the current version of the US was orchestrated deliberately by our wealthiest elites (eg Koch, Murdoch, etc) - the pleebs were becoming too powerful and now they're over-correcting
They've, for sure, been manipulated into wanting it, needing to believe it, but that's where the US is at, in a high enough percentage for the current administration to happen. The path of the US hasn't changed direction though, the travel down that path had just been accelerated somewhat by Tmurp.
They sure don't need it though.
(I agree with your comment below, but I'm unable to reply to it, so I replied here via edit)
The Americans who saw this coming and stayed home are just as complicit.
There are a lot better responses: reduce copyright length, to let's say... 50 years? Make everything after 1976 public domain. EU economy could even get a boost from that.
Or, if EU wanted to keep this limited to justice, denounce extradition treaties for all but most serious crimes (expecially not allowing any future Assange to be extradited), repeal laws that forbid bypassing DRM protections and reverse engineering.
> Article 70. Offences against the administration of Justice
> 1. The Court shall have jurisdiction over the following offences against its administration of justice when committed intentionally:
> (e) Retaliating against an official of the court on account of duties performed by that or another official;
Can the ICC now please just put an arrest warrant out for Trump, Rubio, and anyone else involved in these sanctions.
For example, voting is a political act, and so is voter suppression. We wouldn't argue that both are equal acts. One is liberating, and the other is oppressive.
Where are the ICC cases against Saudi? Syria? Yemen? Egypt? Most of Africa? North Korea? Haiti? Nicaragua? India? Iran?
It's a kangaroo court that gives retired judges jobs and powerless liberals the illusion they're doing something.
Do you have some sources that corroborate your claim that Judge Pillay is out of touch? What specifically is she out of touch about?
a flat description is just an accusation that you can do nothing with except feel a kind of anti-social catharsis that doesn't net any progress in the other direction
If I were POTUS and this happened, the ICC would look like a smoldering crater just to remind the elites what real power is. The thing is, there's nothing Europe can do about it. Europe's economically between a rock and hard place, with no serious military to defend themselves. They've also decided to import foreigners with no allegiance to Europe instead of grow their native populations. This means Europeans can't form a defensive military without a very high risk of those soldiers turning their guns on the government.
Yes, killing 1000+ people in a peaceful, country you say your allied to, for no reason beyond being angry that your abject sin has been noticed and people are saying you're morally bad, when you revel in that lack of morality...
Similar to how the US literally destroyed the dictatorship in Iran?
Go ahead, indict Trump. Trump, being the provocateur that he is, would travel to the Hague, or wherever else, and he would not be arrested. The ICC would do nothing and exposes its toothlessness as a performative political tool of center left Europe.
Some US states seem to spend more per pupil than excellent independent ("private") schools in the UK. That is a lot of money.
teacher pay-rate and total comp are better indicators of defunding and they are dismal: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_211.60.a... - this shows pay rates have stagnated since the late 2000s with some trending downwards since
even then the rising costs don't reflect an increase in percent-of-GDP spending - that's actually gone down in the past decade: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_106.10.a...
Nobody cares about Americans having prosperity and happiness when their nation has been dropping bombs on innocent human beings every 15 minutes on average, for the past 26 years.
Also, anyone who voted 3rd-party, because that is literally refusing to keep him out of office.
prefrontal cortex moment
The way you talk about things could have easily resulted in California’s 54 electoral college votes flipping to the majority resulting in 366 electoral votes for the winner. Your numbers are spread across where people actually live after all, as opposed to a campaign swing state
They could embargo US firms, Visa and Mastercard first. Tech firms second.
They could sell Dutch lithography to China. In fact they could ally with China in return for turning a blind eye on Taiwan.
They could stop spending billions on US arms, in fact that is well underway.
US shot its bolt in Iran.... everyone is much less scared of the US since it attempted to use its force. It can't sustain a single carrier in the gulf with allied countries at its back. It has already spent 80% of its patriot missiles.
Even if this specific comment is a psyop or shill of some sort, they make these comments partially because a lot of people nod their head in agreement.
Like, Trump himself screamed about obliterating Iran on like easter, despite the utter logistical impossibility of the US doing that without resorting to nuclear weapons. A lot of his supporters are explicitly upset he hasn't done it yet.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY&pp=ygUSYXJlIHdlIHR...
