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Comment by OGEnthusiast | Hacker News Reader

Europe is in a tough spot these days, trying to unwind decades of economic partnership with the USA while simultaneously trying to fend off Russia from Ukraine.

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Trying so hard to fend off Russia, but they can't put Taurus missiles on a truck and drive them to Kiev?

Converting the Ford factory in Detroit into a tank factory is "trying hard".

USA has been strategically re-homing TSMC to the USA mainland for a long time now. 30% of TSMC's global production is scheduled to be produced in America by 2028. Several iPhone chips are already being produced domestically.

This is what I would call "trying hard".

Contrast with the EU which has done nothing to become self-reliant, and really just has no ideas. It is unfortunate.

>really just has no ideas

It has the Dragi Reforms.

https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...

Do you have any kind of analysis not written by a partisan hack that those Tauruses will change the tide of the war? There are couple of hundred of them in existence. Ukraine will burn trough them in 2 months and China will get the data how to counter them for free.

They can, but they need to maintain their own security as well. Europe's war factories are running at full capacity at the moment. Plus there's still the political game being played as well, can't be too overt or aggressive because Russia might escalate. With nukes.

Yes. Russia will totally nuke the places where their elite's children, mistresses and often themselves live.

By trying to fend off, you mean stop sending Euros to Russia for energy?

Well, by 2027, the Russian gas imports will stop altogether.

At which point new pipelines from Siberia to China and India will likely be finished (if they aren't already)

Why do you make such silly claims about imaginary pipelines? What purpose does it serve? There is one that goes to China, but it's been operating since 2019. Beyond that there are no pipelines being built, neither to China nor to India. One further pipeline to China is in discussion. And none will be built by 2027.

What point were you trying to make? You just assumed these work in progress pipelines were really nearly done already? Why didn't you do some research? Why assume they exist?

Russia does not really want to build pipelines to China, because China would just tell Russia what it is willing to pay, take it or leave it. And it is definitelly not going to be market price.

We'll see, I'm rooting for you.

Optimists practise speaking Cantonese, pessimists— speaking Russian, realists— stripping and reassembling rifles?

Why Cantonese?

Optimists believe the new economic order will be mostly like the old, only perhaps involving a bit more trade[0] with cities like Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, and a bit less trade with cities like Houston, LA, and NYC.

(for Singapore, Mandarin would be better, but there English works, lah. Shanghai would need Mandarin, but we have our own financial centres)

[0] if the Don were serious about hemispheres, this might work. In practice[1], I believe there could potentially be issues running trade through chokepoints owned by USEUCOM (Gibraltar), USCENTCOM (Suez, Aden), and USINDOPACOM (Malacca). https://www.war.gov/About/Combatant-Commands/

Anyone know of any good minesweeping technologies?

[1] did "The Empire Strikes Back" not teach us that Sith always reserve the right to alter the deal?

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpE_xMRiCLE

Pedantry: most foreigners don't speak Cantonese in HQB

https://youtu.be/RTftU-8tkJc?t=16m34s

thanks! I hadn't been thinking retail though; I'd been thinking of people who were studying a language in order to signal that they were both interested in and committed to cultivating 关系 before exploring wholesale possibilities.

Wouldn't cantonese help with that? After all, languages are accomplishments, not acquisitions: you can't just buy spoken facility, you have to earn it through study and practice.

Or am I mistaken there too?

EDIT: another practical advantage: polyglots can code switch to quickly communicate things monoglots might have to resort to lengthy circumlocution to communicate.

EDIT2: Walkable city! Sweet! I don't know about Houston, but it looks way nicer than what I remember of LA or NYC. Street trees, even.

EDIT3: do I have these prices right? 8,8 CNY ~= 1 CHF? Meanwhile, YouTube is serving me local ads for kitchen knives at 330 CNY!

EDIT4: "Muslim Restaurant" == halal?

EDIT5: final thought: the narrator, like my friend, could almost be from Louisiana, where the three main topics of conversation are: (1) the food you ate last, (2) the food you're going to eat next, and (3) the food you're eating right now.

In theory, and certainly that's how some rationalize it. In practice, compradores are the most sought after.. in the old days, some of those guys were fluent in English, but maybe the Judeo-Christian vibes* were just as relevant. As in retail VC, where lack of schlep-tolerance is a red-flag (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BA%A2%E6%97%97L5#/media/Fi...), so lack of interest in the details of the better life you're pursuing => ..?

