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

plausible.io

591–600 of 640 posts

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

#591
post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe was not "flooded" by anything and I see as many Ukrainian men as women here (it's illegal for men to leave Ukraine)... Although most of Ukraine has not seen combat, so effectively they are migrants who prefer to be in Europe than in Ukraine. The UK government even actually paid people to lodge Ukrainians for some reason... This is what I am saying: superficial emotional reactions played by well-crafted propaga…

you should talk to one of them one day. Hear about their stories. Then you'll understand.

Yes, I'm sure. QED on my previous comments.

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

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recognize this attitude at all. But I'm no elite anywhere. Thinking about it, it's not so weird? We beat the nazis together, we've generally enjoyed world peace, freedom, and the joys of neocolonialism. Things were sailing along just fine. Now things are all weird and fucked up and we have to worry about fucking russia, defense spending in general, the fate of greenland, cloud computing and all that shit? Put…

> We beat the nazis together If you by "we" mean Britain, the United States, and Russia. And by "we" mean the people living 2 generations earlier, then I agree with your statement. As a side note, people who were 18 in 1940, would be 103 today. So most people who fought in the second world war have unfortunately passed away. I personally would never say "We beat the nazis together". The only thing I did was benefit f…

You’re forgetting Canada. You’re also glossing over the fact that despite losing to the nazis, the occupied countries didn’t exactly just roll over when they got attacked. And during occupation there were resistance movements in those countries too. So there’s definitely a “we” here.

And while of course most of those people are dead now, they were all part of cultures that still hold many of the same norms and values as they do today.

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

#593
post #517
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not altruism. This strange american "look how we suffer for you"-thing is just utterly weird. Why do you think the US has global power projection capabilities? Why do you think they can control world trade? Why is the dollar still the reserve currency? The military "altruistic" peacekeeping is a major benefit, from better access to trade agreements to bases everywhere and military support from dozens of count…

>The military "altruistic" peacekeeping is a major benefit Sure, but I think they are waking up to the fact that they cannot afford it, at least for now. >much harder stand in future negotiations. Well, from what Trump is saying, it seems that US didn't get the better end of a lot of deals, so it seems that it is spending resources for this peacekeeping but not getting any of the benefits in return..

> Well, from what Trump is saying, it seems that US didn't get the better end of a lot of deals

It's funny how you are believing in a known liar to derive any argument from.

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

#594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another commenter in this thread explaining how I need to 'deal with it' and be humble about the US' global position: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43462237 It sure seems like they think the US has an obligation to stay. That's the subtext of a lot of what Europeans are saying online.

Well, of course by losing the global throne us will lose a lot, the biggest economy in the world can't (like, it won't happen, not like legally can't) literally be like Switzerland that is surrounded by more or less allies and doesn't have to protect much of its global interests. By the way, your rants make me think you're spending a bit too much time online, online you'll find a lot of people just bashing whatever y…

I'm replying to myself because my last line sounds rude. What i wanted to say is that it looks like you've been influenced a lot by online comments which might push controversial or flame content as well

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

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

about 50% of women in us are Trumpists

How many of them are dating?

aren't most left women nowadays practicing voluntary celibacy for political reasons anyway?

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

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same Sarah Paine that speaks about how China lifted 1B+ people out of poverty and created tens of millions of millionaires?

Largely after abandoning damaging communist ideas and allowing private business to exist. China is no longer communist, it's this weird hybrid of capitalism with heavy government controls and heavy censorship.

In my mind, Communism as exhibited by modern China is more defined by the dictatorship style, than the economy style, not that economy is independent of it. So, I'd consider the chinese communism vs western democracy a more enlightnening contrast.

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

#597
post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that hard to believe. There have been incompetent US presidents before. This isn't incompetence, this is strategy. Malicious strategy perhaps, but it seems very unlikely to be non-deliberate.

I literally don’t know anyone who thinks your President is smart. He never said anything that’s insightful and worth discussing. The press in your country is worthless for taking anything he says seriously. They’re either too afraid or too partisan to do their job on a level that’s acceptable in other western countries. It’s very clear he’s a puppet that is being used to execute the plans of the Heritage Foundation.…

Not my president and not my country.

I find it hard to imagine that Trump is as stupid as his public image would suggest.

