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A post from /r/BuyFromEU got my blood boiling. I don't have an account there any longer, so I have to vent here:

Personally, I am not buying into this idea that you should support a certain business just because it is based in your vicinity. I will buy the product that comes at the best price for the quality I desire. If it is Japanese or American or Chinese, so be it.

In my opinion, the BuyFromEU movement will fail unless the governments of EU countries make a serious attempt to understand the reasons why businesses struggle in the EU and address the structural issues preventing them from scaling up.

Essentially, it is the government's job to fix the reasons why people weren't buying from EU in the first place. Unless the government cuts down on regulations, unless they makes it easier for people to grow their wealth by working hard and not having to pay 50% of their paycheck in taxes, unless they make electricity and gas cheaper, unless they fix the housing shortages in all major cities of Western Europe - this movement will FAIL. Buying Paturain instead of Philadelphia cream cheese is never going to help your economy grow strong.

My choice to not buy Nike and buy Adidas instead will only help the top bosses at Adidas. I am going to still be taxed at 50% of my income, so I might as well buy the cheapest product. The government should give me a serious incentive to buy European, then I will.

The Reddit OP shows a perfect example of:

• Deflecting towards the government instead of taking personal responsibility
• Complaining about taxes and greedy cooperation, while only looking for a personal financial benefit

We as as Europeans must be willing to be uncomfortable again. We ARE the system. So to change the system, we are the ones that must change. Stop whining, start winning.

I see three potential doomsdays scenarios:

• US invades Greenland, Canada, or another neighborhood
• Escalating trade war. US tech giants are forced to boycott its international userbase
• Massive forced USD devaluation shattering the financial markets

And of course none of the extreme, but the usual chaos.

It feels like an invasion is becoming more likely. We must step up our game immediately.

I am looking for a way to block out all US IPs, ideally via a browser extension like uBlock Origin or a custom DNS server. I want to use this as a simulation to verify that I can still do the most critical activities without immediate US reliance (e.g., doing a bank transaction, contacting my family)

Does such a thing already exist?

I am torn on how to handle both Signal and BlueSky. They are definitely outside of the big tech, privacy violating bunch but ultimately still part of the US ecosystem.

Especially the recent event that Elon pressured the Reddit CEO to censor a subreddit keeps me thinking.

• BlueSky does in theory have federation support, but it is still in its infancy. It is also still a company, albeit a public benefits one, and thus has a commercial interest. Most people are leaving X for BlueSky so true momentum is building there rather than in Mastodon.
• Signal is a foundation but servers are fully US based thus still under US jurisdiction (like the CLOUD Act). Signal is the biggest alternative messenger and even there it is hard to build enough momentum to move entire groupchats from Whatsapp to Signal.

How do you view the situation?