• I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    23 hours ago

    “Become a world power”

    You know, we’ve had that experience before, “everywhere else” would pretty much prefer that didn’t happen again, thank you very much.

    • afronaut@slrpnk.net
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      22 hours ago

      lol yea. I’m an American and fully support other nations boycotting our goods but I’m noticing an overlap with these boycotts and nationalist-imperialist sentiments.

      • El_Scapacabra@lemm.ee
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        21 hours ago

        Weirdly enough, from what I’ve seen, European nationalists tend to be very much against the EU.

        • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          That’s not entirely true. Europeans tend to dress up racism as national pride and concern for cultural norms (with a few exceptions). So it isn’t so much “I’m proud of my country” as “I don’t want Arabs and Africans on my street”.

          A lot of European countries have a long and detailed history that paints a grim picture that most people like to distance ourselves from.

    • fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      23 hours ago

      Seriously. Why do people genuinely think this is a good idea? Colonialism and imperialism is bad.

      People should have learned after the US’s faults, and overreliance of it due to being a world power; but people just want to do it again???

      • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Yes and no. Countries like Russia and China are always going to exist. That means places like the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia are always going to need a strong ally if they don’t want to be invaded. There are a lot of countries that are going to be very worried now that America has turned heel (Especially Taiwan). Europe has mostly grown out of the need for constant expansion, so having them take on the role of world police wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen.

        • fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 hours ago

          Yeah, i know ☹️ Life’s unfair. While the idea of one incredibly powerful union scares me (see what they did in the middle east) the other countries are always going to fuck up the balance.

          • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            Yeah the middle east is a giant shit show that’s about to get even worse if trump has anything to say about it. But if it were a union of smaller countries like the EU, they’d (hopefully) keep each other in check.

            • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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              18 hours ago

              But if it were a union of smaller countries like the EU, they’d (hopefully) keep each other in check.

              Since the Romans withdrew circa 450 the European Nations were almost always at war with one another until 1945; nearly 2,000 years of conflict! The peace they’ve enjoyed post WWII is because they were focused on an external threat (U.S.S.R.) and the United States functioned as a playground monitor.

              So historically speaking they will absolutely NOT “keep each other in check”.

          • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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            18 hours ago

            While the idea of one incredibly powerful union scares me (see what they did in the middle east)

            America’s adventurism in the ME was but a blip compared to the literal centuries that the Brits and the French have spent fucking up that area of the world. Does no one study history anymore?

        • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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          18 hours ago

          Uh… How exactly is China historically expansionist? Isn’t Europe much, much worse by any metric at basically any point of history you choose?

          • Echofox@lemmy.ca
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            17 hours ago

            Annexation of Tibet (1950-1951)

            Invasion of Paracel Islands (1974)

            Southern Mongolia Annexation (1947-1949)

            Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: China claims the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands), which are currently controlled by Japan but also claimed by Taiwan.

            PROC claims Taiwan as a province, but Taiwan operates as a de facto independent country.

            South China Sea (Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia), PROC claims nearly the entire South China Sea under its “Nine-Dash Line”, leading to conflicts with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and others.

            India - China claims Arunachal Pradesh as “South Tibet.”

            But it’s important to point out that “China” isn’t a country, rather a region. The country people generally refer to when they say “China” is the PROC. If you go back 1000 years there was no “China” country, there was the Ming Empire in the China region. I understand this perspective bothers people, but consider this, if you need to reduce countries to regions then you’re going to be bothered for the rest of your life.

            • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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              16 hours ago

              Annexation of Tibet (1950-1951)

              Southern Mongolia Annexation (1947-1949)

              Civil-war era. Calling the liberation of Tibet expansionism is wild.

              The rest are basically border conflicts which literally every country in the old continent have.

              If you go back 1000 years there was no “China” country, there was the Ming Empire in the China region

              You’d be hard-pressed to find a big country with such preservation of language, traditions, culture, architecture and artistic styles, etc. the way China does, idk what’s your point

          • Skullgrid@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            How exactly is China historically expansionist?

            Tibet used to be a seperate contry. The Uygurs were a Turkic Khanate to themselves.

            Bejing’s aim is to homogenise those regions instead of preserving their culture and integrate them further economically to China as a whole, which would have the benefit of improved economic outcomes to both “parties” and maintain arts, culture and liberties of the people there.

            • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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              18 hours ago

              Tibet used to be a seperate contry

              Tibet used to be a feudalist dictatorship where 80% of the population were essentially slaves legally bound to the land of landowners.