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

#598
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not altruism. This strange american "look how we suffer for you"-thing is just utterly weird. Why do you think the US has global power projection capabilities? Why do you think they can control world trade? Why is the dollar still the reserve currency? The military "altruistic" peacekeeping is a major benefit, from better access to trade agreements to bases everywhere and military support from dozens of count…

I don't want to project power globally. I don't want to control world trade. I don't want to have bases everywhere. I don't want to influence everywhere. I'm tired of this empire stuff. We aren't good at being an empire. We suck at it. I want to be a normal country, thanks. I'm tired of foreigners obsessively following our politics, offering their commentary, and resenting us no matter what we do. I want to be normal…

Be careful what you wish for. If US exits that role, it doesn't make that role disappear. Something else will step into it. And we will all have to live in that world. Good luck to us all.

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

#599
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market alternative It's interesting that you imply the European Union is communist or state capitalist in a similar way to the Soviet Union or that European Alternatives are not part of the market, analogous to state-produced consumer goods in the Soviet Union. It's especially interesting (which is a nice way of saying preposterous) considering the primary function of the European Union has always been a Europe…

The EU is of course much more market-based than the Soviet Union, but the analogy is not totally without merit. Legislation like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the Forestry Regulation, as well as heavy tax burdens and expansive restrictions on contracting freedom in the labor sector, have resulted in a situation where no EU company founded…

Got it, so you're using arbitrary metrics of economic success and a number of protectionist policies and other regulations to justify your comparison of the European Union to a state capitalist, planned economy with secret police, authoritarian and dictatorial rule, extremely rigid top-down hierarchical governance and tight travel restrictions that is widely known for its massive domestic surveillance apparatus, extreme use of forced labor camps, forced resettlements, violent military suppression of leftist opposition, waves of purges of political sects, and the literal genocide in Ukraine?

That seems like a completely reasonable analogy one would use with no ulterior motives. Assuming, of course, one were completely ignorant of most world history events of the 20th century.

---

But you're literally begging the question so let's look at your list. Here's the top 10 biggest companies in the US:

  1. Apple
  2. Nvidia
  3. Microsoft
  4. Amazon
  5. Google
  6. Meta
  7. Tesla
  8. UnitedHealth
  9. Oracle
  10. Costco
Right off the bat the odd one out is UnitedHealth. They're a megacorp resulting from the fusion of multiple private health insurance companies - with some of the mergers clearly being considered so concerning for market competition that there were attempts to prevent them, which - as is common in the US - of course failed. This is a company leeching billions of American citizens to act as a middleman for healthcare while Americans still have to pay most of their medical expenses out of pocket. Not to mention the blatant corruption between health insurance companies and medical service providers resulting in completely arbitrary costs with fictional discounts. An inefficiency that has made American healthcare orders of magnitude more expensive than in other developed nations while still providing worse health outcomes for the average citizen and fueling the uniquely American opioid epidemic thanks to decades of prioritizing prescription medications over actually useful diagnostic procedures and treatments.

Let's single out NVidia because its stock price ballooned over the past three years and as the dip following the Deepseek announcement demonstrated has more to do with the general AGI hype train than actual value produced - unless you believe the announcement literally destroyed "$600bn in value" rather than just correcting the clearly absurd valuation of the company.

Amazon has almost single-handedly wiped out most of the retail industry in the US and elsewhere. They have massive control over the cloud infrastructure market. Their in-house brands have a documented history of cloning successful products sold on Amazon and then outcompeting them the same way Amazon initially outcompeted retail with unsustainable price dumping, only to hike up prices once the competition is out of business. This has allowed Jeff Bezos to become one of the richest people on Earth and Amazon to use its market dominance as leverage against individual US states to get sweetheart deals waiving regulations and labor protection laws and securing tax exemptions.

Microsoft and Oracle are deeply entrenched in the enterprise market, especially public service and bureaucracy. Microsoft literally has a public history of an anti-competitive strategy called "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" that was used to harm industry standards and interoperability in order to tighten vendor lock-in. Oracle's problems are less blatant but it also pretty much grew to its size through deliberate vendor lock-in, shady licensing, and malicious and at times illegitimate lawsuits, often using lawfare against open source projects especially. Bill Gates is now using his wealth to open new markets to US pharmaceutical companies under the guise of humanitarianism. Larry Ellison seems to keep more out of the public light while using his billions to influence political campaigns.

Google/Alphabet and Facebook/Meta literally made their billions through the exploitation of the personal information of their users while deliberately misleading them about what data was collected and how it is used. They then used their de-facto monopoly positions in search and social media respectively to sell ads and analytics - and are well-documented to have actively misled customers by fudging their metrics (e.g. Facebook pushed video content in an effort to move news sites to publishing on their platform directly although the success metrics of the videos were deliberately engineered to grossly exaggerate their reach and engagement, harming those sites to the point some went out of business). Meta's prioritization of "engagement" at any cost and insufficient content moderation have directly contributed to multiple genocides and the platform has been used to organize child sexual abuse and live stream spree killings. Google meanwhile dominates the search and browser markets (even most alternative browsers are built on Chromium).

