"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America."
You would think google, microsoft and apple would be having kittens over this. How will any government or large corporation trust their goods and services if they can be disabled at will because the USA government takes offence to you, or someone in your department. Good for linux I guess but pain for the rest of us.
They issued a General License concurrent to the ICC sanctions designation to authorize IT/ICT services, similar to licenses that exist for many sanctioned countries. https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/937191/download?inline
It's almost amusing reading this through the lens of the visa shuttering article from yesterday (which a lot were cheering) because none of the receivers were born in the US.
You know what's funny? I live in a very progressive town. Everyone is pissed at Elon. Everyone drives Teslas. And not old one, clearly tons of them were purchased after he went "bad". Clearly people's principles are contingent on the car sale discounts.
Sold mine after running it a few months covered with stickers saying what I thought of him. Drive another EV now and will not go back. No discount on the car. Stop generalizing.
Insane these awards are going mostly to executives, Musk getting it for engineering sciences is a slap in the face to anyone that previously received the award.
"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?
I don't disagree with your feelings on 45/47, or your assessment of the quote. I just think in terms of analysis it's really vague, very free-association and fatalistic. I think in this context, if you want to land your hit you should tie it to the substance of the article and make a point about how this changes something. I think "45/47 Bad" and "Elon Bad" are well represented takes (and not even wrong!) but people will tune it out because it feels like a repetition of something they already know, or at least that they've already heard.
Yes, sadly. My discussions with tech people outside the US indicate that the rest of the world is learning to route around the US. The damage is more or less permanent at this point.
It's a loyalty test. And he's given his supporters permission to classify anyone who doesn't follow along as 'the enemy' aka 'the other'. It's a shortcut so his supporters know they don't have to give any credence to anything else they say, since now they assign all the other labels and insults he's hurled at 'his enemies' to the person they are talking to.
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.
That's pretty par for the course - at least, as far as authoritarian regimes go. It's getting very difficult to think of the US as anything but, at this point.
It's meant to be embarrassing, that's part of the control strategy. Once you start doing embarrassing things on Trump's behalf, everyone will know you've done a shameful thing, and you can only escape the shame by digging your way deeper into his cult where it becomes a virtue.
Terminology should not be underestimated, propaganda is a lot about terminology, and whoever designed this renaming campaign knows what he's doing. The politics behind this SI push is pretty transparent to those who really care about these issues.
Please expand on this... I can't think of a reason to rename AI to "super" intelligence. What objective does this accomplish?
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?
You're a victim of "sane washing". The media has been suppressed to the point of trying to justify every move of this administration as serving some kind of brilliant purpose. Surely the usual special interests are getting their gifts, but a lot of our national policies can strictly be explained by narcissism and dementia. Big Gulf and Big Lake aren't making billions off his other name changes.
Artificial has bad connotations. Super gas good connotations. Trump speaks to the feral mind that drives survival instincts and overrides rational thought. If you’re influenced by it he warps your world in a way that is overwhelming. If you’re immune it’s hard to comprehend because is seems so glaringly stupid.
It's not about whether or not "Super" makes sense. He could have just as easily changed the name to "potato." The point is to change a commonly-used word to something else, and measure who follows along. If you go along with it, you're a loyal friend, and if you don't you're an enemy.
It's like the Facebook -> Meta rebrand, Facebook was a dirty word at the time while Meta wasn't (gosh that didn't last long though) so it was an attempt to try and get rid of the accumulated negativity and hope that searches for the topic of Meta only returned bland and positive results instead of dredging up the many ongoing court cases.
Creating a partisan naming controversy sabotages nonpartisan discussion, and the specific choice of name makes it extremely challenging to talk about the unique dangers of superintelligent AI.
It's a loyalty test. He has done this repeatedly. Just like the hilariously dumb Lake America nonsense, where he stomped on 400 years of American history to think he's somehow punishing Canada -- only to us it was just incredibly pathetic, and yet another example why we need to move on from the fallen husk idiocracy the US has become -- and then celebrated that it was "ratified" because Apple and Google foolishly changed according to the government GIS changes.
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.
Yes. Trump is not a rational actor, it is textbook narcissism, not as a critique of his personality but I think he meets the criteria for clinical diagnosis.
If you don't listen to him then it results in narcissistic injury and he will retaliate.
If only he had read a single book at some point in his lifetime.
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.
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.
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".
The idiocy will continue until it hurts enough, then people might not change but they might make different choices. Until then, we can only hope we fall far enough to learn the lesson, but not break our legs
The question is will it hurt them enough before it's too late for your collective choices to matter more than Thiel and friends' wealth and power. I have serious doubts. It's pretty obvious that the existing checks and balances in this country's constitution simply do not work as they were assumed to function, if at all.
Americans never cared about any of these things. A shameless demagogue like Trump would have been elected long ago if the establishment in either party had allowed it. The current situation is the result of the demise of the much-maligned gatekeepers in politics and media who managed to save America from itself until now.
