> By the way, you can never switch completely to just renewables, it doesn't scale that well.

China is scaling, so is Australia, quite possibly other countries. We'll know when they hit the limits and stop deploying more solar.

Solar is dirt cheap (1200x cheaper), batteries are getting cheaper by the minute.

If you are rational thinking person, would you bet on technology that increases in costs over time or gets cheaper over time?

> invest in nuclear.

There was a time many decades ago to deploy nuclear at scale. Fossil fuel shills used 'environmentalists' to shut down all progress of nuclear. Now, they use nuclear again to slow down solar and wind. Just wait 30 - 50 years, we'll have a proper solution.

I do agree with you on nuclear though, countries should invest in nukes for security. All countries should invest in nuclear, it provides both energy security and real security from mischievous actors.

This is a very out of date option.

Look at any recent data, and you'll find that renewables scale fantastically well, are super cheap, and even today as they are the cheapest source of energy, they continue to get cheaper.

Meanwhile nuclear, even in France, is an example of "negative learning by doing," where it gets more expensive as time goes on.

Even China, the best builder out there, is only doing a token amount of nuclear compared to renewables and batteries. And no advanced economy is going to be able to build nuclear as cheap as China; our labor costs are too high and construction logistics are not good enough.

> You think other countries can't restrict those things? Restricting components related to those things will work just fine.

This is of course very wrong, there are very highly diversified sources for all these things, more and more are coming online.

Nuclear is in far more dire straits along those lines than renewables, there's more constrained supplies, a shrinking number of people building the supplies. The US didn't stop importing uranium from Russia until a 2024 ban...

This is suppose to be a tech forum.

With enough solar panels, wind turbines and batteries it's completely possible to run an countries grid off renewables.

Right now the costs for doing so are around the same as the costs of running an oil / gas / coal power grid.

For the average country, not slowly switching over is basically madness.

> You think other countries can't restrict those things? Restricting components related to those things will work just fine.

Eh, once you have built your grid in solar and wind, you don't really depend on the countries that sold solar panels and wind turbines for you. Those last for a long time, long enjoy that you can even spin up manufacturing yourself; it's not really something inscrutable.

There may be an argument that depending on the state of the world that raw materials to manufacture some of those things may become more complicated to access, but that is true even for countries that currently make those.

> If you want clean, abundant, cheap, secure energy, invest in nuclear.

Absolutely, yes.

Energy should be abundant and diversified.

There’s a huge difference in relying on others for daily fuel/fertiliser supplies for your survival, and relying on them for parts for vehicles/infrastructure that can run for decades.

There’s also the fact that EV batteries - and many of the other components in this plan - can be recycled. Once the transition is complete I expect larger regions (ie Europe, but maybe not an individual European country) will be self sufficient in their materials.

> By the way, you can never switch completely to just renewables, it doesn't scale that well. They are simply too inefficient, unsecure, to "switch completely" in a country scale.

You absolutely can. This is a completely outdated idea by this point. We have all the solutions we need. What’s more, if you switch to electricity for industrial heating, metal production and fertiliser production, you will have ALL the buffers you need to absorb fluctuations in renewable energy and more. Especially for heating solutions - storing energy for months is trivial. Most people aren’t aware that just dumping excess energy in geothermal wells in summer has become fairly common in the Netherlands. Especially Americans live in this bubble where they have no clue about solutions that have become commonplace and widespread in other countries.

> Oil is needed for many components inside stuff you mentioned.

No. Oil is just hydrocarbons. It’s not a magical substance. The only thing that’s hard to replace is the longer hydrocarbons. But we’ve been forced to do deal with that anyway due to better vehicle fuel economy (the amount of bitumen you get when refining enough oil to drive a car X km is going down, giving you less bitumen to pave those X km of road).

> Oil is a must in military.

I’ll give you that. For a while. Though the quantities are smaller. Any reason to think Europe couldn’t be self sustained for that purpose?

I suspect advancements will reduce need for oil there as well over time. We can already synthesise jet fuel.

> If you want clean, abundant, cheap, secure energy, invest in nuclear.

It’s not the magic bullet people think. There have been huge supply chain issues with nuclear as well. Though at least you can fairly easily build up a supply of fuel that can last a decade or two.

The main issue that nuclear isn’t cheap enough to be a part of a full decarbonisation solution. We need the dirt cheap intermittent excess electricity from renewables to make decarbonisation of fertilisers and various industrial processes viable. We have started to get the first local self sustained renewable ammonia production plants for fertiliser recently - and they’re generally tied to local renewable electricity production. The cost of the electrolysis and storage solutions for making hydrogen keeps going down, so it’s increasingly viable to produce hydrogen intermittently and store it to use when electricity is more expensive.

