this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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Feel like if it was another country they'd be sanctions or something already.

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[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 94 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (7 children)

There are 200 countries and the US is one relatively small, isolated pocket hurting mostly themselves.

US problems benefit their rivals immensely and are influencing their former allies to become more independent and form new local alliances; there's no benefit to either to long jump into one isolated hornet's nest.

Sanctions are specifically difficult against the US because 1) they're largely hurting themselves, most countries don't agree the US is doing the wrong thing about Palestine/ foreign/other policy to warrant sanctions and 2) the US still has so much rapidly dwindling legacy political and financial/banking influence that sanctions won't make much of an immediate impact if an issue to sanction was agreed upon.

If your dog starts defecating on the floor and rolling around in it, you clean up your dog.

If your neighbor starts defecating on their floor and rolling around in it, well...

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 60 points 4 days ago (1 children)

......you call for a welfare check on them? I mean, clearly there's some mental issues going on with your neighbor.

But what are you going to do? Go over there yourself??? Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Easy buddy. This is America. They probably have a gun, and are already proven to be mentally unstable! Plus, they're covered in shit! I just cleaned my dog. I don't want to smell MORE shit!

[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 34 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

That's basically what has happened.

Political leaders and journalists have visited and done "welfare checks" on the US, and come to the same conclusions you just have.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 37 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (18 children)

dog if you think the US is "relatively small"

look at what Nazi Germany, an even "smaller" country did -- it started a world war and nearly took over an entire continent.

the fascist US, with a much larger army, is an existential threat to the world.

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[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 65 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The rest of the world has done various responses to the American trade war. Most everybody else has found other partners to do business with and those that haven't are soon about to. America is not hurting other countries economically as much as they are hurting themselves. The entire ICE thing is terrible and it is too bad the government agencies have given in and that the military seems to be rolling with it too. But it is still domestic affairs as long there isn't any proof of concentration camps or massacres or the like. We have lots of empathy for the people in America suffering from all of this.

But then again...

You guys have free elections and this is your democratically elected leader doing what he promised to do. You guys had him elected after he staged a failed coup once already. What do you expect the rest of the world to do about it? To save you guys from yourselves?

Sorry, dude. We're busy dealing with our own national problems, trying to block Chat Control in EU, support Ukraine and deal with the entire Russia scenario, try to stop the genocide in Gaza, and a bazillion other more pressing things than dealing with problems America had caused for itself.

[–] ABCatMom@lemmy.ca 31 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Never fails to surprise me that there are people in the US who expect the world to fix this for them. Sorry, it's your country, you'll have to figure out how to take it back. In the mean time the rest of us will work out new trade deals with other countries and arm ourselves in case your government decides to take their shit across the border.

[–] expr@programming.dev 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

The OP is on feddit.uk, so most likely not an American.

The question is also just that, a question. Not an expectation.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 61 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The rest of the world is slowly routing everything around the USA. Assuming things turns back, there will be a lot to rebuild in matter of trust and commerce.

Now, if you're talking about what happens inside the USA, well, what do you propose other countries do? Invade? Because that's not happening. There's enough to do for damage control outside of it.

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[–] TheLazyNerd@europe.pub 54 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (13 children)

Countries need to reduce their dependency on the US first:

  • The US is the strongest force within NATO, so with Russia getting more aggressive, Europe and Canada need to quickly build up a stronger army.
  • The US is NATO's largest supplier of weapons, so Europe and Canada need to invest in their weapons industry.
  • The US is the worlds largest manufacturer of CPU's and GPU's. While there are non-US alternatives, these are not as good and are designed for custom build electronics rather than desktops, laptops and servers.
  • Most international payments go via the US (even a lot of international payments within Europe). Countries need to persuade their banks to find new ways to do international payments, but the current system is pretty advantages for the banks, so they are reluctant to agree.
  • Most cloud infrastructure is in the US. Other countries will need to move their data out of the US.
  • The US is a large provider of humanitarian aid, and the largest exporter of food. Poor countries will have to find a new way to get those resources.
[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (1 children)

TLDR The USA is the most powerful country in the world, and the world never prepared for a time when the USA would be led by a fascist asshole.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 20 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Someone need to convince the US to invade the US in order to give the US some #Democracy™

[–] towerful@programming.dev 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I hear that the US has oil and WMDs

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 44 points 3 days ago

Other countries are learning how to separate themselves economically from the US more.