Remember, that half of the population is lower than 100 IQ.
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'.
FIFA did, in fact, award the official FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World™ to Trump.
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 not really what we wanted, it's what we were taught. decades of defunding education and not modernizing the system that was originally based on apartheid, the creation of media conglomerates that advocate for anti-intellectualism, all of it just run rampant and increasingly unchecked, the large scale smearing of academic institutions from the outside and the insidious internal replacement of academics by administrators
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
I don't disagree, but you're explaining _why_ they want it, not that they don't want it.
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)
sure, the why is to explain how it's happening and how to combat it - funding education, modernizing our systems, getting rid of unnecessary middlemen
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
since when have we been defunding education? over the past 60 years the per pupil spending on education has increased pretty substantially. you can argue that the funds aren't well allocated but it's objectively false that we've been reducing funding for education over multiple decades.
those two thirds living in the wrong states for it to matter, wouldn’t have voted the way you wanted and would have resulted in the same distribution of votes we already have?
Maybe I wouldn't need table as harsh about it were the stakes lower - if things were relatively sane like Clinton, Bush, or Obama (I'm not saying they are perfect, just sane).
When facing the prospect of Trump there is no such excuse as "there were no good options." Yeah, dems are also evil and incompetent, but Trump takes it to an existential level. You're not abstaining, you're leaving the door wide open to the worst of humanity.
And civil war, where we're probably headed, is a much bigger nuisance than voting.
Nope. If you're one of four people voting for something, you have 25% of the voting power.
If you decide to abstain, everyone else's vote is now more valuable, at 33.33%. You have given your voting power to other people, it didn't just disappear. And now whatever the outcome, you are participatory in it.
In the U.S. this matters more on a state level, but it still applies.
I don't know why I'm getting down-voted by HN oligarchs for saying that over 1/2 of Americans were NOT for Trump and his dictatorial BS. Keep down-voting though, this is par for the course here.
Friendly reminder that if you look at population numbers its AFAIR less than 1/3rd of the world population whose countries recognize the ICC, which is an absolute minority.
Reuters isn't owned by the US Govt, but AFP is a public body (although with a pretense of independence) built in the office of the former OFI in 1944, which was Vichy's propaganda ministry.
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.
> Friendly reminder that if you look at population numbers
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.
True, but this does not mean that both acts were equal.
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.
Reminder that the US is responsible for the precision strike murder of at least 120 school children[1]. Are they still 'investigating'? No one went to prison, right?
Recently, Marco Rubio gave a speech in front of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Seeing this, I immediately thought "what an oximoron".
Although I need to preface this by saying that the Trump administration is one of the stupidest and pettiest in history, the Nobel peace price lost all credibility after it was awarded to Barack Obama for no reason. It seems to be a mechanism for trumpeting the political views of those on the committee.
So much about the Trump administration is best understood, for everyone looking at it inside and outside the country, as criminals taking over the justice system.
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.
A law passed without the representation of the people it is being enforced upon is no law at all. That is a founding principal of the United States. The ICC is not a representative organization and it cannot be. Therefore it has no right to enforce laws against the US or American people.
One great thing about the Trump administration is that it exposed to the US’s mostly western allies what the rest of the World has known for a long time: that the US is just another oppressive empire that doesn’t hesitate to crush whomever they perceive to be a threat to their hegemony.
> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, first published by Reuters.
Can't think of a more flagrant and succinct declaration that the US believes itself "above the law."
All countries are above the law. When was the last time you saw a country in jail or meaningfully punished? The only one who can punish a country is another country if they are powerful and violent enough.
Who should be responsible for enforcing the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law? Or are we finally admitting that the only "international law" we officially recognize is Might Makes Right?
All signatories to the Geneva Conventions are responsible for enforcing it. The USA never ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and thus has no responsibility to enforce it.
Which is fine, inside the US. But when Americans leave the US, they are no longer under US law, theyre under the law of whatever country they enter. Which means, if the country acknowledges the ICC, any American in that country falls under it. Just like a tourist in America has to follow American laws.
It has always been might makes right, are you under the impression it wasn’t that way at some point? I’m not endorsing the actions of the current administration, simply stating how global geopolitics works. There’s no such thing as a supranational organization that can force a nuclear power to do anything of consequence.
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.
I mean... just about every 'enforcement' of international norms has been by american hard and soft power. Might has always made right, it's just that the guy with the biggest gun happened to have western liberal values.
Seems like that changed a little in the last decade. Hopefully it's not forever, but who knows.
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 better from 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
It's one thing to say: "We will not recognize or abide by ICC verdicts".
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".
Which is why the ICC was established by several countries as part of an international agreement. It's literally other countries collaborating to punish bad actor countries.
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.
But it's largely the court of center-left European thinking. It's a political tool without teeth, and since none of US, China, Russia are signatories, it can only prosecute people without a great power sponsor.