Here's the second news thing mentioned for people that also did go "what??" but do not want to spend 5 extra seconds to Google like me.
Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navanethem Pillay - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50018420 - Oct 2026 (163 comments)
https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/3/messages/139.htm...
>National Medal of Science: Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su
>National Medal of Technology and Innovation: Michael Dell, Satya Nadella
https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/10/president-trump-...
Also daily reminder that Jensen Huang and Lisa Su are first cousins once removed. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
Isn't this basically how WWI started?
Same as before. Only if you're insane.
Current administration expects ICC to change
Future administration can reverse sanctions since its just the stroke of a pen, economic sanctions don’t require Congress
The US is untrustworthy, and governments are at the mercy of ridiculous hostile actions that even if shortlived may cause a lot of damage and losses.
Countries should speed up untangling themselves from the US. Be it by creating alternatives to Swift, effectively stop relying on US big tech, etc.
The US is a hostile power and its corporations are venues for it to cause harm.
"The White House considers anyone that uses the term, “Artificial Intelligence,” as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, “Super Intelligence,” THE ENEMY! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
All because this simple-minded, vile rapist desperately wants to put his worthless fingerprint on everything, and his addled, time-locked imbecile brain decided that he would rename AI. So far I've only seen one pathetic simp so completely busted and worthless they would follow suit, and that's the equally vile and drug-abuse obliterated Elon Musk.
The US has fallen. These companies don't go against outrageously stupid dictums by this terroristic administration because they know there are zero checks and balances, and this vile creep will punish any who counter him.
Astonishing that this guy isn't polling at 0%. Do Americans fully comprehend that this self-dealing clown has destroyed your future?
Pretty insane to literally make enemies over terminology. I don't understand what he's thinking.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump...
(Posted on the same day one of my coworkers received a $500 check and nastygram about the unusually bipartisan Afoordable Healthcare Act.)
the Trump era is an interesting lesson in psychology
As an American, I agree. The unfortunate reality is that this kind of thing will continue until his supporters love things like the rule of law, checks on presidential power, and basic decency more than they hate "woke".
Artificial Intelligence is objectively the correct term. He's just using stupid Trumpian word-play for fun. It's so stupid and so sad. At least we won't need to listen to this for thaaaat much longer, at least I hope.
Well, he has, just maybe not in the way he may be hoping (i.e., being positively remembered).
And with LLMs being pushed everywhere, the active deskilling campaign / drug dealer first hit is free plan is working.
With dumb people, the louder and more emotional you are, the more the idiots trust you.
Intelligence and academics are the way out. And look how Republicans attack education and libraries. Their plan is straight forward, and the rubes have no clue. But they still vote for them cause of 'liberal cause of the week'.
Torvalds lives in the USA. Linux Foundation is in the USA. Good (luck) for Linux. /s
i think it's funny that you tried to cast doubt but couldn't even do that because you lead with the glaring flaw in your reasoning instead of your rhetorical point. congrats.
Realistically, Americans aren't pulling out guillotines for the excessively rich any time soon, so why would they care?
How does the argument go? If they haven't done anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about. Heh.
Twice. You did it twice.
> Twice. You did it twice.
If you want the answer, look at the Democrats. That's why he got elected twice: they were that bad at politics.
Party of personal responsibility and all that.
Yes I know Trump is a deranged psychopath who fires from the hip. I'm looking for someone who can handle the challenge of steel manning the move. The political swamp has gotten so dense I feel like I am suffocating.
Recently, Marco Rubio gave a speech in front of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Seeing this, I immediately thought "what an oximoron".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_airstrike
Can't think of a more flagrant and succinct declaration that the US believes itself "above the law."
Of course, from the perspective of a committed criminal, upholding the law is "going rogue".
That is not lack of sovereignty, that is choice of morality.
Democracies can only enact the chosen rule of law because they're sovereign.
What's probably as criminal, are the other two branches not stamping this out. Most of what everyone is despairing or angry about the administration is forbidden by the US constitution. The problem is that the people most able to uphold the constitution, by expunging the criminals in the executive branch (or preventing them from being there in the first place), are not enforcing it.
