France offers US scientists a safe haven from Trump's war on woke American boffins fearful that their work (or should that be "woke"?) activities will draw the disfavor of the Trump administration are being offered sanctuary in the Land of the Free, otherwise known as Europe. Aix-Marseille University in the south of France is launching the Safe Place For Science program, offering a "safe and …
The idea that there's going to be a brain drain from the US to France, of all places, is simply laughable.
If you hadn't realised it already, Europe is broke, has horrendous energy prices and is just about to embark on a ludicrous military funding drive to "confront" Russian aggression.
What exactly do you think's going to happen to all the money earmarked for les queer studies?
The idea that your comment has any basis in reality is simply laughable.
So energy prices in Europe are low and European economies are just A-OK, are they?
Please explain where the money for defense is going to come from exactly? Also, Europe is currently years away from ramping up military production - the infrastructure simply doesn't exist. You know what that means? The Europeans will be buying US made weapons for their quixotic Ukrainian adventure and helping to bolster the military industrial complex across the Atlantic in the process!
You can continue to bury your head in the sand, but these are the facts, I'm afraid!
it seems that you have missed a small fact called... France. (the article is about France)
France doesn't buy US made Military stuff ( except a few M240 and 4 E-3F and a few E-2C, that were paid for decades ago. ).
France develop and build it's own military equipment.
France also has a low electricity price (compared to the rest of Europe) thanks to the 70%+ nuclear production.
Now France economy could be better, there's a few mammoth that needs to be unfattened in the administration, but it's nothing new.
As for scientific equipment, France as ITER being built just north of Aix/Marseille.
You have the LHC in Geneva (it is also partially under France)
and many more
France develop and build it's own military equipment.
And more important, its own nuclear weapons and vectors, planes and submarines, built and usable without any interference from the US, which is now objectively the new Russian ally.
De Gaulle was really clairvoyant and wise. To be truly independent a country must be able to defend itself by itself.
Now, I expect that European rearmament will be about buying European weapons which are at least as efficient as american ones. It will boost the European economies, favour local industries, bring jobs, all things which are very positive. .
De Gaulle was an arrogant arsehole who had a superiority complex second only to Orange Mussolini - he was wrong about loads of things during WW2, he was wrong about what the makeup of the European Economic Community should be by excluding the UK in the 1960s, he was a dictator in all but name and threatened France with civil war more than once in order to get his way.
But, like Churchill (who also had similar failings), he was right on most big occasions, he could motivate the population and unite people to a common cause, and he got things done, which ultimately rescued France after WW2 split it into many fractured pieces which all hated each other (with good reason) and got the country rebuilt and moving again.
Point being that De Gaulle was right about military independence to a point - he was wrong IMO to back out of large aspects of NATO in a fit of pique but he was right to insist on manufacture of French equipment in France which met NATO standards in terms of ammunition etc.
I love how americans think that leadership is so overwhelming powerful because of their speeches.
Im sorry the French resistance and the populace who did their little bit did it because they are french, and not because of DG.
The same for the British, they were always never going to give up.
Many European countries, including France, Germany and Sweden, already have world-class defence businesses making equipment that can (and does) kick the shit out of its Russian counterparts on a daily basis, without relying on any American inputs. Europe even has its own satellite navigation service, created specifically for the eventuality that it might one day not be able to rely on GPS or GLONASS.
You have to consider a tonne of metrics alongside each other when judging country A v's country B. Things like wealth and status are arguably high up there, but the likelihood that your children would be shot to death while attending school is considered far more important in a society that gives a shit about such things.
"Europe is currently years away from ramping up military production - the infrastructure simply doesn't exist."
Same in the US as well. The Ukraine war woke up a lot of people to that fact. However, Europe is ahead of the US in that race.
Further, The Great Pumpkin is doing amazing work putting the military (and the US government in general) back into the stone age.
Americans might have a lot of military equipment, but they dont want to admit they have a problem.
This is partly why Trump is refusing to think about putting any american troops in UKR, because he knows that a lot of the equipment is ancient.
All western tanks are basically useless, UKR has returned Abrams, because while they have great armour, they are too heavy and Western Russia is a mud because of melting snow. This mud problem is the same reason why Russian tanks are so light on armour because of the weight factor. The R are happy to trade mobility for shitty armour.
Ospreys are a joke, they cant be used against a Russia or China without major casaulties. Helicopters are simply too expensive. FLying a 100M chopper which will lose against rockets and drones worth thousands is a war nobody can afford to fight.
Aircraft Carriers are also only good against shitty countries like Yemen, and even there the USA cant win against the Houthis. There are many stories of war games of capital ships like AC being easy targets time and again.
Russia itself knew this, and tahts why for all their failing skipped carriers and spent money on subs which are much more useful in a big war.
This war is a a dreadnought moment, the Dreadnought was the beginning of the end of the RN, after that moment, the oustanding advatnge of the British was lost because at thaat moment, everybody was even and had to start again with new technology.
Americans might have a lot of military equipment, but they dont want to admit they have a problem.
And part of the problem (as testified to by squaddies and officers I've been on contracts with) is that the US army is just too specialised.
Want tents put up? [1] There's a MOS for that and a rifleman won't be seen to be doing it. Want other military duties done - that's the responsibility of the relevent MOS, no-one else has the training to do it.
Unlike the British or French armies - outside of a few narrow specialities, everyone does everything and is trained to do so - which is why British military basic training is 14-26 weeks and US army training is 10 weeks. The support/combat troop ratio is also much higher in the US forces than in the British army.
[1] Guy was an Army artillery officer - had several exercises with the US army. One time, they were doing cold-weather training in Scotland in winter. They would do the test firing then move to overnight quarters. The British would arrive, put up the tents and stuff like the kitchens and be ready for the evening. The US guys would turn up and remain in their vehicles until the support company would turn up to pitch the tents, cook the food et. al. One of them would be ready for the evening well before the other and only had half the people..
That is a lot different than when I was in the US military over 35 years ago. Back then our boot camp was only 8 weeks, then 12 to 20 weeks of MOS related training. My MOS was 74F, computer programmer/analyst.
Regardless of MOS, every solder needed to know the following just to pass boot camp:
1. Rifle marksmanship - 40 shots from a range of 50m to 300m. Needed a minimum of 23 hits to pass.
2. First aid - including first aid, tourniquets, burns, treating heat stroke and hypothermia
3. Bio/chemical weapons gear - know how do protective equipment like an M-17 mask
4. Claymore mine - install, set up, test and deploy one
There were plenty more tasks - these are a few of the main ones I remember. I think the test was 30 tasks you had to complete, and if you got over 3 NOGO's, you failed. I don't think setting up tents was one of them, but we all still had to do it.
This was just the 8 week boot camp. MOS training had far more tests. The failure/dropout rate for my MOS was over 50%.
The meatwave charges have always been the principle military strategy of the Russians. There is no trade, the Russians do both.
THey for all their evil and stupidity were simply being shall we say practical and preferring a cheaper lighter tank rather than a heavy more armoured tank. Given they dont care about the wellbeing of the crew, survivability doesnt matter.
Just like the Chineseits all about numbers and trying to overwhelm the enemy with numbers which is exactly what we are seeing today.
"Queer canine becomings: Lesbian feminist cyborg politics and interspecies intimacies in ecologies of love and violence."
It is real. Biden was funding it.
I am sure the French will benefit massively from the influx of academic talent in intersectional diversity studies and, er, bestiality.
Sure...
But apparently the 'Murican not epidemic kills :
https://gizmodo.com/the-measles-outbreaks-arent-going-away-soon-cdc-warns-2000575136
Personally I don't care, I got the vaccine as a kid.... decades ago, since it's mandatory for school. ( at that time the smallpox vaccine was also mandatory, so I also don't care about the money pox. )
Looks like it isn't going away in the UK either...
