Comments by "SkyRiver" (@SkyRiver1) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1.  @dieterdietert7232  Only their were not zero casualties. Take Galwan Valley: while soldiers carried firearms, due to decades of tradition designed to reduce the possibility of an escalation, agreements disallowed usage of firearms, but the Chinese side was reported to possess iron rods, clubs and batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails. Hand-to-hand combat broke out, and the Indian soldiers called for reinforcements from a post about 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. Eventually, up to 600 men were engaged in combat using stones, batons, iron rods, and other makeshift weapons. The fighting, which took place in near-total darkness, lasted for up to six hours. Resulting in about twenty deaths on each side and many injuries and later deaths from injuries. I would think it would have been near the same if they held back and shot at each other with small arms across the valley. Later they reinstated the use of firearms.
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  2.  @srwven  Cell phones are responsible for the use of rare and strategic metals far more than EVs but I bet you aren't gonna go back to a landline.
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  3. America has many different regional peccadilloes, but Peter was raised in New Zealand. Many Americans find the pronunciation of other regions and ethnic groups in America curious and incorrect, and they often are. Take yourself for instance: where in the world do they think that the word "annunciation" is synonymous with the word "pronunciation" as you seem to believe?
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  4. I like my cars entirely analogue, but I still realize that Tesla is the future of autos. I will never sell my 97 Miata or my 2003 S2000 but will still buy a cybertruck as soon as my order comes up in a year or two, or three.
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  5.  @johnfranklin6394  Not an easy place for cars here either: in the winter anyway, they spray an anti-ice formula on the roads that is diabolical. My roadsters stay inside for the winter and I use a more modern SUV that is definitely not analogue, and about a hundred times less fun to drive. I haven't had the heart to put away the Miata yet. I live in the mountains of PA and the roads here are like a billion dollar amusement ride. Very little traffic outside of town and are really well maintained. I still have sticky tires on the miata and just hate to take them off, but it is getting into the 30f in the morning. And a hard 25 or so and they are trashed permanently. Gas is about $4.70 right now. Sorry for going on, about the "urgent" concerns of a retired boomer.
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  6.  @e4arakon  That's one way of looking at it: the wrong way.
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  7. While the oil industry would like everyone to think that there would be a massive up tick in mining and resource use to change over to green energy, this is just lies and spin. The actual facts about the resources needed were detailed in the last Tesla investor day presentation and they are actual facts and the conclusion is that it would take less resources than to continue what humans are currently doing to generate energy. But, hydro, geothermal, and even modern nuclear should certainly be paramount. I especially like the breakthrough that uses nuclear to bore out geothermal vents, and the one that is finally commercializing the production of iron nitride magnets. That last is a huge wow.
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  8.  @drmodestoesq  The Dutch were probably responsible for the real contraction of Spanish power, as their stock market proved more valuable than a mountain of silver and the repercussions this had.
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  9. An ellipsis only has three dots, and the proper punctuation would have been dashes in the first two instances, and a colon in the third. Brought to you by The Antidegradation Assembly -- You're welcome.
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  10.  @kbwalkin7316  Your income may go up, but so will inflation, and your purchasing power willl go down.
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  11.  @CarySkelton-ws2vz  You must have absolutely no knowledge of history to have made such a statement.
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  12.  @MitchHawkes  Unfortunately you may get to witness the effects of much more formidable weapons close up. I imagine at that point you may have a change of heart.
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  13. You feel that do you. Well bless your little brain.
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  14. Good question. I am kind of looking forward to the responses to your question. Do you really mean socialism or social democracy? In 'Merica most people think Venezuela, as opposed to Denmark when they think socialism. But, "Keep your government hands off my social security and medicare." . . . kind of highlights the cognitive dissonance of the fervent antisocialism in the USA. On the other hand, it's kind of easy to have a successful social democracy with an intelligent population that can depend on the USA to bear the costs of defending against undue influence and out right invasions by ruinous kleptocracy posing as socialism.
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  15. Trying to blow up ships, even if successful -- is not piracy.
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  16. Sanctions don't seem to have been able to stop Iran from developing the drones that are killing sleeping grandmas in Ukraine.
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  17. And average of ten years. Good thing Tesla has been planning ahead for twenty.
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  18.  @TrendyStone  And TSMC and Samsung have fabs under construction in AZ and Texas. Intel too.
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  19. Depends on if you mean tech development or military upheaval. Tech development maybe about a hundred major new worlds starting with fire, ag, and the wheel, and ending somewhere around CRISPER, AI, robots, and reusable rockets.
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  20.  @elektrotehnik94  Why would it, or more precisely why would anyone expect an economic "system" to equal a political system? A cold rolled steel conway is not equal to the social conjecture of the minor German poets either. The set of unrelated things that do not equal each other is infinite.
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  21. Good thing we have the upstanding media like FOX to keep up calm. (irony alert for the neurally challenged)
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  22. He has already gone away -- mentally at least.