Also directly targeting foreigners who provide evidence to the court is also pretty clear evidence of american intention here. Hide their crimes. Several such human rights organizations were targeted independently of this for cooperation with ICC, like Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, and PCHR.
He was already upset about the ICC existing after the ICC tried to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes, but the timing makes it obvious that is just the president of the United States of America is being petty here.
If Visa, Mastercard, Microsoft, or any other company wants to operate in other countries, punitively obeying insane US sanctions is untenable.
And for the "yeah, but then the US will retaliate" chimps: You have literally nothing left. Your lame duck halfwit and his administration of grifters, fraudsters and charlatans blew their load.
Junk away snowflakes....
... but his government does support the ICC prosecuting Russians, on behalf of Ukraine, even though none of the two states is a party to the Rome statute / member of the court.
Algeria, Angola, Bahamas, Bahrain, Cameroon, Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Monaco, Morocco, Mozambique, Oman, Russia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
Not signed: China, North Korea, India.
Burundi and The Philippines withdrew from the treaty.
It's not one or two things, either. It's an endless parade of decisions, nearly all of which reward de-coupling from America.
Just a few years ago, this wouldn't even have been remotely on people's radar as something they should or could do.
The fact that this rogue organization thinks it can undermine the official FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World™ by being associated with someone who received this fake prize is probably why they are now being justly sanctioned.
It's another thing to say: "We will dismantle it if it goes after Americans".
It's also extremely hypocritical since Rubio himself co-sponsored a resolution backing the court's jurisdiction over Russians accused of war crimes.
So it's really more like: "If it says things we agree with, we will be on board. If it says things we disagree with, not only will we not be on board, we will erase the whole thing".
If you're talking about invading and occupying the people, every person is still theoretically under the law of whatever country they are in by default.
In general any idea that international law is relevant except as a tool for the West to provide moral justification for its actions when it's convenient to do so is naive. At least the Trump administration being more vulgar and crude in expressing its disregard for international law compared to previous administrations may open more people's eyes.
> Can't think of a more flagrant and succinct declaration that the US believes itself "above the law."
So would you think of yourself "above the law" if you refused to submit to my law?
Apparently the US never ratified the ICC treaty. International relations is literally an anarchy, there's no "higher authority" to impose law. Countries can only voluntarily submit to a treaty, or be violently coerced by another country.
https://usunrome.usmission.gov/why-were-dismantling-the-icc/
As in, they would have forgiven themselves and punished international courts who tried to prosecute them.
but it would probably an an entertaining novel.
And the Nazis wouldn't have lasted long, anyway.
one or two? this has been standing us law since the bush era.
The US has very large problems far beyond one or two politicians.
Trump has been in office for 6 years. Because 2/3 of America either voted him in or didn't bother showing up. I've been reading people say "he's unpopular" for a decade. But America voted him in again, this time with more power than he's ever had before.
There is no way to decouple his legacy from America anymore. You would have to have a blowout midterm with a Senate supermajority that can roll back everything he's done.
Rich people just really fucking hate the fact that the general public get to tell them "No" sometimes. They feel they are above us.
A US with no external friends is perfectly fine for them.
Industrialists were pretty happy and supportive of the Third Reich for similar reasons. Better to be on top of a mud pile than near the top of a golden pyramid.
This isn't novel, it's literally how Russia has been for decades now. The oligarchs there don't care that it's a shithole, because they get to pilfer most of what little wealth that shithole gets, so they are enormously wealthy and only ever answer to putin, who mostly lets them do whatever.
The same effect happens in little island nations with petty dictators or african warlords. People who pursue power aren't pursuing actual tangible things. They just want "power" for it's own sake. They get off on it.
I don't like it, but I'm not signing up to do anything about it, and I'm not going to sign my kids up for it either.
People like Trump and Hegseth have been saying that very explicitly in at least the past couple years
The only people that get prosecuted by the ICC are people that lose wars (no winner has ever been prosecuted) and are also from nations that do not have nuclear weapons / nuclear protection.
Seems like that changed a little in the last decade. Hopefully it's not forever, but who knows.
Google League of Nations
We're repeating old social tropes the 50+ year old leadership lived through.
It's sad and pathetic. The youth reliance on old leadership and putting that on them is elder abuse. McConnell and Feinstein handlers should be prosecuted for such.
