Yes that’s right. It’s a get your shit together or go bust moment for us here in Europe.

Yep, I know that for myself. But I can’t switch away from github as that is where the huge company I work for has its stuff - and it needs convincing the enterprises, not the individuals.

Personally I just have my own repos which I can move anywhere in an eyeblink. But it takes political power to. move governments, departments and companies.

For example I have no way to ditch Teams or Outlook, because that’s the accounts my employer set up. I can’t ditch my RSA hardware token, because that’s what my. employer’s customer uses. I can’t ditch. my work phone as only Samsung and Apple are vetted.

That’s something that needs to change on a pan-europrean level.

Musk is not a Nazi, because the Nazis built great cars.

Migrating cloud servers to European hosters. Give EU money to improve/build a linux desktop. Use that desktop in government, schools, universities… (instead of Windows). Fork Firefox. Host fediverse services and use them where the governments use Twitter / TikTok / Insta.

Harder: Mandate for mobile phones with a user installable OS (Cyanogen etc.) Force tech companies to provide total transparency about data usage. Cancel any safe harbor agreements.

In the end, everything the Open Source crowd wished for.

Btw, I’d have no issues with American / Russian / China hosted open source stuff when we can review what it does. Ah, ok, a “european code review agency” might be a thing.

Yeah, a minority of people voted for Hitler, too.

We need our own tech stack, that is at least verifyable. It’s due time to kick out the American tech giants from government projects etc.

With America possibly becoming the new Russia it is just not safe to rely on Microsoft, Apple, Aws etc.

We need an Europan open source stack.

Yes, we’re tempted by the right, too. But ousting them now would do no good.

But Ramstein (only one m, unlike the band) - keep the USians there for a time, let’s keep it as is for a time until it’s time to make some kind of deal.

They might need it one day, so we keep it as a collateral.

All long term international agreements and security guarantees died on the weekend so we need tangible things to force our former allies - now those we have deals with - to ensure they behave.

The correct thing to do would be our foreign office to issue an official travel warning for the US. (Which would have some impact on tourism to the US)

Let’s keep the big things for later, we WILL need them.

Zelensky should have brought a carton of eggs to the oval office.

Trump is just the public face of a much bigger problem. As he’s old, he’ll die soon anyways. But the next king is already waiting.

The scary thing is - ignoring these protection guarantees kills nuclear non proliferation.

Ignoring Ukraine for now, with a few French nukes we don’t have enough in Europe to do nuclear deterrence. The US not being a trustworthy partner anymore and with Russia on our doorstep that means long term we simply need more of our own. I hate the thought, but can’t find a way around it.

Trump is only the symptom. I’ve seen the Republicans walk into this direction more and more every cycle. Bush, Dubya, ahh then I remember Palin who didn’t win with her Tea Party chums etc. - it culminated in Maga.

And even if Trump turns dead by suffocation, having his head up Putin’ s ass tomorrow - he’s only the most visible figure of this theater, and there a few more who probably wait to be King when the King is dead.

Nevertheless, what the post before said is important - the US was a soft power, being in the center of a huge balanced. network of allies. That network, the one the Magas shat on, is what guaranteed stability for all. (And yes, I’m aware politics always was a dirty business - but not in this way)

There were probably a lot of shouting matches between politicians in the past, probably even between presidents. But fucking never on live TV, now none of they can’t move without losing face. What a sharade.

Goodwill? Yes.

But as long as the US political system is as it is and as long it will only flip-flop between democrats and Maga every few years, there can not be any trust anymore.

The US proved to be an unreliable partner.

How can any other country go into any. negotiations with the US without knowing the US can changed what they do at any time?

There is no basis for a deal, anymore.

I read what happened, and after I knew I watched the video clip.

I’m still under shock.

The world is turning, this is an important point in history. I was in disbelief for a long time, but we Europeans can’t trust the US anymore.

This might be a good thing after all, we need to wean off the American teat and decouple ourselves. We need our own tech stacks, we need our own EU troops and we need our own whatever Nato once was.

We need to jump in and cough up the money to replace the Ukraine Support the US did.

I’m fucking afraid, the risk of
an even bigger war just greatly increased.

But whatever will happen we’ll never be able to trust the USA again, even if things get better there’s no guarantee the same shit happens again 4 years later.

The only rational thing is to isolate ourselves from the sick patient.

We’ll have an election in a few days here in Germany. And we’re already stumbling. The polls don’t look wo good.

Tesla just needs a new slogan or a good marketing campaign.

Something like:

Tesla - power by joy

Or “Kraft durch Freude” in German.

All that would perfectly fit the brand image.

Having a step dad from Buenos Aires, I’m offended you forgot Argentina. But they have their own kind of crazy MAGA there, currently…

For all the non-Germans, Herr Waldseemüller or one of his ancestors probably was a miller at a lake in the forest. That’s what the components of his name say, and we already have a body of water here.

Oh wow, thanks for the tips! I’ll check them out.

It was “The Avatar” in a German translation. I read it twice or so at that time - and it’s many years since, so I have only a dim recollection of all the details, but a lot of politics, and (if I don’t mix it up now) questionable physics regarding light speed and mass, a lot of sex and some weird gaelic inspired poetry.

Maybe I’ll find a copy one day again, to have a new look with my now old eyes and different woldview.

From what I’ve seen on goodreads or so I had a bit of misfortune as The Avatar isn’t known as his best work. But beggars can’t be choosers, at that time I got my sci fi fix by browsing the one bookstand with scifi in the central station’s bookstore next to my bus stop home after school… they threw me out once or twice “This is for buying books, not for reading”

I have just read one Poul Anderson (when I was a teenager) and the most important thing I remember was people fucking each other all the time.