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-deaths-by-age-group-from-1980-to-2013-ons-data/measles-notifications-and-deaths-in-england-and-wales-1940-to-2013
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68068226
The UK seems to have worse measles death rates than the USA.
Actually looks more like a case of keeping kids away from school and not letting parent take them to the doc stopped those who wanted to get the vaxx from getting it.
I had the vaxx decades ago and still had measles as a kid.
"Looks like it isn't going away in the UK either..."
Hardly. Those data show that in the UK deaths from measles reduced from many hundreds per year in the 1940s down to single digit numbers every year since late 1980s. If by "isn't going away" you mean "hasn't disappeared" then I'll give you that one. But measles deaths in the UK is pretty much as low as it's reasonable to ever hope it to be, ie the odd few every year.
I calculated the mortality rate (deaths per infection) from that data to see if there was a trend, but it stops making much sense to do so when the absolute number of deaths is so low due to the "stats of small numbers" issue.
I think the point went over your head.
The US has not had a childhood death from measles between 2015 and 2024. Now people are suddenly sperging out that somehow the end of the world is coming and that there is another pandemic around the corner. The reality being that the US has been a bit of an outlier with so few cases. And in fact even this 'epidemic' that the spergers are trying to pin on Trump and RFKjr is actually quite mild compared to what is going on in Europe. And what is going on over here in Europe is still really very minor.
The 'big' 2019 measles outbreak in the US was mostly due to a relatively closed minority community group who live in a very Democrat heavy area and are not known for voting R.
Interestingly, the vast quantity of infections in (Eastern) Europe are amongst neighbours of Ukraine which has been a little pre-occupied lately. Could it be lots of unvaccinated people fleeing Ukraine could have brought it with them...
Perhaps too pre-occupied to vaccinate effectively.
Thanks Putin. Twat.
Thanks Anti vaxxers. Also twats.
Those deaths dont count.
Everybody knows its better that your kid dies from being an anti vaxxer rather than get the jab.
Same goes for guns, better that kids live in fear and get massacred so some aresholes can pretend they are rambo, except they arent rambo they are cowards who shoot unarmed kids instead of fighting against the Russians in Ukraine.
Smallpox is much less transmissible than say measles or covid and the vaccine was actually sterilising. The measles vaccine is not 100% as I can attest cos I was vaxxed as a child and still got it. And the less said about the covid 'vaccine' the better... Also because smallpox is infinitely more dangerous the effort to eradicate it was much higher. Measles is one of those things that will continue to hang around even in a very highly vaccinated community.
@SundogUK
"Compared to Rachel Levine?"
You may find this as bemusing as I did, in Oregon there is the Oregon Mental Health Advisory Board who has just appointed someone with the pronouns- they/them/terrapin. Someone called JD Holt.
One form of humour used to be parody, but I think we might lose that completely as reality becomes increasingly bizarre.
b) seems to me it's one of these 'de-extinct' breakthroughs recently claimed (deliciously) by Eggheads ... it "demonstrates remarkable progress in precise perruque engineering"!
> they/them/terrapin
Wrong.
The pronouns are they/them/turtle.
The "Terrapin" is JD Holt's name on Facebook.
@AC
"Yes it is funny you can not post a link yourself or just bother to check his name when there are so many easy links to find."
Oops it appears I upset you? Do you identify as coward turtle? Or maybe anonymous amphibian? You do identify as too stupid to copy and paste a URL
> And the US would certainly not be put out be losing experts in epidemiology, infectious diseases and immunology, not even with a measles epidemic at large. Not when cod-ler oil is such an effective treatment.
Well, they don't need them, since (as of last count) 7 US states have banned mRNA vaccines (https://abcnews.go.com/Health/mrna-vaccines-now-face-attacks-gop/story?id=119553285)
But don't worry, I'm sure Alex Jones or Kash Patel will come out with magic pills that work much better. (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-fbi-pick-co-hosted-show-conspiracy-filled-far-right-media-organ-rcna182823)
"Queer canine becomings: Lesbian feminist cyborg politics and interspecies intimacies in ecologies of love and violence.
It is real. Biden was funding it."
I just had to look that up and it is real - brilliant! Can't read the whole thing though as I don't have the right subscription.
But as for "Biden was funding it", the Disclosure Statement says "The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.". So no, Biden wasn't funding it, nobody was.
I got through some of it. Not all the words mean what you might think. "Intimacies" meaning patting dogs on head and having them as companions rather than the more literal interpretation. Cyborg is a similar things -- using machines as part of our daily lives rather than replacing parts of ourselves with them.
It's quite heavy going, and I didn't understand all of it. That doesn't mean it wrong, of course.
We understand quantum physics pretty well. Pick any question, sit down, calculate – and you get an answer that matches reality. Oversimplifying a bit here, of course. But many predictions have been tested to insane numbers of significant digits. And we do understand how to calculate things.
What we are horribly bad at, is asking philosophical questions about quantum physics. What does it all means and stuff like that. That's were you get the paradoxes. I mostly blame our monkey brains. And philosophy in general. Give a philosopher a sandwich and you will get back a paradox.
"Queer canine becomings: Lesbian feminist cyborg politics and interspecies intimacies in ecologies of love and violence."It is real. Biden was funding it.
Hey Tom. Please explain for us how your mind works, as this is how it appears to me:
1) You see some Facebook post where someone finds an article with a silly sounding title, and declares Biden financed it, with no evidence to prove it.
2) Without bothering to do even a token piece of fact checking, you think "Biden is the evil leader of the evil child eating Democrats, so it must be true"
3) So convinced are you, and so used to socializing with idiots, you decide to put your name to this very obvious piece of bollocks.
Am I close?
P.S. Did you know that Trump and Elon financed "Mein Kampf"? It said so on Facebook once...
This post has been deleted by its author
> "I gave one recent, and egregious example of the torrent of irrelevant, useless, fraudulent and outright insane "research" that taxpayers are funding a bloated and dysfunctional academic sector to produce."
But you said this *after* someone had already replied to your original comment to point out that there was no funding, taxpayer or otherwise, associated with that study anyway?
So either you're intententionally lying here, you're being downright stupid and/or you're the type who simply doesn't care to hear about the actual truth of a story if the misleading representation of it you saw on Facebook suits your beliefs more?
fraudulent and outright insane "research"
Ooh, fraudulent research. Apart from the obviously semantic problems with the very idea, I can point you in the direction of the "research" carried out on behalf of and paid for by various industries, the US sugar industry springs to mind, to come up with conclusions that nicely coincide with their financial interests. And then there are the states that are busy banning things like the teaching of evolution or anything like climate change…
The interests of those interested in moving are elaborated in another place as “health (LGBT+ medicine, epidemiology, infectious diseases, inequalities, immunology, etc.), environment and climate change (natural disaster management, greenhouse gases, social impact, artificial intelligence), humanities and social sciences (communication, psychology, history, cultural heritage), astrophysics.”
Possibly one of those might fit in with your epithet but a good deal of it is straightforward science. However given the fact that the US govt's health secretary is suggesting cod-liver oil as the way to deal with a serious measles outbreak in Texas maybe it stretches to cover epidemiology, infectious diseases and immunology out of that list.
Aaaand ?
Beside the fact that it's behind a paywall...
a few cents (be it eurocents or $cents) is not impacting.
You need to find a better reason.
and since you're basing attractiveness for research on the Electricity price, why do they prefer France instead of going to Ethiopia, China or Russia ?
( according to sites that are not behind paywalls they have an elctricity cheaper than 'Murica )
"a few cents (be it eurocents or $cents) is not impacting."
Business energy prices are multiple times more expensive in Europe versus the US and it most certainly can impact industry and energy intensive R&D. See TSMC, for example.
Taiwan’s laboured energy transition is straining its industry, with sudden electricity price jumps and growing outage risks affecting companies including Asia’s biggest — the semiconductor giant TSMC.
