jkic47

I beg to differ. My original comment did not blame immigrants for anything; rather it discussed the result of the EUs immigration policy. Fascism was irrelevant to the point being made, and your understanding of the fallacy of association might warrant adjustment...

> We don't have a huge immigration problem. The immigrants are blamed for everything by the fascists, just like in America.

That part about not trying to win or rule the world makes sense, but to live in peace, on has to have the basic ability to defend oneself, which doesn't seem to exist because the EU chooses to spend money in other domaints.

There are probably layers of nuance behind this.

Blocking the sale of Russian oil forced the EU to purchase US oil at a premium. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.

Continued combat in Ukraine requires the purchase of US armament. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.

The EU being a supplicant strengthened the US hand in trade negotiations. Not conducive to ending the war from the US perspective.

Probably much more that we don't know about driving the current situation.

This is an absolutely valid point, thanks for raising it. The US has (partially) addressed it by being an attractive enough economy that brings in young immigrants with "fire in the belly". These people (I am one of them), stay long enough to add economic value, and, crucially, have children who are integrated into the broader society without giving up on their native cultures.

Japan has historically restricted immigration into what was a dynamic economy, which stagnated over time.

I'm afraid you might have misunderstood the point I was making about immigrants. I am a legal immigrant myself and do not propose kicking out (legal) immigrants.

Restricting immigration to those with skills the country requires at the time is sensible policy. Allowing millions into the country in an orgy of performative empathy with no plan for integration or converting them into productive members of society isn't.

My point is that there is a cost associated with this, and the EU is paying it in spades. The money spent addressing these issues comes at the expense of investment in things that make the country more innovative (education, trades, streamlined regulatory structures...), or have a stronger defensive posture.

Self-evidently, life isn't exclusively about WHO has the money. Having options, however, IS exclusively the result of who has the money. When the EU have restricted their options through these voluntary and unwise choices, they have to depend on someone else's help. That someone is going to want their pound of flesh.

"Fascist" seems a little over the top to describe these views.

could it be that memory must require language as a predicate? Without language, how does one "record" the memory?

What a well-written piece. She sounds exactly like a person who "...finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything"

Developing economies purchase a lot from the west. Germany and Japan have export-oriented stances because their local markets are developed to the point that local growth is slow...

the goal of the Nvidia, etc., is to maximize ther profits, not to subsidize the incompetence of their competitors.

I've ridden in a BYD ev, and I assure you they are not cheap quality.

our companies are sclerosis compared to the energy in Asia

I was just reading a book called "The First Indians" by Tony Joseph in which they were discussing an ultra-conserved word "tul" which means "to push" in literally all Dravidian languages.

It took on the meaning "to write" in Mesopotamia, because writing cuneiform required "pushing" the stylus into the soft clay.

They use this difference in meaning (along with genetic and archeological research) to date the separation of cultures.

They are under no obligation to disclose 100% of the composition of their products. Under REACH and ECHA, they might be required to disclose if (IIRC) they export > 1 tonne of the product into the EU. Typical formulations look something like

50% water 35% solvent 5% colorant (with pigment name) 10% Proprietary / Trade Secret PTFE

PFOA was used in the PTFE mfg. process, so we asked for equivalent PTFE formulations that were not mfg. with PFOA. The revenue they get from medical devices was trivial compared to non-medical (waterproofing) applications and accounted for 90% of Regulatory risks, so they often met requests with a "take it or leave it" response.

Given the sclerotic pace at which government agencies move to approve changes of magnitude, and given the MASSIVE testing burden required, this effectively meant "take it".

How cute.

PFOA was the only chemical in that class that was in use in our products. <facepalm>

True story from a non-programmer.

I used perplexity.ai to help me write a simple C# program to save all my Outlook emails as .msg files.

I was able to do it in about a day, which is an amazingly fast velocity, if you consider that I had nothing in terms of background.

Not suggesting this scales to non-trivial problems, but it actually created a working solution for me.