Aceticon @ Aceticon @lemmy.dbzer0.com Posts 0Comments 593Joined 3 mo. ago
I think the point that the Brexit that Britain got made, which is also the point made by the actual support Europe ended up giving to Ukraine even when Germany was very hesitant to do so, including the move away from Russian gas which Germany was even more hesitant about doing, is that the wishes of Germany on its own don't move the rest of Europe whilst the wishes of enough of the rest of Europe together do move Germany.
As for the sending of troops, I pointed that out because even sending peacekeeping troops is far more interventionist than anything suggested before by European politicians when it comes to Ukraine, so those politicians are at least for the Public Opinion going in the very opposite direction of what politicians would be going if they desired to just dump Ukraine for Economic reasons: in the face of Trump allying himself with Putin, European politicians are opening even more doors to Ukraine rather than closing any.
Germany has definitely been spending money in becoming independent from Russia on the energy front, though indeed whether they've right now passed the peak in terms of cost for their Economy and on the other side of that specific hill or not, is something that only Historians will be able to tell in some years' time, and neither you nor I can prove it either way.
However Germany is not the whole of Europe.
In fact for all its size as a nation Germany is only about 5% of Europe (8% of the EU) both in number of people and economically. Further, it was one of the most deeply tangled with Russia and is one of the most behind in becoming independent of Russian hydrocarbons (all of which probably explains why Germany was so hesitant to start supporting Ukraine at the beginning of the Invasion and in entering every new stage of military support - like sending tanks and sending fighter jets - since, and why in proportion to their GDP their support to Ukraine is at best mild: the really winners how much of their GDP did they spend in supporting Ukraine are all Eastern European nations).
You might have had a good point in your original statement if you wrote "German leaders" but you didn't, you wrote "European leaders" and no matter how good the case you make for Germany alone, that's not the same as all of Europe, and Germany being in the worst possible starting position of all of Europe (except perhaps Hungary) when it comes to dependency on Russian fossil fuels means that even if you had actually proven a willingness in the German political class to "just let Russia have it" when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine because of Economic reasons (which you didn't, although you did make a good case for it to be so), that has no relevance for the other 95% of Europe, of which already the leaders of two large countries - France and the UK - who together easily add up up to more than Germany have very loudly voiced their wish of continuing to support Ukraine and started testing the waters with Public Opinion on sending their own troops there, with most of the Eastern European nations and even the Scandinavian nations having also loudly confirmed their continued support.
Back during the Leave referendum campaign, the Brexiters repeatedly claimed that the UK after leaving was going to still get full access to the single market in almost as good conditions as an EU member, but without obligations such as Free Movement "because German car makers will make the EU do it as the UK is such a large percentage of their Revenue". Ultimately what was proven was that by itself the Economic interest of Germany and its large companies won't move the whole of the EU to do something that's against the interests of most of its nations unless there is a large block of countries predisposed to it, and in this not only is "the threat of Russian Imperialism" an existentialist matter for most of Eastern European nations, but the leaders of most EU nations have come out strongly in favor of continued support of Ukraine, and even the newly elected German Chancellor has made statements to that end (though certainly not as strong as the likes of Macron). Given the proportion of Europe who are EU members, even if all the non-EU European nations sided with Russia (as the likes of Servia have done) it would still be a small fraction of the total and far from enough to justify your broad statement about what "European leader" might be feeling so you would have to show that most of the EU had such a predisposition and as recent History has showing Germany and their interest alone are far from enough for that.
What has happened in the beginning of the Invasion and in every new step of expanding the types of military support for Ukraine - that Germany kept delaying yet ultimately ended up going along with the rest in supporting Ukraine even if almost kicking and screaming - is likely what will happen now.
PS: Actually the more I thought about this the more I came to agree that most German politicians would rather just dump the whole affair and have Ukraine accept the loss of territory to Russia. I disagree that it applies to the rest of European politicians, but it does make a lot of sense for that to be the case for German politicians given how many of their top politicians Russia was paying (such as an old Chancellor who was working for Gasprom), how much they fund some of Germany's political parties, given the - as you pointed out - state of their Economy, and the History of repeated hesitance and delaying of the German politicians compared to the rest of European politicians when it came to supporting Ukraine for pretty much the whole of the last 2 years.
This stuff is from some years ago and unrelated to Trump, though I believe it was pushed for by Republicans.
Here is a link to information about it.
"You can deceive some people all of the time or all people some of the time, but you can't deceive all people all of the time".
My point is that they need to deceive all people (well, most people) to get into power in most Democracies and their lies only stretch so far once they have to actually show results in things that matter to everybody, so eventually they're back at deceiving some people (i.e. true believers) all of the time just like when they started and that's not enough for power (plus the distrust in them after they had power, fucked it up and the many stopped believing their lies, tends to last at least a few decades).
