This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Why do you believe the EU is broke? It is the second largest economy in the world, containing multiple countries with very high GDP's. It seems more likely that it was not a lack of money that caused the hesitancy to spend more on military equipment, but rather that they did not want to divert money from social services, schools, hospitals, and other government expenditures. It is worth remembering that the EU countries generally care a lot more about welfare, pensions and so on than the US. Making these services worse present a huge election risk for the leaders, even if the countries at large could technically afford it.
Furthermore, the EU struggles with making big decisions due to needing a majority of member countries to agree, with some decisions requiring unanimous agreement. As long as a sizeable amount of members don't view the war as a territorial threat, action will necessarily be limited to individual member countries.
Even so, the EU members have largely picked up the slack from the US in monetary terms. The real issue is with actually getting their hands on equipment in a timely manner. As everyone is rearming at the same time, there is preciously little materiel available to actually send. No amount of money can magick guns out of nowhere. Production takes time.
Generally you paint a very dire picture. So in addition to questioning your narrative of "EU poor", I also wonder if any of what you are writing here is correct? You write that newspaper's generally lie, then immediately quote a tabloid without establishing why this one speaks the truth. The rest of your sources are a mixture of newspapers (which you have yourself said are untrustworthy), chatbot conversations (probably trained on social media and newspapers, and known to be politically biased by their training data), and random tweets ("seal of the apocalypse" doesn't exactly sound like a trustworthy source). Without you establishing the credibility of what you cite, why should I believe anything you have to say?
We have known this since the start of the war. We could have, and in fact should have, started production immediately. Arguably we should have seen it coming and started before the war.
We did not do any of those things. I thought the war would motivate us to get our shit together, but it didn't. Maybe the US reducing their involvement will, but I'm increasingly cynical. I wouldn't be in the slightest surprised if the great majority of the military investment will just be de-facto wasted.
As a european, I say the EU is fucked. It's dedicated to pointless virtue signaling and otherwise just eating the seedcorn (which increasingly gets produced elsewhere), and then rage impotently when other countries throttle the tap. But there is a lot of ruin in a nation, so we're still fairly advanced. But I don't really see a any way but downward for the EU. The conservatives will at most manage the decline.
More options
Context Copy link
It's not 'broke' as say, Argentina (of big countries, France seems irreversibly doomed), but the outlook is very grim.
More options
Context Copy link
They also - just like the US - really don't want to be seen as escalating. The Germans debated endlessly about giving Ukraine a couple of long range Taurus missiles. But they are afraid of what the Ukrainians are going to do with them, and the Russians told them they would consider a Taurus hitting deep infrastructure as Germany having entered the war.
So, no Taurus. They got Iris-T air defense systems and another $2B in military aid instead.
This is Putin being better at playing chicken than the West.
Putin will not start WW3 over some Taurus hitting his infrastructure. It is not exactly on par with Kennedy's fear of Cuban nukes hitting US cities. Of course, it does not help that the commander in chief of the largest nuclear NATO power is seen as an unreliable ally, especially for a non-nuclear country like Germany.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link