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EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

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Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#901

Post by sajithdilshan »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #880
sajithdilshan wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of non-europeans have this illusion that EU is this one big liberal, open-minded continent. It is mostly true if you look at certain cities like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but in general most EU countries are way more conservative, and traditional. Not only abortion, some EU countries still have laws to discriminate people based on their sexuality. One recent example is that one of the prominent openly ga…

> openly gay German politician (Jens Spahn) had to give up his position (although he had it coming because his other political scandals) because he used a surrogate mother in US to have a kid with his husband. That's misleading. The issue was hypocrisy. Spahn was a chief advocate against surrogacy. He publicly supported a motion keeping surrogacy illegal in Germany while simultaneously secretly using a surrogate moth…

The reason he had to give up his position was not his hypocrisy. If that’s the case then 99% of all politicians would have to give up their positions.

Even if he was a supporter of surrogacy, he would still be forced to step back because surrogacy is illegal in Germany. Further, there was no debate or discussions on making surrogacy legal after that incident by the so called all other liberal progressives parties like Greens or the left that pretends to be all for women’s rights and equality

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#902

Post by FabCH »

carlob wrote: post #863
FabCH wrote: post #832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Eurovision is this cultural joke that unifies all of Europe in this yearly cultural moment of absolute madness. And the EU treaties refuse to define what „European“ means, so using „watches Eurovision“ as a rule of thumb is surprisingly workable as a definition of where the borders of „Europe“ end.

so Australia is in Europe, but Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland are not?

I guarantee you that the winning song will play on repeat over and over again in every city in Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland irrespective of if they are competing, and people will still watch the circus from those countries. The whole "well we are not competing this year as a protest" is part of the joke.

That is the whole point. If you want to understand more, this song is genuinely a good explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tgnx6jTQ

And I'm not even joking.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#903

Post by mitxela »

RunSet wrote: post #477
mitxela wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is all the newest and best technology from China, outside a few specific fields?

Why is there still demand for Chinese student visas at universities in the USA?

Many reasons that have nothing to do with creativity, innovation, or freedom.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#904

Post by foldr »

softwaredoug wrote: post #467
mitxela wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you propose forcing 27 groups of people to become 1 group just so it's easier to sell them things? Culture in Europe is more on sustainable business rather than hypergrowth, but you can expand to other countries too. You just have to have a business strategy catering to all the groups you want to cater to. I think it's good the supermarket chains in France and in Germany are mostly disjoint sets, it keeps competit…

I’m just telling you the tradeoffs you’ve chosen. You can’t be an economic superpower in the current regime. Without your own “hypergrowth” you’ll always be dominated by the hypergrowth of competitors like the US and China. You’ll be in orbit of other powers instead of creating your own gravity. Where am I wrong?

Didn't the US also used to lecture China on how it would never be an economic superpower if it didn't adopt liberal democracy and US-style free market capitalism?

I think the world is less and less interested in the concept of securing economic growth by copying the exact US economic and political model. Different parts of the world are going to figure this out in different ways.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#905

Post by orf »

dudul wrote: post #869
Eupolemos wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic populations have feelings towards each other, including friendship. There are plenty of nations I feel my nation has friendships with - if they were bullied, we'd stand up for them on pure reaction. Not everything is interests. People are people.

Thanks for the good laugh. Interesting that you didn't feel the need to say what your "nation" is, or their nation BFFs. It would have allowed us to dig into real data, but no, let's just use feelz instead :) People are people, and nation states are nation states. These are different entities.

If we say that nations can have enemies then it stands to reason that we can also say that they have friends.

You can of course be needlessly reductive and say that friendship is just two temporarily, mutually aligned self-interested parties, but… yeah. That’s pretty verbose. And not even correct.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#906

Post by llm_nerd »

shoobiedoo wrote: post #867
llm_nerd wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitter ex? This is amazing. The US is a completely broken country, and simply switching governments will not change that. Without a complete and utter change in how that entire country operates -- including dissolution -- no country should ever normalize relations with it again. The US is by far the world's most dangerous rogue nation. It is a terroristic nation. It is a bully. It not only elected a rapist self-deali…

America is a lost cause with "disgusting garbage" in charge? In what ways is Xi a more fair, reasonable, citizen rights focused leader? I'm genuinely curious. I agree that Trump is a p.o.s with bad intentions, but pretending that there is some beautiful and perfect alternative on the other side of the planet is just hilarious.

"but pretending that there is some beautiful and perfect alternative on the other side of the planet is just hilarious"

If you have to construct a strawman to declare "hilarious", maybe just delete it in your drafts?

There are zero "beautiful and perfect alternatives" on this planet. But right now China reveres science, medicine, training and education. The US has descended to being a fucking idiocracy where foolish clowns like Rogan and Charlie Kirk are the heroes of the people. Oh look, Sydney Sweeney showed her tits!

Where a barking clown pedophile conman bag of shit gets elected to highest office -- his addled, simpleton brain stuck in the 1980s, so it's like listening to some sort of bizarre, incredibly stupid version of a time capsule. It is quite literally an idiocracy. Where your secretary of "war" is a drunken foolish idiot who only ever made captain, and thinks germs are fake and brags about never washing his hands. I mean, the entire administration, from Epstein Grifter Greaseball Lutnick to crybaby "we're the house" Bessent...just garbage from top to bottom. The absolute worst people.

I'm Canadian, and I will say with 100%, utter certainty that Trump has asked your military for plans to takeover Canada. Because it is a lawless risk to humanity. China isn't a member of the International Criminal Court, but they have never impeded its work or attacked its existence, whereas the US -- as a warcriming menace -- is actively threatening it at this moment, largely to support their genocide/war crime master Israel.