Following a series of price increases, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company now expects to pay more for power in its home country than anywhere else.
https://www.ft.com/content/cfd77e84-5d5b-47ae-96bd-9973b1c18662
By the way, Germany, the industrial engine room of Europe, has energy prices 2.5 times that of Taiwan and the UK, 4 times! Europe is rapidly becoming deindustrialised.
Again : Aaaaand ?
There's still industry that wants to come here and build factories. Despite what you think is the reality.
And beside TSMC wouldn't be anything if they didn't have ASML products... that are European built and designed.
Germany, thanks to the Grünen ditched it's nuclear power plants. ( but you should know that, since the Grünen are also on Putin's payroll like you )
They put all their money on natural gas ( provided cheap by Russia )... It didn't work well.
Now they are buying Electricity ( produced by nuclear plants ) from France. ( which make it more expensive, since they have to buy it from us first...)
TSMC also needs Japanese chemicals and wafers to make the chips. ASML is just a part of the equation but it gets all the fanfare.
Without ASML Nikon or Canon would have likely achieved EUV as they were also busy working on it.
And without the US company Cymer, ASML would not have an EUV light source.
>WHY would TSMC need Japanese chemicals and wafers, as opposed to those from another country, or from Taiwan itself?
Largely because a lot of the industry is more art than science.
Processes have been dialed in over decades to work precisely with high yields under insanely difficult conditions.
We have tuned this process to work with this chemical from this manufacturer - so long as they don't change anything.
We don't know what level of purity is actually required, we don't even know if some of the impurities are actually helping. We do know that switching, for all but the simplest cheapest steps, might involve years of reduced yields and the potential for chips to fail, perhaps only after years in service.
Risking it to save a few $ buying chemicals from Aliexpress rather than Osaka Organic - no thanks
On the first claw, that sounds batshit-crazy, essentially saying, "Though we have good chemists on our staff, we don't really know how this all works."
On the second claw, when trying to adjust a system with many variables, the first thing you want to do is reduce the number of variables as much as possible. You can't tune a race car engine well if the octane rating of your fuel varies at every pit stop.
Upvote.
I was amused to see South Africa also has cheaper leccy than The Disunited States. Perhaps Elon should be running his business back home rather than Trampling on the lives of ordinary Americans. Bloody foreigners, going over there and stealing jobs.
I wonder if this is one of Trumps reasons for firing up the fossil fuel engine.
Of course the one thing that chart doesn't say is what is the *cost* of all this energy in carbon footprint terms and it's ultimate cost vs the effort required to undo damage caused by dirty generation.
Well, you can't charge much for something that only runs a few hours per day. And SA uses a LOT of coal.
It is so funny that the guy who was adored by the pseudo-environmental US upper middle class has become the antichrist. Oh no, you can't virtue signal with your 3 Teslas!! How awful!
Citation for the coward?
https://www.energyprices.eu/ - Highest price today in Switzerland with 12.8 cents /kWh. Lowest price 0 cents in Sweden.
For the last year my monthly average price has been around 7 cents /kWh her in Europe.
In the US you'll never know when Canada is going to rise the electricity export tariffs.
You are aware that those are spot prices and not what the consumer pays?
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/real-time-electricity-tracker?from=2025-2-12&to=2025-3-14&category=price
In the last month then average spot price in the USA has been 4.8 cents per kWh.
And I'm pretty sure Canada folded on the electricity threat just like Chuck Schumer folded like a broken deck chair on his opposition to the CR.
"And I'm pretty sure Canada folded on the electricity threat "
Ford did enogh to get Trump's attention. Leaving it there for the present is undoubtedly the sensible approach. It would have been a big mistake to have left the tariff in place for Trump to shift the blame to when the inflationary effects of his own tariffs become impossible to deny. Meanwhile I'm sure there are people responsible for overseeing the grid working like mad to work out how to avoid a widespread collapse if the Canadian supply were actually turned off - at least they will be doing if Mush hasn't already fired them.
"For the last year my monthly average price has been around 7 cents /kWh her in Europe."
Standard regular "tariff bleu" here in France. I think the listed price is something like €0,20/kWh but that's without the add-ons and taxes. What I pay [*] is closer to €0,34/kWh. It has gone up quite a lot since 2020, despite the use of nuclear, though it has come down slightly since the new year.
* - Method of calculation: Divide bill paid by kWh used.
> https://www.energyprices.eu/
These are the spot-market prices, the prices paid between the big companies europe-wide, usually running at 220000 Volt to 400000 V in Europe (highest-voltage network). Step 2 is the high-voltage network, 60000 to 150000 V, usually completely withing a country, but due to the structure not always (i.e. Luxembourg for example). Then med-voltage network, 10000V to 35000V. Then end user network, deemed as low-voltage network, is the 230/400 V we get in all houses. 400 V since between the three phases you can source 400 V, if needed, 230V if you use the neutral. For industrial 500 V to 700 V is widely available.
That website does not hide all that, it is just your failure to understand and/or jumping to premature conclusions, like that could be the end-customer price. Popular DK effect at work.
Also worth noting that just showing a graph rating countries by prices in dollars doesn't actually mean much without taking the local spending power into account. Some of the places listed have people working for a "dollar"[*] per day and it's enough to keep a roof over their heads (barely, admittedly)
I'm assuming the graph literally just did a currency conversion since the site made no mention of weighting for "spending power" or average household incomes etc. which may or may not significantly change the order of listings on the Y axis.
CERN is in Europe. The European (CEA) WEST Tokamak reactor is around the corner of Aix. ITER is being build there too. They are going to build a a big $40B AI data center somewhere in France. There is also a gravital wave telescope (Virgo) close by in northern Italy and another one is being planning somewhere in Europe.
That is just fundamental physics.
You make it sound as if internationalization in science is a bad thing that degrades it's quality.
American research and development relies heavily on outside secondary and tertiary education. Half or more of the authors in American STEM publications got their secondary or tertiary education in Asia.
That is not an accusation, that is what makes American science great . If anything, European science and research should be more international.
"can't even use Google translate, it's études over there."
I was curious about les queer studies leaving études aside I wondered about "queer" appears it's an English loan word as pédé is rather impolite.
Even so I would have thought perhaps les études queers.
A hitchhiker's guide to French LGBTQ Vocabulary must give the Académie Française nightmares.
In AU female truck drivers aren't all that uncommon especially in the mining industry but in the unlikely event the subject should arise in French conversation I must apparently avoid the obvious formation from camionneur. ;)
It was remade has The Birdcage (1996) in the US, with Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Calista Flockhart, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski, among others. Quite entertaining!
Hm, I'm not broke, will be owning the home i currently rent soon. All people I personally know are not broke, most of them are fluent. I don't consider myself among the top 10%, I just about average, and half of those I know have more, and half have less.
Oh, about our fuel prices: Should we start comparing food prices and food quality, and everything else which is the cost of living? Result: You need less than half the money per year than in USA.
Ludicrous military spending? From the nation which spends more on military than the 9 next big spenders COMBINED? More than China+Russia+Saudi Arabia+India+UK+Germany+Ukraine+France+Japan combined and still have 33 BEEEELLION left? (Enough for Australia, 13th)
And France does not need to waste money on queer studies since they never cared about that anyway.
Right on! Musk and Trump should probably be part of the next ones (LA 2028), in their signature morbidly obese toe-sucking performance, refereed by Putin, with Vance sporting his favorite barbiecore bikini and holding the score cards. That'd be so exciting as to make most viewers wish they'd been beaten dead by chef Prigozhin's nazi sledgehammer instead, twice!
Alternatively, the 4 of them could be part of a number featuring double-wide airplane seating (half-wide for Putin) where they enjoy a satisfying Prigozhin-inspired last meal of the most explosivitastic kind ... I'd cheer for such uplifting fireworks!
Being deployed sure makes it sound like someone is panicking that this might happen, and all the US billionaires who paid for Trump to become president so they could have lower taxes might have made a short term decision with long term implications.
