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Comment by x3ro | Hacker News Reader

What's performative about not wanting to go down with a sinking ship? Or are you under the illusion that the U.S. is doing particularly well right now? It appears that the "we have the bigger stick" strategy is finally meeting some resistance, and I am happy to see it.

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I mean it’s not just that, the current administration have destroyed a bunch of the US’s oldest and most important alliances…

I’m not in Europe but in another allied country, the feeling amongst people here is that the US is not able to be trusted as a partner anymore.

And with ways the Government can apply pressure to US companies (CLOUD Act etc.) that extends to IS companies too.

It's not the current administration that started this process. The US has for decades gone against the Europeans, step after step, asserting policies that only favor US companies. In the past however, the US administrations sugarcoated this fact with the language of cooperation. The current US government is now laying bare the fact that they're creating a political system where all technology and resources are controlled by the US and their "allies" are mere observers that should not do anything about it.

This. This is something which the current administration does not understand. We Europeans have done what Washington says for 80 years. We are behaving like a colony. We let the US have bases here, we follow their economical model, the petro dollar and let them suck the wealth out of Europe. You want military bases on Greenland: ask friendly, we already said yes in the 50s. You want overflight rights for your wars: we give them to you since 80 years. You wanted access to our fibers. Oh let us help you with that.

It is the deal and the tone. You gave us security and let us participate in prosperity. You acted friendly. Trust, security and tone is replaced by bullying. Why should we continue to bend over?

You guys have to bend over because you willfully sold out your constituents and dissolved competition in the name of anti racism gloablism. You guys could have had the same thriving tech sector anyone else does. There’s no conspiracy to keep you guys down. You do that to yourself, while simultaneously waxing poetic about how much better you are than Americans with your social programs. Well turns out you can either have your guaranteed social programs where no one ever has to truly work hard, or you can have economic growth. You guys made your choice 30+ years ago, you only have yourselves to blame.

California and Israel have an unparalleled tech sector. I don't think it's correct to imply that it is an easily achievable feat or that every country could attain that.

>Well turns out you can either have your guaranteed social programs where no one ever has to truly work hard, or you can have economic growth. You guys made your choice 30+ years ago, you only have yourselves to blame.

That is somewhat true. World Happiness Report has the US at 23rd place, only 7 countries higher than it are not European (despite most having lower GDP/capita). I think Europe is mostly contend with this outcome.

Curious where you are. I am in Canada and it's certainly mixed feelings but I think there are plenty of Canadians that understand that despite the current craziness we're in this together for the long term. Similarly in the US there are plenty that understand this.

In relation to Europe vs. the US. Even before the current administration Europe has been at odds with American companies: "The European Union Renews Its Offensive Against US Technology Firms" (2022) - https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/documents/pb22-2.pd...

The framing that this started now with the current administration is not correct. The current administration certainly heated things up so to speak and brought things to the surface but the tension has been there for a long while. Europe is not capable of competing with US tech in general for various structural reasons. Europeans tend to argue this is because of US power but we see countries like China and India succeeding where Europe fails.

The more interesting question is whether there is a large enough lasting change in the US that takes away its structural advantages. I don't think this is the case. If you look at AI the hub of world economic activity and innovation is still in the US including startups and incumbents. s/AI/anything/ . China is certainly trying, and arguably succeeding, in taking some of that but it's still not at the same level. Europe is not even a player.

Interestingly, China is succeeding because it isolated itself partially from US big tech. That enabled them to build their domestic companies. If you give free reign to US companies, they‘re going to swoop up any competition early on.

The US relies on being attractive for smart people. There are still smart people going to the US, but the general mood seems to be that it‘s increasingly less attractive. Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

Top 3 CS programs still seem to be in the US. MIT, Stanford, CMU.

The US has its geography, weather, etc. which are not going away.

China has massive scale industrial espionage and learnt a lot by being the cheap place where things are made and stealing western companies processes. They also invested a lot in education and naturally they have a lot of smart people. I still think that as long as they have an oppressive regime the really smart people will prefer not to be there since the second you become successful you also become a threat to the regime. Their work culture is also pretty toxic.

https://monitor.icef.com/2025/11/there-were-more-internation...