              Bejing’s aim is to homogenise those regions instead of preserving their culture

              How many official languages are there in your country?

                • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com
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                  16 hours ago

                  Nah, I’m not doing a whataboutism, I’m saying that your white ass doesn’t have a remote understanding on what “homogenisation” means. Go to a history museum in China, and in most exhibits they’ll have some remarks of the history in different places of modern China, and to the different ethnicities of the country, to the point that it would be categorised as PC-inclusivism in the west. And they don’t have a far right party fighting to destroy that :)

            • hoxbug@lemmy.world
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              18 hours ago

              Not to mention China making artificial islands around it’s coast line to expand it’s territory. Boarder clashes with India, territorial disputes with the Philippines, taking over Hong Kong, and ofcourse the constant threatening of taking over Taiwan.

                • laolin@lemmy.world
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                  15 hours ago

                  As far as I know, they Tibetans still speaking Tibetans and practicing their own religion, unlike Okinawans or ainus in Japan who culture and language got wiped out so clean that they couldn’t even sing their old folk songs in their native languages.

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        18 hours ago

        How does this have anything to do with colonialism?

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            15 hours ago

            Is being a super power inherently inclusive with having colonies? I have never heard of that definition before.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        18 hours ago

        People should have learned after the US’s faults

        The U.S. huh? That’s who you are going to go with during a discussion of European Imperialism and world power? The Euro’s were out fucking up the world before the United States existed and a full half of the world is still desperately fucked up from literal centuries of horrifically brutal European Imperialism.

        If you need lessons on anti-imperialism you don’t need the United States, just take a gander at the Europeans own histories.

        • fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          18 hours ago

          ? I think you misunderstood me. I know, the british and french have caused way more damage than the US has caused here. By the US’s faults specifically, i was talking about it caving into fascism (arguably has been rotting for a long time, just finally shown face) and europeans getting away from it. And since the US is a global power, they overrelied on it. Their solution? Just be their another global power, surely nothing bad will happen.

  • witnessbolt@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    You can do it, Europe. Everyone that cares about “the west” is rooting for you.

  • scifun@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Perhaps let someone from global south take the controls (if humans even have more than few decades as species)

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Like who? Which bloc is economically as large as the EU and is considered a full democracy. Like we’ve seen what happens when an economically powerful nation with a weak democracy becomes a super power.

  • dance_ninja@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    I remember watching Gundam 00 and thinking “man, the US being in a separate power block from Europe sounds crazy!”

  • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    They need to poke the planet, then we can all work together to get the fuck off this rock. We’ve fucked it up enough and there are plenty of planets to mine resources from. Let’s all band together for an exit. Then go our separate ways after launch.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    17 hours ago

    As an American, yes please, because we can’t get our shit together as the mutated, corrupt, idiotic half’s monster is running roughshod over our wishy-washy, whiny, “centrist” half’s.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Europe needs to be strong enough to stand on its own at all levels, but I think it’s a pretty bad idea for it to become a neo-Imperial power in the style of America.

    For all the great things of Democracy, the one thing people forget in their rosy propaganda-tainted view of it (living inside of it, we’re constantly bombarde by political messaging about its greatness) is that by definition even the most perfect Democracy only has the duty to represent the will of its citizens, not of people who are not citizens of that Democracy.

    So there is no ideological element in Democracy to make it less nasty at exploiting people from other countries than authoritarian regimes.

    All this to say that Europe shouldn’t get into the business of power projection like the US has done for decades (leaving a long trail of death, suffering and destitution all over the World, especially the Middle East and Latin America).

    And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it’s already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.

    A peacefull when not provoked giant would probably be the best philosphy for a strong Europe, IMHO.

    (Edit: for avoidance of doubt I want to state that for me Russia trying to advance westwards by invading Ukraine counts as a provocation)

    • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      And I say this as an European and somebody who would stand to gain indirectly from Europe going systematically (it’s already done by businesses and some governments in it, just not openly and systematically) into the business of exploiting non-Europeans.

      One great myth of imperial power plays is that the exploitation benefits the imperial power. It often doesn’t. The scramble for Africa, for example, was a net economic drain for all the great powers that participated. Every little thing they gained was generally lost as they spent immense amounts of money on being manipulated into useless conflicts by client chiefs. Similar dynamic for England in India during the later periods and associated areas (the British conquest of Myanmar was particularly useless). The only real benefit is economic dominance and the ability to trade (like that was seen in Singapore and Canton). For all it’s imperialism and interventionism from the Philippines to Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, America hasn’t seen a gain. Most of the moves by the great powers only benefits a select few of private citizens while the state spends lives and treasure on conquest and subsequent administration for an illegitimate government that becomes corrupt and fragile.

