You can only replace someone who was useful. If one is useless, but is still there, it means they are not there for their contribution and you can't replace them by automating whatever it might have been.

So how did Venice maintain its dominance?

Absolutely. I'm gonna go full agentic coding the day I can do it with open-weight models on my machine. Until then feeding someone else's models with more data on how to replace me in particular sounds insane to me.

If you think it's going to replace you, then it's going to replace you regardless of whether you personally are feeding it data or not.

If it produces value for you, you should use it. If not, don't.

So far I have been able to trade some efficiency for more control in my professional life. All of my tooling is open-source and local. I hope I can get away with it this time as well though sure some adjustment will be needed

I am on o2 and didn't have any problems with availability that I would notice.

First of all, US is at the edge of a dictatorship. If US falls completely, Europe will likely too, but untangling ourselves from US is an attempt to prevent that.

That's not from the last week, so obviously is invalid.

It's hardly a precedent, probably half of the countries worldwide have been formed by seceding from some other country against its will. U.S. would be in this half.

It's the first country to do so under foreign military presence since UN inception.

The only precedents of unilateral secession were Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia and Bangladesh from Pakistan but none did so under foreign military presence.

All of the Arab countries have basically seceded from Ottoman empire under an occupation of this or that European country.

"Unilaterally" is not easy to define. Sometimes there is a long and violent struggle for independence and the metropole eventually gives in and signs some paper, sometimes it is stubborn and doesn't sign anything - the difference is not that important in my opinion.

Pre UN.

Cautiously abandon caution

I'm surprised Trump didn't threaten involved parties with tariffs or military action over that yet. As a European, very happy about that happening, for multiple reasons. It's a shame it took so long

Well yesterday he already imposed tariffs on several EU countries because they oppose the annexation of Greenland, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does the same in this case.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/trump-vows-tariffs-eigh...

Me too. I just think he needs to pick his battles right now as Greenland is taking so much space.

Maybe that’ll still come once he gets his intel briefing from Fox & Friends

Trump used this card already, he already imposed tariffs once so nobody cares about that threat anymore.

That's the thing with tariffs, they only work once.

You can always impose additional tariffs until it is ludicrous levels. Eg 100% or more like China has reached a few times before it was walked back.

It doesn't matter if he does it or not now, the US market is now seen as unreliable and risky.

If there's one thing companies hate more than taxes, it's uncertainty.

But there is a cap: you can only bring down trade with a country to zero. This might inflict some pain in the immediate, but eventually trade is simply directed elsewhere - and you lose any leverage you have.

The multiple reasons being exactly?

In my opinion it is a net negative for all countries in Europe, but one.

Most importantly, Europe needs more trading partners after having lost Russia and now losing the United States. Second, I am happy about German (I suspect it's similar in other EU countries) farmers largely supporting the far-right getting a taste of a world without protectionism and regulations. Finally, I hope for lower grocery prices, not only for myself, but also because it makes the whole social situation less explosive.

Fair trade yes. Unfair trade no. And Mercosur is COMPLETELY unfair to European farmers. It imposes higher standards - and thus costs - on European farmers, while allowing South American farmers to produce with lower quality and adding forbidden substances to grow crops faster - and cheaper.

From Reuters: “ The extra imports represent 1.6% of EU beef consumption and 1.4% for poultry”.

Maybe take a deep breath and relax a bit before storming the ramparts. This is a slight adjustment not something undercutting all EU farming.

Today.

This is a common meme but wrong. The imported goods are subject to the same restrictions as those produced within EU.

What hurts EU farmers the most is the big supermarket cartel that controls prices and pushes farmers to produce more and more cheaply (and consumers that react extremely sensitive to every price increase, but that’s a more inconvenient truth)

That's like an anti-cartel, a cartel that keeps the consumer prices low.

With 12 euro/kg currently I wouldn't call beef in Germany extremely cheap on the world scale. Poultry has pretty much crossed the 10 euro mark too.

Definition of a cartel is a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices - it can be a cartel that basically oppresses farmers and have low consumer prices as result

And how does Asian countries curtail this?

Since we got trade deals when it comes to food with them, and they 100% do not have the same standard as European farmers.

And the EU won't check these inferior products for any problems?

> South American farmers to produce with lower quality and adding forbidden substances to grow crops faster - and cheaper.

This is a lot of fearmongering in a small sentences.

Nothing in the agreement says that that the EU has ro accept food produced with substandard practices.

Also, food produce in South America is not exactly low standards.

On average, South American farmers use 2-3 times more pesticides than farmers in Europe. 2-3 times more would be illegal in Europe, but is allowed as part of Mercosur trade.

Pesticides banned in Europe, but allowed in South America: Atrazine, Acephate, Mancozeb, Paraquat, and many more.

Diseases they can produce include: Parkinson's, brain damage in children and lower IQ, infertility, genetic mutations.

This is the fearmongering I am talking about.

Nothing in the deal says that EU has to accept anything that does not adhere to EU standards. Any food imports have to follow EU regulations. It only allows (a fairly dismal quota) to go through without tariffs.

So all the bullshit you just said (which I am not even sure I trust) is irrelevant.

This can more some of the incredibly polluting meat (beef) industry to countries where the pollution is lower due to less intensive methods over a larger area, which is a win-win.

This is a boon to any European manufacturer and machining company.

If the choice is between Wikipedia vs random information accross the web, then Wikipedia is undoubtedly better. But it doesn't have to be that, on many topics there are reputable sources to consult first.

There is very little "random information" on the internet which you can find easily anymore. The blogosphere is cordoned off by search engines as are personal websites most of the time.

Most academic papers are behind paywalls now. Which is maybe just as well given AI scraping.