I guess if all the smart people move to France the billionaires can buy the presidency for Le Pen and repeat the same disaster there...
It's going to be more difficult than getting Nero and his sycophan court elected in the US...
Le Pen (father) and Le Pen (daughter) have already tried numerous times and failed, as everytime every other political parties call for voting to the other candidate, and so far they never managed to reach the 50% at the second ballot.
Also political party funding in France, is strictly limited, restrained and enforced. ( cue : Sarkozy campaign accounting affair )
An individual ( physical person ) can give no more than 7500€ per year to a political party. (and can't give to more than one)
It's forbidden for companies and any commercial entities to give money to political parties.
And now the fun stuff : there's a hard limit of how much a presidential candidate can spend during the campaign :
16 851 000 euros for each candidates present at the first ballot
22 509 000 euros for each candidates present at the second ballot.
So the Ketamine Addicted Buffoon will not be able to buy the presidency for anybody with his billions.
"So the Ketamine Addicted Buffoon will not be able to buy the presidency for anybody with his billions."
True. But he can spend billions swamping the interwebs with the sort of crap some people will believe while never actually donating to any specific party. Tell a lie often enough and people will start to believe it. Mostly attributed to another fascist propagandist about 70 years ago.
I'm reasonably sure Gates has not, or if he has it's very, very subtle. Zuck, yeah, to some extent, but mostly it's just algorithmic click-baiting and a failure to police their systems. Musk now has a vested interest in spreading discord and has almost entirely stopped any form of monitoring on X other than to ban people who disagree directly with him (Free Speech Absolutist, LOL)
You must live a sheltered life.
In 2020 it is believed that some 400 meeeelion dollars from Zuck actively aided the election of various candidates. The money was donated to several non-profits who distributed the money to support campaigns.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/zuckerberg-election-spending-was-orchestrated-to-influence-2020-vote/
On top of this we also have the facebook system subtly tweaking the information shown to its users.
Bill Gates gave some 50 million to Kamala Harris supporting super PAC as well as saying that he supported her bid for president.
Reid Hoffman donated something like 25 million in 2024 as well as bankrolling civil cases against Trump.
We have a language advantage and goodness knows America is going to lose some very smart people as they shutter their universities and research institutions.
If they're determined to turn the country into a smoking crater where's the harm in a bit of opportunism from the rest of us?
The UK, that's just announced an unexpected economic contraction and lost 11,000 millionaires in 2024? That place? Where exactly do you think research funding comes from?
An anti-growth Labour government and Starmer's personal obsession with prodding the Russian bear will result in the UK becoming a smoking crater long before America.
Yeah... about that.
Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to scrap one quango – after the Government he heads created 27 in eight months.
The Prime Minister said he would “abolish” the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), which looks after payment systems such as Mastercard, to reduce the burdens on business and promote growth.
It will, however, merely be merged into the Financial Conduct Authority, which is another quango.
Since Labour came to power, 27 quangos have been created including the Fair Work Agency and the Independent Football Regulator.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/11/labour-axes-one-quango-after-creating-27-in-eight-months/
"Amusing" isn't the word I would use. It wasn't unexpected as he has always been Tory-Lite and shaped New New New Labour in his Blairite image.
Starmer and Labour only got in because voters wanted tory scum out, and had to choose between Labour, Lib-Dems and the others, and it looked like Labour had the lead when it came to how people would be voting tactically.
It's the only reason I voted for Labour. I'll admit I didn't think the leadership was going to be quite as bad as they have been, are more Alt-Tory than Tory-Lite.
HA
If the UK becomes a smoking crater long before the US, the 'long' would defined as about 35-40 minutes
As it would take about 8mins for our tridents to get to St Petersburg.
Of course USSR early warning would not be able to tell who launched them and therefore launch everything back. followed by the USA.
War : Fought by people who dont know and dont hate each, on behalf of people who do know and do hate each other.
The USA hasn't "shuttered" any universities or research institutions. Some funding was paused, pending review by the new bureaucrats. It's not like we're firing the entire Physics or CS department at Stanford or UCLA.
You can have the gender studies crowd—if they want to self-deport, I'll gladly help them.
Wow, nice sensationalism. "shuttered any universities" - even with the NIH cuts I really don't think that's going to happen. Unless the basic cost of higher education goes so high that folks really can't find a way to buy groceries and beer and have anything left over for the college tuition.
All they have to do is censor researchers whose interests lead them into the wrong areas. Grant money is already difficult to get as it is, it wouldn't take a very heavy finger on the scale to defund the unpopular researchers, regardless of the nature of their projects. Wrong ancestry? Wrong ideas? Educated in the wrong country? Don't like their face? Simples.
Maybe I posted too soon. Just found this on ArsTechnica (https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/umass-disbands-its-entering-biomed-graduate-class-over-trump-funding-chaos/)
"""
On Wednesday, news broke that UMass Chan Medical School—a public school in the University of Massachusetts system—has rescinded all offers of admission to biomedical graduate students for the 2025–2026 school year. That means an entire class of future scientists has been wiped out.
...
"With uncertainties related to the funding of biomedical research in this country, this difficult decision was made to ensure that our current students’ progress is not disrupted by the funding cuts and that we avoid matriculating students who may not have robust opportunities for dissertation research," the statement reads.
"""
The article does go on to say those already accepted can try again in a future cycle without filing another application. Sure.
So I guess it is starting already. Maybe we can get along just fine without any future biomedical research... I don't know about you, but I have two aftermarket hips.
We have a language advantage and goodness knows America is going to lose some very smart people as they shutter their universities
And that language advantage will be lost by speaking American rather than English. In the civilised world, "shutter" does not mean "close".
It's kind of telling that the guy who coined the term observing that every Internet slapfight devolves into accusations of Nazism actually had to clarify that sometimes the comparisons are apt.
Me, I think Trump's more of a Mussolini, but whatever.
Oh dear, selectively quoting, misquoting and twisting words to make things sound the way you want them to.
Trump said 'live like vermin', he didn't call people vermin.
Trump's comment about blood was in relation to people entering the USA with communicable diseases. You do remember a few years back when you were likely calling for the unvaccinated to be locked in their houses or dragged off to camps and forced to take the shot? Well the US was not checking people coming across from Mexico.
The exact words he used don't matter - Trump supporters are always saying "Don't take him literally, take him seriously", right? What matters is the idea of what he's trying to communicate, the thoughts behind his general statements, his plans and where he will take the USA, and the world.
And that is clearly in a fascist direction.
The political system that you are calling 'communism' has never really worked on a national scale.
The few countries that claim/claimed to be communist were nothing of the sort - just another form of dictatorship.
The name Nazi came from the first two syllables of the National Socialist party - German speakers would pronounce it that way. So, they were Socialist?
The Soviet Union, led by Lenin and Stalin et. al., were also 'Socialist' - it's the second 'S' in USSR. Again, more of a dictatorship, driving the normal people into poverty to enrich a few.
The People's Republic of China - communism? In their version everyone gets a job, but only a select few get any wealth. To some extent that has changed and they're now more capitalist than anyone, but still persecuting minorities.
Venezuela - definitely claimed to be Communist, but I don't think they shared out the oil wealth very equally.
Cuba - they're very communist: everyone is equally poor, except the people running the place. Same goes for North Korea.
Which communist government has actually killed more people than Hitler's Final Solution?
I don't think communism has killed many people at all, but fascism pretending to be communism has done quite a lot of damage to the communist ideology.
Ah, the 'it wasn't real <thing> so doesn't count' argument.
The things you discuss are vastly different. It wasn't a case of A pretending to be B. One of those things has a specifically nationalistic element and the other tries to spread far and wide.
The only people who think certain ideologies share the wealth are the students who wear Che t-shirts, like Bernie Sanders and wave hammer and sickle flags.
