Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. Those who already have a lot of liquid cash on hand love it too. It lets them buy the dip on houses while everyone else can't get a mortgage as the banks stop lending.
    66
  2. PZ has been reporting from similar snowy spots in Colorado for a while now. Guess he really did get lost in the woods this time?
    52
  3. Physical labor isn't as much the issue as just having the technical skills to start off, especially as companies continue to resist providing their own OJT and continue scalping universities, the military, and industry competitors for the "required experience" (and subsequently complaining about a lack of candidates).
    44
  4.  @yoyoma17  ​ The last time America tried to draw down globally, it got sucker-punched by 9/11. Similar to how its isolationism dragged it into both World Wars when those threats came to us at home. Much like fighting fires, it's best to handle them while they're small and distant, rather then letting it grow into a firestorm that only evasion and backburning can hope to contain. Also the EU is the largest single market in the world, with things like its pro-customer policies really the only thing preventing corporate impunity over American consumers. Indonesia controls practically all sea access (including for US flagged ships) between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Venezuela's issues have become America's single biggest immigration problem. Perhaps listen and read up some more on modern geopolitics before throwing out random countries that supposedly don't matter.
    28
  5. Right, they'd have to become more loose on their definition of "pure" to salvage their identity. An ethnostate doesn't have the advantage of an immigrant-driven Western Hemisphere country where naturalizing or simply being born there is considered close enough.
    24
  6. Having been to both Taipei and a half dozen Mainland China cities in the past year, yes Taiwan is doing pretty well 🇹🇼👍
    23
  7. The culture promoted by corporations plays a huge role too, wanting society to be a perfectly modular workforce of individuals who can get hired, moved, and separated at their convenience. Businesses hate dependents, especially if they have schooling or medical needs of any type.
    12
  8. No, supply shocks and profit-price spiral are at least as influential.
    11
  9. ​ @infectioushobo It's "garbage" because there's clearly the resources to provide a better standard of living for the average American, but not the political will especially as corporate and industry support is seen as more valuable than respecting the will of every US citizen (particularly economically vulnerable and often disenfranchised voters like younger adults, homeless, working class, and expats). That's how America has an expensive scatterbrained utility like the healthcare system, and privatized utility monopolies like Comcast. All while so much of our taxes get spent on arcane "breaks" accessible only to those wealthy enough to staff a dedicated legal and accounting department.
    10
  10. He likes how Texas treats businesses compared to California. That said he also mentions corporate friendliness is the only thing really going for TX, which has to rely on adult migrants to keep its economic prestige going like most other petrostates.
    9
  11. In a deflation scenario, the only ones buying property are those who already can afford FULL CASH payments. Banks are going to stop lending, especially for middle class mortgages. So basically just further corporate buyouts of housing.
    8
  12. Like he said, Mainlanders have less immunity, more comorbidities, and a fraction of America's shitshow of a healthcare system. The Economist already estimated a total of nearly 2 million excess Chinese dead as of the Delta strain last year, so chances are this will repeat under Omicron's unstoppable spread and saturated (actual not fangcang) hospitals.
    8
  13. Probably would say it's like India but bigger: plenty of young religious entrepreneurs but cursed with difficult transportation due to lack of navigable waterways -- there's a reason the continent remained largely fractured as small tribal kingdoms until Europe's Scramble for Africa not even 150 years ago.
    8
  14. There's still not nearly enough solar energy production and especially storage to power all that desalination. Then the hypersaline brine still needs to get dumped somewhere, which would chew through pump machinery like no tomorrow if it's going over the western mountains into empty desert instead of going downhill back into the sea and killing all the fish around the outlets.
    7
  15. Deflation isn't a correction a much as a downward spiral. Inflation also occurs when there's few competitors to pull down on prices, which enables a price-profit spiral. The real booms and busts come from basing an economy on limited-quantity media like gold, which has the inherent problem of getting spent/hoarded at exactly the wrong points of the economic cycle. Every money issuer converged on fiat because it allows for countercycling the money supply as necessary.
    7
  16. The enemy we were fighting was a lot more identifiable back then. Even so, things like COINTELPRO, the War on Drugs, and Vietnam showed there was a lot of fighting over "enemies" where the treatment was more damaging than the disease. It's not so much "surrender" as caution and conversation over what battles are truly worth fighting.
    7
  17. I lived in China, and would say that what I learned being there is that the more pessimistic reports about the PRC are closest to the truth.
    7
  18. ​America's autocratic adversaries try to say the same thing about the US... while they wait for the day they can get in line at the American consulate to interview for a US visa 😂
    7
  19. Water they can desalinate and recycle, SG can already generate over half its needs with these methods. The bigger problem is food, as there’s practically nowhere left to dedicate to agriculture and despite their intensive efforts they are still almost totally dependent on fossil fuels (so no industrial-scale indoor farming either).
    6
  20. Nuclear is carbon free, but it’s not cost or risk free. In fact it’s enormously expensive and extremely hazardous like a hydro dam: any spillage easily leads to catastophe. And then nuclear is further only trusted to be handled by those with certain postgraduate degrees plus security clearances, with material that must remain heavily guarded from initial mining to decades after final burial. Thorium reactors are proving uneconomical, fusion is still infeasible, and reprocessing is the fastest way to obtain weapons-grade material. Expanding the installations of nuclear only increases the risk of incidents. Nuclear is like civil aviation: “safe” only through tightly controlled deployment and annoyingly perfectionist regulations. We’d be best to invest in implementations that don’t involve splitting atoms, such as battery storage, pumped-hydro, and deep well geothermal. At least the worst that would happen doesn’t involve exotic long-lived toxins that life on Earth never experienced 🌋
    6
  21. As a Californian, I can say our golf course lawns and sushi-grade rice crops are clearly a higher priority /sarc
    6
  22. If you want government to live within its means, stop voting for policies and politicians who provide more than your taxes can actually pay for. You're asking too much out of Social Security and Medicare when the taxable buying power of America's young and middle age workers keeps shrinking per senior beneficiary supported.
    6
  23. As the latest winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics explained, it’s national institutions that determine the prosperity of the country. Locales rich in easy resources (mined minerals and also constantly-growing tropical foods) tended to install elitist extractive forms of governance, while more hardship ones (which included places like colonial America and Australia) fostered more democratized and socialized political cultures.
    6
  24. I'd wager that will ultimately end up in the American Southwest. Lots of desert land to develop, close to educated labor from the coastal state megalopolises, and plenty of potential wind and solar energy sources. Only limitation would be water, which as the California Aqueduct network shows can be imported a similar distance if we invest in desalination.
    6
  25. I doubt they would be appreciative of it, convincing themselves they were always entitled to reparations instead. Plus it's not in "their" land whose claims ultimately overlap throughout all of Israel.
