I suspect you'd find a cast iron correlation between dark triad personality traits and ownership of these things, at least in the city. There are so many reasons they're a bad idea, but nearly all of those reasons require a shred of human decency and compassion to be recognised. It started with SUVs, but the F150 and Rams in the suburbs are plain ridiculous and a sure sign that their owner has some super unpleasant traits.
Pretty clear choice for me. US administration are downright scum. I'd sooner we take our chances in a fragile geopolitical position than ever dance to their tune.
Start strengthening EU alliances. If we're going to play politics of convenience that's better done with China. They might be capable of things that shock us, but they also seem to value and respond to sensible economic exchange. It's becoming rapidly apparent that the US are more about Russian style domination - you can't even bargain with that.
US Tech need to start relocating. I emailed Warp Shell creators advising I'd reluctantly cancelled my subscription to their actually excellent product; because funding the US economy had become 'morally incompatible with my workflow'. Hope others can do similar.
Judging by the language and behaviour we've seen so far; I doubt it's at all sophisticated. 'Might is right' and the US should belittle and subjugate others because they can - it's their right and furthermore their duty to the American people! In other words, he's probably a straightforward imperialist.
I don't know the guy though so if anyone can add nuance to that I'd be glad to understand better.
If his true feelings are benevolent towards Europe and he's 'merely' frustrated that they're not pulling their weight militarily, then he's got a ham-fisted and harmful way of showing it.
Weird hill to die on perhaps; but I'll never forgive Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding to not support my Core i7 6700K 4Ghz CPU on Windows 11.
Simply because: I cannot find a single actual technical reason why it wouldn't be compatible (yes, my mobo also has TPM). It's even higher specced than many other 'supported' chips.
MS apparently just decided I hadn't spent enough money lately. Well now I won't - on your products - ever again, while this i7 will continue to run Win 10 for games and Linux for all else.
To say nothing of the wider hypothetical conflict, wouldn't the US bases themselves be trivial to overrun by UK land forces?
They're air bases and not fortified from attack by the host country. If anything the easy opportunity to disable their aircraft while getting our hands on any undamaged kit could present a minor tactical advantage.
For this reason they'd surely vacate before turning nasty.
Collectively European nations have the economy and technology to build a Military Industrial Complex to rival the US... I hope they truly wake up before it's too late, lest the birthplace of western civilization also become it's grave 😢
Now I might be naive or plain wrong, but I tell you completely honestly, that I would always have been more concerned for my safety travelling to the US than China.
Naturally, one would steer away from discussing politics or behaving in 'concerning' ways in China - for example filming government buildings.
But, I have never felt I'd be in any danger doing average tourist stuff in China. I've been there twice, to more rural parts as it happens, and felt safe: People friendly, no edge.
US on the other hand... I admit I've barely visited to transfer flights, but the idea of being let loose in the US is considerably more challenging for me. Knowing that everyone is potentially armed, that trigger happy police are everywhere, there are high racial tensions, drugged up homeless etc.
This was truly my impression even before Trump was ever a household name.
Is it surprising to Americans that a Brit would genuinely feel that way around about the two countries? I don't know. It doesn't seem controversial to me, but then I read Americans talking about China as though it's some scary place for them.
I've been an enthusiastic adopter of Generative AI in my coding work; and know that Claude 3.7 is the greatest coding model out there right now (at least for my niche).
That said, at some point you have to choose principles over convenience; so I've cancelled all my US Tech service accounts - now exclusively using 'Le Chat Pro' (+ sometimes local LLM's).
Honestly, it's not quite as good, but it's not half bad either, and it is very very fast thanks to some nifty hardware acceleration that the others lack.
I still get my work done, and sleep better at night.
The more subscriptions Mistral get, the more they're able to compete with the US offerings.
It should not be that surprising. Many teenagers are really smart, curious and will find their way here. That said I realise your warning is well intentioned; I hope Lemmy remains a more civil place than Reddit became over the last ten years, for everyone; teenagers included.
I suspect you'd find a cast iron correlation between dark triad personality traits and ownership of these things, at least in the city. There are so many reasons they're a bad idea, but nearly all of those reasons require a shred of human decency and compassion to be recognised. It started with SUVs, but the F150 and Rams in the suburbs are plain ridiculous and a sure sign that their owner has some super unpleasant traits.