Indeed, pretty much the only place in the world where real communism is practised is in the (or used to be) the kibbutz in Israel but if you tell a kibbutzim he or she is a communist, they'll beat you to a pulp.
Communism can work on a small scale but it does not scale up at all well and doesn't stand a chance on a national scale.
It seems to be a rule that if a country has the name of a political system in the country name, they are the opposite of what the name implies.
The joke used to be:
Canada could have had French Culture, British Politics and American Technology. Instead, we got American Culture, French Politics, and British Technology.
Perhaps the Brains would like to Drain to The Great White North instead? And we could have American Technology after all!
That's if we don't become the much more bigly and much more safely 51st State...
A lovely idea in theory. However people who know better want equity where merit goes out the window and a desire to skew reality to fit their own desires takes over. It does not matter if someone is not qualified, just that they fulfil the requirement of equity.
Obviously this does not apply to things like oil rig workers, bin men, street cleaners, mine workers.. you know, everything that is dangerous, is hard work and is not very glamorous.
Unfortunately for your theory, actual real scientists are concluding that there is systemic bias in science. Look up the Royal Society of Chemistry's "Missing Elements" report. Some of it is due to bad people, some to bad systems, but you can't deny that "it is there", as Galileo might have said.
All those from the US who moved to France love it there! But you should learn the language as soon as possible, start before coming to France. I've been told that English is not as common as it is here, at least in the rural areas. But there is also Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech and so on. Only those who thought they can easily put their US car on EU roads were disappointed, since many of those are deemed not safe enough (some minor local differences exist though). You know, there is no cybertruck in EU on public roads for a reason.
Trump's grandfather was also a brothel keeper in the gold rush, at least until he scarpered because he owed people money. Sounds like Donald inherited his grandfather's business acumen rather than his grandmother's (she was the one who founded the family business with Donald's father fronting it due to misogyny).
They integrated so well that they had a german-only political party in the USA - The German-American Bund
That party even had a gathering at Madison Square Gardens one evening in 1939, it's on Youtube as "A Night at the Gardens" and is worth looking up for the speeches
There's even a whole podcast about it which is well worth a listen.
On a serious note, definitely check Ultra out if you like history, it's well done and only minimally MSNBC-biased.
Lets see. For a typical US research scientist the huge shocks will be - a huge drop in standard of living / disposable income. A sclerotic and bureaucratic frame of mind everywhere. Especially in universities. The general attitude of the customer is always wrong. And then there is having to deal with government functionaires.
Nothing and I mean nothing of the experience of living in the US will have prepared them for the monumental bloodymindedness of a functionaire on a good day. Let alone a bad day. If you dont speak fluent French make sure you have someone you trust who does. Or very bad things will happen. Remember, when dealing with any element of the French state, from the maire on up, the state is always right and you will always be in the wrong. The total opposite of how it works in the US. And there is no escaping the state. Unlike the in the US where it can be mostly (safely) ignored. Although states like New York try hard.
If you thought banks like Well Fargo are pure malevolent evil (and they are) then that is a good taster for how French banks work. All of them. Next is the pure joy of dealing with EDF. Or how about a 30 page rental agreement where you dont even get a kitchen sink. Better be able to read French legalese. I can. Its a long list of WTF moments for anyone who grew up in a Common Law country.
Then there is Marseille. Where the whole city is pretty much a ZUS. With large parts of the metro a cross between Baltimore, St Louis, The Flats in Oakland and the South Side of Chicago. Especially the banlieue. Where tourists seldom venture. Starting to get the picture. There are some great (i.e safe) places in the Sud / Occitan to live but Marseille is most definitely not one of them. There is currently a high profile gang war going on at the moment. Unfinished business from the 2023 Riots.
I have worked with and known many great French people over the years. The ones I worked with were all French ex-pats. Working in the US. The ones who live in France are mostly there for the usual reasons. Family. And inertia. The French people I know who returned to France from the US all tell the same story. See above.
So probably not a good idea to move to France unless you have French family connections and speak / read fluent French. Before you go there. And no, Québécois does not count as French. To the French. But Belgian French does. Most of the time. A EU passport and a Cartes de Séjour lined up will really help too. But even then, functionaires, ah, functionaires...
A lot of what you say about dealing with the state and fonctionnaires is true, but not all of it. I could phone my French bank manager on her direct line any time, and get helpful advice. The local mairie was friendly and helpful, although the prefecture in the large town was a PITA.
The trick in France is always to have all the documents you need ready, but to "forget" one when you have your appointment. When they complain that they can't help you without it, you get them to agree that it's the only missing piece that prevents your case being processed, then you "find" the missing document in your briefcase. It's a game, different in every country.
As to standard of living, I earned much less than my Californian colleagues in numerical terms, but had a far higher standard of living because I didn't have their horrendous housing prices, or a 2 hour commute to work.
It's true, though, the the French translation of "The customer is always right" is "Le client est Roi" ("The customer is king"), and we know what they did to their king...
> a huge drop in standard of living / disposable income.
When you factor in the "socialized medicine" you'll find you don't need such a high income in order to live reasonably well.
> having to deal with government functionaires.
Are the things I've heard about the DMV not true, then?
>but Marseille is most definitely not one of them
Yes because American nuclear physicists coming to work at ITER are going to live in the dodgier slums of a port.
Like when I went to work at Caltech I chose to live in Watts
Huge drop ?
So having double or triple the number of holidays is bad ?
Having free medical is bad ?
WHat exacty does the average american worker win in besides working until they die and having no rights at work ?
American food is garbage compared to French food. The worst lunch in Marsaille is probably still better than the best lunch in any american university.
What is the waiting list like in France to see a doctor? Isn't the healthcare system in France actually private and funded by a government insurance scheme? Not actually a proper social healthcare system like the UK?
No, the French healthcare system is state-run, funded through taxes. It pays about 70% of costs for working people, although the exact rules are very complex, you're required to have employer-provided health insurance for the rest. Some things, like anything beyond basic dental care, will land you with a larger bill. For example a filling or a basic metal crown would be almost fully covered, but if you want a more cosmetic ceramic crown or inlay you may find that state+insurance pays about half, you'll need to find the remaining €1500 or so yourself.
The young, old and unemployed will have almost all basic medicine paid by the state, just like the UK.
Getting an ordinary GP or dental appointment is very variable. I lived near a large city and I could usually get an urgent one, in-person, within 24-48 hours, but some rural areas have no GPs within 20km. It was different for eye care, for a basic annual eye test you might be given an appointment 6-12 months away, if there was one available at all.
I went to see my doctor in France on Monday.
Got some meds and a raft of blood tests.
Didn't cost me a cent.
Does that happen in the US of A?
30 page rental agreement where you dont even get a kitchen sink.
That's the one thing an unfurnished place does have to provide. Which highlights your low-info trolling nicely.
It says we know a good thing when we see it?
America is squandering the output of its decades of frankly excellent education. We'd be stupid not to take advantage of that while you're throwing it away.
Thank you for educating the next round of Europe's money-makers while we were busy recovering from the wars you eventually got around to helping us with.
From the outside looking in, what;s killing it appears to be local laws and malicious compliance. eg banning the teaching of evolution or turning a sensible DEI policy intended to encourage minorities, into a shambles which sets fixed targets to the detriment of anyone not fitting the check-boxes but would be great for the job otherwise. Governments of both colours are equally to blame for not sorting it out.
"banning the teaching of evolution"
Citation needed. The last actual 'ban' dates back to the 1920s. Currently there are ZERO bans on this in US schools. Infact some very blue states still teach creationism alongside evolution and some very red states have laws requiring the teaching of evolution.
I'm gonna guess you also believe that schools 'ban' books too.
I'm gonna guess you also believe that schools 'ban' books too.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-50-most-banned-books-in-america/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/pen-book-bans
https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/
What is most of this book banning driven by? Conservative groups worried about exposing their children to ideas which run counter to their own views, so they'd rather let the kids live in ignorance than have a discussion with them about how different people believe different things, and that's OK, and letting them form their own views on a subject.
