I used to think two big ego's sooner or later start fighting, even if they have been friends a very long time. Trump made me doubt it a little, but looks like it still holds true.

I do agree on this argument, China never was an ally to India or Taiwan.

I don't think Europe ever even attempted to repair the dammage we did. But to be fair I don't really know how that could be done.

We do all have different strategies, England went 'well if a part is white we can keep control', France went 'well if a part is poor we can keep control' and the Netherlands and Belgium went 'well as long as it doesn't cost us money we don't need to be in control' don't know about Portugal and Spain but seems eu relationship with Latin America is in a better state than eu relationship with France Afrique.

Agree, this is totally bonkers and a year ago it would be too crazy to possible be from the onion but there hasn't really been a grey area where this could've been because the shock was so big. We all know this is just regular American politics nowadays and this isn't a community about messed up politics.

The Kyiv Independent is quite biased (rightly so), but the historian they interviewed is not just somebody with an opinion:

Timothy Garton Ash

British historian and author (born 1955)

---

Timothy Garton Ash CMG FRSA FRHistS FRSL (born 12 July 1955) is a British historian, author and commentator. He is Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford. Most of his work has been concerned with the contemporary history of Europe, with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe.

He has written about the former Communist regimes of that region, their experience with the secret police, the Revolutions of 1989, and the transformation of the former Eastern Bloc states into member states of the European Union. He has also examined the role of Europe in the world and the challenge of combining political freedom and diversity, especially in relation to free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Garton_Ash

Yes obviously, but whether a country is European is decided by geography not values.

Is it me or is FT sliding further into Fox News territory? There was a time I considered them a good source of information but lately I'm questioning a lot of their journalism. Might be because I don't visit their website and communities like this skew my view but damn they look more and more maga crazy from my pov.

A while back I read an article on Chinese hackers, who seem to be organised very different to western hackers. Basically hacking in China is only illegal if it is against 'national interest', so governments (even local cities) hire hackers to find out information on local criminals (I guess also on anyone who disagrees with the state, but that aside). So there is much more financial incentive to hack individuals, there is more people doing it.

Hacking these individuals is basically only possible because of vulnerabilities in non-chinese software (since Chinese software and online services don't need to be hacked since the government already has a backdoor anyway). These firms share these vulnerabilities among each other as in I give you mine if you give me yours. So there a bunch of people in the know about these vulnerabilities even more so because there is a law you have to report these vulnerabilities to the state (because otherwise you are against the 'national interest').

The article was about these Chinese firms, not about the cyber safety of non-chinese citizens but I guess knowledge of these vulnerabilities could also be sold to Russians, Iranian and North-Koreans who have their own reasons to attack European, Israeli and US companies.

Tldr, more knowledge of vulnerabilities leads to more abuse of these vulnerabilities. Securing against this abuse is a cat and mouse game and neither is dead yet.

Also in their eyes current day Russia is the continuation of the old day sovjet union, which is not completely false, and their (remaining) positive feelings toward to SU colour their view of the current day Russia. It's not only because of new (though not necessarily true) information they like Russia.

This exactly. 90% of the content should be in a community called notnormalpolitcs or funnythingsamericanpoliticiansdonowadays

Yes obv I know this is not the union, didn't really make that clear '-.- and republicans do bonkers shit, also obvious but I liked this community a lot better before Trump became president again.

Satire written in a way you for a moment doubt if it's true or not. Lately it's a wave of 'Trump or some republican senator did something lame or terrible' and 'Trump voter had his face eaten by leopards'. Normal would be a post like this once or twice a day, I get the sentiment but it's just too much and the bar is getting lower and lower if you ask me.