As long as they can be voted away Fascists, whilst never going extinct (there are always the true believers), will not hold power for long.
However if they manage to change the system into Autoritarianism (like Orban in Hungary and Putin in Russia) they can stay there until the day they die.
So back to my original point, Trump might become dictator for life in the US if he manages to subvert what little is left of Democracy in that country, but due to the huge media exposure of US policy everywhere in the World, his example will be counted in the "can't deceive all people all of the time" side for any wannabe Fascists everywhere who haven't already got themselves enough power to destroy the Democratic system in their country.
PS: Thinking about this, Europe in the time when the NAZI party was growing is a great example of my point - several countries turned Fascist at the same time as Germany and those which didn't participate in WWII in the side of the Axis and got defeated (like Spain and Portugal) remained Fascist Dictatorships for decades, but countries which had strong internal support for Fascist ideas (such as the UK, were there is even a photo of young Princess Elizabeth - later Queen - being taught how to do a NAZI salute by her uncle the then King) during the growth of the NAZI party but hadn't turn Fascist by the time Germany invaded neighbouring countries, turned away from Fascism when that happenned and never became Fascist nations. Further, this had impact outside Europe (including in the US were there was also a lot of support for Fascism) and only by the 70s did Fascism returned somewhere (specifically, the Pinochet Dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990).
(That said the exception is Greece which became Fascist right after the end of WWII, curiously with the military support of the Brits who attacked the Communist Resistance in Greece to stop that nation from turning Communist and allowed the Fascists to take power)
That would be a correct assumption about 3 months into that invasion.
All it takes to disprove that idea right now is to listen to what Macron has been saying, and the guy is a Hard-right Neoliberal whose government is supported by the French Front-Nationale (France's main Far Right party).
By now most of the energetic transition in Europe is either done or the money for it is already invested (with temporary measures in place until the things being built with that money come online), and Europe is already over the peak economic impact point of weaning itself from Russian fossil fuels.
Further, a lot of the forced transition away from Russian fossil fuels was to energy sources which are cheaper or well on their way to become cheaper than fossil fuels, such as electricity from renewable sources. That transition just hadn't happenned before because it costs a good amount money to merelly do the change and people, companies and governments were content to keep on paying just a bit more for Russian gas than for Renewables to avoid paying a big one off amount to transition, but by now that cost is sunk and large parts the Economy have made changes needed to transition (for example, look at how Germans have been replacing their gas house warming systems with things like heat pumps).
At this point there is very little to gain in going back to the suckling from Russia's fossil fuel tit (except perhaps for a handful of Chemical Industry Conglomerates in Germany who had massive profits from using that as inputs for many processes) and in a lot of cases it would actually be a net loss in pure Financial terms (so, if not counting the geostrategical and military risks of giving money to Russia) because the energy sources they use post-transition are already cheaper that even Russian gas and getting cheaper by the year.
Also, lets after 2 years of pretty much all of Eastern Europe as well as the likes of Finland reminding us of what Russia did to them while Russia is trying to do the same to Ukraine, Russian government politicials themselves talking about invading the rest of Europe ("from Vladivostok to Lisbon") and continued coverage of Russian missiles killing civilians in Ukraine who to Europeans "look like us", the idea of Russia as a dangerous out of control beast that Ukraine is holding off from attacking the rest of us is in the minds of the European Public in general, not just politicians, plus like in Canada, European nationalism and anti-Americanism have started ticking up in Europe in response to Trump, so just bending over to Trump and Putin and giving Russia a win in Ukraine wouldn't be a good career move for mainstream European politicians and those who might go for it - Far-Right parties in Europe - mainly get stuck at just over 20%, even in countries like The Netherlands and France where they've been present for decades, so they're not going to be in a position to work in the interests of Russia and Trump's America and if they tried to do it via public pressure, they would open themselves to accusations of being Traitors To The Nation from their very own natural supporters, fragmenting the Far-Right.
Then there's also all the extra military investment all over Europe that was started with Ukraine as a justification, which makes going back on the justification for all the money already spent and all the pro-military talk a pretty dangerous career move for any politician that did it.
But yeah, as I said at the start, had this happenned in the very beginning of the war, I agree with you that European politicians would have been relieved and just concede more of Ukrainian Sovereignty to Russia, same as they did back when Russia invaded and took Crimea from Ukraine.
Whilst I would say that triggering an Economic Crisis in the US which spreads to other Economies is a greater risk than a World War, American Presidents starting wars to distract from their own mismanagement is tradition and given Trump's "if some is good, the maximum possible is the bestest" philosphy in his policy choices so far in this presidency, him through an accumulation of measures that make enemies out of friends, and small military interventions creating a situation that escalates to WWIII, is a realistic possibility.
