Youtube comments of Doncarlo (@doujinflip).

  1. “It’s More Mid in the Philippines!” — proposed Philippine Chamber of Commerce slogan 🇵🇭
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  2. It'll be the greatest generational transfer of wealth... to corporations, not to their kids.
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  3. Having a career in cybersecurity and related risk management, it is true that we're never praised for blocking/deterring attempts and always blamed for information incidents.
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  4. It's like late-stage capitalism in general -- We have to figure out another way of measuring and rewarding worth, because we're reaching the limits on what humanity will tolerate from sociopathic economics.
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  5. Think tanks are like corporate consultants: they may have started out as an independent insight, but have since gotten coopted into inventing justifications for their sponsor’s predetermined decisions and act as a hired scapegoat if those decisions don’t pan out.
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  6. Trench-clearing shotguns were considered a key infantry weapon to enable forward movement back in WW1. 110 years later here we are again.
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  7. I'm wondering how long it'll take for Koreaboos to realize that actual Korean men aren't nearly so chivalrous once committed
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  8. Right, the trades may prevent you from being financially broke, but there’s such a high risk of becoming medically broke. And it’s much easier to earn more money later on than it is to completely heal from a chronic service-connected condition.
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  9. End of 2021: "We invest way too much on Defense!" End of 2022: "We invest way too little on Defense!"
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  10. Yes, it's so strange that such "pro-life" lobbyists consistently deems those same babies to be essentially welfare queens upon birth, undeserving of taxpayer support.
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  11. And only by an experienced air defender who violated the standing order to energize their radar no more than twice before packing up and moving locations to minimize the risk of HARMs headed their way.
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  12. Smaller planes tend to not have enough overhead bin space for the carryon of every passenger, which is why those with small children (i.e. bulky diaper bags) and servicemembers (who may have extra gear or sensitive items that must stay within reach at all times) are invited first. Those unlucky to board after all the bins are filled would be forced to gate check whatever doesn't fit underneath the seat, which may or may not be a problem depending on what you packed.
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  13. If managers want to monitor employee productivity, the subordinates should have equal access to their supervisor’s metrics. Anything less than complete two-way surveillance will breed animosity and contempt.
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  14. Ever-increasing automation does make it more difficult to just walk in to a hire-to-retire career without some unique selling points of postsecondary education and experiences.
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  15. Hence why the Muslim world is so focused on Gaza against a likewise geostrategically vulnerable Israel, but conveniently ignores the Uyghurs who are like 5x more in population and don’t enjoy an well armed and organized resistance movement.
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  16. Capitalism is shortsighted and sociopathic. To it even one day off is one too many.
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  17. tldr It’s the Jeonse 전세 system, where tenants lend the landlord much of the value of an outright purchase, in exchange for a multi-year lease at reduced or even no rent in lieu of interest. Sounds like a pretty good deal on paper, but there have been cases of landlords deducting for “damages” and other “fees” when they’re supposed to give back every Won to that former tenant.
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  18. America’s “temporarily embarrased millionaire” libertarians pitch for the same, thinking a competent government can be somehow achieved without public spending or vital reliance on foreign markets.
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  19. It also depends what your selling. For mundane transactions it's not a big deal, but when splurging on something special AMEX is famous for having the best value to the buyer (both in purchase protections and ancillary benefits). AMEX doesn't also offer business grades of its premium cards because it's truly adversarial to business owners.
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  20. I'm still surprised that there hasn't been a Grand Theft Auto based on Hawai'i. It has all the features characteristic to the franchise: developed urban settings with nearby rural areas, distinctive scenery without extreme climate, obviously multicultural, heavily trafficked with tourists, underlying local community tensions, isolated islands with nothing else nearby to map, and still America.
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  21. IIRC, Ho Chi Minh himself thought that enforcing straight ideological Communism was stupid (as was being shown by Mao's China across the border) and that Viet Nam needed to take capitalist measures to develop a stable economic base -- he realized the Deng Xiaoping version of China before China itself did. Unfortunately the 1950s Americans didn't realize that the Communist world was not a unified monolith and tried to prop up a more inept anticommunist South, with the disastrous choices and strategic results that followed.
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  22. "You pretend to train me, I pretend to fight"
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  23.  @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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  24. Koreans need to dress well, upward social mobility for them depends a lot on outward appearance. It's not like the tropics or the US West Coast where function over form is the norm.
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  25. Cars are becoming more expensive to buy because owners push for driving a personal living room on wheels, as well as more expensive to repair due to the increasingly integrated designs required to keep it reasonably safe to crash in. This partially explains why insuring them has gotten more expensive too.
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  26. ​ @TheEverFreeKing No, "well regulated" means that Congress can mandate standards for everything regarding the militia, including things like weapon type and rules regarding tracking, storage, and use. Congress just hasn't felt the need do more than fund the National Guards who absorbed all the proper militias and follow the standards of the federal forces.
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  27. The HK film scene basically died with the end of British rule. The lack of appeal of modern China was a net drop to what soft power HK had globally, as its media turned towards catering to the market of its new ownership.
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  28. Laissez-faire capitalism aims for the same situation on all of us who were born too late and to the wrong social groups to claim a decent share of ownership.
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  29. The scary part is actual hippos really could bite your head off. They're also highly unpredictable, famously aggressive, and can both swim and run faster than any human. Africans even traditionally praise the hippo as superior to lions 🦛
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  30. "Those born between 1951 and 1980 are disproportionately affected" by childhood lead exposure, which is linked to violence, antisocial behaviors, and possibly crime in general. This cohort also dominates today's political leadership. Coincidence?
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  31. A recent Lei's Real Talk brought up a Chinese military think-tank article (of course published only in Chinese) that described a strategy of distracting and weakening America by first igniting regional conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. The Europe theater is Ukraine. The second is in Israel, hence the sucker punch out of Gaza with possible entries from Hizballah and Syria. The third would be Korea.
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  32. Spitting is malevolent physical contact and would be considered assault, giving the target justification to perform self-defense (including with fists if not more escalatory).
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  33. Right, China already depends on imports for food because so much of its land is already polluted by industry and urban development. It's arguably why China isn't being even more aggressive against its neighbors, because a downturn of free trade caused by a shooting conflict would cause food prices to skyrocket and quality to collapse -- no amount of Party patriotism will overcome the feelings of an empty stomach especially after decades of prosperity.
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  34. Rule by the old was societally normal for most of human history. Thing is since industrialization and especially computerization, that "wisdom" is increasingly obsolete -- we're no longer concerned about how to hunt and farm and know the local environmental patterns like all our ancestors had figured out, nowadays it's the youth teaching the elders how to "operate a remote control" (or an AI assistant) and think ahead on how to adapt it into life going forward. The main advantage of the elderly is they had their whole lives to build up their network of buddies, which is what politics is all about.
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  35. Shortsighted capitalism in general doesn't want dependents like children or elderly. That's why a "demographic dividend" driven economic boost happens when the bulk of the population is in their 20s to 50s. If traditional elites and corporations had their way, we'd all be single childless migrants that they can move and fire at their convenience (and some countries run on exactly that).
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  36. Chinese apps and websites are freely available in the US, but American competitors are fully blocked from access at all (not just commercial penalties like the upcoming TikTok ban). If anything this is even more severe since online services provide much more value-added than cars.
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  37. The last time we had strong multipolarity, it ended up in two world wars. The reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named that way is because there was one dominant power keeping trade routes open, and not having huge conflicts with rivals.
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  38. Corporations are buying those houses, including from retirees who need to downsize and pay their eldercare. The young adults who need those homes most are competing directly against Wall Street and regularly getting outbid.
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  39. A recent case veering into one of their own hospitals, then blaming Israel for it.
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  40. TSMC engineers could simply evacuate and the fabs would quickly fall apart from simple neglect. What's most valuable is the knowledge of the nuances needed to keep the fabs running with subatomic tolerances, which no one could accurately document since every earthquake/contamination event/deviation trend/etc is too unique. If they stay behind they're not likely to work at full capacity or effectively pass on their experiences to their Mainland replacements.
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  41. Companies train their workers which justifies their non-compete agreements? A lot of the time they’re relying on public institutions (colleges and military), actively poaching from their competitors, and failing to find an “ideal” candidate petition for an H1B applicant whom they can threaten with revoking work status leading to deportation of possibly an entire family.
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  42. That's what's concerning about the return of Trump and anti-immigrant attitudes, because the fear and frustration in further restricting "legal" immigration procedures will cause more high-value foreigners to leave America or not try coming than the "criminals" the Republicans say they'll keep out.
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  43. Oh were issues, up to what's been dubbed "freeway riots". Thing is the freeway plans affected primarily poor minority neighborhoods, most successful opposition were rich white communities like Manhattan and Pasadena.
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  44. 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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  45. That's what China found out the hard way. It didn't matter how many barebone concrete shells sold as "homes" they built, because investment-wise it's the only game in town. So despite having at least twice as many properties as people, upwards of three generations' worth of life savings have to be poured into a single mortgage due to this market setup.
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  46. Unfortunately the "benign" part tends to be very rare.
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  47. Because Dubai is the comparison most everyone is familiar with as Muscat tries to decide how closely they want their future to converge towards the Dubai model.
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  48. The key to flatter hierarchies is more direct reports per manager. Though depending on the job tasks that can get unwieldy quickly; even professional military leaders don't supervise and evaluate more than like a dozen subordinates at a time.
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  49. I use credit cards as much as I can because of the perks and effective cashback I get from them. Granted I don't even know the interest rate or exact spending limit since I always zero the balance on every statement.
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  50. I once dropped a couple hundred dollars trying out a variety of pieces at Battlefield Vegas, and the SCAR impressed me the most in terms of controllability.
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  51. Thank Trump for entrapping America to choosing either military isolationism or diplomatic disrepute. This is but a taste of what a “multipolar” world will be like should the US disengage further.
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  52. Keep in mind all these numbers about China are based on a population size that may be significantly smaller and older than "1.4 billion", with GDP figures that's considerably inflated, and debts that are significantly underreported (due to shadow banks).
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  53. It's the corruption that makes it risky, hence why Western aid packages limit themselves to those who promise and show improvements to the underlying governance. China isn't as picky, and their loans feed into the corruption while the people get a flaky build and practically no knowledge shared on how to maintain and expand it themselves due to the related exclusionary service contracts with Chinese companies.
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  54. 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.
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  55. Problem is we're not paid enough to have a savings cushion to liquidate for sudden shocks like medical bills, legal fees, unplanned babies, etc which only seem to get more expensive to resolve on top of it.
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  56. That’s a global phenomenon, not just Europe. Politicians worldwide have increasingly catered to older rich citizens at the expense of the less established youth.
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  57. Hence the "MIDdle Income Trap"
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  58. The economy is doing great, it’s the distribution of that greatness we’re not experiencing.
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  59.  @rocketr8968 It mandates that disputes with the employer must go to confidential arbitration instead of public court. Arbitration is meant for “merchants of roughly equal power”, so an imbalanced arbitration in practice means a lot of rulings that favor the business which as a “private” “binding agreement” can also be kept secret through a mandatory non-disclosure clause.
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  60. Right, faceless corporations might be moving to Texas, but if you have kids to school and value more resilient public services, California still has the Lone Star State beat.
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  61. Right, even in Chinese classes I make the extra effort to learn the Traditional form because of its overall clarity and beauty. Plus Traditional is more common when encountering Chinese script outside of China and Africa. Ironically Simplified doesn't seem to make learning and reading it that much easier. Táiwān and overseas Chinese have been teaching the Traditional form just fine. What would help more is if everyone harmonized romanization through Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, which unlike their character simplifications is at least very consistent.
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  62. Mostly because they were either sick on arrival or deemed “immoral” (unregistered stowaway, unaccompanied woman/child, not white, etc). Beyond that, for a long while just surviving the boat ride practically guaranteed getting granted permanent residency and a chance to change your legal name.
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  63. Americans and Israel can be negotiated with, it’s Iranian citizens that they’re most worried about being surrounded by those whom they committed multigenerational trauma upon
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  64. The problem is consumerism empowers customers… who are also citizens. Allowing citizens to control supply of goods and services ultimately allows the same citizens to steer the underlying policies and the politicians who make them, and there’s a lot of common animosities against the Party that can quickly get explosive once the Chinese people aren’t siloed and gaslit into thinking it’s all just personal problems they carry.
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  65. It comes from the name of the infrastructure program, not the function. Similarly separated Alaska and Puerto Rico also have Interstate routes.
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  66. It does though have measurable correlation with the Big-5 and HEXACO used in actual psychology, unlike say the Western and Chinese zodiacs which can be better explained by the worldly experiences of a cohort who just happen to be born that year or in that stage in the academic calendar.
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  67. The extra sweat you suffer was once somebody's blood The PPE you put on was paid by a past person's hospital or funeral bill
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  68. Sadly repairs are invisible and maintenance activities often disruptive to traffic, when politicians want something new and flashy to tout for their reelection campaign.
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  69. 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?
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  70. Kinda wondering how much the concentration of dealership ownership contributed to the surge of prices on cars 🏷️🤔
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  71. Especially real life Korean men. All that love bombing ends once she's committed to him, and she quickly realizes that the knight underneath the shining armor is carries a domineering and often abusive macho attitude.
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  72. For jobs that can be truly worked remote 100%, the next step would then be offshoring those jobs to overseas foreigners and expats who won't demand as high a paycheck as anyone anywhere in-country.
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  73. Singapore is what Mainland China thinks it is, if it conveniently ignores how S'pore 1) celebrates multiculturalism; 2) admittedly relies on foreign immigrants; 3) maintains armed forces that don't project its presence against their neighbors; 4) doesn't tolerate even rumors of corruption by officials at any level; and 5) allows open challenges to the ruling party, even in the face of declining popularity 🇸🇬
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  74. Outside “consultants” just work to justify what the CEO already wanted, they’re literally paid to be his scapegoats in case the plan doesn’t pan out.
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  75. Having lived in Africa, I can tell you drug use is not really in the culture -- even seeing someone smoking cigarettes is fairly rare. That said they are more than willing to smuggle it out of Asia and into Europe though.
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  76. The car-centric "modernization" of post-independence Jakarta doesn't help, where among the first things they did was pave over the colonial tram network and widen the streets accordingly. The subsequent attempts at reinstalling mass transit makes it disjointed and inconvenient (open air TransJakarta stations, MRT with too few gates and exits, and especially you Jakarta LRT). Mass transit is one thing the government says it will fix on their new city Nusantara, but if the Korean (Sejong City) and Egyptian (New Cairo) versions are an indication, this will also end up an massive oversight and expensive afterthought.
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  77. QR Codes get done quicker though 😬
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  78. Right, it's pretty much impossible to do anything without a Chinese SIM, a Chinese bank account, and a WeChat account, or a friend/agent who does everything on your behalf. It's by far the least tourist friendly country that isn't under international sanctions.
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  79. That’s more of an issue of availibility in parts and mechanic experience. In the two-wheel world, electric motorbikes are much easier to repair.
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  80. Rounding up the bill to a whole Euro is convenient. But in America, servers are often taught to shame and compel customers to shell out an extra 15~25% when it should be coming out of the company payroll (especially at chain restaurants). I've begun patronizing pay-first fast-casual restaurants in response, and it seems many other Millennials are doing the same.
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  81. That's why Taiwan is such a sore point for the PRC, they show that China can exist -- and arguably thrive -- without the Communist Party.
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  82. It's the same reason companies hate labor unions and class action lawsuits, it's a lot easier to impose upon powerless individuals behind closed doors and NDAs than to negotiate with unified groups on public record.
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  83. What’s most disturbing is that the Houthis were always better at warfighting than at governing. Their popularity had been waning up until the raid from Gaza, and they may have gone to war against global trade primarily to distract their populace from their civic failures. Their success could inspire more flagging autocrats into defending their rule through military aggression upon its neighbors.
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  84. Post-COVID China is a pretty good example of what happens in an economy that biases its attention towards the whales, while regular consumers can't or won't consume.
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  85. "Independent contractor" is the corporate tactic to separate themselves from liability. Every gig economy "own boss" knows this.
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  86. "Agreed" being a loose term, because the only people who understood the terms was the legal team (as in themselves needing multiple people to analyze and approve) of the companies making the contract in which we have no review and negotiation power, and who keep mum about the unwritten specific effects of their terms.
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  87. In America, the color of your skin does influence the content of your character because of the way others treat you, and thus the mentality you develop.
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  88. 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).
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  89. Which is why natural monopolies like vital utilities ought to be highly regulated if not controlled by democratized government, because its citizens can hold the government accountable through constant pressure to remain not-for-profit and the threat of voting in their opposition into leadership.
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  90. Tomorrow's headline: "CuriousityStream taken offline by massive cyberattack" 🇨🇳👨‍💻👨‍💻👩‍💻
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  91. Hate is stronger than love. Nothing unites people faster than a common visible threat.
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  92. If you've been in the army you'd know that your footwear is the most important part of your outfit. Nothing else really matters if you're simply unable to stand the whole day in your boots.
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  93. They would but China keeps blocking reconstruction supplies from getting to it.
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  94. With its specialized agriculture (namely fruits, nuts, and rice), concentration of high-tech efforts, and substantial military defense activities, it's no wonder CA has been the trendsetter for the rest of America and the world for at least the past century. Even with what seems like so many people "escaping" the Golden State, there's still plenty more of the big four industries (ag, tech, entertainment, and defense) that CA can generate.
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  95. There really should be a rising tax penalty for owning but not themselves regularly living in multiple land plots, especially in places that are statistically in demand from buyers who own at most one house (which most times they'd be selling off).
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  96. I never got the point of ripped jeans, since the patterns they often use just make it look like you're bad at riding a motorbike 🏍
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  97. I think the Philippines was strategically the wiser choice: the islands are more easily landed on, the locals were still putting up an active resistance (Taiwan was with Japan even longer than the Philippines was with the US), and it offers more area to gain 🇵🇭
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  98. Also forcing us to also test if we dare to board a plane bound for China.
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  99. Only the group assigned to work in another sovereignty as official representatives of Asgard.
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  100. Inflation is caused by demand outstripping available supply. Companies have been reporting record profits. Makes you wonder how much the supply has been deliberately limited in order to inflate prices and please shareholders.
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  101. "The human world is yet to experience peaceful multipolar governance"... that's because it involves multiple fault lines of strategic conflict. There's a reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named after a single power that had overseen the trade network of like a third of humanity at the time.
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  102. They’d first need to fix the institutions that are too weak against official corruption and corporate backroom dealings, which allow for exploitative utility rates and artificial obstacles to transport development.
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  103. Yet conservative politics keep forcing all of us to continue enjoying the "freedom" of paying private company insurance premiums while sitting in gridlock.
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  104.  @ashishpatel350 No, greedy shareholders. This is all the work of “owners” who keep demanding more for themselves at the expense of quality work.
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  105. ​Also the benefits of the social connections -- or at least positive bias -- that comes from studying on the same campus. The more selective and elite, the better.
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  106. The PRC isn't above callous mass cullings of less "desirable" populations though: the Cultural Revolution against classical intellectuals, sudden lifting of Zero-COVID against their largely sterilized elderly pensioners, even the Korean War where Mao dragged on armistice negotiations until Stalin died along with Soviet support because the PVA was a great way to dispose of the captured KMT soldiers who were "voluntold" to fill its ranks.
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  107. There's a reason STEM-minded folks tend to do poorly in politics: too often they disregard considerations that people find important, and often make poor managers of teams in general. Even today its students begrudgingly take "irrelevant" but required humanities courses for their degree. The one place engineers tend to gain political power is in modern China, which given its self-made problems (due to narrow-minded goal-seeking) of population aging, overleveraged debts, chemical pollution, and lacking soft power only reinforces the idea that ethics are more fundamental to a healthy society.
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  108. That's really the point of education, teaching you how to learn. OJT is what actually makes you productive.
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  109. It's considered "bad" pretty much as soon as it's served, because once the restaurant staff look away they have no idea how the customer contaminated it afterward. Likewise, guarantees of safety drop even faster for "fresh" and "healthy" foods that aren't as protected by preservatives... the same kinds that make us both fat and malnourished.
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  110. Ironically those “job ready” STEM degrees prepare you least in communication and vital soft skills. If you remain a lonely awkward human, you won’t get in, and if you’re in you won’t rise far. Dismiss those “unrelated” mandatory humanities studies at your peril.
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  111. Right, I’d wager EVs wouldn’t be so discouraged if chargers were more widespread. Battery safety concerns definitely aren’t scaring off customers who are literally adding gasoline to it with their purchases of hybrids.
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  112. ​ @geodive5542 You'd have to completely ignore Japan, Korea, and the Philippines for those assumptions to work out. The US and its allies could just as easily stage similar assets and operations from there, and all of them are antagonized enough by Beijing to allow their lands to at least stage and deploy support in the defense of Taiwan.
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  113. They still ask for 48-hour tests, and yet they villainize us for asking the same.
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  114. One of the newer ways to clock the legacy 40 "work" hours per week is doing 4x10 days, which erases the costs of one regular round-trip commute, while providing a day to do errands and schedule outside appointments when others hold business hours. Whether all 40 hours are necessary at all, it's clear that there's benefits to having that one full weekday off to take care of things that would be expensive/impractical/unavailable during the weekend.
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  115. That's what abstinence-only "educators" want you to think... Ironically these are exactly the places with the most unplanned pregnancies.
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  116. They can just keep stacking jacks. Adding structure from underneath is how construction cranes can reach incredible heights. As long as the load bearing structure underneath remains vertical enough there's not a definite limit to how high they can adjust.
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  117. Becoming broke medically is the main risk of blue collar trades in general as we try to convince more young Americans to do that instead of college. It's a lot more straightforward to refill an emptied savings account than it is to treat a chronic condition, especially with America's healthcare costs.
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  118. Expensive vital resources is the price we pay for being so “business friendly” and letting private sector interests drive public spending, especially when it comes to natural monopolies like infrastructure.
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  119. I think that’s why Western expressiveness is still trending, there’s too much cost and friction to learn a lifetime of nuances specific to a culture, and then still make mistakes which can easily spiral into personal permabans. Power distance can be fatal; whole planeloads of people have died because the flight deck wasn’t as assertive toward their pilot in charge as they should have been.
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  120. Except his “silent majority” wasn’t as big as he proclaimed, and have since shrank further into the Loudmouthed Minority of churchgoing traditionalists.
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  121. This might only happen if housing stops being an investment vehicle, but that's political suicide considering how much Koreans have bought into real estate with what little extra funds their paychecks allowed. China is an even more extreme example of this, but there the effect is mitigated by better consumer buying power and a wider sense of respectable occupations, and it shows in their considerably higher birth rate that still averages over 1 per woman.
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  122. Yes, the Americans were just one out of a number of armed resistors to Vietnamese independence: there was the French and Japanese before, and the Chinese after (and always). In fact I heard Ho Chi Minh was willing to strike a balance between Soviet and American style rule with a sort of 'guided capitalism' (sort of like China today) since he knew canonical communism was doomed to fail at their state of development, but unfortunately simpler minds ran the US government and failed to notice that Communism wasn't a unified strategy which they could pry at instead. Luckily it's understood that the US was technically fighting to defend Vietnam also, particularly Saigon instead of Hanoi. Americans were only a temporary enemy, and the real threat comes from China who has only invaded and subjugated the Vietnamese people repeatedly over the past 2000 years.
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  123. Beijing's published numbers have been so sugarcoated, and our investments have been eating it up for so long, that unless we diversify our capital diet ASAP, we're trending towards the financial version of a diabetic shock.
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  124. Yes this was explained in the video, though framed as a single passenger vs a full flight
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  125. It's not China's either. All foreign aid is ultimately meant to advance the interests of the donor, it's up to the recipient to negotiate what types and how directly they'll let the donor operate based on what benefits they expect to extract from the deal going forward.
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  126. Asian Americans do dominate in Hawaii, it's probably the only place where a white person will feel like a minority "visitor" especially at school
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  127. This is a larger problem across all of YouTube. I'm pretty sure removing even the simple "Thank you _[investment advisor]_" posts aren't a priority to screen because of all the "engagement" they generate.
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  128. ​Sterile maggots (i.e. born and raised in hospital grade environments) are used in debriding necrotic tissues because dead cells are all they eat. They're then "disposed of" in the same high pressure autoclaves used to sterilize scalpels and other tools.
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  129. Blame the "light truck" emissions exception, which will hopefully get corrected as EVs become the most practical way forward to meet the toughening standards.
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  130.  @PanduPoluan  Right, if you check a proper globe you'd see that Indonesia would be about as wide as the continental United States, with Java alone being about as long east-west as California is north-south
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  131. It does depend on the definition. Like I’d wager I could get a CDL faster than a truck driver can get to my level of network engineering and cybersecurity… and neither of us would be writing medical prescriptions anytime soon.
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  132. 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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  133. They still need foreign capital though, that hasn't changed. It's only getting harder as China's foreigner population shifts towards poorer countries who are aiming to become industrial competition themselves, while Chinese nationals continue attempting to permanently expatriate their wealth and their families.
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  134. Although causing catastrophic damage may be easier than expected considering how the dam itself shows signs of cracking itself apart just on its own.
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  135. ​ @RXI63 Definitely not for Republicans, who would all but openly celebrate the tsunami of dark money supporting their platform from all those executives who had untaxed "tips" to spare.
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  136. It's at an extreme level in Mainland China though, where people are glued to their phones constantly seeking validation and social ranking in the very few online communities the Party doesn't censor.
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  137. The only real difference between Cross-Straits and Cross-DMZ is the official stance of Taipei considering Taiwan to be a part of a greater "China", all because of a legacy by an autocratic corrupt ideological KMT thinking it could one day take back the Mainland. By every other aspect Taiwan is not part of the PRC, never has been and trends to distance from the label of "Chinese" because of how toxic the name has become under the CPC. It's rich to hear Beijing claim how the law supports their One China Principle argument, when the ruling Party itself doesn't let the law stand in the way of its interests.
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  138. The Smiling Curve model unfortunately deems Manufacturing as the least value-added and most substitutable stage of production, compared to R&D (i.e. valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. This would explain why the Rust Belt hollowed out while the dense coasts remained prosperous, and why entire developing economies that fails to educate enough workers past the factory floor encounters the "middle income trap". Whether Florida becomes one of these edge drivers remains to be seen, since the process invariably involves discomforting conservative notions about how an economy and society is supposed to work.
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  139. The One China Policy "acknowledges" -- not endorses -- the concept of a single China that includes Táiwān. This is different from the One China Principle that the PRC keeps falsely saying America has, but in reality only half of the countries (mostly in Africa) having diplomatic relations with Běijīng actually follow. i.e.: "We call you 'China' and understand that you claim Táiwān, but we don't recognize your administration over it and will continue to have separate conversations with Taipei."
    31
  140. Modern Korean culture is all about competition, which means they focus on easily quantified metrics like school grades. Unfortunately it means nobody is happy in school or at work, because they're constantly pressured to rank up or risk getting pushed aside and fall behind forever.
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  141. It'd likely hurt China way more. The West can go without cheap TVs, and could simply work more on repair and recycling what they already have until alternative sources get set up; China depends on the open seas for food, fuel, and funds from exports, and scaring away civilian ships with crossfire could lead to China quickly emptying its treasury paying for overland alternatives while increasing domestic "stability" operations against domestic unrest.
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  142.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  China and other authoritarians deliberately hide and downplay their issues, which is why you won't hear of similar slowdowns affecting say Huawei and DJI. America routinely dramatizes its issues as part of regular political and business maneuverings, and in confronting these problems inevitably ends up at least partially fixing them.
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  143. What's better for the environment is denser and more footpath-connected urban design that allows people to not need cars, using more passenger-gallon efficient public transit where it's too far to walk. The tech that's mandated for cars are largely to prevent wasteful fuel burn and collisions.
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  144. Ironically the best pro-Nazi propaganda came from Hollywood (which was ironically then largely controlled by Jewish Americans), who really really wanted to cash in on the massive German market of the 1930s. History doesn't always repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes considering the parallels of today.
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  145. ⁠It’s definitely all the new “features” these applications keep adding, often described as well as the MCAS when the 737 MAX first rolled out if they’re even mentioned at all. The worst of these being Chinese apps, which kept randomly overheating my phone when I still had them installed.
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  146. Unfortunately for us younger students and workers, retirees are at their peak of political value having much more free time to get indoctrinated by media and get in line to vote.
    30
  147. The US is built on migrants, and its relative lack of welfare ironically helps with assimilation because migrants aren't clumped together in public housing and thus lack insulation from the locals.
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  148. Debt. I'd wager in amounts that make liabilities in Japan and the US look reasonable and exemplary.
    29
  149. Cargo is always more profitable -- no humans to provide life support, stretching space, and other comforts to. It's part of the reason for checked bag limits and fees, because scaled to a full plane that could be another one or two ULDs that could have sold as an air waybill instead.
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  150. It's also the rising minimum education required to train the workers. No longer is a middle school dropout sufficient to put on the line, the robots we use now need postsecondary schooling to program and maintain. It doesn't help that companies also don't do as much OJT as they used to for their often very specific processes, instead mooching off universities, military, and competitors for the so-called "3~5 years experience" in their entry level.
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  151. If you're able to readily access the world outside China, you're probably in a place where the "social" components of the algorithm aren't yet being tested.
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  152.  @Kayzef2003  Housing alone doesn't solve poverty. It's been tried before piling the impoverished into various Projects where it just ends up being the blind leading the blind in personal finances, and it's not exactly doing well in Scandinavia with their often idled Muslim immigrants finding life's meaning through radicalization. Employment does a better job of providing upward mobility, and the military is generally the lowest barrier to entry for the public sector since every other job in this industrialized and increasingly automated economy demands even more education and experience.
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  153. Telework works best for those already established with their job routines as well as personal life. It's not so great for entry-level who still need to build up their professional network and human soft skills that you can't get through text chats and scheduled meetings. This is why schools in particular have been rushing back to in-person classes -- those random interactions between lessons are a crucial component of the education.
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  154. Going LGA sounds promising... if you have a local friend with a car
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  155. AED is pegged to USD, so it’s a straightforward way to launder dirty or overvalued currency into one that’s more respectable 💱
    28
  156. Big problem with CAHSR was that Valley politicians wanted their much smaller cities to be part of the main line, causing a detour through farmers' fields that need to be bought out instead of taking advantage of all the open space along existing I-5.
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  157. It would be good to more of those stories, as the veteran trauma that hinders sharing them really only causes us to forget as we send another young ignorant soldier into the same cycle of violence. I wish my own late grandparents had been able to talk more about their experiences resisting the Japanese occupation in the Philippines ⚔️🇵🇭
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  158. I’m wondering if we’ll start calling it the “Chosun Wall”, since it has much the same structure and intent as the Berlin Wall. (Chosun 조선 is what North Korea calls itself, taking the name from the previous ruling Joseon Dynasty before it declared total independence from China to become the Korean Empire 대한제국 and eventually South Korea 대한민국)
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  159. Up until 1989, the PRC looked to be on the path to ultimately liberalizing its politics as well. Since then Beijing has proven to everyone but shortsighted corporatists that the Party would rather have absolute rule over tofu dreg rubble than allow the Chinese people to directly change their policies and leadership.
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  160. That's because democratized Korea's law enforcers (many of whom are also non-career conscripts just doing their time) try not to escalate the situation, unlike more trigger happy police and soldiers elsewhere.
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  161. Reagan capitalism at work. Competition now so consolidated that low taxes and regulations alone no longer keeps costs down.
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  162. I seem to be an outlier compared to every other reviewer, but when I began developing my lodging loyalty over a decade ago I never found myself any more wowed by a Hyatt stay compared to a Marriott or Hilton one. I have yet to see any advantage as a World of Hyatt member that makes up for its lack of availability worldwide. Hence why I’m simultaneously a Hilton Diamond and a Marriott Lifetime Titanium.
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  163. I once completed a Hilton timeshare presentation in Vegas, fully signing up knowing the law allows 3 days to back out with only written notification. Of course I wrote myself out the next morning. Also enjoyed the cheap vacation keeping all the trinkets, and got a considerable sign-up bonus on the no-AF Hilton AMEX which I still have.
    27
  164. There’s a huge shortage of Chinese women, but there’s an even greater shortage of respectable Mainlander men.
    27
  165. The Mainland wants us to think so, but HK's advantage had always been being a safe Western portal into the rest of China -- a China-built HK would merely be military outposts and inconvenient bedroom communities serving Greater Guangzhou. Returning HK to an autocratic China means that it's merely running on the institutional inertia it built up while it was away, and Beijing is putting brakes on whatever momentum remains.
    26
  166. ​ @nielsmichiels1939 Like any law in Mainland China, it's selectively enforced at the convenience of the Party. It's a rule by law society where the law is a tool to grab and wield as needed, not a procedure to be followed by default.
    26
  167. That was basically the same mistake IBM made when Microsoft came out with DOS. Ultimately hardware is just a harder sell because of the amount of capital and effort input just to produce, whereas software is so adaptable the work can and is being done from literally anywhere, and it's not impossibly difficult to port over a program to a different hardware platform if desired.
    26
  168. A "next China" probably isn't ideal either, as the efficiency of a single source also means the efficiency of a single shock leaving you stranded. Hence the "derisking" divestment and diversification from China and Russia before another Dynamic Zero-COVID or Special Military Operation breaks out.
    26
  169. Right, Pax Romana, Mongolica, and Britannica all rode on a clearly dominant military force who could quickly deploy to terminate trade-blocking disputes
    26
  170. It's a "farm" for tax purposes. The only thing being produced there are unnecessary deductions at the expense of every other citizen.
    26
  171. Consumer demand wants to trend towards local customized builds instead of the offshored mass produced stuff that's been available. An agile microfactory would fill the niche between 3D printers and a full-sized town-dominating manufacturing plant.
    26
  172. CEO probably had some sketchy sentiments of his own to go ahead using his employer's money without proper formal authorization.
    26
  173.  @zen4men  Right, Putin's Russia risks similar if their assault on Ukraine continues to cost considerably more than expected, and the PRC faces similar should they commit to take Táiwān by force as promised. In both countries there are not insignificant pro-democracy sentiments not only in the streets but also into their own ministries, hence why they have to spend so much of their budget on "internal security" and political "discipline".
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  174. Death from the smartphone market, and possibly high-end retail electronics as whole. Much like how IBM is still very much around, but consumers aren’t buying IBM branded gadgets anymore.
    25
  175. Or rather they do, but Beijing has to gaslight everyone else for reciprocating its own strategy because its "superior" economy critically relies on mercantilism.
    25
  176. Personality tests may be flawed, but personality itself is a big driver for willingness, enjoyment, and ultimately competency at a job. Sadly those same societies trying to filter on personality traits also demand photos on résumés even for the most faceless back-of-house positions.
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  177. UX geeks thought users want filtering to happen instantly and this extra step was too disruptive?
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  178. Young too. Chinese companies are known to fire and refuse to hire anyone over 35.
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  179. I'd imagine Beijing was waiting for a Designed in China mRNA alternative, because approving and importing existing ones would constitute "surrender" to the West.
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  180. The grain eventually goes bad, and Chinese quality controls make that happen faster than usual. Another reason they hoard so much is because of their own wastage.
    25
  181.  @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.
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  182. It really is the fire safety concern that continues to make EV flareups newsworthy. With a combustion engine it's fairly straightforward to knock out a leg of the fire triangle (heat + fuel + oxygen), but in a battery all these elements are chemically self-contained which is why they're so difficult to put out. I noticed walking around China how much of the state messaging centers around fire safety and how the ubiquitous electric bikes are often banned from indoor parking, because of how often fires keep starting from scooter batteries which are now practically all the lithium type. Also found it amusing at 7:12 where the subtitles described "degrees Freedom" 🇺🇲
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  183. Singapore is what the CPC wants to be, but it conveniently forgets that S'pore: actively celebrates diversity and doesn't try to Sinicize the population; admittedly depends on immigrants; cracks down on officials on even the perception of corruption; doesn't present a threat of military conquest against its neighbors; and holds open elections and accepts the results, even in the face of declining popularity; 🇸🇬🦁
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  184. I work in IT and I periodically smack my keyboard too, though upside down to knock out the dust and skin flakes
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  185. There’s already an active Chinese animation industry, you just don’t see it because the storylines are too childish and boring due to Party censorship to get spread around by those old enough to share on social media.
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  186. 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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  187. 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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  188. Zheng He’s militarized treasure fleet sailed through there once. Therefore it is sovereign Chinese internal waters.
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  189. There's plenty of places in the world that speak neither, and you'd be better off with French, Spanish, Russian, or Arabic. (Consequently these are all the other official languages of the UN)
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  190. 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.
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  191. That socializing can mean the difference to getting offered a job and being retained down the line. Networking and soft skills are probably more important things to develop, which ironically “job ready” STEM classes are notoriously unable to provide on their own.
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  192. Unless said vacant housing is owned by chaebols and real estate companies, buying off of dying seniors who need to pay their expensive end-of-life expenses, and then controlling how little are put up for sale to keep prices inflated. This corporation-owned housing stock is already a problem in America.
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  193. Autocracies ultimately play not to win, but to not lose -- they live in constant fear of changes they can't predict because any one of them could be political. "New China" is especially cautious as their own self-made issues (aging, debt, pollution, etc) continues to narrow the Party's options to maintain its unchallengeable rule.
    24
  194. “It takes 3 years to build a ship, 300 years to build a tradition”
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  195. Despite what we hear about China, it's likely more vulnerable there: they polluted their own lands and seas so much that they're a net importer of food with a still growing deficit. They also rely on importing fuel and raw materials from abroad, cut that off and their massive industrial capacity will be largely idle. They're already woefully inefficient with their industries in general because automation kills exactly the jobs their underemployed and underskilled workforce needs to not think about alternatives, and China at war would likely see too many of their most skilled workers trying to escape the country at the first opportunity. China would quickly run into trouble simply by scaring off civilian ships with the crossfire, and they'd rapidly deplete their war chest not only paying for overland alternatives, but also the increasing need to redeploy its forces inward for "stability" operations as internal discontent grows.
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  196.  @Foquro  That’s the logic, but increasingly the projects are justified by wishful thinking instead of actual trends. China’s domestic market is already saturated for real estate, itself an achievement because Chinese citizens have had nowhere else they can trust with their investment funds.
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  197. Having kids is an economic decision, because each kid is a couple decades of economic drain until they're educated into financial independence. And that education only gets harder to achieve as automation continues to destroy the jobs that were once good enough to raise a family on. The economy itself is transforming into one that values creativity over discipline, returning to rewarding flexible small families of open-minded cross-trained hunter-gatherers and away from the rooted large orthodox tribalist agro-industrial types.
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  198. It was only used against inferior powers because only America was able to continue developing the carrier-centered navy. The Soviets were far more landlocked, and nobody else had the wealth to invest on blue water warships. Even today the PLAN is the only other power with the capacity to even attempt at peerage with the US Navy.
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  199. Shortsighted private greed is why we should not be fooled into allowing corporations and their executives to drive public policy. They will sell us out when they see profit.
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  200. Little Pinks love to bring up the "failure" of Japan's build in India and Vietnam (mostly because of land acquisitions on the recipient nation end) compared to the Bandung WHOOSH, even though the build in Java has been plagued with quality control issues throughout its lengthy construction process.
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  201. Having been to both Taipei and a half dozen Mainland China cities in the past year, yes Taiwan is doing pretty well 🇹🇼👍
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  202. Societal effects too: Worker hypercompetition, untouchable corporations, rising youth hopelessness, and crashing native birth rates.
    23
  203. The only reason Taiwan isn't a "sovereign country" was the ego of Chiang Kai-Shek, who as the autocrat of the then one-party ROC believed he still had claim to all of China. By the time Taipei accepted the fact they would never retake the Mainland, the trend of One China was already set by all the new nations as they decolonized.
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  204. One thing Jakarta's MRT (and the TransJakarta BRT) stations could use are more fare gates. It can take a couple minutes to get in or out of a station from the backup of passengers, especially since the concept of using a prepaid transit card (i.e. Jak Lingko and e-money bank cards) instead of one-time tickets is also relatively new.
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  205. Unfortunately that's not how many high net value clients would think, instead appreciating demonstration that you know what is considered premium and that you're able to take good care of it while flaunting it.
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  206. Striking is part of the complaint process. Reagan was an ideologue who believed government alone (and not corporate greed) contributed to all the costs being passed down to customers.
    22
  207. South Korea's birth rates actually began declining earlier than Japan too
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  208. Yes, regionwide single payment solutions are amazingly convenient. Problem is getting all the different transportation agencies to agree on one provider and coordinate sharing of payments on the back end. That said the most comprehensive one I've experienced is the T-Money card, which is a public-private arrangement owned mostly by the city of Seoul yet works in practically all of South Korea.
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  209. For now at least. Eventually Russia will have too few pawns to sacrifice while the West has multiple queens closing in.
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  210. PRC: "Be scientific!" Destinations: "Kindly publish ongoing daily statistics by detections, strains, hospitalizations, deaths, and recoveries." PRC: "No!"
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  211. Although a lot of it is relatively new too, as in some East Coast subway lines were old enough to get a pension by the time East Asia first opened theirs (with almost all of China's being the newest). Time will tell if the increasingly intensive maintenance will let it age gracefully like Japan and Taiwan, or just stay marginally operational like Indonesia and the Philippines.
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  212. Finally an American public figure hitting back as hard as Chinese state media regularly does to us, but more logically and believable 🥊
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  213. It's quite clear that more private sector influence isn't the answer, since businesses ultimately aim to outsource and automate your job out of existence. The solution involves largely unprofitable requirements like education, transportation, and social supports such as healthcare and childcare. The Democrat's dropping their fear of pitching bigger government reflects the sentiments of the growing Millennial and Gen Z constituency, who didn't get to experience the substitutes that corporations and labor unions provided to previous generations.
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  214. Right, it'll be the biggest transfer of generational wealth not to the kids, but to corporations.
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  215. It was designed as basically an overseas colony for Mainland Chinese. Local Malays were never part of the planned residencies.
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  216. No, there's also the fact that Taiwan is the keystone of the "First Island Chain" which most importantly prevents nuclear-armed boomer subs from sailing undetected into the Pacific. Plus Taiwan provides living proof of what Chinese people can become without the Communist Party. Taiwan has been important to the US since the ROC's fall on the Mainland in 1949.
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  217. It's primarily for the cellular radio, which uses a wider range of frequencies (exact ones being determined by the region's frequency space and local antenna setup) that are more likely to interfere with aviation sensors like the altitude radar and such. Bluetooth and Wifi use higher frequencies like 2.4 and 5 GHz bands that have a shorter reach and less utility for navigation and long-range communication and so are generally considered safe to operate.
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  218. What's not mentioned is how the host nation often wants a US presence, even if as merely a lightning rod to conveniently deflect domestic unrest towards those "imperialists" down the street. It's far more risky to national security to ask the Americans to leave, looking at what happened to Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China). And this Pax Americana is arguably a bargain for global trade compared to previous and actually imperial Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, and Pax Britannica. The "hegemony" is key because the "multipolar" world that critics (themselves often ironically pro-authoritarian) argue for simply introduce friction and stoppages to free trade when crossing the transition into another "pole" of regional domination.
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  219. Likely does Alipay/WeChat only transactions to avoid paying local VAT. Wouldn't be surprised if they housed other "services" (of a law enforcement nature).
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  220. Hardwired cameras don't either. If a device doesn't move, put in the effort to pull a cable.
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  221. I'm an American and I prefer self-checkout. It's usually faster and I'm not so pressured to clear the line when bagging the stuff while putting my card and receipt into my wallet. It also helps I'm a one-person household where my whole cart fits into a single hand basket.
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  222. If you notice it's actually the Sign of the Cross ✝️
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  223. Unfortunately that would have invited a full Soviet retaliation, especially with necessary strikes across the rivers into the PRC. Starting a fight with the Red Army was real threat and not only in Asia. This is why McArthur who spent his whole career fighting without enemy nukes and publicly advocated for its deployment had to be dismissed. The real mistake was abandoning the KMT in China years earlier instead of helping making sure the Communists stayed contained to Manchuria, even as blatantly corrupt and inept as the pre-Taiwan Nationalists were.
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  224. The Taiwanese (ROC) political commissars today however do more the role of psychological operations, public affairs, and a secular form of chaplain duties (i.e. counseling). This is in contrast to the PLA ones who can get confrontational against the commander and performs inquisitions into the ranks.
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  225. Apparently the 38th was much farther south than Stalin expected to haggle for, which is why he immediately agreed. I'd imagine he was thinking more of a unified Korea under the US while they took Manchuria across the Yalu River.
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  226.  @MJ-uk6lu The Rust Belt won’t come back in the well-paid semi-skilled jobs they had before. Either they need to become more like the bougie cities their kids are moving to, or they need to learn machine programming for the few highly-automated manufacturing jobs that a modern factory demands.
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  227. The Xúzhōu Chained Woman took away a lot of attention domestically. In places where the Games were showing, there felt like even less enthusiasm than a regular intercity sports league match.
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  228. It's a very analog way of thinking, back when staff had more authority over much simpler systems.
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  229. Arbitration was only meant to negotiate settlements between "merchants of roughly equal power". The relationship is far too one-sided as a legally isolated individual vs a multinational corporation.
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  230. It's the bias favoring incumbent homeowners over those who still need one.
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  231. Conveniently ignoring all the relief, education, and smaller site projects America funds abroad, which aren't so flashy for local politicians and in fact tend to work against entrenching the incumbents by breaking down tolerance for corrupt governance.
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  232. That is until their leasable space fails to sell. Oil-rich Abu Dhabi had to bail out the Burj Khalifa (hence why it’s no longer named the Burj Dubai), and the even taller Dubai Creek Tower which began construction almost a decade ago is currently just a hole in the ground.
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  233. Because of heavy regulation and tightly controlled deployment, just like aviation.
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  234. That's primarily with just the US. China is currently trending to start one against Europe and all the Global South countries where they've been getting offshored to.
    20
  235. It seems American, Chinese, and increasingly European manufacturers are not interested. It seems they only want revenue from garage support and new sales as soon as the original warranty expires, instead of building up a reputation of reliability.
    20
  236. The real maniacs are their seniors, both bosses and elders. It's a very hierarchical society and those seniors demand so much that young Koreans literally have no time to care for themselves.
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  237.  @luisfilipe2023  Money itself is not, but how it's distributed is. That's the power.
    20
  238. Right, increased savings don't provide a real benefit unless the supply grows to match that demand when it starts getting redeemed. Kind of like how in China everyone bought into real estate making even 3 generations of savings insufficient, while the number of truly desirable locations to own such properties have remained basically static.
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  239. The biggest “utopia” being the promise of lower taxes and regulation especially on corporations, where that new wealth would supposedly “trickle down” to the average worker instead of getting squirreled into havens by the owners.
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  240. That's probably why so many in East Asia and other honor/face societies find life in the dignity-based West such a relief, since other people's opinions aren't such a existential threat to your identity.
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  241. ​ @franciscojcsa6127 Nowadays it's only accredited diplomats, as Native Americans are subject to US federal law (not the state ones where their reservations are), and were accordingly all granted citizenship.
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  242. Because they're the ones writing the bills that get voted into law by the politicians they're buying out.
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  243. Also lucky to grow up in the Cold War West, where barriers to obtaining housing and decent entry-level jobs was considerably lower. Automation and globalization has made these economic fundamentals way harder to reach, splitting modern societies into basically tech-related haves vs non-tech have-nots.
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  244. 2008~2018 is basically China's golden age, that party ended with the HK crackdowns and it's been downhill ever since. The 1st-tier urban China I'm experiencing now feels anxious and stagnant, hard to imagine how it is in lesser parts of the country.
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  245. We like our builds to last, even through extreme weather (natural flooding is not an excuse here) and years of underfunded neglect. Hence why we have bridges designed for 30 years pushing 100, while China builds bridges said to last 100 falling apart by 30.
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  246. ​Because unlike a land war where casual combatants can hide to ambush and regroup, battles in the air and sea are determined by superior technology and experience.
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  247. If the KSA hopes to make non-Hajj tourism a substantial durable part of its economy, it would have to return to the more cosmopolitan days of before the 1979 Mecca Siege. But that would piss off the Wahabbist clerics who legitimize the Saudi family, and compel the medieval social enforcement that has made the Kingdom infamously dissuasive to visit. Very few outsiders want to come to the KSA for other than faith or paychecks.
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  248.  @samalenyo  And apparently Indonesia is so dissatisfied with the build that the government is taking a serious look at Japan again to finish the rest of the HSR to Surabaya
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  249. The strength of Starbucks was being a third space that you choose to hang out in, which provided decent coffee. Basically a caffeinated daytime version of a bar and lounge. Focusing on pumping out specialty drinks (especially custom ordered ones, as well as cold ones that lack a strong scent) to inflate their global growth ironically damages what drew people in to begin with.
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  250. Longevity of the civilization doesn't necessarily mean advancement of one. Mainland China still expresses the self-righteous elitist authoritarianism that every dynasty before ran and fell on.
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  251. It’s a relief valve, but not a full replacement of deep sea routes; all these projects ultimately only delays the inevitable collapse of affordable food and fuel to the population and industrial centers along the eastern coast, once the missiles start flying and all but the most well-paid (by China’s treasury) civilian ships dare to sail in.
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  252. Would've, had Canada not specifically declared the space Princess Juliana gave birth in as "extraterritorial" (basically like international waters). So since Princess Margaret was not born "in Canada", she was never issued a Canadian birth certificate which confers Canadian citizenship, and was not officially born on "foreign soil" that would render her ineligible for the Dutch throne.
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  253. Increases in wages and buying power never seems to “trickle down” nearly as fast as increases to prices, which seem to happen as fast as the companies can print the new stickers.
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  254. There is a point to it though, as the Paradox of Tolerance compels societies to not tolerate intolerance, because otherwise that categorical hate will only spread like a psychological cancer.
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  255. We need to stop getting shamed into tipping. The only tip we should give is reminding the worker to calculate and ensure they're getting paid properly to begin with -- wage theft is a huge problem because employers often don't pitch in their revenue on pay periods of insufficient gratuities like they're legally supposed to.
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  256.  @irkiIIer  Not from quayside to every distro center though, especially ones in some other state. Dropping off in a closer railyard would ease congestion and allow local truckers to do shorter trips more frequently.
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  257. Technically it is an option, but one we're more and more aggressively shamed into participating in. It's basically an extortionary charge to reduce pain intentionally served upon the customer.
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  258. That self agency is what autocrats fail to realize: they believe everything is controlled by someone powerful, and can't imagine how weaker entities could freely choose to align against them.
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  259. Obama is our youngest living president being born in 1961, meaning the age gap between all the other guys could make any one of them his teenage dad
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  260. Sadly the American "conservative" means societal traditionalist, not ecological conservationist.
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  261. Ironically the 80s was the time when America was hardly engaged in direct combat anywhere, the only notable ones being the raids to overthrow unpopular dictators in Grenada and Panama.
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  262. You're not swimming very far if you're knocked out or jammed inside of a sunken car.
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  263. 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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  264.  @Seskoi  The PRC government promotes and supports the theft of foreign IP though. The US prosecutes it no matter whether the actor is American or not.
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  265. The despotic worldview is that if it's not something they firmly control, it must come from someone who's equally powerful. It's practically unthinkable that other weaker actors have the agency to independently converge on a common conclusion (especially one against them).
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  266. The Chinese government discourages stocks as an alternative investment strategy with its heavy limits on available shares and projects that traded companies are allowed to undertake.
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  267. But if the North reignites the war, were they “subject to an armed attack”? The South is unlikely to fire the first shot because popular sentiment is turning against reunification and the devastating multigenerational costs of reintegrating and redeveloping the North, and that’s without a war where Pyongyang voluntarily accedes into the ROK much like East Germany did.
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  268. Especially in societies like Japan where presence time is rewarded over actually producing. For most low-security office jobs we’re finding that just one day a week is already plenty of face to face.
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  269. More like skilled immigrants will outbid you, especially since they're not as picky about the exact neighborhood or physical condition of the home; they're just glad to have a place in America where they can access their business and fellow expats.
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  270. That's one problem with not having age limits for politicians, they're usually buried and they and their beneficiaries past popular criticism by the time their decisions truly take effect. We already accept a mandatory retirement ceiling for bureaucrats and private sector workers, but why not elected officials too?
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  271. It was also the safe Western portal into the likewise autocratic Qing Empire and pre-Taiwan ROC. HK prospered exactly because it was not under the control of the more inept and ideological Mainland Chinese.
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  272. Or he was found to not have declared the whole truth about his ties with known Chinese intelligence efforts when he received his visa. Most Chinese students enter the US without issue.
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  273. I remember doing my first proper guided simulated carrier landing at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, and was surprised to learn how flaring onto the deck involved pushing the nose down as opposed to gently floating in like a normal landing. Learning about that deliberate slamming is when I realized why a carrier landing keeps getting called a "controlled crash".
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  274. Taiwan was also a similarly oppressive dictatorship until it democratized. What irritates Beijing most is how Taiwan provides living depiction of what 華人 could be without the Party.
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  275. The Party hopes new technology developments will save their prescriptive political system. But they can't admit that their perscriptive political system is what prevents them from those developing new technologies themselves.
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  276. Right, the value of HK came from being a safe Western portal into China. Being even just seen as integrated into the Mainland means HK no longer has a valuable unique selling point compared to going directly to Guǎngzhōu or Shànghǎi.
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  277. Other than a few elites like hackers and overseas smugglers (who likely won't cooperate), the NK population is useless for all but the most menial tasks. It would take generations of net fiscal losses to educate the children into productive modern Korean citizens who are also not distracted by the enchantment with the "simplicity" of the old Kim dynasty days. Meanwhile they'd also be competing against rising automation that threatens the employability of an ever-growing share of humanity.
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  278. Only where the light touches though, which won't be everywhere. Even if not completely eliminated, just reducing the density of damaging pathogens in the environment goes a long way in suppressing the subsequent illness.
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  279. A lot of Americans balk at the thought of government-provided preventative protection though (and paying for it), so a major push for static civilian defenses might not be politically feasible anyway.
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  280. Funny how all the talk of America's new "recession" is coinciding with a unabating surge of travel in premium class seats paid through high-AF charge cards.
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  281. Ukraine: Here’s your MRE we got from NATO. Sorry but we need to ration for the fighters on the front. You’ll get another one tomorrow. NK defector: What?! Just two of these is a week’s worth of chow!
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  282. Because the government remains untouchable without popular realization and mass organization of the citizenry (which is exactly what security forces focus their efforts on). There’s a term for this phenomenon of peer groups subsequently turning their frustrations on each other: lateral violence.
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  283. A fully free market most rewards sociopaths and incumbents, and guarding against runaway concentration of wealth lies in regulation and "socialism". Unfortunately too many of us are "temporarily embarrassed billionaires" convinced to victim blame the little guy for "stupid choices" and advocate for even more libertarian policies, which ultimately don't reverse but instead amplify the consequences.
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  284. Every vehicle crash I came across while in China involved at least one car, and was pretty much never the fault of the cyclist or e-biker when a two-wheeler was involved.
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  285. Ironically it's the Western military presence that brings the Middle East a commercially stable alternative to its previous history and simmering desperation attitudes towards piracy and domination conflicts. This is how the British-driven Trucial States became today's UAE, and why practically all these kingdoms are anxious about the subsequent effects of American disengagement.
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  286. Unfortunately it goes directly against the will of the voters... who are invariably older homeowners who specifically benefit from limited housing supply. It's literally a political cartel situation because the constituency is made up of landed incumbents and not potential new taxpaying residents.
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  287. The best "job experience" comes from social contacts, most rapidly grown by the random unstructured encounters that characterize... well, college.
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  288. There would be Western casualties, but the population base is not in danger since there are still many more outsiders literally dying at the chance to immigrate and integrate. China as a hardline ethnostate has no such alternative once their young adults are dead.
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  289. It didn't work out so well when Iraq tried to invade and seize oil-rich Khuzestan while Iran was in a much more tenuous internal position following the Ayatollah takeover. A direct conflict could see another patriotic rallying effect in favor of the theocracy that runs the place now.
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  290. The American Colonies had regular armies fighting the Redcoats by the end, with supplies and naval support from France and training from Prussia
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  291. Yet California's critics conveniently ignore how captured its politics are by wealthy conservatives.
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  292. Beijing wants to recreate the centrality that China thought it played around the "world" (i.e. the Western Pacific), until fleets of boats that sailed literally around the world came by and showed Imperial China how much of it they were missing.
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  293. CPC: "We don't want to hear unfavorable news from your district, or you're fired." Also CPC: "Why can't we get accurate data?"
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  294. Rest easy if they do; it's such a running joke that even the Soviets mocked how often Beijing would declare a "final warning".
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  295. Lei's Real Talk attributes the balloon launch timing as partially infighting from more hawkish elements in the Party, highlighting a disturbing degree of political independence of the PLA echoing the surprise J-20 test in the hours preceding the 2011 Secretary Gates visit with President Hu. Might this rationale for the balloon deployment sound plausible?
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  296. The traits are a range and not a binary switch, hence why you might flip when you're near the middle. Big-5 and HEXACO used in real psychology are usually seen as percentages like they're supposed to be.
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  297. Funny how the ones telling us to "bootstrap" had themselves inherited privileges that could include a harness, proper rope, route knowledge (given confidentially), and a parachute if they still slipped up.
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  298. The popular Cartesian projection understates the size of places near the equator. Indonesia by itself is as wide as the Mainland US.
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  299. "Multipolar" just means multiple fault lines for militarized conflict. The last time we had a functionally multipolar world, it was full of extractive colonialism ending in two world wars. The reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, and Pax Americana are named after a single power is because it provided a common security environment allowing peaceful trade for like a third of humanity at the time.
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  300. ​ @ncgn13 Right, it's the unfortunate consequence of the legal obligation to make profits for shareholders _above all else_.
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  301. The Asset Light model works for hotel chains because corporate can just focus on branding and customer prepatory service (e.g. points redemption, data collection, reservation administration, etc). It helps that Marketing & Service are highly value-added, hence why property owners (often some other real estate corporation you probably never heard of) often try to franchise from a hospitality chain to gain visibility and access to their global customer base. Unrelated but amusing: I happen to have just stayed in one of the towers shown at 8:11 when I watched this video 🏨😂
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  302. South Korea still exists, and grew to be clearly better in every way to its northern counterpart. The others were only lost because the governments that hosted US forces failed to get their act together despite over a decade of America’s shield and aid. The length of which is impressive itself due to all of them being surrounded by hostile nations that American forces didn’t go occupy.
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  303. For every Caojiawan or Ordos, there's like 10 more similar builds that are failing to thrive. There just aren't enough working people and demand centers to compel moving there.
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  304. 4:43 The lack of sewers in Dubai is over a decade out of date. Getting piped sewage to everyone was the one megaproject that didn’t stall following the GFC, with a second treatment plant going online in 2011 and the last communities should be hooked up later this year. I’ve yet to see a poop truck in Dubai in all the time I’ve been here. After the Great Downpour of 2024, it sounds like flooding and rainwater capture will be the next grand project they’ll be quietly digging.
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  305. I find it's extremely useful for the furniture to pack flat when disassembled, I move house around the world every couple years and it really helps to reduce damage in transit. If I ever do commission for a piece of furniture, I'd likely just replicate a similar IKEA design with solid wood.
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  306. ⁠The first ones didn’t look that out of place, but yeah the 4th Gen style lasted way too long.
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  307. Hence the rise of new and renovated lounges, and rebuilds of terminals altogether. Probably because a more comfortable ground experience is still cheaper and more practical than trying to do similar inflight.
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  308. Military bases the hosting nation wants there. The Philippines still regrets having made the Americans leave considering how much of its own seas it's lost to China since then.
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  309. Because the rich don’t build roads and keep planes from crashing. These activities are unprofitable but vital, which means government taxes and spending.
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  310. The US/UN only really lost 개성(開成), but saved South Korea as intended and even advanced in the eastern mountains. Plus the surprise success of the PVA only lasted a couple months until UN combined arms tactics got refined at 지평리(砥平里), afterward getting consistently beaten back until they were able to dig in for classic trench warfare at the line that splits the peninsula today. But sure continue to gloat about 장진(長津), where the outnumbered Americans escaped with practically all its serviceable equipment and organization intact and still had space to rescue over 80000 Korean refugees, while the PVA ultimately lost almost half its fighting strength and totally failed in its goals to destroy X Corps and conquer all of Korea.
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  311. However we shouldn't dismiss the possibly of the CPC to commit to the campaign to salvage their authority over China. Argentina attempted something similar and their government collapsed on that seemingly sure bet for the Falklands.
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  312. If only clean healthy foods were more accessible, not only in purchase price but also shelf availability and in preparation time. Home cooking itself is a massive time suck, and the only time as a single household I could do this consistently was during COVID lockdowns; now that I'm back on the job site, it's reverted to a choice between eating out or more processed foods.
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  313. Interested to hear how Macao is supposed to take the reins from HK, since it's notorious as a gateway for Chinese money to escape the Mainland and doesn't have a whole lot of space to go for much else 🇲🇴🎰💸
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  314. Have you heard of Sejong City? That's the already completed South Korean equivalent, and likely what Xióng'ān will likely end up repeating 🏢🏢🏢😪
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  315. Emotionally-driven brand loyalty is what corporations dream of, because then they're not pressured to invest hard cash on actual improvements.
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  316. ... who wants them there, because the alternative is even worse. Ask the Philippines how they fared with their territorial integrity after asking the Americans to leave.
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  317. Even the Russians complain how quickly Chinese cars rust through. Not just EVs but their ICE models too.
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  318. The inaccuracies stack over time too, since the numbers must always be better than before. I've heard estimates that China's true GDP is like 40% smaller than they say, so still second place but far more distant and more like Japan than America.
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  319. If China or any other developed nation wants more native-born children, they need to bias their social supports to all those under 40. This means inexpensive housing, inexpensive childcare, inexpensive education, and inexpensive career costs to taking time off to be with the family. Capitalism hates dependents, and the physical mobility it demands have thoroughly broken up the extended families who used to help young parents raise the child. But something greater than the individual families have to contribute to proliferate its productivity -- and no automation alone is not the answer, for without continued human management it will just end up unholistic and incomplete.
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  320. The faster we divest and diversify, the better. The price of being overly efficient is brittleness to shock, and for too long we were fooled by the "efficiency" of autocracy to prepare for the efficiency of them changing their commitments on us.
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  321. ​TX and FL are more favorable to individual adults perhaps, but their education system lags substantially and seems to only get worse as conservative leadership tries to indoctrinate its children against the overall trends of humanity... a mindset that becomes a competitive disadvantage once they have to deal with the rest of the world after graduating some years from now.
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  322. I went to Seoul both for laser eye correction and to have my tonsils removed. Even paying full cash price it was less than half of what I'd have paid in the States.