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  23. Worked great in Switzerland too. And surprize surprise: heroin addicts that don't have to spend their days scrounging for money and finding drugs are actually able to work and hold a job and live quite normally. The solution is to take the profit out of drugs, by decriminalizing them and making cocaine available to the fools who use it cheap. At one point when I was young I had a job doing fix-up and painting around the house of a retired general of the US armed forces. His wife had prescriptions for both cocaine and opium, legally as nose drops and paregoric. She had bottles of them in virtually every room of the house and she seemed to function quite normally. The whole illegal drugs thing is a scam, it is total bullshit, and the only solution that works is decriminalization and gov sponsored clinics where the drugs can be had and used safely like they have in Switzerland. Unless you want the drug barons and their banker launderers to continue to corrupt every facet of our Republic from Congress down to the beat cop level, and the incredibly ineffective enforcement apparatus which has proven that they can do nothing of significance regarding the problem except increase their own power and funding and shit on low level street level creeps. When you make something like pot or opium illegal you make it so profitable that it will be smuggled and sold successfully no matter what enforcement techniques you use. It is natural to use and want to use drugs, cocaine is like coffee, only actually less toxic than pure caffeine. The worst drug by far as far as health and society is concerned is alcohol. You could use medically pure opioids most of your life without serious consequences, not so with alcohol. The reason drugs are illegal is power and money is derived from their prohibition, but the lies have the public in fear and no one has the courage to stand up because the bastards that profit from the prohibition have everything by the balls.
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  24. I hear the price of chicken is up too. Do they own all the chickens?
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  25. Good move.
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  26.  @Taber01  The number of full size pickup truck in the USA that are used as basic transportation is ridiculous. If someone does not need a pick up for work they are basically dragging around a half ton of useless iron everywhere they go in a vehicle that couldn't be less aerodynamic. At 60mph most of your gas money is being used to push air out of the way. They have no concern either for the environment or their wasted money. As is said, most of these people don't need a pick-up they need a cowboy suit. I bet less than five percent of them ever carry anything that would not fit in the trunk of a sedan, and if they do it is only occasionally. It would be far more efficient to just rent a pickup for $20 a day the once a year they really need it, or just borrow one from someone.
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  27. Yep you probably are.
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  28.  @sunburnfm  Funny: I thought that there were million of Chinese waiting to occupy units that they paid for that were never finished and were deteriorating.
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  29.  @gordonpatterson4031  You are wrong about that, the problem started when the prescriptions for pain meds were made too hard for most people and their doctors to get and give, by new government regulations. Then all the people who were on monthly auto renewing pain med could no longer get them and turned to street heroin. But I guess the reality of what actually happened didn't occur to you.
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  30. The solution is to take the profit out of drugs, by decriminalizing them and making cocaine available to the fools who use it cheap. At one point when I was young I had a job doing fix-up and painting around the house of a retired general of the US armed forces. His wife had prescriptions for both cocaine and opium, legally as nose drops and paregoric. She had bottles of them in virtually every room of the house and she seemed to function quite normally. The whole illegal drugs thing is a scam, it is total bullshit, and the only solution that works is decriminalization and gov sponsored clinics where the drugs can be had and used safely like they have in Switzerland. Unless you want the drug barons and their banker launderers to continue to corrupt every facet of our Republic from Congress down to the beat cop level, and the incredibly ineffective enforcement apparatus which has proven that they can do nothing of significance regarding the problem except increase their own power and funding and shit on low level street level creeps. When you make something like pot or opium illegal you make it so profitable that it will be smuggled and sold successfully no matter what enforcement techniques you use. It is natural to use and want to use drugs, cocaine is like coffee, only actually less toxic than pure caffeine. The worst drug by far as far as health and society is concerned is alcohol. You could use medically pure opioids most of your life without serious consequences, not so with alcohol. The reason drugs are illegal is power and money is derived from their prohibition, but the lies have the public in fear and no one has the courage to stand up because the bastards that profit from the prohibition have everything by the balls.
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  31.  @gomertube  You apparently know nothing about the issue.
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  32. No they don't.. They are a step backwards. They take an elegant robust system and add a overly complex and inefficient gas engine to produce an even more complex system that is even more likely to catch fire than a gas engine which is far more likely to catch fire than an EV. But the ICE OEMs that cannot compete in EV are spreading this disinfo as the only way they can delay their demise because they cannot compete in price or tech with Tesla.
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  33.  @bbag1550  Russia may be facing "real consequences" in Ukraine, but it has yet to experience consequences that Putin really cares about, but it will.
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  34.  @moonstruck336  It use to be in Coke, and available at drug stores, no problem though, because it was not yet illegal. You can still get prescriptions for it if you are in the power-elite.
