see one dominant center with several subordinate peripheries - in Europe, Australia, SK, Japan and the island nations of Pacific. Unlike olden days, you do not need to send people as governers directly. You only need to control the trade, defence and foreign policies.
Also re Australia, it's a long standing military ally of the US but it still a constitutional monarchy under the British crown - I think they still have Liz on some of the bank notes. I guess military cooperation trumps head of state? It all gets confusing.
This Munich security conference is a wake-up call for EU in many ways. The speeches by JD Vance and Jeffery Sachs were both shocking in different ways. The reason you are telling US to sod off now, is primarily because you want to return to the old ways of pre-Trump. Europe really likes the NATO security umbrella and the money from US. When the old ways are threatened, you are screaming to return to the old ways. I am not seeing a Europe that is saying we will be independent. I am seeing an Europe that desperately wants a return to the predicable security umbrella.
As a resident of a supposedly developing country that's been stagnating for more than 30 years, I really see very few positive things coming out of the US and Europe. Their companies suck our country dry in exchange for kickbacks to the government (which has never won even a single honest election — but this never bothers anybody), their politicians are never worried about "human rights" or "democracy" in our country because they have significant monetary interests here. In spite of our horrific human rights record.
Lots of promises of large capital investments from the West were made by many diplomatic missions back in Spring of 2022; none have actually materialized.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Russians are busy building roads, bridges, and power plants — playing the long game.
It is very silly to argue it does not exist just because the British allegedly had a larger one.
People (the majority of which are not Russian and hate modern day Russia) call the US an empire because of seemingly endless list of things like banana Republics, operation condor, sending death squads to Nicaragua, chevron genocide, wars for oil.
This is one of the silliest hills to die on.
Many, many of us are bewildered by Trump's actions, and consider him a some inscrutable mix of evil, stupid, and deranged.
I'm not even politically left (I'm pretty centrist), and I know I'm not alone in being perplexed by how he won the election.
The current administration didn't grow in a vacuum. It might not be the whole of the USA people, but a large enough fraction of the USA people supported the current administration, otherwise there would be no chance of it getting elected, even with all the brokenness of the USA electoral system. And the current administration still has a large enough support from the USA people, otherwise they could do nothing: the government is not some mechanical device which blindly follows the wishes of whoever is in command, it operates through people, and if all the people rejected the current administration, its orders would have no effect.
Trump is firing people at random, Musk is plugging his USB drive into all the databases, what can I practically do to "reject the current administration"?
Keeping in mind that the majority of what he's doing is a political "Gish Gallop" (https://effectiviology.com/gish-gallop/ ), as in "Gulf of America" to hide the meat of selling the FBI and Department of Justice buildings (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-t...), installing the newscaster of a propaganda network (https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/22/media/fox-news-reliable-sourc...) as the Secretary of Defense, dismantling USAID, and otherwise doing everything in his immediate power to break the bones of the US government?
Anything of consequence (eg: Civil War 2.0) is "even better" for Russia than what's going on now.
It's a horrifically complicated judo flip of nation-state proportions. Please get your act together, EU!
No, never. I have enough experience on that matter due to where I live and due to friends I have all over Europe and US.
People and the administration of the country they happen to born/live in are completely detached in my mind.
However, sometimes people get more than what they bargained for, and I'm sure some people are in that situation right now.
Look, I'm from a country which is going through the exact process. It's much more complicated than that. It'd fill books.
The whole? No, of course no leader should ever be conflated with the whole people of a country. A plurality, however? Definitely.
Trump won an evidently free and fair election, growing his vote-share over essentially the whole country. He has not conducted a heel-face turn since entering office, and his actions are broadly consistent with his campaign statements.
Moreover, Trump isn't the only elected official in the federal government. If Trump were some aberration then Congress would have every ability to thwart his agenda or remove him from office; they have not. The majority-Republican Congress approved even his controversial cabinet nominees on party-line votes, and to my knowledge they have not taken any major investigative or punitive steps since.