I like nuclear. But it’s not essential, and will probably not be competitive barring a huge breakthrough. And no, SMRs are not it. The way to get the cheapest nuclear is to build the biggest reactors. Same as with wind turbines. The scaling laws favour bigger designs (energy production scales with volume, costs roughly scale with reactor vessel surface area)

How is it hard? It's difficult to build electrical generation these days and not go renewables because they're so cheap and fast to deploy.

It's not a total solution, but market forces wise everything says "build solar and batteries with your money". Governments practically don't need to do anything for this to be the default.

I suspect the people of Greenland won't ever trust Americans again.

This isn't just going to go away. You can't just undo what Orange Mussolini is doing, and it'll take far longer than a decade before anything like a trusting relationship can be reestablished.

As a European, that would change nothing for me. The issue is systemic disinformation, fundamental lack of empathy and all those echo chambers. As long as this exists, the current situation will repeat or get worse.

> november

Have the Dem restored "appealing" and leadership?

--

Edit: look, see? About the barbarity of sniping (the counterargument to the at least two hitters at time of edit is not the post from lyu07282). My post is obvious and direct - friend of mine met only days ago a minor intellectual stating that voting the current administration in the usa was "right" given the opponents, and it is one of a long series of encounters. That the acquaintances of the friend were insulted or not in response is irrelevant. That a regime gave power to another out of evident faults is a fact, and if the reaction of some is ventral - "oooh! boo!" - the highway downwards remains paved.

The democrats will gain a paper-thin majority, but one politician from Bumshart, Nebrahoma will block every important vote and nothing will change.

Feels like I’ve seen this movie before

Sorry but no "unless" left IMO. China has been and is still gaining momentum in every strategic matter, and they are very probably going to lead from now on.

What I am curious about is how that global leadership is going to change them, from citizens to government.

It's cute that you think power is going to change hands in November. It'll be his reischtags fire. He's already planning to send ice to police the elections and only in places he's bound to win will people be voting.

> and it's going to be like that for decades unless in like november or so there's a broad sweep of offices and the other party actually exercises power for once and prosecutes politicians criminal behavior instead of that infuriating clemency nonsense they always do.

European here. I've written about that on Reddit but can't find it because the search there is dogshit so I'll have to write from memory...

We will not trust the US again any time soon, and so is our position regarding the UK. What both of you did, and especially how you got there, is an appalling history, a tale of a completely subverted democracy, and most importantly of a system that never got forced to be updated to centuries of learnings, unlike virtually all developed countries who underwent sometimes multiple wars, revolutions or the occasional peaceful democratisation.

Before we trust you again, you must undergo what we Germans had to post-1945. You have to update your constitutions, yeet out the fossil crap that in no small part led to the situation (FPTP voting, media regulations, in the case of the US making voting either a holiday or move it to Sunday like everyone else), prosecute not just the corrupt politicians but also the oligarchs that backed them, introduce an educational system that is actually worth the name to prevent the youth being corrupted, and demonstrate for many years that you can be trusted again.

Trust is easy to tear apart. All you need is a buffoon shitting in his own diapers [1] or a bus littered with propaganda [2] and a dumbass uneducated populace. But it takes decades and/or immense suffering to (re)build. And for both the US and the UK we gave you not just one chance to show you're better, but multiple. The US first had Bush wo tried to rope us into the Iraq war with his WMD lies, then after Obama came Trump 1, and after Biden came Trump 2, and the final straw regarding the UK and its ever more braindead PM choices was Lettuce Liz [3].

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_Leave_bus

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce

Probably not, but that may show how low trust in the US has dropped?

At the rate Taiwan's superpower ally is declining, China just needs a little patience and a beneficent long term strategy & Taiwan will decide to switch ally's from self interest

Specifically because China has now opportunity to gain international trust. Also, their own advancements in semiconductor manufacturing make Taiwan less attractive of an asset.

What's hyperbolic? The trust thing is borne out by repeated polling of which countries people trust. The current US administration is openly profiteering from governing.

I do think it'll take a few years before Americans wake up to how badly their reputation has tanked around the world across successive governments of either party in the recent decade.

Greenland, Iran, Falklands, Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan, all these things probably feel like minor missteps in the US news cycle but they have had a major impact.

I think Americans are unwilling or unable to see just how much foreign attitudes towards the US have shifted.

That comment was 100% correct. There was no hyperbole there.

And because of the very convenient geographical location USA is unlikely to be invaded. You'd want your gold to be safe.

> Also to note, why was the US trusted before?

Trust was never absolute. What we trusted was that the US would act rationally to further their interests. The US benefited tremendously from economic development across the world (industrialisation, free trade, rebuilding after the wars, etc). Sometimes the US government miscalculated (like in Iraq), but there was nothing really destructive like what Trump is doing.

