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The Post-American Internet

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Re: The Post-American Internet

#321

Post by codyb »

dspillett wrote: post #302
chkchk wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that all Americans support the actions of the current administration. I know of no one that supports these actions.

Unless your government is entirely forced upon you, they're is only so far the populace can distance itself from them. The majority of the bad crap this American administration is doing and has done was predicted, heck a lot of it they effectively promised during & before the election, yet nearly two thirds of the population either directly voted for it or sat on their elbows and let it happen.

I'm not sure how your math stacks out... but 2/3rds of 330 million people is not 75 million votes.

The fact is, the American electoral system is heavily stacked against the actual population due to...

- Citizens United allows individuals with sums of wealth which are nearly incomprehensible to literally drop hundreds of millions of dollars on a single election and not even have a dent in net worth

- The electoral college which may have made sense in 1796 or whenever they were deciding it means presidential elections focus on approximately 7 of our 50 states

- Many places like Puerto Rico, DC, the US Virgin Islands, and other territories just flat out don't have federal representation

- In the Senate small state citizens can sometimes wield up to 60 times as much representation as large state citizens (Hey guess which states those billionaires drop money to buy representation in... I'll give you a hint, it's not the populous ones)

- The House of Reps is capped in size which again hurts large states

It may be time to start talking about structural change here in the United States.

That being said... The United States and (most of) Europe have been allies for 8 decades, it's not like Europe hasn't had it's fair share of bullshit and far right parties.

The fact everyone in this thread is saying our relationship is done cause America's going through a rough patch is ridiculous. Especially given that a year ago our President was helping the expansion of NATO, and we're still sending arms to Ukraine (although the terms are differing), and we just took out Russian ally Maduro.

And I for one am happy that the outcome from this absolutely awful human being is increased European self reliance.

I'm hoping it shakes out that the US rebukes this awful party, and president (which many many people were duped into voting for cause most people are not paying as much attention as say... me and combine hundreds of millions from Musk, and misinformation flowing in through social media, and the stacked systems laid out above)

And when that's all said and done, and millions and millions of us are donating, and marching, and calling, and working to make that happen and there has been very real push back here, although slower than maybe some would hope

That then the US and Europe can be more equal partners than before this monster of an individual

Re: The Post-American Internet

#324

Post by ExtraRoulette »

pentagrama wrote: post #274

Reading this from South America, there is another layer that often gets lost in US-centric discussions like this. For many people here, the move away from US platforms is not primarily about surveillance, product quality, or even conscious digital sovereignty in the European sense. It is more visceral and historical. There is a long-standing anti-US sentiment rooted in decades of interventionism in Latin America. For…

There's a great podcast (That's now in it's second season) that discusses US intervention in Latin America called "Under The Shadow", by Michael Fox.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#325

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pu_pe wrote: post #2

> If the EU repeals Article 6 of the Copyright Directive, some smart geeks in Finland could reverse-engineer Apple's bootloaders and make a hardware dongle that jailbreaks phones so that they can use alternative app stores Apple could easily block this, and in the situation described here of a complete rupture with the US, they would no longer operate and sell phones in the EU. If Google decided to do the same, that…

Not only that, but also... only a small percentage of people actually wants this and / or would do this, the vast majority of consumers doesn't mess with their stuff even if they could.

Same with the alternative app store support, it reminds me of when the EU mandated Microsoft to offer a Windows without Media Player. It didn't sell, because consumers don't actually care much - Media Player wasn't obnoxiously in the way.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#326

Post by Cthulhu_ »

VorpalWay wrote: post #185
blell wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating good smartphone software is not easy. Only Apple has achieved it. Google is close. The rest are so far behind in the race they think they are leading.

Android is open source (decreasingly, but still). A reasonable starting point would be forking it and adding replacements for the proprietary Google Play services, app store etc. Gobally Android also has a much larger market share than Apple. (Yes the US is the opposite, it is an outlier.)

It can be done, but a few things are needed: money. A lot of money. And competent project managers / architects / visionaries.

The money problem is the sticking point; even if you can find investors, if you don't have guarantees of sales you're boned. Actually, this is the other problem: Android is not profitable per se, you don't get an "android license fee" on your bill if you buy a new phone. It's the tie-in with Google's services (default search engine with ads, app store, etc) that make it work. And even without those, Google is a company that originally made money off of ads on webpages, they could do whatever they want outside of that because their primary source of income was so reliable.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#327

Post by buellerbueller »

miroljub wrote: post #264
chkchk wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that all Americans support the actions of the current administration. I know of no one that supports these actions.

I don't see mass protests across USA against Grenland policy of current US regime.

When is the last time mass protest has worked in the USA? Somewhat self-fulfilling, sure, but it's been decades. What might work are mass strikes.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#328

Post by Cthulhu_ »

PeterStuer wrote: post #86
flumpcakes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I think most US people don't realise, is this would overnight start the slow but complete collapse of the US and it's economy. Europe can make alternatives to US tech, and with it's track record it will probably be more open with more legitimate options and less predatory monopolies. Once that is established with a home grown market of 450m people it will start competing with US in all the other markets. Let's n…

Technically, sure, but as long as the US dollar is the 'world reserve currency' any attempt to do so that would threaten to be a success can be easily 'bought out' by the US just by creating a few more bits on a ledger.

It's only one of many; I think (armchair gut feeling etc, not an economist) that the euro was one of the best economic decisions in recent history. Unless Europe falls apart - which currently many outside forces are trying to achieve - the euro will remain one of the safest currencies to use.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#329

Post by twixfel »

mapt wrote: post #319
twixfel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that controversial, every single country has limits on speech, including the US. So European countries control a little bit more than the US, largely when it comes to racial abuse and other hate speech. So? The American model when combined with social media and the internet appears to have disastrous outcomes, judging by who has been elected there. It clearly worked in the past, but not any more. Americans s…

Not at all. I would just like the early American project of liberal democracy and Constitutional rights to outlive American capitalism and American militarism, even if it means it survives it in some other country. Because it's looking pretty bleak over here.

We ought to avoid repeating your mistakes, no? Maybe unlimited campaign donations and so on, all this wonderful "American free speech (money = speech)" is a fundamentally bad idea. Worked exceedingly well for ~225 years, now it has lead to the implosion of the empire by electing a sociopathic retard to the presidency. Yes to free speech, no to whatever fucked up shit the US, its billionaire "libertarians" and Christian nationalists are pushing for us to adopt here in Europe.

If the likes of JD Vance are pushing for us to adopt his idea of free speech, you can be sure it's a bad idea.

Re: The Post-American Internet

#330

Post by liquidgecka »

shafyy wrote: post #296
nradov wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which EU territory would that be? If you're referring to Greenland, it's actually not part of the EU.

Why not taking two seconds to look it up before making such a false statement? From Wikipedia: > Citizens of Greenland are full citizens of Denmark and of the European Union. Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union and is part of the Council of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

There is confusion here because Greenland is not part of the EU directly (they were, they left) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_and_the_European_Uni... Its citizens are members of the EU but its territory is not. Greenland is part of NATO though, and has a trade alliance with the EU so its territorial status is very complicated.
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