    6
  26. Sailing combat ships in peacetime is trivial. What really matters is being able to accurately strike targets, perform effective damage control, and keep moving even when isolated from supplies and support. None of these has the PLAN experienced while fighting an enemy who's firing live anti-ship missiles.
    6
  27. It's everywhere in the world. Even the very pro-natal Africa and Middle East are seeing shrinking family sizes.
    5
  28. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests. Democracies trade out the political efficiency of despotic simplicity for a more expensive and convoluted but ultimately more adaptable form of government.
    5
  29. Right, SG would be in mortal trouble without the labor of all the foreign migrants they import. It’s not like other regional examples of respectable rulership like Oman or Botswana or Uruguay where the locals don’t deem themselves above getting hands-on with shit jobs.
    5
  30.  @mntlblok  ”Cutter” I think sounds closer. The Arabic “Q” (and also the “T” in Qatar) is said from deeper in the throat, which is an unusual if existing sound coming from other languages, while the “A”s in the name are the short kind.
    5
  31. Nobody has several million tanks waiting to roll again, there's maybe a quarter million armored fighting vehicles of all sorts globally and Russia would be at best 10k before last year.
    5
  32. But the designs for modern core chips pretty much are just American, increasingly but still very occasionally Japanese or Korean.
    5
  33.  @JonySmith-bb4gx  China might be better than Arkansas, but “crime ridden” California was still a relief after moving out of Beijing last summer.
    5
  34. ​ @adi6293 Poorer families have poorer standards of living, and don't have as far on the socioeconomic ladder to fall from. Educated folks are just as if not more economically productive than entire low-income families, but have to constantly compete on staying there because spending time and money on dependents is a quick way to stall and possibly reverse upward mobility in an increasingly automated job environment.
    5
  35.  @tubage07  Pre-democracy Taiwan had a secret nuclear program going, but the CIA found out and the US told the KMT to knock it off because it'd be far too provocative especially since the US needed the PRC as a counterbalance against the Soviets at the time. But Taiwan is still on the nuclear threshold and would likely be able to deliver a working warhead within a year. This is part of the reason the Mainland must achieve total victory so swiftly at all costs.
    5
  36. That's really a mistake of American urban planning, trying to pack in as much leasable units as possible without providing that necessary next-door space to breathe.
    5
  37. ​ @RogerGraham-pc9nw ...primarily because America's refineries are optimized for imported "sour" (significant impurities) Gulf crude, and retooling it for the "sweet" (fairly clean) US fracked stuff is prohibitively expensive. Especially with rising hostility against fossil fuels and the electrification of transportation going forward making further production uneconomical.
    4
  38. The concern is that the Chinese cores are brand new and haven't undergone that deterioration. The question is how well built is the rest of the warhead to make it go boom as promised.
    4
  39.  @downstream0114 That was my take also, their ability to project and sustain force in places they can’t just truck their troops and supplies into.
    4
  40. Those meds only get sold because the underlying healthcare service continues to recommend/prescribe them.
    4
  41. If the Shànghǎi Police Database Hack is an indicator, they do have some grasp on the true size of their population and it's considerably less than 1.4b
    4
  42. ​They did, but structurally the problem lays with the experimental use of aluminum instead of tried and true steel.
    4
  43. I've seen estimates that when accounting for China's inflated GDP and underreported debt loads, its Debt-to-GDP ratio is more like 3 and possibly upwards of 5. They've only gotten this far because it's propped up by international funding, and a lack of political challenge over how much money it's printed and forced its SOEs start yet another project with.
    4
  44. But then the question is why didn't the Middle East recover? Remember all of China and much of Eastern Europe had also been conquered by the Mongol Horde.
    4
  45. We wouldn't be drafting to deploy far from home. Russia is having a hard time getting new grunts even in an information space that's far more locked down.
    4
  46. The FAB- series is just the bombshell itself. What's alarming is the addition of GLONASS-guided glide wings which both improve range and precision when released.
    4
  47. Right, the timelines might be off, but the trendlines are solid.
    4
  48.  @Withnail1969 I experienced both. Mainland China is clearly in more trouble. You can tell by all the shuttered shops and listless faces on the streets there.
    4
  49. Certainly more productive than increasing our debt trying to keep afloat pricey benefits for terminal retirees.
    4
  50. There's still a lot of savings from maintenance costs, since solar and wind generators aren't full of fluids and their associated seals, pumps/loaders, heat exchangers, and other constantly stressed mechanical systems.
    4
  51. The Dutch became far more defensive since they decolonized and lost interest in much more than preventing further loss. That said I've heard the Dutch are among the best developers and practitioners of modern cybersecurity.
    4
  52. I'm sure those farmers would gladly sell a mile-deep strip of their land so that the feds can install an effective defense in depth that minimizes the number of new hires on a permanent government payroll.
    4
  53. Although it’s more accurate to describe the fall of AUD and CAD against the USD. The SGD has been stable against the greeback.
    4
  54. Right, a lot of social media economists don’t realize that efficiency and resilience are actually competing interests. The “inflation” that the CHIPS and Inflation Reduction Acts target is the long term one that’s bound to happen if America’s businesses continue pursuing its profits through shortsighted cost-cutting rather than sustained continuity.
    3
  55. And lack of supply, which if anything is the stronger influence this time.
    3
  56. Or rather past notions of the economy, getting constantly overturned like a dynamic market should. Remember walking forward actually involves falling down into the next step.
    3
  57. Until cartels develop innovations in demining an area, and now you've just armed drug runners with IEDs.
    3
  58. EVs are depressed due to lack of charging and expensive offerings for the overall experience. We hear about Tesla and BYD all the time, but quietly Hyundai/Kia EVs still sell well.
    3
  59. Fear is a great motivator, both for ad revenue and for votes.
    3
  60.  @silentvoiceinthedark5665 Mostly because some key processes of the pre-PC era weren’t well documented. A similar issue arises with old software and it’s long deprecated languages that very few people ever knew to begin with. What we can do is recreate the capabilities practically from scratch, which is just as amazing and ultimately what matters in the end.
    3
  61. ​ @mikehammer4018  Any cross-Straits shooting is going to cause all voyages to China's ports to become uninsurable. The West doesn't even need to dominate the seas and skies, just provide enough return fire to keep the SCS unsafe for civilian traffic and thus starve the Mainland of vital food and fuel imports.
    3
  62. It's also the most socially conservative province, with more sentiment towards the "free" US than their "nanny" in Ottawa. Ironically in the US itself the opposite is true, with the coastal liberal states funding the conservative interior.
    3
  63. Nice thoughts but inflation and automation mean that if we don't enjoy ourselves now, we likely won't get the chance in the future either. Staying alive isn't terribly difficult, but staying motivated is only getting more impossible.
