Bob i hate to break it to you, but America has started to become a little bit of a joke in the rest of the world... Your rude, pig headed and frankly severely lacking in intelligence and personal skills president is taking you backwards. But that's no indictment on Americans, because many states have thankfully backed the climate accord, and if non-Trump aligned Americans are to blame for anything, it is only not being able to force the correct candidate through to beat Trump. If we want the drift of American political opinion in Europe these days, we have to watch late night talk shows rather than listening to the president.

Three things happened RE: Paris accord.
One - the American president has used a European stage to demand spurious money from Europe and turned them publicly into opponents rather than allies. Even the worst Brexiteers had the good grace to make that claim on smaller stages where they could be laughed at - it's banter, not a serious political point, except to Trump! Apparently friendship is now an issue of economics, so if Russia decided to start a war, America's involvement might depend on how much it costs to be involved (or who Trump's personal mates are, or what Russia has on him) despite being a key cause of war.
Two - other countries including China all came together to show international brotherhood *against Trump*. This is now Trump's position in the eyes of worldwide public opinion; Trump stands opposed to the entire rest of the world save two countries Syria and Nicaragua! America has *stepped away* from the rest of the world. So now the rest of the world is by definition leading America, showing her the way.
Three - Trump has shown us that he is not interested in listening to the best logical reasoning, the best mathematical models, from the combined talent of the best minds that this planet has produced. So he's completely unreliable.

I think even Trump's fiercest proponents must now start to admit, in private, that they didn't get what they thought they were getting. He is a psychological child with the arrogance of a rich grown man.

Excellent. But, I have a reaction to your (Green's?) text in the description.

1. Nostalgia is a motivator. But I think it tends to be a *strong* motivator only of individuals, not of collective societies. If Trump has nostalgia for fossil fuels (personally I think his motivations lie elsewhere), the good news is that that nostalgia won't be very contagious to American citizens. At least not for long.

People like Elon Musk / Tesla are making it clear that electric and renewables are the sexy high-tech future. That appeal to our vanity will be much more effective as a "carrot" motivation, as compared to a "stick" with carbon taxes etc.


2. This essentially boils down to an industrial version of Isolationism. Trump represents a bigger push in that direction by far compared to being motivated by nostalgia. BUT, I think that trying to explain that resistance in him and others purely through that anti-globalization lens misses some things.

Just as nostalgia is a better motivator for individuals than societies, altruism (if you believe it can exist) functions the same way. And that's 90% of what the Paris Accords are: altruism.

On paper, it makes sense for us as individuals in the US to acknowledge that we got a disproportionate level of advancement out of fossil fuel usage through our history. As individuals, we can see the undeniable truth in that. But ask us to act -- collectively -- on that and watch as our collective altruistic tendencies are drastically reduced compared to the sum of our individual altruistic tendencies.

That's not really evil, that's just human nature. But it is precisely the reason that I feel that encouraging people like Elon Musk is by far the superior way to lead us into the future. Tesla makes cars that are better than competing ICE vehicles for many/most use-cases. And not "better" in the sense that our individual sense of altruism gets triggered to reward our brain's pleasure center because we've prevented some Pacific islander's house from getting wiped out in a sea level rise by buying one. No, better in real, measurable criteria: less expensive to operate, better performance / top speed / acceleration, features ... potentially even panty-dropping sexiness. That shit can motivate us as a collective society much more reliably than altruism.

And that's why I think it is more important to encourage the Elon Musks of the future than it is to get TOO overly concerned about the Donald Trumps of the present. Although admittedly, there's certainly ways to try to do both.

You say that jokingly, but I'm actually at that point after decades of trying to minimize my ecological footprint.
I see no chance that humanity will get it's shit together to even slow climate change, much less avoid it being disastrous. I think we passed the point of no return decades ago, and I now feel foolish for trying to be responsible instead of going for my own maximum enjoyment/payoff. No longer will I deny myself things I want in an effort to try to save the planet, because I don't even think it's possible anymore, nor do I think the majority of humans will do the same. Now I just feel like a sucker for not getting mine while the getting was good, because that's what nearly everybody else did, so my small sacrifices meant nothing....and now we're doubling down on that mindset by backing out of the Paris agreement, which was already too weak and slow to help anything, but too much for Trump.

We're doomed!