These books are not banned. You can still go out and buy them from book shops or amazon. A banned book would be something that would be illegal to own, like say the anarchists cookbook.
These books have been removed from school libraries for being age inappropriate and not just in the USA. You would not expect to find Playboy in a school library.
Schools have removed the bible from their libraries. I have no doubt you approve of that.
"how different people believe different things"
The problem with many of these supposed 'banned' books is that they don't offer the view of differing opinions. Some are more along the lines of 'if you disagree with this book then you are <insert bad thing>'.
Again an American AC afraid of freedom of speech?
> These books have been removed from school libraries for being age inappropriate and not just in the USA. You would not expect to find Playboy in a school library.
Banned are: The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption (1650), Elmer Gantry (1927), Forever Amber (1944), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense (1971), The Federal Mafia (1992) (etc, quite a long list). Constantly challenged: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, As I Lay Dying... Dammit is that list long! The "sexually questionable" banned or challenged books include a lot which ONLY religious extremists in USA can see as questionable. Playboy, which is quite tame BTW, is in the adult section, but most libraries in Europe don't have them.
> Schools have removed the bible from their libraries. I have no doubt you approve of that.
This is ridiculous, instead of banning the bible they should add books of several other religions, so the students can compare. Now they are forced to listen to preachers, not being able to check and compare.
> The problem with many of these supposed 'banned' books is that they don't offer the view of differing opinions.
That's just like, your opinion, man...
Huck Finn has been the target of the lefties for a long time due to its language. BUT I can buy it on Amazon.
The Federal Mafia is available to buy, at great cost due to its rarity. Again its not illegal to own a copy. The book was just full of crap.
"United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense"
This isn't really a banned book as it was a leaked government document :) That is a different beast altogether.
I find it hilarious that school boards get all butthurt when a parent reads sections from some of the 'banned' books. That language is fine for kids but can't be read out in front of adults.
"These books are not banned. You can still go out and buy them from book shops or amazon. A banned book would be something that would be illegal to own, like say the anarchists cookbook."
Nope. You seem to have a very narrow definition of "ban". I guess the only rules you follow are the ones enforced by law so you're quite happy to scream and shout in a library, or take you own food into a McD's and eat it there because neither are against the law.
Yes, rules enforced by law are the only rules. Anything else is guidance or 'please could you'. We obviously follow a lot of these guidance requests as part of living in a civil society although the political left seem to think they are entirely optional as we watch them smash and burn Teslas in the same way they smashed and burnt private property in the 'summer of love'.
"I'm gonna guess you also believe that schools 'ban' books too."
I never mentioned banning books, although that does happen too in a number of US schools, and by "ban" I mean specific schools and/or school distracts do not allow certain named books in their libraries even though in some cases they are "classic American literature" that much of the rest of the USA has no issue with. But I *did* say that some schools ban the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. That is not only documented, but teachers have been fired for not complying. That's a ban. It may not be illegal by the law of the land, but uit does break the rules of the institution, so yeah, it's a ban. A ban doesn't have to be a legally enforced one for it to still be a ban.
"But I *did* say that some schools ban the teaching of the Theory of Evolution. That is not only documented, but teachers have been fired for not complying"
Again, citation needed. An actual legal ban has not existed for nearly 100 years. If its documented you can link to the documentation and details of the fired teachers.
I do not remember being specifically taught evolution at school but then I dropped biology at 16. Nor was I taught creationism beyond the basics as part of general RE studies in primary school.
Now teachers have been fired in recent history for teaching creationism. Although the teacher sounds like a bit of a loony so I think that was only a small part of the reason he got fired but it makes for good clickbait headlines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Freshwater
All the US states teach evolution in schools. Some still teach creationism.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/evolution-teaching-states
"No state currently bans teaching evolution entirely"
POTUS has accused Ireland of "stealing" US pharma companies.
If this becomes fruition, Donald is going to be very unhappy Europe has "stolen" US scientists.
It is a mad, mad world we live in now.
Trump is the worst kind of barstard, and yet nobody mentions how racist he is.
He complains about the USA giving weapons to Ukraine, and gives big totals. BUT. He never mentions the price the Ukraine is paying. How come a Ukraine who dies fighting Russia has no value ?
Its the same sick attitude that Trumps old mates from the American south had, with the value of Black lives.
Americans have been racist like this for a long time.
Im not denying the value of the AMerican factory and lend lease, but they really like to beat that drum and completely forget to mention the millions of Allies and people who died and contribute something to victory in WW1 or WWII.
I guess non American lives have no value today, and for basically every American historian and Hollywood.
The British Commonwealth would have been able to invade in about 1947/1948 or so without American direct involvement, only with American permission to purchase arms & ammunition from America. It would have taken much longer and cost many more lives though, and it's likely that the Commonwealth & Free French, Free Polish, Free Czechs etc would have only been able to get to the borders of The Netherlands and Belgium before meeting the Russians coming the other way.
Russia basically won WW2 in Europe with support from the other allies - they took the vast majority of casualties, they had the largest front to fight on, they were the steamroller.
I am not denying anything im simply pointing out how evil not only trump is but the american people who themselves cant see the evil of the entire situation.
They cant grasp that Ukraine is today fighting and dying to keep the Russian advance away from the rest of the world. All they see and complain about is what they have contributed and they completely fail to appreciate the contribution in blood that the Ukrainian people have made.
Trump like all politicians is a liar, but its not only him who is sick in the head, there are many other non politician americans appearing on social media who also dont even respect or acknowledge the good that the ukrainian courage and death is contributing to world peace.
If Russia takes back Ukraine all they’ve done is go back to 1992. Meanwhile, they dump their entire military arsenal down their shirt front destroying city after city and wiping out their youth generation (in the midst of a demography crisis). It is worthwhile for the West to take advantage of the opportunity to modernize its military and hand over its obsolete inventory to Ukraine to help out their endeavour.
Interestingly, China proposes to do the same thing to itself over Taiwan, with the identical demographic crisis).
Yes because its so much better to allow the Russian economy to build up so they can invest in better nuclear weapons.
How many trillions did the USA spend in the cold war ? Giving billions today to help Ukraine destroy as much of the Russian forces as possible is the greatest bargain of the last 100 years.
Every B given today saves trillions tomorrow.
The UK makes and services it own warheads, only the missiles are serviced by the yanks.
The next gen Dreadnaught subs don't have integrated launch tubes, instead they have a big cutout where you insert a module which contains the tubes. So theoretically the UK could develop a module for launching French missiles
I'd hate to see the inspiration that the USA has provided to the rest of the World for the past 80 years being permanently destroyed, trashed, discarded, wrecked, junkpiled, sewaged, guttered, skidrowed, tiretracked, zombiefied, euthanized, and buriedalived by a seedy navel-gazing Orange mistake of an administration as seems to be happening these days.
My preference would be for folks who are wronged by the new nazi-inspired government to unite with like-minded ones and fight back, with protest marches, walkouts, strikes, blockages, carnivals, product boycotts, lawsuits, fashion shows, whipped cream pies, rotten tomatoes and eggs, passive protests, civil disobediences, and what have you ... rather than flee to the EU (to the extent possible).
Too much effort has been spent for making America the beacon for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", from the 1776 Revolution to Civil Rights, to all of a sudden throw one's hands up in the air and say "screw it, I give up" and move to Europe. Especially as the temporary new American regime as airs of a medieval monarchy and, unfortunately, several countries in Europe are still effectively monarchies today (a lot of efforts remain to be expended to transform them into republics, that have a president as head of state, rather than a prime minister or somesuch).
When those animals in charge of the "farm" start behaving like they are more equal than others, turning everyone else into second class citizens, it is high time to light-up the BBQ for a delicious roast (metaphorically), imho!