I mean the idea that the threat of Military Force is a valid tool even against US Allies predates Trump - just look at the Legislation Congress passed to invade The Netherlands if ever an American national was arrested by the ICC - and Fascists traditionally see Military Force as a perfect valid tool in the Great Game and Allies as only good as long as they're useful.
Considering just how many Americans voted for him and the brainwashed hyper-nationalism that's the bread and butter of military training everywhere, I wouldn't rely on the US Army to not go ahead and attack a target in a country that was deemed a US Ally just months earlier and something like that escalating to something much bigger.
Trump's "peace deal" is the violent rapist's buddy "just lay down and take it to stop being beaten up" kind of 'end to violence'.
One literally needs to have no Moral or Empathy whatsoever to think that the victim stopping resisting and letting the rapist finish himself off in the victim with no resistance and then walk away with no consequences is a "good" outcome.
Supporting this "deal" is a pretty fulproof way to out yourself as an unrepentant baddie.
Oh, man, the white colonialist invader's propaganda never ceases to be an entertaining parroting of the "it's the natives whose land we stole and whose children we murdered who are violent barbarians and the real baddies" same line as used way back in the 19th century against Indian tribes in America and the natives of the territories occupied by the British Empire.
"They're the real Fascists for not laying down and taking it whilst we as a self proclaimed 'people chosen by
<divinity>
' rape them!!!"Trully, Zionists have Western Values - specifically, the Western Values from two centuries ago.
Category 5 is even easier to make than 5E.
That's also my experience: there's a certain generation of games, around 10 - 20 years old which have more likelihood of problems running in Linux than both older games and newer games.
I suspect it's partly to do with the kind of DRM used by AAA publishers back then - for example the Steam Windows version of The Sims 3 will simply not work in Linux but a pirated version will work fine with no tweakings needed whilst other AAA games from that era need a lot of tweaking to get to work in Linux.
Meanwhile the most recent stuff just works with no need for tweaking.
Well, then it might very well be that the effects of Trump's policies did not manifest themselves on time to sway Germans away from the Far-Right.
Having lived through Brexit, I still very much expect that what Trump is now doing in the US will fuckup most of the Far-Right in Europe. This belief is also anchored on what we are now seeing in countries which were "ahead of the curve" in bringing the Far-Right into Government, such as Poland, who are now turning away from it as well as things like the recent, sudden and somehow unexpected growth of the (real) Leftwing reversing the trend of moving to the Right in places like Finland.
I expect that, given its much greater economic dominance, size and footprint of reporting about it in of the media space, the example of the US will be far more visible and impactful in the general population of Europe than the examples of Hungary, Poland or Finland.
The AfD is the German version of the present day US Republicans and they only got 20% of the vote, not won both a Presidency (which in Germany is mainly a symbolic post) and an absolute majority in the Bundestag (roughly, their Congress).
Further, just like the effects of Brexit on the UK cooled down for at least a decade the anti-EU sentiment in the rest of Europe, what Trump and the Republicans are doing with the power they got in the US is likely to (once enough of the side effects of his actions pile up) cool down any love for that kind of Fascism in the rest of the West.
The Far Right has an ideological framework of purelly criticizing/complaining/accusing, which is great when you're an observer sitting on the sidelines and shouting about how those who are actually doing things are doing it all wrong, but doesn't at all work when they're in a position where they actually need to do things themselves, so they invariably fuck things up badly, generally because over the mid and long term the side effects of their actions completelly wipe-out any positive direct effects those actions were expected to have and then remain active and further destroying for far longer than the positive effects do.
IMHO, the danger for the rest of the West is far more that Elon and Trump start WWIII, than that people in other countries will be inspired to follow their ideology by seeing what they do with it in the US.
(The danger for the US, which I suspect is pretty much guaranteed since both major parties there have sided with the Pillager segment of society, is the country will be firmly and forever dethroned from its position as super power within a decade)
Yes.
I even remember using Gopher which was the closest there was to HTTP and Browsers before they were invented.
(Also, don't get me started on FTPmail).
And no, even with the enshittification of the last decade or so, I would still not call those "the good old days".
Now, get out of my lawn you wipper snappers!
I would say that the problem is a lot older, more fundamental and anchored on two issues:
- Somebody else got rid of the Nazis, not the German people, and all the subsequent learning from Nazism was the result of outside pressures and based on an outside way of thinking, rather than being the result of self-discovery and self-improvement.