In France -- Paris especially -- smiling at a stranger is seen as a sign of idiocy or senility. That said, some of the warmest smiles I saw on my trip to Europe were from French people in Lyon responding to my own smile.

Then again, maybe they just felt sorry for the senile, idiotic American.

So I just got back from Paris.

If you think traffic in the US is insane, try getting from one side of the city to the other. There's no traffic flow; everyone just goes when they want. And peds are the worst. They will step out on the street whenever, instead of waiting for the "green man" (the 'ok to cross' light), and damned whoever is driving on the road at the moment.

The first day I was there, I saw the body of a struck Frenchman laying in the middle of the road by Ecole' Militaire (sp). In America, this would have drawn a huge crowd. In Paris, no one even slowed down.

Don't get me started with bikes in Amsterdam, either.

I think that's a good question to be asking, but one that only time can answer.
Not involving congress in an act of war though, definitely not good, no matter who does it or why or how good it turns out. You don't want that precedent set when President Kanye West wants to bomb Paris over fashion beef in 2021, do you?

Or someone kidnaps your daughter and thanks to your preparedness and special set of skills you realize you're actually Liam Neeson.
This whole guns-for-safety-schtick has been debated online a thousand times. You know what protects you from crime? Tackling the very real social issues like poverty and racism that cause crime.
You have so many guns and yet your crime rate is so shitty. Mass shootings are routine in america. Where are all the good guys with guns to stop the bad guys when you need them?
It's not working. It simply isn't, crunch numbers all you want. Just look at Canada. They have guns. Yet, they seem to live so much safer lives. Is Mexico such a dangerous place because they don't have enough guns? They got the good Heckler&Koch rifles, you know.
You want to fight fights that I say should be avoided in the first place. Fix your social issues and less people will have reasons to try breaking into your home.
Same with the terrorist. Don't just bomb them, disable their ideological rethoric, disable their methods of recruiting.
We have islamic terrorists here in germany. They either try to build bombs (requires actual know-how) or they attack with axes and knives. Something must be working in our favor here. Same can't be said for the citizens of Paris or nightclub visitors in Orlando. They got shot.
The american paranoia is a reaction to an action that can be made far more unlikely to happen. Once you are ready to tackle the issues.
You can bring a fire extinguisher every time you go to the gas station in case a fire breaks out or you can just stop smoking around the gas station.

Ordinarily, I'd say that question is borderline retarded, but as it's a youtube comment, I'll give them props for actually using correct spelling.

But to answer his dumbarse question in reverse.... uh, first people ARE appalled at what ISIS is doing. Have you somehow missed the last 5 years of media coverage? Remember the whole "je suis charlie", "pray for paris" (as if praying wasn't what got us into this mess in the first place), etc?

Second, you hold your army to a high moral standard because they're YOUR FUCKING ARMY. When you give a bunch of people guns and a licence to commit violence in the name of your country, you expect that they do so in a thoughtful manner.

If literally the worst people on earth are your standard for moral behaviour.... that's a pretty fucking low bar.

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Tags for this video have been changed from 'geography cities' to 'geography, cities, Paris, New York, population density, europe, america, history' - edited by eric3579

The internet delivers, again.

Check out this quote by Malcolm X, made in Paris, '64.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

When I went to the Louvre last year, I stopped by the room where the Mona Lisa is hanging. What were people doing? Were they agape in awe at this masterwork? Were they contemplating the brilliance with which this painting was constructed? Nope. They were taking selfies with the goddamn thing. I don't think I saw a single person actually look at the painting for more than 5 seconds. Push your way to the front of the crowd, turn your back on the very thing you went all the way to Paris to see, then take a picture of you . . . with a picture.

Well played, cunts.

That was amazing! *doublepromote

Locations in order of appearance:

1:15 Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Paris, France
1:30 Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin, Germany
1:43 La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
1:56 Hoxton Alley, London, UK
2:11 Regents Park, London, UK
2:33 Calle Traghetto Vecchio, Venice, Italy
2:49 St. Pauls Cathedral, London, UK
3:08 Rooftop Terrace, Copenhagen, Denmark
3:25 Sand Dunes, Dubai, UAE
3:33 Red Square, Moscow, Russia
3:45 Gulfoss and Gljúfurárfoss Waterfalls, Iceland
4:01 Mrs. Macqauries Point, Sydney, Australia
4:19 Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Japan
4:36 Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, United States of America