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Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

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Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#441

Post by lupusreal »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #362
tossandthrow wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of having a strong military is to deter your enemies, not fight them. That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. > It's really striking the amount of anti-Americanism that comes out of Europe relative to other US allies. You broaden up the premise from lost casualties in war to the entire relationsship - I think that is multiple PhDs to figure out whether this is anti american o…

>That breaks the premise for this thread which was people lost in war. lupusreal talked about the " risk of Americans once again dying in yet another European war" (emphasis mine). By making Europe part of its security umbrella, and deterring the USSR/Russia, the US shouldered that risk. It's simple. I don't want to shoulder risk for people who despise me. Every time Europeans downvote my comments in this thread, it…

I think you have a great point about the merit of America defending the defense of Europe against Russia in light of European attitudes towards America becoming clear on the internet. This wasn't really a problem during the Cold War when casual communication across the Atlantic wasn't a thing most Americans had access to, but times have changed and the general American public now perceives a lot of contempt for America coming from Europeans. Clearly they're capable of paying for their own defense, since they love to gloat about their expensive social policies so much, so let them shoulder the responsibility they have for their own defense.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#442

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rvba wrote: post #227
pjmlp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the overview, naturally tarifs might change that, see Canada, no US products any longer on big chains.

Coca cola is bottled locally. It does not make any sense to move water, sugar, nor the syroup. Probably they move a bit of their secret sauce, but rest is probably sourced locally. So impact of tariffs on coke in Germany is mininal. During WW2 german bottlers missed some ingredients so they've started making Fanta.

Surely they ship [components of] the syrup because otherwise they have to ship the raw coca leaves? Is the global supply of coca extract processed by the Stepan company in USA?

Profits move the other way through IP payments at least.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#443

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

whiplash451 wrote: post #336
criley2 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are a good thing? Even from folks in America who strongly dislike the fascist leadership, you'd be hard pressed to find folks who think "Europe should underfund their military and rely on the American tax payer for defense" or "Europe should be uncompetitive in technology and just buy American and Chinese solutions" I don't understand why Europeans have to blame Trump for "spending a fair minimum on their own de…

> rely on the American tax payer for defense Not sure how much that's true. EU spends billions buying US military hardware such as the Reaper. It's unclear how the story will end up for US taxpayers here.

By "relying on the American tax payer" they mean trusting the US military to deter Russia.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#444

Post by einr »

afpx wrote: post #377
dinga wrote: post #51

It is not only about a US-boycott for me, but also about an increase in consciousness about how our choices _do_ have influence. It _does_ matter, which products I buy and I use. I hope this gains more momentum!

I'm looking forward to some awesome products coming out of the EU. Could you guys start with a really good, privacy preserving search engine?

Sure.

https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#445

Post by snickerbockers »

iammjm wrote: post #118

Europeans were perfectly happy to buy American tech und military exports, thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. - it really was perfect for the U.S. But the US decided that it was actually a BAD DEAL and they wanted to extort even more money and dependence from EU. So now EU is investing in their own tech and military, thus reducing the amount of money US is get…

IDK, contrary to popular belief we don't all work for lockheed martin so i really couldn't care less about the military-industrial complex losing business. I really don't see that as a bad thing; it's pretty obvious at this point that a significant amount of US sabre-rattling is a result of the incestuous relationship between politicians, high-ranking military officers and defense contractors. I suppose this could have down-stream effects for commodities like steel and that's unfortunate but there's no way the military-industrial-complex could possibly be reduced without that happening.

But more to the point, you seem to be under the impression that Americans benefit on a personal level from our country's global empire. We really don't. Like I said above, there are a lot of fat-cats making big money grifitng off government contracts, often with overt conflicts-of-interest involving their connections in the government. Some of that money goes to their employees and ultimately into local economies but largely it's just a circuitous way to enrich assholes.

If you ever visit America, try driving about 150 miles or so out of whatever major metropolis you're staying at and take a look at how depressing this country really is. These people don't look like they're living in the epicenter of the world's most powerful and influential empire. It does not matter to them if Europe buys up the new f-47 or whatever. They could care less if the EU becomes a major military superpower in its own right. That's why when you look at these election maps, it comes down to urban areas backing the democrats and rural areas backing the trumpublicans with surprising uniformity.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#446

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

iammjm wrote: post #283
logicchains wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> thus earning U.S. money and making EU technologically and politically dependent from the U.S. This came with a responsibility to provide military protection to the US via NATO. Trumps voters don't want America to be an empire, responsible for protecting a bunch of far-away places that don't share their values, that's why they called the movement "America first". Historically speaking being an empire generally turns…

>responsible for protecting a bunch of far-away places that don't share their values You mean Europe? There's literally not a place in the world (except for Canada and Australia) that shares as many common values with the US as Europe. Unless the very definition of these values suddenly changed for the US with Agent Orange. As far as "far-away places go", it might take a similar amount of time to get from east to wes…

>There's literally not a place in the world (except for Canada and Australia) that shares as many common values with the US as Europe.