A majority of American voters may not have voted specifically for this, but they did vote for the party and candidate who are content to allow this to happen in the supposed service of other goals. Voters who earnestly believe the misinformation shared by demagogues and social media are a tragic case, but that does not excuse voters who 'voted with their wallet,' foreswearing their obligation to the common good in hopes of a tax cut.
Do not mistake me for a rabid partisan. I do not let the Democrats off the hook either for reasons that are another rant and are directionally in alignment with Nate Silver's published opinions.
Part of me is curious to know exactly what those who “vote with their wallets” would abide. It is unfortunate for them that their Faustian bargain is turning out not to be true, and that neither inflation, nor the cost of living, has or will go down, and that services that they and their loved ones may rely on are being dismantled, but they were candidly advised that this would be the case.
Had Walz been top of the ticket with exactly the same campaign and policies, he would have won. It sucks and it’s an indictment of the country, but pretending otherwise doesn’t help.
Walz suggested he may run for 2028 so we may get lucky enough to witness your prediction. I'd bet against him winning more than one state before primaries.
Harris may not have had a great campaign but it absolutely baffles me that a majority of voters would even consider voting for Trump after all the crap he pulled last time. He should be in prison, not the white house.
heh. There is some region here (Shopsko), with somewhat weirdo's population, and they do have such a saying:
"i will burn my house if that would burn my neighbour's shed"
Let’s not ignore the obvious—He doesn’t seem interested in government or leadership, but he is interested in power.
If his long arms can take something away, then you must make treaty and negotiate to get it back. And it goes the other way, if China is upset about the service, he can turn it off and see what leverage or opening that gives him in negotiations.
I see these moves as distraction, and power play. It’s difficult to see any deliberation in service of values.
Don't forget that Trump also hates environmentalism in any form. Air quality metrics would acknowledge that pollution exists, which contradicts his opinions.
We should also consider the possibility that this is malicious compliance by people trying to embarrass Trump.
Trump is the chief executive of the United States. Either he ordered, or he hired some who ordered it. That's how it works.
> We should also consider the possibility that this is malicious compliance by people trying to embarrass Trump.
How much does Trump pay you to say such things?
Additionally, as a Canadian, I wonder what will happen to us (and I suspect Mexicans are in a similar position) given our undeniable reliance on the United States. Canada, in its current political and economic climate, is not in a strong position, and right wing extremism has been on the rise. Some people are even literally advocating for _merging_ with the United States. While I think that is unlikely, I do wonder what our future will hold?
I personally don't know how to feel about the future.
I must say I got a lot out of it and it's followups. It became much easier for me to understand the world around me, what is happening. And even predict what's to happen sometimes.
What you observe with Trump admin: 1) it's stupidity; 2) it's not low IQ or lack of rationality; 3) it's lack of morals, not caring about good/bad, or even considering good what the rest consider bad (and vice versa); 4) it's social more than individual, it's a "mind virus". (ha!-Musk)
Bonhoeffer‘s "Theory of Stupidity" https://youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc (bad morals not low IQ, mind virus social more than individual)
Sabine Hossenfelder "Collective Stupidity -- How Can We Avoid It?" https://youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng (more cases, much more analytical, only about the group aspect not individual)
No need to redefine stupid. We have a word already for that: spite.
Having said that - I rather like the use. "Stupid" is part of quartet. All humans are categorised in four categories: intelligent (I), helpless (H), stupid (S), bandit (B). In X-Y coordinate system, by quadrant Q, actions taken by Tom, that affect both Tom (on X-axis) and Dick (on Y-axis):
- Q1 (+,+) Tom gain and Dick gain => Tom was intelligent (I).
- Q2 (-,+) Tom loss and Dick gain => Tom was helpless (H).
- Q3 (-,-) Tom loss and Dick loss => Tom was stupid (S).
- Q4 (+,-) Tom gain and Dick loss => Tom was a bandit (B).