> Which is why the ICC was established by several countries as part of an international agreement. It's literally other countries collaborating to punish bad actor countries.
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.
> International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR.
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.
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:
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.
A country is an abstract idea at the end of the day. How can you put Uganda in a physical jail? Or how can one country "punish" another?
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.
>> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, first published by Reuters.
> 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.
I have a hard time seeing the alternative history where the nazis' won which lead to the formation of Israel 3 years later and consequent Israeli colony expansion, leading to the current conflicts and ICC stuff.
"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]
No surviving Soviet Union and hence no Mao, no North Korea (and no Korean War), Viet Minh easily squashed, no Vietnam War (the American one -- but the one against the French would happen anyway). Half of Europe would not have been occupied by the Soviet Union.
This is largely consistent with historical US views on international law. In 2002 the US passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act, which states that if any US service member or elected official is criminally prosecuted by the ICC, the president can use "any means necessary" (i.e. invading the Hague) to ensure their release.
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.
This is not "the US", this is one or two very unpopular politicians whose tenure will be short. Wait until the midterm elections before you judge the whole country.
> This is not "the US", this is one or two very unpopular politicians whose tenure will be short
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.
I worry about those who can't. There's some serious anti-US psyops originating from Russia and China at the moment and it seems the Left (including a lot of Europeans) are lapping it up gleefully.
China - authoritarian communist dictatorship, killing its own protesting students, concentration camps imprisoning Muslims, organised re-education of its own population, every company an arm of the intelligence agencies (by law), social credit system, biological weapons production (Wuhan), institutionalised IP theft from other countries
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.
Are you suggesting the President of the United States and his administration are perpetrating Russian and Chinese psyops against the American people, because it's his and his administration's actions that everyone is reacting to.
Another reason to fund the efforts to decouple from US companies, including payment processors. More investment in open source software and open weight models should be the priority of all governments and initiatives.
This is probably the most short-sighted aspect of America's oligarchs decision to support the modern GOP. They just keep increasing the incentive for other countries to reduce business with America.
It's not one or two things, either. It's an endless parade of decisions, nearly all of which reward de-coupling from America.
The company I work for just removed its last dependency on any US tech service providers last month (except for Anthropic). No more Microsoft, Adobe, Cloudflare, Amazon. They still pay for Claude, but they're in talks with local inference providers.
Just a few years ago, this wouldn't even have been remotely on people's radar as something they should or could do.
Oligarchs supporting the GOP is getting exactly what they want: personal gain. The fact that a much larger group is going to be worse off in every way doesn't matter.
It might be the goal. Based on "The Nerd Reich" which is based on public statements of Thiel and company, the goal is a set of small feudal states each ruled by one company. With no rights for people inside.
there are a few weird nerds who want that; but _most_ of America's ultra-rich aren't part of the network state bitcoin whatever nonsense, and would be better served by helping America thrive.
that would happen regardless of if americas oligarchs support the GoP. its the american people that voted in trump and got him majorities in both the house and senate
Country that supports war criminals and helps genocidares and land thiefs by giving them free bombs and planes, sanctioned organization that punishes such acts. Not a big surprise.
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.
Every nation must ban companies operating in their country from conforming to unrecognized foreign sanctions. This has been long, long overdue, and the time is absolutely now.
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.
Well, high time to break up toe Visa/Mastercard duopoly anyway, for many reasons. Any useless insanity like this just gives more argument to the interested parties wanting to see the breakup finally happen.
There are 100's of millions that hope so, not only him but the rest of the fools who are in his orbit.This has been the most disgusting and corrupt Administration since the founding of America.
> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans"
... 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.
It would be a farce to try, of course. The American Service-Members' Protection Act gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court."
The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in states that haven't signed up to the Rome Statute, and the US has not signed up. As President, Trump is protected under the Vienna Convention when he travels abroad so he can't be arrested even in other countries.
Because the US could literally destroy the ICC without any repercussions aside from some reflexive gasps from European globalists.
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.
Well, many of us had hoped USA wasn't the epitomy of evil that you declare yourself to be.
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...
Specifically, they could stop using the USD a clearing currency... causing hyperinflation in the US.
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.
Theres a lot of American military bases inside the EU that could be turned into craters within 24 hours. And even if Europe decides to not retaliate violently and simply says "you have 24 hours to leave the continent", thats still a lot of material and arms lost.
The way the US would leave a crater where the ICC was would not be militarily.
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.
The ICC was created with 120 countries voting in favor and 7 against, opposition mostly coming from Israel, the US and china. It's creation is due to a moderate prime minister from Tobago.
For anyone who hasn't seen Mitchell and Webb's "Are We the Baddies?"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY&pp=ygUSYXJlIHdlIHR...
I opened the news and almost threw my phone after reading just the first two headlines - ICC sanctions and televised executions.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-livestream-army-execution-f...
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.
[delayed]
Seems like behavior you'd expect from someone who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize though, right?
