Mastodawn

ben moretti Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 this discussion is happening in Australia too. Government and business are both highly dependent on US cloud hyperscalers. Moving off that? Enormous. Maybe not possible.

Dave Mc Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 Just so we're clear. Pretty much every business has IT in the cloud, which is all US owned, and effectively at the whims of Trump. There are currently not really any non-US alternatives.

Mike Anderson Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 unwinding?! The government is this very minute pushing hard on things which bed in those large US companies. The Digital ID infrastructure. Palantir in the NHS. Blocking VPNs makes it difficult for companies to have multiple offices, unless their office software is in the cloud.

It's as if these policies were written by US tech companies. They probably were.

ImmigrationIsNotACrime Jan 18

https://www.politico.eu/article/palantir-lands-biggest-ever-uk-defense-deal/

It's mind-boggling that the UK would give a massive defence contract to a US company when Trump is threatening to invade Greenland. Especially a company like Palantir which is run by a guy who thinks women shouldn't be allowed to vote and is very close to Trump.

The only way this makes sense is if you regard it as deliberate. Filter out what Starmer has said on the issue and look at his actions and who he is linked with. It feels like the UK leadership are either OK with US military dominance or resigned to it. For them, the UK military is simply an extension of the US military. The more compliant the more favours and jobs these politicians will win from US big tech and Washington.

Palantir lands biggest ever UK defense deal

The £240 million contract with the Ministry of Defence has renewed a debate about Britain’s dependence on American technology.

POLITICO

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Jan 18

@iinac

Yes I agree it looks like collusion not strategy

Frank Bennett 🇯🇵Jan 18

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 Sounds right. Palantir would be radioactive to a government intent on preserving independence.

Toni Aittoniemi Jan 18

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 Yeah, this is crazy. Palantir is basically an arm of the US state.

@gimulnautti

Thanks to the Cloud Act, so is AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Oracle.....

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6

🟥 Eveline Sulman 🇳🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦Jan 18

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 is it still that special relationship?

The Penguin of Evil Jan 18

@EvelineSulman @iinac @ChrisMayLA6 very special relationship. Starmer is just better at PR than Trump.

Maccoy Jan 18

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6
In France we are witnesses the same . the state contractualizes with the company Palantir.

beemoh Jan 18

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 I'm fairly sure there is or has been an ex-Palantir man on the Labour NEC under Starmer's tenure. I'd have to go looking it up to be sure.

Andy Wootton Jan 20

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 If they want jobs, why are they replacing them with unproven 'AI'? We replaced jobs in agriculture with worse jobs in factories then with worse jobs in call-centres or moving information about, to sell things people didn't want and fixing IT that shouldn't have broken. Why are they still called "labour"?

"Google, Draw me a picture of the Emperor of 'Merica with his clothes removed, then point and laugh until everyone joins in."

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/24/483353866/make-britain-great-again-donald-trumps-remarkable-reaction-to-brexit

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 Just starting to pick up on why Trump loved Brexit so much? It was a real head scratcher to most people in the US. Britain should unBrexit itself and encourage Canada to come along. Greenland problem solved, and the EU will have all the resources it needs to give the US a serious timeout. Americans will have to sort their "enterprising" ilk out on their own. There's no I in team. Unfortunately, just turning to China for relief is sticking a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

@iveyline Jan 21

@iinac @ChrisMayLA6 Getting in bed with the devil

Nicole Parsons Jan 18

The first rule of billionaires giving away "free" cloud storage, "free" book digitization, and "free" email services: TANSTAAFL

"There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch"

Toni Aittoniemi Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 It’s not that we don’t have the technological knowhow though, it’s that the USA dominates in finance. Their hegemonic petrodollar allows the country to live over it’s means and outprice everyone else.

David S Jan 18

https://european-alternatives.eu/

European Alternatives

We help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products.

European Alternatives

David S Jan 18

The way I see it, this is no different to outsourcing, but instead of labour or manufacturing, it's datacenters. I do wonder how Reform can reconcile support for US tech companies with their "UK first" declarations but I guess most of the general public simply don't care

Steve Woods Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 Blame our government for its like of dealing with the big boys instead of stuff that works.

Public sector IT procurement has been in thrall to US for decades.

As we used to say in our little #opensource IT co-op: "No-one ever got the sack for buying #Microsoft.

Spread the word - https://european-alternatives.eu/

European Alternatives

We help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products.

European Alternatives

John Dal Jan 18

@wood5y @ChrisMayLA6 Too bloody right, they stuck with Ross Perot's EDS for decades, their systems were responsible for more than one high profile failure/overspend/overrun yet they kept getting the contracts. I wonder why?

Steve Woods Jan 18

@JohnDal @ChrisMayLA6 See also #Fujitsu, #Crapita, etc.

John Dal Jan 18

@wood5y @ChrisMayLA6 O god, don't mention Fujitsu. We were writing an OO multi-dimensional spreadsheet accountancy tool for big companies and the directors of our software house insisted on us using Fujitsu's OO database. We knew it was crap, but were stuck with it. I had to write a Java database connection pooler because the thing wouldn't handle more than a couple of connections. I think backhanders were involved.

𝔅icyclet𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 can we please give @pluralistic suggestion of repealing anti-circumvention (DMCA equivalents) across Europe and the world a go? Are they afraid of fair competition?

