Let's see Europe protect itself. Let's see the Middle East decide if they are a region that wants to support world terrorism or --on their own-- achieve peace. Let's see if China helps anybody.

I am perfectly comfortable with at least a one decade pullback. I see no reason for US citizens to subsidize countries all over the world to the tune of over $80 billion dollars and absolutely burn far more than that protecting Europe and others. Pull that back 100% and let's see what the world looks like. Invest that money internally on real infrastructure (not California bullshit projects that never get done), education, healthcare, housing and so many things we need far more than protecting the universe.

Yeah, I'd vote for that. I am sick un thankless nations always pointing a finger at the US. Let's eliminate that target and see how places like Spain and the UK and others do when they need help and we are busy watching it from across the ocean.

So be it. You are free to believe whatever you wish.

I don't claim the US to be perfect. Not even close. Yet, we cover 70% of Europe's defense (likely more), fund the UN to the tune of billions, etc.

It's 2026. I think it's time for everyone who thinks the US is evil to just step back and be responsible for their own shit. Fine with me. I'd rather invest that money here for infrastructure, education, affordable housing, healthcare, etc. No more miliary bases outside the US. No more funding for NATO or the UN. No more subsidies for dozens of nations.

Kindly show me where I said that "the US are the good guys".

There are no good guys in this crap. The world is a mess. And you cannot do any of this without things getting messy.

As for my opinion: As a US citizen, I would be perfectly fine with the US closing down all military bases in Europe and elsewhere. Bring it all home.

If Europe wants to defend their territory, they should do it themselves. The US funds somewhere around 70% of NATO. We should exit that thankless organization. Countries like Spain can face reality on their own. We can use the money at home. I don't know how much we spend on all the bases around the world. I'd shut them all down. Again, can invest their own citizen's taxes to defend themselves.

I'd say the same about the UN. We are spending billions to support that organization. Why? Let someone else host them, we'll gladly show up and vote.

In other words, if all the US has gained at an international level for what we have done, it's time to stop.

I don't have a problem with this at all. It isn't about being an isolationist. It's about what we are paying for and how we are being taken advantage of.

This is very similar with the situation we had with drugs. We pay for the R&D here and Europe (and others) enjoyed low drug prices because they did not have to pay for it. We subsidized low prices around the world. Now that is largely ending. Drug prices are going up around the world because we are no longer going to be taken advantage of in that domain. If you want the drugs we develop, pay your fair share of the R&D.

Is any of the above simple or perfect in concept and execution? No. Of course not. Name anything in international relations that is. Nobody can. It does not exist. But you certainly can try to do the right thing and end-up people hating you for it. Whereas those who do nothing don't have that problem. Funny how that works.

How do you know that?

You do realize that the Iranian government (whatever remains of it) is actually insisting, as a condition, that their nuclear materials not be removed from the country?

Others have mentioned China as a benevolent actor of sorts. I find this interesting, maybe even laughable. China is not interested in coming to the aid of anyone in the world. I am not saying this to criticize China. I believe this is purely a statement of fact: They don't do that.

If we pulled it forward to modern times, China, for example, would not put it all on the table and lose nearly 500K lives to save Europe in a world war. They exist for one thing, and one thing only: To do business that benefits their nation. And that's it.

Again, not being critical, just stating what I believe to be a fact. I can also say that I envy that focus to some extent. It's "China first" to an extreme level.

OK, so, if we accept my premise: Who in the world would come to the aid of societies in need?

Let's also agree that perfection does not and will note ever exist on this planet. So, insisting on perfect interventions, actions and outcomes is not rational. We are --humanity-- not perfect.

Well, the answer to this is simple. The only nation with the ability and the demonstrated willingness to risk life, limb and treasure is the US. The rest of the American continent cannot and has never taken this role. Europe has self-decimated over the decades in terms of these capabilities. So, they can't. Africa? Asia? Who's left? Nobody.

Without a doubt, the Arab world --or Middle East in general-- has been a complex neighborhood for quite some time. Yet, things have gotten massively worse when a country like Iran sponsors murderous terrorists in the region and --as confirmed by the current conflict-- makes it a point to build-up a Middle-East-Annihilation arsenal of missiles that could have almost no other purpose than to obliterate everything around them and even as far as Europe.

And then you add the potential for some of these missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

And then you add a regime that simply has not been a rational actor.

