Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Wendover Productions" channel.

  1.  @tayf85  By that logic, the Interstate Highway System would be a HUGE money sink, as we don't charge tolls for access. But nobody argues to stop servicing the freeways too because of the downstream benefits. It's the same case with anything infrastructure, education, medicine, or other utilities: barriers to entry have to be subsidized so that we can reap the much greater benefits down the line.
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  2. China’s dashed-line claim was subsequently a reaction to France’s enormous assertion. This still lives on today as Vietnam inherited and decided to continue pursuing the French claim to the SCS.
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  3. ​ @grahamturner2640 Taiwan regularly gets hit with typhoons and earthquakes, yet TSMC is still top dog in chip fabs. Like Arizona, their main natural threat is the falling availability of freshwater.
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  4. They would but China keeps blocking reconstruction supplies from getting to it.
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  5. Only the group assigned to work in another sovereignty as official representatives of Asgard.
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  6. Yes this was explained in the video, though framed as a single passenger vs a full flight
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  7. The host country isn't allowed to enforce its laws upon diplomats or their official property, so in effect they're like miniature foreign countries for as long as they're welcome. Administratively the grounds are usually leased (not sold or ceded) on like 99-year terms.
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  8. That's why private interests should not drive public policy. Voters should be extra wary of businessmen trying to enter politics, because a government's bottom line is not profit but continuity.
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  9. Mostly because Hawaii is physically isolated and vulnerable to slow response from the other states (or anyone really) following any disaster
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  10. Not just the host nation, but also "third country nationals" who happen to be local to the host nation and want to visit/move to their nation. Processing TCNs is fairly common in places with large expat populations like the Middle East.
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  11. Yet California's critics conveniently ignore how captured its politics are by wealthy conservatives.
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  12. But the law mandates the companies prioritize profits, and stockholders want to cash out those profits this quarter.
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  13. Plenty of people would violate a US embassy, whether its a specifically anti-America mass mob or hooligans taking advantage of a nearby protest. The US remembers being overrun in previously "nice" places like Tehran or Cairo, plus all the other close calls as well as the numerous attacks on the facilities and its staff throughout the years, and realized that no place is truly guaranteed free from political instability and a collapse of effective local law enforcement. Defending against these incursions plays into the design of the compound, which since it can't physically move has to turtle up. As for the consular section/prison, having watched "Argo" I'd assume the US does take responsibility for everyone in the compound at the time of a lockdown to include visa applicants; a consular section would be on the ground floor (if not a separate annex) and would be one of the first places exposed to an overrun. A windowless waiting room might be an extra security consideration to ensure no "tourists" or "students" are taking notes of the security features from within the walls. Having been through other countries' visa and immigration lines, it doesn't sound all that different though. Getting permission to step foot on someone else's literal turf is never a bright and welcoming experience.
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  14. If it's still available, which it might not be until you clear the place of the local (invariably armed) herder and his dozens of heads of steer... again
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  15. Would we also be using exactly one lane of a three-lane freeway? 😂
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  16. ​ NatCo-Supremacist The democratized Republic of China perhaps, particularly since Mainlanders often return from a visit to Taiwan thinking there is the "China" that China should have become. Meanwhile the heavy-handedness of the "socialist" PRC invites insurrection that would last for generations, which is especially damaging considering the ever shrinking pool of only sons of military and family-raising age.
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  17. As mRNA vaccines become more widespread though, the logistics of manufacturing and distribution should ease with the increased scale of upstream chemical input production and wider availability of deep freezers. It may even become more of the norm as it doesn't rely on extracting from tons of chicken eggs and the subsequent balancing of viral strength for immunity effectiveness.
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  18. That's the general idea with roads, rail, postal service, etc. Though libertarians who invariably inherited wealth or social standing usually disagree.
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  19. ​ @korakys "Cutter" is actually a closer approximation of the standard Arabic pronunciation, often said by veterans and other former residents.
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  20. I'm wondering if YouTube's pro-autocrat algorithmic turn dissuaded Wendover from mentioning this obvious omission 🇹🇼
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  21. Ironically the Interstates were created as a result of the vulnerability to disruption of rail-based logistics during wartime that the Americans themselves exploited against Nazi Germany. But because resilience and efficiency are competing interests, trucking by road comes at considerable energy and human costs all to facilitate point-to-point flexibility for the destinations making the orders but not actually driving the routes and paying all the wider costs themselves. And yes it's not a perfect analogy, but anyone who has played Cities Skylines would know how dramatically traffic gets cut down by using freight trains as a metro for cargo.
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  22. "Embassy" can also encompass the official property of that diplomatic mission, normally regarding worksites like the main grounds and separated annexes. "Chancery" refers specifically to the building housing the ambassador's office.
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  23. California has been leading America's trends basically since it entered the Union, the American Dream spearheaded by the California Dream. That's why it's America's America.
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  24. Solution: Turn inner city freeways into rights of way for metro lines and wide pedestrian/bike paths. Build mixed-use lots and local-only roads on whatever's left.