Even when we disagreed we could still talk things through and agree on other things. Now, you have Trump insulting allies and praising ennemies every day. Of course there is no trust.

In this context "trust" is something of a euphemism. The US had a big enough military relatively speaking that if they came for your gold then it wasn't feasible to stop them unless you were part of a competing bloc. So, you know. Keep the gold somewhere the US is happy with. Best shot of getting to a good outcome, and the US was pretty reasonable in the 1900s.

That all appears to have changed. They may already have lost the ability to physically coerce even medium powers and at any rate look like they have to retreat the boundaries of their global Not-An-Empire. So it makes sense to start rethinking the gold's physical location.

The US constitution is strong against despots and pro law. It's being tested now but I think maga too will pass.

The US is largely immune to being invaded due to having a lot of guns and a lot of ocean.

This long predates Marshall.

I think you should look up the Morgenthau plan and look at the state of Germany today. Of course people will say that it's all because of Germany's own decisions. To which I would counter that Germany doesn't any sovereign decisions and the last time it did that was in 2011.

There is a very awkward episode in Belgium national history, at the eve of WWII, the then minister of finance Camille Gutt, had the foresight to move tonnes of gold from the national bank to America and France but for some reason our king did not manage to pack his bags in time and was captured by the Nazis.

> why was the US trusted before?

because risk of US stealing gold was lower and potential usefulness in case of being invaded by Russia et all was higher?

I mean, we were trusted but also not fully.

This isnt the first time European powers repatriated gold from the US. In 1971 France sent their navy to take their gold back because of another conservative US leader who decided to try and leverage our power at the expense of international trust and lost us a portion of said power[1].

I am an American. I preferred when we were stronger because we sweetened the deal enough with everyone else that they let us be world financier/police/anti piracy force/etc.

This fucking machismo theory taking over the older conservatives and the "The Torment Nexus was actually an awesome idea" taking over the tech bros and younger conservatives is fucking destroying us. Both groups seem incapable of believing in a win/win deal. Its also zero sum game to these fuckers and thus our soft power, and eventually our hard power, is being lost.

[1]https://www.helleniscope.com/2025/07/31/august-1971-the-day-...

Not relevant to the point - "I gave my item to my former friend Paul". For some reason or for some other, it happens.

And miscalculations in game theory happen ("he wouldn't, given...").

The something was the collapse of the USSR, right? "The end of history" etc.

Case in point: a naive belief in "high moral". Bad guy (Ru) attacks good guy - bad, punish, cancel. When good guy (US) attacks bad guy - that's different, whataboutism etc. Such POV falls apart when good guy (US) attacks another good guy (EU), and while you may chose to ignore such possibility, European leaders don't (a rare case of competence on their side).

You’re not sure that Trump is unstable?

The end of hegemony isn’t usually immediately followed by the appointment of a new leader, usually it means fragmented power and war.

Yes, China is a likely eventual successor and in some parts is the world has replaced the US in being the influential superpower.

China is making trade deals and integration left and right and even Canada and Mexico are looking in other directions and cooperate more closely with china and eu. Maybe not a single power has to hold power

China has historically been the most powerful nation in the world multiple times, but always remained relatively inward looking, while acting as more of a merchant towards the rest of the world. I don't see any reason to think that will substantially change. So the most likely scenario is we end up, and arguably are already in, a truly multipolar world where no individual nation is the hegemon.

> Does anyone in power anywhere actually think China has finally overtaken the US hegemony?

No, not really. For now we are headed towards a multipolar world rather than a hegemony.

Europe-China trade has already overtaken the US. If only you knew how bad things really are...

As for hegemony? Well the Chinese actually don't want to be world police.

I would guess that most of those announced deals will never come to fruition. He loves to pat himself on the back, and everybody seems willing to go along with it, until they actually have to spend money.

> cutting off a bunch of trade

Given the last 19 months of tariff chaos while Republicans control all branches of government, I don't see any reason to think they're concerned about that.

Plus the whole "assassinate the Iranian president in the middle of negotiations to start a war across a major global trade-route" thing.

I dont know. Stock market claps and absorb everything these do happily.

The USA might hold a majority of the worlds value generation in a few decades. If AI generated in the USA powers everything. Then the USA does not need to borrow anymore.

Or Bitcoin. Of which almost half is already under US control.

Anyhow, much of the new currency will flow to the USA if the USA becomes the worlds source of (artificial) intelligence.

That cuts both ways. US entities own huge amounts of overseas assets including debt.

A more appropriate saying would be cutting off your foot to spite your leg.

Thankfully no one has done that yet.

yes. but most of it is not to other countries. Most government debt (over 80% globally) is privately owned through sovereign debt instruments like bonds.