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  323. Big businesses are hostile to startups, and habitually either acquire or litigate rising competition out of existence. In Korea these chaebols have already captured the economy and government, so from the individual entrepreneur's perspective there's not really much to gain by even trying to create a challenger with such high chances of getting ensnared in lawsuits and red tape down the line.
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  324. Even if missiles do reach their intended strike zone, it still has to quickly determine the difference between valid and civilian targets. Anti-ship missiles with their relatively tiny onboard radars are fairly dumb, and accuracy only diminishes as speed increases. I'd wager a good number of Chinese missiles aimed out to sea are going to mistake a container ship for a flattop, subsequently scaring off the civilian traffic the Mainland relies on for food and fuel at affordable prices.
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  325. Compared to other countries, Americans get what they pay for in tax filings even while abroad for however long -- the US Embassy would send an officer to at least check up on Americans who are jailed or hospitalized, and offer repatriation on request (it's a pricey loan but always available as long as the embassy is operating); meanwhile many other citizens find their local diplomat won't bother to deal with a commoner.
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  326. Even cheaper still are gravity bombs, and the US recently came out with a bolt-on JDAM kit upgrade that can track moving targets. This means America has potentially hundreds of thousands of ship killers deployable by almost anything that flies, balancing the battle back towards who can keep more planes aloft.
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  327. Yeah it's cute how inexpensive some voters believe durable institutions are. Remember that the bottom line of a government is continuity and not profit -- if government programs ran like a lean startup business, there's a 90% chance of failure within the next 10 years.
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  328. Spoiler alert: Epic Rap Battles of History agrees
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  329. Seems very similar in the GCC, where Saudi/Kuwaiti/Emirati/Qatari citizens will end up similarly unproductive and uncompetitive when they finally can't pay migrant workers to do everything for them.
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  330. Depends on point of view: expat to the donor country, immigrant to the receiver. Either way still a migrant.
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  331. That's assuming China survives intact once the Taiwanese insurrection gets quelled, which could take years if not generations. The Mainland depends on imports for food and fuel, and sanctions or not civilian ships will be scared off and China's global customers are going to more aggressively seek permanent alternatives. More likely unrest at home over food prices and quality (think Shanghai except everywhere and more defiant) will flare up and only grow as rations get taken from periphery security forces to keep more core functions fed -- the PLA is not nearly big enough to do battle with the rest of China.
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  332. There's a reason post-Cold War Western aid packages demand things like improvements to education and transparency: to reduce the ultimately nation-dragging corruption that Chinese-style governance proliferates.
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  333. Not even consistently. Anti-autocrat comments on YouTube often disappear while laughably obvious "investment advisor" spam remains due to the "engagement" it generates from sockpuppets.
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  334. I'd get one if I'm in Switzerland for long enough, and probably keep it just to say I have one. I had a bona fide Nigerian bank account before, but closed it upon departure because the monthly maintenance fees they charged would mean it'd be empty by the time I might return.
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  335. Mailed bomb packages weren’t really a thing yet, so it didn’t seem economical for a chronically underfunded State Department to purchase an early x-ray scanner and run it through.
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  336. 14:34 I remember at COP28 that one of the UAE desal plants had an exhibit, and I asked them what they do with all that brine. Apparently there's a substantial market for hypersaline seawater. For what exactly the buyers don't reveal, but the plant reps say sometimes upwards of like 80% of their wastewater gets sold and trucked away.
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  337. If. Remember that electronic warfare is also America's specialty, and nothing beats the speed of light as they jam a missile's radar, fries its sensors as it gets closer, and probably have it go diving.
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  338. The nuclear part may have been omitted, which they didn't need to put in anyway since the USAAF already committed some deliberate incendiary bombings resulting in equally horrific firestorms. The only real difference is that the nuclear one came from a flight package that merely looked like a reconnaissance mission not worth panicking about.
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  339. They leave primarily due to lower costs of living… or so they hoped. Then they find the schools lacking and recurring costs like utilities and insurance to be significantly higher than they hoped, but are now stuck being priced out of their previous coastal state.
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  340. Singapore is what the CPC wants to think it's leading China toward, if it conveniently ignores that S'pore: 1) is a democracy where the dominant party accepts the results, even if its popularity fades; 2) is overtly and inclusively multicultural, not trying to Sinicize its citizens; 3) admittedly relies on foreign immigrants for much of its basic activities; 4) doesn't present a territorial threat to its neighbors, despite its superior military; 5) literally cannot survive without open trade access, and works constantly to build real trust among as many nations as it can; and 6) cracks down on even perceived corruption among its officials and enforces well defined laws dispassionately with everyone in its jurisdiction, not vaguely and selectively out of political convenience 🇸🇬
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  341. BRI recipients also tend not to negotiate very well, not fully understanding the terms of the deals and not pushing for more transparency and domestic labor force development -- the local politicians signing these deals are too blinded by promises of money and tangible domestic politics deliverables to criticize what they're really getting. But of course the sales side isn't going to teach them how to negotiate better either.
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  342. Must've already forgotten how to open a KFC box 😂
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  343. I'd wager we'll instead adjust our expectations downward first, much like we did with mp3s for music and pixellation in early internet porn.
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  344. Beijing's prescriptions on what's "proper" prevents modern Chinese culture from developing any attractiveness -- it's like having parents dictate to teenagers (including strangers) what is "cool".
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  345. Feels like America's "keeping up with the Joneses" is a concept primarily limited to smaller towns where the social circles (and thus personal judgments) are concentrated within the local area, places like retiree colonies, factory towns, and religious suburbs. Isolated rural homesteads and larger cities who seek some isolation wouldn't care so much when there are more practical matters to attend to or alternatives to pursue.
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  346. No, Crowdstrike isn't that fundamental to the overall internet.
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  347. From what I know, the KMT was definitely more inept and corrupt than the CPC alternative, which is why the Communists gained so much ground so quickly after WWII; It was only after the formerly-allied Communism began to be identified as a threat that America pitched in to fortify Blue China on their last stand in Táiwān. In the decades since, the ROC grew up whereas the PRC grew out.
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  348. If our schools went "employment-focused", we'd ironically end up economically more troubled during downturns when the market for the skills taught in school drops out. China and Germany are facing fundamental hardship going forward partly because their education system pumps out more workers instead of creators. What schools should teach is how to _learn_, not specific lessons. The employability comes from being able to adapt to if not invent new opportunities as old markets inevitably deteriorate.
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  349. I've noticed that worldwide, the more aggressively a little "extra" gets asked for in any form (tips, "fees", "backsheesh", "something for the boys"), the worse the actual service tends to be. It also trends with the hopelessness of socioeconomic equality in the society.
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  350. HOA fees is what the privatization of public services gets you.
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  351. ​ @rebeltheharem7028 That's basically what LA is doing. I hear practically nothing about new venues compared to the LA Metro expansion projects.
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  352. ​ @larryc1616 "Lazy US workers" also developed the IP that TSMC systemically relies on, from the chip masks they put in the fabs to vital technology in the favs themselves. TSMC had the choice of having presence and influence in America, or let further developments get shoehorned into Intel until they figure out how become a real competitive threat.
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  353. That's a mindset deliberately developed by the business owners. They want to keep you isolated from your peers, gaslighting any shortage of pay as a "personal problem".
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  354. It's also traumatizing for people having to see so much death and violence. The corporations (or more accurately their "contractors") are notorious for not providing the breaks of work and therapeutic counseling needed for workers who see more sickening events in a work week than most soldiers encounter in their entire career.
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  355. It's called 军民融合 Military-Civil Fusion. Everything significant in China has military considerations because the Party sees everything in China through a political and state security lens.
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  356. 5:51 The issue with "neutrality" is that you don't trust anyone to come to your aid, and must be able to fight with potentially only what your own nation is capable of developing and producing. This is why actually neutral countries are a rich minority like Switzerland and formerly Sweden. Being "non-aligned" merely means being the target of two or more potential adversaries, yet not actually having the capacity to hold them off.
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  357. I'd wager the obesity has more to do with the food available nowadays, which is more processed to improve taste, shelf life, and production yields. There's a surprisingly strong correlation between obesity rates and our intake of added sweeteners over the decades.
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  358. Yeah many other countries could install that for like 1/5th of the price. A big cost center is the designs uniquely made for America's projects which need to be funded and waited on, as opposed to the nationally standardized technical specifications that China instituted which lets subcontractors focus on just getting parts made and installed.
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  359. ​ @VainerCactus0 Mining tailings and fixed power plants are a lot easier to implement and enforce pollution controls on, compared to recalling every vehicle for emissions tests when they're not dumping dioxides straight into the air we breathe.
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  360. No, Dubai has since dug in their piped sewage network. The remaining pump trucks nowadays empty flood water and sand-clogged drainage.
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  361. Ukraine has been a simmering point of contention since the end of the Cold War. What amazes me is how accurate Western intelligence has been in the past few months.
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  362. Student debt is at all-time highs but recruitment rates are crashing. If anything it's because too few Americans are exposed to actual family and friends who served, so the uniform is a distant thought as a career option.
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  363. More chargers are certainly the way to encourage use of EVs. It’s technically not that difficult since they don’t have the HAZMAT issues of gas stations, and much cheaper aluminum wiring is already proven as it literally powers the whole world as overhead transmission lines.
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  364. Money is power, and power is a zero-sum game.
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  365. ​ @authenticallysuperficial9874 That risks becoming like the socially brittle Gulf States, getting the country overrun by foreign men whose pay is so low it discourages productivity innovation.
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  366. Right, WFH limits what education is possible when framed and delayed with a screen. It's especially detrimental to junior workers who are still figuring out all the processes and contacts. There's a reason MOOCs flopped, and remote learning is getting reversed wherever practical.
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  367. Even the Han Chinese are getting a taste of it with regularly mandated bio-testing and the constant threat of surprise detainment to an overcrowded open-bay "hospital".
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  368. ​ @bruceli9094 Taiwan already has a substantial defensive tunnel network, maybe not as dense in the cities but definitely in the mountains where they can stage an insurgency and counteroffensive from. They've been preparing for a PLA invasion for over half a century now.
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  369. I'm sure that nuance will be conveniently ignored by the Red Hats as they claim conspiracy and righteous indignation.
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  370. The latest Nobel Prize in Economics offers a compelling explanation: it's all about the society's institutions. Resource-rich lands (including most tropical locations where edible things grow easily) tends to create extractive strongman social arrangements which sticks around even into modern independence, while more hardship locales (including the colonial US and Oceania) created more democratized and socialized ones.
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  371. 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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  372. Having lived in China, I've realized that the most pessimistic reports about it are generally the most accurate.
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  373. Right, the PLA budget doesn't include support for the paramilitary fishing fleets ramming and fouling the boats of their neighbors, nor all the "internal security" intelligence and propaganda programs where the spending might exceed that of the military.
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  374.  @慕容沫子  India and Maritime SE Asia want you out of their lands. Tibet and East Turkestan too depending on who counted their existence. Russia is keeping an eye on you as you look to become an Arctic power via Siberia. And the Vietnamese hates you with their thousand years of humiliation across multiple dynasties.
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  375. ... while the whole time they were throwing sand at our skates and saying it came from outside.
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  376. Spiraling out of Beijing's control now that the US is no longer sees China as all that lucrative, and have begun seeking other sources and markets.
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  377. "Where is fairness in competition?" It's in the global supply chain diversifying providers by offshoring out of China.
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  378. When I left out of Beijing Capital a couple months ago, I was amazed how empty and how many closed shops the terminal had. The only places open was a Starbucks stall and the Air China lounge. The domestic terminals and the cities themselves were a little more lively, but the lines at the shops weren't nearly as long as they're set up to handle.
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  379. Not that many people will be be buying though. The bigger problem is current homeowners scrambling to salvage their life savings from their submerging real estate.
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  380. I'm surprised we don't hear more about Zero-COVID's contribution to global price inflation. Not all that many of us enjoy a glut of US Dollars, but we all buy from China~ who for the past couple years wasn't so interested in providing a predictable supply of goods and services.
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  381. Hopefully that someone continues the path of primarily agnostic development, and isn't swayed by religious ideologies. Biasing decisions towards faith at the expense of everything else imbalances the tenets of Pancasila.
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  382. Yeah, next thing you know the Azeris and Kurds will be making claim on those ethnic enclaves on the other side of Iran
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  383. More wealth also has more requirements to defend and develop it. Most of us don't hire personal bodyguards and tax avoidance accountants, but the financial elite certainly would.
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  384. It's a relatively rare insight for a Mainlander. Usually the divergence of genetics and mentality/allegiance is the primary source of social friction, particularly when they engage with someone who is ethnically Chinese but not a subject of the PRC. I'd say much of this comes from the CCP's largely successful strategy to equate the PRC with everything "China", and filtering out any dissension from this newspeak.
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  385. Paying regular taxes alone would have been more freeing than trying to lower your taxes only to pay even more in privatized HOA fees.
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  386. Cities in Myanmar used to be among the safest streets to walk about in, because the people were so scared of the severe punishments for the most tame infractions. Now it's in civil war, because living in such anxiety about the authorities only built up animosity and not love for the government.
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  387. 3:28 High inequality makes more extreme strongman solutions attractive. You don’t see popular anti-government demonstrations in Japan or Finland, while it’s a regular occurence in Argentina and Indonesia. America has seen this before during the Gilded Age, where pro-communist sentiments were only tempered by yielding to the compromise of collective bargaining. Check out what happened before labor unions were legalized — hint: it involved bombs and machine guns.
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  388. Unfortunately US laws compel corporations to prioritize their shareholders over their stakeholders.
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  389. 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.
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  390. Infrastructure pays itself off from the total economic activity it supports, which is especially salient when it comes to moving cargo. America's freeways and existing rail network are great for making internal shipping cheap and easy. Airlines and China's HSR suffer from not being able to move high-margin shipments -- passengers and consumer mail don't pay nearly as well as bulk goods and HAZMAT -- and both airlines and China's HSR overbuild have very high capital and operating costs compared to their slow heavyweight alternatives.
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  391. Problem is it wasn't your land to build on to begin with.
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  392.  @juliav.mcclelland2415  Slave transports were a lot smaller than the container ships we use today. Plus slaves can easily climb themselves onto rowed tenders ferrying between the beach and the tall ship anchored offshore.
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  393.  @robotface42O  Probably fake rich too, actual wealth is usually not so boastful about it 💸
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  394. If you can secure the topside, just weld the doors shut, find the air vents, and hook up a generator with the exhaust down its shaft. Run that for a few weeks and soon enough you'll claim their bunker with everything they didn't manage to consume before they choked.
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  395. Right, very few foreigners learn Chinese due to personal appeal. It's basically limited to those with family heritage or direct business interests. I've found Korean and Japanese are equally powerful to Mandarin as a lingua franca around the world. That's how weak the media and soft power of modern China is globally.
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  396. Reset? COVID hit Indonesia hard, it became the deadliest place in SE Asia to catch SARS-2. I was there when it all started.
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  397. There's a shortage of pilots in general... mostly because there's a shortage of willingness in the private sector to invest in OJT in general. The military and government being the few places left training new hires from near scratch are then even under more pressure to retain such rare talent while also not "wasting taxpayer money".
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  398. Chinese loans are problematic because judicious write-offs are a vital component of achieving larger developmental goals. Western lenders are at least sometimes open to debt forgiveness, unlike China who at best might delay the payment schedule but always want all of that money back.
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  399. Having the fabs alone isn't enough. They would also need their Taiwanese engineers to fully cooperate in order for them to be productive; it's way to easy for the fabs to deviate wildly out of spec even through simple neglect.
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  400. Having lived in Indonesia, I saw there’s a simmering undercurrent of suspicion against anything Chinese and godless communist. I remember my Chindo friends having to put on Muslim headwear if they went out during the Omnibus Act protests out of fear that it could spiral into another May ‘98.
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  401. Speaking of goalkeepers, the Dutch developed the Goalkeeper CIWS around the GAU-8/A 30mm cannon. If that sounds familiar, yes it's the same cannon flown on the A-10... it's literally BRRRRRRT in the other direction 🇳🇱😎
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  402. Post-Mao China was racing to get rich and developed before their population base gets old and cost-sensitive manufacturing reliances offshored. Clearly they're failing.
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  403. When China mentions “poverty”, they only mean the extreme dollar-a-day starvation status level. They conveniently don’t mention like half their population is still impoverished if they translated say America’s “poverty level” of $13k/year to Chinese buying power.
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  404. Would we also be using exactly one lane of a three-lane freeway? 😂
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  405. 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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  406. What's not solved is how to tax AI productivity for the benefit of human society, rather than allowing its corporate owners to continue hoarding the gains like they've been doing since the 1970s.
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  407. The strong preference for fresh food every single meal is what makes China so vulnerable to logistical interruptions. Americans and those who experienced American humanitarian aid would be more open to having MREs that were sealed and boxed five years ago.
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  408. Millennials are entering their prime productivity years now, increasingly executive positions too.
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  409. “Learn on the job” assuming companies even give OJT anymore, rather than leaning on the public sector (schools and military) and private competitors to do the training for them.
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  410. Because locals fear the alternative scenario where America is absent.
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  411. Or its AI models. We're finding the bulk of DeepSeek's power comes from distillation (copying) of OpenAI.
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  412. What graduate would want to work in China if they don’t have preexisting personal relationships and interests in China? All the economic excitement is in South and Southeast Asia now.
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  413. Inner Mongolia too, there's been a surprising amount of protest in the push to get Chinese Mongols to neglect their language.
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  414. Běijīng sees everything through the lens of power, which is a zero-sum scale that ranges from absolutely imposing to absolutely subjected. They're fundamentally discomforted by the thought of compromise because to them it signals being dominated. This is why the more confident they are, the more aggressive they ironically become. Struggle and resistance is the only language that the CPC appreciates. Hence why when dealing with Běijīng, deterrence is far more productive than appeasement.
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  415. The blanket $800 de minimis allowance was so horribly abused by Chinese merchants sending “gifts” to American paying customers. In the other direction China only allows ¥50 ($7). I found this out the hard way after my friend in Beijing was forced to pay import taxes on her own birthday gift 🎁💸
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  416. It wants to stay in power. With its economic outlook looking grim from diminishing returns as well as unreversed aging, debt, and pollution, the Party clearly hints at wanting to seize Taiwan as their Plan B for remaining "great, glorious, and correct".
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  417. G7 is also the majority of world trade by value
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  418. The last time the US paid off all its debt, it sparked wild speculation that led to the Panic of 1837, which was basically a Great Depression that lasted a decade; the next boom wouldn't really come until California gold put more money back into the system. As scary as debt sounds, it also tempers fanciful mass investments that -- if about 90% of new ventures fail within 10 years -- realize mass disappointment.
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  419. No, lack of housing is what fuels homelessness. Only made worse by all the forced migrants bussed in by other states.
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  420. Textbooks only goes so far, especially in societies with a narrow definition of dignified occupations and acceptable life choices like Korea. Remember East Asia was very much stagnant until Western-style schooling -- including not only technical studies but also the liberal arts needed to market those innovations and question the underlying social arrangements -- replaced what was basically rote memorization of classical literature and seeking artisan patronage from the established elites.
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  421. More like strong popular institutions rather than specifically monarchy. Israel has thrived despite being a democratized republic. Meanwhile Iraq, Iran, and Yemen threw out their kings.
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  422.  @tisser-k9d  The question is will they be allowed to challenge the established Chaebols and big businesses, or at least get bought out to the profit of those entrepreneurs? Or will they be simply litigated out of existence with those entrepreneurs losing everything?
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  423. It's sad to hear how so many Chinese nationals liken the PRC government to their "parents", defending the Party from outsiders even when they themselves hold the same criticisms. They haven't yet realized that parents can also be a toxic influence, and it could be healthier to estrange yourself from such a "family".
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  424. "In China, the government is not seen as a hindrance to economic prosperity, but a prerequisite", according to the Party narrative anyway. On the ground though the CPC's rule by law approach introduces obstacles to smooth business operations, and creates uncertainty that the entire business model could someday suddenly get declared as illegal.
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  425. Meanwhile Americans: "It only costs you £100 to see a doctor?!"
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  426. People complained about taxis being overpriced, but Uber is proving that taxis charge what they do because it really reflects the cost of doing that business.
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  427. All you have to do is ignore the chaebol and other born-privileged "good families" who collude with the authorities to drop legal barriers on rising startups by those outside their personal social circles, in order to prevent viable competition to their revenue stream and social status.
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  428. ​ @niyo919 The pie is shrinking not because of left-vs-right (lateral violence), but because of top-vs-bottom (class conflict). But this thinking gets called "socialist", even though redistribution is very popular once implemented -- just ask retirees, Alaska residents (through their Permanent Fund), and the surprising following of right-wingers who supported Andrew Yang for President.
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  429. Koreans themselves aren't too educated on their own role in the Japanese Empire either. There was considerable support to be a part of a stronger East Asian empire compared to their own lackluster native monarchy, to the point of recruitment into the IJA becoming extremely competitive. For the Allies, it was Koreans who were the known as the most brutal and sadistic in the Pacific, especially as POW camp guards.
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  430. In the same 10 year timeframe, something like 90% of new business ventures fail. Government projects by contrast could be considered consistently successful.
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  431. ​ @Rashaadthegr8 It is federally shaped though, especially as the car-only Interstates physically discourages the use of any other mode of commute.
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  432. Taiwan is recognized as part of "China", but not necessarily part of the PRC. Recognizing Beijing as the current representative of China doesn't change the fact that it doesn't control a competitor for its claim across the Strait.
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  433. In terms of export market attractiveness though it might as well be. The Global South are still largely resources for materials and labor, and transforming them into aspirational customers would require cultural and political shifts that spells trouble for its often tribalist and kleptocratic leadership.
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  434. Africans might be a big one, since the continent is flooded with Mainlander media, even poorer communities are easily found at home, and their visitors to China don't really have reason to go beyond the major cities. They do see BRI projects falling apart in their own country, but might not be convinced things are just as bad in China unless they travel back and forth regularly over a long time.
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  435. Would be, if Russia didn't own the world's largest nuclear arsenal and an alarmingly low hesitation to deploy them.
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  436. Stakeholders involves all those with an interest in the performance of the organization, which includes customers, employees, suppliers, and the public at large. Shareholders is a more narrow definition describing just those with slices of legal ownership over the company.
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  437. You always have more money right after selling your house, your car, and any other vital asset.
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  438. The most promising solutions seem to be pumped-storage hydro (a dam that also pumps water up into the upper reservoir during excess production) and molten salt (heat is very cheap and easy to store compared to electricity)
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  439. Road taxes based on weight make the most sense, as weight is the dominant factor in road wear. EVs are surprisingly dense and so would pay more, but it would likewise discourage oversize SUVs and crew cab pickups, while favoring gridlock-breaking motorbikes.
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  440. If they last on the market long enough to develop a decent after-sales reliability and maintenance record. Which considering Mainland Chinese attitudes toward quality of service will likely grow much slower than they expect.
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  441. The "experience" companies want is the type paid by competitors they can screw over by scooping you for themselves. Very rarely do companies provide actual entry-level OJT nowadays; really you'd have to join government civil or military service to get that anymore.
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  442. No, supply shocks and profit-price spiral are at least as influential.
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  443. Those hobbies, friends, and exercise is in even more demand nowadays because it's how not to get left behind in this increasingly outsourced and automated economy. Kids introduce path dependence, leaving you permanently stuck at wherever you are because you're no longer able to spend time with self-improvement.
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  444. Right, money is only worth what it can buy. I'm more interested a comparison of median buying power.
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  445. A big chunk of education is learning how to read and exchange with other people, ideally creating connections you could tap into later both personally and professionally. That's why online-only classes fall flat: there's no real substitute to an unstructured random face to face conversation that requires your full attention and physical vulnerability.
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  446. If selfish confrontational management is what what the workers get, selfish confrontational workers is what management receives.
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  447. The "fucked up" part being the lack of easy entry level occupations and cheap housing. Climate and politics are often given as reasons but really its the collapse of buying power among the youth.
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  448. The CPC endorsed through song the message for the people to rise up. They're becoming a victim of their own success.
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  449. The best investment you can make is choosing your birth to the right parents.
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  450. 3:38 According to the Smiling Curve model, R&D (i.e. creating IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services (including marketing) at the end provide more value-added than the price-sensitive easily-substituted Manufacturing in the middle of the production chain. This is why developed nations manage to stay rich despite offshoring its factories and intensively automating the ones that do come back (i.e. much lower impact on employment numbers), while those who fail to create unique ideas and valuable branding fall into the middle-income trap where they're desperate to keep their youth motivated and employed. At a more micro level, the value-added of selling a brand explains how CEOs manage to demand so much compensation per calories burnt. Especially those CEOs who simply gained control of (as opposed to actually building from the paper idea up) existing companies, such as Elon's buyout of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter. Guys (usually) like these are the ultimate influencer every schoolkid nowadays dreams to be.
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  451. Having lived in Mainland China, I can see why so many want to escape to America. It may be lucrative for corporations, but it’s a horrible place to be a human, especially outside of Party connections. Ironically the effective tax burden is about the same in both countries too. It’s all about where those revenues are getting spent.
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  452. Even the rich ones like the Gulf States are on shaky ground once the oil wells run dry, and they can no longer afford to feel so blessed and entitled 🛢📉
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  453. The employment and skills aren't monopolized by Chinese though, which is especially damaging for the Chinese young adults left behind with shrinking job opportunities and suffering "20%" (i.e. even higher) unemployment rates.
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  454. We're going through a wave of newbie disruptions again as a lot of ATCs retired during COVID. There's been an alarming surge of runway incursions and other close calls lately.
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  455. Switzerland modeled its constitution largely from the US one, and practice their governance more in line with what America's Founding Fathers seemed to have envisioned. However, Switzerland wasn't handicapped by the economic interests of chattel slavery, expanding its territory before another European power got hold of it, or subsequently populating those annexations with whatever people they could attract.
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  456. US strategy involves the "Indo-Pacific", which also includes India and its classic sphere of influence from the Himalayas to the Maldives (and the Asia - Europe/MidEast/Africa sea lanes it dominates), as well as Australia and New Zealand with its historical influence on the Pacific Island Countries. "Asia-Pacific" is more a PRC term designed to isolate India and Australia from the picture.
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  457. If just feeding people and tracking positive/clearing negative COVID cases in Shànghǎi is any indication, the PRC will still be shockingly inept. The virus doesn't shoot back, they're limiting their own options mainly out of suspicion and fear from their own side; now imagine if those logistical assets were specifically targeted, along with their abilities to communicate.
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  458. It's China who doesn't want a united Korea. NK is a useful physical buffer against Western forces, a source of cheap material whenever they can sneak it in, and its fall would be a crushing blow to the totalitarian Communism that the Mainland advocates. China deliberately delayed the ceasefire of the Korean War until Stalin's death meant an end of supplies to the otherwise impoverished PRC.
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  459. Right, US doctrine have only two real consistencies: JP-8 fuel and MREs. Everything else we pretty much make up and adapt to as we go.
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  460. Counter-mining is an old concept, at least as old as straight up castles 🏰⛏️
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  461. 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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  462. ​ @korakys "Cutter" is actually a closer approximation of the standard Arabic pronunciation, often said by veterans and other former residents.
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  463. ​ 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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  464. 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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  465. Right, it's not so much the ability to squeeze out smaller architectures as the profitability in making them. Sure you might get like 5 successes per wafer, but to scale up for the market it needs to be more like maximum 5 defects per wafer.
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  466. America's infrastructure is falling apart because it's old, like Mao Zedong just died old. I've driven on China's roads and notice that it quickly degrades if they didn't resurface the whole thing like twice a year, which makes me wonder how it's holding up underneath because inspections and retrofit projects don't seem to happen as often despite the rusting guard rails and flaking concrete. Though at least they run a street sweeper down the two-wheeler lanes like every other night.
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  467. Does the infrastructure serve them, or bypass them? Remember that entire self-sufficient communities have died and slums in the cities have grown because of otherwise straightforward changes to the national transportation network.
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  468.  @carlflaherty2215  The unemployment is worst among college graduates, who spent valuable youth years (there's massive discrimination for being over 35) on an "education" which considering the amount of choosy international students China's universities don't have wasn't worth what they paid.
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  469. Not even directed by the US Government, instead as an independent decision by a for-profit corporation. Unlike how "private" companies are steered into supporting Chinese state objectives.
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  470. No, Taiwan was also important before its rise as the world's chip fab. Taiwan prevents PLA ships from getting to the open Pacific undetected, and the existence of the ROC is living proof of what Chinese people can achieve without the CPC.
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  471. According to the Smiling Curve model, manufacturing is the lowest value-added, most price sensitive, and most easily substitutable middle stage of the production process compared to R&D (i.e. valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. Hence why entire economies can fail to break out of the middle income trap and why the PRC is so desperate for “high quality” growth, even though their modern society lacks the willingness to openly explore the bottom-up critical thought and disruptive experimentation required to innovate their way up.
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  472. There's ultimately not "other countries" to the Middle Kingdom, just territories they haven't yet subjugated.
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  473. Only Taiwan’s words about itself might be growing more “autonomous”. In practice Taiwan was always independent of Communist China, and was hardly tied to the clasically ocean-averse Mainland China throughout its history.
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  474. "You don't understand China's economy"... apparently neither does China 😬
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  475. Imagine if China weren't run by the CPC. Oh wait I don't have to, I can just go to Taiwan 🇹🇼
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  476. Russia is stacked with exactly the affordable fuel and food China needs to survive though. Bonus if Beijing ends up in a domineering position over Moscow because of Russia’s deteriorating negotiating power going forward.
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  477. The PLA also has political commissars, as the dual loyalty of its soldiers to the CPC and to "China" means the Party can't trust its armed forces to not develop a divergent idea of the enemy to the nation. Vietnam and interestingly Taiwan also includes commissars in its ranks, though for the ROC since democratization they function more like an Inspector General as opposed to a teacher and enforcer of state ideology.
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  478.  @jimflagg4009  Also a warning against American disengagement from the Middle East, whose uncompromising religious and tribalist conflicts its been long trying to get out of. But ironically going ahead with dedollarization would likely hurt moreso than benefit those with trade surpluses like China and Saudi.
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  479. Considering the amount of censorship and limitations Beijing places against foreign competitors, Western companies don't have as much to lose since they were never as dependent on the Chinese customer base.
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  480. That's Mainland China right now, where they're facing a glut of graduates right as the rest of the globe divests from the PRC. Youth unemployment nowadays is at "20%" (i.e. more like 30~40%).
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  481. That's why healthcare is best treated as a public utility much like the "natural monopoly" of roads and energy service. The barrier to becoming a health professional means you're not going to medical school just to second-guess them, nor shop around for the best surgeon in the middle of an emergency.
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  482. ​Camps the host nation wants there, even if as a convenient scapegoat to divert domestic grievances toward. Those governments who made US forces leave (Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines) inevitably regret it.
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  483. Right, Mandarin isn't all that useful outside of China itself, especially when competing against older diaspora reading/writing Traditional Script speaking Cantonese and Minnan. China's huge lack of an attractive modern culture is bound to keep it that way, limiting learners to overwhelmingly those with heritage or specific business interests.
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  484. Neutrality isn't necessarily the lack of enemies, it's the lack of reliable friends who would reactively come to their aid. A truly neutral state would be self-sufficient with its military, much like Switzerland, Singapore, and up to now Finland.
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  485. It'd be better to select workers based more on their personality and interests -- and not spend so much effort determining the absolute top candidate out of thousands of applicants -- instead of purely comparing paper to your impossible ideal, then provide OJT. This is more like how companies used to hire (and how the public sector and military still does hire) before the internet made the whole world "accessible" (which goes both ways), and firms got lazy wanting to instead lean on public education and poaching from competitors to fill their staffing needs.
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  486. Táiwān remains a thorn in the side of Mainland China because it is a glaring example of how Chinese people can thrive without the CPC. Should the Mainland take Táiwān by force, it would spell the end of the PRC with boycotts, collapse of trust, and the hunt for permanent alternatives so severe it would make the early 1990s look like a slap on the wrist, on top of the psychological damage to so many Chinese families who lost their only son in the invasion battles and insurrection ambushes that follow. It would be in the ROC's interest to focus more on the insurrection aspect, learning how to train up casual combatants and create effective improvised weaponry on the cheap, especially since the island has so much defensible terrain from which to stage in -- America ironically could show them exactly how to defeat the political agenda of an occupying force from recent firsthand experience. Having a credible defense in depth even when decapitated will make it clear to the Communists that forcibly seizing their "renegade" territory under any justification will not be quick or easily healed, and have them reconsidering the overall cost of achieving national glory when the nation they raised is physically too polluted to even feed itself without the foreign trade that they risk losing.
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  487. It shows the physical vulnerabilities and overall conflict from the Israeli perspective, which is something we don't hear much of as we're flooded with the narrative to have unquestioned sympathy for Palestine.
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  488. I've heard that jeonse managers often try to find ways for to charge outgoing tenants with "damage" to the property and deduct accordingly from the repayment.
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  489. Similar with nearly all urbanized countries, but China's population outlook is more similar to Europe during the Black Plague.
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  490. Problem with mortgages is that you need money (for the down payment) in order to save money. Plus confidence that your career will remain within commuting distance of said home the whole time.
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  491. Taiwan's longer term prosperity relies on staying separate from the PRC though. There's no real benefit to reunify under Běijīng, so might as well fight for the status quo.
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  492. Right, because of the internet, values drastically shifted from not caring about what other people think to constant concern about your image, especially since anything you do may be permanently recorded and up for analysis and judgment even well past your death. Harley's "tough guy" libertarian image isn't well suited for a world that's trending towards cooperation, cosmopolitanism, and leaving a well-regarded legacy.
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  493. That's easy if you're childless. But if your kids are locked into the academic calendar your options get very limited.
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  494. It's easier to get around on public transit in Dubai and Doha than in Dallas, and it's infamously car-centric in the Gulf States.
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  495. The algorithm says that's what gets clicks. Hence why you not only watched but commented too.
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  496. How to measure the results still needs to be figured out though. Especially for certain office tasks where you’re having to make subjective judgments over quality of work and its effects aren’t necessarily immediate; yet it’s far simpler to calculate how much time was spent logged in and unable to tend to family or other personal obligations.
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  497. Those on duty (especially reservists with civilian jobs) need to rotate out for recuperation.
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  498. No, the passionately right wing makes up only like 1/3 of the electorate, and this could be even smaller considering the number of often progressive-leaning citizens suppressed by some states' deliberate inconvenience if not worse (homeless, college students, minority districts, expats abroad, etc). I'm also a veteran. Our servicemembers are less conservative and more pragmatic than the stereotype suggests -- we don't want to get deployed over another ego-driven adventure. Trump was surprised that he had lost even the military vote. History suggests the more humanist side will win in another cycle of violence against self-interested ideologues, as was the case in the Civil War, the anarcho-communist insurrection, and the Civil Rights Movement.
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  499. The US-backed anticommunist dictators at least have a chance of later yielding to public pressure and democratizing. See South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
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  500. That comes at the price of political appeasement, which Beijing increasingly tries to leverage as its own economy burns out. The ideal would be having multiple sources worldwide who can offer similar yields and prices.
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  501. They try to sell it as reducing "wasteful" government, ignorant of how a government's bottom line is actually resilience and continuity as opposed to profit like a failure-prone private venture.
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  502. ​ @marshalLannes1769 Continued growth and controlled inflation, which reduces all our previous debt loads the longer we sit on it. Macroeconomics don't have the same interests and vulnerabilities as households on the micro level, like how deflation would short-term benefit consumers but on the larger scale is a doom loop that will ultimately devastate us all.
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  503.  @001-z9e  Ironically may be the opposite: technical specialists with no humanist or artistic education which could differentiate them from each other... or an AI that could do similar for much cheaper.
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  504. Most other countries don't surround themselves with a stadium's worth of parking lots either, instead being well connected to public transit. Turns out more people from wider customer segments are able to patronize the property if they're not required to drive in and park themselves.
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  505. ​ @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.
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  506.  @spartanparty3894  Although it'd be interesting to see how Chinese builds hold up after a century of use like America's miraculously has so far on marginal maintenance. There's already news of brand new BRI builds collapsing within months of opening, and sold-out new apartments getting condemned if not collapsing in China isn't unheard of either.
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  507. ​Right, it's HarmonyOS is a fork that wouldn't report as Android. I think that's where a big chunk of the "loss" comes from.
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  508. Let’s hope Harris wins then. A competent diplomatic corps would at least stabilize the situation, as opposed to Trump’s abortive embarrassment that’s already burned that bridge.
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  509. All. Specific ethnicity is a nuance lost in the largely black/white/other identities in America, especially since Asians in America are still a small share of the population.
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  510. Probably an Administration that doesn’t put big business first.
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  511. Right, you may not be broke that first decade or two, but you'll end up broke both ways by the end. Financial Independence Retire Early but medically unable to enjoy it 🔥 💸
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  512. Made worse by how modern societies are still strongly gerentocratic, when digitized knowledge and the internet allows access to the "wisdom" that used to only come with age and experience.
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  513. Thing is migrant workers are generally more healthy and willing to do the work (otherwise they wouldn't be available to begin with), whereas a lot of homeless folks come with a lot of mental and medical impediments that make them unsuitable for taking on tasks anytime soon.
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  514. Having just left Mainland China, my observation is that the more pessimistic reports are still much closer to the reality on the ground.
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  515. Right, capitalism becomes self-defeating when it deems care for dependents as purely "personal" and a "net loss" to the firm.
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  516. I know government and corporations often maintain a stock of "China Only" laptops and phones with minimized local data (instead using a overseas cloud services via VPN at every opportunity) and with operating systems that are wiped and reimaged upon return. It's highly recommended to bring such "burner" devices because just connecting to any Chinese network (cellular or company wifi like in hotels) practically guarantees secret installation over the air of spyware tools to at least accurately track your location, if not activate the microphone or camera as well as reading the storage of your apps. All those things you fear about the CIA doing to you, in the PRC these are actually true. Beijing spends a lot more of its budget on "internal security", as in at least as much as on the military.
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  517. Also the celebration of "liberty" expressed through the consumption of drugs, and by extension supplements and other substances where the "safety" and "benefits" are based merely on the word of its advertisers without independent scientific criticism.
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  518. State-sponsored capitalism. Bring Chinese state subsidies and supports down to the global average level and those prices won't be quite as competitive.
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  519. Mylar will eventually absorb enough heat to start glowing to thermals, especially if it's close to the original heat source. It's great for quick cover if you somehow detect the threat before it locks onto you, but it's not something you can wear indefinitely.
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  520. Right, a properly built defensive tunnel would also include places for air pockets and flood barriers. Underground is truly the next theater of human conflict as drones begin to dominate everywhere with open sky.
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  521. The EU remains separate countries but with a common customs and trade policy. That's what basically allows for free movement of goods and people within the EU, further amplified by converging on the Euro as their currency.
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  522. Extreme poverty is mostly resolved, it's just the "extreme" dollar-a-day qualifier the Party conveniently omits when they say they eliminated (effective) "poverty".
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  523. Which begs the question, how much is our data worth altogether?
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  524. Instead: Meng Wenzhou released and back in China! (not said: after verifying evidence of the Iran-Huáwéi Affair and ensuring the release of the two Canadians held captive in thinly-veiled retaliation)
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  525. China at the time was worried about not having enough growth and jobs to make all those kids eventually net productive, especially with all the changes that were starting to automate away jobs and the rising calls for reform that led to 1989... having lots of unemployed youth is politically very hazardous. Thing is they kept their One Child Policy for way too long, passing through their prosperous 2000s and early 2010s without birthing the people to pass it on to.
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  526. "ASEAN countries have upheld peace in the region" with US presence from its bases in the Philippines. After the Philippines ejected the Americans, the PRC began expanding the conflict beyond Vietnamese claims starting with Mischief Reef in 1994. Shots at Filipino fishing boats fired, militarized airports constructed, and the seizure of Scarborough Shoal later, US forces are getting invited back to defend what's left of Philippine and greater ASEAN's exclusive waters.
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  527. Having everyone around them permanently defanged by the Americans and British helps a lot.
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  528. The way she's completely turned the momentum, in a few months it'll be President-Elect.
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  529. Western unarmed civilian ships. The warships sail about just fine.
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  530. Beijing found where Canadian apologetic pleasantness ends. I'm sure that's an achievement they didn't wish to get 🇨🇦
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  531. A shooting war across to Taiwan will scare off all that shipping though, leading to considerably more expensive food and fuel imports across vast overland routes as opposed to cheaply floating it straight into its population and production centers.
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  532. Finally? That's been how China fueled its "impressive" growth since the Great Recession. The Zero-COVID zero-growth only accelerated their growth in debt burden.
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  533.  @jimpollard9392  Creative accounting seems to be the most major innovation coming out of "New China" 📈🏚️
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  534. As a "civilization" perhaps. The Chinese state and its leadership got terminated violently quite often though.
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  535. Parents are too distracted pressuring their kids to get married and have kids, as if having even more dependents would magically solve all their economic and reputational challenges.
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  536. To the Party it's all about power, which is a zero-sum game because power is comparative capabilities by definition.
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  537. Sadly this nuance gets lost in regular conversation, just as the Party wants as it works to equate itself with all of China, its people, and its destiny.
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  538. Problem is that growth continues to stall, likely permanently as aging, debt, and pollution eradicate options for easy profits to distract the public from politics. With the people no longer blinded by money, the only option left for the Party to continue unchallenged rule is through fascist ethnonationalism.
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  539. It looks small on a map because of the way most are distorted, but Indonesia is about as wide as the Continental United States. Java alone is almost as long as California.
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  540. China has the knowledge, just not the attitude to spend the premium required to make non-disposable normal.
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  541. Indeed, even Doha is more walkable now that they built out their metro network. The Dubai Metro is seriously undersized and its style-first feel makes it seem like it was originally a pet project rather than a serious alternative to the car.
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  542. Because it's pretty clear they're working. While a vaccinated person can still catch and pass on the virus, it's only at a fraction of the length and severity. Over 90% of new positives come from the unvaxed, along with practically all the hospitalizations and the threat of incubating new variant.
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  543. Western ones are more "draconian" because they're more specific, and they're also subject to legal challenge in open court. The one the PRC imposes is much more vague and up to the sole interpretation of the ruling Party, which has a chilling effect on business operations because it's not clear what could be interpreted as a "national security" concern.
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  544. That's basically every army. Grunts anywhere have a common interest in shamming off while the higher ranks have strategy and policy that they're there to implement.
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  545.  @pmscalisi  It's not so much being on top immediately as having an identifiable purpose and impact, something to be proud of and be able to market for the next opportunity. This is important considering how these days no matter how well you follow directions and perform for the company, they'll automate/outsource you out of there without a second thought.
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  546. Timor Leste is actually hoping to (re)join, and even gets support from its former colonizer Indonesia. It's Singapore and some other continental states who oppose its inclusion, thinking its accession will drag the economic progress of ASEAN.
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  547. Ask the host nations. They want America there because they're mortally concerned about what's likely to happen to them afterwards should the Yankees really do go home.
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  548. Meanwhile in Běijīng: looks at Táiwān, who have been preparing for their arrival for decades looks at the PLA, inexperienced in fighting true hostilities, field maintenance, and logistics under fire with untested equipment looks at the rest of the world, who would accelerate divestment if not cut ties with China altogether looks at its foreign reserves, which isn't unlimited looks at its grain reserves, which is literally rotten looks at its farmlands and water sources, if there are any unpolluted ones left looks at its people, who have no shortage of complaints against the government and are still very much willing to expatriate fills the Water Cube with profuse sweating ☭🥀
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  549.  @paulmerritt8593  If every human lived like an average American, Earth can only sustain 2 billion people. Competition against rising minds and robots is only getting stiffer and more expensive. As we see in developing countries, children of unprepared and unsupported parents are a consistent way of stalling upward social mobility since they're increasingly unable to achieve the rising minimum standards-- and pro-birthers are often the same people who refuse to provide real support to the most vulnerable families. So more welfare or less drag. Refusing both only leads to increasingly violent irritation down the line.
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  550. Test scores alone don't make for a respectable human being. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should," and it sounds like the "personality" rating attempts to balance capability with judiciousness.
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  551. Although those are more localized problems, and not all are necessarily affected. Airports on the other hand involve millions of people trapped in another faraway community or even country, if not literally up in the air burning fuel flying circles waiting for a landing spot because someone else is stuck at their gate.
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  552. It sounds more like a rural statistic, where the gender imbalance really does get that bad
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  553. Funnily enough Indonesia's relatively high minimum wage is a reason (along with protectionism) it loses foreign investment and engagement to places like Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. If internal transportation were more efficient (like Korea-level instead of the disorganized joke of KRL/TJ/MRT/LRT), Indonesia would be well positioned to become the economic gatekeeper between East Asia and Europe+India+Africa instead of Singapore.
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  554. China as a civilization will survive, but the autocratic state and government though is still subject to massively violent transitions as had befallen practically every dynasty and the one Republic before it.
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  555. As unrest rises back at home from the collapse of free trade, the rest of the PLA would increasingly have to stay behind just to maintain order. China would quickly go broke paying for much more expensive overland shipments, and it's going to reflect in food prices and power outages.
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  556. Pro-"China" (which the ROC on Taiwan officially claims to be), but not pro-CPC with their incredibly toxic habits. The massive gap in sentiments over unification would close dramatically if the Mainland democratized like the island did. If you speak to the Mainlanders, you'd be surprised how often they're open to if not already preferring a life under a government that's more like the one in Taipei and less like the one in Beijing.
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  557. Resilience and efficiency are competing interests. The bottom line of a government is continuity, not profit. If it ran like a for-profit there's a 90% chance of failure within 10 years, and then there will be even bigger problems negotiating with local gangs in the ensuing power vacuum of a failed state.
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  558.  @pbx7257  More like normal across humanity. It's actually less common for your parents to cut all support and bill you like a stranger upon adulthood.
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  559. It’s too bad PHEVs were always significantly more expensive than its self-charged trims.
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  560. They likely also didn't face nearly as high a barrier to entry, just being European and not visibly sick on arrival would be enough to be handed permanent residency. Change of name and ignoring a petty criminal record back home was normal. Identification wasn't even asked for until WWI.
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  561. Luckily enough Europeans have a more life-focused mindset to ensure protections are voted into policy, as opposed to Americans whose identity revolves more around how they earn their pay.
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  562. According to the Smiling Curve, Manufacturing is the least value-added in the production chain compared to R&D in the front and Sales and Services on the tail end. This is why factories are so sensitive to things like tax breaks, labor costs, and pollution controls, and explains how deep in trouble China is having largely failed to develop a solid grasp of the other ends. This is also why all this investment in domestic production likely won't boost our economy as much as education per dollar spent. It is important that we maintain at least some capability to make things, but it's even more important to be resilient by having a diversity of supply sources, so that a disruptive shock -- including from disasters within America -- doesn't cripple the larger movement of goods and information that our economy and lifestyles depend on.
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  563. Not to mention China’s Zero-COVID shutdowns and Russia’s “special military operation” affecting global trade movements, on top of corporations taking advantage of a profit-price spiral. If anything it was limited supply that made prices shoot up while we barely held on with long-needed bottom-end wage increases.
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  564. For too long airlines behaved like the tech sector: have someone else (public education and competitors) foot the bill for initial training and then scoop those workers. Companies need to do less paying passive shareholders and more investing in their own workforce by providing entry-level OJT.
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  565.  @Wolit51 Many European cities are both dense and green. It’s the incumbent bungalow owning NIMBYs who block cities from building up as its overall population trends demand.
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  566. The problem with Communist governments is that the more comfortable they are, the more belligerent they get. Resistance and struggle is the only type of action they appreciate, hence why deterrence is more productive than appeasement.
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  567. Yes, there's a reason the US did an "island hop" past Formosa even at the height of its military momentum in WWII. The last time a successful invasion happened, machine guns were still considered full sized field artillery.
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  568. When I lived in Beijing I found myself increasingly going to foreign-run restaurants over time because it didn't taste as plasticky as the local fare. Also got any groceries from Walmart (when those were still open) and Sam's Club (in the times I didn't mind riding out past 5th Ring).
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  569. American seniors already have a relatively generous safety net, compared to children and young adults. It’s more productive to support the youth because that return on investment multiplies over the rest of their taxpaying lives, and those increased earnings mean increased tax revenue to fund for senior benefits.
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  570. Not necessarily. Slogging through the more minor and more hostile communities first risks the entire project stalling and orphaning service from the prime customer bases of the LA and SF areas. The Valley should have been a future branch of a completed I5-aligned backbone once it's overall utility gets demonstrated and opposition subsequently wanes.
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  571. 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.
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  572. Considering the quality of their builds (especially the newer ones), those bills are going to come as a shock on their dwindling budgets.
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  573. Which will put rising pressure against the patriarchy trap, and hopefully by the time those household incomes rise, there will be more acceptable and pay for women to stay employed.
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  574. I haven't built another personal power rig since before COVID, but it seems next time I should shop around some more after I verify parts compatibility with Newegg.
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  575. Which could be an accelerant, but not the root cause of Japan's eventual crash which is better explained by its corporate and human resources structure. Remember both currency agreements needed buy in from the UK, France, and West Germany too.
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  576. Ironically my first exposure to Indomie was in Lagos, my whole time there thinking it was a Nigerian phenomenon just like Star Beer and overengineered plastic takeaway boxes. It was only when I prepared to move to Jakarta that I realized Indonesian was literally in the name. It also came as a surprise to my colleagues there when I began gifting them these exotic Pepper Chicken and Onion Chicken packets I had shipped over 🇳🇬🍜🇮🇩
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  577. The selfish confrontational attitude of unions stem from the selfish confrontational attitude of the corporate-political alliance that compelled unions to form in the first place, and who haven't changed since.
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  578. Maybe the US knows SG wants to maintain strict neutrality and would decline anyway?
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  579. More like Sino-indifference. Media produced in modern China lacks emotional appeal compared to Japan (via anime) and now South Korea (via K-pop).
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  580. A government is a monopoly, but a democratic government has to constantly answer to and benefit its shareholders: i.e. its citizens.
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  581. What made America so globally desirable is being the best promise for society-wide cooperation, without the limitations of being of the same ethnicity, religion, or pedigree.
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  582. If we want corporations to be responsible to stakeholders, the law has to mandate such, defining and prioritizing said stakeholders. From what I understand, that should be the customers first, then overall public interest, then employees starting from entry-level and ending with executives, then passive shareholders last.
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  583. Poorer earners are low hanging fruit, easy but don’t offer much revenue to be worth pursuing. Meanwhile elite executives and their beneficiaries can afford the small army of accountants to shield even greater amounts of what would be taxable if they were not so wealthy. So really squeezed in the middle are the aspirational middle class who would own a business (thus be a target for audits of claimed deductions), but not one large enough to staff their own dedicated legal department.
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  584. More like mass migration out of entry-level jobs as remote work opens up opportunities for lower-paid workers overseas without the hassle of visas and assimilating them. Then ultimately automation takes over.
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  585. Food industry chemicals definitely drive obesity. I can literally feel my health degrade coming from say California to the East Coast where they’re not so snobbish about organic foods. So far the most nourishing meals I’ve had were in the EU, and the worst were in Mainland China.
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  586. Does that mean we should "Blame Canada" for the Iran-Iraq War? 🇮🇷🦫🇮🇶
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  587. So the moral of the story is: Americans need to get their security clearance. It's ironic how loudly we promote capitalism, but when the capitalist interest of minimizing costs renders us economically uncompetitive, only government interventions and positions can keep us on a payroll.
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  588. Right, the embassies lease the space, but the landlord is still the host country.
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  589. Any more populated place will have more crime. Per capita it’s more dangerous there due to higher carrying rates of guns and more sensitive reaction to perceived social slights.
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  590. They’re either specialists of a certain procedure, or a safety watcher. The contractor would not pay for unnecessary labor, especially since they had to bid low to get awarded to begin with.
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  591. Although if the situation was flipped and it was a Trump Administration investigating a hit attempt on candidate Biden, the sketchiness would be noticeably worse.
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  592. Ironically Beijing believes it has overcome all those weaknesses, when really many of them still apply today -- dead experience in offensive kinetic warfare, lack of coordination between branches and commands (deliberately to prevent organization of coups), corruption throughout the officer and political corps, funded by an economy that is structurally stalling without politically viable options for recovery.
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  593. I'm wondering if YouTube's pro-autocrat algorithmic turn dissuaded Wendover from mentioning this obvious omission 🇹🇼
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  594. "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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  595. The "golden age of airlines" was a time when, adjusted for inflation, all seats started at what we pay for business class now. That's why it seemed so glamorous back then.
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  596. Singapore's main interest is being neutral enough to maintain diplomacy and trade with as wide a base as possible. Its military and information sharing setup though aligns with the West far more strongly than other "non-aligned" neighbors like India and Indonesia.
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  597. Mainly because the PRC has been growing more controlling and arrogant about what China "deserves" from the rest of the world.
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  598. Restrictions and pay cuts aren't enough, they're still far too overleveraged.
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  599. No, the distraction and resulting power vacuum would actually spark more conflicts. Without America being the undisputed hate sponge, the fighting would inevitably turn onto those far less capable of protecting themselves.
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  600. They don’t, and even when they do their post-89 “patriotic education” tells them to dismiss what they hear, not look further into that history, and report anyone who does.
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  601. Still #2, but likely a lot closer to just edging out Japan than it is catching up to the US
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  602. The CPC comes across as an overbearing traditionalist parent -- meaning what they say will have the opposite effect on the audience, on top of being proven hypocritical and obsolete.
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  603. China's HSR hemorrhages money because mail and passengers (which collapsed in the past couple years of Zero-COVID) only pay so much. While infrastructure never really makes money on its own, the aggregate of fapiao (tax receipts) generated from all these builds aren't paying off the ongoing operation and maintenance of it all.
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  604. It's certainly trending that way. Without some fundamental changes (that the Party is fatally allergic to), Mainland China's ultimate outlook makes America's Rust Belt seem mild by comparison. Within China the sentiment on the street feels similar to the US in 2009, except the Chinese are a lot more willing to permanently expatriate if given the opportunity.
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  605. Which is ironic considering the specific strains the WHO and CDC recommends to include in the annual flu shot heavily relies on epidemiological data from Mainland China, and it's been like this for as far as modern medicine can remember. Even the fabled Spanish Flu had indications of precursor strains in China in the year before the global outbreak, given the prior surge of respiratory cases and apparent improved resistance of those in China during the following pandemic.
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  606. During the lull between the National Day and Chinese New Year weeks off, we'll have a better idea of whether this surge in holiday-fueled Chinese tourism is a blip or a trend.
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  607. Big red flags fly all across Tiananmen, the Square across the street, and form the backdrop of the Great Hall of the People. Those battle banners at the center of power in modern China literally don’t get any more red. You know who also historically flew plain red flags? Pirates.
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  608. Right, they're suffering their market's single point of failure from Russian petroleum, and have become a lot more aware of a similar risk from China.
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  609. Since when did the CPC do the right thing instead of the face-saving one?
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  610. ​ @kevinjohnson8220 ​​ That's why Taiwan is such a mortal threat to the CPC: its very existence shows how a Chinese ethnostate can thrive without the Party.
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  611. I'm curious to know what specific national security threats lead the PRC to blanket ban American and European apps that practically the entire rest of the world does not protest connecting to.
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  612. China’s contribution to the C919 is pretty much limited to the fuselage panels and overall shape of the plane. Everything else that makes it more than a static display comes from the US and Europe.
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  613. That's why authoritarians always need an external enemy, inventing supposed schemes as required.
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  614. ​ @uss-dh7909  Progressives have many different ideas on the best way forward and often can't converge on a consensus; it's like herding cats. Traditionalists though have a common (if skewed) history to reference, and are much easier to terrorize from the fear of change.
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  615. These "games" are a reflection of PRC governance in practice: you are readily deemed in violation of vague qualitative policies at the sole unchallengeable interpretation of the authorities (including through convenient circumstances if not deliberate entrapments), and are forced to forfeit all the work and money you had invested. Indeed like gambling, your success in China tends to follow more your accident by birth to a "good family" than whatever your labors in life accomplish.
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  616. Wouldn't be unheard of though. Diplomats classically marketed even official assets and services (most common of which was and still is visa fees) to fund themselves when their government wasn't covering all the costs of their residency.
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  617. Pure remote work also carries the threat of being offshored completely. If you're not asked to show up in person without travel expenses periodically (i.e. a commute), there's nothing stopping the hiring of a fellow American for a bit less because they live in Mexico or Bali, if not an equally capable foreigner in their own home altogether. Luckily there is value being face to face, because you gather far more information about the place and people when physically there. This is why conferences are popular, and MOOCs flopped. Coming in every day tends to be too much, but expect to drop by at least a couple times a month.
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  618. Defense is also a huge industry in CA. The CA National Guard could probably conquer half of Mexico by itself. The state also holds nukes, and is upwind of the rest of the US for 9 months of out of the year.
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  619. The atrocities that the Korean victor of either side would be vehemently disgusting and possibly labeled genocidal. Yes even the South -- in reality the men are way more dark-minded and violently macho, practically the opposite of a K-drama lead actor.
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  620. I'm thinking that pensions should be scaled based on how many dependents they raise into adulthood times how much each one contributes in taxes -- make it more a dynamic "gratuity" rather than a flat entitlement.
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  621. The latest Honest Ads with Roger Horton did a whole parody about the online therapy industry 😂
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  622. It can just as easily be put back in, just add bollards
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  623. Táiwān is officially a part of "China", but not the People's Republic of China. That's the intentional ambiguity which has been falling apart as the Mainland grows more aggressive in seizing the territory that Party has never held, and ironically discouraging any remaining sentiments towards a peacefully unified China. And apparently for some reason the Chinese translation says the US "recognizes" (as in actively endorses) one China even though they have a more accurate term for to simply "acknowledge" (as in just understand).
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  624. The PRC hints at thinking similar about everything within the Second Island Chain, which would be an improvement considering they classically considered themselves sovereign over 天下🌏
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  625. Traditional extended families are even more expensive since there needs to be housing for them all, in a locale they agree to and can reliably reach each other within. Nuclear families are an adaptation to an industrialized economy where workers have to be more mobile to reach opportunities as they arise.
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  626.  Ryan Alex  Nuclear and coal were also shut down from extreme cold. And unlike benign wind turbines, they're a bit more hazardous to defrost.
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  627. Outside of older East Coast cities, America is not very walkable and there's usually not a whole lot to do overnight anyway. But I have been out late many times in different US cities without issue; I've also been out on the streets past midnight in sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia without problem either. Seems it's only dangerous if you have a small comfort zone, because it shows.
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  628. Defense of interests, sure
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  629. Housing prices will rise if NIMBYs lobby for it to. What defeats this inflation is more supply, and there’s a chance to build up with these newer folks who are used to (and if built properly often appreciate more) tighter living spaces.
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  630. We've been terrorized to believe that good governance is "socialism" and that the public sector is morbidly obese. Which is ironic considering that the argument to be more like a lean "business" involves an over 50% chance of going belly up before your 5th birthday.
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  631. Given the choice of a government that I can vote on and protest against, versus a private business that's greedy by design yet has a 90% chance of bankruptcy by its 10th birthday, I'd prefer the former.
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  632. Meanwhile it's much too low for single-family homes especially where housing demand is high, disincentivizing densification where it's most wanted.
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  633. Korea: aggressive testing, subsidized quarantine measures and treatments, never implemented lockdown even for hardest-hit Daegu China: literally welding shut the doors to apartment buildings with the residents inside
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  634. Rich people have cars. A truly developed economy means they're not always going around town in it.
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  635. Getting the capital away from Jakarta and preventing it from becoming an overcrowded primal city has been a project since independence. Indonesia just never got around to it despite having prepared Palangka Raya as its new capital back in the 1960s.
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  636. This is the Domino Effect we were always concerned about, although the real enemy wasn't Communist philosophy as much as the underlying self-righteous anxious macho authoritarianism.
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  637. China's big problem is that too much of its own waters and farmlands are chemically polluted with industrial waste and urban development -- no amount of boiling and filtering will fully clear out the toxins, and it shows how much Chinese prefer imports and rely on abroad just to feed itself. If Mainland cities have this much of an issue getting food to its people during peacetime, imagine how fast the food stocks would collapse when cross-Straits crossfire scares away the civilian shipping traffic.
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  638. Verbally anyway, if you read what they're writing in Simplified Chinese for the domestic audience you'd know they positively declared us the enemy like a decade ago.
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  639. ScotteVest makes vests and jackets with absurd amounts of storage, which is why I wear it on flights. It makes clearing security a breeze too.
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  640. Also quickly checking for seatbelts during taxi, approach, and mid-cruise naps
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  641. It's true in America also. We invented those machines and run them ourselves as well as export them.
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  642. Ironically real autopilot on planes and boats only handle preset directions and speeds, in an environment where other vessels are detectable (often themselves actively broadcasting their positions) for miles around. It's not so useful on roads where obstacles pop up randomly with at best a few seconds to react.
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  643. "Multipolar" just means multiple fault lines of conflict. The reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named after a single power is because enforcing security over like a third of humanity at the time allowed cross-cultural trade to thrive. America is relatively tolerant and agnostic compared to the ethnostate alternatives. A "multipolar" world would just end up more violent because so much of the world isn't natively born and has no hope to naturalize and assimilate into their hegemon society, leading to more civil wars to change that leadership which fractures trade routes and disrupts peaceable commerce entirely.
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  644. Texas is trying, but it has quite a way to go before our top tech engineers call it more than just an alternative location to base out of. Especially when kids are in enrolled in its public schools.
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  645. Or Mainlander Legalese? I learned even in my very limited studies that just knowing all the individual characters doesn't mean you can interpret the words together as actually intended.
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  646. Ironically anti-immigrant attitudes and policies scare off exactly the migrant workers we need to keep our food affordable, and we end up with more political refugees whose skillsets and motivations are more like the average American.
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  647. ​ @ole86 Battery pack production could use more scaling up. Right now it's still dominated by China whereas oil refining is widespread globally. Same with the equally important production of chargers.
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  648. Fission byproducts remain dangerous for like 10000 years. That's a long time for someone to eventually discover and accidentally (or worse intentionally) spill the contents of those casks.
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  649. ​ @LIVdaBrand Cut too much though and it can quickly affect the government's true bottom line, which is continuity not profit. Resilience and efficiency are competing interests. Check out how much dangerous close calls in aviation have grown because Congress doesn't want to pay what it takes to backfill all the ATCs who retired out during COVID.
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  650. 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.
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  651. 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.
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  652. 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.
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  653. Social democracy where we the people still control policymakers, not the kingless autocracy of Communist countries. Having lived in both the US and Mainland China, I can say that America is by far more actually socialist than the "socialist" 新中国.
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  654.  @Alex-fm5ke  Right, economic estimates indicate China could be approaching its peak, which could be followed by stagnation and decadence similar to that of Japan. So it's just as likely that China has become overcapacity and overleveraged as aging, pollution, and the end of easy profits takes its toll upon the PRC.