    3
  64. Right, the PLA's overwhelming manpower means nothing if most of them are stuck on the Mainland waiting for an increasingly delayed boat ride straight into the target reference points of Taiwanese artillery.
    3
  65. Founders aren't always the best leaders to maximize the effect and profit down the line though.
    3
  66. "Excessive" debt loads are like outrunning a bear attack -- you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than everyone else. And the USD has been outpacing every other alternative since the British Empire collapsed.
    3
  67. It's only gotten worse now that Zero-COVID flopped dramatically while China graduated record numbers of college students right as the government hit hard on the tech, real estate, and foreign-owned companies that absorb most of them.
    3
  68. Taiwan is pro-American, but that doesn't mean it actually wants to become part of the US. Japan and the Philippines would be stronger candidates and they're not petitioning to cede itself to Washington.
    3
  69. Barriers are a force multiplier, but there has to be a force to multiply. That ironically means more government spending on expensive personnel who can effectively react to incursions.
    3
  70. Western economies aren't as vulnerable because of better fundamentals -- immigration-boosted demographics, more useful education, more natural startup scene, more open media and public discussion, more solid grasp of the total production chain (R&D, Sales & Services) instead of just the Manufacturing middle-income trap. If anything the concerns are overblown because of deliberate dramatization for attention grabs.
    3
  71. Those aren't statistically accurate polls, self-selection is too biased to those who even know of the poll's existence. People are called at random for this reason.
    3
  72. His predictions on the timeline and severity might be clickbait, but his takes on the overall trends hold up.
    3
  73. Wouldn't be surprised if it's related to the earlier seismic activity that occurred further south of the island. Fun fact: the Blue Lagoon is actually the wastewater of said geothermal plant, after extracting its energy for electricity and central heating. That's how clean geothermal can be ♨
    3
  74. Unfortunately the voting method has to fundamentally change first, say to ranked-choice. A winner-take-all ballot naturally converges on two choices: the one victor, and the collection of losers.
    3
  75. Globally yes. But the local pollution effects are way more acute and severe.
    3
  76. Job competition will do that, especially as remote work opened up a lot of other paycheck possibilities and Mexico's growing industries mean they're no longer as desperate to secretly come north. Plus there's still way to many Americans needing support for skills retraining and chronic health issues which further reduces the effective labor pool, making it an employees' market.
    3
  77. That's like asking the Secretary of Defense to be a grunt in a foxhole. His value-added (and what he gets paid most for) comes from information analysis and grand strategy, not from dealing with coworkers' personal issues that have no appreciable value in the wider game.
    3
  78. Inflation is caused by demand outstripping supply. Money was loose to help ensure Americans could afford to survive the disruptions. It may have been generous for a bit too long, but definitely the other side of the equation is the failure of global production and trade to bounce back as quickly as demand did… and much of that is due to continuing Dynamic Zero-COVID shutting down China along with Russia’s “special military operation” blocking reliable trade out of Eastern Europe.
    3
  79. ​Only in manufacturing, which according to the Smiling Curve is the least value-added and most replaceable middle step compared to R&D and Sales & Services at the ends. Ends that China fails to get a grip on because the mindset and policies those require would be "destabilizing".
    3
  80. That's because there's now too few ways to immigrate legally. It's only gotten more restricted over time. Hence the surge of irregular entry for immediate asylum claim to get a case processed in a reasonable amount of time.
    3
  81. It's traditional in that it uses the whole virus, treated in a way to make it inactive. Problem seems to be using the whole thing also creates more messy and less effective antibodies, as opposed to much more focused samples of the spike protein that mRNA and viral vector alternatives produce.
    2
  82. It would have to continue at likewise inflating rates to keep that upward spiral. Like he said, it's naturally self-correcting.
    2
  83.  @garywood97  The previous times the US tried to disengage and go America First dragged us into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Demobilization comes at the cost of deterrence.
    2
  84. Simple minded commenters focus solely on America's money supply, when global aggregate supply is what's driving prices upward.
    2
  85. The last one the PLA pulled off was Hainan in 1950, but that operation had a much closer distance and plenty of pro-Communist agents already staged on the island. On the other hand, the PLA never managed to gain a foothold on the even smaller Kinmen and Matsu Islands that are likewise just a short swim away.
    2
  86. On bulk carrying trains and especially ships it’s actually not that much per additional ton. CO2 is a global effect, but it would be the Chinese breathing all that sulfur and mercury and other breeze blown pollutants.
    2
  87. Also very long delayed and still full of questionable build quality along its whole length, even when only connecting to the next major city over.
    2
  88. All the damage happened on the ground. The only space debris might be satellites they lose control of before it's able to get in touch with the remaining ground stations.
    2
  89. Depends on the altitude. A low orbiting spy satellite will just fall in and burn up. A mid-range GLONASS bird strike could cause problems, but between LEO and Geostationary is not that crowded to begin with.
    2
  90. You'd still need to separate the salt from the brine, which is still mostly water. This process is not exactly quick or economical -- there's a reason we still mine for it underground despite every place with a seafront theoretically having unlimited access to the stuff. Also the KSA doesn't have as much money as they'd be comfortable with going forward. They're pushing hard for Neom and other foreigner-attracting projects because as oil demand stalls, their citizenry which is way over the territory's natural carrying capacity threaten to revolt when their buying power driven almost exclusively by oil revenues likewise sees no positive future. It's in the name Saudi Arabia, a polity whose leadership changes directly through blood and burials, and not necessarily a peaceful one at that.
    2
  91. Both are true. Youth unemployment is alarming because of the collapse of real estate and education markets which had employed a lot of graduates, as well as the exodus of companies to cheaper/closer/less hostile countries. At the same time, the youth are the ones driving innovation and establishing demands for new markets, which an increasingly aged society isn't so quick to take up if they do so at all. So China ends up clutching to a limited consumption economy revolving around increasingly worthless condos and other vapid symbols of wealth, as opposed to things they can truly monopolize like popular arts and cultural approachability to foreign audiences.
    2
  92.  @alexjones7845  Because of Trump's money printer going brrrr as COVID shut down normal market movement. Granted it was arguably necessary to get money to the people and prevent a more devastating downturn like what not-so-socialist China is experiencing now, and probably was run a bit too long as the supply side is still catching up leading to shortages that drove the surge of inflation we had.
    2
  93. They're told, they just don't believe it because of how tribalist they still are. No significant multiethnic regime lasted that long on the continent until the Europeans were able to expand inward from the coastal trading ports in the late 1800s.
    2
  94. They kinda can't, a fully free float would annihilate China's economy and with it the CPC's grip on power.
    2
  95. ​ @asdasdasddgdgdfgdg His timelines can be aggressive, but the overall trends he predicts from are solid.