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Nope. Germany was an empire (or some other form of non-republic) until the end of WWI, and it was essentially beaten into becoming a republic (rather than having a popular uprising into it). Goethe was long dead by then already as you likely well know (or can look up).
The three inspirational revolutions (in my mind) are the American (1776), French (1789), and Haitian (1802) ones. People in these countries have a spirit of independence and liberty that I haven't quite seen in many other countries (eg. British Commonwealth), except for Ethiopia to some extent (never colonized, but a former monarchy under the King of Kings, Haile Selassie).
So, no, you can't equate the struggles of American history (nearly 250 years now) to this very recent bit of German history. Who's the German George Washington, Paul Revere, JFK, MLK, Huey P. Newton, Angela Davis, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Admiral Grace Hopper, Gloria Steineim, and notorious RBG? And in particular, who are they in that very short 20-year timespan between when Germany (forcibly) became a republic and when it initiated WWII as a fascist state?
Spirit of independence ?
What exactly did the Americans win by leaving the British ?
AMericans then were happy to die so some rich guy could keep his slaves, for nothing ?
Who dies for a rich guy to keep his "property" for nothing ?
Today we have the same in modern america, republicans think they need less rights, no medicine, no holidays, no free medical so rich people can get richer ?
People in Canada, Australia, NZ and Britain itself have far more freedom.
But hey if you think working for the a weeks holidays while people in AU, NZ, CA, UK get a month is a "freedom" by all means.
How many Australians have been arrested for posting spicy memes ?
Maybe one or two in the last ten years ?
How many thousands of americans have been given a free american freedom bullet in the back by a fellow american in the past ten years ?
No australian kid or parent is worried about a gun masscare.
Tens of thousands of gun deaths vs some areshole getting arrested for a spicy meme ?
Yeh Austraila is so. much worse, its so much better to die in a random gun massacre
Actually we don't know because we have the most restrictive anti terrorism laws in the Western world. Australia has enacted more supposed anti terror legislation than the rest of the world combined. Truly.
They forbid the press to report on people charged under them in many cases.
Also they are mainly being used to suppress environmentalists from protesting against our foreign owned fossil fuel industry.
So yeah, super free here /s
Lets pretend your summary is true.. so fucking what.
Im Australian and i have no problem with the government doing what you claim.
Me, my family dont have to worry about guns, so the trade so is a good one for us and for all Australians. The Australian government is not a threat to any Australian. You have to be a real scumbag for the Australian police to shoot you in anger, so im sorry i dont feel sorry for those who do get shot, they asked for it many times before.
"The three inspirational revolutions (in my mind) are the American (1776), French (1789), and Haitian (1802)"
So there is a major flaw here. The American revolution mostly worked, the Brits sodded off back home and the people left made a reasonably good job of keeping it together until the early 20th century when it all started to go a bit wobbly and then finished the job in the 70s with the departure from the gold standard and going full ponzi on a fiat currency.
The Haitian revolution left a lot to be desired. They mostly got rid of the French but owed France a huge pile of money and ended up with a series of basically dictators and a long history of oppression, death, coups and infighting before the US turned them into a puppet state.
As for the French Revolution... oh boy that failed quick! It did give the Soviets a nice model to follow. Barely 10 years end to end before France is back under an emperor in all but name and Robespierre only lasted 5 years before people realised he was not actually standing up for the poor in France and had in fact turned into a crazed dictator who was executing people left right and centre to maintain his ever failing grip on power. He then met the same fate as had befallen the king and queen before.
A lot of people forget the ending of the French revolution. They believe it was the working people rising up against the nobility and that the toffs got what they deserved and workers got what they wanted. The reality being that the workers were hardly any better off 10 years later and within 25 years France had a king again.
Robespierre failed as he didn't kill EVERYONE. Stalin learned from this and pretty much everyone who had supported him met a nasty end so that there was no chance anyone else could usurp his power.
Well, revolutions are commonly less punctual (timewise) than highschool history may get us to absorb. The American Revolution lasted at least a decade, and by some measure is still ongoing, with the goal of achieving "a More Perfect Union", and to make that happen, the contributions of Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Abe Lincoln, and many others, can't be overlooked (they happened later than 1776).
In France, it took a good 80 years to go from the Bastille (1789) to a proper democratic republic (1871-75), but, as with the US, there are still things to improve on, and to ensure that medieval monarchism and other authoritarian forms don't rear their ugly heads back into the fore, again.
The Haitian revolution is ongoing imho, and there's been so much meddling into its affairs by foreign powers that it's not even funny. It was the first Black Republic in the World, and highly inspirational for that, in due time it should (like the other 2), manage to get itself into the shape of a yet better union, and reclaim its inspirational place in history, for the long term.
The big challenge today (in my view) is the emergence of Orange-tainted antebellum-nostalgic counter-revolutionary regressivism, with authoritarian musky DOGE brownshirt tactics, a court of loyal pet-chihuahuas, and manifest symptoms of a (disheartening) love-affair with totalitarian heads of States. That such metastatic cancer should be allowed to pass without major and continued challenge (or by moving to Europe) is just not acceptable, and not in the American spirit (nor the French and Haitian spirits), imho!
It was entirely possible that France, and maybe Haiti, could have got to the same point without the huge bloodshed. The American revolution really only worked due to the British not actually living there so the two sides didn't have to live with each other after the fact. In Haiti the person left in charge afterwards had been in the French navy. Did they really think that would be an improvement?
And the meddling of late there has been awful. NGOs and other meddling groups trying to industrialise Haiti which has resulted in huge drop in locally grown food making them ever more dependant on imports from primarily the USA. And this is being done so that US consumers can buy cheap clothes and other stuff made there at insanely low wages.
In the news today is a story about Haiti's new hospital burning down. There goes $30 million in aid money. And it was done by locals. How does this help?
The 'metastatic cancer' as you put it in the USA is the uniparty and its oligarchical cronies. It isn't Trump or Musk. You've just been conditioned to see anything other than the globalist approved message as bad. The US has made countries like Haiti utterly dependant on it. They are in the same place they were under the French. The massive US machine has found being a benevolent dictator and keeping these countries utterly impoverished is a great way to make profit and you can also look good by saying you are helping.
The American revolution really only worked due to the British not actually living there so the two sides didn't have to live with each other after the fact
It also worked because the French saw it as a convenient proxy war with the British to take their minds off the latest war in Europe (The Seven Years War) and put lots of resources onto hitting the British where they were the weakest. The British were relying on native/colonist support that just didn't arrive and Mad King George put a higher priority on fighting the French in Europe - which meant that the armies in the US were permanently starved of men and materials.
"the inspiration that the USA has provided to the rest of the World"
BAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh wait, you're serious? The vastly overvalued petrodollar, the CIA overthrowing governments, USAID doing what the CIA can't do, "F*** the EU"...
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
The only things the US has going for it are actual freedom of speech (except those on the left desire to shut down anyone they dislike) and you can own some pretty darn cool guns.
On the ground the US is run by cronyism and petty diktats. From the Karen who runs your HOA and fines you for your grass being 1/4" too long or short all the way to the highest levels where officials put their loyalty to their donors and their own bank balance before their duty to the people of the nation.
I believe right up to the 1970s the US was seen as an aspirational lifestyle by people ignorant their treatment of certain sections of their population. As idealised by Hollywood, it was seen as the example to the rest of the world. But only the case for white people with a reasonable income.
Nowadays it is a place where schools drill lockdown procedures for when there is an active shooter on site. I had an offer of a job and chance to relocate there in the 1990s. It was an easy decision to decline. I enjoy amazing holidays there but it's well down on places I would choose to settle.
I hear you ... but I was offered a PhD fellowship there in the 1990s and decided to apprehensively give it a go ... and lo and behold I ended up staying there for 30 years. Why apprehensive you ask? Well, from the News, and Dallas, and whathaveyou, I thought I might be entering into a ruthless dog-eat-dog land, criss-crossed by gun-toting mad-max redneck mutants and drug addicts, where law is enforced by black helicopters and racist shoot-first ask-questions-later trigger-happy sheriffs.