Apple is probably the least actively damaging company of the bunch but its success also is based entirely on the infamous "walled garden" approach of vendor lock-in ranging from software to hardware, in the past literally preventing its software from being used on third party hardware and closely controlling the ability of other manufacturers to interface with its hardware. It has since begun opening up to third parties and using interoperable industry standards - thanks to legal pressure from the EU for selling its products within the EU. It's also pretty much the perfect example for "vertical integration" taken to the extreme.

Tesla's initial value was mostly driven by being in the right spot at the right time (especially thanks to Elon Musk's antics resulting in popular media comparing him to Tony Stark because the Iron Man movies were normalizing comic book characters in wider pop culture and techno-optimism and space-futurism were at their zenith), as well as using the first-mover advantage to build out proprietary charging infrastructure. But its biggest competitive advantage were government subisides in the form of carbon emission credits, which it sold for profit to other manufacturers, raking in literally billions of dollars ($9 billion between 2009 and 2024 alone) at zero cost to Tesla itself. Tesla's present valuation however is largely the consequence of its stock price massively ballooning in 2020 - the most likely reasons for which are 1) its ability to remain profitable with literally zero production due to the sale of said credits and 2) its "vertical integration" (read: use of proprietary parts rather than relying on suppliers), i.e. again vendor lock-in.

The reason Tesla's stock price remains mostly stable (the recent drop thanks to its association with Elon Musk's current antics notwithstanding) - despite the company's constant failings with the Cybertruck, quality issues and the yearly promises of FSD being imminent - seems to be mostly tied to its inclusion in various funds and derivatives because of its meteoric rise. Either way this success has allowed Elon Musk to literally buy his way into one of the arguably most influential positions of power via the Trump government, directly controlling a legion of unelected interns dismantling US government services from within.

SpaceX (not publicly traded, so not in your list) meanwhile has a number of lucrative government contracts (mostly with US agencies but also internationally), especially because of its increasingly dominant position in satellite broadband which as demonstrated in Ukraine does not only provide them (and Elon Musk) with an economic advantage but also the ability to exert direct political influence over geopolitical events.

The massively influential prison industrial complex (maintaining the US's leader in number of incarcerated citizens both relative to its population and in absolute numbers) and military industrial complex (which are uniquely influential in the US federal government, rivaled only by Elon Musk himself now) of course also aren't something I'd expect anyone to brag about.

I can't really say anything bad about Costco though. Their failings mostly seem to be the result of the poor state of consumer protection, health and safety, and animal cruelty laws in the US and they genuinely seem to seek to improve those issues when they become public. Sinegal, Brotman and James all seem to be genuinely decent people and the company policy has fairly explicitly been shaped by the idea of putting customers and employees over shareholders - quite unlike the general consensus in the US following Milton Friedman.

In the EU, most of these companies couldn't have existed because they'd have run afoul of antitrust legislation, consumer protection laws, labor laws, health and safety laws, etc - either at the EU level or at a member state level (which would likely have fueled EU legislation to standardize the laws across member states). The DMA and DSA were literally created because of the anti-competitive behavior of some of these companies and their outsized influence across multiple markets. The GDPR was literally created because of the massive violations of privacy and the demonstrable harm caused by them.

The EU is not without its flaws. As I said, it's literally a Free Trade Agreement at its heart and the poor cooperation during COVID hopefully dispelled its loftier claims. But if you think the existence of practical monopolies in the US is a demonstration of the US's superior "free market", your "freedom" looks a lot more like feudalism with extra steps.

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

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doing nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific. That was not the most glorious moment of Chirac's presidency, no.. However, as someone involved in numerical simulations, the argument that it was needed to calibrate their numerical models does hold (some..) water.. But Chirac did partly redeem himself by refusing to invade Iraq on bogus US claims of WMDs..

In fairness, he did so in part because this was going to go against Total's interests (see Oil, Power and War for that part of the story), but yeah, it was still the right stance to have and history proved him right.

As opposed to invading in order to support the interests of Halliburton? Tough choice..

Let's also not forget the absolutely absurd intervention of Colin Powell at the UN Security Council, holding up a vial containing the ultimate "proof" of WMD.

Good thing he didn't drop it.. /s

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