+ There is no upper bound on the amount of stupidity that can exist within any particular individual.
+ We always underestimate the number of stupid people.
+ The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
+ A stupid person is someone who causes damage to another person, or a group of people, without any advantage accruing to himself (or herself), or even with some resultant self-damage. (Golden law of stupidity)
+ Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people, and that it's impossible to predict the actions of the stupid.
+ A stupid person S is the most dangerous person (compared to I, H, B), and crucially stupid S is more dangerous than a bandit B.
Bonhoeffer is the one to make a connection to morality. That looks very important observation to me. And that it happens in groups, like a mind virus-I can see that. Sabine's video is all about collective stupidity. (Extraordinary Popular Delusions as a mirror image to Wisdom of crowds.)
The thing is, I don't think what Trump is doing is adequately explained by stupidity. He's going well out of his way to harm the U.S.'s own interests in a way that, by too-strange a coincidence, helps Russia.
What's flabbergasting is how the Republican Party is enabling this. I thought they had more self-respect.
I think the dam will break and many people will start pretending they never supported Trump. And I think this Trump's minders know this, which is why they're destroying everything with such haste. They know they have limited time to gut the country.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" (Orwell).
lmao, China improves air quality in China for Chinese people
"the world is not all about you" (SURACI)
”He’s a maverick, but he gets results!”
It’s just another part of their ongoing edgy, outsider, contrarian, disruptor narrative.
In my understanding it is not an attack on the country of china, to show their population a glimpse of truth.
It is maybe a slight attack on their government. But governments are not the same as the country, even though governments tend to disagree.
When one country wants to give the population of another "a glimpse of truth", no matter how well meaning, it's usually seen as a threat to the nations sovereignty, for better or worse.
As it stands right now, the US are no longer interested in either being in opposition to warmongering countries (Russia) nor stand up against countries it sees as oppressive to it's own population (China), it's clearly heading down a road of self-isolation which makes sense when you consider the ultimate goal of the current regime.
The "glimpse of truth" is coming from embassies within their borders. They could disallow the embassies if they honestly see the air quality data as a threat to their sovereignty.
So yeah, there isn’t going to be a coherent plan behind this, other than adding chapters to the story he spins to keep his peeps engaged, as he dismantles and silences every form of effective opposition he can.
The stories of who’s to blame for people’s frustrations, How he is the answer. What “we” “deserve” and he should take, others be damned. Who is for him vs. who is the “enemy”. What helps him vs. what is “waste”.
Science, scientists, any morally secure adult professionals, are near the top of the list. "These people make me feel dumb, so I have to punch them in the face to compensate" is the underlying motivation.
If it's not checked it's going to turn into a bloodbath against science and rationality in general.
I don't think, that is a universal shared concept.
I mean we are talking about air quality sensor data here. Not analyzing and judging the countries politics.
Well, yeah. For example, Trump and his administration clearly lies about a lot of stuff, and it's fine and dandy if foreign news agencies report on these lies, no one bats an eye about that. But if you started seeing campaigns from German government for example, to "offer a glimpse of truth" to the US citizens, I think most nations would react negatively towards something like that, and most likely call it propaganda, even though it would actually be "spreading the truth".
Basically, what the US has been doing to the world for a long time ("Spreading democracy") is more and more seen as an act against a country's own sovereignty.
I agree that the quest for truth should always trump whatever politics are going on in a country, but the common person doesn't really have that "science" mindset so a lot of the population at large would see something like that as infringement on sovereignty, no matter if what's being spread is true or not.
I would ask the people. The stories shared here from Shanghai seem to indicate support of knowing about their air quality. They are the ones to breath it.
Does this apply to RT?
- By forcing the Chinese to fix their air quality, this indirectly makes then economically less competitive, since they need to tighten their processes.
- Polution travels all over the globe, everyone eventually is impacted.
To infect them all with the woke mind virus, so it takes hold and destroys their country.
War won without even a shot fired.
If that’s woke then consider me wide awake.