I mean kind of? I feel like other than allies of necessity (to counter other great powers) there isn't really a point in pretending to be friendly to countries that are different to us in practically every way.
Is the cultural difference really that big? Bigger, then say, the difference between NYC and rural Kansas?
Me and my generation (born in the 80s) of Western European have grown up admiring the US. Listening to your music, watching your movies, wearing your brands. And we still do, mostly.
The unease seems to have started some time after 9/11 though. European countries joined various wars, that turned out to be mostly a grab for control of oil states. (WMD anyone?)
And the US basically just stopped leading the way on international cooperation. Instead of cofounding the Internation Court of Justice, the US threatened to invade The Hague because of it. Instead of leading the way on averting climate change, having the tech, the global power and the money to do so, the US chose to block much of the initiative coming from elsewhere. And there've been many similar things.
So yeah, to me at least the US feels kind of like an old friend that's been derailed. By 9/11, perhaps.
I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love to come back to visit the US more often in the future. But with this administration, I just won't risk it. And also.. I just don't want to, at the moment. :-/
Honestly fair enough. And for the record, I do not want the US and Europe to stop cooperating, I just think that we have lost much of the intrinsic cultural reasoning for allying in the first place. But at the same time, your statement about the urban/rural culture gap kind of refutes my point anyways. Either way, we still have much bigger fish to fry with Russia and China on the horizon, so we definitely have more in common with each other government wise compared to the rest of the world.
I'd say many people in the EU have similar views and ideas to about 2/3rds of the US (maybe I'm being generous on the US size), the half of the US that doesn't think the world is flat, that global warming might be happening, that following the rule of law is a good thing and we don't need to destroy the US to fix it.
Europe is more alike most Americans then you are to other Americans. Why pretend to be friendly with other states why not breakup. Cities in states should break apart from rural areas. We can all go back to tribal hunting groups.
The luck may be coming to an end. The last two have serious misuses. Crypto’s best killer apps thus far have been rug-pulls, evading governance of criminal financial activity and corruption. AGI would, today, be likely be called into service to tighten authoritarian grips.
I’m kind of shocked by how few are asking this question. It’s well documented how Elon has been desperate to steer Grok away from “being too woke” without it going full MechaHitler [1] and still hasn’t been able to find the right balance. Does this research point to a way he could get closer to that goal?
If you want to experience the thrill of being in the antimemetics division I highly recommend* unmedicated ADHD.
I pre-ordered the hardcover when it came out. I've read it online dozens of times but I like books and supporting authors, and this specific one really ticks a lot of boxes for me, so I got a physical copy. The book came, I put it on the shelf, admired it, went about my life.
Then, months later, I saw a mention of the physical book online somewhere, and I thought to myself "oh that reminds me, I wanted to buy the hardcover when it came out!" so I did! The book came, I went to put it on the shelf, saw the identical copy already sitting on the shelf, and I just stood there for a minute with the book in my hand like "..." "..." "..." while I worked through what happened.
> Yes — and, dammit, I have an unread copy sitting on my desk that this thread has elevated to my top priority.
If you need convincing to read it: I'm highly skeptical of random internet lore that usually gets recommended, and was also skeptical at this. I find people overhype things and then it's meh.
But... it's genuinely entertaining and a fun read. It's not the best scifi thing you'll read, but it's definitely above average and you will like the story and the characters.
Do you follow anyone? If so, who? If not, you're in an edge-case for users who haven't yet started following anyone.
Follow people. Carefully curate who you follow. Your feed will be exactly what you pick. It's a lot like old-school Twitter before it went algorithmic.
I get up each day, the news gets more insane, I go to work, nobody mentions it. I keep wondering how insane things need to get before Midwest politeness decides to even acknowledge it.
It happened during the rise of Nazism, in "They Thought They Were Free" you can read quite candid interviews with everyday Germans from a small town on how they perceived it.
It becomes normalised, the window shifts, and it has already shifted a lot.
Things that were unthinkable to be done or said by politicians 15 years ago now happen almost daily. Speeches that would be scandals are just another drop in the bucket, rhetoric that would've crashed careers, and get people in absolute shock now became celebrated.
You just have to remember you aren't going crazy, this is not normal and shouldn't be normal, the window just shifted so much that a lot of people learnt to agree with it, for their own reasons, by manipulative tactics.