So, what do you do? Do you wait until they are a nuclear power? Just like we waited for Hitler to come to power and kill millions of Jews and others? How much slack do you give a regime who's publicly stated goals, for decades, have been the complete destruction of others?

Without a doubt, the actions of the last month or so have not been perfect. They will not be. That's just reality. For example, I don't understand how sinking their entire navy, destroying their air force, destroying their anti-aircraft capabilities, some 20,000 sorties and targets later...we still have to make a deal with them to keep Hormuz open.

How does that happen? Drones and missiles, of course. What is remarkable is that you'd think we would have mitigated that danger to the point where the international waters of the strait would no longer be threatened. I don't understand why stupid reporters never ask this question. Well, I answered it right there.

And yet, to go back to the thought: Who else but the US could have even approached setting Iran back far enough to make the neighborhood less of an issue? China? They would never. They have happily been selling Iran weapons hardware and know-how. They do not exist to benefit the rest of the world. China first. That's the policy.

Can anyone imagine just how far worse --horrific, really-- this would be if Iran had gone nuclear in the next few months or couple of years? This would truly be unimaginable. We've already seen that NATO does not seem to be willing to engage and might be largely useless.

So, while not perfect, at this point in time I believe that this is one of those "treating the cancer early" scenarios. Iran was on a straight path to being a nuclear nation run by deranged theocratic lunatics. This, while not ideal, not perfect, not desirable, not pretty, is likely a good thing. Now it has to end with the right outcome, whose minimum definition is to denuclearize Iran. From there, it would be nice to see the wonderful Iranian people get out from under the oppression they have been living under for so long. If you know any Iranians (we have many friends) you know they are actively rooting for the US to succeed and are thankful. Same with Venezuelans, BTW.

I also thought about Tesla's problem, which is interesting: No recognition whatsoever.

This, I think, is critical. If you are in Austin, it is impossible not to see Waymo's driving around seemingly everywhere. You see them, watch them interact, interact with them (crossing the street, etc.) and start thinking "I have to try this".

I have no clue if there are Tesla robot taxi's driving around Austin. Why? Because I can see Waymo's on the road a block away and recognize them due to the very visible hardware stack they carry. Tesla's? They all look the same. no clue what a Tesla autonomous vehicle might look like, much less see them in action and watch them navigate traffic at a distance and close-up.

So, for a few days, the thought was "I have to ride a Waymo" and Tesla did not even remotely own any part of that sentiment.

They have a big problem. It's the lack of non-trivial physical branding.

That's a gross misinterpretation of what "doing business with" means.

The process through which you parked the domains with Google entailed loading a file with the list of domains, after which each one would, in turn, be approved or denied. All 400+ domains were approved.

A few days later I received a cryptic message about unusual click activity on the domains and the Google account I had at the time was shut down immediately without recourse. I visited a few of the pages (not all 400, maybe a dozen) as they were approved to see what they put on them. Of course I did not click on anything. I might be accused of being stupid, but I am not an idiot. Besides, I pretty much knew the income would be a rounding error, maybe a few cups of coffee per year, maybe.

Well, nobody to call, text, email or send smoke signals to. Nothing.

That's when I decided I would never do business with Google. All I use from them is search. That's it. Nothing else. I can't trust them with anything that is business related and anything personally important.

Gmail? No way. I pay for Zoho mail for all the email accounts for my businesses and I am very happy about the product, the service and the isolation from a despotic company that can shut down your life in a microsecond.

While not all cancers are the same, we cannot ignore the fact that there's a metabolic link to cancer onset and development. Our industrialized food system simply isn't healthy. I don't know how we do it, but there has to be a way to alter behavioral patterns (nutrition, exercise, visceral fat control, substance abuse, etc.) to actually protect people from both bad inputs and, frankly, themselves.

I don't say "themselves" in the sense of suggesting an overlord scenario. The reality is that most people are ill-informed and our industrialized food system is designed to be supremely addictive. Anyone who has battled with processed food understands just how difficult it can be not to consume it, both from a widespread availability perspective and what it does to your brain.

Despite the fact that treatment options and efficacy have improved, without fixing these factors it will be impossible to win this battle at scale.

Having lost several members of our family to cancer over the last several decades, including my mother, I sometimes question where all the money going into cancer research has gone. Maybe what has been lacking are motivated patients with both the means and the intellectual capacity to drive for solutions. Again, I hope you find a path.