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  655. ...until your debit account gets cleaned out and your bank isn't so motivated to get it back, compared to when it's their money gone missing on a credit card.
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  656. ⁠If you were perhaps put in a marketable service support role like logistics or communications. If you’re a door-kicking grunt though, it’s just a waste of time.
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  657. The whole intro is a good description of “path dependence”, where previous decisions and events forever lock you into an ever narrowing path of potential and opportunity.
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  658. Dependents (including children and elderly) are financial drains, and a drag on personal advancement in an environment of unfettered libertarian capitalism. Not to say there's a problem with children and retirees, but with the "strongest-takes-all" selfish libertarianism that provides most of our paychecks.
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  659. GE should serve as a warning to those who say capitalism should remain the solidly inhuman pursuit of profit.
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  660. Permanent Residents can serve in the US military without being a US citizen. Their residency requirement to naturalize would get accelerated, but they'd still have to apply, pay, and pass their citizenship test.
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  661. States register voters and issue driver's licenses. It's the state that assumed his citizenship and never bothered to ask the feds.
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  662. From his Chinese name 王安 Wáng Ān, which is most correctly pronounced "wong" with a rising tone English speakers usually hear as a question mark. To differentiate between the two better (even though they are intimately linked), perhaps the narrator could pronounce "wong?" for the man and "wang!" for the company as it was known on the market.
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  663. Family sizes are shrinking worldwide, including in the faithful pro-natal Africa and Middle East. Children are just getting too expensive to raise to productivity, while birth control keeps becoming easier to get.
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  664. The Soviets were collaborating with the Axis, until they were backstabbed by the Nazis. Even then their neutrality towards Japan meant they were able to fuel their forces even longer than would otherwise have been possible.
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  665. Arthur sure had an oddly specific grievance for his political beliefs, just like every other "Christian" fundamentalist before they were caught 🤨
    8
  666. Or just don't like Mainland Chinese.
    8
  667. The trouble was there long before journalists were invited aboard. The point was to have others get high quality recordings and publish reports of China’s actions.
    8
  668. The truth would lead straight to the end of the forevermore "Great", "Glorious", and "Correct" CPC.
    8
  669. Apparently Russia subsidizes the costs for parachute training and recreational jumps to help plus up their numbers for paradrop-rated personnel, hence why they can jump a cargo plane full of doctors, nurses, and support staff.
    8
  670. The COVID disruptions to the global supply chains made it obvious that spending more on resilience through slack capacity and ready alternatives isn't wasteful, it's insurance.
    7
  671. It's art work though. Very very very few who try get enough patronage to make it their only occupation. Practically all these "influencers" rely on at least a part-time formal job as they try to develop their presentation skills, equipment, unique selling point, production team, and fanbase.
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  672. More entities will just be invented, it's just a paper formality. We'd really have to limit homeownership with non-human individuals on the title.
    7
  673. Singapore too. Something like 3/4ths of people there opt to live in government-built housing.
    7
  674. Jews always existed in Arab lands as well as second-class dhimmis, until after al-Nakba when like 95% of them were forced to leave with most ending up in Israel.
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  675. The late Premier Li Keqiang himself said like half of China is still effectively impoverished. The "poverty" level Beijing keeps touting it defeated is the extreme and easily resolved dollar-a-day type, apparently a lot of which was done through direct handouts rather than actually durable development.
    7
  676. And very dependent on foreigners to do the actual work.
    7
  677. Right, the US advised on concentrating on a single breakthrough with a higher chance of success at that point which would threaten collapse on the rest of the Russian lines. However Ukrainian generals opted for a more diluted offensive that felt for a weak point to exploit, but Ukraine doesn't have the Russia-sized reserves needed to deploy where they found such openings.
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  678. The expectations of profits simply from enjoying a permissive government indicates a growing bubble.
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  679. Moldova is historically tied to its Romanian neighbor, so a merge is arguably a reunification from its artificial creation by the Russian Empire/USSR. Transnistria could be ceded to Ukraine, which nowadays is a lot more prepared to assert control.
    7
  680. Religion in general is authoritarian and incompatible with democracy.
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  681.  @barbiquearea  Right, the CPC won because not only of Soviet and rural support, but also because America abandoned defending the flagrantly corrupt KMT thinking the then-allied Communists would do a better job. It wasn't until the Korean War that Communism became a global threat and the US got serious about defending what was left of Blue China on Táiwān.
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  682.  @langedarm1775  Right, the US is more socialist than China could ever hope or aim to be, even though the average citizen's tax burdens are similar -- in America high school has no tuition, the environment stays clean, outright bribery doesn't get you far, and medical care cannot be denied for lack of upfront payment. What's different is the politics of authoritarianism vs democracy.
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  683. Efficiency and flexibility are competing interests. Short of changing technologies entirely (like switching from snail mail to email) you'd always trade low per-unit costs for versatility and vice versa, and last time I checked we haven't invented mass teleportation yet.
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  684. There's always been tension between efficiency and resiliency... as the COVID supply chain shocks showed, it is possible to be too efficient. Hopefully we invest more in resilience (i.e. alternatives) before New China inevitably becomes old news.
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  685. 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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  686. 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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  687.  @jeko32  Right, authoritarian regimes are socially brittle and constantly vulnerable to any appearance of weakness. Continued post-1989 tolerance for the CPC rode on the promise of indefinite economic growth, which is now stalling as aging, debts, and pollution make easy profits disappear forever. Hence the "wolf warrior" explosion of effort painting America and COVID as their mortal enemies, both of which are proving more adaptable and resilient than an unchallengeable Party finds politically convenient.
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  688. Wait, what dog?
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  689. The bans are on server and backend equipment, the only retail ban is at military-only exchange stores. Americans themselves are free to buy Chinese phones, but they don't provide enough of an improvement (not just the hardware, but the apps, brand account, and overall user experience) to make a significant dent in the likes of Apple or Samsung. Traveling around the world it seems to be the same case: the people with Chinese phones don't seem so excited to keep buying Chinese if they had the money to get a Western brand instead.
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  690.  @WorstPaperCut I have a social science degree yet make six figures. Turns out there’s a huge need to identify and shape human preferences towards best practices in cybersecurity.
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  691. It’s called the Smiling Curve model, which describes manufacturing as the least value-added and most substitutable middle stage compared to R&D (valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. Specializing in designing and fulfilling orders is how America remained prosperous despite offshoring price-sensitive factories and laying off routine yield-based blue collar grinds.
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  692. Right, when economists talk about the “demographic collapse” they mean that of young, skilled, and mobile workers. The senior surge only makes it worse because their dominance in politics just prioritizes funding retiree benefits often at the cost of support for the youth and young families.
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  693. Until the lack of it causes widespread hoarding and Depression-level “busts”, only resolved when more gold is injected into the economy through additional conquest and colonization.
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  694. China is different in that its government has never had to deal with decline... and the implications towards its legitimacy. Most other places would swap out the leadership.
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  695. Corrective surgery focuses on things like cleft palates and asymmetric limbs, helping the patient physically function like a normal human. Cosmetic ones are purely optional, done to try gaining an advantage through appearance compared to regular folks.
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  696. That’s assuming the PLA Navy even knows how to perform real effective damage control; China hasn’t had a credible ocean-going navy since like the Ming Dynasty. I’d imagine Beijing’s plans to use civilian ships are akin to Russian tank designs: strength only through numbers but individually not survivable in combat.
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  697. The isolated grid might actually make it harder to contain outages and reroute power, depending on how the relay stations get struck.
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  698.  @freirete  The Chinese government is aware of its problems, but the solutions for it are politically untenable. Continued tolerance of the CPC rests primarily on continuing economic development, which is only getting harder to achieve as requirements rise -- no more simply importing rural workers and providing OJT, the new jobs need more electricity, purer raw resources, and creative workers (itself involving a tolerance for alternative and dissenting thoughts). Censorship is arguably getting worse, with greater hesitancy to express views that are or may one day be construed as criminally "unpatriotic". Within the Party there's struggle on planning the path forward, generally converging on either the elitists who focus on coastal champions and don't tolerate anyone else's ideas, and the populists who are a bit more socially open and desiring to spread China's wealth towards the rural backwaters. But at all levels corruption is endemic, which allows the ruling side to conveniently target members of the opposing faction in "anti-corruption campaigns"; this is how the elitist "princeling" Xi Jinping is consolidating Party power with the coastal corporatists. Infrastructure is often more of a political prop: the uneconomical HKMZ Bridge, the even more unprofitable HSR to Xinjiang, and the various new airports that provide little added benefit in an airspace that's overcrowded with so much of it restricted to military use only. Every new dam just meets increasing controversy, and even grand highway projects into the mountainous south ends up with mixed results. Along with aging, debt, and pollution, the CPC is running out of options to maintain itself as China's only leadership choice, hence why the switch from an almost purely economic strategy to one increasingly involving racial nationalism and acting on irredentist "reclamation". The danger is that this political strategy hasn't worked out so well: ask Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and North Korea.
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  699. Also have to realize that the Nationalists were just as authoritarian as the Communists even after their retreat to Taiwan (i.e. the "White Terror"), they were just so egregiously corrupt by the end of WWII that the West basically abandoned them until Communism's expansionist interests were realized leading into the Korean War. The KMT then got its fraction of China educated and industrialized decades earlier than the Mainland who distracted themselves with the GLF and CR, and unlike the CPC they eventually did yield to public pressures for democratic self-determination instead of doubling down on intrusive state control. So yeah China's rise would've been a lot more palatable had it gone more the way of what is now just Taiwan.
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  700. Right, democracies benefit from the Wisdom of the Crowd phenomenon. "Efficient" elitist aristocractic rule (e.g. theocracies, military juntas, and Communists) are more politically brittle because they lack the resilience of a "messy" periodic challenge by its own people.
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  701. Right, I've heard stories about Chinese construction foremen treating news of worker deaths like a mere annoyance. But yes the farther you are from their core family and identity, the more slave-like and blatantly disposable they treat you.
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  702. Běijīng defines "harmony" as the lack of challenge to its rule and interests.
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  703. US is supplying two fronts, but not fighting them. If anything America's military is getting more prepared for this third front in the Western Pacific with each passing day.
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  704. The price of efficiency is flexibility. Maintaining alternatives has a cost but you do gain resilience to shocks. The faster we diversify our supply chains out of the PRC, the better off we'll ride out its sinking productivity from self-made aging, debt, and pollution.
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  705. "Homes" "with Chinese characteristics" no less... i.e. overpriced major fixer-uppers if they're even habitable.
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  706. It reminds me of those cryptobros who pitch to buy in regardless of conditions -- conveniently omitting how overleveraged they got into a fundamentally unsustainable scheme and want the rest of us to prop them up.
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  707. Hence their promotion of a “multipolar” world with threats of militarily invading its neighbors.
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  708. There's no real substance behind the supposition, and Tony wasn't alone with that assessment. He even put out a Sunday special from his hotel room discussing it.
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  709. It makes him a primary source on topics the host country are anxious to confront and wants you to conveniently have no idea about.
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  710. Winning with Chinese Characteristics
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  711. I would bet on the "China-only" chips, because the ruling Party values the insulation. However this risks the insulation becoming isolation and uncompetitiveness as Chinese chips go from unoptimized to increasingly incompatible with global software developments.
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  712. Compassion is much more focused when done for a single face than diluted over an entire identity or idea.
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  713. What else do you expect from a Party that habitually dismisses if not silences the existence of opposition?
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  714. Party members could probably ignore the effects since many of them have staff to run errands for them. Hit their families and employees and make the Party member do everything himself though, that's where the real irritation would be, especially if combined with making every place he visits a "close contact".
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  715. I think most Chinese people do, because they get their information just from state controlled broadcast and social media. Decades of "patriotic education" have taught the entire working age population to categorically dismiss unsupportive views as basically 'un-Chinese', with censorship efforts targeted primarily at Chinese language postings to maintain this narrative.
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  716. Communist China hasn't exactly stayed ambiguous either about its strategy of absorbing the territory and people in China's peripheries (Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, HK, Taiwan). To them being wishy-washy is a sign of weakness to be exploited.
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  717. Manufacturing is the least value-added of the supply chain (i.e. the "Smiling Curve"), hence why it's so sensitive to low wages and tax breaks. China is already grossly overcapacity and it shows with the cratering of employment among the Chinese people.
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  718. Right, I lived there and the locals were often so relieved to express their true less-rosy outlook speaking in English (most censorship and state security actions happen over Chinese-language evidence).
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  719. It’s especially worst among the “religious”, who practice the most corrupted inconsiderate morals and get caught performing the most outrageous hypocrisies. There’s a reason religiosity has been dropping in all the advanced economies: organized faith fails to exemplify the very morals of its own dogma.
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  720. On the contrary, the Philippine average prosperity (highest GDP/capita in East Asia after Japan through the 1950s) only deteriorated after self-rule began, and the threats from China to its territorial integrity arose only after Manila ejected US forces thinking their presence was no longer required following the end of the Cold War.
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  721. Germany like China is finding out the apparent truth of the middle income trap of the Smiling Curve, where manufacturing is the least value-added and most substitutable stage of the production process compared to R&D (i.e. valuable original IP) in the beginning and Marketing & Services at the end. Hence also why the US remains on top despite hollowing out its manufacturing base through offshoring.
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  722. Nuclear power is like aviation: incredibly safe only because of the incredibly costly barriers to entry and continued operation. And like an airliner, when something goes wrong the situation can go catastrophic incredibly quickly if not for the tiny handful of hard-to-train certified professionals who happen to be on station at that very moment. The safety comes from the incredibly high standards and enforcement on who is allowed to be on the controls, a protection that inevitably degrades when trying to spread out the opportunity if the technology doesn't keep up. And for nuclear the technology still isn't there. Thorium reactors are proving uneconomical to operate. Spent fuel reprocessing is the fastest way to obtain weapons-grade material (that's why France only reprocesses once into unrecyclable MOX, while the US and UK stopped reprocessing altogether). We still don't have a fail-safe solution for the waste because someone who doesn't understand its dangers (or worse someone who does) is likely to uncover the burial site sometime in the next 10000 years. Fusion is still another "30 years away". If nuclear is to remain a solution, we should really be looking under our feet, i.e. deep well geothermal, where the heat of the Earth itself is also a nuclear process. This is arguably more accessible to all, and if some incident happens the worst that would come out of it isn't any more exotic and long-lasting than what life on Earth has already survived 🌋
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  723. Economics like to assume sociopathically rational actors, but that's not what we are because humanity didn't come to thrive by being selfish individuals. Adding social psychology to become behavioral economics is crucial to more accurately predicting how real humans make their choices.
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  724. Except the postal system doesn't have economical competition. HSR has to constantly stay attractive against buses, cars, planes, and even slow-speed rail.
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  725. Indonesians are fairly stuck to their families and communities; moving abroad doesn't seem to be a major goal compared to say India or the Philippines, and it reflects how rarely you encounter an Indonesian expat. Plus a lot of them who do move tend to be the Chinese-Indos who blend in with other Asian communities until they reveal their name and knowledge of BI.
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  726. I've also noticed degrading quality in Lei's essays. I'm here for critical analysis of Chinese-language reports, not parroting of secondhand English ones by less nuanced corporate translators.
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  727. That's why the survival of Taiwan is so important, because the ROC government might be able to claim legitimacy or at least provide a democratic template for what remains on the Mainland. Otherwise China risks yet another cycle of autocratic emperor/one-party rule as the people look for the fastest (and likely not best seeing how often it happens) path to political stabilization.
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  728. In the minds of GOP-appointed officials.
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  729. If they had more disposable wealth, they wouldn't need to risk it all on one investment. The minimums to make an investment worth the trouble only keeps rising as technology keeps erasing all the easiest paths upward while globalized competition continues expanding, so these all-out risk-taking will likely become more common.
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  730. The Brazil trial was also like 10x larger than everywhere else, so arguably the results are also closer to accurate. But corrected values seem to be around 80% against pre-Delta strains.
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  731. It's not, they hit the wall at basically the speed that planes normally touchdown on the runway at.
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  732. @威克 Yet the PRC still fails to clear such a low bar. Anti-Mainlander and anticommunist sentiments are rising all throughout East Asia, especially in Maritime ASEAN where China is seen as a rising threat to territorial integrity and their own economic rise. Despite America's "warmongering", its disinterest in forcing its own uninvited space (i.e. anything more than scattered military bases the host nation can ask for back at their own risk) ironically makes the US a desirable counterweight.
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  733. Defending its sovereign space is kind of important in developing the economy that grows from it. This is why America used to be terribly anxious about Soviet-backed Cuba during the Cold War, and why Běijīng is so butthurt about a democratized Táiwān who offers an Chinese ethnostate alternative to the one-Party PRC.
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  734. The US is a relatively distant power whose bases are often wanted there to subsidize their national security and/or provide a convenient lightning rod to deflect domestic political anger at. Often there's more concern about the subsequent costs and consequences should the Americans leave. Ask the Philippines or Iraq or Afghanistan how secure they felt after US forces departed like they had asked. Meanwhile China is viewed with significantly more suspicion especially as Chinese locals throughout history don't readily intermingle and integrate with the local majority. Chinese division and exclusion (and sometimes literal invasion) was seen akin to colonization, a sentiment that simmers at various strengths within ASEAN to this day. "Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years... As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life." -- Ho Chi Minh, in reference to asking China to help liberate SE Asia
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  735. ​ @ThatBasedGuy Right, the US and Pakistan have long held a formal security agreement. India cannot afford for America to stop casually ignoring it by siding against the US.
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  736. Long in objectives, but not comprehensive in planning. The CPC's tunnel-visioned policies and projects are why Mainland China irreversibly old, polluted, and indebted.
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  737. Only if they're hatched and raised in a sterile environment prior to emplacement. Otherwise they're as bad as the poop-eating flies they came from. (They were born on poop)
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  738. It'd have to be forced from the federal level, which itself is a legal hurdle due to the recognized sovereignty of the individual states. A few Red states have already preemptively banned anything but the winner-take-all method.
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  739. ​ @TheFireGiver More like high salaries to pay off equally high costs of living where they are.
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  740.  @RLyc1111  I've lived in Africa and SE Asia, and ironically the locals have expressed that they see colonialism coming from China. The politicians and media might be full of praise, but on the street attitudes towards China are considerably more suspicious and lukewarm.
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  741. Then it's not much different from before, when permanent residency was granted on arrival for merely surviving a boat ride... they even offered a legal change of name on the spot. This history escapes the critics whose own ancestors were often even more poor and lost when they first stepped foot on US soil.
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  742. It's much worse in China. It's native size, censorship, and classically unadventurous attitudes means they're more insulated from social trends happening worldwide. There mid-20s is definitely considered late for women, where in Korea older folks are a bit more resigned to the growing age of first nuptials because of the less straightforward economic path obvious for all of today's youth.
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  743. Asian-Americans often have at least familiarity if not similarities with classic Japanese sensibilities and expectations, but sadly its men are invisible in the search for that "exotic foreigner".
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  744. America and its allies only have to play defense, the shooting will scare off civilian ships that China relies on for vital food, fuel, and export sales. The lack of ground battles and journalists only play further into America's favor. Meanwhile, China would spend far too much money paying for ships to come and berth, the PLA would get increasingly distracted by internal unrest, and eventually the Mainland would implode as the Party grips onto China so tightly that it ends up shattering in its hands.
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  745. Right, China also has plenty of debt, corruption, and pollution that it created itself, and its lack of an attractive modern culture means there won't be popular calls to send aid when the PRC implodes from internal unrest as it settles into relative decadence.
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  746.  @ljubomirculibrk4097  Which is still guided, unlike the dumb artillery shells and rockets the Russians seem limited to now. Gravity bombs are dirt cheap compared to rockets of any type, and the US wields like half a million JDAM-guided smart bombs... on top of all the guided missiles in stock.
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  747. "Today you're not okay" yeah it is pretty abrupt and should've been more like a couple years of premium rises first. But the environment itself is becoming less hospitable, so either pay up or move on. Literally all of life's history has been the choice to adapt or migrate.
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  748. If Boeing was smart, they'd spend this time fixing the issues that grounded the MAX and convince Southwest to fly them again as cargo-only flights to accelerate proof of airworthiness
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  749. Unfortunately Mainland China isn't interested in keeping the status quo anymore. While still technically rising, it also faces the self-made and likely permanent challenges of aging, debt, and pollution, leading to a stalling economy that can no longer distract the Chinese people from internal politics. The CPC is rushing to solidify its security and reduce its downward spiral by keeping Western influences physically far away, especially by conquering Taiwan and its image of what Chinese people could be without the Party.
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  750. And that's why illegal immigration is trending: legal paths keep getting increasingly difficult to complete. It's probably faster nowadays to process an asylum claim with how many legal hurdles our lawmakers keep placing in the path of legal immigration.
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  751. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests.
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  752. GMOs aren't the issue, it's just a faster more precise way of genetic selection that we've been doing since we started picking certain batches of seeds for replanting. The chemicals that we add to the process between seeding and final packaging though are much more concerning.
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  753. I never liked tipping, and after seeing the studies of how added gratuities actually perpetuate low pay, I now prioritize fast-casual (pay first) establishments where the expectation and customer shaming isn't there. It's a relief to go overseas where tips are seen as the proliferation of corruption that it truly is.
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  754. EVs get twice the miles per ton of carbon emitted when charged on 100% coal, and only gets better as cleaner sources get mixed in.
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  755. Especially Chinese ones that can't be bothered to install reentry controls like every other space program has.
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  756. Right, no one industry will break the state upon departure. CA is so diverse (agriculture, defense, media, ports, startups, etc) that the average resident wouldn't even notice.
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  757. A late-stage "Free Market" just means the freedom of incumbent strongmen to eradicate competition, form cartels, and fix prices.
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  758. But they're the ones writing the bills full of arcane deductions that conveniently only they qualify for, and lobbying it into law. Academics and non-profits don't have nearly that much access to the politicians, and forget about the regular individual constituent.
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  759. The status quo is that Taiwan is functionally independent, without declaring itself so. The "radical" part is a reaction to Xi's signaling that he is preparing to take that unwise gamble, especially since the failure of "Two Systems" in HK making it clear that the not-Mainland lifestyle they fundamentally appreciate will be a top priority for Mainlander occupiers to obliterate.
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  760. Smaller tests have already happened in Wǔhàn and Xī'ān. Like any industrial process, there are issues with scaling up; Shànghǎi would be the ultimate test.
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  761. Winner-take-all voting means results naturally converge on two choices: the one victor, and the lot of all losers. As long as this remains our method of voting, you can only try to actually win or give up entirely.
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  762. It's competent and trusted institutions that are the key, which often happen through establishment in a difficult resource-poor locale. Hence why the modern world generally praises nations like Japan, Singapore, Botswana, and Uruguay over their larger, more endowed, but more corrupt neighbors (China, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil).
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  763. ​ @stanislavfrul6339 Currencies dropped gold backing for a reason: down-cycles easily become catastrophic crashes. The inflation caused by printing money also acts as a buffer from a deflationary death spiral, and is self-correcting as long as it's not aggravated by overly supplying cash into the economy for too long.
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  764. Americans who tout the "freedom" of the "open road" don't realize how much good public transit would ultimately save them money, forgetful of all the associated costs of the privilege to be stuck in traffic like everyone else. I'd rather not own a car for a routine commute if I can help it, and I say this as someone who's been licensed from everything that's road-legal between motorcycles to combat trucks.
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  765. Qatar Airways leased some off of Cathay Pacific, so there’s still Chinese text even on their premium class seats where they mostly just changed the upholstery to their trademark maroon colors.
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  766. If it's not eaten up by their sunk-cost HSR, or simply outcompeted on price by buses and slow trains that the vast majority of Chinese actually ride.
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  767. There's a significant difference in thrust profiles with mismatched engines, you'd have to be extremely careful to ensure the flight computers compensate for it correctly at every throttle setting.
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  768. Greg Calleja Surveillance activities have to learn how after the fact, whereas NK designs their devices with the tools embedded before distribution. And since actual Android is both Open Source and forked ridiculously, that's a challenge raised in almost every new case... hacking would be simpler on the more standardized iPhone.
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  769. Right, public blockchains once decrypted readily transforms evidence from invisible to irrefutable.
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  770. Negativity bias grabs attention, which grabs advertising. That constantly intensifying mass media information stream explains why there's such a huge disconnect between popular sentiments and dispassionate statistics, especially historical ones that show the trend from the not-so "good old days".
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  771. The original protest is Taxation _without Representation_, i.e. not having a say in Parliament. We have representatives now in Congress, but we don't watch closely enough how they spend their time on our dime.
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  772. ​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 😂
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  773. 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.
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  774. 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.
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  775. 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.
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  776. 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.
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  777. Safety isn't exactly the top priority in a culture that treats its people as expendable.
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  778. Don't forget all the middle age men who give these random girls their family savings, trying to fulfill a fantasy of being a big shot somewhere in their prescriptively conservative society.
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  779. It helps that the USSR was openly goading to fight with military force, whereas China is still deciding if being kinetically threatening is the best way to defend its interests with the least amount of return damage.
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  780. There's a reason STEM people tend to fail in politics and even regular management: they're too tunnel-visioned to listen or care about what actually motivates people.
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  781. This is why immigration is increasingly important for sustaining a country. It allows the host to pick out those motivated enough to adapt, with those who don't make the cut either getting ejected or departing on their own (a labor flexibility not so easy to perform with citizens). Likely we'll see Old World ethnostates like NE Asia failing to find a second wind, and more openly adoptive competitors eventually passing them in the longer marathon of generations.
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  782. The smartest people I ever met were native African. There's a lot of education and creativity there, it just needs a better governance environment to take advantage of those skills before those folks develop the opportunity and commitment to emigrate.
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  783. South Korea, China, and much of Europe were quite big recipients of foreign aid until recently. What seems to be more important is having a local government that tries to benefit beyond the ruler's tribe to develop the nation.
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  784. I still use my V20. Granted I rooted it so I could load LineageOS, but it works!
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  785. It's because it's a crime under investigation. Innocent until proven guilty, though that judgment should be straightforward once it finally gets to court.
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  786. Blame xenophobic conservative politics who wish to make it difficult for all foreigners, legal or perceived.
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  787. Efficiency and resiliency are competing interests. You get what you pay for especially when a shock comes by.
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  788. American corporations demand lower pay growth and more layoffs, and it shows in their portfolios. Workers are simply “acting their wage” because of how distant their management’s interests and benefits are from their own.
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  789. I’d propose forfeiture of medical compensation for injuries sustained while riding a powered vehicle with wheels less than 12” in diameter without a helmet. I’ve been on those things before and it is among the most dangerous rides I’ve ever taken on public streets, and I’m licensed for full-power motorcycles.
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  790. Cameras aren't the real issue. It's the buying power of a young Korean's paycheck for the amount of time spent with work.
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  791. The unit commanders and MPs try, but they can only lock down so much before you get revolts from the spouses and children trapped on base, the outside vendors whose business revolves around valuable dollars coming from that base, and the general embitterment that quickly leads to more severe crimes and shenanigans for being restricted from normal civilian life outside without suitable justification.
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  792. But only if that housing isn't captured by corporations, who are effectively immortal. It has to be made illegal for non-human ownership before businesses buy them out before young couples can finally afford them.
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  793. He'd be promoted from Pope to Saint ✝️ (Also note: to be canonized a saint you'd also have to be dead 😏)
    7
  794. It was invented as a marketing term to sell cars back when they first began competing with actual horses. 1 hp translates to about 740 W, and outside America cars are generally marketed in terms of kW instead of hp.
    7
  795. Especially highly hierarchical Korea, where just being younger means getting socially dominated and having all your free time taken by the demands of your seniors.
    7
  796.  @AquaBloomStudio  Education up through high school is already not a business, and this was critical to turning illiterate farmhands into industrial workers. If we're to stay competitive as the economy shifts to culture-conscious and individually-customized services, we seriously have to look at taking profit motives out of higher education too. And healthcare should likewise be paid for by all of us through our taxes and reasonable co-pays. Our labor force suffers in productivity if it's out sick especially with preventable or early-detectable conditions left to fester into ones requiring more expensive and invasive procedures. It should be maddening how an American can fly to another country without local health insurance and pay full rates that are still lower than the equivalent US hospital bill, all because every other developed nation (and even some developing ones) gets economy of scale from national investment in its healthcare system.
    7
  797. Religion and traditions compels a culture to "birth 'em all and let God sort it out". As their economies advance, it becomes increasingly obvious that such blind faith is more a hindrance to further development.
    7
  798. The only relevant experience the elderly have nowadays is in personal networking, especially since their youth wasn't so distracted by using telecommunication apps in between economic compulsions to uproot the whole household to move to the next job opportunity under globalized competition. But it's this face-time that's exactly what's demanded in business negotiations and backroom politics.
    7
  799.  @katrinoy1  Reunified as the Republic of China under the democratized government currently based in Taipei, yes?
    7
  800. Overcapacity means in excess of demand. Western products and currencies are still very much wanted around the world.
    7
  801. And also loyal to their dying breath, no need for compensation or considering their personal interests.
    6
  802. Funny how higher wages only "trickle down", but higher prices are cloud seeded at every opportunity.
    6
  803. Entry-level OJT for careers with good potential are much too rare nowadays, relegated basically to the military and government at this point. Private companies would rather just continue poaching off universities, public sector, and competitors.
    6
  804. The lack of protections also harms China too. For its size and amount of economic activity, modern China is sorely lacking in prolific brands and valuable soft power because their own compatriots keep undercutting them. Sales and marketing command more value-added than raw manufacturing, so the lack of support for this keeps China stuck in the middle income trap.
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  805. If I had to overhaul the entire tax code, I’d start by mandating an election and an expiration date on all deductibles. That way every maybe 10 years or such, the arcane tricks the rich quietly utilize have to be brought into public discussion.
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  806. Specifically I'd like a four-day work week that's staggered so that someone else is still on the clock for necessary services on my day off.
    6
  807. Perhaps look lower in the OSI Model. Writing and debugging code is a nice skill to have, but the ability to troubleshoot through all eight layers from human user to power socket is invaluable and chronically understaffed. Yeah that Help Desk job is a suckfest but that experience quickly opens up inroads to the back-end like cybersecurity, network engineering, upgrade projects, and actual management. That's how I made my way into IT, and my degree was in Sociology. Turns out there's a pretty big need bridging and steering human desires with best practices on the information systems.
    6
  808. Physical mobility is the biggest factor in socioeconomic mobility. The most efficient being a public transit network that lets people move about for less than the overall cost of car ownership before and after the age you can safely drive.
    6
  809. Luxuryburg 🇱🇺
    6
  810. The picky exclusiveness is markedly stronger.
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  811. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. That's why it's called an "exercise".
    6
  812. It doesn't help that the "Go Woke go broke" adage seems largely true, even though profit was never the goal.
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  813. Government is so lucrative because continuity is their fundamental interest, and will be around as long as the people it serves continue to demand services from it that they can't provide as individuals or even as for-profit multinational corporations.
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  814. They might want to revisit how they pay out those pensions, making it a share of taxpayer size and input... meaning it's bound to shrink if they don't have kids and don't pressure their kids' employers to pay more.
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  815. China has the opposite problem, where outside of employment or heritage interests practically nobody spends their money to learn Chinese
    6
  816. The US has been "on the brink of collapse" since 1812, yet survives each usually violent crisis often more in tune with its goals of "and more perfect Union" through "liberty and justice for all". This is in contrast to how China's history tends to swing wildly between "harmony" and active revolt against the central authority, a cycle arguably only broken in Taiwan when it democratized.
    6
  817. Not to the extent of France though. Immigrant communities not on the Mexican border tend to be the more quiet of neighborhoods.
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  818. Ironic considering the Mainland uses imperial history to justify its 'totally not imperial' ambitions. The PRC has never held control over Táiwān.
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  819. The way China is aging, polluting, and taking on debt, not by much and not for long 📈📉
    6
  820. We keep talking about higher walls, but not nearly enough about the lack of visa windows. Our lack of reasonably speedy legal processing capacity (the wait time to interview for just a visitor visa now exceeds a year) compels people to take the path of least administrative resistance, which is asylum claim.
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  821. I'm sure a lot of right-wingers are juggling this dissonance too. It hasn't yet hit them that MAGA self-righteous autarkic nationalistic outsider-blaming (i.e. fascism) is the GOP platform going forward.
    6
  822. The on-the-ground experience shared by Ukrainian troops is plenty of value. It's in our interest to maximize their survival so they can later school us in the most modern ground combat tactics.
    6
  823.  @Steve-ev6vx Foam is stuck together and so the energy gets dispersed throughout the whole material. Hence why a single layer of interwoven kevlar netting could stop a non-cutting tipped arrow, while a half meter of baled hay where it’s practically all friction barely manages to stop one.
    6
  824. ​ @aynrandfan7454 Only to a point, because afterwards autocratic rule makes the society brittle and the prone to shattering: Haiti vs the Dominican Republic, East vs West Germany, increasingly Mainland China vs Taiwan. Even the most successful benevolent dictatorship of Singapore is tempered by rule of law and acceptance of losses in open elections.
    6
  825. More efficient overall if you're able to surge production in the enormous amount of current needed to cycle through launches, which a powerplant short of nuclear struggles to accomplish.
    6
  826. 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 🚌🛜
    6
  827. 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”.
    6
  828. I'm guessing the narrator meant financially self-sustaining
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  829. He stayed outside the sterile zone, so probably not much different from how anyone could normally carry or keep a firearm around there as it was local police enforcing local laws.
    6
  830. Bases that are there by invitation of the host governments to defend against Communist expansion. They're likely not going anywhere after the Philippines asked US forces to leave... only to get its nearby waters forcibly named and exploited by the PRC.
    6
  831. ​ @zeissiez SIP likely benefitted from Chinese state support, guanxi, and looser accounting practices that was unavailable under Singaporean ownership.
    6
  832. According to the Smiling Curve model, manufacturing is the lowest added-value middle of the production chain compared to R&D (valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. This explains things like why factories are so cost-sensitive and easily offshored, why well paid office jobs don't stray far from high-tax coastal cities and states, and why entire countries fail to break out of the middle income trap.
    6
  833. Vertical integration is the ownership over multiple stages of the production process. For example Ford once owned steel mills, power plants, and coal mines when they were cranking out the Model T.
    6
  834. Not even close. In Xinjiang they install cameras inside your home, and bring in a Han Chinese man to 'accompany' the family whose patriarch they jailed.
    6
  835. Homeowners are more consistent voters, and it’s in their interest to make sure housing prices keep rising.
    6
  836. CA is exporting what other states desire (tech-based growth), receiving states are often spending their own tax money specifically to incentivize the immigration.
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  837. You sure? I heard that some French SF operators were administratively converted to Islam (as in using some arcane interpretation of People of the Book and quickly performing some formalities) so that they can directly engage in some key parts of the assault.
    6
  838. Matte screen protectors are where it's at! I use my gadgets in outdoor and well-lit environments somewhat often, and it's nice not to get suddenly blinded because some random light source reflected perfectly into my face. And yeah there's something satisfying about sliding my fingers across that micro-pebbled texture, as opposed to the sometimes jerky feel of smooth glass. I wish they were more prevalent beyond Apple devices though.
    6
  839. Projection is a common feature among culturally-regimented anti-progressives.
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  840. I last visited Tiananmen last year, and find it to be sterile and uninviting much like my experiences in the rest of “New China”. Merdeka Square in Jakarta is like three times larger and far more friendly; more “free” to enter in both senses of the word.
    6
  841. I was today years old when I learned the richest man in China got his wealth by selling water that tastes like the plastic bottle it comes in (yes I've drank enough bottles of Nongfu Spring to know this firsthand).
    6
  842. The strategy of development into liberalization and democratization worked for anti-communist dictatorships like South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Chile. But the key qualifier is anti-communist.
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  843. They’re taught a selective and incomplete history. There’s some parallels with the more recent Apartheid, but technically Israel’s actions are more in line with the British actions during the Boer Wars… which didn’t turn out so much an outright genocide as an integration of Dutch Afrikaners as likewise South African.
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  844.  @Ghandara-hg1gc Casually ignoring how so many Chinese have been checking their bank accounts lately. At least the US isn’t undergoing bank runs out of its largest institutions.
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  845. ​ @tonysu8860 The USCG gets deployed primarily for missions like cooperative training exercises and polar exploration support, not to enforce US laws hundreds or thousands of miles from America's shores.
    6
  846. Taiwan is the “China” even many Chinese wish China became 🇹🇼🐉
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  847. There's definitely topics to discuss, Beijing just refuses to wake up from its dreaming and be present.
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  848. ​... because "fiscally conservative" administrations always cut education support to rescue retiree entitlements, since senior citizens are very active voters while kids can't vote at all and college students are barely beginning that practice of citizenship. So universities have to make up for the shortfall in budget -- which correlates to academic prestige and attractiveness -- somehow, and student tuition (especially non-resident ones) has become its go-to choice.
    6
  849. It's largely domestic debt. The state just silences those whom they owe. Therefore free money.
    6
  850. ​ @beckyconstantinides2546 Wangfujing is a major pedestrian plaza and shopping area in central Beijing, flanked by fancy malls on both sides for like two blocks, and walking distance to the Forbidden City.
    6
  851. It's always been a danger that the Mainland will attempt the final invasion before their own aging, debt, and pollution stalls their rise permanently. The risk is how will Beijing react to a peak that's lower and earlier than they desired.
    6
  852. Perhaps the Sea of Southeast Asia... SeaSEA?
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  853. Ethnonationalism is all the Party has left, now that they've burned through their potential for more productivity and prosperity. Mainland China is going into survival mode much like the similarly race-based fortress of "civilization" that legitimates post-Soviet North Korea.
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  854. Also built with disposable quality, overpromising its range (unlike every other manufacturer) and self-immolating with alarming frequency.
    6
  855. Chinese authorities want Western technical knowledge, but not the questioning mindset and deconstructive experimentation that knowledge springs from.
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  856. 15 min since release, and about 1 in 3 of your comments are spam bots. Congrats Tony, your channel has become "marketable" 😅
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  857. And even is such growth is driven by Chinese companies offshoring themselves, it won’t help the millions of Chinese workers left behind and wondering where their next paycheck will come from. Kind of like America’s Rust Belt, but America overall already well developed the “high quality” high value-added industries on the edges of the Smiling Curve that Beijing is desperate to copy.
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  858. If it's like a black hole, they'll also see the outside increasingly pass them by as they approach their demise.
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  859. I'm not a certified building inspector, but even in my <10 year old high-end flat in Běijīng I could tell there were concerning flaws with the structure. Those "Watch for falling objects" signs posted outside weren't depicting flowerpots falling from tenant's balconies. And that's ignoring the unexplained IT wiring and the rusty water that came out of the taps.
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  860. I'm feeling that the unwelcome attitude is going to persist even after COVID restrictions finally end and travel renormalizes. There's a reason the Chinese state been shifting its posture (especially domestically) away from pure economic benefits and towards unbridled nationalism: the party of easy profits is clearly over and the Party has only hateful patriotism remaining to redirect frustrations and prop up its unchallenged rule.
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  861. Debt writeoffs were never part of the Party's list of negotiation options. This is why BRI projects have gotten so toxic because Beijing never forgives debt and always wants all of its money back, but changing their mind to start writing off debt to foreign countries would raise very discomforting questions from local governments who are far more leveraged.
    6
  862. China targets 5% growth, unlike other countries that report their results after the fact. The PRC doesn’t necessarily achieve this target without artificial state input, creative accounting, and outright lies.
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  863. Blue States are more focused on the R&D and Sales&Support ends of the Smiling Curve, which were always more value-added than Manufacturing in the overall production process. This is why those states still did well during offshoring, and aren't as pressured to lower taxes to attract business.
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  864. Indeed, the vibrancy of America comes from the energy of fresh-blooded Americans who are familiar with a foreign life. All xenophobic policies do is discourage the best talent as our workforce goes stale.
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  865. America has been on the "verge of collapse" throughout its history, but because of its fundamental openness to new peoples and ideas comes out stronger and more harmonized to its ideals with each culture war. An intolerant and highly-prescriptive authoritarian isn't so flexible, which risks a brittle civic society where a decent shock that in other places isn't a big deal could end up dramatically shattering its hold on power.
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  866. GDP "growth" (really predetermined targets) through malinvestment.
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  867. ​ @adamsaciid4919 Yet Beijing wants to double down on the their export-led paycheck-smothered model. China isn't even starting to remodel itself yet.
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  868. Businesses hate dependents though. They're your real opposition if you have schoolkids or aged parents to take care of.
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  869. Korea is a very status driven society. All forms of blue collar work are looked down upon even if they pay better. All the richest people and most prestigious entities are in Seoul, so the capital region further benefits from network effect at the cost of the rest of Korea.
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  870. Development requires uncorrupted governance, a crucial part of which involves respecting human rights. Without predictable protections, any wealth they achieve is fragile.
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  871. Ironically everyone wants to move to Country A anyway, especially a surprising amount of Country C citizens. Turns out “economic benefits” ring hollow when you’re constantly threatened with disappearance and guaranteed punishment over some “violation” of some vague “law”.
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  872. Still better than shipped in fully manufactured in China, since there are at least as many Chinese assemblers out of a job and wondering what’s wrong with their country as there are Mexicans now enjoying employment.
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  873. No, radios of any sort are far less efficient to move information compared to dedicated physical pipes. They're best used as a stopgap until local cell service (itself uplinked by highly focused microwaves if not terrestrial fiber) and ultimately hardwiring makes it to those inland demand points.
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  874. Yeah usually they tend to relocate more towards the center of the territory to improve control over the entire nation
    6
  875. True, I recently finished a first aid course taught by the US government, who is a major customer of Israeli materiel including battlefield medicine. I remember my instructor mentioning how when they teach similar courses in Muslim countries, they often have a hard time not calling it an "Israeli bandage" out of habit -- "Israeli" anything has to be avoided because those students shut down if they realize they're potentially putting something Israeli into their bodies.
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  876. The various levels of irredentism Kosovo into Albania: Yes, please! Koreas: Of course (if on my terms) Samoa and American Samoa: Meh Crimea back into Ukraine: Uh, why? Taiwan into Mainland China: You're high.
    6
  877. Unfortunately democracies need more dramatic shocks to compel action. Statistics and invisible injuries don't have nearly the same impact as a pictures of people stuck to wheelchairs and iron lungs.
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  878. The Chinese version apparently wants to consider publicized thoughts into the credit rating. Americans don't necessarily lose access to things like airline tickets for attending protests without incident or making comments about how "Trump/Biden is a *****".
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  879. The proportion of multilingual English speakers isn't impressive, but it is growing. However the default second language to learn isn't necessarily Mandarin -- there is none, it's just based on the speaker's individual situation and preferences.
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  880. Kinda want to know how many interviewees were subsequently pulled aside by police and questioned in a room at the local community center for speaking to foreign publishers (then offered hush money, made to sign an NDA, etc to prevent revelation of such), because that's a power Chinese authorities can use at will.
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  881.  @axnjack5  Although expanding risks becoming prominent enough to be marked as an unauthorized journalist, which risks even less authentic reporting as surveillance intensifies and potential interviewees start getting pre-filtered by local authorities. Downside is we'll never get to hear straight from more minor cities that even other Chinese barely know exist, where apparently the views of the government and China's undeniable greatness are quite a bit more nuanced.
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  882. Protecting TSMC means protecting Taiwan as a whole. Any disruption could cause permanent damage to the fabs and the extremely specialized human capital it relies on to stay within spec and each batch's razor thin profitability. It's not enough to just physically seize the facilities without all the engineers who willingly run it.
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  883. It has to be mandated to take effect. No corporation wants to add complexity of after-sales service compared to a simple scheduled purchase. If hindering easy repairs was some corporate cartel conspiracy, we'd have all heard of artisan manufacturers like Fairphone by now.
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  884. Though your ride will end up in the shop even more often, because the new quality minimum becomes the nearly-disposable Chinese alternatives.
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  885. Public transportation route is better. Cheaper personal vehicles just means more gridlock; rush hour is already a near standstill in SE Asia even though most people get around on scooters already, and governments there finally realized that subways are way more effective than overpasses.
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  886. Money changing hands is taxable. SS recipients get their checks funded by today's working youth.
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  887. We're overpopulated on Boomers refusing to let their bungalow neighborhoods build mid-rise apartments and proper mass transit.
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  888. They're farming for information. They're not actually hiring.
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  889. That’d only be wise if Chinese competitors surrendered their IP and institutional knowledge, just like they do to us there.
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  890. Because they still won’t like us if we stay home. Hence why our isolationism was violently overturned by WW1, WW2, and 9/11.
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  891. What we export though is much more value-added and not so replaceable, as it's dominated by services that make up almost 80% of GDP. We create things like lithography photomasks that tell places like TSMC and Sony Semiconductor how to even manufacture their exports -- we can put a real squeeze on those foreign firms simply by not providing the order.
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  892. The subsidies are to get production going at home to satisfy demands currently filled by imports, not to suppress competition for exports like China is strategizing.
    6
  893. Federal government caps that capacity though, because conservatives keep believing there must be an American already around who’s qualified for immediate employment.
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  894. As machines and automation replace humans in agro-industrial jobs, the economy is transforming into a more hunter-gatherer lifestyle that rewards flexibility. This means smaller families and more education, because the ease of moving and adapting to new conditions will become the main way to survive moving forward.
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  895. Because corporations captured politics, fooling us into believing globalization would mean more export opportunities when it ended up more offshoring. All while granting the resources to automate us all out of a decent entry-level job. And with the way they wrote and lobbied the tax code, the public sees none of the durable benefits of those profits.
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  896. QR is notorious for its treatment of its crewmembers, matching the more heavy-handed laws and social norms of Qatar in general. Those flying for EK probably have similar restrictions, but don't seem as high-strung.
    6
  897. Judaism isn't big enough globally to require the services of 60,000 Orthodox rabbis. Their homeland however could use more bodies in uniform to relieve all the productive middle class progressive and secular Israelis getting stop-gapped into back-to-back rotations on duty.
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  898. American culture is still grappling with the fact that the frontier has been conquered, and that there's nowhere left to run off to and establish your own Mormon Utah or slaveholder plantation when you have personal disagreements with your increasingly densifying and diversifying old community.
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  899. NATO is a defensive pact though. Hence why NATO was only a force in Afghanistan where Article 5 got invoked, but purely optional everywhere else America and Britain and France have their military adventures (like how the US was not permitted to invade Iraq from Türkiye).
    6
  900.  @uclajd Unions in America are the way they are because of the corporate management that compelled their creation. It’s the business owners who are quick to anger.
    6
  901. Yet younger generations get blamed exactly for living some life now instead of waiting to splurge later following a prosperous career that definitely doesn't seem so guaranteed anymore.
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  902. They're still useful for the newest 777s whose unfolded wingspan would require an A380-sized gate. Considering this and the flying wing concepts we keep seeing, I'd imagine width of long-haul aircraft to generally grow bigger instead of smaller
    6
  903. All the more reason to diet yourself down to 30kg or whatever the load limit is up there. Also make sure to crack the bin door, apparently cabin pets have sometimes suffocated to death when placed in the overhead.
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  904. Well yeah, the Bandung HSR is also a Chinese build. With all the technical issues its been having, it'll be interesting to see if they get chosen again to complete the rest of the line to Surabaya.
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  905. 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.
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  906. 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 🌋
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  907. As a Californian, I can say our golf course lawns and sushi-grade rice crops are clearly a higher priority /sarc
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  908. 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.
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  909. 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.
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  910. 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.
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  911. 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).
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  912. 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.
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  913. SE Asia is trying to extract from the PRC while it's still able to play both sides. But yes underlying the economic "considerations" most of its people would ultimately call to support the Taiwanese because of the popular hate against Communist and/or Chinese domineering (which in the most geostrategically crucial Indonesia happens to be both).
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  914. It's also about achieving the "big brother" status by one-upping everyone else, even if it's just an online room.
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  915. I remember visiting South Africa from Nigeria... and remember I felt less safe in Downtown CT than in Lagos. All the blatant personal crime that America's conservatives say "happens" in San Francisco (which is fine btw) actually seemed to be the case in Jo'burg and Cape Town.
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  916.  @jingchengyang8957  Organized doesn't mean they make all the right decisions, and in fact could blind them from mitigating underlying trends which could be fatal going forward. For Japan their discipline leaves them with schizophrenic technology systems and an aging population. For the Eastern Bloc it was cultural suffocation that kept Western liberalism quietly favorable until an opportunity to break out arose. For China it could be their cavalier corruption and patronizing attitudes which may see support for the Party collapse dramatically when they eventually fail to shut up critics with promises of indefinite economic improvement. The strength of a democracy and open protests is that it provides a visible image of a nation that ultimately holds together despite the internal differences and tensions.
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  917. It doesn't mean it'll collapse tomorrow, but the way things are trending it won't be looking so imposing like the CPC dreams to be when the PRC turns 100.
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  918. Next would be pedestrian avenues and mass transit to get these kids moving about the neighborhood on their own again. I don't know about you, but I'd trust a third grader to tap onto a tram over trying to drive a car.
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  919. For gifts it's the thought that counts, in this case suggesting a place they already enjoy shopping at. What makes gift cards valuable is the limitations on where to spend the money, as opposed to straight cash that can cause mental paralysis by having too many choices. If that sounds economically irrational, that's because humans are themselves irrational.
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  920. Africa and the Middle East are slowly shrinking in family size too. Not as fast as would be actually beneficial, but you can't expect economic rationality from religious cultures.
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  921. EVs now have similar adoption issues as ICE cars a century ago, when compared to the horses and trains most people got around on at the time. Luckily the roads are already paved, so it’s really a matter of charging infrastructure that prevents EVs from becoming more normal.
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  922. We’re finding out why taxis were so expensive to begin with. There’s just so many operating costs.
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  923. If you're a voter or at least can potentially influence one (i.e. resident in a democracy), even your "boring" life and "worthless" habits are data points for a targeted political campaign. This is why it's dangerous to give your data to an entity whom you have zero recourse against (i.e. an overseas company you can't shame or sue no matter how charismatic or legally potent you are).
    6
  924. China’s billion people are still mostly menial workers that are easily replaced by automation and offshoring. The average Japanese provides more creativity and value-added.
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  925. Which is all turning out to be even more unwise coming from the mafia-like CPC.
    6
  926. Right, that's the danger of using debit where it's your money that goes missing if someone skims your swipe. Meanwhile on a credit card it's the bank's money, and they have the motivation and the professional staffing to go get it back.
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  927. Europe and Japan were quite flattened at the end of WW2, and they came back as top economies. It backfired on conservatives to accept reform of America's immigration laws to legalize "family reunion" for permanent residency, because they seriously underestimated how motivated people are to remain and rebuild on the rubble of their homes -- hence the largely Hispanic and Asian sponsorships instead of the Transatlantic ones they envisioned.
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  928. They got inspired by the same news of Korea's birth rate falling under 0.7
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  929. Not anywhere near its fullest potential though, Native Americans were still largely hunting, foraging, and raiding each other when the Europeans arrived.
    6
  930. This skit probably cost half the budget for the the entire episode 💎
    6
  931. Yes, it's been dubbed "The Thing", using the then novel technology we now call RFID, and was accidentally discovered by the British listening post at their embassy in Moscow. It now sits at the National Crypto Museum next to NSA headquarters in Maryland.
    6
  932. Sounds like Wyoming, where you’re either a billionaire immigrant or barely getting by.
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  933. Secondhand? My upgrades are half-priced because I buy them used
    6
  934. For my own setup: 1) I was taught that a J-shape is actually how our spines are supposed to be curved, the S-shape being a corruption that developed with a more sedentary lifestyle. I look for chairs that have a soft-edged back to rest my neck on so I can slouch down such that I do a bridge with my back actively engaging those muscles, which maintains proper curvature. This lean-back bridge position comes in handy when working on a laptop, as it reduces the difference in height between the eyes and arms. 2) It's more comfortable to rest the arms (near or at the elbows) on the desk/armrests and leave the wrists floating. Having my hands float over the keyboard introduces more movement with larger arm and shoulder muscles that are better suited for repetitive movements, much like when pounding away on old style manual keyboards whose typists generally weren't known for suffering wrist pains over the course of their career. 3) As with #2, larger arm and shoulder movements are the key. So no wrist rest for my mouse. I usually go for larger gaming mice that allow more surface area and useful buttons for my hand, and actually never liked the "ergonomic" ones that are so slanted my hand would slide off if I'm not constantly gripping it. 4) A slight head-down position helps straighten the spine into the natural J-shape, hence why the 0°~-20° angle for monitors. Eye strain can be reduced with larger screens at a longer depth, though it's kinda difficult to rent out a movie theater for yourself or even put a 60" monitor at a full body length away from you. 5) I keep my standing desk at standing height, and modified my regular computer chair into a drafting stool (i.e. replaced the cylinder and added a footring). That way it's me moving around, and I'm not waiting for my desk to rise or sink.
    6
  935. Maybe because SG would decline the invitation anyway to keep up appearances of strict neutrality
    6
  936. Wow a sample size of 1. 😒
    6
  937. Considering Vietnam suffered A Thousand Years if Humiliation under multiple Chinese dynasties, it's understandable they would want to limit Chinese activities within their country as much as possible.
    6
  938. Just as the United Front wants you to think.
    6
  939. The Guǎngzhōu bridge are lower concrete spans that enjoy largely independent supports at the point of impact. The Key Bridge main span is a truss type held up by tension, more like a suspension or cable stayed bridge.
    6
  940. Only because they know how much more abusive Communists would be. There’s a reason Japan surrendered whole to the US before Soviet troops made landfall on the Home Islands.
    6
  941. Although that "empire" is by invitation, because host nations won't require funding an equally comparable defense force themselves. Notice the panic in Europe as the US reduces its commitment there, how much Korea dragged its feet in closing Yongsan Garrison in the middle of Seoul, and how regretful the Philippines has become after telling the Americans that their presence were no longer required.
    6
  942. I'd go with #2. Way more potential to set up a small business you can live off of in your golden years because we weren't blessed to be a white homesteader 100+ years ago in the USA.
    5
  943. That's basically the story of our housing market in general: older incumbents defending their own sense of lifestyle at the expense of the youth.
    5
  944. ​ @c.v.4070 As if the previous lassiez-faire period of the Gilded Age was really that golden? Political violence was common and there was a growing threat of a popular Communist overthrow out of outrage against the owning elites, had we not legalized collective bargaining and instituted redistributions like Social Security.
    5
  945. Don't forget teenage pregnancies. Younger mothers had both more time and less hesitation to give their kids siblings.
    5
  946. GO AND CODE DOOM? OKAY! 🎮
    5
  947. ​ @JoJoJoker Unfortunately that "try to limit expenses" comes at the cost of the rest of us, often by lowering the buying power of our paychecks or by raising the barriers to entry as a potential future competitor.
    5
  948. I feel like the faceoff with Chile could have used more explanation, other than being a distraction for the efforts at the Malvinas campaign.
    5
  949. The CPC didn't do much fighting either, mostly hiding in the mountains and indoctrinating themselves on Communist philosophy. They were less inept and less corrupt than the KMT though, so the few engagements they did have were more successful which allowed them to elevate themselves as the superior alternative until they gained the whole Mainland.
    5
  950. Japan is characterized by either staunch conservatism or breakneck development following a shock of some sort. There was plenty of guns getting bought during the warlord period followed by stagnation after the Tokugawa takeover. There was rapid modernization under Meiji which had faltered by the time they sucker punched America at Pearl Harbor. There was a massive rebuild of industry that saw the Rising Sun burn out in the Lost Decade. Nowadays there's a generous remilitarization of the JSDF including its "defense" to include allies and procurement of long-range missiles, due to provocation by China and especially Russia and the realization that simply protecting existing territory won't make the aggression stop.
    5
  951. It's proof that history should "Blame Canada" for the Iran-Iraq War
    5
  952. The Taliban would have taken over regardless, given the Afghan government's lack of will to actually enforce its rule. Remember the agreement made by his "decisive" predecessor was to just give up and go home.
    5
  953. I think the short commute is key. Some physical separation from private life is important especially with pets and little kids who will inevitability screw around with vital work material. It's really those lengthy drives that are often always by yourself, demanding your constant alertness, which you're not specifically compensated for that is truly soul-crushing.
    5
  954. Right, it seems like they sourced figures from Chinese state media or uncritical Western parrots. The true picture would be considerably less rosy, and having lived in Mainland China I’ve observed that the more pessimistic reports tends to be the most accurate.
    5
  955. The rich pay the most because they took the most. But as a share of wealth they pay next to nothing compared to what the average citizen pays. That’s how badly stacked the distribution is.
    5
  956. The Middle East used to be the center of humanity through the first five centuries of Islam. Then after the Mongol conquest receded, religious hardliners took over local politics and the region never recovered its past glory because their hostility against outsiders compelled Europe-Asia trade to sail around them ever since.
    5
  957. It's in the name: "submission", i.e. obedience to men who claim to carry a closer connection to God/Allah despite all their still very human faults.
    5
  958. Unfortunately not, desert sand is too fine and smooth to cement together. Otherwise we'd all be using it by now.
    5
  959. Autocracy rules over a brittle society, one whose people would either stand by or run away rather than help defend the state when attacked because of the lack of investment in the politics. But this is the norm for China, as a Chinese ethnostate has never seen anything but top-down impunity until Taiwan democratized at the end of the Cold War. Mainland China however doubles down on its aristocracy (in this case a Party instead of an imperial family), and risks the same violent chaotic popping of its insular political bubble that befell every dynasty before it.
    5
  960. Even then the tunnels can only supply so much before they're discovered and destroyed. Israel has been able to make relatively rapid advance through Gaza (which is practically all urban terrain) because Hamas has been almost totally isolated from imports of anything. Sadly Gazan civilians are trapped in there with them, but in being so saps valuable food, fuel, and medical resources away from supporting active Hamas combatants.
    5
  961. I feel like the Gaza siege is less like Apartheid and more like the Second Boer War, where containment in starvation was deliberately used to erase the appeal of continued hostility and break the morale of the remaining guerilla militants.
    5
  962. ​ @will-213 They also fought back to the 38th, ultimately even gaining ground for the South. The UN only "fled" because it took a few months to develop the countertactics against the PVA, perfected at 지평리/砥平里.
    5
  963. Taiwan’s Silicon Shield isn’t as much its value to the West, but its vitality to continued industrial capacity in Mainland China. Anticommunist interests included Taiwan long before any transistors were fabricated.
    5
  964. There’s a reason Ukraine (who owned the ex-Varyag which became the Liaoning) decided to sell the hulk to China for scrap.
    5
  965. But then everyone complains about American forces forward deploying to fight relatively tiny fires overseas, instead of coming home and inevitably letting it grow into a firestorm that only backburning closer to ourselves when not running away can resolve.
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  966. Although hiring Americans is arguably worse for the housing shortage, as we're not as open to being domiciled in a dorm with random coworkers in our own country and would demand our own place even if it's just a campervan (which can still take up more usable space than a shared room).
    5
  967.  @hugocheng6243  Efficiently ridiculous. Autocracies often miss major considerations and consequences when they command policies and quotas because they're not really listening to feedback from their people.
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  968. It was lower for the populations that “mattered”
    5
  969. I think even a regular dedicated "Fat Camp" for new recruits would help a lot, because getting paid a lower-enlisted rate to have your exercise and diet controlled wouldn't add much to the budget or time in service yet provides needed bodies for the service and a healthy extension of life for the servicemember.
    5
  970. Considering how often the US has been deemed on the "verge of collapse" since 1812, Americans use the coffin as a coffee table we put our beer and feet up on while watching everyone else freak out over the chaos and spectrum that we thrive on.
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  971. America is too focused on pleasing private businesses, even to the point of demanding that government activities should be able to make profits on its own. Thing is infrastructure is practically never profitable -- it's a literal part of the economic environment from which profits have to be processed out of.
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  972. Japan is even offering free houses to those younger folks willing to move and stay there. Problem is it's not strictly having a roof over their head, but more fundamental flaws in the economy especially for those same young adults seeking to establish a livelihood they can predict will carry them through potential parenthood and retirement.
    5
  973.  @MrHarumakiSensei  Both. Raising a kid to productivity has only gotten more expensive because they're increasingly competing against automation that is much more intensive to stay ahead of. At the same time corporations have successfully lobbied to globalize their labor and break the bargaining power of its employee unions, giving them more funds to M&A away the competition as well as accelerate the development of career-ending automation without providing balance through loss-leading investments in education and developing overall human capital.
    5
  974. Still wouldn't be enough assets to find and react to all these scattered lone boats. At least capturing the ones we do discover provides evidence for cases and intel on design and operation trends.
    5
  975. Which means they're unlikely to win an offensive war into territories Beijing does not already hold solid uncontested control. Even in Korea which they love to tout about the PVA tactics were essentially defeated within a few months which led to trench warfare instead. Trailing in technology is even more severely detrimental in the air and at sea which a Cross-Straits conflict would largely consist of, because there's no place for casual combatants to stage ambushes from.
    5
  976. That makes me wonder why he was literally hammering on live ammo 🤨
    5
  977. Except America doesn't try to administer governments beyond its borders, and its military abroad are tolerated if not courted to stay by the host nations because of grave concern about what happens after the Yankees really do go home.
    5
  978. Automation will only make inequality and disillusionment worse if its profits all keep going to its relatively few owners.
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  979. They’re #2, but closer to Japan who is only 1/10 of the people and even less of the natural resources than they are to the US. The way their economy is stalling (structural not cyclical), even their economic rank trends to fall just like their population one.
    5
  980. Blessed be ascorbic acid, protect us from the scourge of scurvy 🙏🍊
    5
  981. 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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  982.  @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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  983.  @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.
    5
  984. 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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  985. 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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  986. One thing I've learned from living in low tax revenue regimes is that it guarantees popular political apathy, corruption, and wealth hoarding, all for the promise of investment and economic growth. And I'm sure America's often born-privileged "free market" advocates know this as they push for more deregulation and weaker government.
    5
  987. The PRC complains about a Century of Humiliation, but to the Vietnamese it’s a Millienia under multiple Chinese dynasties. And that’s just the times where China was successful.
    5
  988. SG's roots are Malay and British, the population is just dominated by southern Chinese who were more interested in commerce and adopted Britain's governance setup. S'pore would not be as trusted or viable had it used China's more prescriptive and overbearing political structure.
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  989. Unfortunately there is a minimum level of sympathy needed to compensate for otherwise wasteful wars. Every culture has this threshold. Bengali blood and shared Islamic faith already fail at bringing more aid; pitching the vague concept of humanity would only anger those who would otherwise personally lose a parent, sibling, or child to an offensive land war against someone else's home turf.
