Isn't it sad that we now have Russian, Chinese, American, European, etc alternatives? I mean I get it, Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach, Russia and China reverted back into dictatorship, but Europe is also at the edge. Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab that just makes us all poorer and less free? And instead propagate global alternatives that are not subjected by some power-hungry state-/capital-sponsored overlord?
It is a sad reality. The US has recently threatened to annex Denmark and Canada. Some of us are suddenly keenly aware that the US is in a position to take control of most of our computers and phones via software updates.
Open source is the global alternative you're looking for. There's even interesting hardware options like https://starlabs.systems/
The US also has had an unfair advantage in tech/defense and finance because it hosted the global hubs of the free world. This attracted eye-watering amounts of money to places like SF and NY. With this newfound isolationism, tariffs etc. reducing the viability of hosting the global hubs, there's massive opportunities opening in europe and elsewhere.
What are global alternatives? Every company is connected to some country, there are no global alternatives.
I live in EU and want to use EU services mainly because I want this part of the world to prosper. I want to leave my money and incentivise innovation in this part of the world because this is where I live and I want a better life here for me and my kids.
And alternatives are always good, especially that they’re not closed. People in the US can use services from EU companies as well :) why not?
> Isn't it sad that we now have Russian, Chinese, American, European, etc alternatives? [...] Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab [...]
While I agree with your sentiment, European and nationalistic are two contradicting positions, unlike the other three mentioned superpowers.
Not really. The forging pan-European nation composed of many nationalities is a thing in all meaningful contexts. European civilization, European economy, European products, European voters etc.
Not really, no. Europe is neither a sovereign state nor a single political entity. It's a continent composed of many individual nations with a versatile history.
I mean sure, your example shows that the virtue of being "European" represents a certain demographic and a sovereign territory. Again, it's a continent, so what?
> People can define Europe as nation and then you can have a nationalistic Europe.
Right, it they do not. You’d have to stretch the definition of nation beyond its breaking point for Europe to be a nation. It would include Russia and Ukraine, Finland and Greece, none of these nations have much in common.
This might be possible for software, if we assume that being open source can protect software from state or corporate control (doubtful to be honest). For other things I don't really see how it would work. Your hardware has to be manufactured somewhere, your infrastructure has to be located somewhere.
It is not "nationalistic" to prefer things that are made in Europe. Europe is not a nation and very few people feel anything close to national pride about it. I like that we have European alternatives instead of German, French, Swedish, etc, alternatives.
First of all, US is at the edge of a dictatorship. If US falls completely, Europe will likely too, but untangling ourselves from US is an attempt to prevent that.
European leaders fundamentally have no issue with Americans dominating tech and were happy to have their entire digital infrastructures rely on US companies. If the Trump admin could give them some sort of nod behind the scenes that all of this is just a big show and they're not actually going to break NATO or invade or w/e insane shit they're saying I guarantee you a sizeable amount would just say hey no worries then let's keep the status quo going.
But that's not what's happening. It's a clear and obvious security risk to their sovereignty. If the government can't guarantee that to its citizens then what even is its purpose? The Trump admin has already tried to use American tech dominance as leverage.
Ask yourself this question, what if there was a foreign tech competitor that managed to scale up to be basically a better cheaper AWS. Would the US government ever allow it to encroach its market to the point that AWS or Azure did in Europe? Look at what happened to tiktok if you want to see what approach they'd likely take.
So how exactly would you envision an objective and neutral provider in a world of geopolitical competition?
I think the opposite as you. These global companies often act as a nation with laws unto themselves. Most of them don't actually have real support that can do anything unless you make a lucky Twitter post or something. Having a local company that is realistically beholden to local laws and local politicians that you can actually potentially go and talk to if needed is a major feature.
> Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach
It's not even that. We euros were more than willing to look the other way (see the umpteen attempts to reconcile our privacy-friendly legislation with the free-for-all of American services, ongoing for decades) in the name of convenience and fundamentally shared values. The turning point was really in 2024/2025, when those shared values were summarily swept away on the other side of the Atlantic.