Yes 清真 is the sinicization

3. Front men are also in demand.. different vibes expected of these (outer party?)

*https://youtu.be/nryXhiKdwi0

Front men? You mean like when Erik Prince was playing token gweilo for CITIC group?

(At least Prince, however much his attitude may resemble Mr. Twister's, is aware the rest of the world exists. I haven't read any of the Hunger Games, but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games#:~:text=It%20... , despite the author's background [did she always live on base, never on the economy?], nothing beyond the lower 48 is a thing. As a contrast, Harry Potter is not at all solipsistic: it mentions about three dozen countries beyond its main setting.)

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Mv6gXqADM

Erik, yes. This too:

https://archive.ph/AcISR

https://youtu.be/qloY_aU7mpA

https://youtu.be/GSm99HFnvpY?t=7m17s

TIL there could be over a billion 川粉.

« N'interrompez jamais un ennemi qui est en train de faire une erreur » —N I

Poor Viktor! He should've just said no... https://images.prom.ua/4754852957_w640_h640_net-prikolnyj.jp...

(even Ivan the Terrible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7eIIIPBNUc&t=1735s doesn't drink without something to eat; he's not an alcoholic after all)

Dina's a bit boho; where are the oranges and sushki?

Santi? Barbara's the patroness of tunnelling; ܥܩܘܒ does fishermen and conquistadors? (I guess neither are known for paying much attention to sustainability?)

EDIT: Sorry Dina, didn't know it was in the kitchen.

Oh, not boho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cWp4BM0SXU

Crude Rules Everything Around Me?

EDIT2: Satyendra?

Satyendra? Bose?

Greenland (feint? The Man practising your fencing chengyu?) seems like an attempt to get discount on "something something China/Russia deals"? Reverse Bribery?

But can't be bothered to avoid Palantir or Microsoft.. that would be TOO tough! Learn all those new buttons (once) and that confusion with ~ instead of C:\. Oh the difficulties! :D

Your analogy kind of falls on its face considering `C:\` is `/` not `~` which would be `%USERPROFILE%`.

How do I get to d:\apps from c:\

It depends on your shell. I think MINGW bash has `/mnt`? maybe it's just `/c`, `/d`, etc.? but for cmd, it's the command `cd D:\apps && D:` and powershell handles it gracefully with one command for drive changing `cd D:\apps`

So cd /path/to/ and cd /d c:\path\to\d:\path\?

In a sense the EU is in a bind because it refuses to accept that the U.S. has moved on.

If the EU does that they can throw off a lot of shackles that they’ve imposed on their relationship with China, and part of that deal could be China stopping funding Putin’s insanity.

Not sure that's wise.

The US put pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil, which cost the US diplomatic capital. It was showmanship and self-sabotage of an important relationship, but those aren't the actions of a sworn enemy to the EU.

The US also gave how much material support to Ukraine over the last few years? Volatility and unpredictability is not the same thing as an enemy.

There's also the self-interest angle. Who controls the oil corridors into Europe? It isn't China. China is an economic juggernaut, but they have little power projection beyond China except somewhat in Eurasia, and especially not naval. The US has the seas locked down.

The EU could consider doing the opposite to what you're suggesting. Help the US in the Pacific instead of being non-committal. Then maybe the US would be more willing to keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars in your theatre, rather than seeing it as a one-sided relationship that won't reciprocate in a time of need.

US basically didn't do jack shit for Ukraine since Trump took over the 2nd time. Worse than that, US is trying to force Ukraine into some rotten capitulation to Russia, so that US and Russia can do business. As far as if US is Europe's enemy, just take a quick look at the recent US foreign policy doctrine, and decide for yourself.

US-Russia alliance means they will control the opening Arctic shipping route and containing China on the north. I would say it is too natural not to happen. Also global warming will possibly open a lot of new territories for development in Siberia and Alaska.

I don't think it's definite yet that "the US has moved on". If Trump kicks it - and he will, sooner rather than later - there will be another regime change. If the politics flips back over to the Democrats again they will probably try and do damage mitigation (again, this is the recurring trend) and try and repair international relationships.

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