The EU does complicate Gleichschaltung of the kind we see in the US indeed. This could be observed in Poland and Hungary, that the EU is at least an obstacle to some extend. However, like I said. Even that can only take so and so much erosion of institutions, especially once the populist authoritarians, energised by Russian support take over a majority in the EP and the Council (with the help of voters of course).

No democratic entity can survive voters persistingly voting for the end of democracy. No matter how it is set up.

On reddit I would respond with r/woosh

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It is owned by the ad company System1 though.

Duckduckgo does not only source from Bing.They use sources from everyone but Google and they have their own web crawlers and an index of their own. Their results feel considerably more relevant to me than whatever Bing is doing. ’

Have a look here for more infos: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/news-rankings

In some cases I still feel like Google has an edge but those cases become less frequent.

Duckduckgo should not have any such issues. If you need that prefix you should not even need any cookies. Going there has all those no AI settings on by default. Regarding Ecosia, could it be that you deleted some related cookies accidentialy? Or did they really push in a very sleazy way for AI?

As long as Brussels has not fallen to the same forces, yes. But it is dangerous to believe that Brussels can lastingly secure democracy when a majority of local voters persistently push for dictatorship.

Don’t do evil

Hasn’t that been Google’s guiding principle for quite some time already?

It boils down to how independent Canadians want to be. Also, the EU is not a guarantee against populist autocrats. There is a rising wave of those in the EU and its member states as well, just like in basically any democracy nowadays. But in most member states they aren’t in power yet and also on EU level they still lack a majority.

It is not about that though. Joining the EU means joining in common political institutions, accepting that EU law is above national law, that decisions on EU law are made together in common political instiutitons. It also means that one can be outvoted by others and still be bound by the result. Most areas (major exceptions being defense and foreign policy) of policy making in the EU are nowadays majority decisions with individual member states having no veto power on their own. Joining the EU is not joining some free trade zone or even some defense alliance, it is half way to joining another country (with the key difference that one can indeed leave anytime again).

It is not so much that Canada and the EU would have that many conflict points it. It is again, the level of commitment. Just because you are best buddies, doesn’t mean that sharing the same bedroom is the next logical step. Unless you are serious about that of course.

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“what allies, do the US have any left ?”

Russia and North Korea?

Joining the EU is a committment. It is not only an economic free trade area, it is a political union. It also means “pooling sovereignty”, see it as something halfway to a proper federation. I am not saying that this is out of question regarding Canada but I doubt that either Canada or the EU are really aspiring that.

Looks like the coin of some authoritarian banana republic, pretty much on point therefore.

That is not how it works in the EU. The Cybertruck has never been street legal here, for a reason.

I disapprove the Schadenfreude comments, but this is not merely a “vehicle most people don’t like”. It is a dangerous vehicle unnecessarily threatening health and even live of other members of the community, especially of children. There is a reason why it is not street legal in the EU.

Insulting? He was threatening with invasion and annexation of territory.

… owned by an ad company.

Ecosia seems to be pushing the aI stuff hard as well, but at least you have to press the obnoxious AI buttons to get it. Still, it refuses to make those buttons optional. Duckduckgo let’s you have clean experience without rubbing AI buttons or AI summaries in your face and so does qwant.

noai.duckduckgo.com

It offers also news search as well as image and video search. Filtering out AI images. Guaranteed AI summary free.