There is one country that has bombed 10 nations over the past 12 months. That has a deranged lunatic constantly tweeting threats of nuclear armageddon or "wiping out civilizations". A foolish cretin that is putting his name on everything and demolishing everything that won't let him. Even putting his disgusting face on currency, matching only a couple of despotic crapholes in putting a living leader on currency. There is one country that is committing wanton terrorism around the globe. I mean, we know China does some destabilizing things in Western countries, but it is nothing compared to what the US is doing, trying to export its garbage culture and idiocracy traits abroad.

What a farce. And Americans are...fine with this. With becoming a worldwide joke. A dangerous menace joke, for sure, and I guarantee a lot of nuclear stockpiles, including among allies, have newly added targeting for US targets, rightly. And many more countries are going to emerge as nuclear powers. The US under this criminal garbage has taught a solid lesson that nuclear proliferation is where it's at, and everyone should get in on it.

China, in contrast, does a lot of shitty things, but they are absolute rational saints compared to the farce that the US is now. Predictable, reasonable, rational.

It's clear the paths these two countries are on. And the US is heading to Russia v2, where a pathetic has been endlessly tries to reclaim that glory while it circles the toilet.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#907

Post by llm_nerd »

fidotron wrote: post #12
karlkloss wrote: post #3

Nearly 60% of EU LNG imports come from the USA. If Trump doesn't like Canada to cuddle with the EU, then it won't happen. This is all a big pain in the back.

The LNG won't come from Canada either. Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it, but the truth is they can't agree with how to actually get enough of it to the east coast to make a difference, and that's what blocks it. (In fairness the route does go through some very unique environments). Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU,…

> Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it

LNG was at all time low prices at the time, and Canada has an integrated NG pipeline system with the US, and the US has enormous amounts of export capacity as they just repurposed import terminals into export terminals, whereas for Canada it would be a greenfield project. Trudeau and his government caused a lot of harm for Canada, and a lost decade to platitudes and feel good save-the-world nonsense, but his statement was absolutely correct, and it was only "notorious" among partisans who see wrong in everything the "other team" does or says.

I mean, much of that natural gas that the US exports to Europe came from Canada, through that integrated "we're friends and allies" network.

There wasn't a case for it, because the US wasn't a criminal idiocracy at the time and we had an integrated system.

I mean, now we're talking about just building our own pipeline system because it has come to that, but at the time Trudeau was absolutely correct. You don't build a tens of billions of dollars terminal just in case a country goes rogue.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#908

Post by Timon3 »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #901
mmmmmbop wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> openly gay German politician (Jens Spahn) had to give up his position (although he had it coming because his other political scandals) because he used a surrogate mother in US to have a kid with his husband. That's misleading. The issue was hypocrisy. Spahn was a chief advocate against surrogacy. He publicly supported a motion keeping surrogacy illegal in Germany while simultaneously secretly using a surrogate moth…

The reason he had to give up his position was not his hypocrisy. If that’s the case then 99% of all politicians would have to give up their positions. Even if he was a supporter of surrogacy, he would still be forced to step back because surrogacy is illegal in Germany. Further, there was no debate or discussions on making surrogacy legal after that incident by the so called all other liberal progressives parties lik…

> The reason he had to give up his position was not his hypocrisy. If that’s the case then 99% of all politicians would have to give up their positions.

No, you're lying. His colleagues publicly asked Spahn to resign explicitly because of the hypocrisy: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/spahn-ruecktrittsforderunge...

Over the last few weeks, I've noticed you sharing many such misinformed framings of current news in Germany. May I ask why?

> Even if he was a supporter of surrogacy, he would still be forced to step back because surrogacy is illegal in Germany. Further, there was no debate or discussions on making surrogacy legal after that incident by the so called all other liberal progressives parties like Greens or the left that pretends to be all for women’s rights and equality

Just like the last few times you claimed "there was no debate" on a topic in Germany: yes there was, it just doesn't follow your caricaturesque understanding of leftist politics.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#909

Post by llm_nerd »

karlkloss wrote: post #3

Nearly 60% of EU LNG imports come from the USA. If Trump doesn't like Canada to cuddle with the EU, then it won't happen. This is all a big pain in the back.

> If Trump doesn't like Canada to cuddle with the EU, then it won't happen.

The US is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It has barely any friends in the world, and its economy is on perilously shaky grounds. Crybaby Bessent is desperately trying to scare the bond market, but a run for the exits and the US will be fucked.

Yeah, Trump is totally just going to cut them off, bro. The fossil fuel companies, that basically run your government, will totally be cool with that too, because they love not making money and accelerating the transition off of their wares.

American delusions are amazing stuff. As a Canadian it has been astonishing seeing Americans constantly think they have the upper hand in everything (if they sell you something, well then you have the upper hand, but also if you sell them something, well then you have the upper hand, and....) and then getting frantic and crazed when it turns out...other people have "hands" as well. Eventually it all turns over to "yeah well we'll invade you!" because that's all you really have: A third world life expectancy and a social idiocracy, but yay you have a trillion dollar military!

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#910

Post by enaaem »

mmrezaie wrote: post #82
pyrale wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture No, that's just the 2010s propaganda fed to you by people who assert that not letting them do whatever they want is "bureaucratic". These very same people are completely fine lobbying legislature for more moat when they benefit from it. The difference between "middle democracies" or w…

I did some admin work for the startup around 5 years ago and I have to say EU countries specially mine Sweden is far more clear. In USA you are basically hopeless without a lawyer. but I did a search and for clarity of rule I searched and this came up using AI: World Bank’s broad “Regulatory Quality” measure supports that direction: Sweden scored 95.28/100 and the US 90.57/100 in its latest comparable 2023 data. I co…

When it comes to innovation Sweden punches far above its weight.
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