    2
  96. There's at least 5m Americans living abroad, likely leaning Democrat as being a social conservative isn't exactly conducive to the mental tolerance and flexibility required to be a voluntary emigrant. Republicans overseas would be concentrated among the 1m military servicemembers who enjoy the insulation of a base compound and expenses-paid travels. I happen to be both a veteran and an expat, and this is what I've noticed. The main hurdle after actually deciding to vote (itself a problem among all Americans) seems to be the submission of ballots since there's not always an embassy or consulate nearby to drop it off at, and the "home" state may not be so accommodating to those voting outside of a physical queue of your "correct" district with the "right" form of ID in hand.
    2
  97. It's balanced by more GDP demand to keep up with the rising standards of living. Like Boomers didn't require broadband mobile internet to complete their careers, but for Millennials lacking this is a real quick way to get left behind.
    2
  98. No it is always a he, especially in the upper echelons of politics. Nigeria is socially very traditionalist with a strong sense of gender roles, enforced by the churches/mosques everyone regularly attends due to likewise strong religiosity. Source: I lived there for a few years.
    2
  99. Not affordably. Overland transport is nowhere near as cheap as floating it on water, especially when most of the demand is on the other side of the country along the coast.
    2
  100. And no challenges because of Party-monopolized state, within which is mutually-assured destruction of its membership from all the corruption required to make the numbers needed for promotions and increased authority.
    2
  101. The "multipolar world" that anti-American forces want just means multiple fault lines of conflict disrupting and significantly increasing the costs of international trade. There's a reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named after a single military power who provided protection for at least a third of humanity at the time.
    2
  102. It always has been, just the effects have stacked up so much that it's increasingly harder to deny the evidence with a straight face.
    2
  103. Our subs just have to take out the PLAN's underwater "washing machines" and the relatively few surface vessels that pose an anti-air threat. The rest of the PLA's ships can then be dealt with through cheap guided gravity bombs, of which the US has hundreds of thousands of Mk-80 series in stock ready to bolt on a JDAM kit.
    2
  104.  @pietwandelaar1743 In technical aspects. In other skills and achievements humans care about (notably artistic), the average Singaporean seems lacking.
    2
  105. I wonder what he considers "armored". I don't imagine the RF trying to clear out Ukrainian AT teams rolling up in cash trucks and executive limos.
    2
  106. It’s not the headcount that counts, it’s more how old they are. Populations then had both elders dying and youth being born faster.
    2
  107. Raids from friendly territory are a lot easier to "win" than sustaining combat in hostile lands, which the South Koreans at least did in Vietnam.
    2
  108. So we should issue like a Permanent Voter Card to all citizens like they do in Nigeria? I thought y'all were terrified of a centralized demographic database, hence why we have no unique citizen ID number and the closest we use is the SSN.
    2
  109. More like because the US makes it so damned hard to legally immigrate regardless of skills and education. It's already an administrative nightmare converting our own international student graduates into just permanent residents.
    2
  110. They’re likewise struggling with a weakening consumer base, or the infrastructure to support sustainable mass electrified mobility.
    2
  111. Also uneconomical to build for coal when gas is cheaper and more effective, with further pressure from dropping prices in renewables. China keeps building them because they’re trying to maintain their subsidized electricity prices, and are taking on debt accordingly.
    2
  112. Not Communist China, which is the goal of "derisking" from this increasingly unsafe single point of failure. India and ASEAN seem to be producing the lower end, while the EU and North America are gaining more premium manufacturing.
    2
  113.  @Victor-ns6pj  Anti-radiation missiles. Specifically attracted to radars. Without a compatible working radar, air defenses are no more than sitting ammo dumps. The US is by far the leading expert at blinding and thus defeating air defenses.
    2
  114. Only more visibly. Obama committed the Pivot to Asia after our economic faceplant under Bush Jr got Beijing emboldened.
    2
  115. That doesn't solve their issues with raw production though, just their lack of local refining capabilities (they've historically exported the crude and reimported the refined stuff).
    2
  116. Even the jobs they don't want (line factories) aren't doing so well either, with all the shrinking orders and offshoring of operations.
    2
  117. CA would do comparatively alright for earthquakes as the building codes have long demanded seismic hardening. It's other states like in the PNW and New Madrid regions whose peak seismic potential is at least as great as the ones in CA whom we should be worried about.
    2
  118. ​That's because we keep trying to treat rail travel like a for-profit business instead of the public utility like it really is. No land-based transport is profitable on path usage fees alone, it has to take either government support or considerable ancillary real estate ownership (as is the case in Hong Kong, or previously the US where rail companies were granted rights of way at times 100 miles wide).
    2
  119. Terminal life stage retirees need to stop demanding so much entitlement for themselves, so that young folks with their whole taxpaying life ahead of them can get the support they need to get a decent career and family going.
    2
  120. Plus Taiwan's geostrategic location as the keystone of the First Island Chain, which ensures PLAN boomer subs don't reach the deep ocean undetected.
    2
  121. We need a new polling scheme that allows for a viable alternative to the choice between either "winner" and "loser", say ranked-choice ballots.
    2
  122. ​ @SignalCorps1 Right, I don't trust the specific timelines that PZ puts out, but the underlying trendlines are still solid.
    2
  123. As long as African leaders continue biasing interest towards sub-national tribalism and extractive corruption, they'll just continue pushing its people towards expatriating to more competent and developed economies.
    2
  124. It would have to be forced, because it's extra costs the consumers aren't used to. Much how like Californians pay more for gas because of its special blend only refined in a couple places, but breathe way easier because of it compared to the infamous LA smog levels of the 1970s.
    2
  125. There's already a lot of criticism among Chinese themselves about all the BRI-related loans to other countries when they could be investing at home. There's a reason Chinese-language media doesn't talk about how much money is being spent on foreign aid.
    2
  126. American ammo manufacturers are running all day and night to provide for Ukraine, but it's only a fraction of what we were once able to do due to the historically smaller need and rising standards for weaponry. Plus there's also all the air and sea equipment necessary to defend the status quo in the Western Pacific, which has a much longer lead time to get into production.
    2
  127. There's also the lack of private sector competition enabling a profit-price spiral. If anything the concentration of corporate wealth and influence is getting as severe as we experienced a century ago.
    2
  128. No, falling supply is just as influential. Just remember those times gas prices went up because of some disruption in oil production, like a hurricane in the Gulf or whenever OPEC decides to squeeze more money out of us.
    2
  129. This attitude is a problem with every Old World ethnostate. Hence why the Americas, Australia, and other nations open to immigration aren't falling so fast into retirement dependency.
    2
  130. ​ @takeda64 And look what happened to Germany in the end. When free societies rally they can end a threat permanently (and not say permit them to survive and slowly salami slice gains over generations), but it usually requires something dramatic to create and sustain that motivation.