Only the FIFA Peace Prize.
"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America."
This isn't as bad as I expected it to be, but there's two more years to go so we'll see.
This makes me think of all the guys with Punisher logos on their trucks. Very American.
You would think google, microsoft and apple would be having kittens over this. How will any government or large corporation trust their goods and services if they can be disabled at will because the USA government takes offence to you, or someone in your department. Good for linux I guess but pain for the rest of us.
They issued a General License concurrent to the ICC sanctions designation to authorize IT/ICT services, similar to licenses that exist for many sanctioned countries. https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/937191/download?inline
I don’t think anyone expects the sanctions to last very long
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
He just gave awards to the whole crew yesterday
>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.
It's almost amusing reading this through the lens of the visa shuttering article from yesterday (which a lot were cheering) because none of the receivers were born in the US.
Fucking immigrants stealing our … corruption?
Dell was born in Houston.
I updated my comment originally Dell and Nadella was missing
You know what's funny? I live in a very progressive town. Everyone is pissed at Elon. Everyone drives Teslas. And not old one, clearly tons of them were purchased after he went "bad". Clearly people's principles are contingent on the car sale discounts.
Sold mine after running it a few months covered with stickers saying what I thought of him. Drive another EV now and will not go back. No discount on the car. Stop generalizing.
Gosh darn goombas.
Insane these awards are going mostly to executives, Musk getting it for engineering sciences is a slap in the face to anyone that previously received the award.
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?
> How will any government or large corporation trust their goods and services
Same as before. Only if you're insane.
Trump, just yesterday-
"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?
I don't disagree with your feelings on 45/47, or your assessment of the quote. I just think in terms of analysis it's really vague, very free-association and fatalistic. I think in this context, if you want to land your hit you should tie it to the substance of the article and make a point about how this changes something. I think "45/47 Bad" and "Elon Bad" are well represented takes (and not even wrong!) but people will tune it out because it feels like a repetition of something they already know, or at least that they've already heard.
They’re welcome to tune out reality all they want. The damage is done. It’s too late. Convincing people of that is a waste of time.
Yes, sadly. My discussions with tech people outside the US indicate that the rest of the world is learning to route around the US. The damage is more or less permanent at this point.
Is he really going to insist on this super intelligence thing? Like he's actually going to somehow punish people who don't adopt it?
Pretty insane to literally make enemies over terminology. I don't understand what he's thinking.
He doesn't really think, he reacts. And his every reaction is centered around "How can I make this about me?"
True, but his "handlers" are very smart and behind his rants there's usually a very deliberate motivation and accompanying action.
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to puzzle out... Surely there's some kind of objective here to justify this overtly aggressive language?
I mean he invaded Venezuela, and everybody knows he wanted the oil, it makes sense. This super intelligence stuff is not making any sense.
Peter Thiel recently said that Trump's handlers are not smart but very loyal. Loyal to him, if that wasn't clear.
It's a loyalty test. And he's given his supporters permission to classify anyone who doesn't follow along as 'the enemy' aka 'the other'. It's a shortcut so his supporters know they don't have to give any credence to anything else they say, since now they assign all the other labels and insults he's hurled at 'his enemies' to the person they are talking to.
Gulf of Mexico -> Gulf of America
Department of Defense -> Department of War
Lake Ontario -> Lake America
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.
Twitter -> X
Same playbook.
Apple Computer -> Apple
Google -> Alphabet
Facebook -> Meta
This is the right answer. People should start pronouncing it see as in yes in Spanish. Let’s see how long he sticks with it then.
So he renamed AI to SI and decreed that all must use it, and whoever acquiesces is loyal and everyone else is a traitor?
Surely there are less embarrassing ways of doing that sort of thing...
That's pretty par for the course - at least, as far as authoritarian regimes go. It's getting very difficult to think of the US as anything but, at this point.
It's meant to be embarrassing, that's part of the control strategy. Once you start doing embarrassing things on Trump's behalf, everyone will know you've done a shameful thing, and you can only escape the shame by digging your way deeper into his cult where it becomes a virtue.
There's already been a few media outlets (and not just the obvious way right pseudo-media) who have started using it, eager to stay in his good book.
Terminology should not be underestimated, propaganda is a lot about terminology, and whoever designed this renaming campaign knows what he's doing. The politics behind this SI push is pretty transparent to those who really care about these issues.
Please expand on this... I can't think of a reason to rename AI to "super" intelligence. What objective does this accomplish?
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?
> What objective does this accomplish?
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"?
You're a victim of "sane washing". The media has been suppressed to the point of trying to justify every move of this administration as serving some kind of brilliant purpose. Surely the usual special interests are getting their gifts, but a lot of our national policies can strictly be explained by narcissism and dementia. Big Gulf and Big Lake aren't making billions off his other name changes.