- The "lessons" learned were structured in the way of thinking of the 1950s which was still very much normalized Racism, so instead of the lesson being the modern Humanist "This should never be allowed to happen to anybody", it was instead the highly Race-specific formulation of "We (Germans) should never do this to Jews again".
The result is that the mental architecture of seeing people as members or races and hence assumed to have a certain nature based purelly on their race (good, bad, trustworthy, untrustworthy, victims, aggressors, oppressors, oppressed and so on), that formed the foundation upon which Nazism was built, was never abandoned and instead only the list of "good" and "bad" races changed, which in the domain of Prejudice and Racism was but a tiny step away from Nazism.
If in the mind of most of a society, people's worth and deserving of special treatment is determined by their race to such a point that, as we saw with the "unwavering support of the Jewish Nation" during them committing a Genocide, even extreme negative behaviour of people is acceptable if they are members of a race deemed "good", then all the mental pathways to think and act exactly like that towards "our race" - the mindset of AfD - are in place and well travelled.
Nativist Racism in Germany is the harvest of a field well plowed and fertilized with Racist and Prejudiced practices (described as "positive" to make them sound like a good thing) for the last 6 or 7 decades. Worse, that well kept field was the very same were Nazism blossomed over a century ago.
Pretty much the whole political range from the extreme Right up to and including the Greens (but not the Left party) normalized racial discrimination with their whole "unwavering support of the Jewish nation" (i.e. unlimited support entirely because of their race) whilst they mass murdered civilians because of their ethnicity (a crime so foul that the list of dead Palestinian babies 1 year old or younger for the first 6 months of the Genocide is 17 pages long).
They not just normalized in Germany the mindset of discriminating on the basis of race, but once the Genocide started they went all the way to unwaveringly supporting a modern variant of Nazism giving as reason for that that those doing it represented "the Jewish People".
It's absolutely natural that the Far Right nationalists would think that "well, if even mass murdering Palestinian babies is fine if the murderers are Jews, then surely it's equally fair that those who are Germans should be able to do whatever one wants to non-Germans" (or in other words "if it's fine for them, then it's fine for us too")
There really isn't that much of an Ethical and Moral distance between "those of a specific race can mass murder babies of the ethnicity they deem 'human animals'" (which is what almost the entirety of the German political class defended) and "our specific race can treat other races any way they see fit" (which is the AfD's position) - in fact I would even go as far as saying that "merely" being anti-Immigration is Ethically and Morally a less monstrous position to hold than supporting mass murder of innocent civilians because they're from a different ethnicity than a race you favor.
They "are" for those people who are too stupid to understand that individual consumers don't have the time, expertise, access to inside information on company processes and their own labs so that they don't need to rely on regulators to make sure they're not buying and consuming dangerous shit, and can do it all by themselves as individuals.
The "too stupid to understand regulators are there to do what individuals don't have the time, expertise and power to do as individuals" neatly brings us around exactly to the point the OP was making.
(Mind you, sadly it's not just Trumpettes who fall into the "too stupid to understand the need of regulators" category)
The way I'm reading is that they were holding a date related value in an unsigned integer field, so the start date (corresponding to 0) was a convention (whether internal or broader than that, I don't know) and they chose 0, the default initialization value for such fields as a flag for "no information". Back in the day there wasn't all that memory and storage to go around so I bet this was a 1 byte field holding a year value.
Those choices in a system to be used for Social Security for a whole nation make sense in software design terms if you're having to come up with your own solution for storing dates in as fewer bytes as possible in a language with no built-in date type, but present day teenagers would have never have been in such a situation because there are no currently fashionable programming languages without date types, space isn't as constrained anymore and they don't have experience in the kind of projects were one has to store records for hundreds of millions of people.
I taught myself coding at 14 on a ZX Spectrum 128 and was doing Assembly within 2 years.
By now I have over 3 decades professional software engineering experience, almost 4 decades in total if including the stuff I did non-professionally.
Looking back, I knew how to make programs (even made a Minesweeper for the Spectrum in Assembly) but that's not at all the same as knowing the good or industry standard practices in the languages I used.
Whilst it should be way easier now to find those things out (there was no Internet back when I started), in my experience one needs to actually have been coding in a spaghetti way long enough and in enough projects you can't just ditch if they get too messy to actually feel the need to learn those better ways and hence go search for it.
Also I bet that it's a lot harder to find advanced tutorials on COBOL on the net from people with actual experience doing it professionally for a couple of years than it is for, say, Python.
Yeah, you're right - you're saying that it's possible in a properly functioning Democracy to have an independent state funded media, not that the UK is a properly functioning Democracy.
I just reacted to you posting a link to the BBC's very own bullshit on their impartiality (a link which doesn't make sense in light of the rest).