    2
  131. Do they have a weird greasy feel to them too?
    1
  132. The endgame would be the establishment of an independent Palestine who accepts the existence of Israel. But there's too much Islam-supremacist sentiments around for Israel to be comfortable standing down. That or a single state with a strict and absolute separation of religious interests from civil institutions.
    1
  133. Hence why it's more economical for immigrants to just enter irregularly and claim asylum. Legal pathways are just too limited if they're even available anymore.
    1
  134. That's ironically a big reason why illegal immigration became a problem. Before locking down the border in the 90s, illegals would regularly cross back south quietly and only come over seasonally. A sealed border means they're trapped by the raised threat of imprisonment and uncertainty of access to employment.
    1
  135. Drill just a bit deeper and we could use the nuclear power of the Earth's mantle directly instead. That way there's no exotic radioactivity that isn't already occurring from volcanic eruptions.
    1
  136. All his other videos say the US will do fine, as long as pro-facist modern Republicans don't dominate politics and dramatically dismantle the institutions that let America prosper in order to cater to their more narrow has-been ideals.
    1
  137. It'll do just fine should we reach 1 billion again, since that's about the estimated sustainable carrying capacity of Earth with developed country standards of living and its enormous per capita productivity.
    1
  138. Even within 5th Ring it wasn't hard to find dark if not long incomplete high rises. My own place there included warning signs to "Watch for falling objects", and it wasn't depicting flowerpots or other household items either.
    1
  139. I'd still be cautious on how much to rely on past measurements to determine the future. Sea level rise will likely have an exponential curve, and humans are horrible at thinking about nonlinear trends. We may be experiencing something like this with the weather, as in a growing number of places each summer gets more stifling and winters more crushing.
    1
  140. ​ @babakv38 Seattle and New Madrid aren't front of mind when it comes to earthquakes in America, but it doesn't mean it will never happen there either
    1
  141. ​ @wbay3848 Right, social media and the collapse of appeal of churches for after-college in-person socializing has basically driven women to ignore the average dude and concentrate their attention towards the minority of elite men... who spoiled for choice aren't compelled to settle down. There's dating app data indicating this inflating bias among their cis-female userbase.
    1
  142. We don't have the funds though. Just buying out the land required for this project could be better spent on renovating the rest of the nation's infrastructure. America has better things to spend out tax dollars on than trying to stop every asylum seeker who'd have otherwise been killed at home waiting for us to process a proper visa.
    1
  143. Made in America as an option, but not the only one. We won't be able to afford it if it's the only game in town, regardless of source.
    1
  144. Just another reason to quit smoking 🚭
    1
  145. CO2 accelerates the amount of water vapor trapped in the air. The effects stack on each other.
    1
  146. There's also the cultural aspect of not desiring a used house, especially if it doesn't accommodate modern preferences like more open floor plans and generous electrical capacity.
    1
  147. Petrostates benefit from higher oil prices, so it is a possibility.
    1
  148. Continuously staffing, maintaining, and securing it from Russia's adversaries costs how much though?
    1
  149. If the CPC continues on their quest for absolute control, likely how every other Chinese autocratic dynasty ended -- imploding violently.
    1
  150. China has always been an autocracy, which means developments happen quickly. Whether good or bad.
    1
  151. Yeah, I felt more sick and gained over 10 lbs just by living in China for not even a year. Funny thing is I quickly lost the weight and felt better after leaving. And no there wasn't any significant changes in diet or activities. I think there's something with all the chemicals they use in their agriculture.
    1
  152. Also the more risk of an incident, whether accidental or intentional. There's a reason nuclear substances and technology are the most controlled materials humanity has created.
    1
  153. More like the better part of a year, since enough U-235 for a warhead still needs to be collected. The US once had to stop Taiwan from building The Bomb because of how provocative it would've been, but Taiwan is a nuclear threshold state along with Japan and South Korea.
    1
  154. Winner-take-all voting means the results naturally converge on two sides -- the one victor, and the collection of all losers.
    1
  155. We'd have to break up the corporate dominance of our rural lands, subsidize agricultural education, and also expand infrastructure like municipal internet wiring and more efficient rail transport to maintain crop productivity and profits. As it stands there's not enough incentive to keep rural family plots farming as opposed to making a quick buck by selling off to a conglomerate or urban developer.
    1
  156. Cheapest to initial operation, but you get what you pay for in terms of health and environmental effects downwind, on top of its inability to quickly adapt to demand surges.
    1
  157. The narrowing paths of legal immigration over time are likewise a change of definition on paper. My own parents would not be able to immigrate here under current policies, and they're retired American civil servants.
    1
  158. Even if you study Mandarin, it's not guaranteed you'll be able to communicate with other Chinese as their tongue is Cantonese or Hokkien instead. Then you find out they read in Traditional Script, which further slows down your rapport building writing to them in Mainland Simplified. Ironically I've found Korean and Japanese to be at least as good of a lingua franca because of how many of their people go abroad, and how many foreigners study it out of personal desire (not just for heritage or employment reasons).
    1
  159. Problem is the rise in costs for retiree maintenance outpaces the gains in productivity, and doesn't look to improve as older folks generally decline in innovation and adoption of those improvements.
    1
  160. If we don't continue to electrify our transportation, it will be too soon. ICE motors can only burn a specific few types of centrally well-refined fuels at best, whereas electricity can come literally from the sky from solar, the air from wind turbines, and the ground through geothermal.
    1
  161. He does account for immigrants, that's why he's much more optimistic about the inclusive Americas than the more tribal Eurasian ethnostates. Particularly the US, who still manages to continue assimilating and Americanizing the masses of migrants who in some cases are dying to move in.
    1
  162. But then it runs into the conundrum of government spending on hiring expensive federal employees and overpriced contractors to effectively staff said wall.
    1
  163. The way the Chinese state controls its money, there's not really a difference there.
    1
  164. They already exist, both naturally (America's trucking and rail companies) and policies limiting "8th Freedom" cabotage along with the Fly America Act that prevents even more demand for foreign carriers into the US altogether.
    1
  165. The government would then be blamed for the accelerating inflation and increasing reliance on imports in a migrant-free American economy.
    1
  166. Enrolling and maintaining payments isn't so trivial though. Any paywall is a significant barrier even if the price was a penny a year.
    1
  167. Mainlander Chinese are a low-trust society just with disposable funds. Unfortunately money doesn't buy conscientiousness.
    1
  168. I'm surprised at the lack of comments about how bad British food (as cuisine) already is 🍖🤢
    1
  169. Or move to the West Coast, as many people complain many other states' homeless are getting relocated to.
    1
  170. Trump's promises aligns with more voters, but I'd bet the policies today's Republicans pursue will be ultimately regarded as more retarding than improving to the MAGA dream.
