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Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

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Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#251
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Meddlesome" is certainly a light way of labeling torture training. What I find more troubling is that Trump has popular support. It's just not Trump. The rot goes far deeper.

Trump doesn't have popular support. Many of his 2024 voters are furious with him. What Trump has is oligarch support - an unholy alliance of weird and cranky tech billionaires, old(ish) money, foreign money, media owners, and insane white supremacist patriarch-wannabes, some of whom operate through think tanks, some through megachurches. The media are doing an excellent job of normalising this, not least - but not on…

I want to believe this desperately, but from what I see (well, on YouTube videos, surveys and polls) it makes it very hard for me to do so. I still see massive endorsement from the not so well to do in the hinterlands.

I will however grant you that my sampling is no where close to uniform.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#252
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting illegal wars and engaging in extreme corruption, for starters.

The war isn't illegal. The president has that power. I don't like it either, but since the Korean War this is simply a statement of fact.

The president of the US does not have the power to start a war without getting it approved by the UN security council. You're arguing internal implementation details, but the legality is not determined by your courts.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#253
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US wouldn’t even need to “attack” Greenland. What is there to even attack? 50 Danish soldiers? They could just say “that’s ours”, ignore whatever Europe says, and start doing whatever they wanted to do and instead force the EU to attack American forces or civilian business interests. I’m not suggesting this is a good idea or anything but there’s a ton of other ways that something like this could play out which in…

> What power has the US ceded? Before this, we (large multinational infra company) were happily using AWS, microsoft and a bunch of other US based companies. Now we are beginning the migration away, not because its cheaper or better, but because we just don't think that we can trust the contracts we have with them any more. This isn't a sudden thing, we are not going to do it over night. But we are not renewing multi…

> not because its cheaper or better

Actually, in a number of cases EU cloud is cheaper and better.

In terms of "better", spec wise it is not uncommon to get more bang for your buck in the EU cloud, especially around compute.

In terms of "cheaper", that too. AWS, Azure etc. will happily sit there all day nickle and diming you through obscure pricing structures with all sorts of small-print. Good luck, for example, figuring out if you're going to go over your "provisioned IOPS-month" on AWS EBS, whatever the hell that is. And have fun with all the nickle-and-diming on AWS S3. Meanwhile on EU providers a lot of stuff is free that the US providers nickle and dime you for, and the stuff that is charged is done in a manner where you actually CAN forecast your spend.

And then of course there is the real EU sovereignty. Not the fake US-cloud-in-Europe which despite what the US providers salesdroids try to tell you is still subject to CLOUD, PATRIOT and everything else.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#254
post #3

Of course they were. The United States has never before damaged its own reputation in Europe as much as they did in the last 12 months. And the same goes for Canada, possibly worse. You don't go around threatening your allies unless you really have plans and that's why you don't elect senile old guys to positions of power.

I'm really happy these topics are being discussed here on HN, when they weren't ~1 year ago. When considering a post-USA world, we also get to consider a post-Microsoft, post-Meta, post-Google, post-CloudFlare, post-Amazon, etc world. I can't say I know much about how the EU operates or how quickly their Open Digital Ecosystems initiative could take shape, but this is a really opportune time to build a better tech in…

I feel like it's ruining HN. The internet did not lack places to talk politics. The comments threads are a solid 20% anti-semitic dog whistles now.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#255
post #201
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you pay off that debt is not to the original liberator now turned oppressor, but by extending similar help to countries that are now in a similar bind as we were then. Like Ukraine. I really think we are morally obligated to liberate and help Ukraine. Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment,…

> Our debt to the US has long been paid off. It was paid off when we submitted to their economic world order, when we bought their goods and their entertainment, when we bought their software and let our own software industry dwindle, and finally when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures. > We owe the US nothing. Hear hear. Well said

> when we went to war on their side on their questionable military adventures.

And then they ridiculed us for that.