It wasn't like that, at all. The bulk of people were working through the day, raising families, doing the regular fare of stuff that is commonplace anywhere else, and they weren't continuously being shot at ... (nor shooting at everybody else).
One nice bit of philosophy I got from younger and older friends alike was that "America is an experiment", if something doesn't work, you change it to make it better (you don't throw up your hands and give up). This was also said differently as "this place is what you make it" -- suggesting that it is not cast in stone but dynamic, and it is for the folks there to work (strive, expend effort) to make it better. I think that folks who haven't lived in the US have a bit of a blurry perspective of it, much as Americans (and Canadians, and whonots) who haven't lived elsewhere also have a blurry view of the rest of the world.
It might also be worth considering how so many progressive social movements embraced by Western societies in the 20ᵗʰ and 21ˢᵗ centuries (so far) have come from the US (iirc, eg. Black Lives Matter, #MeToo). If it is the backwoods cesspool and locus of the worst inequities anywhere, and its social movements resonate as much as they do in Europe (and elsewhere) then what does that say about the reality of inequities, that might just have been invisible (hidden, or hush-hushed) parts of the culture thus far, in Europe and elsewhere, however smugly rebuffed by local snooty wankers?
The problem today (in my view) is that the Boogerphobic Orange Snot in Thief seems intent on dissolving these landmark progressive social movements in vats of rancid rethoric and executive orders, to instate a new fascist DOGE-eat-DOGE world order, where the spirit of freedom is expected to get itself bent over and into bed with yellow-bellied authoritarian cowards who get their kicks by cowardly invading their neighbors in Ukraine, Moldavia, and Georgia, among others. Such blatant prison rape of the American spirit cannot be allowed to pass, imho, moreso when put forward by a convicted felon!
The average African today may have less money than the average american, but i think its fair to say they are far happier and in the end, they actually have a life.
The average American is owned by their employer, all they do is spend time at work, and it shows. The only question they always ask is what do you do?
Not what do you like to do, but what work do you have.
Exactly
What inspiration ?
Some countries have propaganda departments, America has Hollywood. In all cases if you need to push that hard how great someone or something is... its never true.
America is the laughing stock of the western world, and im talking befoe trump came to power.
People in NZ live many times better than the average american. No homeless people, no people without medicine, almost no gun massacres, clean air, real food...
Macron is running at a record 75% disapproval rate. His aprty has effectively fallen to pieces and anyway term limits mean he and probably the 'centre' (neoliberal parties) are gone in the next elections.
So it's either going to be an actual Left winger or a far right President de la Republic.
Which means this is possibly a very short term destination for those fleeeing the US.
see
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-14/trump-administration-asks-australian-universities-funding/105053784
'The tertiary education union called it "blatant political interference" and the Group of Eight representative body said it was "extremely concerned".'
And so they should - Presumably emails sent by Felon Musk's DOGE (Department Of Gratifying Elon)
They do joint research. Lots of developed countries do joint research.
You can have totally domestic Arische Physik but you tend to do rather poorly compared to countries that don't decide the truth of a theory based on skin colour
The comments make a great read on Tribalism and why the planet is never going to get along with each other. I think the only thing that could unite the people of Earth would be colonies on the Moon & Mars. Then we could unite to look down on them. (Maybe throw in some asteroid belt mining communities à la The Expanse to really look down on)
Tribalism is another word for culture, which is fundamentally a control mechanism. “Cultural norms” are the (unwritten, written) rules (laws) by which your behaviour is controlled. A big one is attire, you are expected to show your status accordingly, and this is why Zelensky can get mocked in the white house for not conforming per the rules. And penalties can be quite severe. Your car is part of your attire, for example.
> A big one is attire, you are expected to show your status accordingly ... And penalties can be quite severe. Your car is part of your attire, for example.
*That* explains why I was dragged into the street, tarred and feathered, then left for the wolves to pick over after buying the second-hand Audi.
Been wondering about that.
... (c) and romance ... but China has already overtaken the US in terms of research output (since 2023), and with Trump's cuts in research funding, China is likely to become the #1 #winning research funder in the whole wide world in no time flat. Accordingly, since everyone enjoys chinese food, and healthcare can't possibly be terribly expensive there, I'd say China should be the better opportunity for those boffins who's research programs are bled dry by the Orange Terror in Chief's musky little doges ...
There is a difference between Chinese food as served in the west to westerners and Chinese food in China served to Chinese.
And you may be right that Chinese healthcare isn't expensive, it also isn't of the highest quality. Frankly, the quality of healthcare in most of Europe is a lot better than in the USA.
> There is a difference between Chinese food as served in the west to westerners and Chinese food in China served to Chinese.
Indeed! Apart from the obvious there is also: I can take "very hot/spicy by German standards". By Chinese standards that is what they give kids who just entered school :D.
Point taken ... but for those who miss the unique flavors of homecooking, there's always McDonalds China, with such unmistakably mouthwatering menu items as "Sichuan Double Chicken Burger", "Land Air Sea Warfare Combo", and the spam-stacked "Lunchmeat Burger" ...
... in terms of bringing back memories of the green-green grass of home, that should sure beat what Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield most famously described as "le Royale with Cheese" and associated mayonnaise-dipped fries, commonly found in Europe's gastronomic Mickey-D's (not to mention Burger King France's current mystery meat "Burger Mystère").
Clearly, "the path of the righteous bon vivant is beset on all sides by the inequities of the restaurant menus and the tyranny of evil cooks" I say!
</alerte_humour>
Oh Phlueeeaaaasssee, stop such invented propaganda nonsense, those videos are staged. And even if it were true: Might still be healthier than the chemical bombs you can buy at US-Walmart, which is called "food" there. On top: There are Americans who are forced to do similar since they cannot afford food: Salvage the bins behind supermarkets for still good food.
Yeah, Singapore's tough! Can't even chew gum, jaywalk, litter, or even commit "mild" cyberscams there without facing fines, prison time, and caning ... I guess the sentence for drinking after 11:59pm (used to be 10:30pm) is the firing squad (or maybe booze is just very expensive there?)!
Yes, it's rather restrictive. That said, it IS super clean. I could do with that for a few months where I live.
Not sure if that would work in the UK, though, if I hear what happens at public schools it appears their punishments may actually encourage people..
:)
Having spent a few minutes researching the topic, I feel a little overqualified to pontificate on the subject, but here goes...
History has many examples of societies that championed their warriors to the exclusion of everything else. Placing them front and centre of politics and life in general. The warrior class was the driving force. They spurned education, humanities and any sense of justice for those incapable of wielding a sword. They didn't fair too well did they. Having rocked the sensibilities of more enlightened peoples they disappeared into history under an avalanche of spears and arrows, wielded in most part by greengrocers, butchers, carpenters, teachers, poets... the people that a society such as the Spartans would spit on.
So here we are, with another might is right gang, trying to impose their will on society and the world in general. However, their fate is not completely in the hands of their neighbour's eventual retaliation, but instead from those they have and are marginalising within their own borders. The fall of this mighty empire will be at the hands of their own teachers and poets who have had enough of the injustice, but unlike those of the ancients, they don't need years of training to become capable of taking on the warrior class, they just need to pop into their local store and buy a gun.
History is littered with the corpses of countries that put so much money into their military that everything else collapsed
The USA isn't the first to face that fate - it's well on the way, as the rapidly deteriorating civil infrastructure, health and education demonstrates
It's unlikely to be the last either
The Roman Empire - neatly followed Quigley's Collapse of Empire. Napoleon's France bankrupted itself building a fleet to beat the British. Ancient Persia built an epic army then lost it fighting the Greeks. The Ancient Greeks; literally defined the term "Pyrrhic victory".
More recently, the USSR.
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