    1
  171. ​ @steffengustavsen9678  If you believe their numbers, which I'd bet are seriously inflated like the rest of their economic statistics. Most of their strategic granary reserves seems to be filled with rotted grain, or couldn't be inspected due to a recent "mysterious" fire. Plus their agriculture critically depends on constant input of imported fertilizers and feedstock, and then gets further polluted by toxic chemicals (inadvertently if not deliberately) before entering the market. Their agricultural yields and affordability will nosedive if a shooting war scares off the foreign inputs they rely on for "domestic" production. Warships and warplanes don't run on coal or batteries. Their EV infrastructure might relieve oil usage in a land war, but a cross-Straits conflict is not a land war where China's EVs are. Plus most of China's own oilfields are under the sea or near the eastern coast, meaning those facilities are much easier to strike at and cause China's mobile energy consumption to likewise become prohibitively expensive.
    1
  172. Can't be just housing, but also schools, after-school activities, career development, street security, and transportation that allows kids to get around town without their parents long before they can drive.
    1
  173. Yet the worst crash in kids is happening in highly communal and self-censoring East Asia.
    1
  174. Yes, in terms of tons moved each kilometer nothing comes close to floating the payload. Europe's rail network isn't as dominated by freight as America, but its rivers and canals are considerably more utilized to move more than passengers.
    1
  175.  @jakemontone807  Ask East Germany. Oh wait.
    1
  176. We need cheap energy, but not necessarily one that's burned. Electrification is democratizing because sourcing it doesn't necessarily require the constant input of a multinational corporation.
    1
  177. Set the age limit at the current average life expectancy.
    1
  178. If those productivity and profit gains aren't shared more directly with all of society, we'll still have problems though. It's overall buying power that's important, and advances in automation won't apply evenly across everything we need or want.
    1
  179. If they're wise they'll be with. All that preachiness about democracy and human rights holds value because the underlying Wisdom of the Crowd provides more accurate and durable governance than "efficient" authoritarianism.
    1
  180. Not to the same accuracy at speed, as the openly available services are deliberately degraded and more easily spoofed/jammed than their encrypted military grade options.
    1
  181. At least it's not as critical as if the same happened on the West Coast, where the much fewer deep-draught seaports and even larger volumes with Asia would amplify the economic drama.
    1
  182. If you hadn't noticed, the American Southwest is far deeper and more mountainous than Israel. So good luck pumping all that water uphill, especially to the more thirsty farmlands deep inland.
    1
  183. China likely won’t descend into civil war, but I’d bet it will stall into popular anomie and escapism. The PRC would end up again as the Sick Man of Asia as its population shrinks into retirement, while getting outcompeted by the rest of the Global South it proudly says it had led.
    1
  184. Until you realize nobody wants to spend because they expect lower prices and revenues ahead. Deflation isn't necessarily correction.
    1
  185. PZ previously mentioned rating Obama among the bottom is his ranking of US Presidents, exactly because he squandered the opportunity to invite and develop the next generation of Democrats in favor of doubling down and cashing in with their old corporatist cohort.
    1
  186. There was a plan drafted by USGS surveyor Maj. John W. Powell for new states in the West to be delineated based on watershed, but haughty well-wetted East Coast leadership felt no need to deviate from their neat polygon mindset and fired him for the trouble.
    1
  187. From the individual family standpoint yes, but China is a lot more effective at isolating and silencing grievances. It won't be until the PRC's internal security apparatus becomes degraded that the Chinese people will find each other and create an overwhelming revolt against the CPC.
    1
  188. More like there were a lot more disenchanted Americans. It's not hard to find a citizen who deliberately failed to vote altogether because they simply didn't like either candidate for President.
    1
  189. That just means you waive your rights and unconditionally surrender to the results.
    1
  190. ​ @Likeaworm Thing is many would be happy to surrender to a US officer on sight. That way they can get their asylum claim started because legal paths are so narrow, costly, and overcrowded with applicants.
    1
  191. Winner-take-all means results naturally converge on two sides: the one victor, and the collection of all losers.
    1
  192. It means he's not standing on it, he just didn't specify whether he's on the Pacific or Atlantic side of the line
    1
  193. If migrants have the skills and willingness already, why wait another generation? Besides just having fresh mindsets counteracts the stale ones that brought us to where we are now.
    1
  194. Probably when they took Mecca from the Hashemites (now just Jordan) back when fighting was primarily by riflemen on camels and horses. Even then the Saudis succeeded because the British were mad at the Hejaz Sharifate and refused to come to their aid.
    1
  195. ​ @petermarshall6577 You sure you don't mean the Fly America Act? That original law soon got weakened to US codeshares instead of an actual US airline, and apparently both the DoD and Department of State (the two main patrons of government-purchased international airfares) will be getting permanent waivers for their itineraries soon.
    1
  196. The lack of fairness comes from the widening divide between America's macroeconomic prowess and the microeconomics in our wallets, which the current institutions are failing to bring back together. Trump's autocratic style appeals to the desire to decisively break down these institutional barriers, but considering the interests of him and the Republican Party I'd bet the gap will ultimately just get bigger -- some higher pay might trickle down for a bit, but woe is us when those naturally sociopathic capitalist entities decide to later wield their godlike profit-filled war chests in litigation and lobbying against our communities.
    1
  197. ​ @scottahermann Deportation requires the receiving end to agree taking them and organizing drop off points. We're not parachuting them over some random spot in some other country, especially a country that the deportees also don't belong to and would also be an illegal in.
    1
  198. There's also the option of using their warheads as a nuclear mine. I'd say this is more likely as at least they get to decide which outpost or beachhead becomes unusable instead of compelling Beijing to decide a whole city center for them.
    1
  199. The inhumane shortsightedness of straight "apolitical" capitalism is why business executives should not be leading governments or driving public policy.
    1
  200. That's just asking for a more devastating nuclear exchange. The PRC made full recognition of it being Russian territory after the Soviet collapse.
    1
  201. Although newer isn't always better, like plastic components in machinery or service subscriptions instead of full ownership.
    1
  202. That's just conservative politics inflating if not inventing threats they say you can 100% mitigate with a gun, in accordance with the interests of their gun lobby donors.
    1
  203. If we can get deep-drill geothermal to work, it would bring about all the benefits that those who push for nuclear promise (since the mantle itself is heated through a nuclear process) without the risk of producing any byproducts more exotic than what Earth has experienced since life began here (worst that would happen is a modest volcanic eruption).
    1
  204. It's the PLA saying that. They're the ones trying to fight a land war in Asia while the US would keep to the seas and skies.
    1
  205. The deamplification of pro-libertarian Republicans, who still believe that private interests are gracious enough to invest in unprofitable yet vital public goods.
    1
  206. Not completely end, but ensure there's an alternative fab source in case Taiwan gets cut off for whatever reason. Taiwan will still be making the absolute best chips; the key is that the US itself has the capacity to fab better chips than what Mainland China can cobble together.
