>Military might is the thing keeping the USD the world reserve currency instead of the GBP, EUR or Yuan. It's literally the core keeping the US economy and prosperity.
No it's not. The size of the American economy, it's extensive trade, the independence of the Central Bank and the rule of law and commitment to paying debts do that. Americans do not force anyone to trade in USD.
>>Military might is the thing keeping the USD the world reserve currency instead of the GBP, EUR or Yuan. It's literally the core keeping the US economy and prosperity.
> No it's not. The size of the American economy, it's extensive trade, the independence of the Central Bank and the rule of law and commitment to paying debts do that. Americans do not force anyone to trade in USD.
The OP is correct, historically. US might, albeit aimed at anyone attempting to disrupt trade, WAS the basis for US hegemony. The US effectively policed the largest oceans, ensuring world trade was reliable and cost-stabilized since WW2. As long as you dealt in USD, you were supported. A type of soft influence that was very effective.
This has been disrupted recently. The US has declined to re-invest in the navy (ship construction has almost bottomed out), routed most of the navy to east asia, and antagonized other nations by disrupting agreements that could have sustained on momentum. This year's farming subsidy (to the tune of 12 billion) is due to those abandoned agreements, paired with unnecessary antagonism.
> And how did the American economy get to that size without the military protecting it from IDK, the USSR just taking it?
The US hegemony successfully strangled the USSR leading to the current Russian oligarchy (with a dictator at the top). The USSR never found itself in a position to expand its borders without threatening an internal insurrection, a coup, and/or the extermination of most of the military forces in a single conflict. US funded the rebuilding of Europe as part of the manufactured hegemony, allowing free trade to supply europe with cheap goods and workers safely across the waters, or under strict supervision of US intelligence for deals with the USSR and the rest of Asia. The USSR wasn't part of these agreement negotiations per se. They had to deal with their own internal politics and manufacturing limitations, while negotiating with countries that had a veto-enabled silent partner.
TBH, I have no idea what people are talking about when are implying "the American economy" is large. It's 8% of world pop and is largely an exporter of natural resources. The strength of the US economy is the reliability of the bond market. The USSR had no chance of taking the US, but did meaningfully threaten the security of the US during the cuban missile crisis. USSR was considered a credible threat to most of Europe for the duration of the cold war, in a carefully structured scenario of mutual destruction.
> And what happened to you if you wanted to trade with the USSR? You're omitting that part
World politics is not as simple as cause and effect. Many countries did deal with embargoed/sanctioned countries, including the US - notably the sale of grain to the USSR during the 70s. If you wanted first crack at new trade deals or wanted security guarantees from the US for delicate trade deals, you had to make allowances according to US wishes. Germany made it clear that they were going to purchase natural gas from the USSR as a matter of their own energy security. The US made an allowance. Maybe one US partner attacked another (Iraq vs Kuwait), the US would step in militarily. You wanted to sell oil to Russia? Sanctions or embargoes or worse, you were not able to call on the US navy when your shipping lanes were disrupted. Maybe the US called on some pirates regularly to raid your ships, maybe not. Thems the breaks, mafia style.
That is naive, it is much more about the US hegemony and mainly about their military might. I would be good to sometimes reach such a state, but as of today it is not.
There are thousands of vehicles moving around your house and neighbourhood already. The vast majority of them are large enough to kill you, and emit fumes that poison you and the atmosphere.
Cities will have lots of drone deliveries in them in the future. And it'll be more safe and economical than the current situation.
Europe can't moralise itself into security and prosperity.
The European 'peace dividend' that was invested into social safety nets is backed by American might. That might is going away, so Europe will need to fund it's own defence. That means a cut to social services.
Neither can they afford to turn their noses up at nuclear energy, or AI enabled weapons. The future is coming and it has high energy demands and drone swarms.
> The European 'peace dividend' that was invested into social safety nets is backed by American might
Do you have any evidence for where the peace dividend went? Like, if you look at entitlements over the past 30 or so years, you can see that they've gotten worse in a bunch of European countries (UK, Germany probably not France).
It looks a lot more like the peace dividend went into caring for old people, as it will in basically all Western countries over the next while. Not sure there's a better solution, apart from letting old people die.
From the article: "Despite billions spent on safety technology, fatal truck-involved crashes are up ≈40% since 2014—almost entirely because of untrained, overworked, and inexperienced drivers now operating 80,000-pound rigs."
From a quick analysis, non-trucker fatalities per mile was about even or slightly increased from 2014-2023. I would conclude it’s not worse than it appears in the trucking situation.
This isn’t something I read on a blog somewhere, I am actively involved in this drama.
I was “adopted” by the moralist side of a dark conspiracy against our natural destinies. People die over this stuff, our humanity is being mutilated by corrupt interests who thrive in the shadow of incredulity.
That means the less believable something is, the easier it becomes to hide in plain sight.
Did you read my comment on how the whole time travel thing works? One of the few that wasn’t flagged. Read that and tell me about convictions.
I did not make this stuff up, I’m one of the few people in the world who has the audacity and insight to talk about it.
It’s a real shame my most insightful stuff on “thought control” has been flagged (and half a dozen former accounts reduced to negative karma.) Hypocrites.
I'm really glad to read this, as this was my experience in LM studio with olmo. Worked for the first message but got progressively more unstable. Also doesn't seem to reset model state for a new conversation, every response following the model load gets progressively worse, even in new chats.
No it's not. The size of the American economy, it's extensive trade, the independence of the Central Bank and the rule of law and commitment to paying debts do that. Americans do not force anyone to trade in USD.
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