This is 100% on lazy, low-skilled, younger American public that doesn't need Depends expecting the generation glazing over live on TV and vanishing from office only to be found months later in an institution
The censored for TV era propped such olds up on screen for decades and refused to challenge their speculations and bullshit; everyone actually believes the elders are cogent and capable but they never were. Just puppets of a bygone era of televised circuses beamed to the Wonder Bread eating masses
How do you call a country where public press is so much owned or subsidized by the govt that other press can't survive, where press has guidelines of things to say, where voting happens without the ability for voters to check their vote was counted (witnesses were removed from witnessing the vote counting in France, when it's not total electronic), where they import voters to sway elections, and where the FISC publishes lists of people with a house and account numbers and amoints so hostage takers can target the right house and ask the right thing? Where police or train conductors take no action against fraudsters unless they are white, preferrably grandmas? SNCF has always been the most participant to exactions, they're breaking no tradition here.
What's holding me in Europe is clearly not democracy. Candidate for US or AU visa here, I'm rich but AU has closed the wealth-based visa.
What happens is (also) the typical: we work at some level (rational), abscesses work at another level (ventral). The two worlds do not meet.
I get the (somehow understandable) reasons for trying to "boost the spirits" towards RnD in face of campaigns against it (cpr. bernie sander's proposal "20 years of prison to those trying to implement intelligence"), but of course ventral discourse should not be acceptable to people given a right to vote - vote should be for adults.
I can't honestly even look at this.
It cannot be a choice.
By the way, speaking of "awakening" by people that intend to substantially refer to asses is blasphemy.
I dont see why they should react
You are commenting about something else
The US has been untrustworthy and willing to weaponize its position for decades. The current US administration is just both less competent and more overt in doing so.
I many ways, I like Trump precisely because of this. He just dropped the façade.
Mind you, I would profoundly despise having anything like the current US admin in my country.
I could imagine something _like_ that happen, but it would be a different kind of spectacle, where it is ensured that it projects ideas that _stabilize_ the current structure.
__
Hmm.. although, if they have a good propaganda guy, they might actually do the Guillotine and annex that symbol as an ultimate power move.
I can see that working out and doing double duty.
https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/uscp-arrest...
It makes sense if you think about them wanting to ethnically cleanse Jewish people out of Germany.
"making an agreement with Zionists did not make Hitler a supporter of Zionism any more than the Nazi–Soviet pact made him a supporter of communism."[33]
Have some robot surgeon give people neuralink implants that humiliate them in some way. Maybe give the twitch chat some interactivity.
Punch yourself in the face, convict. Do a backflip and fail doing so. Make the guy say things he despises.
There's so much fuel in the cyberpunk dystopia tank.
Russia - the most corrupt major dictatorship in Europe, military invasions of its peaceful neighbours, hybrid warfare against European countries, nerve agent assassination of political rivals both within and outside Russia. Indiscriminate killing of civilians in Ukraine with no remorse.
US - a constitutional democracy that has alternated leadership in the last decade in the same familiar way it always has. Attacked Iranian regime assets because Iran threatened it with nuclear weapons and fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at US ally Israel (a pluralist democracy that should be defended IMO). Widespread support for the US intervention from ordinary Iranians who has been oppressed by their Islamist dictator for decades; Removed a ruthless dictator in Venezuela due to massive human rights abuses and state narco trafficking, widespread US support from ordinary Venezuelans who have been oppressed by their dictator.
But the scale really is completely different. I think the US is still overall good, and we do still have real elections, limits on government power, and genuine turnover in government where power can shift.
And even as the US govt is trying to scare people away from protesting and they’re building a corporate-government surveillance state, personal freedoms are still very high compared to China and Russia.
Migrate to a new mail server that is 30% faster? Ah, thats nice.
Migrate to a new mail server and things go awry? Fire that entire fucking department they are seriously incompetent and only ever fuck things up.
--signed, the guy who owns a chinese car and thinks china is winning
The US' phony "War on Terror" (a racist war) has killed millions and produced tens of millions of refugees. It has kidnapped sovereign leaders and demolish sovereign states, it has funded terror groups and armed them, it has literally provided the weapons for a genocide.
You're whitewashing.