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  990. There's a lot less to lose by siding with the West though. China keeps getting caught probing Indonesia with drones and military-age "tourists" in the outlying islands, while having its soil stolen instead of getting the ore refined first by Indonesians, on top of the Bandung HSR fiasco. There's a reason Indonesia has historically been not friendly with Chinese people and communists.
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  991. Chinese people don't do canned or preserved food, everything has to be fresh. Instant noodles is about the limit, but these only have so much nutrition. That's why it's been especially hard feeding them all under their logistical limitations.
    5
  992. AI is the realization for an automation of tasks we’ve been dreaming up since the Mechanical Turk. If you want a real bubble look at crypto.
    5
  993. That's just squandering their buying power and influence. It only works if all their peers and superiors are forced to pay up at least as much.
    5
  994. Problem is if the bubble bursts too rapidly, it ends up as a destructive explosion. Modern China has very little experience handling a capital economic downturn coming from within, and habitually overreacts to even perceived internal issues.
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  995.  @r3dpowel796  Ironically the host nations just as regularly frustrate the planned closure of a base. The US has all that presence because ultimately the Americans are wanted there, and have much stronger concerns about what then happens in their absence.
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  996. Russia has a fence between them and three sides of Ukrainian flatlands, and are still bogged down. Now try to cross an open Strait where everyone can see you coming to try landing on a mountainous fortress that hasn't been successfully invaded since before the airplane was invented. Oh and the population is entirely hostile, has multiple powerful friends, and has been preparing for your arrival for decades. Plus you're running low on supplies with a collapse of seaborne trade, your treasury is empty paying for overland alternatives, and there's a rising uproar back at home from all the families who lost their only son.
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  997. It's been dubbed Late-Stage Capitalism, where socioeconomic immobilization from entrenchment of the privileged incumbents leads to widespread discontent. We experienced this before exactly a century ago during the Gilded Age, when then became the Great Depression.
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  998.  @Rotated  Correct, road wear gets calculated by the fourth power of average vehicle weight. So while trucks cause concrete to want repaving every year or two, the biggest degradation from pure bike and foot traffic would instead come from mere weeds and weathering.
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  999. It had a presence before until the Philippines deemed their services were no longer required in 1991. Three years later China seizes Mischief Reef, and America's vacancy has cost the Philippines ever since.
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  1000. China is more playing SimCity, assuming traffic from outside connections will be automatic if they just build their local plots and policies well
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  1001. Technology makes a lot of work easier, but it also raises the minimum skill level needed to start getting paid. High school isn't enough to really understand and take advantage of automation, and the trades usually come at the cost of debilitating chronic medical conditions. Focusing on yourself and on less dependents is the natural result of an economic environment that rewards quality over quantity.
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  1002. ⁠Most of those boats lack effective air defense. They’d be mere targets for cheap glide bombs, drones, and even autocannon strafing. Ask the Russians how well they conquered Ukraine through their deviance from the “Western” notion of first estabilishing air superiority.
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  1003. Hoover primarily serves Las Vegas, and holds the quota reserved for Mexico. CA gets its water from some others downstream, in addition to what it gets internally. Also damaging these dams risks igniting hostilities with the other states they serve.
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  1004. China itself is surprisingly fragile. America will bounce back as it has a vibrant civic culture to the individual level, whereas the PRC is held together with constant promises of money, artificial nation-building programs, and a police state. A national trauma would likely see China shattering like china.
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  1005. It's not promising for the formal forces of the ROC, but this analysis stops short of the generation or two of insurrection that would inevitably follow. Rumor is that the Taiwanese are already consulting with the US on how through a land war minimally trained casual combatants could neutralize the technological advantages and overwhelming firepower of a modern military, and defeat the political objectives of even the richest and best equipped occupiers.
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  1006. As if maintaining a medieval mindset just with modern weapons is any better? It's only lasted so long because of oil and the foreign money it brings, and that's disappearing as both production costs and alternative energy sources rise. Hajj visa sales alone wouldn't support even the current "pious" lifestyle of the Kingdom.
    5
  1007. Probably because hopeful engagement turned out to be little more than appeasement for the insatiable.
    5
  1008. Hasn't improved over time either. Even the Soviets joked about Beijing declaring yet another "final warning".
    5
  1009. It's almost shocking to see how much more cosmopolitan other nations are compared to the PRC, having finally gone on an excursion from the Mainland recently.
    5
  1010. It's revealing what the PLA would plan to do with an equivalent system just by what they fear about the supposed capabilities of Starlink.
    5
  1011. Unfortunately for the Party designing that ladder involves disruptive risk-tolerant imagination that thinks beyond the "stability" of low-reaching scaffolding.
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  1012. Beijing claims to be "open for business", but not the two-way transactions that peaceable commerce requires.
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  1013. Based on what buyers both in China and worldwide are finding out, there is no substantial after-sales support. Parts get backordered for months, and mechanics even in the dealership are ill equipped to try anything more intensive than a brake flush and tire change. Seems like the plan is to just have you buy a new model, in line with modern China's strategy of making it cheap and disposable.
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  1014. Japan actually produces cars that are durable and maintainable, unlike the garage hog of US makes and component inaccessibility of European ones. Chinese ones are built to be practically disposable and hold almost no resale value, doesn't matter how many thousands of dollars they cost off the lot.
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  1015. Feel being the key word
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  1016. ​ @DK-ev9dg Technically there is a substantial level of sovereignty for US states, which the federal government steps in only in interstate matters. Though technological advancements since its agrarian origins have meant that there's few things that don't cross state lines anymore.
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  1017. As our disengagement preceding WW1, WW2, and 9/11 showed, we can’t exactly start isolating ourselves from the world and rely on being the Beacon on the Hill as our main defense ✈️🗽 There’s a reason we have hundreds of military bases worldwide… and why nearly all the host nations are more concerned what happens to them should we leave, either the costs to their defense or their domestic politics without the “evil Americans” to conveniently redirect public frustrations toward.
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  1018. I lived in an apartment within the Beijing 3rd Ring where a sign on the outside warned of falling objects, and they weren’t depicting flowerpots falling from balconies either.
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  1019. Statistics and projections involving modern China in general are often overly optimistic.
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  1020. China also lacks the variety and depth of data needed for an AI to learn successfully compared to the open and expressive West, as the information accessible is severely constrained for "state (i.e. Party) security" reasons.
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  1021. Much of the Arab World would likely collapse from Western disengagement; Even today they rely on Westerners to staff and run their rigs. Their prime desire is just weapons and security, but even then they need to import Westerners, Pakistanis, Africans, etc just to man and operate what they bought but decline to put in the hard work to get proficient with.
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  1022. Strong overcapacity to strong debt? Or strong worker inefficiency to strong underemployment?
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  1023. Right, the "multipolarity" that Russia and the PRC advocate would just lead to more trade-dissuading regional armed conflicts. The "warmongering" American presence ironically helps keep the peace by not allowing unrelated local tensions from escalating into bigger wars that global movements detour well away from -- think how much civil aviation got disrupted by no longer flying directly over Russia and expand that to critical sea lanes.
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  1024. We could just reciprocate China's de minimis limit, which is like $7 (the US is a very generous $800). That pushback alone makes even their cheapest purchases not worth the packaging and postage.
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  1025. The intercept isn't the problem, it's the Chinese doing so through deliberately unsafe maneuvers.
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  1026. I’d still be curious how Chinese cars stand up to IIHS crash tests. These are very stringent considering the high speeds Americans regularly crash at, with insurance companies having to pay for.
    5
  1027. That’s an issue specific to YouTube and its algorithm on what videos to filter and recommend, not the channels who upload to it.
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  1028. When I was in Indonesia before COVID, my local friends described reports of buzz-cut military-aged male Mainlander Chinese “tourists” swarming all over the Riau island group (the Indonesian land closest to the 9-Dash Line).
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  1029. Even the libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa is arguably more socialist, because at least the extended families take care of each other. In China you're at the whims of the state, and the state views you as a replaceable cog in their interests.
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  1030. Zeihan is annoyingly clickbaity, but the trends he describes have kept basically accurate even if the timeframes are off. And having lived in and personally experienced Mainland China, I'd say that the pessimistic news from there tends to be closer to the ground truth.
    5
  1031. YouTube sadly rewards clickbaity taglines, which is crucial for a one-man show like Tony. But his analysis is solid as he lives in China and often reads straight from Chinese language sources.
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  1032. They'll try, but stealing personal experience and underlying mentalities only gets so far. What needs to change is the institutional environment within China to develop these domestically, which terrifies the Party.
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  1033. Kissinger was no doubt a powerful statesman, but blindingly Eurocentric in his approach to shaping US interests. Hopefully the present and future of American diplomacy results in a more holistic foreign policy.
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  1034. Something about spreading the opportunity among those who can't afford such tutoring. But instead it seems the tutors are simply driven underground and have degraded in quality.
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  1035. It might not curtail the manning and equipment procurements, but it could affect the quality and combat effectiveness. Much like how North Korea who spends all their spare funds on its military are supplying Russia artillery shells with an alarming dud rate. So yeah it would help all those resisting the CPC's belligerence by compelling a buildup of deterrence to match, while possibly blunting the actual threat.
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  1036. They died inside, seeing how swiftly Western visa applications became the hottest purchase this year.
    5
  1037. Interdependence vs independence is like the economic tension between efficiency vs resilience. The former does a few things very well, but outside those few things the model breaks down especially when conditions turn unfavorable and changes become necessary. The latter isn't so straightforward to understand or inexpensive to implement, but is ultimately more adaptable and robust over time.
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  1038. Welcome to America, where corporations are legally mandated to serve only the owning shareholders; any other stakeholders such as employees, customers, and the public at large are ancillary responsibilities.
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  1039. Uhh, you do have to pay to enter quite a few of those parks and museums. Often need to make a reservation too (only through their specific WeChat mini app which you have to find and register with) even for free ones during visitor lulls. Also effective healthcare (not the mere IV drip and painkiller combo given at a primary-level "hospital") is closer to after-insurance America prices, and education gets surprisingly pricey (tuition is charged from high school onward).
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  1040. More like the supply shocks from Russia's invasion and China's Zero-COVID hangover. If anything globalization made the shock worse because of the lack of alternatives as corporations sought efficiency through single-sourcing.
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  1041. “Fluency” is self-reported, not standardized, and often inflated. China supposedly has the most number of “English speakers”, yet they’re rare to find and frustrating to actually communicate with.
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  1042. CKS is also the reason Taiwan is recognized as part of "China", instead of becoming an independent country when it had the chance to call itself like it practically is.
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  1043. South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Chile likewise went through rapid development under dictatorships until it hit their limits, then democratized which gives them a second wind. Mainland China is desperately trying to catch one but through unproductive Party projects instead of allowing the people themselves to steer their country's policies and markets.
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  1044. CA has a lot of entrenched conservative industries, especially agriculture, defense, and film production 🚜🛰🎞💰
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  1045. It feels like this script sourced the most optimistic projections from the least critically cross-checked statistics.
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  1046. They're pointing all over the place tbh. But the difference is in identifying and arguing over so many internal faults, steps get taken to address them too. That's not really the case across the pond where the regime's image of infallibility and the reality of their decisions continue to diverge.
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  1047. ​ @choreomaniac ​​And all of them have one thing in common: vital reliance on foreign markets they don't control. Their governments can continue to afford dismissing (or not even gathering) the votes of its people only as long as outsider brains, muscles, and wallets sufficiently fill the divide between citizen and state interests.
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  1048. ​ @Kaiserboo1871 They all did. The key to reducing corruption was developing a strong "rule of law" society where even the head of government could not get around. Corruption still exists, but not to the same scale and blatancy compared to places where personal relationships are still prioritized and the law is just a tool for the ruler.
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  1049. Bureaucracy for sure, higher taxes not so much. Otherwise the heartland would be swarmed with coasties looking for a bargain, but the lack of government spending results in a lack of effective education and innovative experimentation that got them relatively rich to begin with. Being price sensitive indicates being easily replaced.
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  1050. The whole Russian Army is regretting their bulk buy of cheap Chinese tyres too 📌
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  1051. The West can more easily divest out of China and diversify manufacturing sources (a lot of which is in consideration if not already begun), whereas China polluted and depleted too much of its own farmlands to feed itself. "There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy", and sanctions and/or scare-off of civilian ship traffic with the needed seeds would quickly devastate the Mainland. Hence the huge public push to regain agricultural self-reliance, which will be harder to achieve with New China's chemical defilement of its waters and soils as well as hesitation to experiment (considering how often experiments naturally fail).
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  1052. China just doesn't construct with quality in mind. I remember recently living in Africa how old European colonial buildings still get some use even today, while the locals worry about how little concrete and rebar seem to go into what the Chinese are putting up nowadays (on top of clashing with the surrounding architecture and looking the same from site to site).
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  1053. It's not collapsing, but it is stalling. And that effectively threatens collapse for the CPC whose continued legitimacy relies on indefinite domestic development, and tries to rule a population that's too spread out and knowledgeable about alternatives to Beijing-led policies and philosophy.
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  1054. Having spent most of 2023 in Mainland China and the rest elsewhere, it's the West that's doing fine while my Chinese peers ask where's the best way out.
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  1055. You're assuming the domestic market is big enough to absorb a nearly modern Earth's worth of production capacity. Chinese consumers aren't that rich (particularly after mortgages), nor are they getting any more youthful and optimistic.
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  1056.  @ruthtapiwa6311  and capitalist feudalism, where the economic environment is so stacked against newcomers that increasingly the only way up the social ladder is by birth, marriage, or the dumb luck of getting discovered and patronized by a member of the elite.
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  1057. Right, Indonesians don't seem all that interested in going beyond what they grew up with. Globally you're many times more likely to encounter a Filipino, Vietnamese, or Thai person even though Indonesia has about as many people as those three countries combined. Even then it's usually a Chinese-Indonesian, who are their economic elite 1% and aren't considered a core pribumi.
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  1058. The "poverty" Beijing keeps pitching is the extreme dollar-a-day type, which any government with global trade access can overcome. Former Premier Li Keqiang revealed that like half of China is still in effective poverty, earning less than $150/month and practically unable to afford rent on their own.
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  1059. The CPC likely isn't confident that it would actually win in open and fair political competition, unlike the Singapore or Taiwan whose PAP/KMT have won multiple elections.
    5
  1060. ​ @chaoticdanor Problem is they will try to overlord, inventing new "enemies" as necessary. Have you seen how they run their own countries?
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  1061. Even in car-centric places like Dubai and Doha it’s a huge savings to take its public transit. Gas might be cheap but valid insurance and the car itself not so much.
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  1062.  @eoincampbell1584  Depends on the lifestyle. If we all turned vegan and had the motivation of a cow the Earth could theoretically support 40 billion. But if we lived like Westerners who are actively researching how to get off this planet before the Sun explodes it's more like just 1 billion.
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  1063. Up until Trump, independent voters always had a habit of voting against their own interests. Hopefully the threat of Trump again gets the uncommitted to vote in a way that doesn't leave them with buyer's remorse as was historically the case.
    5
  1064. Americans express it openly, but the absolutist mindset is common throughout humanity particularly with easily-terrorized traditionalists.
    5
  1065. I'd like to see a meta-flick set around filmmaking in Vancouver, kind of like "The Fall Guy" was for stunt doubles.
    5
  1066. China makes it so though. The CPC's philosophy and political persistence relies on continuous indefinite "struggle" against some enemy of the month, compounded by narrow-minded "scientific" thinking (i.e. without the uninhibited explorations of authentic humanities) that has them habitually reacting to unforseen consequences of their own projects and policies.
    5
  1067. "Merit" gets measured differently for different groups in practice. Minorities have to already have performed something tangible, whereas white men get to be judged on something more vague like "potential".
    5
  1068. Just wait til they digitize all the paperwork for the goods and services intrinsically associated with that payment! Oh wait
    5
  1069. He's the editor for Bloomberg's Taiwan office. If anything he's compiled more Taiwanese thoughts from among his staff and their contacts.
    5
  1070. Social status is still a very fixed concept in Korea, as opposed to the more fluid, situational context found in the West. It's in the language: even a single year of age difference will dictate if one can communicate in 반말 (impolite "half-speak") or have to stick with 존댓말 ("proper" speak). This unfortunately means those who always lived in high status can habituate being impolite.
    5
  1071. They'll see any red rays converging on a central point as Japanese imperialism
    5
  1072. China and Korea specifically teach reactive hate towards Japan. It's consistently useful for these governments to promote racialized unity and distract from internal issues.
    5
  1073. Yet "high standards" are celebrated, even when it's obvious what they'll deign to entertain is impossibly unrealistic. And then when they find that unicorn, they'll wonder why someone so spoiled for choice doesn't stick around.
    5
  1074. Africa in general is the dumping ground for China QA rejects.
    5
  1075. Refusing to marry at all is a growing trend as well
    5
  1076. Yes, Korea showed that Communists were no longer the allies whom they fought fascism with only a few years earlier -- the suspicions had already long existed, but the invasion of the South made it clear that they planned to erase democracy from the map.
    5
  1077. It's always election season in the US nowadays though
    5
  1078. Xīnjiāng wage slaves and lack of pollution controls in their rare earth refining processes.
    5
  1079.  @DiegoMejia86 Learn to live tighter in townhouses and mid-rises, taking trams and metros like the rest of the world already figured out and implements as soon as funding allows. When you’re surrounded by specialist services, you’d be surprised how little space you absolutely must keep to yourself and your stuff.
    5
  1080. I try to use public transit in the US partially to avoid tipping the taxi/rideshare.
    5
  1081. He has Fox News timestamps.
    5
  1082. That's because of the design of the routes in between. Try a similarly long travel in a place like China where the investments were opposite (lots of tollways and random airspace restrictions, but well-supported public transit), and you'll likewise reach the opposite conclusion.
    5
  1083. For interest charges anyway. They still have your spending habits and all the transaction fees that the merchant usually pays for.
    5
  1084. That's the strategy of big business in general: if there's no technical reason to have high barriers to entry (aviation, medicine, heavy industry, etc), they'll create legal ones to suppress the competition and their downward pressure on profits.
    5
  1085. I remember Japan figured this out in like the 90s, where some ramen shops had vending machines selling tokens/vouchers for the food you wanted which you hand to the cooks. It was an analog version of the apps and kiosks that we see today.
    5
  1086. I rode multiple years through all four seasons of Northern China, which features bone-chilling winters and muggy sweltering summers. You just have to dress correctly and not rush the ride.
    5
  1087. Tell that to the C-Suite, who nowadays gets their pay bump mainly from buybacks.
    5
  1088. To secure space to upgrade the lines should those towns grow. Other utilities like fuel and internet fiber lines would run similar paths when demand grows past trucks and antennas.
    5
  1089. And that's why I got LASEK -- I calculated breaking even within a decade after adding up all the yearly vision insurance, eye exams, and contacts/glasses purchases. Plus I no longer have to worry about losing these or following strict advise not to wear them in certain situations (swimming, skydiving, field ops, etc). I had mine done in Korea last year. $1300 for both eyes + recovery meds from a top Gangnam clinic. Consultations, measurements, and operation done same day; was still able to tour around the city like normal (LASEK/PRK/ASA is the older flapless one with more pain and recovery time but best results). Best money ever spent bang for buck. I hear Taiwan and South Africa are just as effective and inexpensive.
    5
  1090. China doesn’t look that much farther ahead though. Their overall debt load to be that “great example” makes America look prudent, and it’s really beginning to drag on China’s economy.
    5
  1091. Or make it more convenient to not have to drive in at all. Cars don't carry wallets, people do. And there are plenty of effective alternatives to move people to where they want to go.
    5
  1092. But that would eat into shareholder dividends, and we can't have that. We're legally obligated to make profits above all else.
    5
  1093. Also the clinical failure of veganism. Even durably vegetarian diets include a healthy intake of dairy.
    5
  1094. I tasted it the first time. I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms and veggie burgers always taste like a stale version of those 🍄🤮
    5
  1095. If I had the choice of a 5 hour HSR ride from city center to city center, versus a 2 hr gate-to-gate flight + 2 hrs terminal time + 1 hr driving to and from the airports, I'd take the train. There's no need for Airplane Mode 📴
    5
  1096. Healthcare payments is an administrative service. Physical distance does not matter.
    5
  1097. That's more an urban planning problem not zoning all the destinations to be near enough each other, and not having practical alternative ways to get there.
    5
  1098. Or it needs the mass media boost. Huy Fong sauces were sold purely by word of mouth, only becoming newsworthy during the 2013 factory odor incident and this legal clash with Underwood.
    5
  1099. The system also has to standardize on trainset dimensions they will stick to from now on, and scrap the rest. Platform doors are useless if they don't always match where the doors of the train end up at the platform.
    5
  1100. Modular spaces are basically a warehouse. Residences have the additional challenge of the demand for external windows to at least the bedrooms if not every room, which is why commercial builds are problematic to convert given their largely artificially-lit spaces occupied only half a day during the work week.
    5
  1101. For a sporty car, EV conversions actually make it perform better. Electric motors give more torque and the lower center of mass lets it turn sharper.
    5
  1102. ​ @Vivek-nh1vh Voters were distracted by "immigrants" and "Dem policies" somehow inflating prices, while corporations openly describe how they're making bank off of American consumers hand over fist.
    5
  1103. I've tried Starbucks, Luckin, and Heytea, and I think Starbucks still tops on taste. Their recent China Blend brew was pretty good too.
    5
  1104. ​ @Wave02Z Because the demand is so high there to begin with. Mass transit is not the cause, it's the relief valve for the amount of traffic it has to handle.
    5
  1105. Highways only make money because of the taxes gained from the economic activity it generates. Mass transit is the same, just more localized to however far it reaches.
    5
  1106. ⁠They’re free to choose their partners. Western powers happens to be the most preferable especially after their past arrangements with the other side.
    5
  1107. China isn't helping itself. I noticed things getting more inconvenient if not hostile towards people traveling with foreign passports on the Mainland.
    5
  1108. There's a noticeable lack of pleasant surprises as a foreigner in China. I've had a lot more fun discovering the local life in sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia.
    5
  1109. We wouldn't even need to enforce a blockade against China, just the threat of anti-ship crossfire is enough to make travels near the Chinese coast uninsurable and scare off practically all the civilian vessels. No amount of overland alternatives will sufficiently supply their population especially at the massive coastal cities, and the PRC would quickly go bankrupt trying to pay for the upcharge. The CSIS analysis concurs that practically any significant resistance to a PLA invasion would result in an embarrassing loss for "New China".
    5
  1110. If their performance against Indians in the Himalayas where they regularly clash is an indication, it doesn't bode well for the PLA when they get ambushed by Taiwanese defending their homes with improvised weapons.
    5
  1111. Trump goes for institutionally high risk high reward, but his choices of people and policy hints that the rewards with further entrench at the top who are the real cause of growing disappointment at America's institutions.
    5
  1112. Thing is it’s cargo that gives an airframe a long life, after needy human passengers stop being profitable to carry. The A380 is poorly suited to take pallets and oversized loads due to its human-focused structural design. This is why old 747s and tri-jets are still in the air, while the A380 doesn’t have a second wind to look forward to.
    5
  1113. What we're realizing is that efficiency and adaptability are diametrically opposing interests, and supply chains overextended in cost-cutting efficiency to gracefully handle this shock in transportation patterns.
    5
  1114. SS rates should really only be a payment based on current contributions, not a fixed promise. And no cap on the contribution by the richer earners who have been taking practically all the growth in wealth since PCs started replacing typewriters.
    5
  1115. There really should be term and age limits for elected positions, and no special support programs for former officeholders that regular citizens can't access.
    5
  1116. Network Effect means such a service converges on monopoly, since that's what its users (in this case cardholders) demand.
    5
  1117. It develops the concept for further deployment in countries without the cheap flat land, masses of laborers, or open trade policies that would support a full-sized investment. For S'pore it also gives a non-zero manufacturing capacity in case a COVID or some other event locks down movement in and out of the island again.
    5
  1118. Considering the rates for suicide despite lack of personally owned weapons, not Japan.
    5
  1119. Right, the loudest "conservatives" tend to have the biggest personal insecurities.
    5
  1120.  @user-xm8rf6ik7b  Denser zoning saves costs especially from time and money workers spend maintaining the ability to get stuck in rush hour traffic. Plus it can boost revenue since desired amenities and attractions become easier to discover.
    5
  1121. But the designs for modern core chips pretty much are just American, increasingly but still very occasionally Japanese or Korean.
    5
  1122. 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
  1123. It's everywhere in the world. Even the very pro-natal Africa and Middle East are seeing shrinking family sizes.
    5
  1124. 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
  1125. ​ @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
  1126.  @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
  1127.  @JonySmith-bb4gx  China might be better than Arkansas, but “crime ridden” California was still a relief after moving out of Beijing last summer.
    5
  1128. 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
  1129. 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
  1130.  @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
  1131. It's not uncommon for visiting Mainlanders to return and quietly admit, "I wish that side won the Civil War".
    5
  1132. Not sure which thirty-somethings those are, but the ones I grew up with are still both college-level progressive and not enchanted by China. And that's with private sector careers, becoming homeowners, and starting families.
    5
  1133. It's free for corporate and church interests. Everyone else has to follow the laws they impose.
    5
  1134. I'd think if the US did a national installation of fiber to every property on a public road, we could set off an economic near-revolution from the gains in innovation and productivity. It wouldn't be too expensive either since practically no land needs to be bought out -- the main challenge would be legally overturning all the pro-corporate local restrictions on municipality-provided infrastructure.
    5
  1135. COVID and all the shift to WFH ironically showed that there is plenty of capacity to handle all that traffic that was no longer internal to the office, meaning ISPs really were holding back and seeking rent off of retail customers.
    5
  1136. Sees NordVPN ads, subscribes to a competitor 😂
    5
  1137. The feeling of wealth is not truly based on your real buying power, but your buying power relative to the community you identify with. Hence why a US Dollar millionaire in Bali or Chiang Mai feels way richer than one in SF or NYC. We feel poorer nowadays partially because social media has made the "community" we're keeping track of beyond that which were physically in, so we're comparing our economic success against the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos instead of capping our expectations at the family with the "big house" in our neighborhood.
    5
  1138. ​No, it's because tech is continually disruptive and founders can cash out before market forces stabilize and regulations get implemented. Also taxes aren't so simple to dodge because the rich can't take with them the human capital and institutional knowledge of their organizations which upkeep their wealth through their company's stocks and ownership stakes. They're usually not rich on cash unless they sell out effective control of their businesses.
    5
  1139. I know quite a few classmates who were in pre-med and engineering but came in too poor to ride through shocks involving financial impact before some crisis derailed them permanently. Meanwhile I make six figures holding a degree in... social studies.
    5
  1140. Because there’s not enough places to charge them yet. Nobody wanted to trade their horses for cars either until gas stations got more widespread.
    5
  1141. That’s the one I chose over the slightly cheaper Samsung equivalent. Image looked a bit better, the Sony shop I bought it from sounded more competent regarding warranty service, and it uses the more open Google TV OS in case I want to install some app like a remote control preset button changer.
    5
  1142. I'm sure he'll come up with some technicality that will instead have it say "freed" 😒
    5
  1143. The bulk of high value-added R&D for these MNCs happened in Ireland? Sounds like all that value-added came from highly creative accounting instead.
    5
  1144. That's been a threat the whole time, and not even a consideration to come to/remain in Seoul.
    5
  1145. I subscribe to the local docked bikeshare. Per mile they’re cheaper, faster, more reliable, and better maintained than anything left loose on the street (I lived in China where bikes were all undocked).
    5
  1146. You have to be careful about your scooter’s quality and maintenance though. In Dubai they had banned all e-scooters on the metro after one started smoking in a station, and in China nobody dares bring one into the subway.
    5
  1147. Yeah Japan isn't as crime-free as we're led to believe. The high conviction rate comes from selectively prosecuting cases with easily found evidence or easily coerced confessions.
    5
  1148. ​Right, it's the connections to existing demand centers that's worth waiting for. Sadly people are quick to criticize projects like HART and CAHSR when they start in the cheapest (i.e. least populated) section to basically practice and refine before real operations begin in the following buildouts.
    5
  1149. I thought I was going to Iraq in 2012, then got sent to Camp As-Sayliyah instead. It was a cozy assignment, but still got that combat pay (terrorist hideouts and Iranian SF were considered active threats). Summer got rough because it would bring occasionally down the equipment and our mission, but once it cooled off the "deployment" was damn near luxurious by Army standards (I've heard crazier stories from trips by AF and Navy Aviation).
    5
  1150. It's sinking mostly because the government hasn't implemented piped water sourced from the mountains, forcing residents to get water from the aquifers beneath them. Tokyo had the same issue back in the 50s and 60s, solved by installing piped water and injecting the excess back into the ground.
    5
  1151. That's basically what all guided bombs and missiles are, hence why everyone who can afford them makes and uses them.
    5
  1152. I remember a Chinese think tank article published earlier this year that outlined a strategy to distract the West with simultaneous conflicts in Europe (Ukraine), the Middle East (Israel), and the western Pacific (most likely Korea) before they can pull off an invasion of Taiwan. The PLA have taken advantage of this before, taking Hainan and Tibet during the Korean War, and gaining ground in the Himalayas against India during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
    5
  1153. I remember the first Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon game like 20 years ago depicted an Ethiopian invasion of Eritrea 💀
    5
  1154. That's one way of using it, but it's usually made into soaps and detergents. How much to use just depends on how big is the biotarget, whether it's the size of a virus or a fully grown animal.
    5
  1155. Only if we’re prepared for it. Public schools got us to show up on time and become literate enough to work in a factory when tractors replaced farmhands. Unfortunately the education system hasn’t evolved to teach the foreign language, creativity, and financial literacy skills needed for upcoming work, even though politicians were told of these shortcomings decades ago.
    5
  1156. The "free market" ultimately devolves into unfree corporatism if they're free to litigate and M&A their competition out of existence.
    5
  1157. It's better than nothing, but that's like saying you're driving the tollway wearing a helmet as opposed to also having seatbelts and airbags.
    5
  1158. Germany is export-dominated and suffers from lack of demand from China, and Japan's economy is also well tied to China. Both economies are struggling because China itself is stalling.
    5
  1159. Quitting is more voluntary, often with at least some anticipation about a future occupation. Lying flat doesn't share that optimism short of changing governments and the overall economic environment that it manages.
    5
  1160. The US thought the same when it rolled through Iraq and Afghanistan, but the main issue is that a land war insurgency provides plenty of opportunities for minimally armed casual combatants to defeat the political objectives of an occupier, and Táiwān is full of very defensible terrain. If the amount of surveillance and enforcement actions in Xīnjiāng and HK is needed to pacify a fairly sparse and defenseless population, no number of cameras, drones, and police/soldiers will be enough against the millions of Taiwanese taking even occasional potshots if not more deliberate counteractions.
    5
  1161. I've heard about the India megaproject -- delayed mostly due to land acquisitions that the Indian government has to resolve -- and I've also personally experienced the JICA-sponsored Jakarta MRT while I was living there and how it noticeably improved traffic along the main Thamrin-Sudirman corridor. Seems the actual construction isn't so problematic once all the space is secured. And I didn't say that Japan would take over the Surabaya extension, more like they may be brought in as a second set of eyes to inspect and refine the build process to prevent things like cracked houses and tunnel walls. From what I've read, Japan wanted to focus more on improving the existing rail lines anyway (i.e. straightening, grade separating, and improving signals) since it would be much more cost effective and utilized by passengers who already ride those routes.
    5
  1162. The name doesn’t confer sovereignty. Other examples include the Sea of Japan, Gulf of Mexico, and the Indian Ocean.
    5
  1163. It would only work once, since the ship will be identified and avoided afterward. Also can't pop in a new one unexpectedly since maritime transponder information is public information, so any "cargo ship" without a normal-looking voyage history also becomes suspect.
    5
  1164. Also America is self-sufficient with food and fuel, which Japan and modern China are not. China's industrial might would be idled if the crossfire scares away civilian ships inexpensively bringing those inputs; Beijing would go bankrupt paying through the nose for a trickle in overland alternatives.
    5
  1165. Power is defined as the ability of one side relative to another. It's a scale that ranges from absolutely imposing to absolutely subjected, that's why power is a zero-sum relation. The complexity comes from how many such relations are in effect simultaneously.
    4
  1166.  @luisfilipe2023  How it's distributed is. That's the power.
    4
  1167. The ultimate goal of capitalism collapsing into monopolies never went away either. Governments just disrupt or permit the process to various degrees over time.
    4
  1168. The "investment" is too expensive to enter and doesn't pay off as well as it historically promised, the big ones being homes and tertiary education (either financially broke after college or medically broke after a career in the trades). Shorter term YOLO experiences and "luxury" consumption is what's maintaining our morale in the current capitalist system.
    4
  1169. ​11 years is quick to clear the lien on a house. That's a massive flex.
    4
  1170. ​ @Nswix Degrees however help shield against downward social mobility. Blue-collar trades aren't a panacea either, often leaving you with chronic medical conditions by the time you retire. But worst off are those without a couple years worth of postsecondary training of any sort.
    4
  1171. That freedom to build our own life has eroded because all the accessible property and capital opportunities have been claimed and reserved, usually by some corporation.
    4
  1172. There seems to be a definite inflation of expectations among women who largely still seek hypergamy. In fact there's dating app data indicating an overwhelming female gaze towards the top 20% of men, while dudes maintain a more balanced view in rating attractiveness.
    4
  1173. Excellent choice 👌🏼 SE Asia is poised to be the global leader for socioeconomic growth for at least the next decade 🌾📈
    4
  1174. We’re already post-scarcity in production, it’s the distribution part that’s still lopsided.
    4
  1175. It’s not crushed, but it certainly curtailed the ambitions to expand its global relevance and influence.
    4
  1176. I studied sociology and earn a six figure salary. Turns out that human users are the weakest link in an information system, hence a career in cybersecurity and network administration.
    4
  1177. If you’re not interested in ultimately leading organizations yeah. Soft skills are just as important for lifetime earnings, and one of the quickest way to demotivate most people is by hitting them with technical figures. There’s a reason STEM graduates are notoriously troublesome to work under, and why they tend to perform poorly in politics.
    4
  1178. VisualEconomik really needs to spend the literally one minute to learn how to pronounce names correctly, or at least sound like they try. An apparent cold read is not only distracting but also hints at not actually researching the topic. Their Korean is even worse.
    4
  1179. If all those other taxes weren't so easy to avoid through deductions, accounting contortions, smuggling, etc, funding services for our society wouldn't have to rely on income taxes.
    4
  1180.  @daniely500  China's last organized ground war was against an even more lightly armed Vietnam who is literally next door, where they made few gains at alarming costs against the local militia and reservists. The PLA ran back to China before the regulars could get into position.
    4
  1181. Because the prices you pay aren't tied to the amount of your wealth, so of course the poor end up spending more of what they have on regular living expenses. For most people there simply isn't enough to set aside into investments and simply live off the gained equities and interest.
    4
  1182. More like rebellion, of which criminality falls under.
    4
  1183. Because China's neighbors themselves are concerned about their own level of sovereignty and independence under the thumb of Beijing. You don't hear much about "interfering" in Laos and Cambodia where they long ago fully threw themselves into the PRC camp.
    4
  1184. 현대 sounds more like "hyun-day". Although even their official ads butcher it to "hun-day" or "hyun-die" because Korean reputation was fairly weak (especially in the car market) until fairly recently when more than military, missionaries, and migrant teachers became familiar with the language.
    4
  1185. America has regularly been on "fragile ground", like the War of 1812, the Panic of 1837, the Civil War, the anarcho-communist insurrections, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. Each time we come out the other end fine and often more harmonized with our own ideal of "liberty and justice for all" (not just landed white male puritan conservatives). As much as our media dramatizes the current MAGA-"woke" culture war, we've already been through far worse.
    4
  1186. Tell that to China, whose own diplomats confirmed they have an attitude of "we're big, you're small, therefore you have no leverage in these discussions" despite having much less historical influence and integration in the South Pacific than the British and its former colonies.
    4
  1187. Overpopulation is becoming a risk in Africa, as long as religion and traditional tribalism continues to pressure its people to "Birth 'em all and let God sort it out", at the expense of rational education that would increase productivity to the point where they can at least feed themselves.
    4
  1188. Ironically more wars would help diversify our defense production capabilities. The end of the Cold War triggered the consolidations we suffer from today as demand for those companies cratered.
    4
  1189. If you think that’s bad, wait til you hear how they pronounce Chinese and Korean names
    4
  1190. Probably because the weakness of America's public welfare means that school districts end up taking on the roles that a larger dedicated statewide program should provide. It sounds like Estonia as a whole provides the fundamentals such as student meals, healthcare, and teacher training, whereas in the US the individual states, districts, and campuses have to budget all that in.
    4
  1191. Ukraine is still holding, and it doesn’t even have direct warfighter involvement from its supporters. The PLA though has yet to prove its competency treating combat injuries and battle damage from an opponent who actually shoots back. And unlike Mainlanders, Taiwanese are much more proactive to support each other and take up arms without government direction.
    4
  1192. Defense spending at least has clear "trickle down" effects to the rest of society, unlike say corporate tax breaks 💸
    4
  1193. In cluttered populated areas though that could be enough to deprioritize itself as a target, since quite a few working civilian vehicles would be left about and randomly used by anyone who can get it started.
    4
  1194. Because it's easier to turn water pipes into rockets than it is into bandages.
    4
  1195. @qtsssim Taiwan survived that long because it was so well armed after it consolidated off the Mainland. The KMT's final loss was faraway Hainan, yet the PLA couldn't seize a couple rocks blocking the port of Xiamen. If the PLA couldn't make a short swim on home territory, they'd have zero chance doing 100km of open water straight into even better prepared defenses. That relative advantage has been degrading as the PRC finally gained the funds to invest in better equipment, and their fundamental stalling in the middle income trap means the Party needs an alternative to indefinite economic growth (like the ideological goal of taking Taiwan) for continued tolerance and legitimacy among the Chinese people. Maintaining doubt of a quick and clean victory will keep the "wolf warrior" from getting too bold about trying violence to overcome this impasse.
    4
  1196. Sadly this westward expansion is more than a century old, it's a common theme with past dynasties as well. The reason we hear about Xinjiang being populated by Uyghurs is because the Turkic Uyghurs allied with the Manchu Qing to genocide the Mongol Dzungar people out of existence. Past Chinese empires would likewise try to Go West to improve state security and trade access, where the focus on overland expansion ingrained into the mindset of its rulers, ultimately leaving China Proper vulnerable to its maritime neighbors and (still even today) catching up with the West when its warships showed up regularly coming the long way by sea.
    4
  1197. Makes me think California is much like Australia just also with mining swapped for agriculture: the Golden State is also dry, coastal, expensive, diverse, diversified, well positioned for wind and solar, regularly on fire, and despite its "nanny state" reputation is also shackled by powerful conservative interests 🧸
    4
  1198. Taiwan is probably the best example of Japanese imperial success, since Japanese rule has pretty much always been ahead of Mainland China in every societal aspect in everything other than variety and scale. What now comprises most of ASEAN wasn't held for that long but they're the rising stars nowadays and there's remnants of their time there in the culture and infrastructure.
    4
  1199. 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.
    4
  1200. America's image became that it's a hard target not vulnerable to amateur transgressions
    4
  1201. 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 🚄🚂
    4
  1202. 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.
    4
  1203. ​ @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.
    4
  1204. From what I remember, the KMT's claims were a reaction to an obscure French claim to the sea for their Indochina colony right after WWII which Vietnam now maintains. The KMT claim was subsequently inherited by the PRC.
    4
  1205. ​ @raftguy1376 Singapore managed to pull it off, and they didn't even have ethnic or religious solidarity. Competent anti-corrupt governance is required first.
    4
  1206. Unfortunately hate is stronger than love. It's amazing what you can get people to do when you point out an identity that they're not.
    4
  1207. Not necessarily better, there are parts of NE China that have been going through a similar ordeal. It's just impossible to hide the ineptitude in Shànghǎi.
    4
  1208. This is why regardless of place I always look for and try to avoid manholes, not only to avoid potentially open ones but also badly-leveled ones. Plus they're much more slippery when wet, and are especially dangerous when riding a bike/motorcycle.
    4
  1209. I've heard Russian field grades are often distracted with basic BS that an American sergeant would ordinarily deal with. That's what happens when basically the whole enlisted corps are conscripts and the only lifers are the officers.
    4
  1210. Too thin though and you end up with the fiasco of the Note 7 🔋🔥
    4
  1211. That's beginner level. You should see the holdouts in Narita who had an airport literally built around them back in the 1970s 🛫🏡
    4
  1212. Which has been losing money (even when including the overall effects from growth in fapiao receipts) because passengers and mail don't pay that much, and is now bleeding itself to near shutdown with the collapse of regular travels under surprise COVID lockdowns. What China really would have benefitted from was a buildout of freight-capable rail.
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  1213. Too many Afghans didn't want to fight their families, no matter how disturbing and abusive they are. Plus Afghanistan is literally surrounded by anti-US sentiments (Pakistan, Iran, China, Russian-backed -stans), so insurgents had no shortage of shelters and resources to fight with.
    4
  1214.  @vimalalwaysrocks  The same one that took in patients while full of roof leaks and uneven surfaces that other countries would have done cheaper and more effectively with trucks and tents?
    4
  1215. So you'd rather let the Chinese continue their dumping while we stop supporting our own industrial development?
    4
  1216. Taipei is also counting too much on the ROC Armed Forces, which itself has become alarmingly lax on training and too focused on high-tech gadgets. If they were serious about defense, they should take cues from the Middle East about how to politically defeat an occupation through endemic insurgency and use of global media.
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  1217. The US and most of the world recognize Taiwan as part of "China", but not necessarily as under the sovereignty of the PRC. This is the difference between Beijing's One China Principle, and the One China Policy these other nations justify their standing "unofficial" relations with Taipei.
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  1218. We have a tech boom. We are the ones telling FoxConn what to make and how to make it. We dominate the two ends of the "Smiling Curve", basically owning the high-margin irreplaceable Design and Services, leaving others with the cutthroat automatable Manufacture in between. Our scheme simply doesn't employ nearly as many unskilled, uncreative, instructions-following human cogs.
    4
  1219.  @louisd6410  It's because US presence is better than the alternative. Ask Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines what happened to them after asking the Americans to leave.
    4
  1220. Right, taxing imports doesn't necessarily bring back jobs to the US, especially since new factories are so automated with substantial education requirements for the few people hired.
    4
  1221. It’s an uncomfortable truth that the longer a woman stays in school, the less kids she’ll have especially since the IVF she plans on is neither economical nor consistent. That’s if she ever feels like having kids before completing a full career when she’s well past fertility. On the other hand, the biggest families come from those who started as teenagers, where religiosity and experience birthing the first kid drastically lowers the mental barrier to providing them siblings.
    4
  1222. ​Can you ride your car when the fuel tank is dry? That's why you should keep owning a horse. Early cars also had the challenge of regularly finding gas pumps early on. It took a couple decades and an Interstate Highway System to resolve. EVs if anything can get adopted quicker because the roads are already built, and chargers can be wired in practically anywhere since there's no HAZMAT considerations that gas stations require.
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  1223. Chinese factories are already at gross overcapacity. The last thing they want is to give a peer sized economy permanent competition to their own increasingly unemployed and unemployable citizens.
    4
  1224. Which is why we need to as much as possible divorce the effect of money on politics.
    4
  1225. Except its to benefit corporate interests moreso than government ones
    4
  1226. That’s the same problem with a different name. The fundamental issue is that limited-quantity media like gold gets spent and hoarded at exactly the wrong times of the economic cycle.
    4
  1227. Yet that's what the "scientific" and "meritocratic" CPC is fixated on. Not so considerate about what people actually care about.
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  1228. ​ @wendyshoowaiching4161 That usually means overthrowing the government and fracturing the state. There's a reason China's history is divided by dynasties.
    4
  1229. Globally is alright, it's China that's struggling. I was just there.
    4
  1230. Just the perception of threat is marketing enough, hence why authoritarians invent and amplify the image of political enemies to justify overhauling society to favor strict social roles while granting legal impunity to certain elites, whether the times were actually good or bad.
    4
  1231. If the enemy has to pull back to get out of range, they're essentially losing ground and that's the whole point. And then the munitions can be saved for those units who dare come closer.
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  1232. China is politically kind of like the US: legally federated but with each province given fairly wide latitude to pursue policies and programs. Hence why separate aviation design bureaus centered in provincial capitals like Chéngdū, Xī'ān, and Shěnyáng.
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  1233. Right, I've heard there's quite a bit of buyer's remorse with Chinese drones already due to the shoddy uptime and inability to procure replacement parts.
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  1234. Not to mention its equipment, which aren't nearly as ready for deployment as their parades suggest. Rumor is they haven't yet figured out how to fly when it's raining ☔
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  1235. ​ @amunra5330 And many of those when inspected were found to be rotting and inedible, if some unexplained granary fire didn't get to it first.
    4
  1236. Historical sites, but still symbolic of the post-siege Saudi mindset. Like how at the end Jabzy describes the home of the founder of the Sunni school is now a Hilton hotel, and the home of the first wife of Muhammad (PBUH) is now a toilet.
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  1237. It's crazy how the book is essentially the constitution of the CPC.
    4
  1238. Embassies are only to sovereign states, which requires a defined and recognized territory. Right now the ROC still claims all of China and Mongolia (same as the PRC), and they themselves are not prepared to receive the consequences of ceding the excess to the Mainland and effectively splitting itself from "China".
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  1239. Pretty much the playbook of every socially traditionalist tyrant.
    4
  1240. The sudden news describing a sudden spike of "TikTok refugees" hints this is a Party-controlled marketing campaign, having directed RedNote and other Chinese social media app admins to make the algorithm serve much more English-language content right as Americans (whose curiosity was seeded by "refugee" stories) sign up. Apparently there's quite a bit of complaints from older 小红书 users whose feeds were suddenly dominated by English-language content out of nowhere.
    4
  1241. Also socially conservative, demanding adherence to traditional social roles and unquestioned authority. The CPC and the Republican Party have a lot more in common besides depicting themselves with the color red 🚩
    4
  1242. I predict the post-COVID PRC will end up in the ways of East Germany with a Soviet Union scale of industry: economically stuck, disconnecting from the rest of global reality, and racking up abuses against its people to be revealed later. It may take another generation, but we all know what ultimately happened to both of those model nations of Communism.
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  1243. "High quality jobs" centered around innovation thrives on creative destruction, but this is anathema to the Mainland China way across all its major dynasties where they enforce the stable stagnation of "harmony". Hence why China lacks in world-changing original inventions that weren't independently developed elsewhere after Europe managed to build its own printing presses back in the 1400s.
    4
  1244. Especially considering their wages were already becoming seen as too high. Plus there's still no real attractive alternative to invest the excess cash, so right back to deed promises and concrete shells it is.
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  1245. The channel "Lei's Real Talk" focuses more on the CPC itself, using its history and current actions to provide insight into the infighting within the Party and how this is influencing the gross incoherence in Chinese government policies.
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  1246. The PRC's new diplomatic campaign "might see some success in parts of Latin America, Africa, and South Asia. However in East Asia and in the West, these diplomatic efforts will see likely see limited to little success." So basically the Chinese government is trying to salvage international support from places that generally have the least experience and interest in the area.
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  1247. Only a matter of time until the people realize the connection between all these adverse "Acts of God" with the Mandate of Heaven.
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  1248. The Sunshine Policy is a flawed strategy as engagement and appeasement seems to work on democracies much moreso than autocracies. That said, it might be in the PRC's interest to actually converse and comfort the US and its allies (and stop constantly accusing them for being closed-minded) or risk a more threatening solidification of international will and arrangement against Beijing.
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  1249. They're going to have to hold their breath a lot longer though. There's basically nothing compelling the Party to return travel conditions back to normal now that they have instituted the "health kit" internal passports they need to track dissidents and stamp out unrest with all the other problems of "New China" flaring up: household debts, government debts, overwork, falling global interest and investment, HK, Tibet, etc.
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  1250. The push to buy sounds a lot like crypto HODLers trying to salvage their principal, except we understand more about the trustworthiness and trends of the PRC and aren't biting.
    4
  1251.  @ddegn China’s best products tend to come with Western level prices. Despite China’s industrial progress, it’s still true you get what you pay for.
    4
  1252. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests. There’s a point where being penny wise becomes pound foolish when a sudden shock comes along. We saw this when COVID disrupted the regular flow of goods that allowed Just In Time manufacturing. Europe experiences this now being so built around cheap piped gas from Russia. America is wise to divest and diversify its economy away from those who try to institute a “multipolar” world through promises of military conquest.
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  1253. What I've learned having lived in China is that the more pessimistic predictions are usually closer to correct. It's like the opposite of America where bad news and negative opinions are all you hear about especially nowadays, yet the biggest drawback isn't the lack of personal safety but the lack of convenient services.
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  1254. By not making enough parts to spare. Especially when you’re focused on launching glitzy new models, rather than build a reputation for reliability.
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  1255. I've heard Wall Street analysts calculated the true value of RMB at more like ¥9 per USD
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  1256. Right, the Policy recognizes a single "China" that includes Taiwan, but does not necessarily recognize Taiwan as under the sovereignty of the People's Republic. This is what most countries outside Africa and the Middle East follow, hence why they have separate "trade" relations with Taipei.
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  1257. Selling chewing gum. You can bring and chew it there, you just won't be able to buy any while on the island. Getting caught with drugs though is no joke.
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  1258. Ironically this is among the most sober analysis you can get about China, especially since Tony lives there. Anything less "clickbaity" is likely a state-sponsored outlet trying to convince you that the socially-open market-friendly China we knew of before has returned.
    4
  1259. ​ @YourHineyness The last time the US tried to demobilize and disengage, it got sucker punched by 9/11. America and especially China's neighbors would be more comforted knowing that Beijing or Pyongyang aren't organizing what Hamas managed a week ago.
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  1260. I wouldn’t consider an ICBC branch in Beijing to be a “small local bank in the middle of China”. I remember an incident of vaguely explained restrictions on withdrawals happening there like just last year.
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  1261. Hint: they’re usually labeled as “emerging markets”
    4
  1262.  @henli-rw5dw Which means multiple rule and protocol systems, competing hegemons, and ultimately fault lines for conflict. Remember the last time the world was “multipolar” it led into two world wars.
    4
  1263. Or they do know what the options are, but they all invariably involve the politically fatal deconstruction of the Party's image as "great, glorious, and correct".
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  1264. If China's long-term fundamentals have not changed... we are not worried enough 📉
    4
  1265. Yet another example joins the liberal democracies' "we told you so" conga line 🕺
    4
  1266. Chinese cars need to pass IIHS crash tests before even considering buying one for the high-speed American drives we often do.
    4
  1267. Also overestimation about the centrality of the Middle Kingdom in the minds and actions of people worldwide.
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  1268. When was the last time a Republican administration not privatizing profits at the expense of the rest of America? Probably Eisenhower?
    4
  1269. By itself it didn’t. What potential it proved possible left America absolutely shook.
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  1270. It's not cultural colonization, but the feeling on the street is that it smells a lot like colonization. I've spent years in both Mainland China and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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  1271. Hopefully this stage is merely The Empire Strikes Back by now.
    4
  1272. I wouldn't be surprised if the PRC soon goes the way of the USSR because they likewise overspent on their inflated security concerns as a militant one-party autocracy. There is a minimum share of taxes a government has to return to its citizens in the form of satisfactory policies and services.
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  1273. And power is a zero-sum game, because it's a relation of what one side is able to do that another side cannot. Thus the more they win, the more we lose.
    4
  1274. The Sunken Cost Fallacy is the only thing at this point keeping the Chinese housing market from collapsing faster than the buildings themselves.
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  1275. It sounds like the Taiwanese find it increasingly burdensome the thought of the multigenerational project of bringing democracy and more transparent governance to Mainland China; Better for Taiwan to rule itself well and convince what’s left of a post-Party Mainland to follow, rather than try to administer the changes and expenses directly.
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  1276. In speed, not in longevity. The PRC is entering a phase of permanent stagnation similar to what the USSR faced in the 1970s, a state that lasted a few decades more but not very well.
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  1277. I wouldn't be surprised if the balloon incident was meant to sabotage the first trip attempt, giving the Party another reason to blame America for something Beijing wanted anyway.
    4
  1278. That downward spiral of economic activity is why deflation is so dangerous, as much as consumers say they want prices to come down. Inflation by contrast is at least naturally self-correcting.
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  1279. There's a glaring difference in how well Taiwan handled their quarantine and treatment response compared to how botched up everything was on the Mainland. There's a reason the failed Dynamic Zero-COVID lasted for nearly three years.
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  1280. Taiwan would still be the bleeding edge of chip fabs. It's the developed older processes that are being exported for diversification and redundancy of TSMC experience. Taiwan is still going to be important as the ongoing common root for all those forks in knowledge.
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  1281. It would still be provocative though, since Russia already has plenty of lethal equipment to wield if it can get it from their domestic railheads to the front lines in Ukraine. China is already gaining suspicions over its true intents by granting Russia a financial umbilical cord.
    4
  1282. And it's not like seizing the physical plants automatically grant those bleeding edge chips either. Most of the value-added comes from Taiwan's extremely specialized engineers that keep fab yields within spec, and I doubt they'll be working to the same degree after a hostile takeover.
    4
  1283. ​ @EM-dw2yv  That 300m is profitable and accessible though.
    4
  1284. 2:01 International definition of "derisking": Making the global supply network more resilient from a structural downturn in China. Beijing's definition of "derisking": Making China more resilient from a structural downturn in China.
    4
  1285. While Taiwanese don’t necessarily want independence from “China”, they definitely desire independence from its Communist Party.
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  1286. Although the nationalism is likewise driven by official pressure, since the non-Mainlander quality controls of a foreign brand still commands emotional aspiration and flauntable value.
    4
  1287. The Party stuck to a narrative and plan that became obsolete, but they're far too prideful of their initial achievements and anxious about change to adapt accordingly. Plus all those "health kit" internal passports was useful in limiting personal movements and containing unrest.
    4
  1288. Right, it's way simpler and more convincing for me to say I'm an INTJ-A, rather than (remembering then) describing my Big-5 as O82 C69 E25 A61 N28.
    4
  1289. Ideally the traits should always be presented as a spectrum. Big-5 and HEXACO (basically Big-5 + honesty/humility) do a good job of showing the strength percentages since they're not defined with category results like MBTI does.
    4
  1290. China is also cutting up the passports and foreign visas of citizens trying to leave. There's a huge surge of demand to get out of the country, so it seems the Party is panicking about human and capital flight going forward.
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  1291. Yet the Chinese government has no trusted investment alternatives to real estate, especially now that they're also going after other large private companies as well. If going by work and wages alone, the average Chinese person is already economically stagnant, and that's not something that the Party wants its people to realize.
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  1292. It's natural that like 90% of businesses fold within 10 years (most within the first 2). But the faster commercial ventures can (re)start, the better off we all are in the economy as a whole.
    4
  1293.  @weird-guy  Ultimately inflation is demand outstripping supply, which much more than "money printer goes brrrrrr" we also have unresolved COVID supply chain shocks... and unrestrained concentration of supply sources reducing overall market competition and resilience.
    4
  1294. Same thing with Washington DC. Before A/C everyone who could would escape to New England during the summer months. It was only after chilling and dehumidifying the literal swamp that people -- and thus the federal government -- could work year-round 🏢
    4
  1295. They'll just leave like they do every summer, and opt to stay abroad.
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  1296. Similar could be said about HK, which when the Brits carved it out from China was a mere collection of pirate dens and fishing villages.
    4
  1297. Although looking forward the continuous prosperity promised only gets more difficult to achieve over time with the looming headwinds of unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, loss of easy profit opportunities, and industrial pollution further reducing the stock of arable land and potable water. However the CPC doesn't tolerate dissent or challenges to its power, but it might have to allow political competition to at least appear like they're the best choice, or risk ruling over an increasingly more suffocated and less productive China if it does survive intact. It's not obvious right now, but in a couple decades the cracks will become more visible. The question then is will the Party find flexibility to absorb those stresses, or will it double down on hardness and likely get more brittle in the process.
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  1298. Right, without a solid base of education and progressive policies that encourages young families to stay, Texas will depend on migrants to do the highly value-added work that is making the state "thrive".
    4
  1299. Allowing child labor again just traps them into a life of low production for the resources they'll need over the course of their life, especially since they'll also be paid a fraction for an adult's equivalent of work. Look at sub-Saharan Africa and notice how more children out of school and becoming just another street vendor isn't exactly making their family's financial situation any better.
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  1300. There is a lower limit on what a community and government have to provide, and most heartland states seem to be below that. Hence why there's not exactly a dramatic migration trend happening towards most low tax regimes either -- the required services and amenities just aren't there.
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  1301. Sadly Tibet is even harder to reach, not only because of lack of access from a land border but also China's even more restrictive permits to foreigners (Xīnjiāng at least they try to tout as a success story hence the permission to enter).
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  1302. I'm curious about your take on ASEAN countries, who are famously non-interventionist and try as much as possible to have every aid provider compete for their favors. Are they reaching the limits of avoiding choosing a side?
    4
  1303. Right, a Straits war is primarily in the air and at sea, which are not the weapons we're sending over to our allies to fight the land wars that are getting sparked.
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  1304. It's always better to design around cargo, because storage space can be easily made habitable but not the other way around. A warehouse can have internal walls installed for offices or shops. A barge can become a houseboat. A passenger 747 is literally an airfreighter with seats bolted on. Doing the reverse to a human-centered apartment, cruise ship, or A380 isn't nearly as practical.
    4
  1305. "It takes three years to build a ship, three-hundred to build a reputation." --Admiral Andrew Cunningham
    4
  1306. Bush Sr. invited in the PRC, Bush Jr. accelerated the trade deficit, and Trump ejected the US from a counterbalancing TPP. Big business Republicans are the driving cause of Communist China's rise.
    4
  1307. It would still be inefficient due to their pressure to keep people employed, undereducated because they still won't tolerate the dissent required for creativity and critical thought, and domineering from their anxiety to retain power at all costs.
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  1308. The Party has delusions about how well liked their "new China" is abroad. They took a scene straight from Wolf Warrior 2 and thought reality would be just like their movies.
    4
  1309. The preceding Korean Empire used basically the same flag as today's Republic of Korea, so it would make sense to use it as the symbol of the previously independent Korea 🇰🇷
    4
  1310. Movement of people and ideas indicates vibrancy. If foreigners aren't making the effort to visit or move in, this means stagnation if not a downward trend. This is politically mortal to a ruling Party who has no other real promise to fulfill than upward mobility.
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  1311. Floating cargo is so much cheaper that it's worth crossing oceans for, compared to trucking/railing it in with all the security measures and multiple border clearances that overland trade involves. Part of the reason China is so successful at manufacturing is because so many of their major population centers are accessible by barges if not container ships.
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  1312. Pre-democracy cultural values still dominate, which favors feudal hierarchy and agricultural expectations of discipline and life schedules (types of respectable jobs, when to be married and have kids by, etc). The "mess" you see in America comes from the bravery to question the validity of these old norms, especially as the world itself transitions to a post-industrial service economy that values flexibility and handling nuance. By contrast, the "prosperous" and "forward-thinking" China is surprisingly full of official hypocrisies, conflicts of state interests vs its own laws, and problems that fester to the point that they end up resorting to massively disruptive and expensive overreactions. China's true defense budget could be closer to that of the US already, if you include how much it spends on internal policing and interventions just to maintain political integrity.
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  1313. Builds that age and fall apart much faster than their completion date suggests, often without the skills transfer needed for the recipient to maintain and expand development with less assistance going forward. Meanwhile American bases are there because the host nation ultimately wants them there, because they provide a steady source of commerce and/or a convenient lightning rod to redirect domestic grievances; they're more in fear of what will happen without the US around to conveniently get dollars and give blame to.
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  1314. In the Smiling Curve model, manufacturing is the least value-added, most price-sensitive, and most substitutable stage of the production process, compared to R&D (IP development) in the beginning and Sales & Services (branding and aftermarket support) at the end. This explains why the middle-income trap exists for those who fail to independently develop disruptively creative industries (such as post-Zero-COVID China).
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  1315. Westernized Chinese, tempered by institutions like democracy and rule of law. Not like the CPC who rules with impunity driven by political convenience.
    4
  1316. Winner-take-all voting makes the result naturally converge on two sides: the one victor, and the collection of all losers. Unless this is altered to allow alternatives to naturally arise, the choices will always return to picking the lesser of two disappointments.
    4
  1317. Russia's underperformance certainly gives the PRC pause when looking at their similarly equipped and administered PLA, but that doesn't mean they're no longer a military threat to its neighbors. With the "success" of battling COVID influencing a 3rd term for Xi, I wouldn't be surprised if "success" in absorbing Taiwan drives his push for a 4th. They're definitely analyzing the mistakes and shortfalls of Putin's adventures to see if they can correct their own issues in time for the invasion, which is looking more inevitable as China circles the drain of aging, debt, and pollution that the unchallenged Party has no effective solution for.
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  1318. It's ironic that the Communist China's idea of its territory involves every land that it once held through imperial conquest. It's an open secret that China also wants Russia's southeastern corner too (i.e. Vladivostok), and there's serious discussion of what other lands that China could target for seizure or at least political subjugation much like how things were during their imperial glory days.
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  1319. Beidou is Chinese GPS, supposedly a bit more accurate (mostly important for drones) and features limited two-way messaging capabilities. Baidu is Chinese Google. It's actually not that good outside of Mainland websites, so a lot of Chinese will use their VPNs just to use real Google for whatever they're searching for.
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  1320. Though that was when they had bodies to spare. Now the military-age males are only-sons and shrinking in number rapidly.
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  1321. French saltiness could have implications for Europe and other places in their realm of influence, like parts of Africa and nearly all the South Pacific.
    4
  1322. Caspian Report is made by an Azeri, and though Azerbaijan is majority Muslim it’s even more moderate and secular than Türkiye. There’d be a bias towards the EU and against its former colonizers like Iran and Russia.
    4
  1323.  @masoodjalal1152  And security for practically all the world’s oceans, granting the majority of humanity free access to each other on and over international waters even if they’re solidly hostile to the Americans. It’s a more ideal scenario than peace for a tiny fraction of humanity in isolated pockets of the world, while billions of even more people than now suffer wars and genocides because of the local elite’s much more limited and exclusive prescription of how the world ought to be.
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  1324.  @Rishi123456789  NATO requires its members to be democracies with transparent civilian control over its militaries, which didn't exist in either Ukraine or Russia. Hence why neither were admitted in.
    4
  1325. Nuclear plants are extremely expensive, rising in lifetime operational costs, and slow to come online and generate a profit. And if you think Thorium is the savior, it is more expensive to process and its byproducts can still be weaponized into a nuclear warhead ☢️
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  1326. Right, those calls to unconditionally "Free Palestine" pose a very real threat for millions of Jews there who could quickly end up as a second-class jizya-taxed dhimmi minority in a (likely still conflict-filled) Islamist state.