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 40 points 4 days ago

trump is literally issuing sanctions on his own citizens and they applaud him for it. i don't think sanctions will work here 🤷‍♂️

[–] yaroto98@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I think they're just keeping their heads down and not poking the bear. He's already blindly striking out at imaginary percieved insults. They're just riding out the next few years and hoping to not make anything worse.

Plus, it's not their job. It's the US's job to clean up the bed they shit in.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

Yeah, from the world's perspective, this is a problem that solves itself in a few years. Plus, the idea of 'doing something' about a country is not a very common action. The most common action is to ignore the BS best you can, focus on building up allies, and focus on building up your own country.

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[–] blargle@sh.itjust.works 33 points 4 days ago
[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 32 points 4 days ago

Trump has inspired more trade side deals between countries than any US President in history. It will take 5-10 years to notice but it cannot be reversed and the US will feel the result of an isolationist economy like once Great Britain.

Canada is signing new trade deals every month with not the USA.

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 30 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Have a look into what other countries did with the rise of nazis.

Business liked it.

As a German, what do you think we could do? Even with our experience we're having fun with the far right Afd and the other parties are basically doing everything to get more voters to them!

Oh and we're still highly dependant on us technology and services (ms, cloud, etc) although all this could be seen coming for years now. 🤷

"nobody could've known!"

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[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 29 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because the US is the biggest market and they'd rather make money then do the right thing.

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[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Xi Jingping, Putin, and Trump are all having a feast with each other, meanwhile their respective countries' citizens starve. We have more in common with the average people across borders than with our own leaders.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

To some extent, this has always been true.

It's just that right now it's worse than ever

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

they are, by not giving tourism dollars to the welfare states, and not going to usa. plus the tariffs has caused china to redirect thier soy bean addiction to the same country that trump is bailing out. unfortunately they are finally starting to bailout soybean farmers as of recently.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This. Academics are avoiding the US. Job seekers are looking elsewhere. Suppliers are not sourcing from the US because it is unstable.

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Because they are too powerful as an enemy. If they were the size of denmark, they wouldnt get away with anything.

The entire economy of the western world is also extreamly connected to the US. Our pension funds invest in their tech stocks, our financial systems use the dollar.. And a lot more things that i dont even know.

America is pretty much running the western world. Like it or not. :/

They also spent almost all their money on weapons and high tech support systems. Their "defence" budget is larger than entire Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

Just look at these numbers. America, almost 1000 billion dollars. China, 300 billion, Russia 150 billion, everyone else much much less.

Its a crazy country.

[–] shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Its not just the Western world.

America got to define the new world order after world war 2.

They accrued 75% of the worlds golds reserves selling weapons to allies.

This allowed them to peg the dollar to gold under the Breton Woods system, making their currency the global reserve currency.

Never mind that scientists and innovators had fled from Eurasia to the US for safety, causing a massive braindrain

This is why they say they won WW2. They were one of few countries that had circumstances tip heavily in their favour due the war.

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[–] cv_octavio@piefed.ca 21 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Canadians are not buying America's shit, and are unlikely to resume that habit anytime soon. It doesn't take effect immediately, but when you compound it with the other ass backwards trade policies you're living under now you will all be suffering greatly within a year.

So will everyone, mind you.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

They are sanctioning themselves.

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[–] WALLACE@feddit.uk 19 points 4 days ago

The US is already sanctioning itself through tariffs, and the rest of the crap is domestic problems.

[–] Part4@infosec.pub 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

What the rest of the world is mainly doing is jockeying for position while watching America rapidly lose global reserve currency status.

It is happening far more quickly than I think the vast majority of people without privileged information imagined. Trump wants a weakened dollar and is getting it. No one wants this to happen overnight; the instability this process is allowing and will cause is risky enough. Everyone wants to avoid simmering global conflict erupting into WW3. Well maybe Putin is up for it, I don't know. The US is a belligerent ally, and has the biggest military in the world so it is about treading lightly and hopefully preparing.