Cade Jan 18

@ChrisMayLA6 I think the US-EU relationship is like a relationship between car and driver. You could consider the car has been servicable up until now - and if it suddenly starts making bad noises you'd take some time to repair if possible. But if it utterly strands you, then maybe you'd have to abandon it. Trump is a lot of bad noises - indicating without doubt that something has gone amiss in the US system. It is terrible suspense to wait and see if some backup system kicks in to bypass the noise problem. But I am optimistic that this will all soon pass and the car will soon stop belching black smoke - and of course if it were _my_ car, I'd never take it on a long road trip again . . .

Linux and praxis: part of the resistance 🇵🇸 ☮️Jan 18

Unfortunately, he's one of the culprits with his Apple phone and stuff. There was a time when we had backup servers with storage cheap as chips. It's time to return to vertical integration with Linux and NAS. No one NEEDS to use the Cloud - it's fetishism.

Godfrey642 Jan 18

https://substack.com/@politicsusa46/note/c-201435815?r=4up5ys

And this

Truth Matters (@politicsusa46)

Here’s a clip that is well worth your time today over a coffee. It’s always good to introduce some historical context to Trump’s lunacy. Thanks to The Americans for the clip 🎥 TikTok - vm.tiktok.com/ZNRkGB7fC/

Substack

Emeritus Prof Christopher May Jan 18

@Godfrey642

I'm not sure I take the T-Bills argument seriously... to dump the T-Bills there needs to be a buyer; you might argue the bonds will be bid down & this will effect future iterations of debt, but this is not a major immediate issue for the US, as it can just print more money.... until the dollar is no longer the reserve currency of the world, the 'problem' of a massive dollar devaluation is going to be spread far & wide in the immediate sense, which is why you will not se the dump

Godfrey642 Jan 18

Id like to know what America is going to do - or allow the rest of us to do - to stop them voting in a moron from a TV Show ever again

They had votes but we globally have all suffered bc of their dumb ass stoopidity. This cannot surely happen again.

Germany was de-Nazified and split into zones to aid rehabilitation. How the hell does deTrumpification happen to the 110 million ppl who are his MAGA Christian base ???

The Penguin of Evil Jan 18

@Godfrey642 @ChrisMayLA6 I actually think fixing the US after it totally melts down is easier than it seems. Most of the oligarchs will be dead or fled, and in times of chaos systems become more malleable. In theory you fix the voting system, rework the supreme court and don't just strip executive powers but push most of them down to state level - guns, shower heads, state healthcare, etc. Or the same occurs as a formal split into countries

@etchedpixels @Godfrey642 @ChrisMayLA6

Dave Volek Jan 18

Trouble is that successful revolutionaries usually create a system for themselves, not the people.

The Penguin of Evil Jan 18

@davevolek @Godfrey642 @ChrisMayLA6 As everyone does, because they can only create a system easily to fix the "problems" as they see them.

Hopefully it takes a lot less time to debug than the French revolution - but revolutions can and often are a good deal cleaner than that.

The US though has IMHO to push decision making downwards because it's multiple groups with totally different values so to stay together it has to resolve them (unlikely) or push them out to state level.

@etchedpixels @Godfrey642 @ChrisMayLA6

Dave Volek Jan 18

I was challenged with this revolutionary paradox when putting the pieces together for my alternative democracy. It is unlikely the revolutionaries will implement my suggestions.

So I devised a peaceful way to move from one system to the next.

Many, many people in the tech sector have been talking about the potential problems of US-dependency for years (and told to be quiet), but while Europe has been slow to build its own platforms to reduce the dependency, there is a ready-made alternative to US Big Tech in China....which Europe has heavily sanctioned and won't deal with for concerns about national security.

Is it time for a rethink?

....it's arguable that the near universal dependency on US cloud systems in Europe is due at least in part to Europe's willingness to sanction Chinese tech services on US advice.

Remember the nuclear power stations and the Huawei 5G network that China was going to build in Europe?

@ReggieHere @ChrisMayLA6 the problem exists because "free" democracies have been content doing business with authoritarians to extort their people. Now, the bill is coming due. Which authoritarian cloud do you want to be a part of? Doesn't sound like much of a choice. Work sucks, but someone always has to do it 💪 somewhere.

@cmthiede

Not sure which countries you're calling 'free democracies' and 'authoritarian' here, but European complacency probably has a lot to do with the current situation. There were States in Germany that weren't reliant on Microsoft until relatively recently.

@ReggieHere @ChrisMayLA6 There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you're a bully. Free countries are any that claim to hold free and fair elections. Authoritarian countries are any of those that govern top down, with little to no input from its citizens. You mentioned getting help from one authoritarian country, because you're fearful of doing business with one that's quickly becoming one, while disconnecting from the energy supplied by another one. It's what's called a pickle, or conundrum. The earth has more than enough resources for all living things to share, but not for those robbing it to hold sway over everyone else. Death by 1000 conveniences. Who has enough money for a ticket to Mars? How many people actually want one? IDK, all good questions to ask local leaders.

@cmthiede

Interestng, thankyou.

I'm still not entirely sure which countries you're referring to for each role, since the USA is currently run by a President who is bankrolled by billionaires (top down?), while China has frequent elections from unions and local govrnment up to national level (so bottom up?). Either way, I'd agree that resources and wealth could be distributed more evenly than they currently are.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/net

@ReggieHere @ChrisMayLA6 coincidentally, there's a great documentary by a lesser known German filmmaker that pulled the lid off this charade long before it started blowing up in everyone's faces.

https://youtu.be/Yn9BvNAUvcU

#TheNet