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  1327. We'd have to convince enough "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" that it's ultimately not their best interest voting for policies and decisionmakers that promote corporate impunity.
    4
  1328. ​Because the treatments can induce good habits instead. Just losing some fat and gaining energy can turn into a habit of more movement and healthier eating -- staying fat and lethargic won't inspire that turnaround because you're spending limited willpower that other vital things demand like going to work and planning meets with loved ones.
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  1329. Even past the human rights issues, I’d be concerned about the quality of the structure itself. Much like in China, newer buildings in Dubai are infamous for having cut corners on construction.
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  1330. Every other disease didn't have nearly as many data points (i.e. infected people) to work with, nor the funding and attention to accelerate the analysis.
    4
  1331. The Wealth Tax described doesn't take effect for the first $50m. Above that level if you can't afford to spare a few thousand, there's something wrong with the way you work.
    4
  1332. Corporations definitely don’t pay as much as they should for the public benefits they enjoy, but I would be more cautious about defunding defense. Global trade and the suppression of price inflation that it allows would be immensely disrupted if adversaries are enabled to enforce a so-called “multipolar” world which caters to their more exclusionary ideologies; think more Ever Given blocking the Suez type of incidents but done by the actions and policies of a regional hegemon. There’s a reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Brittanica, and Pax Americana were named after the one state who ensured security over the trade routes for like a third of humanity at the time.
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  1333. Being short is an advantage in any vehicle, and might ironically stop our upward evolutionary pressures as we continue to climb into high performance machines. Notice how tankers, pilots, and astronauts are more often below rather than above average in size.
    4
  1334. More like center-right Dems are preventing the dramatic changes that provide more public support and mobility opportunity for the vulnerable, reducing potential popularity by making the overall platform look indecisive and weak compared to the disciplined reactionary Republicans.
    4
  1335. The problem is the types of IDs they accept, which are skewed and targeted accordingly. For example: accepting concealed-carry weapons permits (which requires owning a firearm and proving its legality), but not school or work IDs, and also making it inconvenient and expensive to get a general state-issued ID (selective DMV closures and staffing changes). On top of that they may want additional proof of residency, so even a passport that proves citizenship alone isn't enough.
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  1336. Winner-take-all system, which naturally settles on two sides: the winner, and the losers (plural). Hence no middle ground third party that can challenge them with a mix of both arguments and force a compromise.
    4
  1337. Right, the risk of teaching such specific technical information is that they're no longer relevant when you finally need it. Those algebra and calculus are useful not because of the equations you'd solve, but because you're developing the underlying mindset to understand how to build the equation and manipulate the numbers when similar situations arise -- things like figuring out how expensive gas really is driving abroad when it's priced in Kroners per Liter.
    4
  1338. Most Taiwanese however don't. The PRC has turned "Chinese" into a toxic label.
    4
  1339. "Right" at the sole judgment of Party censors. It can't violate the image of its core leadership as anything other than "great, glorious, and correct".
    4
  1340. Also have to consider what they're not saying, which is not less disturbing and not that different, especially if you replace guns with knives and LGBT rights with labor rights.
    4
  1341. The US is disappointing when you're expecting harmony and efficiency just with more money, but it's a relief when you're seeking the freedom the express and experiment. America didn't get rich and popular by doing the old ways better, but by constantly inventing new ways altogether.
    4
  1342.  @MrPloopi  Guerilla tactics may actually be what breaks the PRC, because I don't think the Chinese people will be sitting quietly after entire neighborhoods of only-sons "disappear" on deployment, especially when compounded with civilian ship traffic scared off by the crossfire and the reduced total amounts of food and fuel available getting rationed for an ideological fight overseas. If the rise in crackdowns during peacetime lately is any indication, internal security on the Mainland would blow through budgets at a surprising clip, leaving practically nothing to rebuild the nation for as long as a Taiwanese insurrection keeps going. Beijing's governance could quickly implode from the rules-flaunting selfishness and mistrust that Communist rule has incubated into the Mainland mindset. Remember this time it's China that'd be trying to impose its control over an armed and hostile populace on their home turf, and the PLA is quite inexperienced in both modern expeditionary warfare and famously inefficient at achieving objectives for the numbers of men committed into battle.
    4
  1343. Repression in the West is more selective, like by race and socioeconomic status, and it's widely accepted to criticize and challenge the system. Authoritarian regimes can't tolerate such dissent.
    4
  1344. Right, the West probably doesn't have to do much as the Mainland begins to implode from aging, debt, pollution, corruption, and a lack of easy profits. By the time Millennials reach retirement age, the narrative won't be so filled with China Rising stories, and could be more about rising internal unrest as it settles into relative decadence even without a shot fired.
    4
  1345.  @leahcasey2678  And the US Navy probably let it do so while it was gathering metrics on the sub in its stalking mode, as well as prevent unnecessary escalation. The sub's surfacing may have been to "save face" by claiming "look how close we got", instead of "I've been found and can't shake them off".
    4
  1346. Half a year later, airlines increasingly under threat of going bankrupt. Where did 10 years of profits go? Probably some executive's stock options following another round of buybacks.
    4
  1347.  @guttenaug947  It's hard to shame an American about anything, but for some reason shaming customers into tipping made it through.
    4
  1348. Military lasers are focusing on low altitude drones and vehicle/aircraft sensors, which are just as fragile but as dangerous as a full artillery barrage if left without any response.
    4
  1349. That's part of the reason Republicans fail to actually be tough on immigration like they say they would. Actually securing the borders would seriously hurt the workforce and profits of their corporate sponsors.
    4
  1350. More like if the network goes down and you need to pay for essentials in the meantime. Cash itself is not invulnerable -- the issuing government could change the design or otherwise declare an older bill invalid, and then you just end up with slips of paper whose volatility shoots up and buying power becomes increasingly questionable.
    4
  1351. The statistics might be already after such "job guarantees". Chinese universities are directed not to confer degrees until the graduate has a job lined up, and so enroll them on paper in some useless task to check the box on the 1 hour per week as their "employment".
    4
  1352. Just like an addict isn’t “hooked” on drugs. You don’t have to desire it to depend on it.
    4
  1353. Sounds like insufficient route planning, which is going to remain crucial until a standardized EV charging network becomes as ubiquitous as gas stations. Being a Millennial, I'd wager this break-even point will happen sometime before I'm eligible to draw Social Security.
    4
  1354.  @helloim3j  Right, the risk with debit cards is that if you get hacked it's your money that's gone, and primarily your effort to get it back. With credit cards it's the bank's money, and the bank has entire systems and staff to do investigation and recovery.
    4
  1355. It'll cost you though, like paying business class for the coach itineraries you'd be booking. Those steep fares back then were how the "golden age of flying" seemed so luxurious.
    4
  1356. ​ @ThePilotGear China developed national technical standards for its builds and equipment, which we'd be best to adapt instead of these constant one-off designs we keep doing. China's easy property seizures (due to state ownership of all land) and increasingly shoddy build quality though are best not copied.
    4
  1357. Every major project in the US after the Interstate buildout has been a one-off design. We keep trying to innovate where innovation isn't fundamentally necessary.
    4
  1358. It will only be great for those who have enough cash on hand to outbid corporate buyers. Banks will not be lending out new mortgages at that time.
    4
  1359. Yeah, would be nice if a Honda Fit or Toyota C-HR were still offered at American dealerships.
    4
  1360. ​ @NainKaigo Right, senior entitlements are by far the biggest spend of our tax dollars... and that money gets spent largely on stupidly expensive terminal care extending the lives of those who no longer productively contribute -- often voting against the interests of the youth and young families whose payroll taxes fund those very programs.
    4
  1361. Although how young were they when they got hitched? Average age of first marriage is now in the 30s, so waiting that long puts them in "geriatric pregnancy" conditions with the increased costs and risks that entails against both mother and offspring even with modern fertility treatments.
    4
  1362. An unrestrained "free market" freely hoards wealth for its owners at the expense of everyone and everything else. That's why prices are as high as the market "is willing to pay".
    4
  1363. Tech in general is has been the most guaranteed path of upward mobility since AOL CDs was a regular thing in the mail.
    4
  1364. Right, it takes like a year to get hired into federal service, but slow as it is at least the process remains straightforward compared to the private sector who keep reinventing their HR practices.
    4
  1365. ​ @smh9902 It doesn't have to provide all the power, but reduce demand on the external grid. The only reason to be totally solar-powered would be if you are or choose to disconnect from the grid.
    4
  1366. Military and government have published pay scales, as well as COLA and allowance rates that anyone can view. Combine that with education and housing support especially when ordered overseas and it turns out the public sector gets pretty attractive considering the guaranteed employment.
    4
  1367. Not matching what China does against American and other foreign companies there just makes us a pushover. If anything we’ve been gracious for too long.
    4
  1368. I'd rather get new whenever possible too, because then I don't have to judge the previous owner over specifics of its maintenance and history they can conveniently forget to mention about.
    4
  1369. The legal obligation for corporations to profit above all other interests doesn't help. They're only able to screw over American workers so much due to legalized labor unions, so costs are passed to the consumer as higher prices for lower quality (aka engineered obsolescence).
    4
  1370. Ironically it's this reliance on tips that invites the abuse. Servers paid well regardless of tips would be more confident in ejecting rude and abusive customers.
    4
  1371. Apparently the foresight to pay off your bank balances consistently is also the foresight to predict and avoid car collisions.
    4
  1372. There's still usage that are best paid by actual riders, much like how there's copays on clinic visits even with health insurance, or fuel taxes after annual vehicle registration.
    4
  1373. It's a problem throughout YouTube, especially ones with a financial focus. YouTube doesn't seem to care since these sockpuppets provide "engagement".
    4
  1374. We teach our kids imagery and stereotypes by race, and that does affect purchasing decisions from mundane aisle magazines to the prospects of an investment when you see a company's leadership and clientele.
    4
  1375. The "cultural issues" stem from a lack of money and opportunity, especially by losing any gains from being overly targeted for policing and passed over for not having that subjective "potential" employers seek.
    4
  1376.  @MrBrewman95 Most new moves are going to the blue bastion cities and their associated suburbs.
    4
  1377. Right, if anything the average CA homeowner is getting richer because they're the only ones able to afford the still highly in-demand housing market. Unfortunately that also means a greater separation with the have-nots who are not mobile enough to move out of the state too.
    4
  1378. Commercial requirements and residential ones are considerably different. 24-hour occupation, external windows, and individual bathrooms per tenant are demands that offices don't have to deal with.
    4
  1379. 18 for adulthood is a very recent concept, for most of human history childhoods ended closer to 10~14
    4
  1380. Beijing does consider everyone of Chinese ancestry to be essentially their subjects. This is why there's such a major campaign by the CPC's United Front to influence the HK and Taiwanese communities worldwide.
    4
  1381. Expensive gasoline is the price of keeping the air breathable through the unique cleaner-burning blend that California mandates. No other state suffers so many cars having its exhaust getting trapped from prevailing winds blowing straight into a nearby mountain range -- that's how LA Smog originally got so infamous.
    4
  1382. You got great service when the base ticket cost the equivalent of business class today. You can thank deregulation for making everything cheap.
    4
  1383. It goes slow enough that sudden turns are practically not an issue. A sudden gust of wind though is a different story.
    4
  1384. You might want to cross-check who told you that, and what they consider as activity in Russia’s “economy”.
    4
  1385. Autocrats like the CPC get more aggressive when they’re comfortable. Deterrence is more productive than appeasement, because then it compels the autocrat to direct its threats elsewhere and convince its neighbors that they can afford to stand down.
    4
  1386. The ROC doesn't claim independence, they just understand that they are at least from the Mainland.
    4
  1387. @tekinfomedi The TNI could actually fight a conventional war, owing to its history with campaigns like Konfrontasi and East Timor. The AFP is almost totally skewed towards domestic counterinsurgency… much like the ROK Army at the start of the Korean War.
    4
  1388. Hot climate also affects the native culture, which is not as adaptable. Really the only success story is Singapore, which didn't exist independently until 1965 and it wasn't even aiming to go its own way.
    4
  1389.  @Wiers75q  They fly China's flag, meaning it's owned and operated by a Chinese entity and a subject of Chinese laws. The crew can come from anywhere, mixing nationals is normal especially with subordinate deckhands due to economic convenience.
    4
  1390. Probably discussions about how to exfiltrate Chinese capital from Mainland jurisdiction, disguised as "investment".
    4
  1391. It seems like the knowledge is there, but people increasingly fear the legal consequences of having a conversation.
    4
  1392. Most likely they both remain US citizens with permanent residencies in China (which makes them technically eligible under IOC policy to compete for China). Neither of them show up in the US government's quarterly report of persons who chose to expatriate.
    4
  1393. Conveniently ignoring how their "right way" is no longer available (Bracero program, overseas military enlistment) if not downright illegal (merely surviving a boat ride to Ellis Island without ID).
    4
  1394.  @ConCon75  Any organization that runs on authoritarianism and social hierarchy tends to attract fascists. It's efficient for the task but also psychologically toxic. This is why it's important to ensure they remain subservient to civilian leadership and not be allowed to control the wider society.
    4
  1395. Corporations and intelligence agencies disagree.
    4
  1396. If the mines are still open by then
    4
  1397. Oil as fuel though is starting on its way out though. Burning it constitutes like 2/3 of petroleum consumption, and the electrification of transport will massively cut the want for oil.
    4
  1398. Or KAL would like the revenue and savings to help complete its upcoming buyout of Asiana
    4
  1399. The second deck makes up part of the structural integrity of the fuselage, so sadly it cannot be so easily removed. Plus it's weight capacity is only 28% more than a 747 despite having 60% more space, and used 747s for conversions are easy to come by. It would be interesting though if the main deck could be converted to ULD cargo (passengers on top deck only), effectively making an A380 into combi. That way there's less pressure to fill a jumbo's worth of passengers on each trip.
    4
  1400. You get what you pay for, and CA remains the most desirable state. Low tax regimes have low taxes for a reason.
    4
  1401. I wouldn't deem any car at Level 5 until it can consistently negotiate the constant chaos of India's roads. No human driver is really replaced until all human driving is superseded, including in crowded developing countries and their not-so-California climate.
    4
  1402. Doesn't seem Californians want to move to Florida anyway. Everyone I know who moved to FL were all East Coasters with comparatively more self-centered attitudes.
    4
  1403. At least until globalization slows down and you find these city-states literally cannot afford to live let alone remain safe without vital cheap imports from abroad.
    4
  1404. Because the value-added from tech is outpacing the fall from everything else. It’s been that way since PCs started replacing typewriters, and it shows in the growing divide between productivity and wages.
    4
  1405. Senior benefits is pretty much the biggest set of drains on America's budget. So if young Americans thought we lack usable public-funded support before, what few programs we have will be even more strapped for cash with the surge of Peak Boomers who failed to develop a post-career financial plan.
    4
  1406. Sucks that plug-in hybrids were produced at niche rates and always sold at near luxury market prices. I would have bought one a long time ago had they been more available and affordable.
    4
  1407. HSR won't get as wide as the Interstate System, but it will be a growing transportation option compared to cars, automated or otherwise. The speed of entry and proximity of stations can make it competitive to airlines, and the simple efficiency of rail can make it economical compared to maintaining heavy battery piles, drivetrains, and computer updates.
    4
  1408. It helps that in China the state owns all the land, you just lease it. Plus they have to provide a hard product because the people's tolerance for continued unchallenged rule rides on its delivery, so the state builds quickly to the point that their structures show clear signs of rot shortly after completion and threatens to collapse halfway through its intended lifespan.
    4
  1409. If your job is fully remote like that, there's nothing stopping your company from instead hiring someone local who does 1/3 of the work at 1/10 of your wage.
    4
  1410. ​ @hopo2hopo If you want to see real destruction, try the doom spiral of deflation. This was common during the gold standard when devastating busts were only reversed by finding more gold through conquest and colonization. The controlled inflation that fiat enables provides a buffer during cyclical downturns, and prevents rent-seeking as the rewards of past labors are made to slowly degrade over time.
    4
  1411. "Farm" for tax purposes to boot. Not actually producing substantial agriculture.
    4
  1412. China operated under the assumption that money can buy love. Now that even African locals openly complain of Chinese colonization through their corrupted governments falling into Chinese debt traps to build marginal-quality cookie cutter building projects, China is quickly developing more coercive forms of securing its interests.
    4
  1413. ​They did, but structurally the problem lays with the experimental use of aluminum instead of tried and true steel.
    4
  1414. 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
  1415. 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
  1416. 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
  1417. 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
  1418.  @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
  1419. 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
  1420. Right, the timelines might be off, but the trendlines are solid.
    4
  1421. 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
  1422. Certainly more productive than increasing our debt trying to keep afloat pricey benefits for terminal retirees.
    4
  1423. 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
  1424.  @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
  1425. 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
  1426. 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
  1427. Those meds only get sold because the underlying healthcare service continues to recommend/prescribe them.
    4
  1428. 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
  1429. ​ @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
  1430. The ROCAF is likely not concerned with those flights on the Mainland side other than watching for inward movement. It's when the PLAAF crosses the median line where they're scrambling jets for, and the PLA is probing deep past this line sometimes even circumnavigating the whole island.
    4
  1431. In terms of irritations and quality it's like night and day compared to Taiwan, the "China" that China thinks itself to be.
    4
  1432. Guided bombs are much cheaper, and can be dropped from almost anything that flies. The US recently came out with a bolt-on JDAM kit that can track moving targets, and a 2000lb Mk84 approaches the damage of an anti-ship missile at like 1/20th of the price (there are smaller and cheaper Mk82 and 83 bombs too). Combine it with drones and you'd end up with the same effect with none of the human risk on the launcher's end.
    4
  1433. It's only a small disconnected corner of Chicago that's problematic. I was just there a few months ago for the first time and was surprised how clean, scenic, and sociable the place is. Even the few bums were genuinely grateful for handouts, unlike vagrants I've encountered elsewhere including other countries.
    4
  1434. Yet right next door is Botswana, often lauded as the model of competent governance on the continent. Which is itself a feat being a single resource-based economy (mined diamonds) which usually institutes modes that are more extractive and elitist.
    4
  1435. ​ @firdauslathiff5570  That security is only granted Singapore has open access to trade. A blockade from M'sia and Indo would see that food supply drop quickly, as there's very little arable land left on the islands to farm from. It might survive with airlifts and occasional blockade runners similar to the Berlin Airlift, but S'pore has twice as many mouths to feed, distances to Thailand and Australia are way farther, air forces don't have nearly as many surplus paradrop-capable planes on hand, and that's before considering the active targeting of communications and vehicles that West Berliners didn't have to deal with.
    4
  1436. The problem with China's HSR network is that most lines are physically too weak to handle freight trains. Passengers and mail only pay so much, hauling cargo is far more profitable (it's the same case with airlines). What makes the US Interstates so valuable is that it handles both trucks and commuters (it was originally designed for massive military convoys). China may have seen a similar benefit if they instead installed beefy quad tracks where freight trains regularly flowed in both directions while G trains blow past.
    4
  1437. TSMC isn't as concerned with big countries like China and the US, as their people and facilities will inevitably be more spread out for an industry that demands quick (24 hours or less) in-person access to its entire human capital to take care of production issues among its thousands of simultaneous fabrication lines. It's most potent competition would instead come from similarly sized South Korea.
    4
  1438. It quite a neoliberal capitalist thought to make considerations in quarters and not generations. Disney is known for creating nostalgia that we keep coming back to, and those older orthodox Disney diehards who are upset today won't be the more nuanced diehards who will be enjoying their childhood memories in the next 20~50 years.
    4
  1439. In China the Chinese company holds the controlling stake. That's not the same in America where they can be fully foreign owned.
    4
  1440. More chargers too. Once charging gets more convenient than lining up at the gas pump, the shift to EV will crystallize.
    4
  1441. Still rockin a 6 year old LG V20, as it has all the hardware feature I often use (Dual SIM, Micro SD, headphone jack, etc). Lineage OS just came out with Android 13 for it, luckily I have a spare to experiment on while the bugs are ironed out. Hopefully with the EU mandate for removable batteries we'll finally get a true replacement for it.
    4
  1442. That's what I do, personal and experimental apps on my Android (maintained via LineageOS), work-related and high-reliability apps on my iPhone.
    4
  1443. Only recently perhaps, I still use a 6 year old phone because of physical features no longer offered (replaceable battery, dual physical SIM, SD card reader, headphone jack, etc), and modern software bloat makes it annoying to use at times.
    4
  1444.  @gw3485.  It wasn't about your actual grandma, just the thought of a 40-something year old grandmother and how old everyone would need to be for the grandkid to be mature enough to make such a comment 😅
    4
  1445. Though they'll gladly take your attention if it means a reliable source of cash from somebody else paying for it. The whole social media industry and much of the internet in general use this model.
    4
  1446. While open source should be taught as an option, FOSS distributions still have a ways to go before they are intuitive and compatible enough to replace the proprietary programs that paid for inputs from graphic artists and UX professionals. I say this as someone who uses FOSS applications as much as practical, and had installed and used LibreOffice for a couple months while waiting for a replacement to a stolen laptop.
    4
  1447. 15:04 The "problem" with feminism isn't equality of genders economically, it's the underlying economics that are hostile to time off from a mindset of making money which lets people create and raise a family.
    4
  1448. ​ @Udhu_XOXO China is a state capitalist country. Ideological Communism died with Mao and Xi knows returning wholeheartedly to that model would be disastrous. The original argument still stands.
    4
  1449.  @awijaya2116  There's also the Lebanese in West Africa and South America 🇱🇧
    4
  1450. I remember even the popular Nongfu Spring bottled water had an odd taste to it. I'd rather grab a Watsons or really anything else from the fridge instead.
    4
  1451. It's always been selfish and confrontational because that's how the corporate-political alliance treated workers back then, and often still does today.
    4
  1452. Rules, regulations, laws, and protocols are the corpus of everything gone wrong that we’ve experienced in the past.
    4
  1453. Was in Běijīng during Zero COVID. Never got as severe as Shànghǎi but still alarming to see entire gated communities randomly further fenced in and guarded, with mandatory swab testing requirements also suddenly changing by the day. During the Shànghǎi lockdowns the food distribution was so uneven and inefficient that some of our colleagues there survived literally only through donations addressed directly to them that our office branch had sent.
    4
  1454. Powered kickboards are among the most dangerous things I've ever ridden, and I've been licensed from motorbikes to combat trucks. It's the small wheels and standing still position that turns a decent crack or pebble into an automatic faceplant, and you're often not wearing a helmet like you really ought to.
    4
  1455. ​It wasn't simply firearm restrictions as it was the culture war of the Civil Rights Movement delegitimizing race as a legal barrier, which horrified traditional white supremacists. Gun possession was one of the things they could rally around, along with anti-abortion and segregation. We've since established professional military and police forces who can handle the falling levels of widespread violent crime as leaded gas-breathing Boomers and Gen X aged out of their most aggressive phase of life, and all the historical organized militias were absorbed into their state National Guard a century ago. Now that the individual right to Arms has been long dissociated from the individual duties and responsibilities to bear them effectively, what America is left with is a bunch of scattered individuals who have no common guidance on how to communicate and fight together as a self-organized and well-regulated Militia like the Founders envisioned.
    4
  1456. ↖ This guy. Not always though, occasionally I'll buy in 🍟
    4
  1457. Or just wait like 10 years and let the moon-based Islamic calendar naturally regress against the solar seasons. A Hajj is something you only need to do once anyway.
    4
  1458. There's this whole field called "geopolitics", with entire organizations dedicated to analyzing and advising about the intersections of physical location and power projection.
    4
  1459. Like any politician or executive, what he says are signals not to be ignored. Countering what he says he wants could require actions of deterrence or redirection.
    4
  1460. I've been saying that since like Vice City came out. Hawaii is the ideal place for a GTA game: remote islands, varied urban and natural scenery, lots of places to speed and hide, plenty of visitors, underlying local community tensions, considerable government presence, and still America ★★★☆☆☆
    4
  1461. What it doesn't need are retirees who consume resources much like younger workers without contributing nearly as much back.
    4
  1462. The geography can also explain why Mexico accepted losing half its north to the US, as the central government had very little appreciable influence there compared to the Americans and separatist movements was already a major issue (not only Texas but the entire region) when the US finally invaded.
    4
  1463. That's the dilemma that basically everyone in "New China" faces: it's impossible to really get ahead without engaging in something illegal or unethical, often not enforced immediately and kept hanging over you for selective punishment at the convenience of those in power.
    4
  1464. It's technically more like an icebox, which were the predecessors to the powered refrigerator.
    4
  1465. Etymology doesn’t confer ownership. India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Mexico likewise don’t have legal claim to the waters named after them.
    4
  1466. That's because China's economy seized up during Dynamic Zero-COVID, and has been sputtering ever since. Australia's stability came largely from China's constant needs for Aussie minerals up until then.
    4
  1467. Considering all the problems this project had (massive delay, massive budget overrun, waste dumping, significant damage to buildings during tunneling, leaking tunnels, etc), I wouldn't be surprised if Indonesia brought back Japan for at least quality control on the project management.
    4
  1468. More like they belonged to nobody specific at the time of independence since they were naturally uninhabitable, and nobody wanted to take responsibility for navigation aids on what are little more than shallow water dive sites and birdshit-covered shipping hazards; the concept of the EEZ didn't arise until the 1980s. China only claimed the 9 Dash Line in response to a similar French claim during their gasping last breath administering Indochina after the end of WWII. China's claims of historical sovereignty overseas are dubious -- even Táiwān wasn't brought to Mainland rule until the Qing Dynasty -- as China classically uses identifiable waterways to demarcate administrative borders.
    4
  1469. Ironically people in Shànghǎi are starving because there's not enough manpower to make deliveries in time. It seems logistics is low priority compared to cordon security in terms of how the government staffs these outbreaks.
    4
  1470. Watching North Korea, because the PRC can’t verifiably do so themselves.
    4
  1471. It's not growing the economy though. Passengers and mail don't pay that much, so they're just wearing down metal going such high speeds at half capacity so frequently. The story would be a lot different had China Rail built them as freight lines instead or in parallel, as hauling cargo is far more profitable and would greatly help reduce the number of overloaded trucks on China's roads.
    4
  1472. Not all of them. For every turnaround story there's like 3 or 4 more locales that aren't seeing the same success because Chinese buyers are tapped out.
    4
  1473. Or they were caught out in the bathroom or aisle when the plane dropped
    4
  1474. VLS takes up the same amount of space, but are all ready to fire instead of waiting on reloads from a less robust autoloader system. If air defense was the ships primary concern, the VLS cells would be filled as such just like space taken up in an older magazine would.
    4
  1475. There isn't much below deck underneath the VLS systems, they already take up almost all the vertical height beneath the main deck.
    4
  1476. Probably not worth it since of all the asbestos. Besides, Australia is full of deserted land.
    4
  1477. More like if you have no influence over who is controlling them.
    3
  1478.  @luisfilipe2023  Money itself is not, but how it's distributed is. That's the power.
    3
  1479. Marriage where it is happening doesn't necessarily lead to children. Childless spouses are a growing trend even while just getting hitched is happening less often.
    3
  1480. Japanese culture doesn't like used homes in general, so it's not a huge shock to force total rebuilds.
    3
  1481. Wondering how much one of the armies would pay for such a drone 🤔
    3
  1482. I fly regularly enough that I just wait til I’m in the air with an entertainment system that’s already included with the seat to watch most movies nowadays 💺🍿 Even then it’s a surprisingly often flight that I still don’t find anything interesting to watch 😕
    3
  1483. Potentially good scripts are dismissed by conservative movie producers who aren’t so willing to experiment outside the few plotlines they know get returns.
    3
  1484. Healthcare like other utilities is a natural monopoly due to the time sensitivity and huge information asymmetry between actors -- you're not going to shop around for the best ER rates in the middle of a heart attack, and you'd need to graduate medical school yourself to even start challenging the diagnosis and prescriptions of a doctor (even then it's not recommended). This is why the patient-facing side of healthcare is so easily broken when allowing the "free market" to dictate payments and treatments -- each provider effectively enjoys substantial monopoly powers themselves, and especially for-profit schemes come at the expense of the time of doctors and service quality of patients in the exam room. Resolving this seems to involve having a nonprofit accountable administrator (like a government, as much as you refuse to believe it to be one) strictly regulate if not control healthcare like it does every other utility. Top-end services that the rich enjoy might see a hit, but that's not what most patients require anyway. Being constantly abroad, I've benefitted from treatments in places where the whole population pays into the system -- even as a foreign tourist the higher "out of pocket" expense for me still ends up cheaper and services much better due to the collectivized costs of the underlying medical infrastructure.
    3
  1485. Black as in “in the shadows” of back alleys and hidden rooms.
    3
  1486. I didn't say any of them collapsed, they're all just going nowhere fast. This is especially hazardous to the CPC whose continued legitimacy and tolerance by the Chinese people relies on substantial indefinite progress down to the personal level.
    3
  1487. America was here before basically 100 years ago during the age of laissez-faire trusts. Young (and not so young) workers would protest for better pay and conditions, and managers responded with police-backed violence. An anarcho-communist movement grew as a result, and political takeover was ultimately stopped by compromises of collectivization programs such as strengthened labor unions and the advent of Social Security. Such "socialism" would have to be revisited before younger generations remain enchanted by more extreme leftist ideas when they end up replacing those in power in due course.
    3
  1488. I have a social science degree, yet work as an IT manager. Turns out pulling cable and tweaking configurations is straightforward, what’s harder is steering human users towards best practices and away from policy violations through the mentally easiest and least annoying methods.
    3
  1489. The US is the greatest example of success by a former colony 🇺🇸
    3
  1490. It'd probably cause even more panic about China's future, as it would signal a critical shortage of funds.
    3
  1491. A market that hesitates to buy and only gets more spendthrift as they age into retirement and volatile gig work.
    3
  1492. Rebels have hope for a nicer future. Gangs are just trying to survive through local domination.
    3
  1493.  @markjankiewicz2949 The key going forward will be securely communicating valid targets for all those sea mines and drones, which the West has a clear advantage over Russia with and a practically isolated China doesn’t look much more competent on.
    3
  1494.  @cityonfoot6023  Right, it's best to spread the density to some balance between the Kanto-like craziness and the dull rural loneliness that everyone abandoned.
    3
  1495. It depends on education level and religiosity, but shrinking families is a phenomenon happening worldwide including in aggressively pro-natal Africa and South Asia.
    3
  1496. Waterways provide access, we'll continue to live by the water regardless of where it rises to. The bigger issue will be moving to the new uphill for coastal cities on flatlands where higher ground can be miles away, or if a small island not at all.
    3
  1497. Not necessarily, all the delays and questionable quality have irritated the Indonesians; rumor is they're approaching Japan again to complete the rest of the line to Surabaya. Plus there's growing protest about Chinese mining operations, and questions about those crew cut-hairstyled Chinese "tourists" crawling all over Riau. That's on top of their classic suspicions about anyone identified as atheist, Communist, and/or Chinese.
    3
  1498. Who would use up their phone's entire memory recording a kid's screams for 8 hours straight?
    3
  1499. It was a different time back then when airfares started at what we pay for business class today, so of course it was more pleasant with the lack of plebes.
    3
  1500. The F-35 could be that aircraft carrier, having line of sight pencil beam links with wingman drones to help prevent them from getting remotely hacked and going astray.
    3
  1501. Would have made more sense before the Teddy Roosevelt administration, when the GOP was still the solid progressive side.
    3
  1502. Not sure what Poland would gain as a US state, but the Polish people have been consistently pro-American through independence and occupation. In fact a Polish exile Casimir Pułaski is dubbed the Father of American Cavalry for his leadership developing the Continental Army’s cavalry forces during the American Revolution, and is one of only a handful of people granted honorary US citizenship.
    3
  1503. Russia actually has combat experience though, and if they're performing this poorly (especially in logistics under fire) the PLA's failures would be even more dramatic. Remember the last time the Mainlanders tried a mass deployment, they got routed by unprepared reservists in Vietnam.
    3
  1504. Stimulants feel good for the near future, but long term causes horrible damage. That's what China is experiencing with its overcapacity in apartment shells and passenger transport infrastructure, and what Russia will encounter as its richest customers set up permanent alternatives to their pipelines.
    3
  1505. Swiss gun culture would a huge lesson. They actually practice the "well regulated Militia" qualification through screening and training along with enforced proper storage and carry, unlike in America where simply being alive (and not black) grants you the absolute unconditional option to unilaterally threaten anyone else with instant death at your whim.
    3
  1506. That only came about because there were two major adversaries to worry about after WWII: the USSR and the PRC. Before then the US was quite isolationist, wanting at most to deter and diminish European control in the Western Hemisphere.
    3
  1507. I liken America's overdramatized politics to walking: it's in constant reaction to inherent unsteadiness that you actually take a step forward. Some steps might be bigger than advisable, some are real tepid, some might go sideways, but as long as one side isn't allowed to overly dominate the movement, the entire body is not that likely to faceplant.
    3
  1508. It might have been a consideration of leaving Afghanistan for China to take... right when China's productivity has begun stalling and creditors have begun calling.
    3
  1509. Democracy is a fundamental interest of the US. If defending Taiwan leads to breaking the unchallengeability of the CPC on the Mainland, that's what America will do 🇺🇸🇹🇼
    3
  1510.  @peekaboopeekaboo1165  What's inaccurate was the _when_, not the _if_. The CPC lately has only accelerated instead of reversed its self-made fundamental problems of aging, debt, and pollution. I've seen firsthand the collapse of optimism in China especially among the younger folks -- there's a real danger in the coming years of China stagnating and getting overtaken from collective inaction and anomie, which will only raise discomforting questions about how the people actually benefit from the Party.
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  1511. The public sector has to exist to fund things that are required yet short-term unprofitable to a privatized industry, like infrastructure, education, and regulation. Though there is a balance to be achieved and China is certainly way biased towards its overbearing government.
    3
  1512. Aviation components, medical equipment, and agricultural goods of all sorts are some of the things China depends on the US for. That's before considering the education and tourism to Chinese visitors which if considered exports the US has a massive trade surplus on.
    3
  1513. Short of guaranteed free housing and healthcare for life on VA compounds in major cities, recruits are usually looking for something much earlier in the contract like education support and sign-up bonuses.
    3
  1514. Problem is our most advanced equipment could get used up quickly, and then we really are back to obsolete kit if there's any that we hadn't already disposed of. Compare that with the PLA where their stuff may not be the best, but at least it's new and thus not soaking up as much resources in maintenance and upgrades for a while. Plus with the consolidation of competitors, we lack the multiple independent lines of effort that China's SOEs also face, but we don't have a command economy that streamlines something to happen. Much of our efforts are wasted on compliances as demanded by America's voters for the government to "save money" on strictly the lowest bidder without much consideration of product quality or vendor reputation, as well as paying for various levels of bean counters often working on a 12 month budget that wasn't authorized until a few months into the fiscal year.
    3
  1515. Yes climate change is an identified threat that would cause conflicts to flare up, along with the associated supply chain disruptions and mass migrations. Also reducing our need of fossil fuel for static assets like generators also reduces the risk to supply lines and the personnel who are tasked on them, because trucking fuel between bases is among the most hazardous of missions.
    3
  1516. You think that's bad? You should hear how badly they butcher Chinese and Korean names.
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  1517. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were definitely real people. But yeah the zealous veneration of those guys and their ideals certainly creates unnecessary aggression.
    3
  1518. Like 5 or 6, only 2 or 3 of whom might have completed school due to having to split family funds. Children are surviving but this realization hasn't reached young couples yet, and its harming the prospects of their children as uneducated ones get left further behind economically. Plus there's their church/mosque/traditional parents pushing them to "Birth 'em all and let God sort it out".
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  1519. Sadly the politicians who advocated it are not around long enough to be held accountable.
    3
  1520. That's if China's economy keeps growing at the same rate, which is already slowing and likely to stall due to unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and pervasive chemical pollution. There's a reason why the PRC has gone all "wolf warrior" and its "Dynamic Zero-COVID" measures are expected to persist: their economy is no longer reliable on indefinite growth and the distraction from politics provided from delivering on promises of future wealth.
    3
  1521. The host country also has to accept and support the immigrants like any native resident when they do communicate and try to contribute. Notice how more ethnically-identified Europe tends to have more problems with newcomers compared to the immigrant-driven Western Hemisphere.
    3
  1522. It’d be convenient for the West, but that shah has to maintain legitimacy with his subjects. Check out what happened with the previous regime in Iran.
    3
  1523. The PRC is heading that way too, talk to any Chinese national as a foreigner (not a fellow citizen/potential Party informant) and you'd see they know a surprising amount of "unpatriotic" knowledge and embarrassing news. The turn towards uncritical nationalism and state control over the markets hints at the Party running out of options to continue its unchallenged rule. A lot of critics say the US is going that way too, but it's been on the "verge of collapse" since 1812. Part of the reason it's so durable is because it holds the potential for revolution every year or so through periodic voting. Plus America thrives on chaos and loosely-defined limits; arguably the disturbing pushback comes from when those societal red lines start getting found and established to the detriment of the privileged.
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  1524. They have their freedom, the US just doesn't want to make direct trade with Cuba. Yet despite a literal world full of willing alternatives, the Cuban government still manages to screw up the wider nation in support of its much narrower "security" interests.
    3
  1525. Blockades are legally considered a full act of war, and may be reacted to accordingly by Taipei’s allies. Plus the PLAN hold on the Pacific side will be tenuous at best since they’ll be on the opposite end of Taiwan who will resist any missions to support the vessels out there, especially since the eastern half of the island is where all the defensible mountains are.
    3
  1526. That’s the ideal. But as the PLA continues to plus up its capabilities, Taipei must improve its overall counterforce to match.
    3
  1527. I've survived the other extreme, having lived in the low-tax weak-state libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa, where personal family and faith dominate public policy. It's just as dangerous and dismal as "collectivist" nations, but they trade tangible improvements like decent infrastructure and industry for blind optimism and self-confidence. That environment of local gang territories, strongman entrenchment, arbitrary "rules" and "fees", random violent petty crimes, and harsh punishments with zero deterrent effect (for with nothing substantial to fear losing, any risk becomes promising) is where I see America heading should MAGA with its much more narrowed sense of compassion continue to advance.
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  1528. The bottom line of government is continuity, not profit. Resilience is the direct competitor to efficiency, and this is why the public sector cannot and should not run like a business... where like 90% of new ventures go belly up within 10 years.
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  1529. I’ve driven across TX multiple times. I don’t see Texan freeway designs working beyond the cheap, flat, and seismically quiet locations they enjoy.
    3
  1530. It's not just childcare and parental leave, but the two decades of education (especially creative ones which dissent from classic value of loyal discipline) needed to keep automation an assistant rather than a replacement. Only with such an assurance of livelihood can couples really consider having more kids.
    3
  1531.  @seh1080  Even then, taking Táiwān wouldn't necessarily grant the PRC that high value-added human capital the Taiwanese possess in their brains and democratized governance. That durable prosperity comes through societal trust and exploratory dissent, which can't develop under Communism.
    3
  1532. The PLA isn't short on wasteful spending either. They spend way more time on grand parades and patriotic indoctrination when they could be out training in the field and figuring out how their equipment will hold up away from the luxury of garrison maintenance.
    3
  1533. That's the fundamental problem with pure unregulated capitalism: the established end up simply seeking rents when they're not buying or litigating away the competition.
    3
  1534. Just as much from manufacturing and transportation disruptions cutting supplies, and companies being too efficient to adapt. If anything all that money got us recovered pretty well compared to how the rest of the world is faring nowadays.
    3
  1535. Those civilian ships would need piers to dock at, which would likewise be under constant threat by long range missiles no matter where they're built.
    3
  1536.  @dragon26ist  I'd go with "Moscovian Candidate" ☭
    3
  1537. Used to be easier for Philippine-trained nurses to get recruited and come to the US too. Navy dad and nurse mom, the classic Fil-Am couple.
    3
  1538. He already did, about a year ago. Not much has changed since then.
    3
  1539. The Gilded Age and the Great Depression that followed had to be tempered with "socialist" solutions like labor unions and welfare improvements (e.g. Social Security). The ones who didn't implement such mild "socialism" ironically just ended up deeper in more extreme Communism/Fascism.
    3
  1540. Even when it's in the Constitution it became counterproductive (rise of professionally organized crime), hence why the US had to repeal that amendment. Controlled monopoly that funds observation and treatment seems to be the happy medium based on what's happening elsewhere.
    3
  1541. The ramp also takes up valuable parking space for times when activities below deck are prioritized over maximum aircraft launch throughput.
    3
  1542. Although with the expense of urban life and falling economic prospects, it seems those urban hùkǒu might not be so valuable anymore.
    3
  1543. ​ @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.
    3
  1544. 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.
    3
  1545. Nowhere else offers America’s strength of both private property protections and access to resource inputs (mineral, mental, and transportation). Trying anywhere else involves more spending on gathering such resources and shielding that capital from the reach of the government(s).
    3
  1546. Wouldn't be surprised if the draft script mentioned something about how diplomats constantly fly around the world for work
    3
  1547. I metricated myself back in high school, learning meters right as I began driving; It helps that playing football I can easily visualize what 100m looks like (about the distance from goal line to opposite goal post). Describing things in kg, L, and °C also became intuitive, since they were originally based on the properties of pure water. Really the only thing I'm working on is pressure, since measuring in psi is relatively consistent whereas metric seems to be divided into kPa, bar, and mmHg.
    3
  1548. Mainly because European rivals were already doing the same.
    3
  1549. There aren't ports in northwest Mexico big enough to regularly handle those ships. Actually Mexico as a whole is logistically challenging.
    3
  1550. 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.
    3
  1551. 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.
    3
  1552. 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.
    3
  1553.  @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.
    3
  1554. 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.
    3
  1555. Blocked by rich conservatives.
    3
  1556. ​ @j4genius961 ​ 1) Bigger ships scale up in durability. The ex-USS America proved surprisingly difficult to sink with no defenses or crew aboard, imagine how much harder it'll be when there's active damage control (which the USN has recent live experience from getting mined in the Gulf and running into seamounts). That's granted they can be found in the vast ocean, with buddy sensor assets sending vital position updates all the way to the target not getting blinded or destroyed. 2) Most of those "friends" have no effect to the military effectiveness of the PLA. The US by contrast has plenty of friendly ports and airbases to call at. 3) America has plenty of experience supporting its movements under fire, having had its trucks and helicopters ambushed so often. The last time the PLA tried to supply its troops in hostile territory was in Vietnam... and they got into deep trouble against local militias (not even the regular forces who were still getting redeployed from Cambodia), hence why they turned tail so abruptly after "opening the road to Hanoi".
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  1557. Australia doesn't have to worry about suddenly forcing WW3 upon all of Europe since it's not part of NATO. Also it has all of Asia between it and Russia.
    3
  1558. The way they're placed, quite a bit of shrapnel will still get through the holes and gaps and disable the plane. They would need something more solid and standoff, like a full aircraft shelter made of at least thick plywood.
    3
  1559. ​Emirates, Etihad, and Turkish Airlines likewise have similar programs to lodge long layover passengers at their hub cities.
    3
  1560. Singapore is what the PRC wants itself to be, ignoring how S'pore: > is ruled by a PAP who accept losses in open polling; > is actively multicultural and not trying to Sinicize its minorities; > does not praise cheating or tolerate the perception of corruption among its officials; > offers reliable interpretations and enforcement of its laws and policies; > critically relies on peaceful open trade and travel; and > maintains a purely defensive military for its fully resolved sovereign limits So while Singapore isn't a politically drama-filled society as seen in Europe and the Americas, it still is much closer to a Western liberal democracy than the prescriptive stratified autocracy that has always ruled over China.
    3
  1561. Fast does not mean durable though, especially with how much of China's growth is all from debt to fund increasingly unproductive builds 🐢🐇 America's share will drop as it relocalizes production, but SG's continued prosperity is more likely to come from India and ASEAN 🇮🇳🍚
    3
  1562. The US targets Huawei's server and enterprise backend devices, the only policies at the retail level is the ban on sales at military-only exchange stores. If Chinese brands were really that much more superior (not just the phone hardware, but its associated app services and user account support), we should have seen more market share already. But going around the world it looks like the people using Chinese brands are mostly those who are harder pressed to spend on an Apple or other Western option.
    3
  1563. Right, that's why the US bans are against backend components. Americans are free to buy and use Chinese personal devices, but the overall user experience doesn't seem to be such an improvement to create a trend away from the likes of Apple and Samsung.
    3
  1564. TP Link having an unfortunate name because TP = 🧻
    3
  1565. The rule of appraising real estate is "location, location, location". China isn't exactly known for setting up new housing where people would like to live, ghost cities aside it's also not unheard of for a new apartment to be an hour's drive from the nearest grocery store.
    3
  1566. I remember a case study where the US Navy made a similar mistake in WWII with wooden flight decks on its aircraft carriers where a single lucky bomb hit could send the whole ship limping back to port, whereas the British steel-topped ones were more a case of "Limeys, man your brooms". Obviously the Americans learned from this and has ever since spent on the upgrade.
    3
  1567. Ironically went from China-Harmony/Circulate (money) to China-Melt Away (華融 can mean both)
    3
  1568. 90% of private ventures fail within 10 years. Resilience is not efficient and is actually its direct competitor, but governments pursue continuity because the alternative is far more costly to everyone ✊💥
    3
  1569. It's $4k linked to her conspiracy for IP theft, which they had linking evidence.
    3
  1570. What China gets out of all that spending isn't as valuable though. Lightly-built HSR when it really needs heavy freight rail to get overloaded trucks off the roads. Education that's all about "how" but devoid of deeply asking "why". "Engineers" that others would call mere "technicians". Patents that are simple and specific, difficult to commercialize and easy to circumvent. Band-aid healthcare distracted by untested TCM and constantly outdone by an environment of chemical pollution. It's no wonder so many Chinese people would expatriate to America at the first opportunity. Then there's all the "internal security" spending with invasive domestic intelligence and propaganda programs, which itself rivals that of the PLA's total spending. For the US government it's basically what's budgeted to police forces, since practically all the influence operations are privatized as advertising and lobbying under strong competition and public scrutiny.
    3
  1571. ​ @TheMrleeyang The only peaceful unification would be through Taiwanese voting itself back, and Beijing's actions especially with HK has effectively obliterated the attractiveness of that thought for the next two generations.
    3
  1572. Ironically that also means more officers with bachelor’s degrees to command them all. Also there is a budget and cap on the size of the ranks, so it can easily become comeptitive just to enlist.
    3
  1573.  @ad_astra468 That’s if you trust the official numbers Beijing puts out, independent estimates put China’s debt load at more like 2-3x its GDP and still growing. Even with all that money it’s still malinvested into infrastructure to nowhere (oversupply means no need for new industrial parks and workers to man them) and housing complexes nobody wants to buy (out of fear of dropping prices afterward), as the Party can’t afford to empower the Chinese people as consumers out of fear of ultimately empowering them politically.
    3
  1574. Because the last times we tried to demobilize, we got dragged into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Disengagement just means more space for adversaries to carry out operations against us.
    3
  1575. You’ll more likely end up in jail as a perceived political opponent to one of his cronies.
    3
  1576. The way they're acting though, they're overtraining limited parts and grossly neglecting the rest of the body.
    3
  1577. Corporate greed explains a lot of the inflation, as companies conveniently ignore how COVID supply disruptions are no longer an obstacle.
    3
  1578.  @Marbv121  It's not about the coffee. It's about the "third space" where I choose to be, rather than the home or office where I have to be. The environment is where the motivation comes from. Starbucks trying to focus on fancy custom drinks actually loses sight of its main strength.
    3
  1579. I don't think it's fundamentally The Message that's the problem, it's how annoyingly preachy and imposing it gets presented which makes its narrative feel unnatural and revolting.
    3
  1580. Especially as they lack credible air defense (along with much of the PLA “Navy”), meaning they’re sitting ducks for cheap glide bombs and suicide drones.
    3
  1581. "Significant" as in they have to fix the damage, but it's more on the annoying end of the scale rather than devastating.
    3
  1582. Russia isn't "losing", but it's not gaining nearly as much as it expects for the effort it's throwing into Ukraine.
    3
  1583. That's part of the popularity of US forces abroad. Between fairly rare events of crime, American servicemembers provide a constant source of commercial profit and public engagement. If they're not allowed to come out of the wire on their free time, it would make US bases look more like an occupier than a neighbor in a walled community.
    3
  1584. It wouldn't damage Russia nearly as much, as their transportation and energy sources are more diversified over a far wider area. Plus targeting civilians tends to align them with their government more than dishearten them. This is why Ukraine has been focusing their limited capacity for deep strikes on the military assets most involved in supporting Russia's front.
    3
  1585. Chip fabs are extremely delicate, even simple neglect could cause them to go out of spec permanently especially with the advanced single-digit nanometer generations. A big reason Taiwan and South Korea are the leading chip makers is because they're small enough to get the right engineer from anywhere in the country onsite within a couple hours when deviances and faults start rising out of a given batch.
    3
  1586. It's not unrealistic though, nukes are expensive to maintain, and China has prioritized a second-strike capability with its "Underground Great Wall" deep tunnel network. Dozens of protected warheads would be preferable to hundreds of vulnerable ones.
    3
  1587. Two if you count Manchuria, who conquered the Ming and became the Qing that modern China is based off of today: territorial claims, the Mandarin language, and all.
    3
  1588. Which is why the PRC pushes so hard for BRI and an open Arctic passage -- they literally can't afford to lose access through even just Indonesia let alone all of SE Asia. Their very ability to feed its population depends on open lanes to the seas especially with so many people and how much of their land is either polluted or deserted.
    3
  1589. Wasn't Portugal neutral throughout the war? 🇵🇹
    3
  1590. I'd imagine that the Soviets would have taken Hokkaido anyway, possibly dipping into Honshu itself and creating a Communist North Japan. To this day there is still no actual peace treaty between Japan and Russia.
    3
  1591. Issue there is it takes up the USB port (and often headphone jack if it still has one), and still isn't as slim and elegant as just swapping in an extended capacity battery.
    3
  1592. America is a political amnesiac that expects opportunity from changes in a situation. For Beijing to become a bipartisan issue speaks to how long and pervasively it treats the US as an enemy to be vanquished so that it can regain the dominance that it "deserves" as a great power.
    3
  1593. Sputnik itself was, but the what it compelled was a major shock.
    3
  1594. Beijing would deem any US official visiting Taiwan "inflammatory", so we might as well signal how reliably we'd support Taiwan in case the Party tries to seize it without the buy-in of the ROC citizens.
    3
  1595. Anything to deflect from all the floods -- likely from deliberate releases -- that have destroyed so many Chinese lives lately.
    3
  1596.  @patbyrneme007  I lived in Beijing through last year. Big thing I learned there is that the more critical and pessimistic reports about the PRC are closer to the reality on the ground.
    3
  1597. I'm not optimistic that it will though, unlike the North Koreans the Hàn population is too large, diverse, and educated to enforce a race-based fortress mentality. China under the CPC is growing too old, indebted, and polluted to continue promising indefinite growth, and will more likely advance their "struggle" to the point of armed conflict to maintain its uncontestable legitimacy.
    3
  1598. They do try to pitch their centralized autocracy as "superior" to the chaotic democratic way of policymaking. It is useful at first but at a certain stage of development it does need to subordinate itself to its people, as had happened in former anticommunist dictatorships like South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
    3
  1599. Similar can be said for all the other major dynasties, and they all have a common throughline: overly centralized authority.
    3
  1600. Yet that's how the Chinese housing sector was fueled, since there aren't any other accessible attractive investment opportunities for CNY holders.
    3
  1601. That's hard to imagine considering there's far more excitement in leaving and permanently diversifying away from China.
    3
  1602. I think of it architecturally, as the space between a hanging soft ceiling and the actual concrete above.
    3
  1603. Centralized directives work for natural monopolies like infrastructure planning, not so much for market-driven industries and innovations where competing efforts really do lower prices.
    3
  1604. Likely ours, but we also rebuild faster and already have mechanisms in place to mitigate effects and reform the financing industry. China's though is unpracticed and would be more likely to obliterate the economy when its banks go bankrupt.
    3
  1605. They don't. The stickiness of their debt makes American student loans seem gracious. Also applies to foreign aid loans which BRI "partners" are finding out the hard way.
    3
  1606. Commuskeptics have been saying to divest from the PRC while the assets still have value. Seems the car companies made a serious mistake of the situation, much like they did during COVID when they canceled all their chipset orders.
    3
  1607. Does that figure include the junkyards full of "sold" and fully-registered EVs?
    3
  1608. It's much like smartphones, which are also internally integrated, working with only specific parts, and impractical to repair. EVs especially ones that don't come from legacy makes are basically such smartphones that you can ride, and like smartphones lose spare parts support after the first year or two, particularly from Chinese brands who focus on hyping up their next model rather than building a reputation for reliability.
    3
  1609. I "watch" his videos like a podcast, looking at and doing something else
    3
  1610. China (and Russia) are classically feudal authoritarians with a constant anxiety over maintaining social control and political stability (i.e. supreme rule by one family). The reason the countries themselves are so big is because of historical expansion into its neighbors. Ultimately what they want is the coast-to-coast security that the US enjoys, the problem is Eurasia is way bigger with much more effective competition.
    3
  1611. Airbus also has chronic issues with the speed of delivering on their orders.
    3
  1612. But how much of that is debt-fueled state spending on Zero-COVID and redundant infrastructure, as opposed to market-making innovations and consumer purchases?
    3
  1613. It’s basically a war economy attitude, one that the ruling CPC has been carrying since it seized China. We unfortunately have to respond in kind to limit how much we get pushed around.
    3
  1614. Qinghua University and modern education, defeating Imperial Japan, abandoning the KMT, counter-Soviet support, ignoring 1989 and allowing entrance into the WTO, continued source of profitable export sales and intellectual property. Post-imperial China would not be anywhere near as prosperous without American graciousness.
    3
  1615. We are at the tail end of an Ice Age, but the amount of warming that's happened since we got entire nations to burn coal puts us on a trajectory that will overshoot where it would have naturally ended up. This ultimately risks ending up in an environment that life has literally not experienced since the volcanoes of young Earth started to temper down.
    3
  1616. A warming climate makes the extremes more severe, moreso on the summer highs though.
    3
  1617. This mental shortsightedness is why we should not value quarter-focused corporate executives for multigenerational policymakers. Especially ones his age who won’t live long enough to see his reputation deservedly crash.
    3
  1618. At least the transition to EVs won't be as intense as the first time we swapped horses for ICE cars, along with the infrastructure of ubiquitous paved roads, oil extraction and refining, and bulk liquid fuel transport they also require.
    3
  1619. Low income non-WFH-enabled workers make up the bulk of the population though. They only made so much as a delivery driver or as a dàbái (I keep hearing about protests over unpaid wages with the sudden end of Zero-COVID lately), and longer term outlook is not that bright as the PRC trends towards deindustrialization on top of all the debts incurred. The "revenge travel" surge from the lucky ones will wane with time, so as we saw at the start of the pandemic it would be economically unwise to overspecialize on Chinese demand like before.
    3
  1620. China is facing a sustained decline, but South and SE Asia are currently on the upswing while Latin America and Africa expect their turn at prosperity might only be a generation or two from now.
    3
  1621. No, gold and other limited-quantity media have the habit at getting splurged or hoarded at exactly the wrong ends of the business cycle. That's why the world converged on fiat, which gives issuers some control of compelling spending in a downturn or saving in overheat.
    3
  1622. I doubt the tariffs will do much to inflation compared to China simply opening up the ability to travel again. It's not like the taxes were the rising factor compared to port and factory shutdowns in China.
    3
  1623. Middle Eastern states are likewise autocracies and want what China achieved: global economic centrality while as a hierarchical self-righteous ethnostate.
    3
  1624. "New China" is certainly past its prime, with the Party-run PRC once again having permanently squandered multiple generations worth of labor and wealth, and this time the suffering is well recorded. While it doesn't fundamentally obliterate the thought of Taiwan reintegrating with the rest of China, the CPC is now mortally terrified that it shall not be around when that happens.
    3
  1625. 8:46 This is a taste of the "multipolar" world being advocated, where the multiple regions of militarized coordination fractures global communication and trade from the selectiveness of safety for passersby.
    3
  1626. Most of the G7 are generally welcoming of immigrants (Japan being the most strident ethnostate in the Group and perhaps a faltering one at that), and this helps mitigate the overall decline and aging of the workforce. China still hasn't come to grips with actively inviting outsiders to immigrate and integrate, at least past the women from SE Asia they coopt or coerce into "marrying" Mainlander men.
    3
  1627. Or rather cashless payments. I primarily use credit cards but was forced to both get a Chinese SIM in order to temporarily open a ICBC bank account during my time in China since not all vendors took Alipay (either foreign cards or the domestic Tourist Card). This separation from global payment system is a massive barrier against tourists who just want to sightsee.
    3
  1628. Yeah I'd like to not have to open a Chinese bank account just to use WeChat Pay, since not everyone takes Alipay which does have working foreign card and prepaid Tourist Card options.
    3
  1629. Beijing is still impounding all the debt they've accumulated. But like any dam, the maintenance is intensive in continuous because its failure will be catastrophic... and the pressure behind it keeps building at an alarming rate.
    3
  1630. Which is troubling considering the Chinese government refuses real social support and instead proliferates a destructive low-trust low-spending poverty mindset among wouldbe Chinese consumers.
    3
  1631. CPC is horrified that revolt against their rule is a popular serious street sentiment, instead of remaining an overplayed theme of fiction scripts like it largely is in the “declining” West.
    3
  1632. I've heard China's GDP is about 60% of what it reports. So still second best, but just barely and not as likely to grow now that all the debt that fueled its rise are now getting called in.
    3
  1633. The existence isn’t classified, but the exact numbers, disposition, and capabilities would be.
    3
  1634. Chinese brands are infamous for their lack of after-sales support, which is kind of important if you want to maintain its components and fix any fender benders over the next like 5 years.
    3
  1635. In American English we'd call it getting blindsided.
    3
  1636. “Mmmm, tastes like baijou” 🛢️🍶
    3
  1637. Hence why it's called malinvestment.
    3
  1638. Right, the CPC has as much soft power as parents towards their teenagers: every value they celebrate ends up promoting the opposite!
    3
  1639. ​ @j.joseph5353 Especially considering US intelligence agencies only have so much budget and staffing to process all that data if it's even successfully collected. Washington doesn't spend nearly as much on "security" as Běijīng does.
    3
  1640. Any political strategy espoused by pro-authoritarian social conservatives tells us more about themselves than the more nuanced ways the world actually works.
    3
  1641. Yeah, unforeseen creative destruction is pretty scary for a Party that wants to have things all planned out.
    3
  1642. Watch literally anyone else. Plenty of Americans themselves openly discuss what's wrong with the US.
    3
  1643. I'm interested to know what he thinks about how Beijing treats us now, because he's the one who fathered US-PRC relations at the expense of Taipei
    3
  1644. The sleepwalkers are those "non-aligned" governments and corporations who believe in the PRC continuing a "peaceful rise". America's "overdramatization" is democracy's feature of how issues get noticed and tackled before they actually boil over... Běijīng however keeps trying to hide its fundamental self-made issues of aging, debt, and pollution, and has proven it's willing to escalate its "struggle" into total militarization just to keep depicting the uncontested Party as "great, glorious, and correct".
    3
  1645. It’s to make sure when it is offered, the tarriffs negate the state subsidies they enjoy when pitching an “affordable” false market rate product.
    3
  1646. It's a geopolitically vital area where the competition is all militarily weak and historically deferential to China. Hence it's the next natural step towards enforcing its rule over Tiānxià which being "internal matters" would void any "international" agreements it had made.
    3
  1647. Which combat in the SCS will do, regardless of who started the shooting. US and UK firms absolutely dominate maritime insurance, and having anti-ship missiles flying about would make the waters around Mainland China uninsurable -- civilian trade (with the affordable food and fuel China relies on) will quickly disappear.
    3
  1648. I feel like socially conservative societies habitually discount the sacrifice and grace of other people who enabled their prosperity, hence the conclusion of purely independent "greatness" and the superiority complex that results from such inconsiderate ignorance.
    3
  1649. Democracies also have a habit of overdramatizing their political issues in order to gain attention, which leads to said issues getting addressed before they get truly out of hand. Authoritarian societies don't see this nuance and falsely determine that their more sterile public discourse indicates that they must be superior by comparison.
    3
  1650. It'll need more than years, more like 2~3 generations and a change of environment (including government). Only when a youth cohort who has no direct memory of these shenanigans starts exerting its economic and societal influence would the downward trend really reverse.
    3
  1651. Still wondering how YouTube censorship really works, because sometimes I get replies to my comments that I can't even see anymore.
    3
  1652. I don't see how traditional gender roles will help. Automation has deteriorated the advantage of strict specialization in an agro-industrial economy; it's become common to not work what you formally studied, entering instead through OJT and hobbies. Notice the societies having the worst time growing productivity per capita (especially if their capita are still growing) are the ones still trying to enforce the woman-homemaker model. Going forward it'd probably be more productive to revert more to the hunter-gatherer ways that most of human history lived through, where roles were cross-trained and a lot more fluid based on immediate needs.
    3
  1653. China has also been a series of autocratic dynasties for its entire history; The ROC on Taiwan is the first Chinese ethnostate to break from this cycle of oppressive top-down domination followed by violent government transition, and that only happened at the end of the Cold War. So yeah it's arguable that thousands of years of history doesn't necessarily lead to a comparable development of wisdom.
    3
  1654. ​More like painful truth.
    3
  1655. POGOs are big business in the Philippines. Also invites a lot of questions domestically since they're basically walled Chinese colonies and any economic benefits they promised to provide aren't evident.
    3
  1656. He gets others to engage, but not necessarily comply. It’s motivating compared to the apathy the Chinese have for a distant Party and their one-way communication.
    3
  1657. Considering the build quality of these structures especially for more more mundane less visible uses like residences for locals, I'm not sure if it will be worth the asking price. There's not really a shortage of housing in China, there's a shortage of retail investment avenues.
    3
  1658. Southeast Asia Sea
    3
  1659. Trying to figure out if openly saving that one Philippine outpost is worth the escalation against the PRC, and if we'll be positioned well enough to react accordingly.
    3
  1660. The problem with explosive growth is that the explosion also ends just as suddenly.
    3
  1661. It's their "Dual Circulation" double-think.
    3
  1662. Right, Americans are superb at navigating chaos and managing risk -- the mentality actively welcomes challenges and adventure. Being "safe" through forced detention is anathema to the American mindset, especially with wide availability of effective mRNA vaccines which make practically all the inoculated fully capable of fighting off COVID infections on their own.