Artificial has bad connotations. Super gas good connotations. Trump speaks to the feral mind that drives survival instincts and overrides rational thought. If you’re influenced by it he warps your world in a way that is overwhelming. If you’re immune it’s hard to comprehend because is seems so glaringly stupid.
It's not about whether or not "Super" makes sense. He could have just as easily changed the name to "potato." The point is to change a commonly-used word to something else, and measure who follows along. If you go along with it, you're a loyal friend, and if you don't you're an enemy.
It's like the Facebook -> Meta rebrand, Facebook was a dirty word at the time while Meta wasn't (gosh that didn't last long though) so it was an attempt to try and get rid of the accumulated negativity and hope that searches for the topic of Meta only returned bland and positive results instead of dredging up the many ongoing court cases.
Creating a partisan naming controversy sabotages nonpartisan discussion, and the specific choice of name makes it extremely challenging to talk about the unique dangers of superintelligent AI.
It’s a dog whistle. Plenty of political zealots coin their own idiosyncratic terms to affirm loyalty.
Can someone PLEASE convince him to hold back the tides at beach somewhere?
He is a bit of a Cnut, to be sure.
Kind of annoying for all the people with .ai tlds
That would be a very original way if this is what finally pops the bubble. :)
It's a loyalty test. He has done this repeatedly. Just like the hilariously dumb Lake America nonsense, where he stomped on 400 years of American history to think he's somehow punishing Canada -- only to us it was just incredibly pathetic, and yet another example why we need to move on from the fallen husk idiocracy the US has become -- and then celebrated that it was "ratified" because Apple and Google foolishly changed according to the government GIS changes.
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.
[delayed]
Yes. Trump is not a rational actor, it is textbook narcissism, not as a critique of his personality but I think he meets the criteria for clinical diagnosis.
If you don't listen to him then it results in narcissistic injury and he will retaliate.
Surprised he did not choose "American Intelligence"
Surprised it did not choose "Super America".
I can't honestly even look at this.
FWIW his polls have been pointing downward at a steady rate for almost 2 years:
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.)
If only he had read a single book at some point in his lifetime.
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.
How can we even be mentioning that.
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.
> Astonishing that this guy isn't polling at 0%.
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".
The idiocy will continue until it hurts enough, then people might not change but they might make different choices. Until then, we can only hope we fall far enough to learn the lesson, but not break our legs
The question is will it hurt them enough before it's too late for your collective choices to matter more than Thiel and friends' wealth and power. I have serious doubts. It's pretty obvious that the existing checks and balances in this country's constitution simply do not work as they were assumed to function, if at all.
Americans never cared about any of these things. A shameless demagogue like Trump would have been elected long ago if the establishment in either party had allowed it. The current situation is the result of the demise of the much-maligned gatekeepers in politics and media who managed to save America from itself until now.
> more than they hate
It cannot be a choice.
By the way, speaking of "awakening" by people that intend to substantially refer to asses is blasphemy.
It really is astonishing
It's wild that this is getting downvoted. Just goes to show how many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Not a good look for the elections.
Remember, that half of the population is lower than 100 IQ.
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'.
> Good for linux
Torvalds lives in the USA. Linux Foundation is in the USA. Good (luck) for Linux. /s
US is a shithole country. I'm open to listening to any arguments for why I'm wrong about that.
I thought it was FIFA the one in charge of the Peace prize now. I'm confused.
FIFA is currently looking to find find 11,780 peace points...
what should not confuse you is that FIFA is in charge of corruption, for decades now.
FIFA did, in fact, award the official FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World™ to Trump.
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 seems that US Exceptionalism is what the US people wanted, and they're getting it in spades.
it's not really what we wanted, it's what we were taught. decades of defunding education and not modernizing the system that was originally based on apartheid, the creation of media conglomerates that advocate for anti-intellectualism, all of it just run rampant and increasingly unchecked, the large scale smearing of academic institutions from the outside and the insidious internal replacement of academics by administrators
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
I don't disagree, but you're explaining _why_ they want it, not that they don't want it.
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)
sure, the why is to explain how it's happening and how to combat it - funding education, modernizing our systems, getting rid of unnecessary middlemen
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
since when have we been defunding education? over the past 60 years the per pupil spending on education has increased pretty substantially. you can argue that the funds aren't well allocated but it's objectively false that we've been reducing funding for education over multiple decades.
As far as I can tell this is factually true. Do people care to refute rather downvote shooting the messenger?
Some US states seem to spend more per pupil than excellent independent ("private") schools in the UK. That is a lot of money.
Ahem, less than half of us voted for this trash.
Nearly 50 percent of voters have been voting for him for a decade now. The non-voters don't care. Let that sink in.
two thirds of you didn't think it was worth voting against.
The Americans who saw this coming and stayed home are just as complicit.
those two thirds living in the wrong states for it to matter, wouldn’t have voted the way you wanted and would have resulted in the same distribution of votes we already have?
prefrontal cortex moment
AGREED - as a US citizen.
