I mean, I would have said something exactly like that a few years ago. But first of all, history is full of atrocities committed by humans. They may all have considered themselves good people, but if they were/are objectively not, what does that matter? And secondly, I have encountered people who appear to think that decency is for sissies or something to that effect. Those people seem seriously emboldened lately. Do they think that being a good person is something to aspire to? I don't think so.

Generally, a lot of people are just not good people.

>they are relatively unbothtered

I mean, obviously, Trumps word is worth about as much as the air it's spoken into, but his recent "truths" don't seem unbothered to me.

It's not hard for me to see. It's very similar to the situation in Ukraine. They have suffered losses but I can only imagine that their morale and confidence is through the roof. Conversely, the population must feel that there is no hope of getting rid of them. The cavalry sounded the horns but mostly rode into the river.

>Disruption to global fossil fuel supply chains was also a goal of this war

..what?

Are you someone who would be inclined to look into something like that?

Yes, that same court. It's incredible how rapidly the legal system has eroded in the US.

We fully agree that the dictatorships are bad, of course they are. And the US is not that, yet. But it sure appears to be flirting with the idea.

The point I am making is not that the US is bad or good, but that it's are losing soft power, and no, that doesn't just mean "doing something we disagree with".

There is an election in my country right now. Key items that parties now profile themselves on are:

* decoupling from US defence tech

* decoupling the public sector from Microsoft and AWS

* decoupling from Visa and Mastercard

Now, even if all of this happens (and it obviously won't just happen as all of those are hard and expensive), my tiny country won't move the needle in any way. But these talking points were completely unimaginable two years ago.

And I see another trend: my peers in the local startup scene are now reconsidering YC and Delaware encorporation as the default for startup creation. Importantly, this is not because of left wing ideology. Most of them, like myself and I think yourself, are somewhat right-leaning in the traditional sense, not MAGA. We all agree that the EU is over regulated and almost detrimental to entrepreneurship. But at this point, betting on the US looks like a liability.

If these trends are similar elsewhere, and I strongly suspect that they are, the long term loss for the US will be significant. It's the kind of effect that we wont see before years have passed and by then, other things will be on the radar, so I doubt that there will ever be a reckoning of this fact. But I don't doubt that it will happen.

...right...

>and now all of a sudden it's the US who is siding with Russia

No, it's not the mean words that indicate this, it's more the open and obvious siding with Russia that does that. And before you go and collect a list of things that Trump has done which have hurt Putin, let me respond to that right away: The fact that he is a bull in a china shop who hurts everyone, whether they're on his side or not, doesn't change the fact that it's clear to anyone and everyone who's side he is on.

>people are making fun of the US

..nobody made fun. Eupolemos was showing you that you are losing soft power, the thing that you don't see any value in.

That's a weird statement. Like all it was were some empty words. The current system, which you don't think is worth caring about, has been exceptionally good for the US. The US is the wealthiest nation in the world. Do you think this is simply because Americans are superior human beings?

Also,

>See Europe begging for help in Ukraine

..what, exactly, are you trying to say here? Other than yes, the US does in fact seem to be siding with Putin in spite of a few attempts at acting neutral.

Nobody would have agreed more with you than me, two years ago. But with Trump, the only thing that is completely clear is that nothing can be safely assumed about the US any longer. The explosion of corruption and corrosion of the legal system screams "liability". Hopefully his power will soon diminish but the damage that has been done, especially to trust, is going to last a lot longer.

Of course, it will be slow and painful and Europeans will need to use their own services for them to grow and mature.

Why not, though? Is this a general stance against banning anything, or do you think loot boxes, video games and/or kids are different?

However, we can't set up a force of psychoanalysts to assess every member of society and run chmod on them, so we go with a compromise.