Okay, I'll bite. Do you routinely make your purchase decisions solely on a single factor? Especially big ones, probably second only in size to your home?
It is possible to loathe Elmo but also conclude that given all the various factors driving your decision making, a Tesla ends up being the best fit.
For sure, I think a good CEO stays the hell out of politics altogether, because it will never recruit more customers, it can only alienate.
What would you think of an agreement by ten guys that they'll work together to beat you up if they decide you're a "bad actor"? Is it somehow solemn and respectable merely because they came to an agreement? Even if you don't agree their self-declaration should give them power over you?
I think the way you've presented things is misleading. International relations is literally anarchy, and different groups have different points of view. Mere collaboration is only that.
FWIW, that's not how the ICC works, any more than your national legal system is "ten guys working together to beat you up if they don't like you."
The point was the ten guys are self-appointed and have no connection to any legitimate higher authority that you recognize. Which is a akin to the US' relation to the UCC, given it's not ratified the treaty.
My "national legal system" is a higher authority (than me), which I recognize as legitimate, and in any case have no power to resist.
The ICC is 125 guys agreeing with each other that if one of them does bad things the others will hold them accountable.
It's not random people asking strangers to follow their rules.
It's literally the state of things: "there is no hierarchically superior, coercive power that can resolve disputes, enforce law, or order the system of international politics. In international relations, anarchy is widely accepted as the starting point for international relations theory." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_(international_relatio...).
If you know of such an authority, please point it out. The UN is not it.
Anarchy doesn't mean constant conflict or power politics or anything like that.
USA sovereignty is not at issue, it's who now holds it as your democracy has failed, and will a future sovereign demos choose to apply this moral law to those within it's sovereign estate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
The USA isn't a party to the Rome Statute, and above and beyond that, reactively passed domestic legislation to thwart any attempt to prosecute crimes committed by its military, including in countries that are party to the Rome Statute -- more than 20 years ago. This is not a recent phenomenon.
You know what else is more than 20 years ago? Americans committing war crimes in other countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
Remember?
The USA, as a country, doesn't want to be held to account by other countries. As it outspends all the other militaries on the planet, it continues to get away with its crimes.
I'm sure you can see the problem with your own argument.
Which is?
The US doesn't recognize the ICC as legitimate, and has the power to resist.
Department of Defense -> Department of War
Lake Ontario -> Lake America
AI -> SI
He's been doing this for years. Change the name from something widely used/adopted to something brand new and watch who follows along. Anyone who starts using the new name is a friend, and anyone who doesn't is an enemy.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Center#Second_Trump_pr...
Including threats to demolish it:
* https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-administration-suggests-k...
Same playbook.
Surely there are less embarrassing ways of doing that sort of thing...
I mean he invaded Venezuela, and everybody knows he wanted the oil, it makes sense. This super intelligence stuff is not making any sense.
Propaganda is simply spammed until it sticks. How could it be worth it to literally make an enemy out of anyone who doesn't take to the new terminology?
Why do you want to know this? Are you planning to do something about it? Anyway, see below.
> How could it be worth it to literally make an enemy out of anyone who doesn't take to the new terminology?
You seem to be mixing the ends here, you think he is the one who's supposed to be afraid of "literally making enemies"?
If you don't listen to him then it results in narcissistic injury and he will retaliate.
Trump is an insanely stupid person. Like, this is beyond doubt at this point. But he is so utterly shameless and unaware of his own endless limitations that it somehow breaks the brains of tens of millions of Americans. It's astonishing.
(If Apple have indeed said this somewhere I’m happy to be proven wrong)
(And on that spectrum, DoD > Department of War is somewhere in the middle)
Google -> Alphabet
Facebook -> Meta
This is relevant to me because Brazil is going to have a presidential election soon and the right wing is taking over. Trump's brazilian ally is expected to win. I'm gonna start paying a lot more attention to US-Brazil relations.
I struggle to remember when I would have ever believed that. I know it is a meme, but there is still so much unfortunate truth to the notion "what would Donald Trump do differently if he were actually a Russian asset?" Because the only good explanation that fits is that he intends to do lasting damage to the USA. Like he is spiteful, feels like we have collectively shat all over him his whole life, taunted him, and now we are to be punished.