It's hard to predict long term but the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years, it has relative freedom, it has capital to invest, land and resources, and overall it has good people (and crazy people which was always true). Most of the conditions that made the US what it is are still there and most of the conditions that made places like Europe unable to compete are also still there. The US is a lot more diverse than it used to be as well.

> It's hard to predict long term...

It's not hard at all if you can interpret charts and can observe trends. You do yourself no favors by intentionally misunderestimating an adversary, to borrow a Bushism.

> and crazy people which was always true

The experiment with giving the crazy people unchecked power over every lever of government is new, however.

This is perhaps a shrewd move against China: they can't steal technology and scientific advances from the US if there aren't any to steal.

Trump's power is not unchecked. He probably doesn't even win the craziest president award.

Historical US presidents:

Andrew Jackson -> threatened to hang his VP. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/41212/did-andrew...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson had meetings while sitting on the toilet: https://historyfacts.com/famous-figures/fact/lyndon-b-johnso...

Richard Nixon - needs no introductions?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/13yplux/crazies...

Also remember we had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism and the requirement by Truman that all civil service employees be screened for "loyalty".

There are now "loyalty tests" for those who apply to positions at the FBI, to be hired you have to state that the "patriots" on Jan. 6 2021 were the rioters attempting a coup, not the Capitol Police defending the constitutional transfer of government power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/08/...

But technically you are correct, of course. Trump never demanded that VP Mike Pence be hanged, the rioters he sent to Congress did.

I think the parent post is defending what somewhat older people know to be true. Nixon was far worse than Trump, also betrayed US allies for example. And where it hurts: he effectively stole gold from them.

And I'm sure in another 20 years even democrat voters will remember, probably correctly, that Trump was so much better than $us_president_at_that_time.

> Nixon was far worse than Trump

Nixon was never credibly accused of sexual assault, never organized a mob of rioters to sack the US capitol, never published tertiary syphilis-coded rants for the world to see in the middle of the night, nearly every night.

Nixon had a competent cabinet, some of them even had principles. Nixon's Attorney General was willing to resign on principle for his refusal to fire the special prosecutor. Nixon didn't put his own attorney at the head of the DOJ.

I could go on. To be clear: Nixon was a corrupt thug. At the same time he was nowhere near as symptomatic of a national malignant political cancer as Trump has been. Plus there was a congress to keep Nixon in check, we don't have a functioning Congress now, just a department of a political party.

> the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years

Not many hundred, considering the US declaration of independence was in 1776 and there were some adjustment after that. Perhaps some decades?

> It's hard to predict long term but the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years, it has relative freedom, it has capital to invest, land and resources, and overall it has good people (and crazy people which was always true). Most of the conditions that made the US what it is are still there and most of the conditions that made places like Europe unable to compete are also still there. The US is a lot more diverse than it used to be as well..

It's not all about economy though. I'm much happier living in Southern Europe than I would be in the US with probably 3x the disposable income.

I'd never consider living there, really.

> Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

Everyone's been saying this for like 20 years. It just hasn't happened.

At some point you realize that the people constantly pushing "multipolarity" just really don't like the US. It's wishful thinking

Past performance doesn't guarantee future performance. Otherwise xkcd https://xkcd.com/605/ would be true.

Using stock market wisdom to criticize the US, and defend "multipolar" countries like China and Russia?

Love it!

You’ll never get an honest conversation on this topic from these people. They’ve been allowing themselves to steep in America bad doomer “news” content for decades to the point these people can’t tell up from down. Every year the discussions here get closer and closer to Reddit slop, with the same exact talking points and acceptable spectrum of ideas.

Do you really think the American empire is never to be challenged? Everything and everyone goes down after a while. Whether it‘s now is unclear, though the active resentment against the US is unprecedented.

Sadly, your comment lacks any substance to argue with, all there is are unsubstantiated ad hominems. Sad.

No I'm a realist and realize that all candidates (CERTAINLY China and Russia, but even EU if we're honest) are far, far worse than "the American empire".

How is the EU worse?

Last time any part of the EU was anything close to hegemonic was before WW2. Perhaps you should look up how peaceful that period was.

