Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "VisualPolitik EN" channel.

  1. Ironically more wars would help diversify our defense production capabilities. The end of the Cold War triggered the consolidations we suffer from today as demand for those companies cratered.
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  2. Defense spending at least has clear "trickle down" effects to the rest of society, unlike say corporate tax breaks 💸
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  3. Probably because the weakness of America's public welfare means that school districts end up taking on the roles that a larger dedicated statewide program should provide. It sounds like Estonia as a whole provides the fundamentals such as student meals, healthcare, and teacher training, whereas in the US the individual states, districts, and campuses have to budget all that in.
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  4. Tell that to China, whose own diplomats confirmed they have an attitude of "we're big, you're small, therefore you have no leverage in these discussions" despite having much less historical influence and integration in the South Pacific than the British and its former colonies.
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  5. Aviation components, medical equipment, and agricultural goods of all sorts are some of the things China depends on the US for. That's before considering the education and tourism to Chinese visitors which if considered exports the US has a massive trade surplus on.
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  6. I liken America's overdramatized politics to walking: it's in constant reaction to inherent unsteadiness that you actually take a step forward. Some steps might be bigger than advisable, some are real tepid, some might go sideways, but as long as one side isn't allowed to overly dominate the movement, the entire body is not that likely to faceplant.
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  7. ​ @j4genius961 ​ 1) Bigger ships scale up in durability. The ex-USS America proved surprisingly difficult to sink with no defenses or crew aboard, imagine how much harder it'll be when there's active damage control (which the USN has recent live experience from getting mined in the Gulf and running into seamounts). That's granted they can be found in the vast ocean, with buddy sensor assets sending vital position updates all the way to the target not getting blinded or destroyed. 2) Most of those "friends" have no effect to the military effectiveness of the PLA. The US by contrast has plenty of friendly ports and airbases to call at. 3) America has plenty of experience supporting its movements under fire, having had its trucks and helicopters ambushed so often. The last time the PLA tried to supply its troops in hostile territory was in Vietnam... and they got into deep trouble against local militias (not even the regular forces who were still getting redeployed from Cambodia), hence why they turned tail so abruptly after "opening the road to Hanoi".
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  8. They have their freedom, the US just doesn't want to make direct trade with Cuba. Yet despite a literal world full of willing alternatives, the Cuban government still manages to screw up the wider nation in support of its much narrower "security" interests.
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  9. I’ve driven across TX multiple times. I don’t see Texan freeway designs working beyond the cheap, flat, and seismically quiet locations they enjoy.
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  10. It might have been a consideration of leaving Afghanistan for China to take... right when China's productivity has begun stalling and creditors have begun calling.
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  11. The host country also has to accept and support the immigrants like any native resident when they do communicate and try to contribute. Notice how more ethnically-identified Europe tends to have more problems with newcomers compared to the immigrant-driven Western Hemisphere.
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  12. Sadly the politicians who advocated it are not around long enough to be held accountable.
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  13. That's if China's economy keeps growing at the same rate, which is already slowing and likely to stall due to unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and pervasive chemical pollution. There's a reason why the PRC has gone all "wolf warrior" and its "Dynamic Zero-COVID" measures are expected to persist: their economy is no longer reliable on indefinite growth and the distraction from politics provided from delivering on promises of future wealth.
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  14.  @peekaboopeekaboo1165  What's inaccurate was the _when_, not the _if_. The CPC lately has only accelerated instead of reversed its self-made fundamental problems of aging, debt, and pollution. I've seen firsthand the collapse of optimism in China especially among the younger folks -- there's a real danger in the coming years of China stagnating and getting overtaken from collective inaction and anomie, which will only raise discomforting questions about how the people actually benefit from the Party.
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  15. The public sector has to exist to fund things that are required yet short-term unprofitable to a privatized industry, like infrastructure, education, and regulation. Though there is a balance to be achieved and China is certainly way biased towards its overbearing government.
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  16. That’s the ideal. But as the PLA continues to plus up its capabilities, Taipei must improve its overall counterforce to match.
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  17. Democracy is a fundamental interest of the US. If defending Taiwan leads to breaking the unchallengeability of the CPC on the Mainland, that's what America will do 🇺🇸🇹🇼
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  18. It’d be convenient for the West, but that shah has to maintain legitimacy with his subjects. Check out what happened with the previous regime in Iran.