    3
  1663. 10:07 Right, freight is the key to enduring profitability, unlike serving human passengers with their requirements for life support, space to move around, and a pleasant experience. In aviation this explains how old 747s and tri-jets easily get a second wind as airfreighters long after their airliner seats get scrapped, while the human-centered A380 is end-of-life as its fundamental design makes it troublesome to take pallets. Moving dumb bulk cargo also explains how America's unspectacular at-grade rail network continues to print money over a century later, having been built for the extremely heavy steam trains of the era. China's impressive expansion of rail strapping together the state would have been economically useful had they beefed up as quad-tracks for cargo trains, whose more profitable payloads would have subsidized operational costs especially for the passengers blowing past in the parallel HSR.
    3
  1664. ⁠Trump is transactional. If Beijing offers his family some valuable kickback, he risks giving himself a concussion from how quickly he’d turn around.
    3
  1665. ⁠The AFP is remarkably tiny and underequipped for the amount of territory it’s responsible to defend. A constant airlift is likely beyond their means to sustain for all but the most critical shuttle missions.
    3
  1666. Mainland China doesn't have time on their side: were already seeing the retarding effects of aging and pollution and especially debts, losing a major customer and a primary source for high end chips will only accelerate their decline.
    3
  1667. 0:14 Do you take New Zealand holidays off then? 😂
    3
  1668. Yet Ukraine shows they’re very much willing to fight, but are still at risk of perishing without further American support. The rest of NATO is still catching up since they’re not constantly mobilized like the US is.
    3
  1669. Indeed, America has gone through much worse before. This current Woke vs MAGA culture war is quite tame compared to the Civil Rights Movement, or the Anarchist and Labor Union movements before that, or slavery enforcement and the Civil War before that. We habitually overdramatize all our issues because the attention is how they get addressed.
    3
  1670. That was an issue beforehand, as "anchor baby" China-raised Chinese were always counted as "international students" in their statistics and marketing material. I'd imagine the proportion of actual foreigners has gone up though, as they're often more ignorant and adventurous.
    3
  1671. Democracy isn’t more socially stable than authoritatianism day to day, but generation to generation. It’s shortsighted to question the underlying Wisdom of the Crowd.
    3
  1672. That's because central government guidelines are not very specific; the "make it happen" wording leaves a lot for the lower levels to interpret, which based on the consistent "unwavering" policy up until now meant to double down on testing and detainment.
    3
  1673. The "growth" comes from state malinvestment into yet more SOEs and redundant infrastructure projects.
    3
  1674. Might want to update the Korea stock footage, Gwanghwamun Plaza stopped looking like that back in 2020 🇰🇷
    3
  1675.  @skydragon23101979  It's warmer towards China because of the opportunities they promise, but there's still a lot of suspicion about Chinese activities at least as much as towards America and it's been rising. I've spent the last few years in sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia, and this is what the locals themselves say.
    3
  1676. Attractive because it's new. But the way it's built also degrades quicker than expected without constant and expensive maintenance labor, and the quality only seems to get worse with the more recent ones too.
    3
  1677. Lower margins offering less trusted currency and less stable customer base though. China's primary market target is still the EU and the US.
    3
  1678. ​ @schmetterling4477 Right, petty crime on the public street is rare, because it's once the doors are closed where the real shady stuff happens.
    3
  1679. Production also decreases, which props up the price. Oil companies are throttling production already because their own economies rely too much on crude sales, which is why we're unlikely to see the price of gas dropping. Really the only way out is to reduce our dependence on petroleum altogether, and totally defanging the pricing power of the oil cartel and its corporations.
    3
  1680. Local solar, wind, and gas can too, and you won't have nearly the same staffing issues and incident impact potentials that nuclear imposes.
    3
  1681. America’s ATC overworked while what should be our pay raises keep going to shareholders. Thanks Reagan.
    3
  1682. The winner-take-all voting system naturally converges on two choices: the one victor, and the collection of all losers. Changing this requires changing the politicians, but they have to slot into one of the two sides until they're able to break down the walls from within.
    3
  1683.  @ignatiushie4403  Granted those are places where cars are excluded. If his path was a pedestrian plaza instead of a regular road, he'd also have no choice but to put some muscle in his movement.
    3
  1684. And Blackberry is dying because they failed to adapt to a smartphone environment where the services themselves have become more software based, agnostic to the hardware that taps to the servers. IBM did a similar mistake with Microsoft DOS, and Microsoft did similar during the rise of computing gone mobile; now both are stuck primarily focusing on enterprise back-end which not everyone sees as central to their daily access to information (i.e. they don't care if the datacenters are Amazon or Facebook either, as long as it works).
    3
  1685. As mentioned in the video, the RMB is both undervalued to promote exports, yet simultaneously overvalued with the amount of money trapped in China due to the $50k/yr conversion cap preventing affluent Chinese from voting with their feet and bringing their wealth out to somewhere less affected by political whims. This just underscores how the biggest obstacle to China’s true potential is the ruling Communist Party.
    3
  1686. No, it's more that it should be easy to find how much your coworkers and potential competitors pay. The private sector tries to keep this hidden by discouraging people from revealing their worth, so that they retain most of the negotiating power and potentially get applicants to contract thenselves to a below-market rate. By contrast America's public sector (both civil service and military) publishes their pay tables, so figuring out what an employee gets paid is as simple as having them individually disclose their rank and time in grade.
    3
  1687. Spanish would be useful… if Spanish-speaking countries were economically attractive by comparison.
    3
  1688. It's likely closer to just 1 billion (China's statistics are grossly overreported), who are not as educated and are more easy to paralyze into inaction with unexpected situations. The "quality people" Beijing touts isn't as common as the state propaganda proclaims, and increasingly neither is the youthful creative mindset needed to make the necessary adaptations.
    3
  1689. Right, unlike Detroit, CA has multiple large industries to pull from. Defense, agriculture, and tourism aren’t exactly jobs that can be done remotely.
    3
  1690. Wouldn't be as dramatic as needed though, given its history as the battleground between Japan and China. Japan has been largely neutralized, but the threat of the never-enough-buffer Communist China would still be there.
    3
  1691. Younger workers are the lifeblood of the economy, as they have the energy to not only work current tasks but also create and adapt to changes. The "wisdom" of older folks only lasts so long, and that validity only gets shorter as technology increasingly renders that previous experience obsolete... yet those pensioners tend to keep voting in favor of outdated modes of economic production and distribution. An overly aged society is threatened by a self-made spiral into decadence.
    3
  1692. Guangdong also benefits from cheap shipping along the Pearl River tying the region together, navigable waterways which mountainous Mexico lacks.
    3
  1693. Right, efficiency of production also means efficiency of a shock to that source. That's why investing in resilience through redundancy and diversification is practically always worth it in the long run.
    3
  1694. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests always in tension. For too long companies sought production and profit efficiency, only to have it upended when the shocks of Xi's Zero-COVID and Putin's Russia came along.
    3
  1695. Usually those replaced by mechanization can be educated for the jobs that become available afterwards. AI threatens to educate itself past what humans can adapt to.
    3
  1696. Calories per capita though it's still way under where it needs to be, especially considering how tainted by chemicals the local agriculture is. Western grocers like Metro and Walmart with their imported alternatives are unusually popular in the Mainland.
    3
  1697. Rich countries had to themselves develop exports that were worth charging such high prices for though.
    3
  1698.  @Kuricang31  You can, just not as a disruptive spontaneous street demonstration. The PAP peacefully yields power when their MPs get voted off, they've just maintained enough popularity to remain the majority so far.
    3
  1699. I've always thought the subsequent liability for the switchman is the key to whether he'll condemn the one guy in the siding, or conveniently fail to throw the switch in time for the five on the main line.
    3
  1700. Romans didn't have to handle vehicles heavier than a horse-drawn cart, or span interior spaces that could fit small aircraft at a minimum.
    3
  1701. 16:36 "Branding is everything, the rest will follow". According to the Smiling Curve model, Manufacturing is the least value-added, most price-sensitive, and most easily-substituted stage of production compared to R&D (i.e. the ability to originate and defend IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services (which includes branding and marketing) at the end. This specialization on the fore and aft explains how Western countries (especially the US) manage to remain rich after offshoring and ultimately automating its factories, and why those who fail to create unique and attractive identities fall into the middle-income trap.
    3
  1702. Ironically that means insulating our technical knowledge and expertise, so that Chinese firms aren't copying and exploiting our work without compensation and contribution.
    3
  1703. Islands tall enough to be an aviation hazard. It won't be cheap to develop but people can move uphill.
    3
  1704. Could be worse if Indonesians were more willing to expatriate. Globally it's still fairly rare to find an Indonesian working abroad compared to Filipinos and Thais out of ASEAN.
    3
  1705. Capitalism is clearly more efficient at driving production than a command economy. However it's not so optimal for _distribution_, hence the debate over where to fall on the spectrum of socialism vs libertarianism. As an American who travels overseas almost constantly, I'd argue we're actually too libertarian -- libertarian policies merely enable incumbent strongmen to further consolidate and dominate at the expense of everyone else, the best example of which being Subsaharan Africa. The lack of democratized access just leads to systemic crime and an exodus of potential innovators as they fail to afford promising positive investment close to home and educate their way to elsewhere. That then leaves the remaining communities ripe for seizure by political movements who promise a turnaround through even more extreme communist/fascist measures... only to invariably become the net-unproductive rent-seeking strongmen themselves. It's actually vital to institute milder "socialist" elements for directly unprofitable capitalism requirements such as education and infrastructure. Seeing how other places around the world keep the lights on, for the sake of making capitalism even more efficient and sustainable I'd argue we really should explore more socialized resources for healthcare (single-payer system), housing (Singapore HBD system), and transportation (transit-oriented development).
    3
  1706. Likewise when a state becomes stuck in tradition and stale, those residents will also move on to somewhere where their hours pay better. Notice not all the biggest population losers are "socialist" states.
    3
  1707. Maybe not alone, but soft power industries could be key to keeping the K-economy upright as it gets undercut by the developing world.
    3
  1708. Those dictatorships were also anti-communist ones who eventually yielded to democracy, unlike communist ones who double down on oppression. That's why their growth has remained more stable compared to the more narrowly-focused top-heavy ones like China and Venezuela where a good shock could send their states toppling in popular apathy over a collapse of authority.
    3
  1709. Thing is Taiwan is also a shameless poacher and polluter at sea, they just don't have the scale of the Mainland's blue water fishing hordes
    3
  1710. It'd be great if the former came true, but I'd bet on the latter happening -- there's just too much self-serving indulgent debauchery among those in power (or rising in power) for real reconciliation with the transparency and justice that the Chinese people deserve.
    3
  1711. What irritates the Party most is how Táiwān provides living proof of what Chinese society could achieve without them.
    3
  1712. They always have been, internal unrest is just as big a part of Chinese history as top-down rule.
    3
  1713. Whether it's late-stage capitalism or centrally-planned economies, the biggest hindrance to innovation is high barriers to entry against newcomers by the entrenched incumbents.
    3
  1714. It was somewhat cringe watching it, not from the reversal of roles, but how campy and cartoonish all the acting felt. The "Americans" were especially wooden (not to mention casted with Eastern Europeans and without any black dudes who were definitely fighting alongside by then), and used language that felt like the scriptwriters did their homework out of comic books when there's plenty of other media and even living veterans who could tell you how they would really shoot and scoot. I'd imagine an American take on the same battle would focus more on the cycle of daytime movements and nighttime battles, the constant struggle of keeping everyone and everything together, and probably be even more sympathetic to the average PVA grunt than their own movie portrayed. Like I could see an episode of how an old PVA veteran would panic to try sleeping with any light around because he was traumatized by American air raids.
    3
  1715. As an American we often complain we're not given enough time off to take care of ourselves and enjoy our pay, while we often hear of (if not personally encounter) Europeans going on multi-week vacations with generous amounts of "sick days" on top of that. I guess the happy medium lies somewhere in the middle.
    3
  1716. Depends on the job. A toxic work environment only amplifies problems at home.
    3
  1717. ​ @billfrehe6620 Right, manufacturing is the least value-added and most substitutable step in the production process compared to R&D (i.e. valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. The PRC is well stuck in this middle income trap because they keep failing at creating anything that's globally attractive and uniquely modern Chinese.
    3
  1718. Singaporean taxpayer with a primary vested interest in Mainland China? 🤔
    3
  1719. ​A major chunk of America's business sails through the Taiwan Strait. It is very much America's business to not allow disruptions to vital sea and air lanes just because a hostile military and coast guard wants to enforce their own ideas of proper trade policies by doing things like selectively tolling, denying, or seizing "unfriendly" civilian vessels.
    3
  1720. Problem is China's market is made up of makers and savers, not buyers. Shifting towards consumerism means devolving monetary and policy power towards its people and away from the core Party, which is something the Xi Administration is terrified of. Hence why Beijing is doubling down on more infrastructure and industry even as they lose their global customer base.
    3
  1721. That's really all they have as a service-driven deliverable, but China's workers are losing their paychecks too as foreign orders and currency inflows crater, so this is likewise not sustainable.
    3
  1722. Mechanization too. It's more profitable to have one smart human over a bunch of uneducated ones because the machine rapidly multiplies the effort, but there's a minimum amount of training (which only grows in complexity and costs) required to take advantage of it all.
    3
  1723. Which as I understand basically just confirmed the lists of Communists that the PKI had already gathered. Remember that Indonesia was undergoing a downward economic spiral as Soekarno leaned away from "non-aligned" toward obvious Communism, instigating a war against Malaysia over ideological suspicions over it's mere existence.
    3
  1724. Nobody else recognizes Chinese law there. Even your compatriots in Taiwan have stopped serious enforcement of Chinese claims. Historically occupied or not, nearly all of the SCS features carry Western names because there was nobody else around to tell the Europeans otherwise when they first arrived to explore the sea and map the hazards.
    3
  1725. ​ @rayallinkh Most foreigners probably won't expect a dowry, and would probably hesitate to accept one knowing how intrusive Chinese in-laws can be later on especially if he did take the money.
    3
  1726. Every Korean I know who's worked overseas has always been way happier
    3
  1727. Běijīng interprets "national security" so broadly that basically everything could be subject to intervention.
    3
  1728. Even those public sector jobs aren't safe either, I've heard some municipalities are undergoing mass layoffs.
    3
  1729. Other than like Myanmar and Laos, not much movement into China either. Plus they'd need to be actively sponsored for their visas, and they're not nearly as profitable to bring in.
    3
  1730. HK was always the gateway to Mainland China, but now that it's effectively reabsorbed it no longer has that unique selling point.
    3
  1731. Hollywood is driven by rare celebrities, whereas K-romance dramas make it sound like the male leads are what all Korean bachelors are like. There's a reason so many young women around the world are studying Korean language and dreaming to move to Seoul.
    3
  1732. Perhaps for faithful churchgoers, but Korea is a largely irreligious society so abortion is still a ready option. The men are much more hesitant to commit to marriage due to divorce courts heavily favoring transfer of his wealth to the woman by default. Ghosting people is a regular phenomenon and so is regular doctor visits, so romantic cohabitation ironically ends up as the most individually conservative arrangement.
    3
  1733. Blame the Chinese government for defining their own statistics that way.
    3
  1734. ​Italy just dropped out. The risk of concessions wasn't worth what Beijing promised.
    3
  1735. Going Dutch is awkward to arrange there. What usually happens is trading off who pays which stage of the date, like he pays for dinner at the restaurant and then she pays for coffee and dessert at a separate cafe.
    3
  1736. Kids can take it themselves as soon as they can walk and navigate on their own, which is a lot earlier than the age permitted to drive. It’s not like America where we’re culturally pressured by fearmongering media into having certain adults be physically with our kids at all times during the day. That ability to move about town solo is real independence, and an important part of growing up. Delaying this mobility well into the teenage years might actually be contributing to the rise in mental health issues.
    3
  1737. Indonesia and Singapore will try to stay neutral and extract benefits from both China and America as much as they can. But if they can no longer avoid the choice, I'd wager they'd go West; tolerance and democracy are just too much a part of the civic culture to side with a supremacist and controlling CPC.
    3
  1738. They are encrypted, but they can still be collected and cracked later.
    3
  1739. All of Korea is in nuke range though. The bigger concern was always conventional artillery, but most of that devastation would stay north of the Han River which Seoul straddles unless NK forces can make their way south with ammo to spare.
    3
  1740. "What could go wrong?", says the same folks who brought in destructive rabbits, camels, cats, and cane toads
    3
  1741.  @ivanjokovic  "Obeyed" in that the PRC's expansion, condescension, and overselling promises of prosperity forced the Philippines to reconsider its security posture after kicking out US forces the first time.
    3
  1742. Even made worse with Makruz already populated with Sunni Balochi peoples with their own separatist sentiments
    3
  1743. I'd think NATO will be mostly fine, since they already spent so much of its history without France cooperating in the rest of the alliance. It'd be interesting to see how this will affect the newer EU though.
    3
  1744. A lot of it comes from the CPC itself, whose authoritarian practices of vaguely enforcing broadly-defined rules breeds mistrust between people. Had the Mainland gone more the way of democratized Táiwān, the Chinese people would likely turn out much more open and trusting, and China's post-imperial rise could have been better founded, while also more tolerated if not authentically welcomed by the rest of the world. However, delegating power to the people is a concept that is very novel to classically top-down Chinese culture, and a constant competition for attractiveness that the CPC would be terrified to play.
    3
  1745. That's just human nature, nothing gets people to unite faster than a common enemy. Communities are tightest when they identify as something they're not (barbarians, sinners, some other race/tribe/nation, etc), and sadly when one doesn't exist people will gradually find or create a new "other" because we're constantly trying to form a hierarchy with somebody beneath us.
    3
  1746. Not as severely as Africa’s own leaders, who basically see their country as their own property, making only as much national investments as needed for reelection (assuming there is an election).
    3
  1747. Ironically staying in our borders causes even bigger problems. The last times America tried to disengage, it got dragged into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Forward deployment allows faster containment if not total deterrence of local conflicts before they grow into truly devastating industrialized warfare. Isolationism would be akin to firefighting for a whole county but all the firefighters are in one downtown station.
    3
  1748. There are active independence movements, but it's a fringe minority. The departure of US military activity alone would crush their economies, right as they also need to set up new diplomatic and trade relationships... and their biggest international market advantage isn't something those islands can export, compared to their simple existence as dry land in the middle of the sea.
    3
  1749. ​ @huh3404 Anti-Israelis already hold all Israelis responsible. That's why they've been indiscriminately rocketing if not raiding Israeli population centers the entire time.
    3
  1750. ​ @EImpact-zt9rg Unfortunately the environment doesn't provide much alternative, because a lot can go in from farm to table even for supposedly "clean" foods (e.g. pesticides, antibiotics, fertilizer supplements, etc). America is pretty bad for the diet (regionally too, I can feel the crop homogeneity and nutritional degradation the farther I get from the West Coast), I never felt less healthy than after meals in China, and I felt best after munching through the EU -- it's all about how regulated the food producers are in terms of what they're allowed to input.
    3
  1751. Americans value shortsighted individual "freedom", great for experimentations but hostile to well-known concepts that "violate" personal agency.
    3
  1752.  @lzeb4730  On the contrary, COVID is more devastating since about 10% end up with significant lingering effects. For polio only 0.5% are unlucky enough to have it jump into their nervous system (even less for paralysis) -- 75% of polio cases are asymptomatic.
    3
  1753. All urbanized societies have a falling birthrate, but the US makes up for it in immigrants who compared to native-born are more healthy to move and hungry for work. China doesn't have this attraction, and throughout history keeps losing more people than it gains through other than births and conquest (neither of which are viable options anymore).
    3
  1754. ​ @ComanderSazabi2000 China has a Dàng'àn (档案) system that is functionally a social credit system. It's a dossier of education, employment, political, and criminal records. It's held so secretly that the subject isn't allowed to see the full file even though their school/employer/police can submit whatever they want into it, and done so permanently that they can't petition for corrections.
    3
  1755. I think young people already realize this. Hence all the job hopping (much more profitable than promotion to supervisor in the same firm) while YOLOing travel experiences at every opportunity.
    3
  1756. That would be a privacy if not security risk. They need their house value to keep rising so that when they sell off to some corporation (who in turn will only rent it out), they have to funds to blow on assisted living and terminal healthcare costs.
    3
  1757. In 1927, the US may have granted birthright citizenship to a bona fide king -- Rama IX of Thailand. He was born while his father was a student (not in diplomatic status) studying in Harvard accompanied by his mother. He never expressed his American citizenship, but he never renounced it either 🇹🇭👑🇺🇸
    3
  1758. As was mentioned, that massive stone/brick/thick cement type of construction takes up a lot of resources and is itself unsustainable. Besides, our requirements change as technology advances -- all that material gets in the way of the pipes, cables, and wireless signals that modern life relies on.
    3
  1759. Good grades alone don't make respectable human beings. Colleges don't want embarrassing alumni, like if one turns out to be a mad scientist with a long ethics rap sheet.
    3
  1760. Unfortunately without a fundamental change to the voting structure like ranked-choice polling, we'll always converge on exactly two viable choices which makes the candidates easier to buy out.
    3
  1761. All we hear is shame about not saving and hustling enough, when the real problem is we're not paid enough for the work we're already doing.
    3
  1762.  @gur262  Now try going to a supermarket or hospital far from home, especially where you're not fluent in the language and don't have much local cash.
    3
  1763. He's the editor for Bloomberg's Taiwan office. If anything he's compiled more Taiwanese thoughts from among his staff and their contacts.
    3
  1764. More resilience by reinforcing their inefficient SOEs and budget-consuming public sector with money they don't have?
    3
  1765. Now go there yourself and assess without WeChat filtering (both technical and psychological) getting in the way. Make sure to pay attention to the activity in the shops and on the streets between destinations.
    3
  1766. 5x8's is still the norm. 4x10 weeks are a new and still relatively niche schedule.
    3
  1767. My tldr: It's America's version of "Hell Joseon"
    3
  1768. If the joke goes "You can gag an Italian by tying their arms", can you likewise gag an Indian with a neck brace?
    3
  1769.  @Marvin-qp1se Right, path dependence is a real threat since so many employers look at your work history to predict future productivity.
    3
  1770. It stems from the government's discouragement of proactiveness and experimentation, as authoritarians are hypersensitive to perceived dissent and failures. There's a lot of complacency since the official authorities are expected to provide for everything, and underlying fear of repercussions when things don't go as the authorities expect.
    3
  1771. There was an estimate that the true COVID death toll in China before the Winter Olympics was closer to 2 million, conveniently not reported (or misreported as death by something else) out of fear of political reprisal from Běijīng and likely still happening with the unusually low death toll in Shànghǎi now. So while still more effective at combating the spread, without effective immunization it's overall strategically more flawed without a resolution.
    3
  1772. taken down... and lived
    3
  1773. The violence was likely earlier on in the program as authorities were still figuring out how exactly to impose the new policies to Sinicize Xinjiang. Plus if they have family under watch they're more likely not able to speak the whole story; the anti-Party Uighurs we hear from are the ones who escaped and have let go of any remaining loved ones back in China.
    3
  1774. After Tiananmen and especially HK, the PRC is failing badly. By the time public sentiment turns around, the Mainland itself would be in deep in a downward spiral of aging, debt, and pollution.
    3
  1775. Chip foundries are extremely sensitive, and production gets easily spoiled by things as mundane as earthquakes and pollutants in the water. A Mainland seizure won't guarantee continued operation seeing how the PRC can't even get its own waters cleaned up for drinking let alone bleeding edge chip production, and much of the knowledge to reach and maintain the yields will be either evacuated or destroyed. Wartime destruction would only put what's left even further behind.
    3
  1776. If it can hold Taiwan. Remember it's full of a trained hostile population defending terrain so formidable that the US specifically decided to skip the island even at the height of its might in WWII. There would be too many questions in the Mainland about why their only sons keep dying or failing to return from a deployment for the next two generations.
    3
  1777. I'd argue the opposite. China relies on the US for food and funds from exports, and any crossfire would scare away civilian ship traffic. China would quickly eat through its already debt-burdened treasury paying for overland alternatives, the costs accelerated by an even more dramatic clampdown on rising domestic unrest. The US wouldn't have to dominate the Western Pacific, it just has to make travel to Chinese ports unsafe. Then even if the conflict never went hot, China faces looming problems of unreversed aging, household debts, and industrial pollution, which threatens an undeniable decline. They're already alarmed at the rate of underemployment and rise of "lying flat" among their young adults, and further setbacks are a mortal threat to a Party whose support (or at least tolerance) depends on the promise of indefinite growth. Meanwhile the US will continue to be the world's brain drain, and the problems we see today will likely turn out overblown like every other prediction of America's downfall in previous culture wars. Thus Millennials and Gen Z might see China both peaking above the US, and also its sinking.
    3
  1778. If they can't strongarm a foreign firm operating in China into tech transfer, then yeah they'll attempt to hack or steal copies for reverse engineering. Problem is quality control isn't a priority for them, so customers aren't rushing to buy less expensive Made in China versions of things like airliners, ICE cars, or CPUs.
    3
  1779. US is already moving to replace its premier F-22 with the Next Gen Air Dominance platform. The PLAAF is still trying to figure out how to fly in the rain ☔
    3
  1780. EV battery swaps for cars are challenging because of how big they are, but for motorbikes this is already trending. You can already go around all of Taiwan just swapping batteries on their Gogoro network, and they recently began to export these charger stations to other countries in South and SE Asia 🛵⚡
    3
  1781. Besides the serious rework on the decks and pallet-sized doors, Airbus would also need to develop and sell pallet loaders that can reach the second deck.
    3
  1782. The flight deck position and the second passenger deck making up a critical part of the structural integrity pretty much obliterated the possibility of the A380 to take on oversized and/or quickly moved cargo. Plus its MTOW is too low for the amount of space it offers.
    3
  1783. More like high quality Chinese goods approach Western prices because that's how much it costs for Western standard materials and quality controls. This was true before the trade war.
    3
  1784. ​ @bwofficial1776 Just like you can thank amphetamines to give you energy until you can't deny how it's ultimately destroying you.
    3
  1785. Shareholders hate hiring Americans.
    3
  1786. ​ @danielhuynh9368 Right, education teaches how to learn. OJT is what actually make you productive and marketable. Case in point: I work in cybersecurity. My degree is in sociology. The Army and contractor gigs gave me the schooling for those entry-level IT tasks, rising to team and project management where my audience quickly becomes less technical.
    3
  1787. Government should have healthcare be a publicly-funded utility and allow businesses to focus on making money instead of administering insurance plans. Just like everywhere else in the developed world.
    3
  1788. ​Trump's hardline attitude ironically brought a record surge of irregular entries once the implementation got figured out.
    3
  1789. Scandinavian drivers disagree. Norway, Iceland, and Sweden drive more EVs per capita than even California. Difference is they installed more curbside chargers.
    3
  1790. Sadly they're more shortsighted as they focus on higher-margin ICE trucks over hard work of developing and retooling for EVs.
    3
  1791. Ethnically Chinese, but remember the Philippines is also a "melting pot" country where immigrants need not be genetically local to be considered a national.
    3
  1792. Whenever I can I opt to have only an underseat laptop bag with an aisle seat in the back. Not only does this mean I can board after most everyone else has sat down, for longer flights it means easier access to what I dub the "economy lounge" (i.e. the clear space by the rearmost door next to the aft galley and lavatories).
    3
  1793. The manual labor processing and safeguarding that $100 also makes it worth less to the seller. Unless you're a wage thief.
    3
  1794. Historically China was a fraction of the size it is today too. Even as late as WWII we recognized a difference between the smaller "China Proper" and the China that the Qing/Republic/PRC controlled.
    3
  1795. If you pay off your balance every cycle, it doesn't matter what interest rate they charge.
    3
  1796. ​ @Mcfunface SAN is modernizing and expanding its terminals, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of only one runway and 1.5 taxiways with regular fog and hills on both ends. The original proposal for SD's airport was on Kearny Mesa, but that was deemed "too distant" back in the days when 1000' takeoff rolls where considered generous. Then even today there's no direct Trolley connection to the terminal.
    3
  1797. Last year I deliberately detoured myself through Denver to check out their new Centurion lounge. I wouldn't mind a DEN layover again.
    3
  1798. I think we call them hatchbacks now
    3
  1799. Used cars mean trusting the seller about their usage and maintenance history. And usually their records are shoddy if not nonexistent.
    3
  1800. Cash transactions are ironically more expensive due to all the security, accounting, and transfer labor involved; ask a cannabis dispensary how annoying it was to not be able to send sales directly into their bank accounts back when very few institutions were willing to deal with deposits from sales of "controlled substances". The ease and security of digital payments is a big reason why cash and card prices have converged.
    3
  1801. Right, it was "luxurious" back then because the base-level boarding pass cost as much as business class today.
    3
  1802. I'd rather we purse the nuclear under our feet, as geothermal heat is itself a nuclear process and extreme deep drilling is something we've already begun exploring ♨ Unlike above-ground nuclear though, any incidents that happen won't be more exotic and durable than anything life on Earth hasn't already experienced 🌋
    3
  1803.  @musicnut1966  Everyone can, but not equally. The darker your skin, the less opportunities you're granted and the more consistently you encounter legalized setbacks on your achievements.
    3
  1804. Vibecession. What you’re feeling is inflation as demand for everything you want to buy is still strong.
    3
  1805. Warranty and fully known maintenance history were a big draw to buy new in my family, and we have professional mechanics among us.
    3
  1806. Right, the nice thing about electric chargers is they don't have all the HAZMAT measures required for gas stations and so can be installed practically anywhere. As for wiring it, I'd say we explore development of the hardware needed to make much cheaper aluminum cables safe to install -- it can't be too difficult since that's what all the high voltage lines use already.
    3
  1807. I would have sprung for a plug-in hybrid if they had been more affordable and available. Although I am hearing that gasoline/diesel-electric hybrids (as in electric-driven, ICE only turns a generator like on trains and ships) is being explored.
    3
  1808. Arizona is right next to California, which has a pro-schooling attitude and plenty of partially-trained fresh-blooded Americans. Setting up someplace more "business friendly" comes with the challenge of convincing an army of rare extremely educated urbanites to choose moving there over all the other opportunities in closer and friendlier social environments.
    3
  1809. It doesn't have to be their own kid, they may choose to distribute their estate to more distant relatives, donate to charities, and sell off pieces when no longer required.
    3
  1810. Ironically it's the now-aged who developed this economic environment and continue to petition policies that favor shortsighted corporations and dead-end retirees, at the expense of support for young couples raising the next generation.
    3
  1811. Not if corporations and absentee landlords continue being allowed to remove them from the market first.
    3
  1812. But those best positioned to have kids aren't because they have the mental space to calculate the overall costs of raising one.
    3
  1813. The mandated priority of shareholders over stakeholders (i.e. customers, employees, and the public) is the root of the problem.
    3
  1814. Smartphones won't replace applications that demand high reliability in all conditions, like aviation and oceangoing marine. Bikers and hikers would opt for a separate waterproof sunlight-readable unit too.
    3
  1815. Thank those businesses (both corporate and rich family) buying out houses they don't themselves need except as an "investment" to sell at their leisure at your expense.
    3
  1816. Besides hybrids, Japanese auto makers focus their efforts on hydrogen because the resources are much more globally democratized compared to the rare earth minerals that batteries require. This access is important to a resource-poor nation like Japan.
    3
  1817. All corporations should train you on the job. They rely too much on poaching from public education and private competitors, and then complain about not finding the "ideal candidate".
    3
  1818. Car crashes are a "personal problem", just like every other inconvenient conception.
    3
  1819. I'd say the relatively handsome compensation paying out union contracts comes not at the expense of executives and shareholders, but from product quality like through planned obsolescence and vendor locks on diagnosis requiring specifically licensed+equipped technicians.
    3
  1820. "We're a nation of laws"... that only get more restrictive over time. My own parents would not be eligible to legally immigrate here anymore on the same qualifications, and they're retired public servants. Meanwhile the global desire to get a second chance in America has not dimmed, there's just more barriers being propped up by the descandants of those whose "legal" entry wasn't nearly so bureaucratic.
    3
  1821. It's deliberately a counterchanged flag of Switzerland
    3
  1822. The real solution is denser developments and better public transit, reducing the everyday requirement for space-hogging cars altogether.
    3
  1823.  @pianobench6319 Sounds like Chinese access to the US market and dollars will thus depend on American firms owning a controlling stake and possibly government minders on the board, just like they force on American companies there.
    3
  1824. Considering America's safety standards (IIHS being even more stringent than EU NCAP) and the notoriety of Chinese after-sales support, I'd bet Chinese offerings will end up much more expensive and disappointing than we're being led to believe.
    3
  1825. "Merits" often include "potential", which usually biases against women and people of color. Turns out those merits aren't so rational due to underlying emotional biases and interests.
    3
  1826. Also time access. Poorer people can't afford to spend hours shopping and cooking more expensive "healthy, fresh" foods every single day when they need overtime or a second job just to pay for food and gas and rent and utilities, unlike higher-income earners with a better "work-life balance" from their jobs and shorter commutes between their bed and the login screen of their workplace.
    3
  1827. Self-driving cars would first have to master Florida retirement communities, where speeds are slower and the environment more predictable. Going straight to a coastal downtown is just asking to be overwhelmed by the chaos.
    3
  1828. Right, American-style tips were invented to basically deflect the animosity of low pay away from the management and towards the customer.
    3
  1829. Beaters are also pricey these days, with used cars recently rivaling the cost of new ones. I know this because I sold my paid-off car having moved to a city where my commute is car-optional, but am on the lookout for my own ride again in case I want the option back.
    3
  1830. Skilled immigrants promptly backfilling the vacancies left by those who largely couldn't economically compete, tolerate diversity, or live in a crowded environment? Yes California deserves it 🏖🏜🏞🌞
    3
  1831. From all the places I've been around the world, the more libertarian the national policy, the more the people will try to evade required payments.
    3
  1832. I've used the Chinese internet... and pretty much had a VPN on constantly to access anything of value beyond mundane local services.
    3
  1833.  @IbrahimNgeno  More like how every civilian corporation in China has to automatically contribute to China's militarized efforts, even if for now only by opening its databases to Party intelligence programs (with all the secrecy in the very existence of access this involves). There also aren't that many American defense contractors anymore after Cold War demobilization compelled consolidation and reductions. Companies on the outside are not only free to decline contracting with the government, they're also able to legally challenge government orders for their private resources.
    3
  1834. Race will stop being a factor when the corresponding socioeconomic disparities also disappears.
    3
  1835. Americans themselves don't want to harvest crops, it's really an opportunity cost compared even to unemployment where you could explore occupations that might pay out or at least aren't so back-breaking. Our modern agriculture relies on migrant workers for tasks that aren't yet automated because to them the pittance we pay in USD is still worth so much more than their legal opportunities back home.
    3
  1836. We can, but Republicans need corporate donations funded by the living wages that migrant workers don’t receive.
    3
  1837. However not having the infrastructure and amenities to serve that expansion discourages the growth it was funded for.
    3
  1838. It’ll probably keep its value well too because they’re no longer sold in the US 🥲
    3
  1839. Lumber is relatively cheap in North America, and Americans desire recently-built homes. The mantra for real estate is "location, location, location" because we accept that the building itself is practically disposable; what's more important are the access to desired and often publicly-subsidized features outside the house (commute patterns, schools, parks/green space, low crime, cheap utilities, etc).
    3
  1840. HR Manager in their mind (because it's too much effort and legal liability to actually say): Sorry, you're not a well-educated highly-experienced immigrant whom we compensate with a US address and some pocket change while constantly hanging the threat of deportation at our convenience.
    3
  1841. The ideal is a public sector job that they can't hire non-citizens for, doing supervision of onsite work tasks that they can't trust with contractors or remote until offshored.
    3
  1842. At least they can be readily repaired. Getting parts and after-sales service for Chinese brands is abysmal, and Mainlander attitudes towards others all but ensure their business will remain difficult to the customer once "new" turns to "used".
    3
  1843. The only ones paying that much cash are companies who demand fully flexible tickets. Most premium seat tourists use points or scored a status-based upgrade.
    3
  1844. Reagan proclaimed "government is the problem" and that libertarianism has dominated our economic and budgetary policy ever since. Problem is no private entity is capable of fixing our infrastructure because it's by itself unprofitable... if you want to feel what I mean look no further than Cox and Comcast with America's sorry state of broadband internet.
    3
  1845. I remember hiking in East Java one time and drinking straight from the stream that was irrigating the rice terraces downhill, and it was probably the most refreshing refilled bottle of water ever.
    3
  1846. On the Apollo rockets, they only had to be used once with only the Command Module actually making it back down to Earth in habitable condition. A residence demands to have its structure and infrastructure work 24 hours a day for decades on end, times however many owners/tenants live the building. So the engineering challenges are very different.
    3
  1847. ​Not continuously though, only for half a day during the work week. Residential builds are even more demanding on life support because regular people (who are not security and facilities professionals) occupy the building at all times.
    3
  1848. More like the failures center their curriculum around a God who doesn't care (if He even exists), and a morality that's both hypocritical and violates the firmware of life.
    3
  1849. Practically all land in the US has some native artifacts they don't want disturbed, and some environmentalists would protest a new industrial development regardless of location. Not to mining known deposits over these concerns is a penny-wise pound-foolish notion.
    3
  1850. Still less damaging over the life of the vehicle. EVs nowadays easily exceed 100 mpg-equivalent in terms of carbon emitted even when charged on coal.
    3
  1851. I ride a e-motorbike. It is totally worth it, especially when the office is paying for the wall socket I can top up the battery at.
    3
  1852. It's a custom project in a professional garage, and not that bad considering what some folks spend on luxury outfits for their rides.
    3
  1853. Likely because of the legal liability of serving risky old food. Not that it's right, just a disclaimer should suffice.
    3
  1854. That the Fed raised borrowing rates to prevent the US Dollar from becoming even more worthless? You really should look at the lawmakers we elected whose legislation permits corporate impunity.
    3
  1855. Ironically we reelect the most pro-corporate candidate imaginable. I'm not hopeful about the fullness of my wallet as long as the always big business GOP remains in power.
    3
  1856. You're assuming we have easy access to spaces we can hunt and gather in a sea of privatized property.
    3
  1857. We've tried and that got us blindsided into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Turns out there's only so much "focus on yourself" isolation you can have before violent haters penetrate all the way in.
    3
  1858. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests.
    3
  1859. More like they tell the government what to say back. Corporate lobbyists are the ones usually drafting new legislation that gets lobbied into law.
    3
  1860. GE: “Our products make pink mist, and clean it up too!”
    3
  1861. Because the most pessimistic reports about the PRC tends to be close to the truth. I say this having previously lived in Mainland China.
    3
  1862. Right, there's a glaring lack of the "and others" aspect in all that prepping. They're the type to keep secret from their neighbors the existence of a fallout shelter. Meanwhile unequipped city dwellers they disdain readily assist each other when an earthquake or hurricane flattens their neighborhood.
    3
  1863. ​ @JCSY1 Even then Mainland Chinese aren't traveling domestically or nearby nearly as much as tourism providers had hoped. Zero-COVID and the anemic aftermath pretty much depleted consumer confidence, and they're more anxious about their employment security in general now that China itself is getting its easily-hired manufacturing jobs offshored.
    3
  1864. There are people who put an entire Tesla drivetrain into another car. Anyone who can do an engine swap would figure out EVs quickly enough.
    3
  1865. Popularity is not overcapacity. If anything Airbus and Boeing can’t deliver new planes fast enough.
    3
  1866. Chinese cars haven’t been attractive at all until recently, and only their EVs. Meanwhile demand for it is dropping, alarmingly within China too. So the trade restrictions are getting ahead of the dumping that Beijing would do as they double down on an export-led economy towards a decreasingly receptive world.
    3
  1867. They won't replace every application, but their introduction to power things like buildings and buses will free up Li-ion cells for use in more weight-sensitive ones.
    3
  1868. China has "rules" but they're deliberately vague and unevenly enforced. Business are realizing that there is really no way to "stay within the rules", and the best way to maintain profits longer term is to divest out of China.
    3
  1869. Being pro-Russia and remaining more dependent wouldn't be any better if the supply side gets disrupted for whatever reason. Resilience through alternatives is more expensive and complex than chasing efficiency, but in the longer run it works.
    3
  1870. Problem is they convince the rest of us that their interests like minimizing tax payments through maximizing exceptions — which conveniently only they have the funds to pay specialist staff to get an appreciable return on — is the regular citizen’s interest too. The amount of lobbying for a complex tax environment full of arcane exemptions is why the rich keep getting richer at our expense. There’s a reason why they’re so hostile to tax liabilities above everything other concern you’d hear from them.
    3
  1871. It's 50 or 60 Hz depending on the grid (or 400 in aircraft and some other specialized applications). Also it's not the battery that maintains sync with utility power, it's the inverter -- most solar installations have no battery backup of their own, just whatever automatic voltage regulation capabilities its associated inverter can do.
    3
  1872. That's the ideal, but a distant thought considering China has always been ruled by an autocracy -- with violent transitions between ruling governments. Taiwan didn't democratize until the end of the Cold War, but they finally demonstrate the "China" that China should have become.
    3
  1873. ​ @davidwong5197 Taiwan is fine, it was considerably more lively than the Mainland cities I visited just last summer.
    3
  1874. It's an overstock problem, Chinese consumers aren't buying their own products. There are junkyards full of "sold" fully-registered yet never-driven Chinese EVs.
    3
  1875. Then watch the German language version. This channel is foreign language for foreign focus.
    3
  1876. They would still have diplomatic immunity regardless, but can be declared persona non grata with their immunity revoked by the end of the week. However this decision has to be balanced by the likelihood of PNG'ing one of our own in retaliation, and how likely they'll choose a random visa officer vs one who really does have sensitive in-country contacts.
    3
  1877.  @randonlando418  I've heard that many PRC citizens who have visited Taiwan began thinking the same thing
    3
  1878. They don't make 'em like they used to with "New China".
    3
  1879. I remember that Russia being not so irredentist about their former Soviet sphere, like if Yeltsin became the norm of subsequent Russian leadership. Also that the Siberian Far East was discovered to be full of gold and oil, as opposed to rare earths and Arctic access. Hence Russia's breakneck admission into NATO that gave the US reason to directly defend Russia.
    3
  1880. Have you seen how crowded the streets of Jakarta are? What's more important for frequent reliable service is an dedicated path that excludes traffic, and fewer things get drivers to consistently avoid the space than rails on the road.
    3
  1881. "Cutting costs." Tells you all you need to know about why private enterprises should not be in charge of public goods like basic infrastructure 🏚💰
    3
  1882. Tell that to the MAGA and neo-Nazi folks who wish to recreate a past that never really happened the way they thought.
    3
  1883. Everyone who's not an English-speaking white churchgoer. They're anxious about not getting the automatic deference they enjoy and being treated more like every other minority.
    3
  1884. Bahasa Indonesia and Filipino have the same Malayan roots
    3
  1885. Considering the lack of mission activity and an admittedly strict separation of "personal feelings", getting interviewed by the media is probably the most challenging and engaging thing they'll be doing for weeks.
    3
  1886. If they're not on its own VLAN, you're just asking for trouble.
    3
  1887. There is a shortage of IT workers in general, particularly those not involved in software development but in cybersecurity and uptime operations. It's especially acute in government because corporations keep luring the limited pool away with higher paychecks, which are easier to appreciate compared to less quantifiable benefits and job security that the public sector offers instead.
    3
  1888. Elite Signaling is sadly a very powerful psychological phenomenon.
    3
  1889. Back then the ruling KMT also wanted to reunite China, just on their own terms. When it became obvious that it'd be impossible by force, they switched to challenge the Communists through better economics and attractiveness, which is a strategy seen today with things like TSMC, bubble tea, and Mandopop. Also a PLA invasion of Táiwān is still a land war where casual combatants with improvised weapons can defeat the political objectives of the occupier. Even if a fraction of Taiwanese joins their local resistance, it will still be devastating to the PLA which has very little combat experience or protective equipment. Táiwān could end up being the Vietnam+Iraq+Afghanistan to the PRC, especially since the Mainland carries multiple points of simmering separatism, and the loss of trade scared off by the crossfire and customer anger creates massive unrest from food skyrocketing in prices and collapsing in quality.
    3
  1890. Because even though Trump is open about his thoughts, his thoughts and interests aren't so consistent.
    3
  1891. Neither do its positive effects either. Trade killing regional conflicts would be a lot more common had so many nations not invited the US military to base there, protecting them from not only anti-Western forces but also ironically more petty disputes with each other.
    3
  1892. The last times America put America First by disengaging from global geopolitics, it got dragged into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Fourth time's a charm?
    3
  1893. American moderate? For the developed world that would be solidly right-wing.
    3
  1894. Electrified transport and heating will cut over half the consumption of oil though. Producers will ultimately cut production, and that will crash the budgets of petrostates and with it the civil stability of societies who spent generations burning their way to "prosperity"... Venezuela is only the beginning.
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  1895. ​ @yakumoyukarina Designed and QC'd by Western firms. The ones that don't are dumped into markets desperate to break out of the middle income trap, if they're even developed that far.
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  1896. I did DXB-GIG-EZE round trip in economy. Besides the enormous length, I remember the IFE being pretty old, and the wifi losing connection over much of the Atlantic. This was in 2018, so not sure if any upgrades to the experience have happened since then.
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  1897. There are boneyard airports full of retired planes to pull parts from. The 747 was common enough to give quite long wings for the ones still flying.
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  1898. The old airport now just serves private, charter, and military flights, so there wouldn't be any confusion anyway
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  1899. As COVID showed, being dedicated to transporting humans is a liability when said humans stop flying for whatever reason. Goods however need to keep moving, even moreso when passengers aren’t coming to its origins. It’s clear the next major model must prioritize pallets — it’s way easier to please people with the open space it offers through a retrofit. This is why the iconic 747 continues to take off as an airfreighter conversion (or rather reversion) half a century later, while the cruise ship A380 likely won’t enjoy such a second wind.
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  1900. South Asia is the biggest passenger market for Gulf carriers, so any improvement by Air India threatens ticket sales through Dubai and Doha. Air India doesn't even need to come close to the lavishness of Emirates and Qatar, just offer direct flights.
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  1901. 5G is also an improvement in switching between cell sites, because transitions between antennas will be happening far more frequently. Part of the reason installing "Made in China" 5G infrastructure is so controversial is because they're closed-source designs and a simple "update" away from enabling capabilities to track precise movements between the different microsites, not to mention with the huge amount of data business-grade IOT devices are expected to transmit and get copied to a regime hell-bent on entrenching power by any means necessary.
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  1902. It's one thing to be given an organized tour with a predetermined schedule. It's another if you were able to show up unannounced and be let in without delay. So what kind of inspection did you have?
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  1903. More like it is capitalism in California because of incumbent landed NIMBYs who want to keep their house prices inflated; it's defense of market dominance since all the cheap flat land is already taken. California homes are both more costly and under threat as new developments are pushed farther from urban centers where the labor and resources are readily available increasingly deeper into winding wildfire territory.
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  1904. While extreme, it is true that investment in the youth is far more profitable in the long term than in increasingly expensive terminal support for the aged. Problem is politicians and their supporters want returns in 2~3 years, not 20~30.
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  1905. The wealth will go to corporations due to institutional home buys spent on institutional terminal life services. Anyone born later are at the whims of what private equity firms and other corporate homeowners slowly release for sale.
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  1906. Seniors weren’t exactly selling out before interest rates took off. It’s not a Democrat issue, it’s one of corporate libertarianism narrowing your choice to either stay home, or spend your equity and life savings on terminal living services.
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  1907.  @pewpewpower Japan is a case where they let (their predetermined sense of) perfection get in the way of the overall good.
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  1908.  @fakenamer9488  Quiet quitting is that change to find something more fulfilling, whether it's seeking a new career or using that time they would have spent hustling in their current job on a hobby or other activity. The "quitting" part refers to the climbing of the ladder in the current company.
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  1909. Americans are 7x more productive too, and the gap seems to actually be widening.
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  1910. They're only deadbeats because companies and government fails to train them for the next level. Staying ahead and taking advantage of automation requires free time and disposable funds to get truly educated through schooling and experimentation with the new tools.
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  1911. 24-hour continuous operation, old design that doesn't lend itself to easy changes, and organizational inertia makes upgrades a huge disruption to The City That Never Sleeps.
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  1912. LAX already separated its arrivals and departures level... back when it held the Olympics last time
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  1913. They'll be scrapped, or sold to desperate locals who need a replacement ride. Considering the high cost of cars up to now, it may be wise to second-guess any cars from the Gulf asking for less than $10k in the next few years.
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  1914. CEO probably had some sketchy sentiments of his own to go ahead using his employer's money without proper formal authorization.
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  1915. That advantage doesn’t necessarily last forever though, and switching costs are a real concern depending on how quickly jurisdictions can change policies.
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  1916. Especially when the state dictates an artificially low price of electricity, leading to power plants suddenly going offline for "maintenance" when the unregulated price of coal gets too high.
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  1917. Which is why the German economy is in deep trouble with the cutoff of Russian gas and the stalling of exports to China -- they failed use their savings and state loans to set up resilience through alternatives. Remember that macroeconomic policies don't have the same interests or liabilities that retail consumer borrowers face.
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  1918. People must be buying if >$20k is the asking price you keep seeing.
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  1919. A lot less urbanites then were business owners, entirely reliant on big industries for pay. The democratization of self-proprietorship opportunities through the internet and digital banking likely won't make the next one so totally devastating.
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  1920. Not as much as overdrawn existing water rights and NIMBY politics preventing denser car-optional developments.
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  1921. Remote work is horrible on creating durable social connections, and threatens to get you outsourced to much cheaper competition overseas. You're simply more disposable when you're only seen on a screen, and chances are you'll run out of remote-only job offers much sooner than you'd like.
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  1922. People move away from farmlands even though it has all the food. It's because of the economic opportunities that urban centers provide.
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  1923. Or arguably not enough. Government was stronger back then and not as cowed by private interests.
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  1924. America does like to make sure what it builds actually stays standing despite extreme conditions and neglect. Like the US has bridges expected to last 30 years pushing 100, whereas China builds bridges said to last 100 years falling apart by 30.
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  1925. It comes from an attitude about whether the tasks they're asked to do are really worth the effort. Seeing the results of last week's election, this is a thought shared much more widely across generations.
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  1926. Right, we once did this with previously private electricity companies which have the same physical reach constraints.
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  1927. France only reprocesses once into unrecoverable MOX Fuel, due to nuclear waste recycling being among the best ways to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. The US and UK ceased its reprocessing programs due to the proliferation concerns, as well as the cost effectiveness of just mining more raw uranium. Molten salt reactors haven't proved economical to operate. We still haven't developed an artificial nuclear technology that is both economical yet non-weaponizable. So if anything the most prudent path is to minimize new deployments.
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  1928. Property taxes are relatively low because of Prop 13 limitations, hence the raised taxes on everything else. Homeless live there due to low availability of housing (promoted by pro-landowner policies like Prop 13) and because the climate is survivable year-round. The vast majority of the water gets used by agriculture, who are incentivized to not be efficient with their consumption by the state's "use it or lose it" water rights laws that they also intensively lobby against updating. So yes politics is the problem, but it's not necessarily because of a patronizing political agenda.
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  1929. 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 ♨
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  1930. 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.
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  1931. Fear is a great motivator, both for ad revenue and for votes.
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  1932. 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.
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  1933. And lack of supply, which if anything is the stronger influence this time.
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  1934. 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.
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  1935. 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.
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  1936. 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.
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  1937. 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.
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  1938. Until cartels develop innovations in demining an area, and now you've just armed drug runners with IEDs.
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  1939. 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.
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  1940. 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.
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  1941. ​ @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.
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  1942. 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.
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  1943. 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.
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  1944. 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.
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  1945. Globally yes. But the local pollution effects are way more acute and severe.
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  1946. 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.
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  1947. ​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".
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  1948. 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.
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  1949. 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.
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  1950. "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.
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  1951.  @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.
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  1952. 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.
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  1953. 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.
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  1954. His predictions on the timeline and severity might be clickbait, but his takes on the overall trends hold up.
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  1955. Founders aren't always the best leaders to maximize the effect and profit down the line though.
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  1956. Modern China has been all marketing because it gives more value-added than manufacturing and is more accessible than truly domestic R&D. Problem is the truth clearly doesn't match their pitch, and increasingly people are choosing alternatives to China.
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  1957. Setting up a controlled camp the size of a city would be worse, because then the government is totally responsible everything that happens inside no matter which party is in power. We'd likely end up with radicalized asylum rejects stirring up organized hate abroad against all of America because there's no local communities to share the load of dispersing and socializing the entrants, just a crowd of irritated people riling up each other.
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  1958.  @spartanparty3894  Right. If anything America's strength comes from the constant (and occasionally violent) competition of ideas on how to develop a "more perfect Union". Even the violence over the path forward declines between successive revolutions: the Civil War, the Gilded Age industrial labor movements, the Civil Rights Movement, and arguably today's "wokeness". China's strategy seems to direct itself towards becoming like china -- hard and impressive, but ultimately brittle. The way they're heading, younger Millennials and Gen Z approaching their retirement might get to witness China shattering from self-made aging, household debt, soil pollution, and official corruption 🐢🐇
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  1959. Critics have been saying the US is on the "verge of collapse" since 1812, various Panics, the Civil War, the anarcho-communist insurrection, the Great Depression, and the assassination-a-month Civil Rights Movement; the current "woke"/MAGA battle is tame by comparison. America will likely find its way towards a "more perfect Union" and further harmonize with its ideal of "liberty and justice for all" just like it did every previous time, though like Churchill supposedly said it may be "only after they have tried everything else".
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  1960. They were also hoping that hydrogen fuel cells would become the solution, as sourcing it is democratized to basically anywhere with water. Compared at least to BEVs which requires enormous amounts of rare earths that they're ill-equipped to produce.
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  1961. Also in China the state owns all the land, you just lease it from them. So land acquisition isn't nearly as complicated, and they're not scared to use more coercive methods to have you agree to sign away your property as they see fit.
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  1962. That's why they built an HSR line all the way to Ürümqi, which is a financial black hole. And then the method to "unify" the country involves more flooding the destination with Hàn people and overwhelming the natives, instead of welcoming and integrating the differences into a greater ethnically-agnostic culture.
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  1963. If you understand Mandarin and watch their news over the past two decades, you'd think we're already in one. The Party needs a powerful foreign enemy to justify its continued domestic rule.
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  1964. Which is basically to make sure the CPC does not forcibly seize Taiwan, which if we don't fight directly at least means bringing supplies and information to the Taiwanese resistance, and make the Party lose face among the Chinese people by denying the quick and easy victory they keep promising.
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  1965. Job conditions in Asian businesses are bad in general. Many would jump to a Western-based firm wherever possible.
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  1966. Although the idea was imported from the Price Club, which did start in Southern California and later merged with
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  1967. It's probably called that because they're basically edible weeds to them. Lobsters in America were also "prison food" back in the days when they naturally washed up on New England beaches.
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  1968. The labor and security costs of cash are about 1~2%, going by what every country outside the US seems to have. The extra points and cash back America offers often come from the merchants (plus those unlucky to pay interest), but this can also be thought of as an investment in supporting and developing the overall extremely lucrative American consumer environment where they make their money in.
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  1969. Main problem is the Jones Act effectively discourages the options of ships Americans would crew because of the limited size of the oceangoing US-flagged fleet. The lack of shipbuilder competition already shut down American shipyards through consolidation, making the nation weaker that it would've been had we allowed that overseas competiton.
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  1970.  @studyonline4763 Westerners are more productive because they’re actually working those hours, slogging through a backlog or hustling for new ones. A lot of Korean and Japanese hours are spent quietly shopping/gaming/chatting on Kakao or LINE while waiting for their boss (and their boss and their boss) to clock out. The job culture reflects the cultural one of absolute servitude to one’s superiors.
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  1971. The terrible part being China has expended all its options for state-led domestic economic growth. Now it faces the choice of economic (which threatens political) reform, or trying to impose an even more export-dominated revenue stream from a world that wants to diversify its supply from the single-source of China.
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  1972. ​That's hardly worth considering compared to the pegged-right turn of conservative media.
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  1973. EVs provide at least twice the range per ton of carbon emitted when charged on 100% coal, and only improves with greener energy sources. Plus it's far easier to monitor and control pollution from fixed centralized power plants.
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  1974. I switched back to Firefox when after they largely fixed their RAM usage bug, which feels like 10 years ago now
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  1975. The bad policy of low supply, such as Prop 13 which favors incumbent homeowners over newer residents. So places like CA would shift towards more hungry skilled immigrants and more entrenched retirees, while still maintaining much of its dominance in the higher value-added of design and marketing.
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  1976. Right, the "hard work" we're told makes us successful is nowhere near as profitable as the personally-accessible "business" loans and arcane tax dodges that only the already-rich have access to.
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  1977. Going socially conservative would also dissuade the high-skill immigrants who come in and keep CA net positive in productivity (and whose demand for still limited housing keeps prices so damn high). Without a similarly tolerant and economically-diverse alternative US state, losing CA progressiveness would mean America as a whole loses valuable migrant brainpower to other countries.
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  1978. East Asian education is more focused, but also mandates time-sucking classical literature of the past and doesn't teach much to develop raw creativity and systemic experimentation for the future. The individual overspecialization of life skills could explain why they have a more stressful time adapting to changes in the economic environment as well as circumventing aristocratic "good family" barriers for further upward mobility, which then explains the high rates of depression, societal anomie, and suicides. Hence why Asians keep trying to come to the "decadent" US at the earliest opportunity.
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  1979. The real key to success is not in developing a comparative advantage the first time, but in being able to fail and try again until you get that one lucky break to pay off all the past attempts. A big reason why most visible success stories are pale, male, who know guys from Yale is because they enjoy multiple generations’ worth of wealth and prestige to prop up each other when biasing their graciousness towards like-minded “potential” while ignoring past performance.
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  1980. I’m wondering if an upcoming hybrid will be a gasoline-electric type, where it’s moved only through electric motors and the gas is only burned to charge the battery. This is how modern ships and trains are powered nowadays.
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  1981. Any for-profit venture fulfilling a market demand will abuse its position to maximize dominance and thus revenue. This isn't the first time either, electrified industrialization-fueled laissez-faire economy previously led to the cartels that we enacted the original Anti-Trust legislation on.
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  1982.  @artofthereal   I deal with network design and security, and nowadays the weakest link is the humans themselves. The advantage of not coming from a solely technical background is that I can communicate faults and fixes more effectively between managers, engineers, and customers. There's a growing demand in tech for human-centered studies. I also know a few classmates with "useless" degrees in undergraduate psychology who now do jobs like UX.
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  1983. That's called "networking", and has ironically become even more important as competition globalized and algorithms filter all the strangers in job applications. Also the minimums have risen too; internet access was a niche luxury when we were our parents' age, but nowadays lacking a smartphone is the fastest way to get left behind.
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  1984. Pushing for more iPhone adoption might ironically help, because Apple wouldn’t permit the natively ad-blocking Vanced and the dozen different forks that emerged when Google tried to clamp down on it.
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  1985. I watched Battle of Lake Changjin both I and II (yes there's a sequel, set on a "bridge" that is more like a modern aqueduct pump) and found it much more cartoonish than I had expected, like they had purposefully forgotten details of their own stories much like American films did about Vietnam in the 1980s. There was a lot of daytime battles when they should all have taken place at night to avoid US airpower and artillery spotters. There's not a sense of more than company-sized elements fighting each other even though many more soldiers should have been around on both sides (not just during the celebrations). Worst of all there was something off about all the "Americans", who had all the wrong accents, lingo, attitudes, and image (most dudes looked more Slavic or even Arab, and I don't remember one shaved face among the grunts). To me it was clear that all the budget went into the special effects (including the still infamously obvious CGI), and none into researching how to make the struggles more believable. But I must say they don't shy away from the horrific effects of heavy weaponry on the bodies of anonymous comrades. I also watched their similarly Korea-themed movie "Snipers" (狙击手), and it's likewise just as outlandish as some of America's pre-9/11 cinema.
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  1986. ​ @fennoman9241 ​​Key word being "may". There's a process (Consular Report for Birth Abroad) that formalizes a jus sanguinis US citizenship at birth.
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  1987. The path is there, he just never took it because he never thought to question his own status.
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  1988. That China also has a huge security and military to fund, on top of the same issues of an aging workforce and real estate bubble?
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  1989. That’s not how averages work. Japan’s branding and cultural impact globally runs circles around that of modern China, despite having only 1/10th of the people. The productive density just isn’t there out of the PRC 🎌🍣🍥💮🔰
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  1990. There are ways to calculate explosive yields modeled from deliberately "one-point" subcritical detonations. Nuclear warheads also require frequent maintenance so Russia's massive stock might have been degraded, but everyone else's is either affordable in size or new enough to be reliable.
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  1991. Each organization would be different, though singing songs sounds too childish for American workers to get on board with. More like how SAP or Costco treats its employees, which allows them to retain voluntary talent even when competitors offer larger paychecks.
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  1992. Although GPS is transmit only, the real work is all done on the device itself by calculating the mathematical solution of the orbit and time broadcasts. China’s Beidou does offer satellite relay from the ground, but it’s not required to get a position fix either.
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  1993. "Nukes, Cows, and The Thing: RFID"
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  1994. "Ahead" is a premature call considering how China's 5G has not been economical to operate: their antennas consume at least double the electricity to provide a noticeable speed boost. The Chinese telcom companies are known to schedule regular shutdowns of its 5G service because their early models are such a money drain, while the European competitors have been more focused on first making them more power efficient and worth implementing.
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  1995. Well Arabic does involve a lot of sounds that don't exist in English.
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  1996. Hence why it's great to be an American... overseas. From what I hear among working age Americans they're more than ready to move abroad permanently as long as they're still paid in USD.
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  1997.  @mr.nemesis6442  That's why I mentioned diplomatic disrepute: not withdrawing as previously agreed reduces trust in us during future negotiations with everyone else including our allies who also planned around demobilization, while making us seem even more of a colonizer. Ironically the fiasco of Afghanistan (along with Pakistan who also removed US control of bases there) underscores the need for American forces in all our other bases worldwide, giving clear warning about how prepared and motivated their own militaries need to be before asking us to leave.
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  1998. Not the way Chinese companies pour it though. They often skimp on cement so it crumbles into dust even by hand.
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  1999. The average American worker is 7x more productive per work hour than the average Chinese, and the gap seems to be growing too. The PRC can't politically afford to automate to the same degree, that's why there's constant images of menial labor for even easily roboticized tasks. China already has a major issue of social immobility biased towards family connections, putting everyone else out of work just makes the society as brittle as the late Qing and early Republic eras.
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  2000. The Party, not the people. Internal politics are really brittle because the Party scares and pisses off its people just as often as they blind them with money and promises... which are increasingly harder to achieve as easy profits disappear and aging, debt, and pollution remain unreversed.