I don't think it follows.

Multipolar doesn't mean replacement of hegemon.

It's also two different things, you might be right that China, Russia or the EU would be worse as a hegemon, but that doesn't imply that it wouldn't happen.

Being a realist would imply that you would understand that a fundamentally worse hegemon could still replace an existing hegemon.

Interesting. I merely pointed the flaw in your logic. You assumed I'm some multipolar proponent.

Why can't people understand this basic fact? China does not have a free press. The only information you're getting on public channels about China, unless you dig as deep as a financial analyst (i.e. getting trade data about China, but exclusively from non-Chinese sources. Other countries. Central Banks. Satellite images. Ship records. And so on) you are getting propaganda and nothing but propaganda.

So it doesn't matter what is going on with China, in the press you will always find "China is succeeding", with 1000 because's, usually "because" exactly what the last CCP meeting decided their economic plan is. It doesn't mean shit.

These same people also gobble up anti America and anti western headlines like fat kids at a buffet. They’re literally gluttonous for this kind of doomer porn. It’s hilarious, and also incredibly sad.

Why are pro EU headlines anti - western?

And we have Fox.

Everything went South after the US listened to Merkel's phone. That happened during the Obama administration.

If the EU or France are not capable of adopting Linux instead of M$ on the desktop, how are they going to switch phones over to something else that is not US based? By something else I don't mean Huawei.

Oh Android OS is quite workable. The hardware is the problem. And there the whole world goes to South Asia / China. Same with laptops.

But yeah, a missing agenda item. I guess desktop first. Have not said that for a while

France deciding, in principle, to come up with a plan for not using Microsoft is performative. It stops being performative when they actually do it. At any rate, is there a good reason for France to stop using Microsoft? I'm doubtful. It's a bit like the DoD declaring Anthropic a "supply chain risk"; basically performative.

To respond to the rest of your post: while the Trump administration's behavior has diminished US standing in the world, the US is doing well compared to Europe in many important dimensions (e.g. economic growth). Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.

But all of that is a side show. European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era. It's fundamentally about resentment. Europe is geopolitically weak and depends on the US for defense which is galling, especially for France with its history as a global power.

Defense against who ? Russia ? Or the US ?

> European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era.

This is crazy. The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally. That suited everyone — Europe because we could focus spending on post war reconstruction, and the US because you made a shit tonne of money by being the world's arms dealer and policeman.

There was no resentment of the US. Europe was in love with US culture (weird French cinema rules aside). And especially Eastern Europe... who have now had the hardest of all disillusionments.

This administration has destroyed the goodwill and trust built up over 80 years, and the economic foundation which made you rich and powerful. Let's check back in 30 years and see if that was a good idea. I'm hopeful that French nukes and Ukrainian ingenuity (and MAGA incompetence) will see us through the next 10-15 years of transition as re right the past mistake of trusting the US.

> The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally.

Charles de Gaulle didn't fall for it! I used to think he was an arrogant crank, but Trump has proven he was right all along to be critical of the US.

You must live in a different reality from me. The EU has closed trade deals with India and Mercosur this year alone, recentering the global economy around itself.

Meanwhile, the resentment seems to radiate from the White House as they increasingly realize how their moves are making them irrelevant on the global stage.

We're not upset. We just don't think you matter anymore.

> recentering the global economy around itself.

Wishful thinking.

Wishful to the point of delusion. Europe is a stagnant backwater in a deep energy crisis that's about to get significantly deeper, and comforts itself on an completely unearned sense of moral superiority that it can't feed itself with.

This is also a self-inflicted wound. There's no reason that Europe should be in the situation that it is in other than it is run by elites that are, like everyone else, invested in the success of US companies, and have no particular loyalty to Europe. When they retire, they move to the US and get board seats, advisory positions, lobbyist jobs, and cushy university spots.

Europeans need to start engaging in rational thinking and to stop letting their politics revolve around zombie US institutions (like NATO) and electing functionaries from tiny little countries who have made an industry of covertly advocating for US interests in Europe. They also need to seriously rethink their relationships with Russia and China, and realize that when it comes to Russia, they were the bad guys so destroying their economies and futures over manufactured grudges and fantasies of invasion is an indulgence that their children can't afford.

