Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating. I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them. Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely. Before: US: "plea…
> I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them. This is an interesting take. You appear to be suggesting that the US has the EU's best interests at heart. It ignores the fact that, on the rare occasion the Trump administration was not actively trying to undermine the EU, their "helpf…
France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
531–540 of 820 posts
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Products don't necessarily win on merit. Microsoft Teams "won" entirely because it was given away free with Office. Even though it is acceptable these days, it was horrible when it started. There is no way it could have won without unlimited backing from a bigger force. You have to see EU trying these things in the same light.
> Even though it is acceptable these days Have you used Teams these days? If you think it's acceptable, I suggest that may be the Stockholm Syndrome kicking in.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't wait to see how many indians we are going to be forced to import due to that "free trade deal". They must have looked at how well it went in canada and said among themselves "now that's how you destroy a country we gotta get some of that". [EDIT] Hopefully national politicians get balls, more balls, and tell their MEPs to vote against it like the mercosur deal.
For what its worth, I have to mention that India losses more on this deal than Europe because India's actually for the first time iirc imo giving up tariffs or reducing them. India has the highest tariff rates for a developing country from the start (indiscriminant) and is only offering upgrades to EU mostly fwiw in terms of this free trade deal. I have heard this deal be described as EU beneficiary from EU sources.…
Well Rapido bike means Auto-wallas are angry. That is reality.
The highest tariffs are holding India back. A decent original nike shoe is about €50 here but why it is Rs5000 there (with lower Purchasing power). Local businesses have too long bribed Indian politicians. Recently I replaced the gate of my house here in EU. It was 20 years old. No rust despite old. I remember the steel supplied by our companies is crap - we repaired our gate every few years. Or it was not properly painted.
Costs of computer etc are too high for any startup etc. and with our talent more cheaper imports from china would be great to build a local giant.
On the other hand our people do
- exploit Digital Ocean T-shirt give away to create stupid pull requests and burden maintainers in GitHub open source project
- curl dev stopped bug bounty due to many sending AI reports
- clone AOSP and IIT Chennai said it have created a independent OS.
Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmai founder) recently said we have become users not creators.
Even Ambani with all his money can't do a good tech company.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating. I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them. Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely. Before: US: "plea…
> US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!" > US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry" It's in both the EU and the US's interest to ensure NATO is the strongest partnership possible and the US's actions over the last few weeks have undermined it…
Again my point is a theory that either EU and US found a way to make EU citizens get behind military spending or the US found a way to manipulate EU to do it.
You'll know if US and EU are actually not aligned if EU sides with China over USA (which would be suprising to say the least)
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think every American needs to understand this quote: > "We will never fucking trust you again."[0] It doesn't matter that Trump will eventually no longer be President, and it doesn't matter that there are still members of the American political establishment that support the old way of doing things. Trump does not act alone, and there is rapid attrition of those older bureaucrats who valued the USA's allies. Trump'…
Germany elected Hitler and we pretty much trusted them again in less than 20 years.
America perhaps pioneered the mutual-defense agreement as an expansion of de-facto borders. America can attack you if you attack any of its mutual-defense treaty partners - e.g. Japan or NATO. This places an encirclement on other unaligned world powers: Russia and China. Smart, but they picked up on it, which is why mutual-defense agreements with nations near world powers are now fraught with danger.
But Europe is not an innocent led to her subjugation. Europe has always attempted to extract their side of the deal: they will buy American weaponry and host American bases but they will expect America to pick up the defense bill, including for things like access to the Suez Canal which is primarily (though not exclusively) a European risk and concern in that alliance.
Other powers have always used the push and pull of changing demographics and waxing and waning power to jockey for more control or more trade concessions, or lower spending on defense for higher spending on welfare and so on. The reason that Western Europe vacillated on Ukraine isn't that they were unsure who the good guys were. It's that it wasn't clear where the balance of power was and ensuring they were well aligned was their priority. Likewise, the participants who benefited from NS2 going up in bubbles were Ukraine and the US and one or both of them likely did what they needed to.
It is true. Germany did elect Hitler. It is also true that that Germany committed vastly greater crimes than Trump's America has. And it is true that Germany the country is not a civitas non grata (if you will) though one could argue that this was offered at the end of a gun (the persistent US bases). I think this point (delivered tersely and risking Godwin) is actually very strong.
I think Western bloc leaders are well aware of the strength of the Western coalition of Europe and the US. They are also well aware of their waning will to wage war as their population ages. I don't think Trump has a sound head on his shoulders - Americans will probably carry the memory of the danger of aged leaders at least one generation - but it is clear from the texts he has leaked of the other world leaders that they are pragmatic and intend to preserve the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen, and the resulting prosperity it has endowed its constituents with.