Also, anyone who voted 3rd-party, because that is literally refusing to keep him out of office.
Apathy is part of the equation.
No, no... among people who voted, less than 50% of votes were for Trump (49.81%). Harris got 48.34%. I think this is what GP is referring to.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024
This is what I am referring too! Ty.
If you can vote and you don't go to the polls, you vote for the winner.
no you just didn't vote
No, you actually acquiesce to whatever outcome.
Maybe I wouldn't need table as harsh about it were the stakes lower - if things were relatively sane like Clinton, Bush, or Obama (I'm not saying they are perfect, just sane).
When facing the prospect of Trump there is no such excuse as "there were no good options." Yeah, dems are also evil and incompetent, but Trump takes it to an existential level. You're not abstaining, you're leaving the door wide open to the worst of humanity.
And civil war, where we're probably headed, is a much bigger nuisance than voting.
You voted with your unmoving ass to accept the election results.
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”
Nope. If you're one of four people voting for something, you have 25% of the voting power.
If you decide to abstain, everyone else's vote is now more valuable, at 33.33%. You have given your voting power to other people, it didn't just disappear. And now whatever the outcome, you are participatory in it.
In the U.S. this matters more on a state level, but it still applies.
I don't know why I'm getting down-voted by HN oligarchs for saying that over 1/2 of Americans were NOT for Trump and his dictatorial BS. Keep down-voting though, this is par for the course here.
[delayed]
Given the fact that signatories to the Rome Statute outnumber countries that aren’t, I’m not quite sure who the rogue is here…
Friendly reminder that if you look at population numbers its AFAIR less than 1/3rd of the world population whose countries recognize the ICC, which is an absolute minority.
The countries with healthy democracies and who value science and the rule of law support the ICC. It's the better 3rd to be in.
Reuters isn't owned by the US Govt, but AFP is a public body (although with a pretense of independence) built in the office of the former OFI in 1944, which was Vichy's propaganda ministry.
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.
> Friendly reminder that if you look at population numbers
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.
How the US president became president is still the question that baffles me the most.
Twice. You did it twice.
And after he tried to overturn an election he lost.
Hopefully this helps lead to US sanctions having less global power.
Trump and his cronies simply don't understand the concept of "overplaying your hand"...
yeah and I hope it accelerates the move away from using microsoft
Both actions were 100% political.
True, but this does not mean that both acts were equal.
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.
In your flawed analogy it would be more like unlimited mail-in ballot harvesting vs. supervision inside the voting booth.
Europe is getting dog-walked by Trump because they refuse to impose heavy sanctions on America. I'm an American. Take us down, cowards.
Reminder that the US is responsible for the precision strike murder of at least 120 school children[1]. Are they still 'investigating'? No one went to prison, right?
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
Official post from State https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesman/2026/...
Although I need to preface this by saying that the Trump administration is one of the stupidest and pettiest in history, the Nobel peace price lost all credibility after it was awarded to Barack Obama for no reason. It seems to be a mechanism for trumpeting the political views of those on the committee.
What does that have to do with trump attempting to harm people?
I agree with that and what I think about Trump might get me arrested if I expressed it openly.
> Rubio calls tribunal a 'rogue court'
Of course, from the perspective of a committed criminal, upholding the law is "going rogue".
So much about the Trump administration is best understood, for everyone looking at it inside and outside the country, as criminals taking over the justice system.
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.
Why do you call Rubio a committed criminal? To my knowledge, he isn't.
A law passed without the representation of the people it is being enforced upon is no law at all. That is a founding principal of the United States. The ICC is not a representative organization and it cannot be. Therefore it has no right to enforce laws against the US or American people.
USA could decide war crimes are immoral and choose, like other nations, to not commit them and to be bound to a body that overseas that.
That is not lack of sovereignty, that is choice of morality.
Democracies can only enact the chosen rule of law because they're sovereign.
When you travel to a different country, you have to follow their laws, even if you didnt vote there!
You know you’re subject to local jurisdiction when not in the US, right?
The USA is a technofascist state dismantling itself and every democratic institution that stands against the coming technocracy.
One great thing about the Trump administration is that it exposed to the US’s mostly western allies what the rest of the World has known for a long time: that the US is just another oppressive empire that doesn’t hesitate to crush whomever they perceive to be a threat to their hegemony.
Boy are you going to be surprised when you get to the section in history class about european countries!
You mean the allies that have been comfortably riding the coat tails of it for 75 years? Those ones?
> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, first published by Reuters.
Can't think of a more flagrant and succinct declaration that the US believes itself "above the law."
All countries are above the law. When was the last time you saw a country in jail or meaningfully punished? The only one who can punish a country is another country if they are powerful and violent enough.
Who should be responsible for enforcing the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law? Or are we finally admitting that the only "international law" we officially recognize is Might Makes Right?
Nobody is. Russia is repeatedly violating them despite being signers of the treaty, and nobody does anything.