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  2001.  @captlanc China doesn’t think so though. Throughout the dynasties China governs on the assumption that ancestry compels allegiance, and even today this nation-state concept with hard soverign boundaries is considered a foreign barbarism that they shouldn’t follow. We see this in the PRC government’s persistent invasiveness into overseas Chinese community groups. So while Chinese descent doesn’t necessarily mean agreement with the modern Chinese state, just identifying as Chinese does open them up to influence if not coercion by its ruling Party.
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  2002. Philippines would likely join in so that it can take back its western seas. South Korea is more iffy since they need to keep watch for a surprise from the North.
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  2003. It's cold when you're acclimatized to temps over 30, which it may have been even that same afternoon. I remember doing a year in the Gulf and coming back shivering in the high-10s.
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  2004. Many of them are also empty fields especially in Africa. They're just included because of periodic training exercises with the locals.
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  2005. Thing is the overall human population is still rising, driven by societies who haven't yet realized how expensive it is to become productive and valuable in a capitalist environment.
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  2006. More people mean more opportunities, especially if your farmhand job got automated away by a tractor. There's a reason populations continue to urbanize at the earliest opportunity.
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  2007. Generally, though newer naval nuclear propulsion minimizes the amount of noisemaking pumps, instead having natural convection create the movement of coolant. But yeah there isn’t much need for months of stores for long deployments underwater. Although NK’s smaller boats will eventually face pressure with its limited stowage and resupply lines getting choked off over time.
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  2008. Although early retirement comes with its own risks, like the backlash in France and the stagnation in China. It's not so much the stoppage of work by age as the sharing of wealth by the oligarchs.
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  2009. That might be a side effect of our technology-driven modern economy, where a few years of waiting really would render the product unable to function.
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  2010. America offers opportunity regardless of tribe or family status, which is much more enchanting than industrial projects where the state or “big man” owner reaps practically all the value and you have to constantly negotiate for your “bonus”.
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  2011. The countries leave themselves behind, particularly through corruption. There’s a reason Botswana is booming compared to the shitshow of neighboring South Africa and Zimbabwe 🇧🇼⚖️📈
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  2012. Turns out those Western political ideals make for a more enduring economy based on innovation and service, compared to the boom of export-led mining and manufacturing… followed by the bust due these activities being so readily replaced.
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  2013. SG might decline if invited so it can maintain its neutrality, which would embarrass the US and raise questions about the real political freedom in S'pore
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  2014. Be careful what you wish for. The autocrats that the US stopped bombing have since been turning its attention against their own subjects.
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  2015. Not enough customers want Chinese products, including Chinese themselves. The tariffs are meant to cancel the massive subsidies the Chinese government provides to inflate their attractiveness and suppress foreign competition.
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  2016. Debt and creative accounting. Just at a much more intense pace than the last 20 years.
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  2017. Although the real savings on airfare comes from passengers no longer wanting to fly into or connecting through China altogether.
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  2018. Only Emirates and Flydubai connect in Dubai. It doesn't make sense to grant Fifth Freedom permissions to foreign direct competitors at the DXB hub.
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  2019. It would not have lasted long though, their fundamental advantages at the time were not sustainable. Same is happening with China.
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  2020. It'd be nice to cooperate, but the CPC needs not just competitors but enemies to distract and deflect from its own policy mistakes in order to remain "great, glorious, and correct" to the Chinese people. Since the Soviet collapse the West had been questioning its own goals until recently when aggressive autocracies like Xi and Putin started gifting answers.
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  2021. As if Communist crony colonialism is any better? Remember last time a self-centered Asian ethnostate sought to liberate "Asia for the Asians"?
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  2022. And also raising deeply discomforting questions to the South Korean government. It's been a common theme in all these tragedies where official corruption or negligence played a major role in amplifying the devastation.
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  2023. Spanish is more useful to Americans, since that's the language for rest of the Western Hemisphere where Americans often vacation and increasingly trade with.
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  2024. Close knit convoys might get dangerous since the protected ships have all different capabilities (not all standard Liberty Ships) and the crews have no familiarity with each other. It would probably look more like prescribed corridors (much like near ports and in aviation) that navy vessels do out-and-back circuit patrols around.
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  2025. Not as intensely and continuously, no.
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  2026. ​Plus the last time China had a respectable navy was like the Ming Dynasty. I have questions regarding how well a PLA Navy crew would fare in controlling real sudden battle damage in the open sea when their experience and legacy is largely as an internal riverine force for hundreds of years.
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  2027. Experience is vital to avoid and control battle damage, especially with the still poor build quality the PLA Navy ships are showing. The last time China had a respectable open ocean force was like the Ming Dynasty, and ever since then they've been largely a riverine navy where building-sized waves are nonexistent and swimming to shore is always an option -- these are new challenges to train for especially when your sister ships are also running and gunning elsewhere and survival beyond your own ship and shipmates is not guaranteed.
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  2028. The VLS boxes are fixed to the ship, and a fully loaded one would be like 20x heavier than the cells they swap out (each cell weighing several tons already).
    3
  2029. Seems like the one megaproject Dubai truly invests in is an invisible one: digging in a citywide piped sewage system. You rarely see the poop trucks anymore, especially compared to the neighboring emirates and countries.
    3
  2030. And then the problem is when the market crashes, your $54k will too. A downturn only serves those who had a healthy amount of assets to buy low with beforehand.
    2
  2031. Corporations have an indefinite lifespan. I wouldn't hold my breath.
    2
  2032. Just have to politically overcome the overrepresented traditionalists who mistakenly equate all socialized personal supports with autocratic Communism.
    2
  2033. That partly explains why mothers who started young also tend to have more children: besides more fertile time, there's also a mental barrier against having more children that gets broken.
    2
  2034. I don't know about "waiting" so much as not being able to attract a committed wife until they're more financially established past their 20s. That's on top of women rejecting all the annoying warnings that their window to start a family (at least cheaply without IVF) is approaching quicker than they expect.
    2
  2035. It will hurt our pocketbooks from the labor cost driven inflation, especially as there are less younger Americans entering the workforce compared to the ones aging out going forward.
    2
  2036. ⁠Right, specific skills go obsolete no matter how valuable they were at the time. Personality is a much more durable indicator of if someone will continue to enjoy, tolerate, or hate the field they were hired for… and often affect the surrounding work culture in the process.
    2
  2037. The other name for the place is Southern Syria, which was how it was administered under the Ottomans.
    2
  2038. That's not how paradrops work still today. It's invariably static line that automatically pulls out the chute upon exit because of how low the soldiers make their jumps from (the aim is to get to the ground as quickly as possible).
    2
  2039. Although Americans did the bulk of the bombing and fighting, it seems the South Koreans became the most hated participant. In the ROK's zeal to prove itself as a developed and dependable military ally following its near collapse in the Korean War, Korean soldiers resorted to the one tactic they've known since at least getting colonized by Japan if not earlier: punitive abuse and torture of helpless civilians and prisoners -- even a common phrase among anti-Japanese resistance groups was "If the Japanese come, hide. If the Koreans come, run."
    2
  2040. China needed life support from Britain and America, but Chinese resilience certainly kept the Japanese pinned down to the final blow. Sadly the story of all that blood and effort has since been coopted by the Communists, who themselves only contributed in minor skirmishes when they weren't occasionally collaborating with the Japanese against their KMT opposition.
    2
  2041. Nowadays it's more because a disruption would be catastrophic, and not so much because of compassion with Mainlanders or a sense of rightful sovereignty over all of China -- Taiwanese identity as solely or concurrently Chinese has since cratered as the Communists continue proving that economic prosperity does not make them less belligerent or more attractive. For the Party, the continued existence of the ROC (especially a democratized one) is a fundamental counterexample of how Chinese people could not only live but also thrive without the CPC, one that they must ultimately obliterate if they wish to continue unchallenged despotic control over China.
    2
  2042. So we should "Blame Canada" for the Iran-Iraq War? 🇮🇷🦫🇮🇶
    2
  2043. It helps to not reveal details (sometimes including its existence) until the mission is already successful. That way any failures are easily left unsaid.
    2
  2044. The United States of America originated as a protest against taxation without representation in the British Parliament. We now have a Congress and state legislatures whom we elect representatives into -- if you don't like the taxes the government charges us now, blame your representation.
    2
  2045. Depends more on the cubicle wall materials and layout. I've been in some places with cubicles that nearly reach the ceiling to give people "offices", but it feels especially unfriendly there because the small floor space to wall height ratio makes the place look more like a prison.
    2
  2046.  @thelight3112 First class brings tons of baggage though, like compared to our one checked bag they have enough gear to set up a live rock concert. We could serve more regular people if we had them let go of the excess amount of stuff that they demand to take with them.
    2
  2047. Capitalism where the capital has plenty of competition, sure. Problem is the capital is being allowed to concentrate and entrench itself at the expense (literally) of the average consumer.
    2
  2048. Western lenders are at least sometimes open to debt forgiveness, unlike China who at best might delay the payment schedule but always want all of that money back. This is why Chinese loans are so toxic, because judicious write-offs are a vital component of achieving larger developmental goals.
    2
  2049. Japan got to 1980s tech like two decades before everyone else. Problem is three decades afterward they're still living in the 80s.
    2
  2050. The US speaks loud and breaks things, or rather it loudly proclaims things are broken. The dramatization is how issues gains attention and gets addressed.
    2
  2051. The most shielded income is corporate though. But politicians are scared to simplify those arcane deductions and pursue those funds that is best spent supporting us all.
    2
  2052. There's been widespread usage of air conditioning, personal cars, and cheap migrant labor for a while now. However based on what they spend their wealth on, it seems what they value are expressions of entitlement.
    2
  2053. Maritime trade just exacerbated the ongoing decline of Islamic societies. Their growing hostility made the treacherous unmapped seas worth the risk compared to comfortable nights at their inns next to their established markets and caravan paths.
    2
  2054. That's what makes theocracies such a drag: "God will provide" so shut up and be satisfied with your station in life.
    2
  2055. It makes me question how well researched this video essay was if they can't even pronounce the main guy's name correctly.
    2
  2056.  @hkonhelgesen  Only if they’re still working. More likely they’re laid off and getting desperate for a new paycheck. Like I said, it’s a death spiral. It’s not a favorable market correction.
    2
  2057. More like bad government, especially when so entrenched that there are no real challenges to their continued rule. It's not the size of the government, it's what they do with the power -- I've lived in low-tax weak-state Africa and it's not any more comfortable.
    2
  2058. I've heard the true are estimates between 3~5x, which makes even the US seem like a prudent debtor by comparison.
    2
  2059. ​ @jliang70 I was just in the Mainland a couple months ago. Crowds felt kinda listless (especially those in their 20s and 30s), lines and wait times anywhere were reasonably short, and holy f*** was the international airport terminal empty. It's like Zero-COVID didn't end, just the daily swabs and mini-app scan part.
    2
  2060. From their unborn grandchildren, who at this rate will never exist to pay back all those bonds and loans.
    2
  2061. The teaching part is an issue though. Either you need to already have a trustworthy and competent local government to develop their citizens with your aid, or you administer it directly -- which is arguably colonization. Aid project failures stem from giving while having neither condition on the other end satisfied.
    2
  2062. The libertarianism that capitalism thrives on makes everyone selfish and isolated. It's overall healthier to be sometimes forced to physically assemble for a common mission, coming together with people you'd otherwise never interact with and disbanding with some new friendships based at least on the shared thought of "well that sucked".
    2
  2063. That’s basically what gangs are: self-help organizations but without the insititutional capacity to act beyond violent coercion.
    2
  2064. Global shipping of agriculture would most severely affect Africa and the Middle East, which are also the places full of young underemployed people. Which is especially concerning as their cultures are centered more around self-righteous religiosity and tribal loyalties over secular institutions and democratized public discourse.
    2
  2065. If you want to be real technical, the embassy is the people itself and the chancery is their main facility. Being located in the capital, the building they struck would likely be a branch office housing the consular section of the embassy that’s legally an extension of the chancery itself, as opposed to an actual consulate with a separate area of responsibility and more limited diplomatic immunity.
    2
  2066. ⁠ @team3am149 Planning and merely dreaming aren’t the same thing. Modern China is infamous for getting blindsided by the situation, with authorities reacting with increasingly severe methods as shit rolls downhill.
    2
  2067. The last time China had a respectable naval force was in like the Tang Dynasty. Invading Taiwan is very unlike their campaign on Hainan, where simple fishing boats crossed a narrow waterway with fairly little opposition. There’s no cities or tunnels to hide in at sea, so PLA Navy sailors have to be competent at things like damage control and casualty treatment on their own, and they’d be doing so having no experience fighting enemies who shoot back.
    2
  2068. Invading Taiwan (which the Communists never controlled) is not defending the Mainland. This is a new capability they’re gearing up for since it’s now clear this crossing won’t be anything like sneaking junks to lightly-defended Hainan. This also comes with new requirements like competency in damage control and casualty treatment at sea, since there’s no city or mountain cave to hide in as they figure it out. And the last time China had a peer-level navy was like the Tang Dynasty, whereas the US Navy has been inviting itself into battle since it got invented to take the fight to the Barbary Pirates across the Atlantic.
    2
  2069. China love to hold families hostage to ensure its expats don’t tell too much of the truth. It’s not just Uyghurs, but affects anyone with family in the PRC. I’d bet this is part of the reason every Chinese visa application asks for personal details about your parents.
    2
  2070. It's important to have physical transport too, not just packages but also people. That's why low-rise suburbs have come to dominate most city life 🏠
    2
  2071. Problem is whole virus exposure creates messier and less effective antibodies -- which Chinese vaccines basically are and have gotten more useless with each new variant -- but the CPC can't "surrender" by approving and importing the Western vaccines which create stronger responses and allow most individuals to fight the virus without additional intervention.
    2
  2072. Except the delivery services are also suspected viral vectors and are themselves locked down.
    2
  2073. Path dependence and anchoring are real sociological phenomena, meaning being founded under Trump and the leadership he appointed at the time could affect the cultural foundations of the Space Force itself as it builds its identity as a separate branch.
    2
  2074. Ranked-choice polling would facilitate politics towards that middle, but this is exactly what's getting preemptively banned in GOP-ruled Red States. Hence we're trapped with winner-take-all ballots and the political extremism this method stimulates.
    2
  2075.  @warthogdicker4438  If back home doesn't implode in hunger and darkness from the collapse in global trade which China relies on for unpolluted food and high-energy fuel, all while wondering why their only son disappeared on deployment.
    2
  2076. Services perhaps? Philippine call centers are famous in the English-speaking world. Plus there's so many remittances and reinvestments from Pinoys abroad, who number far more by both headcount and wealth in America than in China.
    2
  2077. Innovation they don't really utilize out of fear of violating the Party's deliberately vague policies.
    2
  2078. They'll likely ask if you were in China within the previous 14 days.
    2
  2079. Each country decides how much freedom of movement to give to foreign carriers, from simple overflight to how many landings they're allowed to perform based on where the plane is headed next. US airlines likely won't be given multi-stop landing permissions in large domestic air markets like China or India either.
    2
  2080. It depends how much the foreign carrier (and by extension its country) relies on cross-customs travel. Middle East and SE Asia ones tend to top the list; ones that cater to a large domestic customer base like China, India, Russia, or EU carriers aren't so impressive.
    2
  2081. It's inflation through the profit-price spiral.
    2
  2082. I remember living in Dubai prioritizing Amazon UAE, because their 15 day return policy is far more generous than the normal local "merchants' market" practice of making it difficult to refund when unopened and impossible if unsealed.
    2
  2083. I would if local stores were more accommodating and had what I wanted, especially overseas (there are Amazon marketplaces abroad) where the norm is to haggle at some cash-only establishment.
    2
  2084. Simplifying the tax code and adding expiration dates to all breaks and deductions would go a long way at reducing the power and demand for specialists of the arcane arts of avoiding payments.
    2
  2085. Turn against Australia? The Aussies are prolific in the expeditionary use of its army, and are consistently lauded for how well they do in combat.
    2
  2086. No, Canada isn't part of this arrangement. They're within the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group, although their focus is primarily on Russia.
    2
  2087. How so? China relies on the US for food and other raw materials for its industries. Cutting off China (and especially convincing some of our other friends to do the same) would force them to quickly empty their treasury ordering from alternative markets. Combine that with actual combat in the East and South China Seas scaring off civilian ships, and the PRC would implode in unrest as cities go dark and food prices skyrocket while the Chinese people wonder how come their only child disappeared on deployment.
    2
  2088. What's important is the QA in the process, which have to abide by strict international standards and not Chinese corner-cutting because Chinese airlines are flying Airbus and Boeing airframes overseas (including back to the EU and US).
    2
  2089. That's before considering the suspicion that a significant share of RMB was double-printed, which better explains Beijing's push for digital e-CNY.
    2
  2090. The US military provides the GI Bill to veterans, which pays for tuition and a stipend for attending higher education (not only academic university, but also expensive trainings like flight school). There's also additional Tuition Assistance for those actively serving and doing courses in their off time. The education benefits is by far the biggest bait to enlist new recruits.
    2
  2091. I'd imagine if Russia invades and keeps the upper hand, Ukraine could petition for NATO after publicly ceding Donbass and Crimea to Russia... who will then have the tough choice of accepting or forcing them to be independent, which then raises troubling ideas in other parts of the Federation.
    2
  2092. Kinda wondering how popular an American version of Patriot Park would be 🪖🙋‍♀️
    2
  2093. Iraqis also provided considerable support to take down Saddam, and a lot of the hardship was caused by local insurgent groups trying to establish their turf when the Americans weren't around. Ukrainians have long ago rejected affiliation with Russia, and civilian casualties are clearly caused by Russian forces.
    2
  2094. You can thank Putin for that, along with Xi.
    2
  2095. China has to start by being able to separate the CPC and PRC government from the Chinese people, history, and culture. But this is exactly what the Party does not want you to do. Notice how emotional a Chinese national would get if a foreigner criticized some aspect of modern Chinese politics, even though you might believe the same thing, because an outsider's comment feels like a random insult against your own parents. The world will then be less malicious to China because you discover that it wasn't as malicious towards all of China as your authorities had told.
    2
  2096. Huh, always wondered why Panama was a top choice of a business base. I've heard similar with the Russians and Seychelles.
    2
  2097. Defending Taiwan will be a mostly technical battle of ships and planes, which America has the upper hand in both equipment and experience deploying, and very little opportunity for press camera embeds and plainclothes combatants. If anything this plays into the US military's strengths.
    2
  2098.  @eternalelysium4944  Actually the US had been reducing its military investments in the decade after the Soviet collapse. 9/11 turned that around.
    2
  2099. Right, the work culture prefers we pay for that "fun" now and not into decades of caring for dependents.
    2
  2100. Ironically at some point you'll be more likely to find it abroad, since Koreans who expatriate tend to be more religious and thus generally have larger families.
    2
  2101. The Mountain Pass Mine in CA recently reopened after renovations that fixed its earlier pollution issues, and within two years went from 0 to 15% of the world's output. Next year its refinery should be fully operational, cutting China out of the loop for ore processing and giving the world a new cleaner alternative for rare earth elements.
    2
  2102. China is facing a downward spiral of aging, household debt, soil pollution, emptied seas, and endemic corruption. If anything it's the West that can sit back and wait for China to peak in the next couple decades.
    2
  2103. If it means lowering the bar on the definition of "poverty" and not really providing the freedom of movement and information needed to break upward, it's not really that much of an achievement.
    2
  2104.  @JK-gu3tl  It certainly worked for Táiwān, which was just as autocratic into the 1980s. Nowadays the Republic of China doesn't even come to mind among foreigners when they hear about the "White Terror".
    2
  2105. Which only makes China going to war even more risky for civilians, since their scope of "threats" is much wider. All it takes is a couple tankers to be mistaken as warships and suddenly nobody will be willing to sail anywhere near potential Chinese crossfire with the food and fuel China itself relies on.
    2
  2106. The PRC has had a horrible kill-death ratio for the objectives they achieved against a foreign force. In fact their modernization efforts may have been inspired by the Gulf War, where the curb stomping the Iraqi Army received didn't bode well for the PLA who were using similar equipment and doctrine.
    2
  2107. Have you ever noticed that STEM folks make for horrible managers and often don't last long as politicians? It's because the strong technical focus usually ignores the things people actually care about. This is why leadership positions get ironically filled by those who studied stuff like art and history.
    2
  2108. What matters more is overall debt to GDP, along with how fast it's growing. America's grew by 10% across multiple administrations in the same last 10 years while China has doubled under their single Party, and China faces much greater challenges moving forward due to its own mistakenly tunnel-visioned policies and failure to generate trust in its claims of "win-win" partnerships.
    2
  2109. Modern China seeks its pre-industrialization glory, desperately wanting to return to an age when the mass of muscle under its management meant superiority, ignorant of the fact that creativity combined with power tools have made that strategy obsolete.
    2
  2110.  @simonjones9455  The US has been on the "verge of collapse" since 1812, and various Panics, and the Civil War, and the anarcho-communist insurrection, and the Great Depression, and the assassination-a-month Civil Rights Movement. This "woke" vs MAGA battle is tame by comparison. America has already survived much worse.
    2
  2111. We like to dramatize our challenges and faults, because that's also how we at least partially resolve them too.
    2
  2112. VisualPolitik originates from España 🇪🇸
    2
  2113. That seems to be happening, but absorbing the regular army could make the IRGC so powerful that they can start formulating state-level policies and strategies independent of the Ayatollah. There's rumors that the PLA in China (who are in this situation now that the ROC Army got ejected to Táiwān) have begun doing so, and that the CPC has to constantly watch their own army more than ever.
    2
  2114. ​ @beni4366 Which shows how long-tailed the extreme right has gotten, and that's especially concerning considering how America's "liberals" would be "mildly conservative" in any other developed nation.
    2
  2115. The US has been the leader of precision weaponry since the end of WWI, when we realized we're not the type to accept millions of dead men in an mass mobilized slugfest. Hence the focus on instrument-compensated bombsights, guided missiles, smart bombs, drone observers, and increasingly automated weapon systems to ensure each shot renders the intended effect to clear the path for our soldiers, organizations, and ultimately diplomats.
    2
  2116. We've been wanting to get out of the irreconcilable Middle East, but its centrality to shipping, aviation, and internet lines of communication make it impractical.
    2
  2117. It is famous within Africa. Lagos drives African modern media much like California does for the English speaking world. And Nigerians are also wary about phone scams, because they get targeted too (often about fake real estate opportunities).
    2
  2118. Right, a lot of folks don't realize how difficult it is to store hydrogen. Pure heat is more straightforward and efficient, so I'd wager we'd see molten salt solutions before hydrogen ones.
    2
  2119. China got confident that Shànghǎi can have all the benefits of HK without it being a safe harbor for Western thoughts and values. But I doubt a more legally whimsical Shànghǎi will attract as much foreign investment, and this leaves China more brittle by relying even more on the façade of internal economic prosperity.
    2
  2120. HK was a safe Western portal into China, and I doubt Shànghǎi will attract foreign currency to the same extent. If anything, China is losing a major way of attracting overseas investments by closing down the HK gateway.
    2
  2121. Correction: Republicans, through their policy of isolationism and disengagement.
    2
  2122.  @ipg6772  Singapore is a democracy, and what the PRC thinks it itself is on a much bigger scale. However they conveniently forget that: 1) S'pore relies on positive relations with its neighbors, including well-defined boundaries; 2) The SAF isn't an existential threat to its neighbors; 3) Government corruption is a huge deal and the fastest way to fall from grace, whereas in China it's really the only way to rise in the Party ranks; 4) It openly embraces and promotes ethnic diversity, instead of trying to Sinicize the place; and 5) The ruling PAP has been waning in popular support as its citizens gradually want more than sterile prosperity 🇸🇬🗳
    2
  2123. Third one looks to be East Asia, likely cross-Strait or in Korea.
    2
  2124. If anything Taiwan should be first, since they're the lynchpin of both US allies and free movement of global trade in Asia, while also being fairly inexperienced with actual combat and softened by decades of a deceptive "peace dividend" with the Mainland.
    2
  2125. There's wide discrepancies in China's purported census data and other counts like hukou registrations and school enrollments, totaling millions of Chinese who don't actually exist. The true number is probably closer to 1.2b, making China second to India by headcount.
    2
  2126. Right, the last time China showed formidable naval prowess was like the Ming Dynasty. It'd be interesting to see how well the PLA Navy would perform damage control under fire, especially since most of their "warships" lack effective air defense and would be vulnerable to even cheap guided bombs.
    2
  2127. If it can afford them, along with the network of long-range sensors needed to keep the missile on target. Hypersonics are _expensive_. Meanwhile the US just came out with a bolt-on guidance kit that can handle moving targets (ships, tanks, etc) for its hundreds of thousands of dirt cheap gravity bombs... Russia apparently exhausted its stockpile of precision guided munitions already.
    2
  2128. Macau exists solely to transact with China, and that's the attitude that the PRC advocates for. But money doesn't buy love, and from the Macanese I've met, they seem like the type who'd be the first to abandon ship when China fails to pay rent for their attention.
    2
  2129. A PRC collapse would at least not be as painful to the Chinese people, who have always been great market merchants able to trade their way out of hardship. How violent the transition and how fractured China ends up becoming (the cities and provinces are quite independent in daily operations from each other) is anyone's guess.
    2
  2130. Socialism refers more to distribution though, while capitalism and communism focus on production. Clearly capitalism is superior to "public" state control in getting resources where it's wanted, the main battle is how socialized do we want the profits to be versus how much wealth those who earned/stole get to keep with libertarianism. Then there's democracy/autocracy which governs the policy. So the real evolution might not be feudalism > capitalism > socialism > communism, but finding the mix of policy + production + distribution. It's arguably possible to be a capitalist socialist democracy.
    2
  2131. The US arguably still holds China's fate, just as it did since the end of the Opium Wars: empire-ending Western education, WWII materiel, abandonment of the KMT, switch of diplomatic recognition, support against the Soviets, introduction to global markets, allowing integration into the world economy post-1989, and constant infusion of knowledge and dollars. The Mainland also relies on the US for agriculture and open sea trade to import cheap food -- Americans can adapt to digital hacks and expensive gadgets, the PRC can only ignore polluted meals and empty stomachs for so long.
    2
  2132. Right, the PRC survives because it had to abandon the ideological purity of Communism. That's why critics are alarmed by Xi's push to return to its "roots", which hints that the Party is also losing its grip on an economic prosperity-driven legitimacy with little else but hateful nationalism to maintain unchallenged power.
    2
  2133. Right, it takes the replacement of experience and mindset to make the changes durable, which unfortunately involves a lot of physical burials over time.
    2
  2134. Did he ever have them? He managed to bankrupt a casino and other ventures multiple times.
    2
  2135. We should also look into raising registration fees on heavy vehicles -- the formula for estimated road wear involves the fourth power of average vehicle weight. This will help to get EV owners to pay their fair share, as their curb weights are surprisingly heavy.
    2
  2136. Which is unfortunately controversial there because they often see it as some sort of genocide to limit family sizes by any means, even though they're spending a lot more of their limited wealth juggling resources between many kids and leaving little to invest on improving individual productivity and developing reliable market connections.
    2
  2137. China might surpass America for a bit, but it faces increasingly strong headwinds with things like an aging population, an unattractive modern culture, explosion of debt, and overall lack of trust. I wouldn't be surprised if America regains its dominance simply by waiting out the PRC's peak 📈💸📉
    2
  2138.  @Arcaryon  Right, modern China is like china -- hard and impressive but also very fragile and brittle. The PRC keeps saying to itself that it is loved around the world... but I've lived around the world and the locals express resignation at best and extreme suspicion at worst over Chinese intents with their countries, and it all smells a lot like the colonization which they have recent memories of if not lived through. It seems like the Party is waking up to the fact that money doesn't buy love, hence their increased aggression in securing their interests, because unlike America they don't have an attractive modern culture to retain peaceable engagement when the money stops flowing.
    2
  2139. Not to mention these include the Defense Attaché liaison offices at the 100+ US embassies, as well as military reservations that between exercises are merely empty fields.
    2
  2140. That's probably why RCEP needed to be so weak, hardly better than the WTO baseline. Nobody trusts that China won't use it to exert political impositions later on.
    2
  2141. More like the peaceable global economy is done for. The Pound and Yen are decadent, the Euro is uncoordinated, and nobody really trusts the Rupee or the Renminbi. The resulting chaos will likely lead to more conflicts gone kinetic as the values of payments lose predictability.
    2
  2142. All propped up by an explosion of debt, making our children pay for a short burst of political gain... which he promptly failed to defend when a pandemic made paramount the protection of our human capital as opposed to "normal" commercial vibrancy.
    2
  2143. ​ @Hardrada904  America didn't do ongoing industrial espionage as government policy. It was all private sector effort.
    2
  2144. Which were all just camouflaged imports or very costly low-yield brute-forced DUV chips.
    2
  2145. The "charter" schools have to continuously compete against each other for real student achievement and thus public funding. Plus the teachers get subsidized intensive education themselves. None of this letting a church or other private organization set up a curriculum that's merely alternative to the government-run "failure".
    2
  2146. Japan and Táiwān are both threshold nuclear powers, able to design and gather the material for a nuclear warhead within a year or two. "No first use" China would also be inviting its total destruction if it nukes either of them especially before a proven test detonation.
    2
  2147. Not to mention 50~100 years of production followed by thousands of years of nuclear waste afterward ☢️
    2
  2148. 13:28 If you're gonna be speaking a lot of foreign names, at least try to pronounce them properly. 현대 sounds like "hyun-day".
    2
  2149. Tom Clancy wrote "The Bear and the Dragon" going over this scenario, though it's a pretty fantastic one 🧚‍♀️
    2
  2150. Defeating an invader means just surviving, which is a much easier objective. The US has multiple decades of experience on the wrong end of booby traps and ambushes in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and are nowadays teaching the Taiwanese on how to politically defeat a similarly well equipped occupier.
    2
  2151. That identification has to come at no cost to the voter anywhere in the world. Remember citizens who are homeless or overseas are also fully eligible to cast a ballot. We specifically abolished all forms of a poll tax because at all prices it was such a deterrence to valid voter participation.
    2
  2152. Japan is literally giving away vacant homes to young folks willing to move out and stay there. Problem isn't the costs of a house, but access to the wages, amenities, and opportunities that are only found though the specializations cities provide.
    2
  2153. Peak productivity still hasn't changed from the 25~65 age range, and automation is much more easy to replicate among the competition. A market where the bulk of the labor force is past its prime isn't as promising as an equally automated alternative who is in its midst or at least upcoming within a couple decades.
    2
  2154. The greater threat comes from the regime who is aiming to normalize grossly inaccurate reports, official corruption, legal opaqueness, disappearances for dissent, and mistakes expressions of unpopularity as military-grade violence. Meanwhile a lot of those hard builds are getting built like 50% larger with half the technically prescribed material so that the official in charge can pad his achievements and pocket the difference -- in China structural failures of brand new construction seem to be an annual incident at least, and overseas even the locals watching the BRI projects note an alarming lack of rebar and concrete, yet they're still on the hook for all those debts incurred.
    2
  2155. Rail and road links alone won't make up for the loss of shipping by sea, and all the West has to do is provide enough crossfire to make civilian ships reconsider the costs of entering a war zone with the food and fuel China needs because they're too polluted, inefficient, and overextracted in their own lands. Choke off the supply lines (it doesn't even have to be completely) for a year or two and the Party's grip will collapse in the explosion of unrest within the Mainland.
    2
  2156.  @joem0088  China's debt ratio has been growing alarmingly fast, riding on a less diverse portfolio of shoddily-built structures with quickly shrinking returns on investments. They're losing their low-end manufacturing to South and SE Asia, while lagging in high value-added services because of the lack in societal trust and exploratory dissent that truly creative ventures require -- their economy is becoming as brittle as the flaky concrete of their "modern" buildings because that's literally the only place they can trust their money to grow in.
    2
  2157. Probably not. Chinese people aren't as brainwashed and infantilized as North Koreans (who generally would sacrifice themselves for the glory of Kim and the Korean race), and the deaths/disappearances of so many only-sons could incite open revolt against the Party now that those families have no legacy left to lose.
    2
  2158. But does their equipment work as advertised? They're already getting complaints of low quality and high amounts of downtime in peace, imagine those things in the degraded maintenance environment of war.
    2
  2159. Israel and SK also have massive domestic weapons production capacities for their size, making ammo that's compatible with NATO guns. They'd have a say on how much of it to redistribute elsewhere.
    2
  2160. Right, in Korea the PVA "short attack" tactics were decisively defeated by spring and they were falling back to dig in for the stalemate that splits Korea today, and in Vietnam the PLA bugged out before the regular Vietnamese Army could redeploy against the Chinese.
    2
  2161. It also means the US knows how to reverse the roles and become the insurgent that can defeat the political objectives of the better supplied enemy. China depends on imports for unpolluted food and high-energy fuel, and it wouldn't take much to, say, scare off civilian traffic with some EW hacks and broad warnings of hostile fire, making prices for essentials skyrocket in China and causing overwhelming demoralization and unrest of Chinese people within the PRC.
    2
  2162. I remember playing the Bridge map in the early America's Army game, and some of us figured how to use the M203 as a mortar on the enemy spawn point to score some first-minute kills
    2
  2163. No, it was the "America First" retreat started by the guy who's coming back to continue.
    2
  2164. 9:07 and we both make fun of the Chair Force while they smugly look down on us all
    2
  2165. It’s still the world’s beacon though 🗽
    2
  2166. As long as the legal immigrant visa process remains slow, it will continue to induce demand for irregular entry to claim asylum. Yet the State Department who adjudicates all these applications and interviews where these potential future Americans originate is among the first ones targeted for budget cuts by the side that categorically rejects diversity.
    2
  2167. He probably got like 5~10 unseen teammates planning and supporting his performances, just like back in the Army
    2
  2168. Mud also heats up after not too long, I remember this got tested on MythBusters
    2
  2169. Communication is a problem too. Turn any two corners and you've lost radio contact.
    2
  2170. Apparently that's changing, with Western trainers who spent too long on the wrong side of an IED coming in to teach the ROCA on how to create an effective insurgency. Seems though the Taiwanese government doesn't want to be too alarmist and provocative by more aggressively spreading that knowledge among regular folks.
    2
  2171. Iraqis are among the most heavily armed populations in the world... yeah a whole lot all those weapons are doing for them.
    2
  2172. Americans' shameless individualism guarantees the drugs will keep coming, because there's no greater interest to sacrifice that personal feel-good for.
    2
  2173. Not that it's right, but it would be convenient.
    2
  2174. So does China. But it both cases such a focus on militarized science comes at the expense of other important aspects of an advanced economy and to their unique marketability. This leads to many of their most productive citizens wanting to expatriate when the opportunity arises, ironically to places like the US.
    2
  2175. Surprised you didn't mention the Meng Wanzhou saga, who was also involved in major sanctions circumvention and only got released from Canadian custody after confirming the evidence linking Huawei to illegal transactions with Iran.
    2
  2176. Flambéd corrosion suppressant adds a bit of tart 🤌
    2
  2177. Supposedly NGAD is what we need the F-22 to be in terms of the sensors and information sharing that's impossible to implement in the Raptor. I'd imagine it won't have that nearly spine-cracking maneuverability, but it would feature far more upgradability to install new capabilities as they're developed; think the fighter version of the B-21 Raider.
    2
  2178. Scaling down a diesel engine to fit that along with an appreciable sized fuel tank, generator, battery, and electric motor onto a dirt bike would be quite the challenge though
    2
  2179. Strategically, an aggressive PLA highlights the threat Mainland China poses against its neighbors and international free travel lanes, convincing them to join the fight against or at least broadly limit cooperation with the Communists. The key is the US has to be willing to kinetically support Taiwan even on its own at the outset until more allies decide to commit. A blockade of Taiwan would end up blockading the Mainland itself too, as civilian ships get scared off by the crossfire. No amount of overland alternatives will replace the maritime trade of food and export funds, leading to open unrest back home over expensive rationed tainted meals and emptied bank accounts (think Shanghai earlier this year but more severe and across the entire country) and the Party's security forces are soon enough fighting not only Taiwan but all of China.
    2
  2180. Although the ban on expanding bullets often used by hunters is still on the books. I'd argue modern fully-jacketed rounds are even more devastating because it's often impractical to surgically remove all the fragments from those who survived getting shot.
    2
  2181. I understand it was due to concern about compartmentalization preventing detection of the next 9/11, so the "need to know" gates were opened for everyone at that classification level.
    2
  2182. US is much higher in number of ships that put up credible air defense, whereas most of the PLAN boats are vulnerable to even a cheap guided bomb.
    2
  2183. Malaka is the Indonesian spelling, and Melaka is the modern Malaysian spelling. It could be using the way it's natively said, like Bengaluru instead of Bangalore or Krung Thep instead of Bangkok.
    2
  2184. Space requirements are partly why Asia tends to go for badminton instead of tennis too 🏸
    2
  2185. Any weakness by the Chinese state could allow Xinjiang and Tibet to split off like they always wanted... there's a reason these are the most policed of its provinces.
    2
  2186. Gangnam Station Line 2 in Seoul gets reliably packed in at 10pm of all times for some reason. To the point that if you didn't have your cell phone up and ready to doomscroll, you won't be able to reach for it in your pocket once the doors close.
    2
  2187. Similar to how the island of Taiwan is ruled by the (anticommunist and now democratized) Republic of China government 🇹🇼
    2
  2188. A visa application center is just the primary foreigner intake section of the consulate, which is itself a subordinate section of the embassy
    2
  2189. It has not been recognized as a diplomatic mission by the Cosmos, so no at this time it is not an embassy.
    2
  2190. That basically involved higher taxes and common goals, unlike what selfish libertarian social conservatives advocate for nowadays as they oppose similar national projects and pitch that individuals are always more wise than entire institutions.
    2
  2191. They've been tweaked over time to accommodate metrication, but it's true so many post-war standards from bullet sizes to shipping containers to IP packets originated as American inventions.
    2
  2192. For full autobahn speeds we're best if we also had Germany level driver training: a day of first aid, a week or two at school, written and practical tests that last an hour each, and a probation period with a 0.00 BAC limit. Just like how states couldn't be trusted with the standards of a national road network, raised driver education policies would have to be federally mandated and enforced too.
    2
  2193. Probably because the ROC still officially competes for the title of "China", and matching agreements that the PRC made on its own signals Taipei's deference to Beijing.
    2
  2194. The Chinese claims were only made out of reaction to an short-lived French claim when it still controlled Indochina. Vietnam inherited and continues to pursue that old French claim especially since their forever-enemy China refuses to drop theirs.
    2
  2195. China's nuclear power program isn't exactly the role model considering its plants regularly dump more radioactive waste into the ocean than the entirety of Fukushima's stored reactor coolant getting gradually released now.
    2
  2196. ​Singapore is now becoming that value-added middleman between China and the West, for those who wish to continue engaging with China instead of reinvesting towards a "multipolar" market.
    2
  2197. That's because the situation is very pessimistic when colonial rule is popularly seen as preferable to the current native one.
    2
  2198. Boston would be seen like any other community, a city with its own unique culture competing for attention and taxpaying residents. Whether Bostonians would wish to continue Qing policies, converge with the rest of the US, or try to pitch the superiority of their colonial practices is all up to them.
    2
  2199. ​ @flyerton99 Having recently moved out of Beijing, I can tell you that these overseas content creators are much closer to the truth than what Party media tells us. Living in Mainland China taught me that the more pessimistic reports about the PRC are generally more realistic too.
    2
  2200. Overpriced for the quality of the builds yeah. I just moved out of Africa recently and even the locals are concerned with how thin the concrete and steel are, plus they're further not privy to the schematics or training that would allow them to maintain and reproduce their obviously cookie cutter designs, as if the whole construction was intended to guarantee continued support from Chinese companies else they quickly fall apart 🏚️ This observation comes from people how know colonization because they lived it, and the art of scamming because they do it themselves!
    2
  2201. Well the runways are still in use for the Schönefeld terminal, so not completely
    2
  2202. Should have chosen better parents.
    2
  2203. Yet one of the biggest issues is its tax revenues get sent to other states who then send in their homeless, and there's no immigration barrier like a sovereign nation would be allowed to set up.
    2
  2204. More like the cartel of rich incumbent property owners.
    2
  2205. Blocked by rich conservatives.
    2
  2206.  @piyushnavade8971  As a simple whip antenna, modern ones like those from cell phones to military radars use panels that are really arrays of microscopic dipoles which combine into the tuned frequencies
    2
  2207. Religiosity tends to retard (but not reverse) the fall in family size, and SK is a largely agnostic society. Nearly all the Koreans I know getting married and maybe having kids are churchgoers, which means the numbers are even worse for the median young Korean.
    2
  2208. It's concentrated, not fragile. The USN has wayy more experience giving and taking hits in real hostilities.
    2
  2209. Until suddenly you're unable to export American agriculture to Asia because the PRC closed off the Western Pacific to goods from "unfriendly" nations.
    2
  2210. The grunt approaching a potential target isn't thinking about economics when they launch a Switchblade out of their rucksack for immediate eyes-on and destruction, instead of calling and waiting for a much slower and less capable cardboard drone sent from somewhere in the rear.
    2
  2211. Trebuchets take too long to redeploy, and speed is the key for avoiding counter-battery artillery. Plus the long throw arm sticking into the sky makes it much easier to detect as it's loosing its payloads.
    2
  2212. It'd be automatically more profitable if American cities were denser, allowing quicker runs on cheaper more maneuverable bicycles and mopeds. But getting more customers closer to you would be far more involved.
    2
  2213. There are ways to migrate or recreate the wallet when you change phones. Even if lost of stolen, you can remotely revoke the cards in the old wallet when you reinstate them on your replacement device. Mobile wallets only transmit when the phone and wallet app is fully unlocked, asking for a PIN, fingerprint, or face before generating a one-time use "card". Cash is also easily lost or stolen without lockdown and replacement. Overspending on a card is an individual's issue of education and discipline.
    2
  2214. 2A advocates conveniently omit the "well regulated Militia" clause that it begins with. Sure there's the Supreme Court decision declaring it an individual right, but SC decisions can overturn itself like it's done over 300 times before. Fact remains Congress and States can legally impose standards on proper possession and usage should it decide to regulate more well. And if how the Founding Fathers wanted it is the defense, remember they were largely "theistic rationalists" who prioritized the rationalism part and avoided arguments based on religious dogmas, as well as not overly excited to maintain slavery as more than a means to maintain their status and influence lacking other pre-industrial options. As members of the Age of Enlightenment, the FF would likely have been open to modifications of their worldview to harmonize with the evolution of technology and expansion of human knowledge.
    2
  2215. India and ASEAN 🇮🇳🍚 If S'pore can get its neighbors to adopt its competence in government at least for commerce, the region will quickly become the new center of global manufacturing and trade of tangible goods with specialized services not far behind.
    2
  2216. LKY did specifically want the five stars from the PRC flag to reflect the Chinese majority, which got combined with the crescent moon and Indonesian colors for its Malay people and origin.
    2
  2217. The dams are mostly in the south and west, most of the power outages are in the opposite end of the country.
    2
  2218. Wouldn't be surprised if it came from some internal spread, since not every village and township is China is as controllable for authorities as the cities that us foreigners only see
    2
  2219. A visit with the US would come after this year, when it’s known who will lead America the next four years. No point in meeting with a head of state who might change in a few months.
    2
  2220. America's doves don't seem to realize that deterrence is our main defense. What we commit on our military now is a bargain compared to what it will cost all of us in an industrial interstate war if our adversaries feel confident enough to test the full manufacturing and mobilization capacity of modern America. A second Trump presidency will only embolden our enemies as he deconstructs our alliances and fails to fully fund without enormous debts our defense capabilities, all while being distracted by the domestic outrage his traditionalist constituents inflame through their culture war against progressive tolerance.
    2
  2221. EU is also mandating all phones have user-replaceable batteries by 2027, so that's a start
    2
  2222. A similar situation exists with the Koreas, the only exception being the two sides ended up with roughly balanced powers and are both recognized states.
    2
  2223. Probably to make more room for the larger battery, as well as try out this Bluetooth/dongle only paradigm every other manufacturer is going for. I'm not a fan, I'd rather have a thicker phone with all the ports built in because a dongle is one more thing to track/break/lose with my higher end headsets.
    2
  2224. My parents have a similar thought after a transit through Beijing. Made In China might be getting better, but Served By China is still horrible.
    2
  2225. I’m guessing it had something to do with Steve Jobs hating buttons
    2
  2226. My 6 year old V20 struggles to have two or more apps active at once, which I blame on software bloat. Otherwise it works fine and offers all the physical features that I use regularly.
    2
  2227. I still use a 6 year old LG V20 because it physically has the features I use (removable battery, dual SIM, SD card, headphone jack, disassembly by screwdriver, even an IR blaster). It has a tough time doing two things at once due to software bloat, but I manage.
    2
  2228. More like people are getting more choosy as costs of living rises.
    2
  2229. They barely got their piped sewage system installed after like 20 years. A citywide rain capture storm drain system would be novel, expensive, not used often, and doesn’t attract foreign investors.
    2
  2230. Ironically even Sir Everest didn't want to have it named for him, but foreigners weren't allowed to enter either Tibet or Nepal and ask the locals at the time of the Survey. So out of the many purported names that refer to the mountain, Waugh chose to submit the completely different option and name the peak after his predecessor.
    2
  2231. It probably requires a link between police databases, which Beijing and Taipei are not going to just grant to each other.
    2
  2232. Apparently China mandates inflexible price controls on electricity, and power companies are operating at a severe loss because they're no longer using the high-grade Australian coal that their plants were optimized for. So short of a very embarrassing bankruptcy and total shutdown, they're forced to ration service.
    2
  2233. Or rather their failure to meet the benchmarks. China's energy is still dominated by coal.
    2
  2234. Two systems requires that physical separation and border controls in between.
    2
  2235. Pumping and maintenance costs too. Beyond a certain point (and thus design complexity) it's simply not possible to break even due to the operating expenses, hence why they're practically always found near existing volcanisms with shallow depths to the heat source.
    2
  2236. Being willing to pay higher taxes is noble, but it won't happen until _everyone at and above your wealth pays at least as much_. Otherwise you're just donating away your own buying power and reducing your influence among your peers.
    2
  2237. Returning to the US is arguably still a better overall environment due to mRNA vaccines and better hospital care that America has compared to the equivalent available in China. And Omicron presents a very real threat of uncontrollable outbreaks unless the PRC government doubles down on budget-blowing long surprise periods of forced isolation "treatment" that is overall worse than the disease itself -- adding fuel to the simmering discontent and anomie growing among its people.
    2
  2238. Probably more like Omicron + CNY, the closed-loop Olympics are just a coincidence.
    2
  2239.  @terencekwong3033  I'd rather not be called on the debts for such flaky builds and lacking the knowledge to fix it. This is what the locals in Africa were telling me about what they're seeing in the Chinese projects -- they're alarmingly scarce on rebar and concrete.
    2
  2240. It'd be even more embarrassing for the PRC, who have a much longer distance to cover that everyone can observe, no experience with provisioning support in combat, only to meet a hostile population that's better equipped with many more places to hide. Meanwhile seaborne trade would collapse, overland alternatives would deplete their foreign reserves, and Běijīng will have to start redeploying the PLA back home to suppress an increasingly restive population who's asking why their food sucks, why energy became unaffordable, and why their only son disappeared.
    2
  2241. What they want but don't say is the same lifestyle with more buying power. Problem is their low-density weakly-regulated lifestyle isn't conducive to improving said buying power.
    2
  2242. Colleges are still arguably better than career bubbles where the social environment is a lot more bland and uniform. At least you’d be reguarly exposed to out-of-state and international students who can’t easily become your coworker where you put up professional social barriers on.
    2
  2243. Older people didn’t used to have as much political weight though because the youth used to consistently outnumber the retired as political constitutents.
    2
  2244. Aircraft engines, medical equipment, firearms, and fresh food I'd much rather be Made in USA, not China.
    2
  2245. There are mutual benefits, that's why those agreements get made. But there's also negotiating power and experience, which especially African governments' lack of both are leading to an alarming rate of broken builds and increasing number of abandoned projects.
    2
  2246. Western Europe, South Korea, and Japan beg to differ. The difference is the competence of the local institutions who decide if the foreign aid becomes durable development or wasted in corruption.
    2
  2247. Not sure about the fossil-dependent Northeast, but the West is on track to resolve this issue on its own with wider adoption of local solar and wind production (reducing demand on the wider regional grid) along with smart chargers that can automatically reduce its power draw as meter rates increase for whatever reason.
    2
  2248. That will change as more EVs demand more and faster chargers, which are easier to install because they don't have all the HAZMAT requirements of a gas station. Remember it also took some decades to get us off our literal horses due to the rarity of cars and fuel points.
    2
  2249. It wasn't as much the technology as the industrialization of what was a cottage industry, forcing WFH laborers into factories where they have no say about their hours or pay. While amazingly productive, it was also incredibly abusive until the rise of labor unions a century ago.
    2
  2250. ​ @DemPilafian Legal, just not scalable.
    2
  2251. ​ @ArawnOfAnnwn Do you blame firefighters for intervening in house fires (i.e. low-level regional conflicts that were always there) before it becomes a storm that burns down the neighborhood (an industrialized interstate war)?
    2
  2252. America is distant and not a direct threat to industrialized Europe. Still is. Remember the US was a trusted neutral country up until it got dragged into WW1, well into the Second Industrial Revolution (electrification). Nowadays host nations worldwide want US bases to stay because of the effective defense subsidy, easy tourist dollars, and a convenient lightning rod to deflect domestic political frustrations at.
    2
  2253. We would if the host nation asks us to leave. After seeing what happened to Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China) they're a lot more hesitant to actually make the Yankees go home.
    2
  2254. Though it would take a fundamental shift against “pro-business” corporate culture, ensuring the growth of productivity they’ve been enjoying since the transistor hit the market gets shared with employees and public works instead of to shareholders and C-suite packages.
    2
  2255. Right, deflation means nobody wants to buy, including on what you want money for.
    2
  2256. As we're seeing in America and in Africa, Christianity also gets easily corrupted to impose crazy ideologies of their own. The best governance in this modern age is religiously agnostic.
    2
  2257. I've lived in Africa, and yes the locals say it smells a lot like colonization.
    2
  2258.  @sherryp3452  No, most of the host countries have a native cohort of well trained engineers, often educated abroad in America or Europe. China just doesn't want them to gain experience in these new grand builds and would rather they stay limited to local road and facilities, so that Chinese firms can also have the upper hand in negotiating the contracts for maintenance and expansions. BRI projects try to keep such a close hold on the technical knowledge that many of the imported Chinese "engineers" seem to be doing nothing more than menial labor that any local could do.
    2
  2259. Their timelines were overly pessimistic but the long-term trend predictions still hold.
    2
  2260. ​It means OP doesn't personally know Africans, Latinos, or the border.
    2
  2261.  @davidgonzalezhernan6110  With aging, debts, and pollution looming, that probably won't be the case within a couple decades... in a country where tolerance for an unchallenged Party has rested on indefinite economic progress. Hence why they're trying so hard to set up alternative sources of allegiance with calls for patriotism and traditional morals.
    2
  2262. Ironically customer control over customizing their orders is a big reason why Starbucks is struggling.
    2
  2263. Similar could be said about Boomers, who had a comparatively easy and economically sheltered life, and now vote for policies that take from the young to insulate themselves from the pain of global and technological competition that today's workers face.
    2
  2264. I'd wager the lack of good storytelling comes from experiencing the post-9/11 era and its depictions on the news, where battlefields no longer have a "front line", you're not really safe even within the wire, and the only way to peacefully resolve a conflict is by knowing and negotiating with every competing interest down to the individual level. Strict categories are no longer precise enough to navigate today's world, even though those simplifications are what the human brain seeks and rewards.
    2
  2265. Not Principle, they follow the Policy that there is one "China" but not necessarily recognizing PRC sovereignty over Taiwan. That's why most of the countries outside of Africa and Central Asia justify maintaining a "Taipei Trade Office" or other practically diplomatic presence separate from its embassy with Beijing.
    2
  2266. Mainly because the Soviets actively threatened more militarized map changes, especially after its obvious support for the Communist takeover of China and the Korean War.
    2
  2267.  @YSKWatch It doesn’t have to be a country to get US support. Notice all the subnational resistance organizations it’s supplied over the past decades.
    2
  2268. All those American military adventures are peanuts compared to the absolutely costly nuclear-tipped industrial warfare which US forward deployments deter… at the tolerance if not invitation of host nations to all those overseas bases where they fear more the consequences of America’s absence.
    2
  2269. ⁠NAFTA was superseded by USMCA, that ‘great trade deal’ Trump was so proud to negotiate and sign personally. It’s colloquially still called NAFTA because the parties are the same, and it doesn’t change names in Canada or Mexico (aka CUSMA/ACEUM and T-MEC)
    2
  2270. Republicans won’t allow that, or any new state as the two Senators added will be consistently left-leaning. Hence why Puerto Rico isn’t admitted either (along with all its debts to tax-avoiding speculators). Turns out that around the world American conservatism isn’t that popular.
    2
  2271. The Communist takeover of Mainland China was an unfortunate side effect of America yet again trending isolationist and disengaging from the world, just like it had leading into WW1 and 2, as well as after the Cold War until 9/11. There’s a reason US forces get deployed worldwide, often at the tolerance if not invitation of host nations to overseas bases who fear the alternative of American absence.
    2
  2272.  @TheAhmedRabia All that bluster is really meant for the domestic audience, trying to inflate their strength. In reality, Russia knows America’s nukes actually work, and China knows America can ensure they arrive wherever it desires.
    2
  2273. Taiwan would tell those ferries to turn around, or be forced to quarantine offshore under threat of getting sunk. Plus I doubt Mainlanders would try to escape towards the battlefield.
    2
  2274. USMC also has centuries of uninterrupted combat experience, along with being the poster child of the American style of fighting that only gets more aggressive when their leadership gets taken out of action.
    2
  2275. That's not true, the Chinese invented the vape pen... and that's basically the most significant original invention with worldwide spread in the last couple hundred years
    2
  2276. But will they have the experience to use it to the maximum potential? The PLA social structure and and logistical capabilities make the US counterpart look elegantly effective.
    2
  2277. But good luck inviting the former customers to resume peaceful trading with China, right as it enters a downward slide of unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and widespread industrial pollution. China already relies on imports to feed itself because its own soils and waters are too contaminated, on top of all the uncontrolled use of chemical preservatives and accelerants on their farms and ranches.
    2
  2278.  @dariomladenovski7047  China can make quality products, but at quality prices. High prices and specialization don't exactly market well to a Communist government who are attracted to low-cost multifunction products.
    2
  2279. More like it's seeing targets and pointing them out through the local fog of war, and merely flagging which ones not to engage.
    2
  2280. Or not even blockade, just deny insurance for ships going through the East and South China Seas. Civilian traffic to Mainland China would quickly drop, along with nearly all the agriculture and liquid fuel they need.
    2
  2281. CA economic assets are spread throughout the state: many defense, agricultural, and datacenter facilities are actually in rural areas. Only Hollywood could be considered centralized, but social media allows for artists to make alternative products from anywhere.
    2
  2282. They do fire back, and the A-10 was designed to be specifically more survivable when hit, landing safely with battle damage not seen since WWII. What matters more is how much fire they can toss up, especially when a dedicated ground attacker is raining down.
    2
  2283. Apaches are even more vulnerable, having neither the range or durability of a Hog. F35s don't have the payload to take out an entire company of enemy assets, and have to be more selective of what they target (i.e. early warning radars). A10s would be the ones duking it out with the bulk of enemy shooters, especially if SEAD support lets them get close enough to break inside the minimum range of advanced SAM systems and render them targets.
    2
  2284. It's too big and less effective from the ground. Part of the effectiveness comes from lobbing the rounds from above where the armor is weaker and the target is bigger.
    2
  2285. The PRC is still being imperialist, just with money instead of weapons since their targets are too well armed, populated, and monitored for a military invasion to work. As their BRI customers wise up to their debt trap strategy and the projects stall, the Party is realizing that money doesn't buy love, and in lacking modern cultural attractiveness have to resort to more coercive practices to expand their influence.
    2
  2286. The aircraft carriers were a pipe dream anyway, the PLA strategy was always geared more towards land-based artillery (these days meaning long-range guided missiles)
    2
  2287. A good chunk of China's food comes by sea. Not all of what they eat can be brought in overland, especially since much of China's own lands are either polluted or deserted.
    2
  2288. Short term yes. Long term it means the end of toxic Communism especially from a nation which simultaneously desires to impose a racialized caste system (in this case topped by Han Chinese) wherever it controls, which is eventually the entire world (tiānxià).
    2
  2289. There's already anti-air defenses against incoming mortar shells, which are smaller, spend less time aloft, and are just as cold by the time they start falling.
    2
  2290. Electronic warfare, blinding the long-range sensors and possibly making a Chinese missile mistake a container ship for a similarly sized aircraft carrier, or an airliner for an aerial tanker (missiles themselves don't have the computing power to discriminate approaching targets very well). Scaring off civilian traffic would make China's massive missile stock a liability, and introduce huge strategic difficulties paying for overland alternatives to all the food and fuel it needs to import.
    2
  2291. All we have to do is show up at half-time when the other side has already extended itself in the other direction
    2
  2292. Right, battles involving seaborne and airborne vessels favors the side with technical superiority. There is nowhere for a casual combatant to stage an ambush from over open waters.
    2
  2293. Also great for tourists who know English, since that's practically always one of the language options.
    2
  2294. Joseon asked the Ming for help, but wouldn't receive much of it until the Joseon Navy proved they could prevent Japan from getting past. This gave the confidence for the Ming to relax its posture and spare ships and troops for the Peninsula.
    2
  2295. Actual medicine was never a priority with the Party, who thought they really could control movement and transmission until perhaps they developed and distributed their own mRNA vaccine. But since actual medicine wasn't their priority, this didn't happen either, and they were to prideful to "surrender" to the West by approving and importing foreign doses that do work.
    2
  2296. Yet most of the direct viewpoints come from Chinese state-run media. It comes as a surprise when Tony quotes from independent sources beyond the regular PKU professor Michael Pettis.
    2
  2297. ​Not to mention their horrible resale value, which despite the e-haters is less about being an EV in general and more about being Designed in China where they try to be as disposable as possible.
    2
  2298. China ironically doesn't automate its manufacturing processes as aggressively as it clearly could precisely because of how badly this would impact its employment figures.
    2
  2299. Whether the node sizes are truly accurate or not, apparently the production yields of that purported generation is abysmal and not improving with any quickness. It's more deception than achievement.
    2
  2300. It's to ensure XJP understands, since he's famously childish with his verbiage compared to his predecessors.
    2
  2301.  @TheCbins  Tony lives in Beijing doing analysis of China’s business environment from the inside, and is professionally fluent in Mandarin. You’re the one with the burden of proof.
    2
  2302. Well yeah, there's a reason "internal security" gets a budget at least as large as the PLA~ and one that likely isn't as wasted on corruption.
    2
  2303. I don't mind if it's Chinese or Russian or whatever, as long as it's transparently open source. It's when "state security"-dominated development environments start hiding their designs where I get concerned.
    2
  2304. Combined arms are the tactics in the field, joint means the overaching command coordination between military branches
    2
  2305. The only “peace” they understand is that of absolute domination, a world lacking challengers and alternatives.
    2
  2306. Tell that to the YouTube algorithm.
    2
  2307. Zero-COVID made Mainland China into an overt open-air prison. Minimum-security, but a prison nonetheless complete with active movement tracking and forced stints in isolation cells. I survived it and got to see China "open", but instead of excitement there's now a sense of anomie, as if prisoners set free realize the outside have well adapted to life without them.
    2
  2308. The "irresponsible" part including selling CNY for foreign currency to support expatriation.
    2
  2309. China banning Western-branded technology in certain areas or systems based on "national security concerns" means Designed in China equivalents include if not actively use similar intel-supporting capabilities themselves.
    2
  2310. Some hotels do provide VPNs for guests on their wifi, but it's not a widespread practice. Out of all the places I stayed in the Mainland, I only lucked out once at what I remember was The Ritz-Carlton Guǎngzhōu.
    2
  2311. And likewise inspiring to the Taiwanese, as the Ukrainians are showing that resistance is definitely possible and insurgencies could work against not only the US in politically defeating an occupation. Běijīng must be sweating profusely trying to wargame an invasion if Táiwān in light of these realizations considering their even less experienced PLA with untested equipment that everyone can see coming across the Strait.
    2
  2312. You’d be better off taking a month-long “vacation” to get those shots. It’s not like vaccination status counts for anything when reentering and living in Mainland China anyway.
    2
  2313. We get what we pay for. American voters who vote primarily over promises to the retail prices they pay are warned to remember the knock-on effects when they want to choose supposedly “pro-business” politicians.
    2
  2314. The PRC most needs a break from the CPC, but the Chinese people aren't yet openly convinced that their "parents" could actually be chosen instead of being stuck for life under the paternalistic Party.
    2
  2315. There's already a gross oversupply of "real estate", coupled with the bulk of the average family's wealth tied into previous overpriced purchases of those flats because the Chinese economy has had practically no other trustworthy investment options. Deflation especially in the price of housing would obliterate what little buying power the Chinese people still have.
    2
  2316. It wouldn't be a single country, but diffused among all the nations who try. What inflation we get from the lack of efficiency out of a single source would be more than made up in the resilience of the supply chain through future shocks.
    2
  2317. That's the risk the Mainland thinks it'll be ready to take. Doubt it though; their domestic agriculture is severely underproducing and overly polluted, while energy won't come as cheaply and consistently as a war-mobilized nation will require.
    2
  2318. I never liked DST. We're just fooling ourselves into a 8~4p business hour schedule while not admitting we're forcing ourselves to be getting up any earlier.
    2
  2319. It exists, but it's the opposite of what the Party wants.
    2
  2320. That's probably partly why America seems so apathetic to dedollarization schemes, it's our adversaries making a big mistake at their own expense.
    2
  2321. The Sierra Madre was originally grounded permanently by intent. There was no more port calls and dry dock maintenance once it was beached, they can only work on it so much in the midst of open sea. Plus they'd need to remove the ship first to refortify their claim, during which provides an opening for the Chinese to seize it.
    2
  2322. Laos and Cambodia are effectively Chinese colonies at this point as well, along with a string of Chinese-exclusive "trading post" communities popping up throughout SE Asia.
    2
  2323. Tozinameran (the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine) was trialed in China along with the rest of the world in 2020, though instead of Pfizer running the trials in China it was Fosun Pharma. For some reason though the PRC government sat on the data and hasn't allowed for its distribution until now.
    2
  2324. Right, Americans keep thinking our 120% Debt/GDP is alarming ... it's at least twice as bad in the PRC whose money and promises aren't nearly as trusted!