Plus even on a less-than-wartime level, nobody wants wants their own national assets to be held-hostage or used for extortion, whenever this Republican administration next demands a "favor" for domestic bragging or kowtowing-humiliation for a perceived personal slight.

As Boston would sing, "More than a Feeling"

He's the center of gravity who's enabling the decline at the moment. It's a rare case where doing the thing would probably result in less instability instead of more.

It’s the voters that put him back. You could say it was an aberration the first time but the second? Americans are too stupid and selfish to be trusted with the immense power they were given.

Evidence points to Ukraine doing it, not the US.

I'm not the one asking the question, I'm providing an answer.

That you don't like the answer speaks more to your state of mind than my own.

There are a few platforms that facilitate personal transactions using stuff like Venmo and Zelle but I suspect most of the people who are continuously selling lots of coins are probably silk road type vendors so I have to imagine it's just a great way to get your Venmo account on the feds radar.

oh thanks! wasn't lazyness but looking for exactly this type of context from somebody else.

based on that and the link, we can say that it's a process started long time ago and now simply accelerating and escalating after Ukrainian conflict and confiscation of a european partner assets?

shouldn't the risk of confiscation ,when having resources held abroad and in other jurosdiction always be considered?

I was pretty much surprised when Bank of England said Venezuelan gold was not Venezuelan gold anymore and took it hostage, then what is the sense of having it abroad if the abroad partner can switch idea of ownership anytime?

> But I believe you can relax, because this is all nonsense.

Sorry, but no.

Even if there are no kinetic attacks towards allies right now, the "crazy old man" is causing real harm. Harm to global stability and the world order, economies, to businesses and individuals, to long term initiatives such as research and healthcare. But most importantly, real harm to the trust between ourselves. Western allies can no longer trust the USA, it is broken, we no longer have the same values.

The first time in 2016 we forgave, everyone makes mistakes and Europe is certainly not free of them. But the American people chose to elect him twice with full knowledge, now everyone suffers.

So the rest of the world forges its own path now. America's military, economic and cultural hegemony will decline. Not tomorrow, maybe not even quickly, but inevitably. Godspeed !

I bought that initially, but Trump is causing real harm. The abandonment of WHO and USAid programs, stepping out of the paris accords etc. etc.

But the real issue is that he has been elected twice, it is not some one-off freak accident, a lot of americans just care more about transphobia or pizzagate than climate change or geopolitics and thats why its now clear to the rest of the world that we can’t trust the US any more.

> the American people can't even support a war against Iran

The American people can't even support a war against their own government. A government that they ruminate, "may be" or "may not be" a team of Russia/Israel assets with the goal to grab every dollar and to turn USA into a dystopia.

At this moment nobody can even assure with full certainty that there is not a bomb buried yet somewhere in the WH.

Except that “crazy old man” (I’d have gone with corrupt criminal malignant narcissist to be honest) isn’t just shouting at pigeons in the park he already screwed up the world economy by starting a war he can’t figure out how to exit and dozens of other things.

When the pigeon shouter threatens to annex Canada/Greenland you can shrug it off, when the leader of the largest economy and military says it, you can’t.

Words matter.

I’m British, We are often regarded as one of the US’s closest allies, I’m fucking furious with Trump and the people who support him, I’ve been boycotting everything US made that I can and I essentially see the current US as a globally destabilising force.

Are there decent Americans appalled by what they’ve become, sure, doesn’t make a difference to the outcome though.

Trump isn’t the main problem, he’s a symptom of the disease that is the main problem, the US elected him twice, that rot goes to the core.

> But I believe you can relax, because this is all nonsense.

We're at the point where the two countries, with most wars between them in history, stood side by side, ready to defend Greenland against a U.S. invasion.

The monkey has a hand grenade. You lot gave it to him. Twice. You might find that it's a bit late for "relax, he's only kidding".

> But I believe you can relax, because this is all nonsense.

Tell that to Iran. Or Canada. Nobody in Europe is certain that he won’t do anything stupid in Greenland, either. We’re already in a trade war (mostly one-sided but still).

>But I believe you can relax, because this is all nonsense.

Wow you guys really don't get it, do you? It's not nonsense to us.

You are as wrong as your parent comment. Not only Russia is invading US, but US is less of the supporter of Russia than EU. EU literally funds Russia and doesn't plan stopping completely.

Well, who knows? The trajectory has been set in and it is downwards. After Nero and the year of the four emperors the Roman Empire still had ways to go. So, I would say also the US can potentially recover. On the other hand the saying 'it cannot possibly get worse than this' has also been disproven may times in history. In any case, I like to sum it all up by saying "The US is a superpower attempting to become a third world country".

I guess he means the Bretton Woods system, where the US dollar was backed by gold and everything else was backed by the US dollar, wouldn't have existed. Everything would have been backed by gold, instead.