Independence from the US means getting rid of their elites that work for the US, and getting rid of victimhood narratives about Russia (who at least occupied part of Europe) and China (who have never done a thing to them.) They should make BRICS EBRICS. If Europe doesn't wise up, they're just going to start killing each other. Thank God that France has nukes and can't be invaded again.

> victimhood narratives about Russia

its russia that maintains the victimhood narrative. Europe cant fix it for them, other than beating down their army

Europe is now at the center of the world's largest free trade zone of two billion people. That is objective fact, not a wish.

I wonder what are we going to sell to Mercosur. German cars? They'll buy from China. French wine? They already have their own and it's quite good. Spsnish and Greek olive oil? That could work.

Okay genius now go look at the gdp of your European states compared with Texas alone. No one cares how many people you manage when your economic policy is so hilariously incompetent you’ve had 2+ decades of total stagnation during one of the biggest economic tech booms ever.

GDP is absolutely meaningless, as is the tech bubble.

It's a typical indication of an American centric world view based on two fallacies: that only the winner counts and that the only thing that matters is money.

This world view is based on the ultracapitalist system that the US still considers the one and only way but that we in Europe don't subscribe to.

But even the American geopolitical position wasn't all about money. It was about trust and alliances too. Now that these are all set on fire and the moral high ground is given up, the geopolitical status is no longer a given. See how America's allies came running to the unnecessary second Iraq war, and now shrug about Iran.

There is already 100000 workstations in a branch of the police with this Linux distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

It's not performative.

> Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.

Our far right parties are dangerous because they might get elected at some point, US far right parties are dangerous because they already did.

Well said on the site of Y-Combinator. A US company ran by Americans that mostly funds startups in the US. Clearly the US, the home of Apple, nVidia, Anthropic, Open AI, SpaceX, Google, Meta, Amazon, Tesla etc. is sinking while the EU the home of (? ... well, there is ASML) is going to be running the world.

Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from:

https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...

EU's GDP is so catching up with the US:

https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...

NOT

Yes exactly, just like the.. uhm.. the British Empire could not have possibly declined? Your point is that, because the U.S. has big companies and wealth, it can't be a sinking ship? Because to me this seems like a straw-man.

What I'm saying is that the U.S. is currently in decline, and many will agree with me. Where this leads your (I'm assuming) country, nobody knows. But to me, it doesn't look great.

I'm not American. But I guess I feel part of the US led western world order.

The US has big companies and wealth because it has the right ecosystem to create those.

The US is in decline is a meme. Decline can't be measured over short intervals. Maybe it is maybe it isn't. We'll see in 5 decades.

One thing I'm pretty sure about is that this decline of the US that many seem to be excited for and wishing here, if or when it happens, is not going to end well for most of those people. Another way of saying this is that most of the people commenting here have benefited and still benefit from the dominance of the US and the technology and innovation coming out of it, including Y Combinator. What is the long term strategic thinking behind "let's attack the US and make it fail" -> the answer is none. It should be in the interest of most of us to see more US success. We whine as everything around us is an outcome of that success.

Warren Buffet's "Never bet against America" still very much holds in my opinion.

It’s a losing battle trying to convince these Reddit refugees that they are the cause of their own stagnation and that yes they’ve all benefited from the American global order. These people wish for the destruction of American hegemony but have literally no idea how bad things will get economically were their childish ideations reality.

It is admittedly pretty goofy to get exactly what you want—an army of people making rules for everything under the sun—and come on here and complain about what we’re doing.

Even TFA, which is about yet another rule, has a goofy quote from the Minister of something or other about breaking free from American tools. Linux seems pretty American to me [1]. Maybe they’ll fork. Would be cool.

[1]: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...

Well, does it matter? It worked for China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_(operating_system)

In 2025, USA GDP grew by 2.0%. In 2025, EU GDP grew by 1.5%. Government spending (a proxy for government power) is a fraction of GDP, usually between 10% of GDP and 30% of GDP.

So, while the US may not be doing particularly well right now, it's still doing better than Europe.

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