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.
I wouldn’t call the sanctions against Russia nothing
The sanctions were never about Geneva violations.
All signatories to the Geneva Conventions are responsible for enforcing it. The USA never ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and thus has no responsibility to enforce it.
Sure, but there is a difference between not helping and actively interfering with a court punishing international crimes.
>... with a court punishing international crimes.
that's the whole thing, the US doesn't agree with that assessment.
Which is fine, inside the US. But when Americans leave the US, they are no longer under US law, theyre under the law of whatever country they enter. Which means, if the country acknowledges the ICC, any American in that country falls under it. Just like a tourist in America has to follow American laws.
See the "Hague Invasion Act"
US does agree with that assessment. US however think that international crimes are cool. Especially if they do it, but not only then.
> Or are we finally admitting that the only "international law" we officially recognize is Might Makes Right?
People like Trump and Hegseth have been saying that very explicitly in at least the past couple years
It has always been might makes right, are you under the impression it wasn’t that way at some point? I’m not endorsing the actions of the current administration, simply stating how global geopolitics works. There’s no such thing as a supranational organization that can force a nuclear power to do anything of consequence.
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.
Netanyahu
I mean... just about every 'enforcement' of international norms has been by american hard and soft power. Might has always made right, it's just that the guy with the biggest gun happened to have western liberal values.
Seems like that changed a little in the last decade. Hopefully it's not forever, but who knows.
"Finally admitting"
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 better from 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
It's one thing to say: "We will not recognize or abide by ICC verdicts".
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".
Which is why the ICC was established by several countries as part of an international agreement. It's literally other countries collaborating to punish bad actor countries.
Bad actor _people_. The court tries people.
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.
But it's largely the court of center-left European thinking. It's a political tool without teeth, and since none of US, China, Russia are signatories, it can only prosecute people without a great power sponsor.
> Which is why the ICC was established by several countries as part of an international agreement. It's literally other countries collaborating to punish bad actor countries.
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.
> 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"?
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."
> 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.
> which I recognize as legitimate
I'm sure you can see the problem with your own argument.
> 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"?
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.
What does the US have to do with it then? How did they go after Trump and Putin, who aren’t part of those 125?
International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR.
> International relations is only literally anarchy if you take the realist school of thought as representing IR.
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.
How’s that going ?
It'd be going great if a bunch of idiots hadn't voted in a bunch of fascists.
As I hope you're aware:
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.
What makes the US actions crimes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche
A country is an abstract idea at the end of the day. How can you put Uganda in a physical jail? Or how can one country "punish" another?
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.
International law isn't real. If Americans do crimes, they will be tried for them (or not) in American courts.
>> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, first published by Reuters.
> 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.
The ICC would be unconstitutional in the United States.
https://usunrome.usmission.gov/why-were-dismantling-the-icc/
"Rules for thee, but not for me!"
The US has always been “above the law.” This is about Israel and its genocide against the Palestinians.
Words have meaning. Please lookup what genocide means, before using it.
Words have meaning. Gaza qualifies. So does Ukraine.
We don’t have even need to imagine what would have happened if the Nazis had won
As in, they would have forgiven themselves and punished international courts who tried to prosecute them.
I have a hard time seeing the alternative history where the nazis' won which lead to the formation of Israel 3 years later and consequent Israeli colony expansion, leading to the current conflicts and ICC stuff.
but it would probably an an entertaining novel.
The Nazis actually supported the Zionists, so this would have been the likely outcome regardless of who won the war unfortunately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement
It makes sense if you think about them wanting to ethnically cleanse Jewish people out of Germany.
From your own linked article
"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]
No surviving Soviet Union and hence no Mao, no North Korea (and no Korean War), Viet Minh easily squashed, no Vietnam War (the American one -- but the one against the French would happen anyway). Half of Europe would not have been occupied by the Soviet Union.
And the Nazis wouldn't have lasted long, anyway.
Random bombings of boats in the Caribbean is another.
That’s a war crime confession, isn’t it?
This is largely consistent with historical US views on international law. In 2002 the US passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act, which states that if any US service member or elected official is criminally prosecuted by the ICC, the president can use "any means necessary" (i.e. invading the Hague) to ensure their release.
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.
This is not "the US", this is one or two very unpopular politicians whose tenure will be short. Wait until the midterm elections before you judge the whole country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
one or two? this has been standing us law since the bush era.
That'd be nice, but it's fantasy. This, as I gesture at the state of the world, was inevitable if Trump was voted in, and Trump was voted in.
The US has very large problems far beyond one or two politicians.
> This is not "the US", this is one or two very unpopular politicians whose tenure will be short
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.
Can you see any difference between america, china and Russia?
China and Russia aren't planning to perform public executions, like only Iran and Afghanistan currently do.
I worry about those who can't. There's some serious anti-US psyops originating from Russia and China at the moment and it seems the Left (including a lot of Europeans) are lapping it up gleefully.