    1
  207. Just left China earlier this year. Not missing the diarrhea-colored tap water even within the 4th Ring of Běijīng.
    1
  208. That's to collapse the whole thing. Disabling it might just need a truck bomb or a well-aimed bunker-buster.
    1
  209. That's why the push to discard Huawei from 5G networks. Too many risks of hidden backdoors... which I wouldn't be surprised if Western intelligence have found and exploit themselves.
    1
  210. We can thank the Boomer generation for their aggressive voting that compels legislators to cut support for education and youth services in order to save the budget for the incumbent homeownership tax breaks and geriatric benefits that are so popular among increasingly dead-end retirees.
    1
  211. Correctable annoyances vs state abuses that people seriously emigrate out of. It's rationally not hard decision to make, really one driven by emotions.
    1
  212. Control of Crimea means control of the Black Sea, as well as much of Central Europe since the Danube River empties into the Black Sea along with all the cargo ships that sail up and down the Danube.
    1
  213. None of the exotic waste products too, any effects would be no worse than routine seismic activity.
    1
  214. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests. Unfortunately profit-demanding corporate laws and pro-capitalist attitudes prioritize efficiency to benefit relatively transient shareholders over longer-term stakeholders (which includes customers, employees, and the public at large).
    1
  215. It's receive-only though, like GPS and Galileo. Beidou is the one constellation with limited two-way communication capabilities. And with any of these systems, a specific satellite just has to be flagged as "bad" to be simply ignored from the total positioning calculation.
    1
  216. Most Americans originally entered without verification of identity, criminal history, or ability to work. I'd imagine "illegals" and their descendants will likewise shape up if we don't legally further steer them into less respectable occupations.
    1
  217. Legal isn't bad... if it's reasonably available.
    1
  218. Only at like the squad level, which any group of randos with guns could pull off. In terms of sustained combat, the last experience they had was their sprint north when the Incheon landings threatened to sever their supply lines had the Americans surrounded and besieged Seoul instead of slowly fighting through it.
    1
  219. The way they're built though, they'd be lucky to still be a salable property in 70 years.
    1
  220. ​ @gregmoore66 ​​Right, not all "change" is necessarily good, as Obama's critics were quick to point out back then. Trump's first term already had us driving in the shoulder, further rightward movement could have us falling into the ditch.
    1
  221. The appearance of fraud is how Republicans rally for votes among its overall minority voting base, even though the actual cases of voter fraud we're always found among Republican voters using their vacation home to register for an extra ballot.
    1
  222. Ironically it was racism that kept the US from absorbing more of the Western Hemisphere, both over questions of increasing slave states and of integrating Spanish-speaking Catholic mestizos. But yeah it would have been interesting to see how much better Latin America may have ended up as a star on the US flag 🇺🇸
    1
  223. There's many farms in KSA and China too, but it's not enough to feed their own population and they still have to import much more.
    1
  224. We'd probably automate the farm with drones and robots instead of having more kids, just like big farms have been doing for a while now.
    1
  225. The filters add even more costs to an already uncompetitive coal.
    1
  226. Just casually ignore the supply shocks of Russia's invasion and China's Zero-COVID hangover, keep believing it's all Biden's fault. That'll teach those libs 🙄
    1
  227. Trusting self-discipline only goes so far, sadly limiting access to weapons is more consistent because otherwise the chances increase that one of the wielders is or becomes willing to self-destruct in the process of combating their enemy.
    1
  228. Though clothes are scraping the bottom of the price bracket. Perhaps this disruption will end extremely wasteful fast fashion of articles that fall apart on the first wash.
    1
  229. It’s on the way though, much like how the Soviet Union wasn’t such a bright beacon of post-war progress after the Moon Landing, but still persisted as a force-wielding state until it suddenly didn’t.
    1
  230. ​ @tyree9055 Not every servicemember is a shooter, in fact the "tooth to tail" ratio is like 8~12 support personnel for every one actually geared for engagement. A civilian law enforcement outfit wouldn't be much more efficient. Also you may want to look again at how sealed the Afghan-Pak border really was.
    1
  231. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests.
    1
  232. ​ @JinKee Til those drones are hacked, downed, or spoofed into attacking the wrong target, and now you've just armed the very people we're trying to keep out.
    1
  233. Center of Mexico is just as isolated from the ocean, and doesn't have as many places for viable port cities.
    1
  234. Not to mention the feudal theocracy movements the Saudis have been allowing support for, developing a Muslim World with a hair trigger against America (culminating in 9/11) but ignore even more blatant anti-Muslim campaigns from China, Burma, Serbia, etc.
    1
  235. Just like invading Ukraine was a consequence of NATO? No, this is what happens when self-righteous social conservatives keep trying to reverse the trend towards wider democratization and justice.
    1
  236. The US is already set up to regress into states and local communities, it began as a nation that way where the harder challenge was building a federal system on top of it.
    1
  237. Which China falsely believes is all an American conspiracy, in denial that different societies can independently converge on the same conclusion — that Beijing is the main problem.
    1
  238.  @hughmungus2760  It’s a collapse in the view of the ruling CPC, whose unquestioned legitimacy hinges on fulfilling the promise of tangible economic development indefinitely. Failing that, they face a Chinese people who are largely aware that a single Party setup isn’t the only way to run a country.
    1
  239. But those don’t happen at noticable scales constantly like our burned fuel does.
    1
  240. Retiree NIMBYs drive the inflation of house prices in California too.
    1
  241. His timeline like everyone else's often isn't precise, but the trends are ultimately accurate.
    1
  242. Chinese factories are getting less orders too, and foreign brands especially are offshoring operations out of the PRC.
    1
  243. Compounding oversold reports over a couple decades, because the Party keeps rewarding the meeting of artificial and inflating quotas based on those falsified reports.
    1
  244. They could bring out its people, but the heavy gear would have to stay behind. That would actually be the ideal scenario.
    1
  245. If not competing with the Philippines and their South Asia neighbors for exporting workers overseas.
    1
  246. ​ @m.deadly5952 No they can't. KSA enforces exit visas that are granted at the pleasure of the employer, who can easily petition for some vague "breach of contract" to force delays and denials in processing. Only recently did they ban employers from confiscating worker passports, but the fine for that is a measly couple hundred dollars if they're even caught.
    1
  247. The history of what's "legal" should be considered. Before WW1 immigrants only needed to be white and not hacking up a lung as they came off the ship, and not only was identification and criminal history often left uninvestigated but they were even offered a legal change of name on the spot. The descendants of such simple survivors of a routine boat ride makes up the majority of Americans today.