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  19. Yes climate change is an identified threat that would cause conflicts to flare up, along with the associated supply chain disruptions and mass migrations. Also reducing our need of fossil fuel for static assets like generators also reduces the risk to supply lines and the personnel who are tasked on them, because trucking fuel between bases is among the most hazardous of missions.
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  20. The bottom line of government is continuity, not profit. Resilience is the direct competitor to efficiency, and this is why the public sector cannot and should not run like a business... where like 90% of new ventures go belly up within 10 years.
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  21. I've survived the other extreme, having lived in the low-tax weak-state libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa, where personal family and faith dominate public policy. It's just as dangerous and dismal as "collectivist" nations, but they trade tangible improvements like decent infrastructure and industry for blind optimism and self-confidence. That environment of local gang territories, strongman entrenchment, arbitrary "rules" and "fees", random violent petty crimes, and harsh punishments with zero deterrent effect (for with nothing substantial to fear losing, any risk becomes promising) is where I see America heading should MAGA with its much more narrowed sense of compassion continue to advance.
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  22. The PLA isn't short on wasteful spending either. They spend way more time on grand parades and patriotic indoctrination when they could be out training in the field and figuring out how their equipment will hold up away from the luxury of garrison maintenance.
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  23. That only came about because there were two major adversaries to worry about after WWII: the USSR and the PRC. Before then the US was quite isolationist, wanting at most to deter and diminish European control in the Western Hemisphere.
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  24. The F-35 could be that aircraft carrier, having line of sight pencil beam links with wingman drones to help prevent them from getting remotely hacked and going astray.
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  25. Problem is our most advanced equipment could get used up quickly, and then we really are back to obsolete kit if there's any that we hadn't already disposed of. Compare that with the PLA where their stuff may not be the best, but at least it's new and thus not soaking up as much resources in maintenance and upgrades for a while. Plus with the consolidation of competitors, we lack the multiple independent lines of effort that China's SOEs also face, but we don't have a command economy that streamlines something to happen. Much of our efforts are wasted on compliances as demanded by America's voters for the government to "save money" on strictly the lowest bidder without much consideration of product quality or vendor reputation, as well as paying for various levels of bean counters often working on a 12 month budget that wasn't authorized until a few months into the fiscal year.
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  26. Like 5 or 6, only 2 or 3 of whom might have completed school due to having to split family funds. Children are surviving but this realization hasn't reached young couples yet, and its harming the prospects of their children as uneducated ones get left further behind economically. Plus there's their church/mosque/traditional parents pushing them to "Birth 'em all and let God sort it out".
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  27. Not sure what Poland would gain as a US state, but the Polish people have been consistently pro-American through independence and occupation. In fact a Polish exile Casimir Pułaski is dubbed the Father of American Cavalry for his leadership developing the Continental Army’s cavalry forces during the American Revolution, and is one of only a handful of people granted honorary US citizenship.
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  28. Stimulants feel good for the near future, but long term causes horrible damage. That's what China is experiencing with its overcapacity in apartment shells and passenger transport infrastructure, and what Russia will encounter as its richest customers set up permanent alternatives to their pipelines.
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  29. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were definitely real people. But yeah the zealous veneration of those guys and their ideals certainly creates unnecessary aggression.
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  30. You think that's bad? You should hear how badly they butcher Chinese and Korean names.
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  31. Swiss gun culture would a huge lesson. They actually practice the "well regulated Militia" qualification through screening and training along with enforced proper storage and carry, unlike in America where simply being alive (and not black) grants you the absolute unconditional option to unilaterally threaten anyone else with instant death at your whim.
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  32. It's not just childcare and parental leave, but the two decades of education (especially creative ones which dissent from classic value of loyal discipline) needed to keep automation an assistant rather than a replacement. Only with such an assurance of livelihood can couples really consider having more kids.
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  33. Would have made more sense before the Teddy Roosevelt administration, when the GOP was still the solid progressive side.
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  34.  @seh1080  Even then, taking Táiwān wouldn't necessarily grant the PRC that high value-added human capital the Taiwanese possess in their brains and democratized governance. That durable prosperity comes through societal trust and exploratory dissent, which can't develop under Communism.