While I agree to a certain extent, Americans aren't exactly helping the case against them.
What is a critique of Russia or China in this context that isn't true of the US?
China - authoritarian communist dictatorship, killing its own protesting students, concentration camps imprisoning Muslims, organised re-education of its own population, every company an arm of the intelligence agencies (by law), social credit system, biological weapons production (Wuhan), institutionalised IP theft from other countries
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.
Are you suggesting the President of the United States and his administration are perpetrating Russian and Chinese psyops against the American people, because it's his and his administration's actions that everyone is reacting to.
Another reason to fund the efforts to decouple from US companies, including payment processors. More investment in open source software and open weight models should be the priority of all governments and initiatives.
This is probably the most short-sighted aspect of America's oligarchs decision to support the modern GOP. They just keep increasing the incentive for other countries to reduce business with America.
It's not one or two things, either. It's an endless parade of decisions, nearly all of which reward de-coupling from America.
The company I work for just removed its last dependency on any US tech service providers last month (except for Anthropic). No more Microsoft, Adobe, Cloudflare, Amazon. They still pay for Claude, but they're in talks with local inference providers.
Just a few years ago, this wouldn't even have been remotely on people's radar as something they should or could do.
Oligarchs supporting the GOP is getting exactly what they want: personal gain. The fact that a much larger group is going to be worse off in every way doesn't matter.
It might be the goal. Based on "The Nerd Reich" which is based on public statements of Thiel and company, the goal is a set of small feudal states each ruled by one company. With no rights for people inside.
there are a few weird nerds who want that; but _most_ of America's ultra-rich aren't part of the network state bitcoin whatever nonsense, and would be better served by helping America thrive.
that would happen regardless of if americas oligarchs support the GoP. its the american people that voted in trump and got him majorities in both the house and senate
In no small part because oligarchs have spent the last 40 years shaping public perception, allowing increased concentration of media, etc.
Well the GOP has gotta try and protect their guy. And Trumps a pedophile so this makes sense.
I am so disgusted by this current regime.
Country that supports war criminals and helps genocidares and land thiefs by giving them free bombs and planes, sanctioned organization that punishes such acts. Not a big surprise.
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.
Every nation must ban companies operating in their country from conforming to unrecognized foreign sanctions. This has been long, long overdue, and the time is absolutely now.
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.
Well, high time to break up toe Visa/Mastercard duopoly anyway, for many reasons. Any useless insanity like this just gives more argument to the interested parties wanting to see the breakup finally happen.
This is only possible if the world moves off the US Dollar.
He knows they're coming for him.
They're really not though
There's still time, and they know it.
There are 100's of millions that hope so, not only him but the rest of the fools who are in his orbit.This has been the most disgusting and corrupt Administration since the founding of America.
Junk away snowflakes....
Sanctions ffs ... what a pathetic administration ...
> "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans"
... 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.
Ukraine actually did finally ratify the Rome Statute; we're down to 29 signatories who haven't ratified it.
Signed but not ratified:
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.
Full list of the 29 signatories who have not ratified it: https://www.pgaction.org/ilhr/rome-statute/signed-but-not-ra...
From the Rome Statute of the ICC
> 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.
It would be a farce to try, of course. The American Service-Members' Protection Act gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court."
It would, at the very least, effectively bar them from visiting any country that has ratified the Rome statute.
The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in states that haven't signed up to the Rome Statute, and the US has not signed up. As President, Trump is protected under the Vienna Convention when he travels abroad so he can't be arrested even in other countries.
for the duration of his mandate
Because the US could literally destroy the ICC without any repercussions aside from some reflexive gasps from European globalists.
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.
Well, many of us had hoped USA wasn't the epitomy of evil that you declare yourself to be.
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...
> Because the US could literally destroy the ICC without any repercussions aside from some reflexive gasps from European globalists.
Similar to how the US literally destroyed the dictatorship in Iran?
I don't think US bombing an EU country would not trigger a response.
What response? Strong words? Sadly, the EU depends on the US more than vica versa.
Specifically, they could stop using the USD a clearing currency... causing hyperinflation in the US.
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.
Theres a lot of American military bases inside the EU that could be turned into craters within 24 hours. And even if Europe decides to not retaliate violently and simply says "you have 24 hours to leave the continent", thats still a lot of material and arms lost.
You can't be real? It seems impossible that this is anything beyond psy ops to anger those with even a shred of morality.
You realise the rest of the world together has bigger armed forces than the US right? Several of them have nukes too
Yeah, we're working on that... As are most people...
The way the US would leave a crater where the ICC was would not be militarily.
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.
Democratic cries bring tears to my eyes, the happy ones.
The ICC is an attempt by European leftists to impose their value system on the smaller or poorer countries.
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.
The ICC was created with 120 countries voting in favor and 7 against, opposition mostly coming from Israel, the US and china. It's creation is due to a moderate prime minister from Tobago.