Do they, though? They seem to very consistently vote against foreign entanglements, before their own leaders betray them, pressed into action by foreign allies advocating their own narrow regional interests (Europe on Russia, Israel on Iran, etc).
Not clear to me why some working mum in Idaho is obliged to pay for Hungary's security when even the Hungarians refuse to do so, but hey, enjoy this meme while it lasts. The US won't remain the world's policeman for too much longer, and we're all in for a much darker world without them.
Uh huh, sure, America profits handsomely from paying trillions of dollars to defend its deadbeat dependencies because... uh... something something capitalism?
The unnecessary expense of trillions of dollars being, of course, just so famously and fabulously profitable. I assume this is the same strand of 4D-chess-level thinking that posits that landlords like keeping rental properties vacant because they somehow make more money that way.
What is 4D-chess thinking, is believing that the USA is giving handouts to the world and that you would be somehow even richer if it wouldn't.
It's an age old epic: tell the privileged that "actually, you're being exploited of your hard work and innate intelligence". It let's you sleep at night.
The US considers it in their strategic interest to maintain peace around the world. We are vicarious beneficiaries of that logic.
The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
People like you see conspiracies where there is actually nothing but fortuitous alignments of interest. Like all conspiracy theories, it's merely ignorance of the basic incentives that make the world work, leading to hare-brained theories that sound dramatic but make no sense, couched in an air of being super special in your ability to see how the world 'really' works, unlike all those normie sheep. Yadda yadda. Juvenile and boring.
But hey, the US is almost certainly going to retreat from the world after the unpopular missteps of the current administration, so we'll get to see with our own eyes whether that produces a more or less peaceful world. Won't that be a fun and costly experiment.
You're making a textbook strawman argument. While I get the dislike for conspiracy nutjobs, I did not make any such statements or implications. I merely have stated two facts:
1. The USA has put up military infrastructure around the world by its own volition.
2. The USA is the richest country in the world.
> The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
> While I get the dislike for conspiracy nutjobs, I did not make any such statements or implications
Fair! Withdrawn.
> So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
I'm not sure how it's an oxymoron. I don't believe I called anything a handout. The fact that others have let themselves become dependent on your behaviour does not make your behaviour a handout to others. The US has made a strategic calculation that defending Europe is of security interest to the US, which has caused it to undertake vast expense on that continent between 1945 and now.
It is an open question whether the US was actually correct in that calculation. Perhaps it was a costly mistake with minimal security benefits for the US but positive externalities for others. Or perhaps it was initially correct, but ceased to be so after the end of the Cold War. Either way, the US may conclude that a continuing presence in Europe no longer serves its security interests going forward. In that case the confluence of interests will simply have ended.
The fact that Europe did not take the many decades it had to prepare for this moment is quite unfortunate, but not really something the US is responsible for. The US has done nothing but encourage Europeans to step up their security efforts for over fifty years. Ultimately it is Europe that faces the consequences of its own decisions, not the US or the rest of the world.
I realise the word 'eurocentrism' is not in vogue, but it is so very apt. If Europe managed to see itself as a region like any other, the way the rest of the world sees it, it may find it easier to understand why the rest of the world does not feel responsible for underwriting the cost of Europe's defense. Why is it America's job to fund the defense of Europe? Why it is not the reverse? Or perhaps Europe should be funding the defense of Southeast Asia? It's certainly got the money. There are far more people in SE Asia than in the EU. They are no less deserving of safety and security than anyone in Europe.
Of course, the reason this doesn't happen is that people cannot just expect free security umbrellas from countries on the other side of the planet. Except Europeans, that is, who for some reason not only do expect this, but also act absolutely outraged when anyone queries this assumption.
Well I got the sentiment from "the Idaho mum paying for Hungary's security". Which I think is a direct segue from "world police", that is, framing America's military deployment around the world as serving no self-interest.
I do agree that there is a possibility that some defence deployment agreements may not longer be desirable for America, and that they are in no way obligated to perpetually defend Europe. NATO had specific goals, which could be considered fulfilled even, long ago.
So for example regarding the Ukraine invasion, there is (or has been lol) an expectation of support from America, both because of some vague NATO-proxy implication or simply due to historical ties. And the Idaho mum not wanting to pay for some far away war is valid, but... we must add two things into this equation. One, an implicit and practical part of the agreement has historically been that the protected allies spend a large amount of their budget on American suppliers. And two, that at least in the past, this was a huge deterrence against any communist-like regime changes that have directly ejected any American neo-colonialism wealth extractions.
Perhaps, today allies are spending less, and the threat of communism has more or less collapsed. So America might be much better off without paying for foreign security. But all this really was never in place out of some noble spirit of world peace, that's all I'm saying.
PD.: a hundred percent agree on Europe being too slow and incapable of reacting to any of this, and embarassing itself. As a European, I hope we can slowly get out of the whining and towards some kind of proper self-defence pact, as many member states actually do have very capable militaries, just individually and not coordinated. I'm not saying, as advanced or experienced as the USA, but if you'd make a "top list" we wouldn't be helpless near the middle or bottom.
I probably can't keep this debate up for too much longer, but know that I hear you. And I hope I was heard in return.
More broadly, I don't think any of us arguing in this thread are really all that far apart. Nothing would please me more than if Europe got its act together. (Hell, I'd love to see a federal Europe. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.)
Acting like most people who advocate getting away from fossil fuels desire a global economic collapse rather than an intentional, well thought and executed transition.
It is absolutely not impossible to transition away from fossil fuels without suffering.
Fossil fuels aren't risk-free. Even if you don't care about CO2, fossil fuels are extremely inefficient in the long run because they're not renewable. Once you extract them and burn them, they're gone, forever. This IS NOT the case with renewable energy, which means that, as time goes on, renewables will be much cheaper than fossil fuels. Already, today, solar is much cheaper than petroleum per unit of energy.
In addition, every country on Earth can make use of renewables. Most countries cannot use fossil fuels directly, because they don't have them. This means they expose themselves to geopolitical risk. Exhibit A: this.
If the transition is done slowly, you end up saving money, not losing it. That means less suffering, not more.
Solar and EV technology are advancing rapidly, and with investment in grid infrastructure and incentives for generators to go renewable we could be along with Europe and China in reducing FF dependence for power. Instead the current administration is actively sabotaging the US position on renewable energy.
I see you have a response from the person accused of acting in bad faith, and whether you agree or not (which you have done), it is reasonable, as was your disagreement.
It was not bad faith, whatever that is, and it was not a straw man.
People who want the world to get off fossil fuels want to transition off them as other forms of energy became viable, and work towards that goal. They didn't want 2 madmen to bomb a country right next to an important waterway over some religious nonsense. You know this, and that's why it's bad faith.
While Apple use of the tracking was not more than a party trick, the foundational technology they created for this is currently the best low budget tracking solution and heavily used in VTubing (online streamers that use an Avatar with live facial tracking instead of showing their face via webcam)
Are these the Memojis or whatever Apple calls them these days? Pretty much eveyry iOS update mentions them near the top of the list and I still have no idea where to find / create / care about them...
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