      • scifun@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Are you fucking kidding me? Britain stands where it is only because of wealth it looted from its colonies.

        • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          If course, I’m sure it has little to do with readily available coal veins and early centralization that allowed for rapid industrialization that then powered the colonial boondoggle in the first place that primarily enriched private interests. That’s why the empire still exists right? It couldn’t be a prime example of imperial overreach.

        • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I think you’re mistaking my intention. I’m saying that imperialism is ultimately self defeating and has been throughout history. It’s a fundamentally doomed path.

    • ultrachez@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That will never happen because EU has already failed multiple times.

      The 2008 recession and accompanying austerity was the first. This austerity is directly responsible for the rise of far right in EU.

      The second were the multiple economic crisises from EU countries like Greece, etc.

      The third was Brexit.

      The fourth was China dumping all its steel.

      The fifth was it failure to hold Poland and Hungry accountable for democratic backsliding, which continues to this day.

      The sixth was the abysmal handling of refugee crisis.

      The seventh was Ukraine.

      The list goes on.

      EU will never work because majority of EU countries are center right (including neo liberal) or far right. As such regular EU citizens have little to no faith in the system and do not want to die for EU oligarchs

      • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        It’s a little unfair to blame the EU for the credit crunch. Most of that was due to the Americans. Likewise, Brexit was a democratic action. The British wanted Brexit at the time.

        The UK under the conservatives was the member state that applied the strongest austerity measures and it has been subsequently shown to be a mistake economically but it was a great excuse to advance their agenda.

        Old and ignorant people voting against their own interests, populists and first past the post are the current villains. The British ruling class are all educated in the same few schools on the same topics, e.g. the classics and liberal arts. They have created a fetish out of business, home ownership and cars. The rational humanist does not have a place in this society. At least the EU is defending human rights and basing it’s decisions more firmly on enlightenment values.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        23 hours ago

        That’s basically a “You stubbed a toe hence you failed” tribalist take, cleary spinned along Russian Propaganda lines.

        The spin is painfully obvious by the very first example being the 2008 recession, which was a problem for the whole World hence by your definition the whole World failed. The rest is just a mix of consequence of the former (Greece crisis, Brexit), not an EU thing (China steel dumping, Russian invasion of Ukraine), outdated-info/lies (Poland is no longer ruled by the Far-Right), your pure opinion (that there was an actual crisis with refugees and the quality if its handling).

        You claim the “The EU will never work” even whilst it keeps on working and has worked for decades: you’re fantasising.

        That shit is pure “you have to give up and die (and let us get our fill from whatever is left)” anti-EU propaganda straight out of Moscow.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        The fourth was China dumping all its steel.

        You had me in six of these, but how on earth does the EU suffer from cheap steel? For all the sins of the member states and their collaborative governing efforts, I’ve yet to see “too much industrial development with low-cost raw materials” on the list.

        EU will never work because majority of EU countries are center right (including neo liberal) or far right.

        I could see a future in which the white supremacist strains within the EU create an ideological confederacy through which a unified nationalist identity forms. Simply hating Africa, Arabia, and East Asia might be enough to galvanize large coalitions of Europeans together. But what are they unifying into, if not a bitter, hostile, solipsistic, rump?

        The EU without an eye towards free Mediterranean trade and travel is just a suicide pact. Might as well go full Hermit Kingdom, rebuild the Iron Curtain, and stop pretending to matter globally,.

  • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    Moldova will join the EU, which will allow a Romanian and Moldovan union. They will be able to take over Europe and then the world using vampires and deadly lasers and stuff

  • Baggins@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    Sad that picture doesn’t include UK - like it used to.

    And will do again, if we get a grip.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      UK is an a rosy position right now politically. Can play friends with both US and Europe, like a Cinderella at a ball

        • ClamDrinker@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Don’t think anyone in the EU really hates the UK. It’s more that we saw someone we had good ties with make a bad mistake. We still like the UK as an ally. And most people would probably be happy with an agreeable return of them to the EU.

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            16 hours ago

            But they have to adopt the euro and drive on the right side of the road. Except northern Ireland, we don’t want to inconvenience the Irish.