And then asked for help in another war they just started.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is, in my opinion, why support at Hormuz shouldn’t even be on the table Shouldn't? it's not on the table at all lol

It is on the table, why are you spouting bullshit? People are discussing this right now. Or do you mean Denmark wont help at Hormuz, but I doubt Denmark would help there anyway, but other countries are discussing that. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-military-i...

Sending experts to the US to "help" and sending warships to an active war zone are not the same thing.

> Starmer refuses to send warships to Strait of Hormuz. PM rejects Trump’s call for reinforcements to stave off mounting economic crisis

> France will never take part in operations to unblock Hormuz Strait amid hostilities, says Macron

> European countries reject Trump’s call for help to reopen strait of Hormuz

> The Royal Navy's strength has been drastically weakened by years of cuts; the events of the past week are the prime example of how the Senior Service has fallen.

> Together, the French Navy has 19 out of its 21 major surface vessels at sea or preparing for operations – by contrast, the UK is still struggling to deploy one

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/15/starmer-sn...

https://www.reuters.com/world/france-will-never-take-part-op...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/16/europe-donald-...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2180044/british-navy-analy...

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/france-royal-navy-briti...

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#257
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting illegal wars and engaging in extreme corruption, for starters.

The war isn't illegal. The president has that power. I don't like it either, but since the Korean War this is simply a statement of fact.

The war is certainly illegal. Our systems are just so atrophied at this point that we treat congressional approval as a formality. This is a choice we make over and over again that we need to stop making.

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#258
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forever wars are a law of nature now? Such a cynical view of life. With this mindset, we can never change. We're stuck in the cycle of violence. I believe it can change. We need to get out of the "oh well, this is life" mindset and stop giving the hawks and warmongers a free pass.

The laws of human behavior are certainly less fundamental to the iniverse than the laws of physics, but, since we are humans, they are equally as binding on us.

Human behavior, and human society, have changed tremendously through the ages. It's the fastest sort of "evolution", to stretch that term a bit.

Plus there's nothing natural about widespread global war. It's not like you getting angry at your neighbor over some domestic dispute. Global wars are artificially engineered by guys who want to profit from them. It's not "human nature". Those willing to go to war exploit human nature, sure, but this is done intentionally; and just as intentionally, it could be downplayed or mitigated.

And if it's about egoism and greed, we've learned to reign those in in multiple situations. If we can attempt to go to Mars or whatever, I'm sure we can first try to sort things out on Earth.

Get out of your mindset. It's bad for you.

In Cosmos 2, Neil de Grasse Tyson has a reflection about that saying, "what are you going to do? It's human nature!". I encourage you to find the clip on YouTube and watch it.

Edit: well, I wanted to find the transcript or clip, but I cannot now. The Cosmos sequels are infuriatingly hard to find, and in my country there are no legal ways of watching them anymore (fuck you, Netflix and Disney! I pay you yet you remove stuff I like).

Here's Sagan's last paragraphs from his Pale Blue Dot speech instead:

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust me, Denmark wasn't posturing. The assumption was - and still is - that the USA wasn't posturing either. We (and I realize I obviously don't speak for all of Europe but I have my finger on the pulse in many places here) are also not assuming that when Trump is gone the USA will go back to normal.

And even if they did go back to normal for the next presidency - why trust it? Their entire political system is set up so that the winds can change entirely every 4 years. If the people voted Trump in to office twice, it’ll happen again. It’s a divided country where propaganda has a strong hold.

[deleted]

Re: Denmark was reportedly preparing for full-scale war with the US over Greenland

#260
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this is from a country that wouldn't exist if not for the allied countries and that the US has somehow managed to all but erase that reputation. We recognize our debt, we also recognize that this is to a country that no longer exists in a meaningful way. All we have now is multiple variations of the mob.

Yeah the US we knew is gone. I think about this sometimes when I am listening to American music from the 20th century, how much soft power they had, how great they made America sound either directly or indirectly. That America that we all looked up to and admired is gone. Pity.

You are seeing a side that always existed. Arguably in the past it was worse.
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