I would say that's more like because the US has arranged for Europe's fossil fuel energy sources to be disrupted or cut off:
* Libya - NATO made a pig's breakfast of that, it's a failed state now.
* Iran - transitive sanctions, because why not prevent non-US states from trading with each other.
* Russia (& Kazahkhstan) - The US (with or without Ukranian involvement) bombed the NordStream pipeline(s), led the EU into the proxy war in Ukraine and a sanctions regime against Russia. Kazakh oil goes to Europe through Russia.
* Gulf states - until recently, possible but not very convenient ; since Feburary of this year, the war on Iran messed that up badly too.
the US is the winner here not just geo-politically, but also as an oil exporter, with the EU now depending on purchasing US-exported oil.
Reminds me a bit of that 'Yes Prime Minister' sketch about nuclear deterrant, when the skeptical conversant asks the PM: "So what is the last resort, Picadilli?"
Guilt with a corollary of subservience to “Western values” having become the predominant ideology in Germany, strategic shortsightedness and failure to properly “relaunch” after 1990, also the occasional murder of more “promising” members of the political spectrum (sans doute at the hands of our dear “friends”), brain drain to the U.S., catastrophic “investments” like Chrysler or U.S. telcom, and barely anything of it ever raised to the threshold of public debate and intelligent reflection : a lot of things combine to explain the dismal state of affairs in modern Germany.
It cannot be ruled out that the German gov was complicit in the bombings; not wilfully, but passively, like someone too weak to resist for lack of self-esteem. Like chancellor Scholz on Feb 7, 2022, at the White House press conference where Biden threatened the pipeline:
▪ “If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it.” ▫ “But how will you do that, exactly, since the project is within Germany’s control?” ▪ “We will… I promise you we will be able to do it.”
There was no reaction from Scholz. Just nothing. By the way, could be I'm wrong, but that part of the press conference seemed scripted/scheduled to me. Not the exact words, but the contents.
The trouble with drawing any sort of line is that when you're complicit and “aiding and abetting”, there's simply no motivation. And as long as the populace doesn't have a clue what's going on, their understanding being reduced to “evil Putin”, that's not even much of a problem.
Except for the input of the hundreds of stakeholders they consulted, Anthropic included [1]?
> The Union is stuck on major economic crises (electricity prices for instance) because nobody can agree on anything.
That sure seems relevant for the implementation of AI watermarking...
> However, the bureaucracy forces tech into a privacy nightmare.
No, this transparency allows consumers to more easily detect AI generated content.
[1] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/code-pract...