Just dropping in to say that I, as an American, also look at Europe as though it’s one country with individual states. I don’t think that’s a universal rule, but I think a lot of Americans do that, in part, because we mostly hear about politics in terms of the “European Union”.

Occasionally the news is at the country level… France’s nuclear reactors… Spain suggesting development in the military… Denmark starting conscription… but the regulations we hear about, such as regarding carbon emissions or GDPR are in terms of the EU as a whole.

I struggle to rationalize this for countries not already in armed conflict.

Legally, practically, or morally?

Practically, armed conflict is way more expensive, and it’s riskier. If you had two strategies for changing someone’s behavior: 1) Punch them until they agree to change, 2) Tell them they can’t borrow any more money from you until they agree to change… you would probably prefer number two because it’s less risky.

Legally… we only have 80 years of precedent for the USD being the world’s reserve currency, amd 50 years of weaponizing that power with the IEEPA. Rules for armed conflicts, on the other hand, are ancient. We have a lot of examples for acts of war in armed conflicts, and we can quickly define them and recognize them. For defining and regulating financial “attacks”… we have basically nothing.

Morally… you and I have different moral systems from the people in charge. People can rationalize some truly heinous shit.

Not absolutely sure… but I’ll take “Probably wouldn’t” over “Definitely already does.”

We would need a LOT of new international guidelines for this.

It’s not clear to me where we would draw the line, since there’s not really an enforceable difference between, “Allowing you to use our financial system is causing us harm, so you can’t do that anymore,” and “You can’t use our financial system until you <insert demands here>.”

While a blockade is recognized as an act of war, an embargo is not. The US sanctions usually operate like a specific, services-based embargo, so there’s no interpretation of CURRENT international law rendering it an act of war. Again, we would need new guidelines to meet your goal.

I think shared ownership goes against human nature

I think the vast majority of things are shared. Air, water, soil… roads, schools… your education… the bathrooms at the supermarket… the murals/sculptures that make your town look less like a shithole…

It’s perfectly in line with human nature, actually, to share things. People who amass hoards of wealth and fight for power and control… those are the weirdos.

Sure, boomers had puns. So did the silent generation, gen X, and Millennials.

Gen Z also has puns. They’re not the dominant feature… but they’re there.

But China isn’t going to sell my data to Uncle Sam to help deport my family (who are legal citizens). So there’s that.

Yeah, I straight up don’t respond until they’ve asked/said the thing that they’re contacting me for.

Usually they finish their thought without me ever needing to respond. I did have one coworker who just… never said anything else. That’s also a win.

9th amendment.

It’s the best amendment, despite being, legally, the most useless.

I would argue that it was meant to cover the kind of situation where a private company is given government permission to gather surveillance data from the citizenry, in exchange for access to said data.

Hahahaha, no. Two thirds of Latino Trymp voters still approve.

Pew pew pew

The tax revenue per capita in Massachusetts is about $9000. (source)

I measure it this way because it gets around the comparison problem of some places having no income tax, but high sales tax toake up for it.

Anyway, we should happily pay $4000 per year difference to not live in Oklahoma.

Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.

What if head government positions in general are attractive to corrupt, power hungry dictators?

The Weimar Republic wasn’t communist, and it got a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

The United States isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

Israel isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

I wonder if maybe there are other factors in play that you aren’t considering.

always

Always? Are you sure? Let’s say there’s a corrupt, power hungry person looking for a government spot. How would communism make it easier for the person to get into power, than in a capitalist system?

Hell, with these numbers, you could get 16 dentists, have them compete head to head in a 4-level tournament, and still afford an espresso machine for the winner.

In NYC the most surveilled areas actually have lower murder resolution rates.

There’s really no way that could be a causal relationship. It’d be worth diving into the data to figure out which variables are related to each of these.