    1
  248. I wonder if its parent company PDD kinda wants China's deflation to continue, since apparently they're hemorrhaging money at something like USD 10 per item
    1
  249. They'd be technical intelligence agents, not human ones. Professional spooks could be a Sam Fisher instead of a James Bond.
    1
  250. Not as much as Dynamic Zero-COVID and Russia's "special military operation" disrupting the global supply network, and corporations riding on a profit-price upward spiral.
    1
  251. Peak worker age is also the cohort that drives innovation and adoption of productivity improvements, which would slow down as the worker pool ages. Hence why Japan discusses through their fax machines how robots will salvage their society, while much younger America is the one developing the AI required to make it a reality.
    1
  252. It wouldn't be a utopia though, stagflation was destroying us well before NAFTA and China gave us a permanent outlet on rising costs.
    1
  253. Pronouncing it correctly also helps with the auto-closed captioning some of us use.
    1
  254. Because the God of the Communist Party is called GDP, whose flaws include being a supply driven statistic instead of indicating what real humans actually demand.
    1
  255. Which is useless when the foreseen battlespace is in the air and sea, where technology and technical expertise is the deciding factor.
    1
  256. Because it wasn’t enough to be the entire world’s second most favorite team during the 2018 World Cup 🇳🇬⚽️
    1
  257. But it's sooo efficient, which means better returns to the balance sheet and stock price. Sadly it does come at the expense of resilience.
    1
  258. IT equipment is simple, they follow its programming reliably on only electricity and cool air. Humans need food, bathroom breaks, hours of daily downtime, and easily misinterpret or ignore even the most detailed instructions.
    1
  259. CA uses a unique detergent-laden blend to suppress the smog that gets quickly trapped by the Sierra Madre. It's aggressively "leftist" environmental policies that made the infamous LA Smog more a history lesson than a daily experience after Reagan got buried.
    1
  260. Except those "houses" almost always have an owner already, which without bankruptcy protection means it's guaranteed they'll oversell its true worth just to get a leg up on their own insurmountable debt.
    1
  261. ​ @mysticaltyger2009 Indeed, it really takes extended family to raise a child. This capitalism-driven siloing of families into more easily-moved nuclear units basically nuked the community support that children historically grew up with.
    1
  262. Even more reason to get rid of conservative traditionalists who still act like any high school dropout can still stumble over their "bootstraps" into a well-paid hire-to-retire job.
    1
  263. There's also a big difference in what used to be considered "legal", especially in the past few decades. Most Americans descend from those who merely survived a boat ride across the Atlantic, either came from Europe or Africa (as a slave), and weren't hacking up a lung on arrival; hardly any checks on criminal history or even identity, instead were even offered an opportunity for a legal change of name. Fast forward to the end of the Cold War -- along with empathy for those trying to escape Communist movements -- where the ever-tightening restrictions for a "legal" immigration means that even my own parents -- who both made their own way in before the Soviet collapse and are now retired American public servants -- would find it enormously difficult to get their green cards under the current policies, and probably ending up either stuck at home or someplace that doesn't assimilate new faces nearly as readily.
    1
  264. Changing the facts on the ground involves putting boots on the ground, and the immigration problem isn't an organized mass destruction threat big enough to warrant another adventure in regime change.
    1
  265. Potential for incidents only rise with propagation. There's a reason they're so controlled.
    1
  266. Did he also spend the last three years in the PRC's "walled garden", eating their chemical-filled agriculture, and seeing doctors trained and equipped by China?
    1
  267. It’s the reverse of the US once it separated from Britain: practically inventing its navy specifically to stop paying bribes to Arab pirates for sea lane access.
    1
  268. Quality and quantity are deteriorating though. They’re getting to Korean War PVA status (local numerical advantage stopped by competent combined arms), and goinng further they risk entering native population vs colonizer curbstomp territory.
    1
  269. Gas prices are always high in CA. That's the cost to keep the air breathable, since no other state has so many cars having its smog trapped at the Sierras. It doesn't help either to lack in public transit, whose fares over time are a lot more consistent.
    1
  270. Unfortunately spoiler votes just means the worst candidate for you wins; PZ detailed how independents up until Trump always end up voting against themselves, and it's not likely to change once he's gone. Real change would only happen by infiltrating into the existing setup.
    1
  271. Perhaps having some American crewmembers operating the ship while going between US ports, while dropping the requirement for US materials and build. This would retain our civil seamanship experience while freeing up our limited steel mills and shipyards for more sensitive applications like replacement warships.
    1
  272. ​Sadly, faith is what best provides hope. That faith may be unrealistic and impractical, but it certainly produces prodigy. In the larger scheme of things, having too scientific of a worldview is also self-defeating.
    1
  273.  @daniell1483  It's all about the optics given to us by mass media (both traditional and social) that aims for evermore alarm and outrage to keep customer engagement and ad money flowing. Much like how everyone complains about inflation but are flying (especially in premium class) like they just got a raise and regular bonuses throughout the same timeframe.
    1
  274. What PZ really hints at the end is that businesses must seriously invest in entry-level OJT, as they can no longer count on relying on publicly funded education (both university and military) and poaching from private sector competitors.
    1
  275. Luddites weren't necessarily against industrialization, but more the sudden collapse of wages and autonomy as their careers are callously replaced by unskilled factory workers with government support.
    1
  276. Switching costs, hence why the US keeps getting pushed to add freeway lanes for door-to-door long-haul truckers instead of adding more regional heavy rail that would be more efficient to move on.
    1
  277. That's if they remain totally unchallenged. They carry no real air defense though, so once deemed worthy to target they just become live weapon training aids for even cheap guided bombs.
    1
  278. You would think a China watcher would at least study how to pronounce Chinese names. The "sh" sound does exist in English, it's not like asking for Arabic H's or Bantu clicks.
    1
  279. America doesn't need nearly as many people, especially with the more automated modern factories we'd be setting up. 20x labor costs is worth it when the few factory fab maintainers hired can output the equivalent of 30 Chinese laborers (who really only number that many because of political pressure from the Party bosses to improve employment statistics ahead of production efficiency).
    1
  280. Probably not. They'll likely get sold off to some corporation to pay off terminal life expenses like geriatric medicine and aged care facilities, then rented out to younger folks.
    1
  281. Relying too much on ourselves ultimately isn't that much better, especially if there's a shock in the low-tax interior while most of the demand is along the coasts. Diversity of supply sources is the key, but resilience is always in tension with efficiency and companies got too "efficient" by concentrating on a China that's getting increasingly hostile and expensive and then locked-down.
    1
  282. The lack of competition led to the lack of enthusiasm for the Democrat platform.
    1
  283. It would reduce inflation, but in the long run by mitigating the increased costs of defending against environmental changes. Acting now means not spending as much down the line.
    1
  284. A: A country where millions more citizens are mis-skilled, medically disabled, and increasingly retired.
    1