It is about minimising risk, eating shit giving in to Trump's pathetic demands for fealty, while preparing for the new economic order to emerge. America cannot pay its military without everyone trusting it enough to buy its debt. America cannot pay its debts without its military supporting the dollar. So it is a tricky unwinding of decades of geo-political norms. The world cannot wait to see who America votes for every four years for global stability, so it is done. It is clear to me that very few Americans I came into contact with online ever appreciated this balancing act, or how important their vast military spending was to their country's wealth post ww2.

I feel bad for the average non-Trump voting American because as a Brit I can tell you that there is always resentment that plays out once a country loses that reserve currency status. A people can make a mistake, but a second Trump vote is unforgivable. It is America throwing itself off a cliff economically, over the longer term. Billionaires are clearly getting stuck into filling their boots - this collapse is going to make some people very rich.

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[–] anas@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago

We’re doing what we can, I personally boycott US products as much as I can.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 16 points 4 days ago

US "allies" haven't gotten the memo yet, US enemies aren't going to interrupt America while it's killing itself and non-aligned nations don't give a shit. Human rights abuses are almost never the real reason for sanctions, just like the US didn't invade Iraq to spread democracy.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Seems like Canada is making an impact.

It may not be official sanctions but If there’s any credence to the news, it seems like there are movements to fund more reliable trading partners. It’s tough to make an immediate impact but we’ll see over time how much we’ve screwed ourselves. Will Canadian snowbirds come back? Will China (or anyone) buy our soybeans? Will manufacturers, such as for automobiles, be able to stay in business?

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[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

what are they going to do? look at what happens in the UN when the US and Israel the only ones who vote a certain way and nobody gives a shit

[–] jannaultheal@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What can anyone do? The USA has the strongest military force in the world.

And they are being "sanctioned" by tourists avoiding going to the USA

[–] KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 4 days ago

Also the USA has nukes. No one's going to invade us, because doing so would be a destructive act, and the final order of any armed state is to nuke its attackers. This is the same reason North Korea gets to remain its defiant self when their army could be obliterated in a few bombing runs. This isn't even counting all the non-nuclear weaponry we have. Think of that annual budget of hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending that keeps getting raised every year...

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

The rest of the world has been trying to do something and has received threats from Trump in return.

[–] falseWhite@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

Unfortunately by sanctioning the US, they would be sanctioning themselves. The world just needs to wait for the orange madman to destroy the US economy, which is well on the way.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

As a US citizen, I would expect the rest of the world not do anything - the fuck have we done for them? And even if things had been done at some point, why rock the boat now?

Let the US collapse, boycott our exports, ridicule Trump when he travels. Fuck this country, let it burn.

edit: I misunderstood. Y'all should cut us off more.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

oh, no, you misinterpreted OP

they're not wondering why nobody is helping. they're wondering why nobody is cutting them off

[–] AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 4 days ago

Gotcha. Well, in that case, I think everyone should be cutting off more. I want to see the US economy get decimated.

(I realize I'm coming off super aggro, but I just don't see how else everyone here is going to wake up)

[–] bestbry@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Here at South America we are still starting to come to sense that the usa has been ruling over us for quite a while. There’s not much we can do. Some countries are just at a level you have those votes that are 150 to 1 and the one wins (USA).

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[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 13 points 4 days ago

Why didn't the world sanction Russia over Chechnya or China over Tibet? It has to have a certain impact on everyone before they'll do anything.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

I'm mostly surprised that there's been little response to the boat blasting.

[–] dumbass@aussie.zone 11 points 4 days ago

Woah woah woah, we're not here to fix your fuck ups, that's your problem to get rid of, we're just trying to not get nuked by a pants shitting pedophile Nazi.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 days ago

They respect other nations sovereignty plus there is a mad man with his finger on the nuke button who is very jittery.

[–] nomoreyankturds@piefed.social 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because our leaders are pussies. If we all league against them we could raze the country in no time

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