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  35.  @tedcrilly46  I can see how it seems like that because of the worldwide extent of American focused media, but really it's been that way everywhere I ever lived. Live in NYC and everything is NYC centric, live in east bumfuck Wyoming, and it's gods country. Live in Quebec and Quebec is the main thing in life. Most people just think that they are the center of the universe. It's nothing personal or limited to the USA it's a natural expression of the survival instinct. Everyone is the main character of their own lives and if they aren't there is something wrong like they are in a cult or something. Since at present the USA is by most measures the most powerful country economically and militarily this comes across as a collective national characteristic. It's probably about as true as the present right-wingnut propaganda that all Europeans look down upon Americans, think they are stupid, uncultured and are easy to take economic advantage of. Well there is some truth to that on individual levels, just look at the interviews with Trump supporters -- Can they all believe the incredibly idiotic ideas they express? But I think Europeans are intelligent enough to realize that stupidity (in a relative sense) is not a general American characteristic.
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  36. So in your mind the kind of guys who love to murder torture and dominate the towns folk at the drop of a hat, are just diverted coders?
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  37.  @michaelpayne9712  Glad you pointed that out. 25 to 40 USA 4% almost double Russia 25%. Quantities have a Quality all their own.
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  38.  @autobootpiloot  25% of 10 is not 4. It's 2.5. But you are on the right track. 25% of 100 is 25. 4% of a thousand is 40. So America is almost spending twice as much.
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  39. So China did not invade Tibet. . . in your opinion.
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  40. Considering you view that PZ actually reads these comments, it is not surprising that you fail to realize nobody cares if you are leaving.
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  41.  @willywonka4340  Maybe you should sign Trump's "bomb Mexico" petition?:face-fuchsia-tongue-out:
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  42. Here's a hint: nobody cares.
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  43.  @johnfranklin6394  That is a shame, the models up to and including 03, had a 9k redline. Which I love, but I like high rpm while most like high torque. It was the highest output per ci of any engine until Ferrari came out with the Italia. The Miata is far better for most people, especially since unlike the Honda, it uses regular gas and a broken timing chain/belt, doe not destroy the engine. There are a small, but not nonexistent number of Tesla models S that were produced in 96' - 97' that don't have a lot of miles on them, are in pretty good condition, and . . . wait for it: have over 90% battery life left, are still under an eight year unlimited mile warranty, and have fully transferable unlimited lifetime free supercharging! Of course whether or any particular car would be a raging deal depends entirely on price and condition, but on my web browsing yesterday I came across one that has 32k on the clock and was priced at 35k. If I was in the market for a sedan I would definitely check those kinds of offerings out. Saw it on Craigslist somewhere in PA. using searchtempest for Craigslist (it checks everywhere and gives results by state and city)
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  44. "Long walks in large groups" . . . cute historic allusion. Doesn't seem like that could even happen now. But within my lifetime the Chinese had famines so bad that they ate the bark off trees. Maybe long drives in caravans of EVs?
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  45.  @dixonhill1108  Depends on the person. There can be a huge difference between chronological age and biological age. For those who keep active and take care of themselves, and abjure what is commonly considered to be edible by most sheeple: with age comes, not a decline in cognitive ability, but wisdom. Also physical decline itself takes place at such varied rates that your childish grouping of people by chronological age is out of touch with reality, and just the lazy acceptance of stereotypes as truths. Personally I am in my seventies, and not only more intelligent than when I was in my forties, but I can still keep it up all night like I could when I was a teenager. I expect to continue improving both my physical, emotional, and mental capabilities well into my nineties and possibly beyond. So I hope you realize you are speaking not only for yourself, but about yourself.
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  46.  @chrisahearn789  American forces have not been idle. They fight in Syria, and the dislocated areas of Iraq, soon if not now in Yemen and in several African countries as advisors. According to Smithsonian American forces are currently actively combating terrorism in over eighty countries -- about forty percent of the world. Not what I would call idle.
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  47.  @u2beuser714  Kind of a false equivalency, but then all such comparisons are. Iraq had "experience" in not melting the barrels of their machine guns during human wave attacks in which the front lines wore little glow in the dark keys to heaven around their necks. The Russians were fighting small insurgencies, as apposed to an organized, intelligent, opposition. The Ukrainians have experience, and more important: forces that firmly believe in their cause against Russian who largely are inexperienced being sent to die by the "experienced" regulars, whose experience largely consist of how not to die, and how to steal from the state. But a great way to empty their prisons.
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  48. Concerning nuclear blackmail of Ukraine with the threat and use of tactical nukes: Ukraine is not totally without nuclear alternatives of its own: a Russian tactical nuke strike could be countered by a series of dirty bombs exploded over western Russia to create a buffer contaminated zone. That would be crazy, but crazy is as crazy does.
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  49. Just what resources does the USA lack?
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  50. If you ever had a serious talk with one of the Plymouth Brethren you wouldn't say that. I hear they still burn witches in their minds.
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