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  35. The PRC is heading that way too, talk to any Chinese national as a foreigner (not a fellow citizen/potential Party informant) and you'd see they know a surprising amount of "unpatriotic" knowledge and embarrassing news. The turn towards uncritical nationalism and state control over the markets hints at the Party running out of options to continue its unchallenged rule. A lot of critics say the US is going that way too, but it's been on the "verge of collapse" since 1812. Part of the reason it's so durable is because it holds the potential for revolution every year or so through periodic voting. Plus America thrives on chaos and loosely-defined limits; arguably the disturbing pushback comes from when those societal red lines start getting found and established to the detriment of the privileged.
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  36. Russia actually has combat experience though, and if they're performing this poorly (especially in logistics under fire) the PLA's failures would be even more dramatic. Remember the last time the Mainlanders tried a mass deployment, they got routed by unprepared reservists in Vietnam.
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  37. ​ @Hardrada904  America didn't do ongoing industrial espionage as government policy. It was all private sector effort.
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  38. Short of guaranteed free housing and healthcare for life on VA compounds in major cities, recruits are usually looking for something much earlier in the contract like education support and sign-up bonuses.
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  39. Blockades are legally considered a full act of war, and may be reacted to accordingly by Taipei’s allies. Plus the PLAN hold on the Pacific side will be tenuous at best since they’ll be on the opposite end of Taiwan who will resist any missions to support the vessels out there, especially since the eastern half of the island is where all the defensible mountains are.
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  40.  @Elzilcho87  We're free to point out mistakes and obvious biases. That's not the case in China.
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  41. That's before considering the suspicion that a significant share of RMB was double-printed, which better explains Beijing's push for digital e-CNY.
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  42. It is famous within Africa. Lagos drives African modern media much like California does for the English speaking world. And Nigerians are also wary about phone scams, because they get targeted too (often about fake real estate opportunities).
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  43. China has to start by being able to separate the CPC and PRC government from the Chinese people, history, and culture. But this is exactly what the Party does not want you to do. Notice how emotional a Chinese national would get if a foreigner criticized some aspect of modern Chinese politics, even though you might believe the same thing, because an outsider's comment feels like a random insult against your own parents. The world will then be less malicious to China because you discover that it wasn't as malicious towards all of China as your authorities had told.
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  44. All propped up by an explosion of debt, making our children pay for a short burst of political gain... which he promptly failed to defend when a pandemic made paramount the protection of our human capital as opposed to "normal" commercial vibrancy.
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  45. More like the peaceable global economy is done for. The Pound and Yen are decadent, the Euro is uncoordinated, and nobody really trusts the Rupee or the Renminbi. The resulting chaos will likely lead to more conflicts gone kinetic as the values of payments lose predictability.
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  46. Macau exists solely to transact with China, and that's the attitude that the PRC advocates for. But money doesn't buy love, and from the Macanese I've met, they seem like the type who'd be the first to abandon ship when China fails to pay rent for their attention.
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  47. The greater threat comes from the regime who is aiming to normalize grossly inaccurate reports, official corruption, legal opaqueness, disappearances for dissent, and mistakes expressions of unpopularity as military-grade violence. Meanwhile a lot of those hard builds are getting built like 50% larger with half the technically prescribed material so that the official in charge can pad his achievements and pocket the difference -- in China structural failures of brand new construction seem to be an annual incident at least, and overseas even the locals watching the BRI projects note an alarming lack of rebar and concrete, yet they're still on the hook for all those debts incurred.
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  48.  @ipg6772  Singapore is a democracy, and what the PRC thinks it itself is on a much bigger scale. However they conveniently forget that: 1) S'pore relies on positive relations with its neighbors, including well-defined boundaries; 2) The SAF isn't an existential threat to its neighbors; 3) Government corruption is a huge deal and the fastest way to fall from grace, whereas in China it's really the only way to rise in the Party ranks; 4) It openly embraces and promotes ethnic diversity, instead of trying to Sinicize the place; and 5) The ruling PAP has been waning in popular support as its citizens gradually want more than sterile prosperity 🇸🇬🗳
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  49. That identification has to come at no cost to the voter anywhere in the world. Remember citizens who are homeless or overseas are also fully eligible to cast a ballot. We specifically abolished all forms of a poll tax because at all prices it was such a deterrence to valid voter participation.
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  50. But does their equipment work as advertised? They're already getting complaints of low quality and high amounts of downtime in peace, imagine those things in the degraded maintenance environment of war.
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