I got so sick of getting emails from Pinterest with the title: "this is so you-coded" that I now instantly delete them through an email rule.

In other words, I don't even see them. You'd think they'd get the hint through analytics.

The fallacy here is the assumption that "like" we all "like" are "like" from "like" San "like" Francisco/SV and we all "like" speak "like" and "like" think "like" that "like" way. Like.

Like. Get a clue.

Grumpy mode off.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510640

Points: 2

# Comments: 6

It's interesting that Jason Calacanis is fully committed to OpenClaw. In a recent podcast he said that at a run rate around $100K a year per agent, if not more. They are providing each agent with a full set of tools, access to online paid LLM accounts, etc.

These are experiments you can only run if you can risk cash at those levels and see what happens. Watching it closely.

Dating myself, I fully experienced the negative side of gaming back around the time of games like Duke Nukem, etc. I worked nights for a few years. I'd get home at 2 AM fully awake from having driven home. I'd sit down and play for four hours, maybe more. No social element at all in those days. I quick when I started to have nightmares and realized it was because of the games. Decades later, with kids, there was no way I was going to let a ten year old destroy their brains with an addictive substance in the form of a game.

Going back to culture and socialization, I don't really know what the answer might be today, much less in the future. Maybe AI friends will be crucially important (I shudder to think this could be true). Some of it comes down to family structure and dynamics. Our cultural makeup means that we are very often in family-and-friends gathering with 20 to 50 people. That does help kids relate to humans more than keyboards, yet the danger is still there.

Maybe this is where schools might need to become far closer to community organizations than (sorry, I have to...) centers for indoctrination. I attended private school most of my young life. One of the interesting aspects of this is that the parents all knew each other and socialized. We would go to each others homes, throw parties, travel together, etc. This is very different from the (again, I'm sorry, I must...) typical US school-as-a-cattle-ranch approach where you have a high school with 4000 students. I know I am being very opinionated and maybe a bit elitist due to my young experience, it should be noted that this was in a third world country...so, when I say "private school" the reader should not imagine what that might mean in the US.

My point is that things are becoming very complex at a social level and we, as a society, need to make sure that kids grow up to be solid adults. Today there are so many opportunities for them get lost in screens that I truly don't know what social problems might come out of this mess. Games are but one part of it.

Was it really a single turnstile for a building with over 10 floors? That's kind of silly, isn't it? Mass transit operations have this figured out. Most recently for me, taking the monorail in Las Vegas for the CES show. No problems for the most part. It would be interesting to know what this company actually installed.

True enough. Of course, you are not going to get that in this case. All I can say is that those commenting here about potentially cataclysmic consequences are likely precisely the kind of people who will practice the kind of soft "friend class" parenting that can result in really troubled kids. If they even have kids at all, because some of the comments by others sound infantile.

The other narrative that is utterly false is that of role models in the negative sense. Almost all of you are one or two generations away from a culture and style of parenting where beating the kids was considered normal and even good parenting. An era where teachers beating kids in school was also normal and accepted. And yet, that has largely not survived the generational divide except in some segments of some cultures.

Raising kids and being a role model isn't a matter of single events or experiences, it is, like most other things in the human condition, a matter of building a relationship over time and understanding that life usually is a rollercoaster ride, not a straight-and-flat road.

Precisely. I am not saying I am perfect as a parent or that this was the best possible approach to the situation we had. Nobody is and perfect parenting is an absolute myth.

I knew full well just how addictive gaming could be because I experienced it in my 20's. Needless to say that the "shock and awe" consequence to their deceit was not the result of a single data point. We had been seeing changes in behavior over time (six months or so). The objective was three fold: Take away the device that delivered the addictive behavior. Take away something of value to them. Make them earn it back with positive behavior.

The decision was not planned and the consequences were not communicated in advance. Few things in life are like that. Sometimes people discover the consequences of their actions (or understand them) when they are sprung on them because of something they did. Drunk driving being one possible (though not perfect) example of this.

In this case, it worked. Perhaps we got lucky. Not sure. I also did highlight that I cannot speak for all parents. I did the best I thought made sense at the time. Based on the outcome, many years later, I can say it worked.

To the critics on this thread: Your mileage may vary. Some of the comments sound juvenile, perhaps you'll understand if you ever become a parent and face similar circumstances. Then see what you think of someone who thinks they know better from behind a keyboard than you did in the moment and without having to be responsible for the outcomes (which is a multi-year commitment).