Any pressure will immediately be relieved if no actual irreversible damage (e.g. withdrawal from NATO or Anpo) is done and everyone knows it. But to make sure we get there, everyone has to apply just enough pressure to not break the machine. We can only hope they have the skill at diplomacy.
All this "Americans must realize you are now PARIAHS and will NEVER BE TRUSTED AGAIN" business will seem novel to people today, but this was true when I was younger and America had just invaded Iraq right after Afghanistan. People were talking about how they pretend to be Canadian and so on. America was supposedly a pariah then, which makes any threat of "you are now a pariah" not particularly meaningful.
So long as Europe benefits from America and America benefits from Europe and both can put in changes that cement such commitment in the future, I think we will return to a powerful Western bloc - which I (personally) think is good for all humanity.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating. I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them. Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely. Before: US: "plea…
> Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no" What this meant between the lines for 60+ years is “please increase military spending on US overpriced weapons that we gonna sell you, weapons will be degraded versions of native counterparts and don’t think about making your own independent military industry. Oh by the way bring those weapons when we will do 20 years of failed occupation in Middle East, beca…
A lot of EU weaponry was and is produced in the EU and the US has known that all along, cooperated and fostered it. The Leopard tank, the Eurofighter, the Rafale, the Lynx, the FV432, the Gazelle -- there is a long list of domestic weapons systems. I'm not sure if they still can do it, but the English made nuclear submarines. The US has at various times partnered with Europe on the development of these systems, and Europe has been able to produce almost all major weapons systems continuously since the end of World War 2.
Europe's much weakened defense posture -- and weakened defense industry -- are their own fault and the result of their own choices. At one time, European countries had much, much larger militaries and could sustain manufacturing of their specific weapon systems -- their own tanks, APCs -- but not after the military drawdowns following the end of the Cold War. There are at least 3 major domestic European tank types -- the Leopard, the Challenger and the Leclerc -- but only the Leopard is manufactured anymore. Europe should probably have consolidated on the Leopard a long time ago.
The US weapons are not "overpriced", and certainly not compared to European weapons, beyond the sense in which basically all western weapons are overpriced. One reason we see consolidation on US weapons in Europe is that the US weapons are frequently very good, having received a lot of use, but also because the US still has some scale in its manufacturing capabilities.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's totally great that competing products get produced in the EU. Not a bad thing from anyone's perspective except the owners of those US companies that will now need to compete.
It’s great yes, but if we in the US weren’t proving so untrustworthy, EU startups and tech giants could focus on building things that actually might out innovate us and everyone else. Which would be a win-win. Instead they will spend a lot time duplicating tools where only US companies are providing options, and maybe not innovating much if anything in those areas. Or not enough to matter much. I don’t blame them. Th…
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole point is the USA has been complaining that the EU was/is reducing itself to a vassal. No matter what the USA said or did before they didn't seem to care that they had no power anymore because the USA was there to take care of them. The EU can't realign itself with China because that would destroy the last fragile bits of the EU economy that are left. They are already having issues with the excess supply lan…
No, the USA does not, in any way, and has never wanted or even accepted EU countries being independent. They wanted the EU to spend more on US weaponry, and maybe on their own - but would have vehemently opposed any attempt by any EU country to buy Russian, Chinese, Iranian or any such weaponry. They want the EU to stop regulating American companies, but they certainly don't want EU companies being too successful in…
The EU does seem to willing to reduce itself to a Chinese vassal. That would not improve the situation.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole point is the USA has been complaining that the EU was/is reducing itself to a vassal. No matter what the USA said or did before they didn't seem to care that they had no power anymore because the USA was there to take care of them. The EU can't realign itself with China because that would destroy the last fragile bits of the EU economy that are left. They are already having issues with the excess supply lan…
No. The US wants the EU to be a vassal, this should be obvious. Why would they want an EU that is more capable of acting against US interests? The US wants EU to be a vassal, but got tired of paying the protection money for that. Now they are trying, and failing, to keep the EU under their control despite bringing less to the table every day.
One clue that this discussion of vassals is not right at all.
Re: France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating. I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them. Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely. Before: US: "plea…
Something tells me when the 'something' is a major trade deal with China suddenly it'll be 'oh my god how could you'. The US wants a EU vassal, what they're going to get is an EU that realigned itself to be politically and economically equidistant from the US and China.