Besides, the "global alternatives not subjected to power-hungry overlords" are actually very much subjected to the worst of humanity, and wide open to exploitation from such overlords.
> Besides, the "global alternatives not subjected to power-hungry overlords" are actually very much subjected to the worst of humanity, and wide open to exploitation from such overlords.
> Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab that just makes us all poorer and less free?
We should not; we must. But at the same time we need to recognise that we are powerless to affect the American government, which can go rogue at any moment. So from a pure risk analysis, we also need to have local alternatives. I regret this state of affairs, but it is an unavoidable consequence of the US threatening its nominal allies.
Nothing against global standards and similar. But even "global alternatives" are usually rooted somewhere locally, and that starts to matter more and more, it seems.
This is a perfect example of how to lie with statistics. All of these countries are either tax havens or oil-rich economies, apart from half of them having the population of a small city. The economic policy implemented by any of these countries cannot be implemented by a large economy with little or no natural resources, or would you recommend to Germany or Japan to just "HAVE" oil or open their banks as offshore foreign accounts?
Why Bedrock? Get the kids a Steam Deck, Prism Launcher, open a local server and boom :) It‘s not iOS convenience but they‘ll sure love to tinker with all the mods you can install.
Alternatively one could spin up a local Java Edition server and install GeyserMC translation layer plugin[0] into it. That way, both iOS and Linux PC could cross-play to each other without the need of another new device.
Haha… no bot here. Been using Kagi for years now. Not sure what you‘re searching for. My own tests, admittedly early, found no instances, where Google gave better results.
Indeed what I do as well; gives me apps for Youtube, Netflix, etc. The only downside is that you have to login if you do not use the "app" for a while. Would Electron get around this?
Suppose you have a liberal mindset and work there, you must bend the knee and practice anticipatory obedience, or why else would you tell the world that the rocket will be ”dropping into the Gulf of America?“
I’m a liberal and I have absolutely zero opinion about what we call various bodies of water. The hands wringing over such inconsequential monikers makes me embarrassed sometimes to be part of this party.
That's very healthy, but in this case it feels more like building things for people you disagree with, and who ultimately don't want you to disagree with them.
While I agree with your general point, as an outsider what struck me the most about Trump ordering the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America" was the pettieness of it, and as such I don't really care.
I mean, I live in Germany now, and the German name for Germany isn't Germany (except when it is because Denglish is surprisingly also used in political posters), and likewise has a different name in French (Allemagne), Dutch (Duitsland), Danish (Tyskland), Polish (Niemcy), and Czech (Německo).
Or how the body of water separating Great Britain from mainland Europe is "The English Channel" or "La Manche" (literally "the sleeve", but also name of a department of Normandy).
Seems to me that having your name localised into other languages shows a degree of respect (or at least familiarity). Pity also the French, Franzozerinen; the Anglais, Grossbritannierinen; or the Dutch.
Exonyms definitely aren't always positive — Niemcy and Německo are both from Proto-Slavic "němъ": unclear/incomprehensible speaker; muttering; mute/unable to speak.
It‘s still a stark abuse of power and borderline extortion by Google to use a private sentencing mechanism rather than dragging the purpetrator to public court over advertising and/or encouraging criminal activity, which may or may not have happened if Google Ads and Youtube were not part of the same monopolistic entity.
Did they use the online Deepseek Chat or the open source model. If you ask either about the Tianenmen Square you get very different answers, which may be true for response quality as well.
Not sure about that. It depending on how the model is abliterated, different questions will be unscensored, also keep in mind that Deepseek is NOT trained with certain information.
I made that same experience. You can get individual people to install it, sure, you may even get a group to do this if you start it, but good luck convincing the other parents of your kid‘s sports team group, which btw you must be part of.
Unfortunately, we living beings tend to go with what costs the least amount of energy - this being thinking and going through extra efforts to achieve a goal. Hence, we‘re stuck with WhatsApp by a law of nature.
reply