CharlesDarwin1809

I definitely think Musk wants to rig elections as much as he can, but he probably tries to do it just about within the law, so he can sell himself as a moral fighter for whatever crap he thinks he’s fighting for (enriching himself, of course).

I guess my general point was that lots of Americans did seem to vote for Trump in 2024, even if many of those now seem to regret their vote, given Trump’s current approval ratings. I hope that a better US president will be elected in 2028. But I think Europe should aim for as much autonomy as possible, regardless of how 2028 turns out, so that friendship with the US becomes a choice rather than an obligation.

I know this thread is old but yes I agree with you.

I’m now trying out Piefed because I’m not a fan of the Lemmy developers. I’ve seen some of their mod actions on Lemmy.ml and I don’t agree with their perspectives.

For example, I think imperialist behaviour done by any nation (US, China, Germany, whoever it is) is bad. It means exerting control over people who don’t want it, and can’t vote against it. But the Lemmy.ml mods seem to think that imperialism is fine when it’s done by China or Russia, and imperialism is only bad if it’s done by western countries.

Like many others, I tried out the Fediverse when Reddit nuked third-party apps.

I hadn’t used Reddit’s third-party apps in some years, but the debacle just showed to everyone that Reddit is a for-profit company, and they’ll always put profits ahead of users’ interests.

I think antisemitism is a real problem today. In my country, the UK, within the last year or so, there was an arson attack on Jewish ambulances in London, and a stabbing attack in Manchester in which two Jewish men were killed. Both incidents seem to have been hate crimes.

Just to point out: I don’t support Netanyahu or his government’s genocide of Palestinians, but I’m not going to blame all Jews for that, because I’m not racist.

Anybody can be the victim of ethnic discrimination, regardless of how “powerful”, or powerless, other members of your ethnic group are.

Many experts in the US have said that US votes are reliable though, right? Trump kept casting doubt on US votes, saying that Biden could only have won in 2020 due to manipulation, and experts were saying that actually the US voting system is reliable.

I definitely believe that many Americans want to be friends with Europe, yes. I also think there are quite a few Americans who love Trump and dislike Europe for whatever reasons. I hope America will elect somebody more sensible than Trump in 2028, but I don’t think it’s yet clear what will happen.

I guess the American people need to decide whether they want to be friends with Europe again. Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote in 2024, so not a majority, but still a lot of people. So they need to choose between continuing isolation in 2028 (e.g. Vance) or a leader who is a bit more sensible (e.g. Gavin Newsom).

In a way maybe it is weird. Anyway, whether the UK rejoins the EU in the coming years or not, I hope the UK cooperates with the EU where it makes sense. The UK and the EU both have an interest in a prosperous Europe which doesn’t need to rely on unreliable or unfriendly states (US, China, Russia).

I would argue that Microsoft are better than they used to be (I quite like TypeScript, and WSL) but perhaps only marginally. I’m lucky that I don’t have to use Windows. I just use Linux these days.

In terms of sovereignty, I think Europe should try to find alternatives to Microsoft for critical things, even if the only reason for that is because Microsoft is American. As the OP article shows, the US government can make it painful for Europe to rely on American companies like Microsoft, regardless of what Microsoft themselves choose to do.

As a European (British) I hope Europe can become as autonomous as possible.

We can trade with foreign entities when they’re being reasonable, but at the moment a few of them are being unreasonable.

I think there is value in Finland’s system, when Russia clearly is a huge threat to Europe.

Maybe every part of Europe should have a system like that. Perhaps everybody, rich or poor, and perhaps even older as well as younger (not kids or pensioners though) could be trained to contribute in some way to national defence. This could include training for building weapons in factories for example. Look at how important Ukraine’s weapons companies are currently, when it comes to their national defence.

I have to unfortunately admit that I’m interested in both, which is why I keep coming back to social media platforms like this one.