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  25. I'm guessing the narrator meant financially self-sustaining
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  26. There are some routes in Seoul that I wish were better connected, particularly south of the river. Luckily I've discovered their equally fantastic bus system which provides more direct routing with free wifi (no Korean SIM needed) the whole way 🚌🛜
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  27. More like Taiwan has to keep asserting China’s dashed-line claim, because diverging from it (even if they lost interest) signals declaring independence from the it being part of “China”.
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  28. It’s like a dozen Chinese bases, none of which are there by the consent of who legally has the strongest sovereign claim to it. Meanwhile the US bases are there with the blessing or at least tolerance of their host nation, because of concern what will happen with domestic politics and territorial integrity without American forces to help/blame.
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  29. China was clasically a land power and kind of scared of the sea. That’s why even into the late Qing period they were so caught off guard when Europeans came in such force from their east (not just as isolated traders and pirates), and why the Qing court would always try to put as many water features as they could between colonial concessions and the rest of China (most notably the original Hong Kong and Macau).
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  30.  @knoahbody69  Freight makes money, that's why cargo airliners are likewise profitable compared to their cabin crew counterparts. Passengers and mail only pay so much compared to dumb pallets of bulk goods.
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  31.  @samd3497  Proper forest management isn't that expensive, and ironically involves burning more just in an intentional and controlled way which reduces overall fuel. It's a relatively recent concept to ask our local Indian tribes how they used to do deliberate burns in their former homelands (often done to promote the growth of certain plants).
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  32. Blessed be ascorbic acid, protect us from the scourge of scurvy 🙏🍊
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  33. Don't be an embarrassment, know your world history and current events, adjust well to very foreign cultures, be ready to be completely uprooted from your home on less than a day's notice.
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  34. I think China would have had a similar explosion of durable commerce had it not half-arsed the HSR lines; passengers and mail only pay so much, cargo is far more profitable. Imagine if those all those viaducts were beefy quad tracks carrying bidirectional freight while G trains blow past them 🚄🚂
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  35. America's image became that it's a hard target not vulnerable to amateur transgressions
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  36.  @mosesracal6758  The value of fiat comes from the economy laboring for it and the government maintaining its environment, as opposed to mere possession of share against the global supply in limited-quantity media like gold or crypto. It's not as simple to explain or regulate, but it does provide the ability to moderate booms and busts unlike in the old gold standard where the gold gets spent or hoarded at exactly the wrong times in the business cycle.
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  37. Visa application centers are just a function of the consulate, or sometimes a private contractor who coordinates work with that consulate. Either way the consulate/consular section itself makes the decision to approve or deny an application.
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  38. Less driving requires an environment that demands less driving. That means denser cities, public transport, telework, drone deliveries, etc. It's a radical and extremely expensive change to how most cities are laid out, and a lot of people won't be happy to have their house seized and bulldozed for the necessary improvements.
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  39. ​ @edwardkuenzi5751 CA though still has robust agriculture, defense, technology development, and media production industries, whose centrality isn't nearly as threatened as HK's economy largely based on the movement of goods and money which Singapore and Shanghai also compete on.
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  40. Mainly because European rivals were already doing the same.
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  41. I heard the hope was that Mainland China would steer their path towards HK and the West, instead of smothering out democracy and rule of law in favor of Party autocracy. Remember that the HK transfer negotiations were done during the optimistic PRC's post-Mao opening up period, and were largely concluded well before 1989.
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  42. Ask how many Dzungars there are left in China. Answer: almost none, the Mongol Dzungars were genocided out of existence by Hàn invaders aided by their then Turkic Uyghur allies.
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  43. Although Alaska has the benefit of Canada in between where a port call in Vancouver would circumvent Jones Act limitations for non-US carriers. There aren't any foreign deepwater ports for a transpacific ship to stopover at between Guam and the Mainland US.
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  44. Similar to how the island of Taiwan is ruled by the (anticommunist and now democratized) Republic of China government 🇹🇼
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  45. ​ @CarbrainEd They did, primarily to have their metro stations double as citywide bomb shelters like the London Underground had proven. The DC builds though were because of the local geology, digging deeper to reach more stable soils in the former swampland.
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  46. Smart policy is needed too. Like China is trying to get people to buy EV cars, but at the same time nerfing electric scooters which would also solve congestion issues.
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  47. Blocked by rich conservatives.
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  48. There aren't ports in northwest Mexico big enough to regularly handle those ships. Actually Mexico as a whole is logistically challenging.
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  49. Should the Koreas reunite, it would certainly be under Seoul. But short of bloodless annexation, given the South’s deteriorating prosperity and fundamentally chauvinist attitudes, I’d imagine the long embittered Southerners to take their victory as an opportunity to commit upwards of Rape of Nanking atrocities upon what’s left of the North and dismiss it as “internal affairs”. Remember this is the same society who due to their brutality against even unarmed civilians were the most feared IJA soldiers in WW2 as well as in the Vietnam War, and had only ended martial law at the end of the Cold War.
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  50. ​ @Kitt_the_Katt Heavier vehicles are basically considered as primarily business use cases, but ironically don't require a CDL or specific training like real professional drivers would have.
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