The biggest and most influential confs are all in the US, most of the tech is from the US, the most influential companies are from the US, as are the technological standards and RFCs, practically the entire industry is US run and or owned.
I have no idea what this FUD and political commentary is supposed to be. Are you a bad actor advocating for terrorism under the guise of activism? Maybe you should not be welcomed into any country, you should not even be flying and endangering other humans.

You laugh now but people are already too far gone to discern good from bad actions, and sadly they have been for years. Everything is partisan and seen thru the lense of prior-guilt, race, skincolor and hatred for the other side.

We both know these people would rather cut out their own tongue than admit orange-man-baaad has done even just a single good, positive thing ever in his entire life. He must not be allowed to be seen in any positive light, so they will bend the truth and use their psychological and physical violence - for the GOOD TRVE-TRUE CAUSE (tm).

Way too many layers of abstraction to enable ever less qualified unwashed masses to develop software with even less understanding and skill; we had decades of this - now you see the results.

No, not everybody should be coding. In fact, it is better if less clueless wannabes are running around with these loaded guns.

Everything you describe could be had with CD or just general digital audio files archived in your own library/storage. Nobody needs cassettes for that. And you get no degradation and can access individual songs.

If you want the vibes, vinyl has cassettes beat easily - nicer, bigger sleeves for awesome album art, and the mastering has to actually be selective and well-done to even get the music onto such a flawed medium like vinyl.
For me tape sits in that awkward middle ground without any real justification or upsides; and tape-compression is something you only really care about in the studio on drum-takes mostly.

Meanwhile, Germany is scared of ze evil nukular and is literally importing coal from the arctic circle on Svalbard, burning coal like it is the dark ages - because Fukushima happened right in the german psyche, in the emotional part of the brain most people think ze Germans do not possess; but they very much do.

What a mouthful of corpo-speak but they forgot quite a few important buzzwords so I am not confident in their marketing-communication and ability to execute and there was no talk about synergies either.

Curiously enough, you hit the nail on the head. Sandfall and their fantastic game has become somewhat of a political partisan battleground, where the other side full of performative DEI-wokeness is triple-A and quad-A failures and the usual useful-idiots latching on to corpo-speak when it hails their fav messages and kow-tows.
Sandfall instead just made a great game, but I guess using a synth or a keyboard or a tool like AI to help in the process means it is not pure enough, and finally the corrupt indiegameawards managed to find an excuse to f##k with their most hated game of the year: exp33.
I was surprised they nominated and let them win in the first place, most people did not believe even that would happen. These alleged indie game awards are just pathetic political propaganda.
And now the filthy corrupt long arm of triple-A has gotten its revenge...

Now the OG fakest of the fake meets modern-day fake, what a match made in heaven!

Do not throw USA and EU into the same sentence, the EU is so far behind it is not even funny to compare the two. Your agent orange can try as much as you want or dont want, he will not achieve a downfall to sink to the level of EU.
Meanwhile USA is quite energy independent with strong nuclear and oil and gas reserves, and plenty international sources. EU has been weakened by emotional-Germans (ze nukular) and reverted back to burning coal, while not properly maintaining and improving the grid to adjust for the EV load. And they have no oil or gas reserves worth mentioning nor ones under their control, and very few international sources.

These two are nothing alike.

For decades now German politicians have bowed to steel, automotive and Russian gas, while hollowing out the working and middle class. Look at schroder and his sellout that merkel continued.
They weakened the EU defenses with toxic pacifism, and they stifled progress. And now they are doing it again with EVs because they failed to catch up to modern technologies and markets, for 2-3 decades. Again they are throwing their weight around and making things worse for everyone except themselves and their cronies.
All while undermining privacy and encryption.

It is increasingly infuriating.

The arrogant hubris and high horse riding finally turns to finding-out and it could not have affected a more deserving org than VWG.

It seems the smoldering hole in the ground left by cariad was not lesson enough. Getting pampered by mama merkel for rampant engine-control and emission fraud was not humbling enough, instead enabled them in their f##kery.
The arrogant, overly well paid managers turn out to be nothing but weak, clueless and antiquated; and decades of German politicians bowing to steel and automotive and Russian gas while hollowing out the middle class finally comes home to roost.

Buckle up, Germany, it is going to be a bunch of extremely humbling years coming for you. Back to being the sick man of Europe like in the 90s!

Could not even name a single instance of this alleged long long tradition - prior to WW1 / WW2. Got it.
Then Germany is the OG, my point stands.

These people are overwhelmingly trivial to replace, a few slides and some self important babble is what AI thrives in producing.

The only thing that AI will have a hard time emulating is the filthy corrupt behind the scenes deals and general corruption that the big4 have cultivated as their only real tangible output and product.

Not just a prophet, more like a sad reality guiding-star for some people... but always for the allegedly good-and-justified-cause. Because we were always at war with insert-here.

Surprise, surprise, but it looks like prioritizing science and scientific facts over (60s) radical-postmodern feelings really does pay off! Especially when the population does not have a choice since a totalitarian regime run by a mafia-esque clans party dictates it, and nobody is allowed to have human rights in the face of alleged progress. Everything has to bow to this essential highly diversified war-time economy.

Meanwhile, in the last ten years the US was not sure about their identity and basic vaccines and really tripled-down on these partisan idiocracies. Highest of the high Maslow hierarchy bullshit!t that does not really serve anyone but the peddlers who push it so they can increase their personal influence over and bullying of others.