I just don't think that's true. Europeans seem much more collectivist, whereas the US is more individualist. That's why Europeans express disdain for US policies around healthcare, guns, etc. Europeans express a tremendous amount of disdain for the US online, calling Americans fat, dumb, neo-imperialist, etc.

That's been going on for ages before Trump. It's done a lot to undermine the transatlantic relationship, in my view. People-to-people connections matter for diplomacy.

How would you feel if an American insulted your leader with a derogatory nickname such as "Agent Orange"? Europeans are so used to expressing disdain for the US that they hardly even notice themselves doing it.

>when we need you the most for the first time since the 1990 you decided to fuck us.

From my perspective, we deterred Russia for 80 years following WW2, and provided almost 50% of the support for Ukraine to date. That's more than enough to account for European support in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US provided 80% of the muscle for Iraq and Afghanistan. For a fair relationship, Europe should expect to provide 80% of the muscle to deter Russia. A reset to fairness should not feel like betrayal. Europe gets most of the benefit from NATO, therefore Europe should do most of the spending in NATO. Fix this pie chart: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/...

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#447

Post by afpx »

einr wrote: post #444
afpx wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking forward to some awesome products coming out of the EU. Could you guys start with a really good, privacy preserving search engine?

Sure. https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/

Not one that relies on Google or Bing I mean

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#448

Post by tored »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #302
amarcheschi wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people i know (except for the tankie ones such as my high school philosphy professor, that guy was goat) would have preferred a less abrupt usa exit and not one that potentially puts europe security at risk. I do not know enough about the elites to talk about it tho

I don't support Trump, but you really can't claim that Europe wasn't warned here. Russia first invaded Ukraine back in 2014. And here's Trump back in 2018, warning about German dependence on Russian gas, and stating that Europe needed to step up defense spending "immediately": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu57D9YcIk0 This has hardly been "abrupt". Even Obama and Bush were telling Europe to step up defense spending…

Or the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. European leaders have had plenty of time to react.

Just take the President of the EU commission, Ursula von der Leyen. She was Germany's minister of defence from 2013 to 2019.

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#449

Post by amarcheschi »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #422
amarcheschi wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not only usa getting far from europe - which on itself is ok imho -, just the fact that given an existing alliance - for which europeans fought war for the us in middle east and died as well - could have been reshaped with a slower rollout. It is unclear how much and how fast things will change, and unpredictability is worse than expecting a certain outcome (just like the markets don't like trump's unpre…

>It is unclear how much and how fast things will change, and unpredictability is worse than expecting a certain outcome So you would prefer that the US just withdraws from NATO now, to reduce the unpredictability? That's fine by me. If unpredictability is your issue, Trump should be able to address that by withdrawing tomorrow. >I do not see why usa should be "thanked". If you think our involvement in Europe over the…

Unpredictability is the issue when paired with a us alienation from eu, and a us nato exit would make the situation more unpredictable for eu

i'm not complaining about the us just like i'm not thanking germany for being one of our commercial and sometimes political partners. Perhaps it's something more present in us discourse but most of the time we're not "thankful" to other countries, even if allied ones. It's something that doesn't really have a meaning here, even if i do agree that the usa have been important partners of europe in the past (and probably will in the future as well, although less than before)

Re: Millions are visiting the European Alternatives site. What trends are we seeing?

#450

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

olieidel wrote: post #327

Help me understand this: European companies have already been interested in choosing for European alternatives instead of AWS, Azure, etc. for years . Sure, this interest has recently gone up significantly, but it already was there, especially in the area I've been working in (hospitals / medical devices). But here's what I can't wrap my head around: Why do the European alternatives suck so much? - Pretty much all cl…

>I can't get a satisfactory explanation for this observation. We certainly have smart people and good universities. Is it about funding? Or about the culture of not promoting entrepreneurship? Bureaucracy? GDPR?

You're not going to like this answer, but I think there is a lot more tall-poppy syndrome in Europe. Success isn't celebrated the way it is in the US. This also drives European resentment of the US in general. (And that resentment has undermined the transatlantic relationship.)

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