    2
  2325. Perhaps SOEs that are largely regional efforts like their aviation manufacturers, but other than those nothing really. It's a fundamental flaw in the PRC's practically feudal economic relationship where localities pay up to the central government and receive back almost nothing out of Beijing.
    2
  2326. He's reporting in English instead of Chinese, and thus not getting attention from Chinese citizens whom the Party truly fears losing complete influence over.
    2
  2327. Yet even with their abbreviated safety certifications, it spends more time in the hangar only to achieve disappointing operating costs when it does fly.
    2
  2328. "Fast and efficient" is often more effective at enriching the powerful and ruining a society, than it is at figuring out how to navigate the constantly oncoming future given the incomplete knowledge which a single entity alone could never hope to fully grasp.
    2
  2329. Torpedoes might even be overkill. A common glide bomb has similar destructive power at a fraction of the cost, and most PLA navy vessels lack credible air defense.
    2
  2330. We missed the chance back when America was born. Famous Francophile Thomas Jefferson wanted our new nation to switch to the nascent Système Internationale, but the measurement samples got stolen en route by pirates.
    2
  2331. I "watch" his videos like a podcast, looking at and doing something else
    2
  2332. Like how 水 (water) would be pronounced "shuǐ" in Mandarin, "seoi⁶" in Cantonese, "zui²" in Teochew, "su" in Korean, "mizu" in Japanese, and "thủy" in Vietnamese. Everyone knew what water is and had their own names for it along with many other objects and ideas, but not necessarily a way to write it until they adopted the Chinese character set.
    2
  2333. It's probably the urban core, residential blocks are elsewhere and not nearly as flashy (day or night)
    2
  2334. China's current vaccines don't work as well as hoped, as hinted by all the fully-vaccinated people in other countries still dying of COVID even before the rise of Delta and Omicron which they're even less effective against. China used the classic attenuated virus approach, and apparently exposure to the whole virus creates messier antibodies than ones trained on clean spike proteins that mRNA and viral vector alternatives produce. Also Chinese are much more afraid of SARS-2, likely because of the damage caused by the previous SARS-1, and the PRC government uses it to their advantage even though they're still basically limited to testing, tracking, and isolated detentions. They're not in a rush to have their people enabled to tolerate exposure on their own through importing mRNA vaccines until there is a Made in China one that the Party can promote.
    2
  2335. As automation progresses, distance and logistics becomes a bigger factor in costs; we had a hint of this in 2012 when fuel prices surged. I'd imagine overall manufacturing will become more localized especially as general purpose 3D printers get more advanced to satisfy increasingly customized customer orders, and then the dominating limitations becomes more imagination, access to inspirations, and the education to translate those visions to a computer. So South and SE Asia will benefit as manufacturing shifts toward them, though not to the same extent as China. Looking at how polluted and overspecialized China became, they probably wouldn't want it anyway.
    2
  2336. I'd wager their data on "Good" vs "Bad GDP" will end up as another "state secret" when they discover how net unproductive the vast majority of their economic activities -- particularly those fueled by state subsidies -- truly are.
    2
  2337. No it's the same country. But "New China" is still on a different planet from Earth, even the Chinese themselves realized this seeing all the festive unmasked faces in packed Qatari stadiums last year while despite "unwavering" Zero-COVID their cases were on a rise alarming enough to compel daily PCR testing before the Ürümqi fire.
    2
  2338. They have to be, they are the Party.
    2
  2339. There wouldn't be much benefit to it, since the countries Chinese expats naturalize into often have generous visa reciprocity with the PRC. What would need to happen is making China far more inclusive and attractive to migrate into, which is anathema to the identity of a proud ethnostate.
    2
  2340. I've heard Wall Street analysts calculated the true value of RMB at more like ¥9 per USD
    2
  2341. Seems these order-seeking autocrats forget that the America thrives in more chaotic conditions; the US makes literal fires seem stable and predictable by comparison 🔥
    2
  2342. Indonesians carry simmering suspicions of anything Chinese, Communist, and anti-Muslim... which the PRC checks on all three. I wouldn't be surprised if their "non-aligned" stance doesn't hold should their conflict with Beijing heat up.
    2
  2343. I like to say China is like china: hard and impressive, but also very brittle 🏺
    2
  2344. The prediction is the target Beijing demands, just like how their GDP is not measured but dictated.
    2
  2345. More like goals they were already achieving to some degree when that Five Year Plan began, and nowadays conveniently ignoring the quality metrics they hoped to achieve for actual success as a fully domestic replacement.
    2
  2346. He's trying to salvage his Party's reputation as "great, glorious, and correct".
    2
  2347. Bhutan is officially an Indian protectorate. They don't want the complications of aligning itself with anyone but New Delhi.
    2
  2348. Bhutan doesn't have relations with the US or any of the P5 nations. They're an Indian protectorate, and practically all their major foreign relations goes through New Delhi.
    2
  2349. Japan exports a lot of things that the rest of the world can buy, like cars and electronics. China isn't able to do the same with barebone apartments and redundant infrastructure.
    2
  2350. If it was "uncontrolled", how were they vetted for their criminal/terrorist history that bars Temporary Protected Status?
    2
  2351. ​ @GavinGlass Which Chinese brand and what city? Overseas I've heard nothing but horror stories just for replacement parts and finding mechanics even at the dealership who can do anything more intensive than a brake flush.
    2
  2352. It seems Mainlanders are concentrating on "safe" places with dominant Chinese populations like Singapore. I've just been through Australia, Korea, and the Philippines, and I wasn't hearing nearly as much Mandarin as before; instead it was Japanese, French, and surprisingly Bahasa Indo/Melay.
    2
  2353. "Resolutely" volatile Zero-COVID disruptions leading into unexplained retail banking stoppages and permanent international divestment doesn't exactly inspire confidence with consumers, who now question if their purchasing power will ever be as good going forward.
    2
  2354. A stark contrast with Americans who habitually inflate and dramatize their conflicts, but deeper down aren't so concerned about the overall breakdown of the country to rush for a fresh passport and expatriate.
    2
  2355. Perhaps they got some specs from the Sturgeon-class USS Guitarro, aka the "Mare Island Mud Puppy"
    2
  2356. I'd guess it's a combination of corporate commercial "considerations" (which prefer the simplicity of hegemony and autocracy), and an active army of pro-Party "little pinks" mass flagging "inappropriate" content to an overly-trusting algorithm.
    2
  2357. Tony graduated from PKU and still lives in Beijing. In fact his day job isn't even YouTube even though he'd like it to be.
    2
  2358. Manufacturing didn’t leave, but it’s no longer the case that a middle school education and confident eye contact with a firm handshake will land you a living wage with union protections anymore.
    2
  2359. The US has been "on the brink of collapse" since 1812, and often resolves each crisis stronger and a bit more harmonized with its own ideals of "justice for all". The naysayers were proven wrong each time on various Panics, the Civil War, the anarcho-communist insurrections, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. The current "woke" vs MAGA battle is fairly mild compared to what America has already experienced before.
    2
  2360. Having lived in China, I've learned that the most pessimistic news and figures tend to be closer to reality. State media is mostly useful for knowing what topics the Party is focused on over time, not the actual substance in the reports themselves.
    2
  2361. Alipay does allow foreign cards, but not all vendors are set up to take it and there's a ¥5000 limit per transaction if they do.
    2
  2362. "Old leftists", a thinly veiled reference to XJP and his clique who are making China's "new era" less promising than the last one. Impressive that it passed the censors.
    2
  2363. There's a reason the nations closest to the PRC are also the most suspicious of Beijing
    2
  2364. It's ironic how Beijing quickly reaches for racism when responding to popular anti-CPC sentiments, when their own interests are proudly bound by birthright.
    2
  2365. I'd doubt it, considering the poorer inland provinces are even more overextended in their failures to attract coast-like prosperity.
    2
  2366. Dead "bear-cat" bounce
    2
  2367. It is rattling sabres, the difference being the American one not only actually existing but also proven to perform as expected.
    2
  2368. A blockade is a recognized act of war. China would try to call it some sort of “law enforcement” and not prevent all ships from coming through, to not trigger the clear aggression that totally isolating Taiwan would compel a full military response for.
    2
  2369. Maybe not a closure, but ship insurance rates for sailing through PRC-controlled waters will certainly surge. This would scare off the civilian traffic who brings the affordable food, fuel, and export revenues that Mainland China relies on to survive.
    2
  2370. And unlike what the adversaries habitually oversell, when US officials claim a capability it’s done only after tested validation if not ready for mass production.
    2
  2371. It might help these counter-dumping tariff efforts if insurance companies and news outlets reported statistics on the premiums and repair costs for Chinese EVs.
    2
  2372. Tony lives in Beijing and is fully fluent in Mandarin. He worked in a Chinese consulting firm for years and is trying to make these YouTube reports his full time career.
    2
  2373. With Chinese media being in such a bubble of false hopes and blatant lies, the model collapse will be spectacular.
    2
  2374. China was never comfortable with the idea that anyone smaller than themselves (which is basically everyone) is still an equal sovereign who makes independent decisions -- hence the thinking that if China is not their dominant influencer, some other competitor must be.
    2
  2375. The US at least tries, as much inspecting as “small government” opposition allows funding for. China though is actively negligent if the customers aren’t known Party members.
    2
  2376. Given China’s incredible industrial capacity, you’d think they could just build another fleet of tanks so the liquids never have to mix.
    2
  2377. This really should have started decades ago when Mainland China began blocking Google and Wikipedia and such.
    2
  2378. Or maybe it is (for now) -- what we don't often hear about is China's production disruptions during Zero-COVID and their lack of recovery afterward affecting the input of supplies to the market, and inflation is fundamentally a case of demand outstripping supply.
    2
  2379. The CPC is the latest in a line of Chinese autocratic governments... which unfortunately means it's trending towards the same domestically violent end that befell every previous imperial dynasty.
    2
  2380. If Xiàmén is what awaits Taiwanese upon reunification, they should pass as the PRC has already peaked and the Běijīng will be spending the next couple decades struggling to not stagnate and stay promising to its people much like the USSR from the 1970s onward.
    2
  2381. Profitability changes, especially when trapped in the low value-added valley of the Smiling Curve that the still heavily export-dependent PRC stuck itself in. I wouldn't be surprised if China's recent export "growth" came from all the factory machinery getting offshored.
    2
  2382. It's not like there's much choice from Chinese sources, as they're all effectively CPC editorials.
    2
  2383. The term for uncontested Hàn China is "China Proper". Whether China Proper survives intact at the end of the dynastic cycle for "New China" remains to be seen.
    2
  2384. Ironic how exclusive ethnostates who donate far more immigrants than take them in are trying to define the global "progressive trend".
    2
  2385. That "analysis" about Taiwan sounds like a "management consultant", where management already made their decision and are just looking for "independent" justification to commit. It's becoming clear that XJP wants to invade Taiwan before they fall off their economic and demographic peak in about a decade, having destroyed any hope of peaceful reunification for at least the next two generations through the obviously not-so "Two Systems" practice that Hong Kong has come to experience.
    2
  2386. Now I'm wondering how anxious Běijīng is nowadays over the thought of how many Chinese "patriots" are actually performing counterintelligence for America.
    2
  2387. Tony confirmed to secretly be a Party member through the leaked "struggle session" 🤪
    2
  2388. It wouldn't be surprising, the Party has callously sacrificed millions of Chinese to develop and maintain its political security before. It's why they've been calling up every doctor they can redeploy to Beijing and protect Party officials while leaving the countryside even more vulnerable; it's not like those people can vote them out at the next election anyway. They'll just dismiss the loss of farmers and cheap migrant laborers as "Future China's problem".
    2
  2389. I'm thinking whatever recession is more driven by supply rather than demand: China is shut down, and Russia has proven untrustworthy. Mitigating this involves divesting and diversifying away from these formerly efficient sources and regain supply flexibility and resilience by developing elsewhere.
    2
  2390. Small fires contained in a country or two is still way more manageable than the absolute mayhem of a world war which next time involves nuclear exchange.
    2
  2391. That's why it's best to keep shortsighted money-blinded businessmen away from politics.
    2
  2392. Considering the top-heavy politics and godlike self-promotion of the Chinese government, it's not that far of a stretch to imagine what's really putting downward pressure on modern China.
    2
  2393. ​If you hear what Chinese media has been saying about America in untranslated Mandarin for the past decade, you'd be surprised how much we weren't "giving back" sooner.
    2
  2394. The timeline and severity would be off, but the overall trends still hold. That's why PZ is worth listening about the causes to even when he gets annoyingly excited about some overblown effect.
    2
  2395. Tony aims to be informative, not necessarily entertaining. In the years of searching for news about modern China ever since having lived in Beijing myself, I've still yet to find anyone out there who is both dispassionately factual yet verbally amusing.
    2
  2396. Capitalism hates dependents. Yet it's too shortsighted to invest in the next generation of workers, while biasing practically all significant socialized supports toward older established employees and terminal retirees.
    2
  2397. Policy is not enough, the society itself has to become more accommodating to dependents. This is why the competitive environment of capitalism sees a decline of native-born children as minimum standards for a young adult to achieve net productivity keeps rising, and China is among the most hypercompetitive and socially callous societies today.
    2
  2398. Any shooting will make those waterways uninsurable, guaranteeing a collapse of trade along with the affordable food and fuel it brings. Blockade not needed.
    2
  2399. The PRC is really failing to read the room with Europe. Just because they hesitate to commit a hard cutoff of Russian energy imports doesn't mean they're not looking for permanent alternatives. Similar is already happening with international businesses in China whose overall excitement to enter and stay only keeps dropping.
    2
  2400. Right, any of us going into China also have to take a PCR test too. If we were to be as "scientific" as the PRC, we'd be picking the brains of all their arrivals before sending them via narrow camera-filled hallways to a random unmarked bus off to a run-down hotel for quarantine.
    2
  2401. They're both classically imperial nations whose anxiety over their regime's security led them to repeatedly try expanding their borders: Russia towards the Eastern Pacific, China towards Central Asia. The West used to do similar, but after WWII realized they can gain much the same influence by promoting democracy and gaining support through a more attractive open culture.
    2
  2402. Even if limited to options provided by advisors, it's ultimately still the President's decision as the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State sending our military into another nation's territory for whatever reason.
    2
  2403. "Win-Win Cooperation", the slogan of the Beijing-led New Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
    2
  2404. They call it “National Rejuvenation”.
    2
  2405. Although it still seems to happen regularly. The most obvious strange behaviors I've heard happen to smartphones while in China all happened on iPhone.
    2
  2406. And they've made so much junk that there's plenty more to keep tossing out.
    2
  2407. The problem is getting any ship past the Chinese picket line. Plus it's a waste to beach a seaworthy vessel when the Philippine Navy is already sorely underequipped for the amount of sea they're charged to defend.
    2
  2408. I was once taught that if you want to know what the PRC government is concerned about, read the headlines in their news channels and note the appearance and disappearance of the topics; what they actually say about it can be safely ignored.
    2
  2409. Problem is China doesn't have an effective and trusted vaccine to distribute, but importing Western ones is an act of surrender for the Party who spent the last couple of years touting its effective pandemic controls.
    2
  2410. Russia is trying to justify reestablishing itself as an imperial power. It might not be an overseas adventure, but it's still colonialism: military subjugation to install a governor that the locals won't find a relief compared to their previous leadership. The Chinese government should take heed, because it has run out of neighbors who are incapable of fighting back.
    2
  2411. Like most industrialized and aspiring countries, it’s a threat but one that can be adapted around and shouldn’t get in the way of economic development.
    2
  2412. Per ton of carbon emitted, EVs are at least twice as efficient per mile driven when charged on 100% coal, and it only gets better with greener sources mixed in. There's active efforts to reuse (e.g. turning old EV batteries into building energy storage) and recycle used cells because of all the costs in mining and refining new ones.
    2
  2413. I’ve heard their 7nm achivement comes at the cost of enormous dud rates which makes it grossly unprofitable. The Chinese government would ultimately spend itself dry propping up Huawei if it can’t get its hands on more efficient Western EUV fab systems.
    2
  2414. The bigger question is will the targets realize how present a threat that Chinese "state security" interest projects are, or will they continue believing the US has nothing better to spend its budget on than on assaulting specifically them
    2
  2415. PRC shills sure are sore winners.
    2
  2416. "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay" ☭
    2
  2417. Right, China is just dumping their EVs which their own people don’t want to buy. They have junkyards full of “sold” and fully registered but never used EVs because of how excessively subsidized they were.
    2
  2418.  @Andy-P Not without great risk of political instability for the millions of Chinese who still need a job.
    2
  2419. That would involve a collapse in new buyers and an explosion of additional debt by developers, which is exactly against the central plan of the Party.
    2
  2420. The Chinese think Mongolia and half of Siberia belongs to them, and it won't stop there. The concept of 天下 is the reason they spent their whole history expanding westward through military conquest.
    2
  2421. Corporations seem to believe it far too much.
    2
  2422. Problem is that space is grossly overpriced for the quality, and not likely to get less expensive anytime soon as past buyers aggressively seek to salvage their lost life savings.
    2
  2423. If she's reading Chinese language news through WeChat, she won't see what every independent outsider is seeing about the PRC.
    2
  2424. Anyone would if it could, if not for its own use then to sell to someone who wants it. Unlike how revealing the Chinese hacks highlights the threat of the CPC, Beijing is likely keeping quiet about any Western infiltrations they find in their systems as it would be a sign of critical weakness of the Party -- infiltrations that I'd wager are already well active considering how much the state demands backdoors into all its information flows, and how deeply the US seems to have infiltrated the equally offensive-biased cyber systems of Russia.
    2
  2425. The longer fangs come not from sharper teeth, but from a receding gumline 🦷
    2
  2426. Even Midas realized he can't eat gold. The CPC however still believes turning everything into concrete makes them "great, glorious, and correct".
    2
  2427. The current Republic of China is the China we wished China to be (including ironically within China itself) -- a former autocracy that shows what Chinese people could achieve once they terminate the oppression of an unchallenged single family/Party dynasty government.
    2
  2428. Beijing sounds completely overconfident that it can quickly and cheaply seize a physical fortress from across 100+ miles of saltwater moat, one that's been preparing for their arrival for decades, and increasingly motivated to commit an insurgency that guarantees the fight to be long, expensive, and ultimately embarassing. The US would know, apparently those tactics are what we're teaching to the Taiwanese nowadays having had 20+ years of firsthand experience on the wrong end of an IED.
    2
  2429. That’s what happens when you try to be “scientific” in your approach without considering the humanities and social psychology of what people actually value. Numbers alone don’t provide a complete or compelling narrative. There’s a reason STEM minded folks are notoriously poor at managing over other humans, and why they rarely thrive in open politics.
    2
  2430. Hence why foreigners and visa-holding Chinese are scrambling to expatriate. The Party is on a power trip with its "anti-COVID measures" and how their (self-perpetuated) vulnerability to the pandemic can be used justify their increased intrusiveness on everyone in the Mainland, all because at the core of an authoritarian society is chronic clinical anxiety. The feeling on the street is that the CPC's "New China" is returning in all the worst ways.
    2
  2431. Although other than outsourced Korea and anti-mobility Himalayas, the battles China itself is looking at are primarily at sea and in the air which they lack modern experience and historical prowess in fighting.
    2
  2432. The true test of quality is if they pass owners long enough to end up becoming the vehicles used by rebels and terrorists in some distant land 🛻🚀
    2
  2433. They're all local schemes trying to grab government rebates. It's an extension of the "centralized democracy" low-level competition that props up the core of the Party.
    2
  2434. Right, it still took like another half a century to get us off our horses and local tram lines once personal cars became affordable.
    2
  2435. They're going down the same path of North Korea, who likewise turned to their "pure" and "superior" culture when their tangible economics stalled.
    2
  2436.  @308_Negra_Arroyo_Lane  Long COVID is a problem though. It takes Americans out of the full time workforce which ultimately induces upward pressures on inflation for everyone from the overly slack job market.
    2
  2437. Just find any pessimist or speculator channel. For every "anti-China" video there's probably a dozen pitches to "buy gold/crypto".
    2
  2438. If independent estimates are to be believed, America's debt-to-GDP burden is like 1/3 of what China has accrued. The US is a relatively prudent borrower compared how Beijing basically burned real RMB on unproductive projects to achieve fake numbers.
    2
  2439. Especially considering they're competing in unchaotic non-team sports which authoritarian programs can usually squeeze out an elite individual performer. It just shows how weak China's environment is in developing its people beyond well-bounded plays that are rehearsable to the point they're practically staged.
    2
  2440. Chinese government forcing the "growth", because the GDP equation includes government spending of any sort even if funded by debt.
    2
  2441. A cracked flight deck would be a dealbreaker though.
    2
  2442. Other countries aren’t neck deep in debt trying to keep up the appearance of economic vibrancy.
    2
  2443. The whole Party runs on personal corruption past the entry level. If anything shady acts and histories get worse towards the top... where Xi is.
    2
  2444. It seems at least with Anglophones that we're more successfully separating the Chinese people from the state, and destroying the strategy of the CPC to equate itself as the entirety of "China".
    2
  2445. Having lived in Beijing, I can confirm that the most pessimistic reports about "New China" tend to be closest to the ground truth.
    2
  2446. Hence why Beijing's prescriptions on "proper" relations and behaviors consistently faceplant, compared to how Westernized democracies invite even outsiders to participate and contribute.
    2
  2447. I liken modern China's lack of appeal to that of parents: familial authority figures can't dictate what is "cool" and ironically often end up promoting the opposite.
    2
  2448. It would target providers who conspire to use VPNs to circumvent sanctions. Going after individual users would just gum up the justice system and incite popular backlash.
    2
  2449. It would involve embarrassing power shortages by denying operation of new coal plants if they're to be serious though.
    2
  2450. That's assuming the authorities care. Child kidnappings are a real problem in China, but gets little attention because it's politically insignificant -- if anything the parents who try to raise awareness are seen as a bigger threat.
    2
  2451. Even in the rural areas there's no privacy, in fact it could be worse with the small town habits of everyone watching and gossiping about each other. And that's before considering your smartphone which is practically as much of a requirement to live there as your government issued ID -- smartphones are essentially the perfect espionage tool for whoever controls it, and there was always some strange behavior (settings changed, recording noises, lost location, etc) that arose at least every few weeks on the phones of foreigners with a Chinese SIM inserted.
    2
  2452. Also can't afford it. Shenzhen often tops the list of most costly housing.
    2
  2453. Nefarious or not, it was a deliberate choice to anglicize their branding and not sound obviously Chinese with all the disposable connotations they've developed. It's similar to how 希音 gets marketed as SHEIN instead of Xīyīn.
    2
  2454. High-rise shells where half the units haven't even made liveable? The only real asset is the government land lease their structures sit on.
    2
  2455. The crash hasn't happened yet, but it's still teetering. The CPC will do all it can to prop up the internal economy, because that perception of prosperity under their rule is the only thing gagging their Chinese language critics.
    2
  2456. Neither was Dynamic Zero-COVID taking out the single point of failure of the global supply networn.
    2
  2457. More like they’re running out of convertible CNY to pay for tuition abroad.
    2
  2458. There's a classic stereotype of "남남북녀" (南男北女), saying the best men come from the south and the most beautiful women come from the north of Korea.
    2
  2459. While Hawai’i may be “subjugated” by the US, at least the US is tolerant to open dissent. The alternative would have been getting conquered by Imperial Japan some years later in their eastward expansion probably under some pretext of “protecting their compatriots” who had migrated there, and they’re infamously not so keen on diversity.
    2
  2460. Corporate-style “cost cutting” for efficiency, which people forget competes against resilience.
    2
  2461. That's private sector. Government supervisors actually follow regulations such as allowing workers to take their PTO and not hold it against them in evaluations.
    2
  2462. But toxic as a policymaker.
    2
  2463. Likely centrally managed to adapt to traffic flows throughout the city, which means needing a network security system like Crowdstrike would have a hand in.
    2
  2464. Updates are offered globally, it's the policies at each customer that decides how fast and with which sections to install them.
    2
  2465.  @maheshrathod5593  Trump's conflict of interest shouldn't have happened, but there wasn't much legally preventing him from doing so, and he's known for bending the legal arguments wildly in his favor with so much practice escaping personal debts. A lot of America's checks and balances are done by tradition and not as stipulated by law, because up until Trump voters didn't allow candidates with zero public service experience to make it that far up.
    2
  2466. IT (especially in government) is among the most chronically short-staffed fields. Congrats and welcome 🤖
    2
  2467. I doubt a bad reputation can be fixed overnight. Too many bosses treated their workers like easily replaceable cogs, and are at a loss on how to react now that the power dynamics reversed.
    2
  2468. Right, I did social science for my degree which when combined with a hobby in IT administration led to a profession in cybersecurity. I know psychology majors (useless to the field at the undergrad level) who are now doing UX. Meanwhile there were some classmates who focused on venture capital investing who are... not venturing anymore.
    2
  2469. Schools are meant to teach how to think, as in the ability to find and analyze valid information. If what companies want is specific job training, they should provide the OJT themselves again.
    2
  2470. What really matters is the power to weight ratio, and the median Chinese worker is horribly inefficient in producing value-added compared to their Western counterparts.
    2
  2471. That's more a problem of the host country accepting their integration. The not-so-ethnostate Western Hemisphere generally doesn't have a problem assimilating newcomers.
    2
  2472. Striker 50 Shh... don’t let them know about SD
    2
  2473. Virginia is the state you can never leave for tax purposes. I keep hearing horror stories of former VA residents trying to change their state claims. CA by contrast is much more straightforward.
    2
  2474. The liberal bastions of AZ and TX, helping to turn those states blue while their CA vacancies get immediately scooped by cosmopolitan high-skill immigrants
    2
  2475. It's especially bad in California, where the relatively low property taxes cemented by Prop 13 kept land cheap for those who already owned it, and disincentivizes redevelopment to something more dense. Add in how the state houses a huge population of NIMBY retirees, and how those who can afford detached homes are increasingly already-rich, and you can see the growing disconnect of supply and demand that made even fully employed people homeless.
    2
  2476. Defense provides for the open seas and skies that otherwise raise prices in less controllable ways (regional conflicts leading to lost access, detours, local "fees", etc). What's worse for the consumer is the failure of competition to suppress prices in things people need to sustain and improve themselves such as healthcare, housing, and higher education.
    2
  2477. Also poor infrastructure, hampered by Mexico's mountainous terrain and lack of navigable rivers. Africa suffers much the same lack of cheap natural transportation corridors for its size, hence why in both places mere movement is insecure and expensive.
    2
  2478. Efficiency and resilience are always in tension.
    2
  2479. It's discomforting, but crime and homelessness are at least quicker to deal with than say an ingrained exclusive traditionalist mindset of a resident population, one that isn't so welcoming to deviation and disruption and thus the chance for durable economic development.
    2
  2480. A big chunk of the baby bust comes from the collapse of teenage pregnancies. The faithful are able to keep up their numbers because they compel their girls to birth their own kids younger than the developed economy average, and once they become mothers (especially when young) the mental barrier to give them siblings drops dramatically.
    2
  2481. Remote work does threaten to have you replaced, since there will always be someone somewhere else who will be more productive for the pay demanded whether it's a compatriot expat or a foreign competitor in their own home. AI threatens to make this worse as its self-educating nature reduces the space that humans can compete in. Ultimately we will have to question the underlying economics of distribution, which has basically been geysering improvements to wealth creation upward (only for a fraction of it to "trickle down") since transistor computers effectively replaced human calculators back in the 1970s.
    2
  2482. America has excellent election integrity. The problem is low participation from both popular apathy and administrative barriers conveniently affecting against certain citizens, as well as anti-progressive losers who militantly can't accept they're the minority.
    2
  2483.  @Kuricang31  An anti-communist dictator would have likely yielded to popular revolt at some point -- as had happened starting in the 1980s to South Korea, Taiwan, and Chile. Theocracies and pro-communists tend to double down on autocracy instead.
    2
  2484. It’s basically geography that impedes transportation, and weak civil institutions. The argument of Western intervention only gets weaker with time if African leaders continue to rule their realms through tribalist kleptocracy.
    2
  2485. They're hesitant about it though, because they don't see as much cost-benefit for being primarily an alternate route for China while also creating a counterproductive physical barrier to the separatist elements bordering Malaysia.
    2
  2486. Taiwan managed many of the same achievements in education and industrialization earlier, being open to the West and not distracted by ideological pet projects like the Great Leap Forward. Then in the 80s the equally autocratic KMT decided to yield to popular demands instead of cracking down like they would've before, making the ROC the vibrant democracy it is today. Of course a China ruled by regular Chinese people is one that China doesn't want the rest of the world to see (although these days ROC citizens have all but dropped their label as "Chinese" because of how toxic it's become under the Communists).
    2
  2487. Hence why they really only maintain (if not Disneyize) the touristy parts. Everywhere else becomes at best the battle-scarred Gǔběikǒu Pass, all the way down to some barely-recognizable mound of dirt on some ridgeline to nowhere.
    2
  2488. Mostly because the heaviest load it ever had to handle were horse-drawn carts up into the 20th century. They would disintegrate under the pressure of all the high-speed multi-ton vehicles that make a modern economy possible.
    2
  2489. ​ @FullLengthInterstates But also incurs costs just by existing. On the other extreme China's HSR doesn't generate enough ticket fares and associated fapiao (tax receipts) from associated economic activity because passengers and mail only pay so much. At the same time they don't have anywhere close to the amount of freight-capable heavy rail lines needed to keep its economy flowing by transporting much more profitable bulk cargo at the much reduced costs compared to trucking it all.
    2
  2490. Attractive to the often corrupt politicians who didn't want to concede their power to steal from their constituents, yes
    2
  2491. And they change their name to Qazaqstan, reflecting their native language instead of romanized Russian (much like how Kiev is now Kyiv)
    2
  2492. Mostly to exchange into USD or EUR because their own currency is even more worthless.
    2
  2493. Chinese infrastructure -- and their buildings in general especially the newer ones -- suffer from shoddy construction. Having lived there I noticed that its structures seem to age way faster than their completion date suggests. But sure continue being impressed by select drone shots from afar.
    2
  2494. Things that are not "industry", like branding value, common personal attitudes, and actual human benefits that socialism promises.
    2
  2495. From what I understand the real "backing" the CIA provided were lists of known Communist members to the Indonesian military, who basically said "thanks, we already knew".
    2
  2496. Indonesians have to keep electing folks like Jokowi to keep rising, and not get sidetracked by candidates who promise to decide more by faithful ideologies. Remember there are four other points of Pancasila to balance with.
    2
  2497. Low living standards also mean low productivity per capita, which then leads to lower agency and getting your economics, politics, and ultimately culture and preferences dominated by some richer society. It's like how Africa seeks the growth of SE Asia seeks the development of NE Asia seeks the respect of the US seeks the leisure time of Western Europe.
    2
  2498. ​ @zirconiumdiamond1416 If those private schools offered more focus on creativity and experimentation it might work. However I'd imagine it'll just end up more a hellhole of church-administered dogma indoctrination.
    2
  2499. Right, arguably the ones moving out weren't fit to prosper in the industries that power the states they left.
    2
  2500. The mobility likewise makes it easier to move out of an uncompetitive environment. If anything the weak state attitudes inhibit public spending which could result in a unique draw that attracts people away from coastal harbors; places like Denver, MSP, and Nashville are success stories of very inland cities because they offer something more than a daily grind for pay.
    2
  2501. That's a nationwide problem, driven in part by the incumbent NIMBY homeowners who vote against densification and the cheaper housing it would provide. Hence high costs to build, and higher prices to pay it off.
    2
  2502. Okinawa is the Japanese equivalent, being previously the independent Ryukyu Kingdom. Luckily for the US -- and probably Hawai'i too -- that America got to it before pre-WW2 Japan.
    2
  2503. Although manufacturing did literally drive SK's development. Up through the end of the Korean War the South was an agricultural backwater with poverty levels that made colonial Africans look rich. NK was the economically superior of the two up into the 1960s because of its heavier focus on industry that Japanese colonizers began and the Communists continued.
    2
  2504. There's already official design guidelines for additional stars.
    2
  2505. African tribes spent too much effort competing instead of cohabiting and building supra-tribal institutions which would have overcome the limitations of hunter-gatherer autarky.
    2
  2506. Right, having to sail or fly into enemy territory imposes a lot of limitations and vulnerabilities to the attacking side, and the ROC has been preparing for the next gunfight with the PLA for decades now. Ukraine is proving that logistics under fire are Russia's biggest weakness, and will be even worse for the PRC who are much less practiced and have way longer distances to traverse.
    2
  2507. Sky News sounds like Fox News with an Aussie accent, still pandering to a shortsighted emotionally-brittle honor culture audience whose mindset is limited to distinct categories, unquestioning loyalty, overt strength, and direct confrontation.
    2
  2508. It'll sink itself further when one of its relatively dumb supersonic anti-ship missiles hits a container carrier in an attempt to overwhelm a Western warship, scaring off civilian traffic and subsequently paying through the nose for upcharges and overland alternatives for the rest of the conflict.
    2
  2509. I lived in sub-Saharan Africa not too long ago on a two year work assignment. Locals were overwhelmingly more pro-Western than their politicians who are infamously not examples of transparent governance. They also comment on their greater suspicions about China's intentions, and how what Chinese companies build not only all looks the same (not to mention clashes with the surroundings) but also are alarmed at how little rebar and concrete gets put into those projects. The feeling I got living there is that ultimately Europe and the US provide opportunities, while China provides QA rejects.
    2
  2510. The CPC is clearly evil, but replacement by Falun Gong I don't see as being much better overall. Its leadership steers the practice towards regressive intolerant aims, and ultimately theocratic politics is arguably even worse than what China has now because all dissent from the dogma and those who institute it constitutes a direct attack on the entire faith, as opposed to an "isolated" corrupt official or lower level implementation.
    2
  2511. Baby formula industry is a very concentrated industry, much like meat processing. There's only like 5 manufacturers so a shock in any one of them (as had happened recently also with tainted formula) quickly constricts supply and makes prices surge.
    2
  2512. Similar to why the Korean War lasted so long. Mao kept balking at negotiations as long as Stalin kept supplying the PLA and supporting his consolidation of power in the new PRC. The ceasefire only took effect after Stalin died and Soviet aid dried up.
    2
  2513. Right, China already has fundamental issues with unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and chemical pollution of its lands, which combined with rising labor costs basically eradicates further opportunities for easy profits. Part of the reason for the "wolf warrior" attitude these days may be anxiety over how the Party can justify its continued tolerance by the Chinese people.
    2
  2514. That's ignoring how cell phones have been the most perfect espionage device for decades now
    2
  2515. The mistakes are that they're relying on less effective Russian equipment and combat doctrines, especially with trying to provide logistics in hostile territory. Numbers alone no longer determine battles as decisively in the face of combined arms and precision munitions. Ukraine is probably the biggest shock to the PLA since the Gulf War, when they realized that they're structured too similar to the curb-stomped Iraqi Army.
    2
  2516. Táiwān is a bad example? Before democratization the KMT was just as ideological and tyrannical -- there's a reason the US abandoned the blatantly corrupt ROC government at the end of WWII and basically let the then-allied Communists take over. But since then the ROC fell to rule by its people, and now the main threat to the Mainland being what China could be without the one unchallenged Party.
    2
  2517. Forcibly seizing Taiwan would not gain their IC fab capabilities because the fabs are easily sabotaged, inputs easily polluted, and the extremely specialized engineers who work on them would be largely dead or evacuated. What's more likely is that the Mainland's current economic downturn continues with internal unrest becoming alarmingly bold, and Xi mobilizes the PLA to cross the Strait in order to salvage the respect for his Party.
    2
  2518. The US still has that advantage, but it doesn't discount how well an Eagle can absorb real battle damage and still return to base.
    2
  2519. You think your visits to China were maddening then? Come experience the absolute absurdity we've been surviving these past three years! 🚧
    2
  2520. Right, people forget that China spends nearly half its history undergoing internal rebellions. The only throughline being every instance is a patronizing autocracy that eventually loses its competence from a lack of real opposition questioning the increasingly bad decisions.
    2
  2521. Also if expatriation becomes popular, the Chinese government will clamp down on permission to exit for everyone. It's already happened during Zero-COVID with Chinese passports suddenly canceled at the airport and unexplained delays in passport renewals.
    2
  2522. Filipinos still bash China, there's a lot of distrust among the regular folks about the efficacy of their vaccines and what China intends to ask from the Philippines in return.
    2
  2523. US cities were actually built by Americans, and have plenty of resources domestically to pull from. The Gulf has neither, and depends on constantly buying imports which is a tenuous situation if its economic environment changes.
    2
  2524. It's Chinese designed, hence the Chinese outcome
    2
  2525. Not if that any job is so demanding and undercompensating of your time that it prevents the necessary retraining.
    2
  2526. In various degrees. It's just especially severe for China because of the scale of the problem and inflexibility of its policy strategy.
    2
  2527. The East Kalimantan site was chosen specifically because of much reduced concern for seismic issues, unlike the highly volcanic southern arc of islands where most of Indonesia's population resides.
    2
  2528. That's by design. America's militant racism can be traced to when landowners started seeing black slaves and poor whites beginning to unite under a common Christian faith; since the church couldn't be trusted to keep the classes separate, they turned to focusing hate against something permanent at birth which was race.
    2
  2529. Not only the vaccines, but also the power needed to run the deep freezers until the vaccine doses are ready for distribution. Almost every island is isolated from each other in power sources and transmission.
    2
  2530.  @Ellie-i7q-t5w  Most freezers don't reach the temperatures needed to keep those vaccines from spoiling, even more so when going to countries having regular issues just keeping the lights on.
    2
  2531. They probably wouldn't pass the safety tests. Collision standards are especially strict because of how much time Americans spend on freeways and high-speed arterials.
    2
  2532.  @araara4746  Both. The society developed by the "great, glorious, and correct" CPC both deliberately discouraged having kids to replace workers as they aged, while also discouraging the very industries that employ the young workers who were born. Hence a modern China whose people end up too poor to start a family before they're considered unemployable by 35.
    2
  2533. Right, there are fields full of brand-new plated Chinese EVs because they were simply collecting the subsidies for the "sales". They're getting dumped in whatever market is willing to import them because Chinese consumers are largely too poor to buy and park one.
    2
  2534. Which is a problem for the Mainlanders who escape to the most desirable Western societies, and find out the hard way that they can't just pay their way around inconvenient rules.
    2
  2535. Even in car-centric Dubai, I can go a considerable ways with just their metro and bikeshare. Problem is (other than summer heat) the RTA (DMV) dictates that the bikeshare docks may only be installed next to marked bike paths, which is a scattered feature in car-centric Dubai.
    2
  2536. China is certainly trying. I've heard from an Indo friend that there's an alarming number of Chinese nationals with military haircuts "vacationing" on the Natuna islands.
    2
  2537.  @oceanwave4502  With China maneuvering to unilaterally control their neighbors' rivers and fishing grounds, arguably yes and in ways more akin to threatening with weapons of mass destruction.
    2
  2538. The last time "Made in China" meant top shelf quality, it came from the Ming Dynasty
    2
  2539. Also because there's a glut of EVs that China is trying to dump abroad before their not so stellar build quality as cars catches up to their brand reputation. Domestic consumers aren't snatching them up as quickly anymore because their consumer confidence cratered on top of issues like lack of working chargers and legal parking spots.
    2
  2540. I'm actually more concerned about debit cards because if you get hacked, it's your money that disappears and the bank isn't as incentivized to correct it as with a credit card where it's t͟h͟e͟i͟r͟ money being stolen. I'm not familiar if that's changed over the past decade or so, but that's what I was taught.
    2
  2541. East Asians are also communal and judgmental, so living there you're also dealing with the costs of limited supply and high demand for what the society deems acceptable.
    2
  2542. Indonesia needs to crack down harder on enforcement though. One of the complaints that my Indo colleagues mentioned was how much China was taking out raw nickel ore instead of domestically refined nickel as had been agreed on.
    2
  2543. "Made" isn't the problem, it's the "sold" part. China focused on the disposable end for so long that they're struggling to make things that customers want to not toss within two years, and this is coming right as valuable foreign inputs and currency is running dry.
    2
  2544.  @HEEHEEBOII  If you reacted that severely to the spike protein, it sounds like you're lucky the live virus didn't get to you first. I also had Pfizer, and the most I felt was a mild lingering muscle ache.
    2
  2545. Non-Chinese companies didn't bother with consumer drones, and smart wearables are still largely a solution looking for a problem. America's iRobot has longevity though, with replacement parts still readily available down to their oldest models which is unheard of elsewhere in the realm of consumer gadgets.
    2
  2546. 1) Most likely, at least compared to ones administering the cheaper traditional vaccines which correlate to the same places where human lives are cheap and political embarrassments are seen as a sovereign threat. Also consider how the news loves to dramatize novel/rare incidents over classic/mundane ones, much like plane crashes over car crashes. 2) Breakthrough infections are expected, what really matters is how bad it gets for those infected. For example over 100 medical personnel fully inoculated by Sinovac died in the same timeframe that none were reported lost who had mRNA jabs. And likely there's more underreporting in those places more reliant on those Chinese alternatives. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/indonesia-reports-record-number-doctor-deaths-covid-19-july-2021-07-18/ 3) mRNA has been undergoing trials for over a decade now, and looks to be more promising in the long run because of its faster turnaround (just swap some of the genetic code and not need to incubate entire batches in millions of chicken eggs afterwards) and stronger response (it's likely these targeted proteins are less noisy than inactivated whole virus particles, so the antibodies you make will bond better to the pathogens as they come). Clinical trials were accelerated because the next phases were begun as soon as it was deemed safe to proceed, instead of waiting on the long pauses of data processing in between; the "emergency use" is simply another such acceleration while the data gets compiled into its final form. It's likely that mRNA vaccines in general will be deemed as safe as inactivated virus ones because of how many more people have taken mRNA vaccines compared to a smaller traditional trial of any medicine, especially since mRNA fundamentally only have a couple components whose only real change would be the genetic sequence in the payload.
    2
  2547. That doesn't make sense, it's Russia that's aggravating social stability and allegiance issues by trying to conquer Ukraine. If anything the PLA will have an even tougher time with far longer uncovered supply lines, almost zero experience in modern combined arms, and manned by the only sons of their entire family.
    2
  2548. The US could do not all that much and the PRC would still lose. The food and fuel exports that the Mainland depends on would quickly cease, and chances are the PLA would mistakenly hit some civilian ships and airliners which would scare off all but the most expensive trade channels. The PRC would empty its treasury right as internal unrest from hunger and darkness grows out of control.
    2
  2549. Go ahead and try, selling off would just make the USD even more valuable.
    2
  2550. Chinese offshoring still cuts down considerably on the number of Chinese citizens getting a paycheck, and it's a restive Chinese public who are the biggest threat to the CPC. Just look at how despondent and irritable the American Rust Belt became when it lost its paychecks, never to return because any new manufacturing will be more automated and require a greater skill set not every high school graduate can learn nor every company willing to provide paid OJT for -- and China's education system is even more hopeless beyond the limited curriculum that the Party prescribes.
    2
  2551. I disagree. The US doesn't support Táiwān splitting off from "China", but that doesn't mean it surrenders its fate to the PRC. The larger reputation of the US as the "arsenal of democracy" and a reliable ally is at stake. US forces might not decide to combat the PLA with its own weapons, but it doesn't prevent America from providing Táiwān with equipment and advice to resist a PRC invasion and occupation. Even with a complete seizure America will likely continue to make it hurt hard for the Communist occupiers like it did in Afghanistan, while dissuading the rest of the world from trading with China and instead seek permanent alternatives. America has immeasurable experience destabilizing countries. It will be a fatal shock to Chinese nationals going from 30 years of prosperity to going dark, hungry, and missing their only son because nobody thinks a CPC-ruled China is worthy of peaceable engagement anymore.
    2
  2552. Considering how little access foreign firms already have with the domestic Chinese market, yes there is still room to divest and find other customers.
    2
  2553. There's a push for students to have a job as a requirement of getting awarded their degree, so schools have been finding 1-hour/week jobs which China counts as "employed". That's how bad the job market has become for new graduates there.
    2
  2554.  @TMsonjakopp7006  The US proved there was a threat of global nuclear war because of Soviet nukes getting staged in Cuba. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would only serve to disrupt international trade, which most of the world would not appreciate -- it's more likely to backfire by pushing India and Southeast Asia to reconsider the free flow of ships to China through their own waters.
    2
  2555. As Vietnam and Afghanistan have shown, for a land war places to hide is more important than technical superiority. Taiwan has the terrain, and much of its population have military skills.
    2
  2556. Right, it'd be interesting to see how PLAN sailors will react and try to control battle damage that some of their ships will inevitably take. "It takes the Navy three years to build a ship... three hundred years to build a new tradition", and post-Ming China isn't exactly known for its naval prowess.
    2
  2557. Losing Taiwan could mean India and probably Japan and South Korea arm up on nukes to prevent their own encirclement by China (the "String of Pearls"), while ASEAN gets starved into submission from having their fish and freshwater stolen. A Taiwan not under a terminally belligerent CPC is the key from preventing a greater disaster coming for half of humanity.
    2
  2558. Taiwan is a nuclear threshold state, along with Japan, South Korea, and Iran. They could build a nuke in about a year if they started now. In fact the US had to stop Taipei once because it was so provocative back when the Mainland wasn't as potent.
    2
  2559. Speed is life for aircraft carriers just like they are for fighter planes. It allows for safer flight operations as well as maneuvering options under fire. The longer a carrier can maintain speed, the more its benefits stack up. America's supercarriers are surprisingly fast (the true top speed being classified) -- so fast it's the escorts who have trouble keeping up.
    2
  2560. Sailing around practically unopposed is one thing, unarmed merchant vessels do this routinely. It's a different game to try performing missions under the constant threat of hostile anti-ship assets.
    2
  2561. SK and Vietnam have substantial recent experience against hostile forces (SK in Vietnam plus the constant showdown with the North; Vietnam against the US, the PRC, and Cambodia), while Japan constantly exercises with the US. Meanwhile guided munitions were still an experiment the last time the PLA fielded a sizeable military expedition, and all the wargames they've had with Russia since then turns out might not be as valid as they had hoped.
    2
  2562. Seems you need to research more. Afghanistan is one of the few neighbors that China doesn't have irredentist claims against; even Russia has to defend against what China is eyeing to "take back".
    2
  2563. Yes, the rise of China would've been much more palatable had the Mainland gone more the way of Taiwan, who had dropped its equally authoritarian White Terror and democratized at almost the same time as Tienanmen. Instead the CPC chose to keep its rule by force, and in the coming decades when its own aging, debt, and pollution prevents its economy from growing further, they'll likely find that there's nobody willing and able to provide real aid to a status quo PRC in crisis.
    2
  2564. Polynesians were more masterful navigators, and I'd heard sailors from what is now Indonesia had a wider maritime reach than what imperial China ever achieved. Which makes sense because until the Europeans made inroads through Chinese ports, the various dynasties were almost totally focused on land-based conquests.
    2
  2565. Because unlike before, they couldn't accept their conquerors as Chinese. Manchus and Mongols are recognized as part of China's "five races" (along with Tibetans, Uyghurs, and the Han), whose lands the Qing managed to absorb before Europeans, Japan, and their own decadence began making reversals.
    2
  2566. Basically America's roaming grounds are the size of a city compared to the PLA's "backyard", and it wouldn't take that much to block off the few roads leading to it. China relies on imports for food, fuel, and raw materials. Even without a blockade, commercial ships would hesitate to sail in to a live combat zone, and in short order China would begin to literally starve.
    2
  2567. America has the advantage of readily accepting immigrants though, who tend to be even better than native-born due to greater economic motivation, the constant challenge to convince them to naturalize or at least not move back to their homeland, and the ability to select them through the visa process.
    2
  2568. All this sounds a lot like the US West, which is similarly being landscaped and farmed to the bottom of the aquifer.
    2
  2569. Not necessarily, canals ironically can climb steeper slopes than trains through the use of locks.
    2
  2570. Africans have plans for Africa, but too often it involves further breaking apart in the hopes of establishing a small kingdom or microstate. Rarely do these plans even appear trans-tribal.
    2
  2571. It would screw up the spelling, but using Belarus and Turkmenistan (a neutral power like Spain was "neutral" in WW2) is arguably more accurate
    2
  2572. Perhaps not as much as outrageous pricing for cell and internet services 🖥💸
    2
  2573. We can set up alternatives for chips; even if they're a generation or two behind it'd still be workable. China however can't replace the loss of food and fuel that they import by sea regardless of how many overland links they set up; they'd quickly run out of money trying to pay for getting it across practically all of Asia.
    2
  2574. Chips are a recent resource and not as critical as the geostrategic location to screen ship traffic (especially submarines). Mainland China can't gain the benefits of TSMC short of peaceful surrender; simple neglect (not to mention battle damage) and human capital flight would quickly render the seized facilities irreversibly destroyed for that bleeding edge fabrication they were wanting.
    2
  2575. Part of the solution involves equipment that generates and stores energy that isn't just burned once, but we're nowhere near the amount needed to replace what we use now. Reduction only goes so far before it stagnates development; look at how resource intensive AI calculations get, and how little value added per capita gets generated out of low energy per capita societies.
    2
  2576. It was reinvested. Problem is the principal itself is shrinking due to the Retiree Boom.
    2
  2577. Hence SARS-2/COVID-19 which came from bats stacked on top of pangolins in the TCM section of a Mainland Chinese wet market 🦇🦠
    2
  2578. Problem is China wants to remain an autocratic ethnostate, which is exactly what potential foreign immigrants don't desire. Given that choice it's more promising to stay home and hope a Chinese or any other company comes sets up shop with a "help wanted" sign.
    2
  2579. Not nearly as dramatically as China though.
    2
  2580. Large buildings -- especially modern commercial offices with mostly interior spaces served by central air and lights instead of operable windows -- are often uneconomical to refurbish. It's usually better to tear down completely and build skinnier towers with more outside-facing walls and ensuite bathrooms that residents need.
    2
  2581. Right, rent is by far the biggest payment anyone makes short of the down payment on a mortgage. But for some reason consistent payments of such a large recurring expense are never included in the calculation of creditworthiness.
    2
  2582. That explains how my credit history is somehow longer than my own lifetime. Luckily I chose financially responsible parents 😉
    2
  2583. Yet notice that the entire Eastern Interconnection wasn't taken down. That's the beauty of not going it alone.
    2
  2584. Red Libertarian policies enabled these failures to cascade into a preventable deadly week-long statewide disaster. Remember this on your next trip to the polls, because it won't be the last time Mother Nature decides to test your infrastructure's durability.
    2
  2585. That's what happens when the political narrative gets dominated by backwards-looking conservatives.
    2
  2586. American cities once had comprehensive tram networks, which were then paved over for cars and buses around WWII. It took half a century to realize that mass transit options like trams bring in more wallets than an environment centered around private cars.
    2
  2587. If it's too old, it might not provide service to the new technologies we want in our shelters anyway. The past 200 years saw the rise of indoor plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, telephones, cell signals, and WiFi, which aren't exactly easy to install in a thick wall building. If you need to put radio repeaters in every room, it's kind of a wash.
    2
  2588. More mass means more to give as time erodes it away. Part of the reason grand projects don't build with so much material anymore is because future requirements make it difficult to make the needed changes -- try installing elevators and indoor plumbing into a "historical" building and you'll find there's no elegant way to do so, better to just start over.
    2
  2589. It's dealing with random members of the public (including all their annoyances) that make the film an event and common shared experience. Watching a movie you like at home doesn't have the same impact as watching it where you physically have to interact among strangers, and get a sense of how many random people might also be "in" with what you watched.
    2
  2590. The "feel" comes from knowing random people have also experienced the same thing, and that you had to focus on it the whole time instead of having the option to pause it and get distracted by something else.
    2
  2591. Conservatives desire uniformity. In practice that also means in ethnicity too.
    2
  2592. Different skin leads to different thoughts. How you're treated in the real world affects how you think, work through challenges, and ultimately produce solutions. Diversity is important because no one mentality has a monopoly on good ideas.
    2
  2593.  @TOTGodofWar  Right, this vote was largely a prevention of continuing Trump's leadership into irrecoverable disaster for America, doesn't matter who. Problem is a winner-take-all system proliferates a strict winner/loser dichotomy and the two-party system that arises; going for a third option only helps the more unified side (which is always the more easily-terrorized conservatives).
    2
  2594. Right, you'd struggle to fix your finances if you can't build and manipulate equations in general.
    2
  2595. Ballots should always be paper, readable by both humans and machines. California uses a good model where they're all a "fill the bubble" type.
    2
  2596. Ironically farming is quite high tech itself these days. Farm tractors are among the largest inspiration for hacks because of how computerized they've gotten, and how their owners don't want to pay through the nose for routine services and simple modifications that older machines readily took.
    2
  2597. Just got off work. Didn't even notice until I tried to get gas on the way home.
    2
  2598. Too many right-wingers would rather listen to the opinions of an "authentic" demagogue selling some "alternative" to stroke their ego and comfort their anxiety as they see their worldview dismantled by advances in technology and democratized public discourse. Unfortunately hope does not overcome biology, which made socially conservative states statistically more deadly despite having a lower density of people to catch COVID from... which of course they'd dismiss because survivor's bias and deliberate ignorance.
    2
  2599. Because countries around China are concerned about Chinese encroachment. America would still be focused on the Middle East or somewhere else if China didn't threaten physical intrusion to the seas and resources of its neighbors.
    2
  2600. Subsidize industries, get tariffed. Especially when you’re obviously developing a war economy and calling everyone who doesn’t bend over as your enemy, while assuming none of them understands Simplified Script and Mandarin Chinese.
    2
  2601. Hence why hybrids are the fastest selling car nowadays. Pure EVs will struggle to sell until at least the charging infrastructure becomes more reliable and ubiquitous.
    2
  2602. American makes really need to get past their strategy of premium offerings with disposable quality, and make cheaper cars that actually stay out of the garage.
    2
  2603. Especially true with China, whose economic development and “efficiency” stalls as soon as Western knowledge and funds stops coming in.
    2
  2604. Too many Area Boys in between the producer and the consumer.
    2
  2605. Although Americans can vote with their wallets, which does influence financial firms. Chinese can't substantially vote for any alternatives to their government leadership.
    2
  2606. It may not be collapsing now, but it's certainly stalling. That threatens the "stability" of confidence for the CPC in the eyes of its people, since its political legitimacy rides on providing tangible development indefinitely.
    2
  2607. "4.7%" is their target, not their achievement. A lot of creative accounting if not straight lying goes into hitting that number. It's well known among serious analysts that the PRC GDP is grossly inflated, since every other economic indicator shows a far less impressive picture.
    2
  2608. ​ @Kid-520 It "can" only because the state can silence its lenders. Eventually that will come back to bite them when the ones they can control are tapped out.
    2
  2609. Russia and China have authoritarian governments, who understand foreign military presence primarily through conquest and threats of force -- they don't believe that weaker nations have the agency to make their own decisions, including ones that happen to align with that of the US. What they fail to realize is that the US can be asked to leave, and the Americans will pack up and go home... it's just that the alternative tends to be worse, as was the case with Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China). Ironically US forces have stations worldwide because the host nation wants the Americans there, including as a politically convenient scapegoat to redirect public anger towards.
    2
  2610. It's drastically different. The chaebols hold a privileged place in the economy, having been the government supported drivers of post-war industrialization. They've unfortunately been allowed to keep all that accrued power even though large dynastic businesses are no longer as critical to commerce. Chaebols don't hesitate to suppress any domestic entity who may eventually become a competitor (e.g. tech startups).
    2
  2611. Finally sold of my S4 after 3 years to upgrade to... a Dual-SIM S5 (Would have been something newer but Samsung doesn't do replaceable batteries anymore :| ) Being able to clean wipe the phone and flash in something purer off XDA just gives Androids much longer legs
    2
  2612. Pinas is only developing because far too much of the economic gains were concentrated and privatized by the rich since the 1950s instead of reinvesting into the country. During the Korean War, the Philippines was second only to Japan in Asia for national wealth, while Korea (especially the South) was poorer than anywhere in Africa. It's sadly become an average post-colonial story of self-driven degradation since independence.
    2
  2613.  @bigmaculous  China is kind of like the US, where each state can experiment on their policies independently, except that the Party's promotion process encourages bringing up supposed successes for national consideration. It will likely be all financial at first, until they start pitching more disturbing additions to the algorithm that they'd first test in some third-tier city even most other Chinese have never heard of.
    2
  2614. English is a surprisingly very sound-dependent language, which can't really be taught by memorizing straight text
    2
  2615. I'm an American who owns multiple firearms, but am not above best practices like mandatory training, licensing, registration, and limited access just like how it was in the military -- especially as 2A was meant to enable the quick organization of an effective and well regulated community militia, not so much a provision for merely arming individuals to "defend" their unilateral conflicts.
    2
  2616. Primarily driven by lack of supply, especially in essentials like housing. All while corporations report record revenues. Our wallets circle the drain of a deliberate profit-price spiral.
    2
  2617. That same analysis of 'de-individualized' data could also reveal population characteristics ripe for exploitation -- the Russians did this with Cambridge Analytica to shape votes and attitudes since Trump's election. "Designed in China" equipment allows for an even better capability to the CCP.
    2
  2618. The PRC regularly commits aggressive offensive espionage of all sorts. Huawei is headed by a PLA officer, in a country that values harmony of roles and legally compels companies to cooperate with state intelligence. Ergo, Huawei is easily a potential -- if not already active -- partner with Chinese offensive intelligence.
    2
  2619. It's just the Bay, which skews much more Asian than almost every other place in America
    2
  2620. Dissent is considered poisonous in an authoritarian regime, especially one that pitches itself as centralized and competent like the CPC. Even something as mild as "The Sounds of April" have to be stamped out because it disproves this narrative, one that drives continued tolerance for the Party's unchallenged rule over China.
    2
  2621. They also only do Mainland stories out of Shànghǎi which is cosmopolitan and prosperous, and so may actually be more pro-CPC than elsewhere in the PRC.
    2
  2622. Táiwān is also in a much better position to defend itself: 100km of open ocean that everyone can monitor ending at a geological fortress with decades of further preparation. The PLA would be looking at a generation or two of effective insurgency even with improvised weapons, which the Chinese people likely won't be able to stomach sending into death their only sons with inexperienced leadership and inadequate equipment. The bigger issue among the Taiwanese lately was morale. HK proved that they won't enjoy "Two Systems" under Běijīng, and Ukraine is proving that it is very possible to fight back. Rumor is the ROC is getting advice on how to politically defeat a modern occupation from the US... who knows a thing or three having spent 20 years on the wrong end of an IED.
    2
  2623. As Ukraine is proving, foreign soldiers aren't necessarily needed if the people themselves have the equipment and information to put up their own fight.
    2
  2624. A cross-Straits war might be the thing that rallies global support for an independent Táiwān though. The PRC can pressure and protest for this not to happen, but in the places where Mainlanders depart or are ejected they'll just find out the hard way that China isn't as indispensable or missed as much as they want to believe.
    2
  2625. No place should bank on the American cavalry to decisively rescue them; even Americans at risk of capture and forced isolation abroad are taught to maintain mental resilience by taking measures to help rescue themselves. What Ukraine is proving is that a determined people can still make effective resistance no matter how overwhelming the invader is on paper, and that popular global support can easily amplify the defender's capabilities.
    2
  2626. There's one "China", but the PRC isn't necessarily recognized as the sovereign over all of it. If Táiwān decides to declare itself split off, a not insignificant number of places could recognize it especially where the PRC isn't exactly popular among the people.
    2
  2627.  @starfox300 As we start regularly climbing into high performance vehicles like aircraft, exoskeletons, and eventually rockets, larger sizes especially height becomes a disadvantage. Taller folks aren’t as tolerant of g-force changes due to the longer distance from heart to brain.
    2
  2628. China might top the US, but they're also likely to peak and even start rolling back while America keeps steadily climbing. China has too much messy debt, corruption, pollution, aging, reliance on imports for basic resources, and fairweather-only friends to entrench itself as king of the hill; the slide into relative decadence could get ugly as the CPC grasps at maintaining its legitimacy somehow with increasing desperation and use of force. The next few decades could play out as a tortoise and hare fable 🐇🇨🇳
    2
  2629. Conquering Táiwān could spell the end of Communist China. The expense of suppressing the resulting insurrection over a generation or two (and trying to silence questions about where the only sons of Mainland families "disappeared" to) -- combined with the international reaction that would make the post-Tienanmen sanctions seem pitiful right as China is hitting steeper difficulties in acquiring needed resources -- would ultimately break Mainlanders' tolerance for unchallenged Party rule... raising the five-star flag over Táipěi might end up marking only the halfway point of the overall Chinese Civil War.
    2
  2630. Simple swarms need a lot of personnel and supplies though, and even then it's not guaranteed to work especially if maintenance and supply links degrade too much in battle. Desert Storm was basically a revolution in warfare because it showed just how much superior technology can be a force multiplier, and it subsequently sent the Chinese panicking to modernize because the PLA had similar loadout and doctrine to the Iraqi Army.
    2
  2631. It's not the first time, the Middle East just monopolized our attention for the past two decades. The Táiwān issue was always there, and the PRC is getting antsy especially as easy profits which keep the CPC tolerated starts to disappear.
    2
  2632. Urbanized battlefields provide plenty of cover, and you don't have to burn through fuel and heavy spare parts to haul it around. Advances and sensors and man-portable weapons means you can still punch back if need be.
    2
  2633. Right, there's a reason even the US at the height of its military momentum decided to "island hop" past Taiwan altogether on the way to Japan. The last successful invasion of the island happened when machine guns were still rolled around on horse-drawn carts.
    2
  2634. Problem is that buddy is better in every way except in size, and that raises questions about the ruling Party's own narrative and capabilities among the Chinese people.
    2
  2635. The chip fabs would be permanently disabled and its surviving engineers evacuated as PLA forces draw close. Remember these are machines with components that must remain in sometimes subatomic tolerances, even simple neglect could bring a fab expensively out of spec without prompt attention by someone who already understands the issues and specific quirks. The fabs TSMC are developing abroad are partly a hedge as a place to put everyone they rescued and maintain that irreplaceable brainpower.
    2
  2636. We're still on top. Now we have more competent leadership who is reassuring and rebuilding our allies, instead of going straight to a 1v1 war. China is already anxious about America's power projection from the other side of the world, and it knows their situation is hopeless when the battle will be against America and half its neighbors.
    2
  2637. There won't be a land war though. In fact it the ground force might be intentionally left alive to consume the dwindling food and fuel stocks as civilian ships are scared off by the threat of crossfire. The PLA could employ its massive anti-ship missile arsenal, but as its limited long range sensors get destroyed they'll become overly-expensive short range weapons. Most of its internet would be physically cut off, and cyber forces deployed outside the country would have to stay on the run from local police if its host nation decides it does not want to be painted as a Chinese ally and likewise targeted itself. China might bluster about its new abilities to confront America directly, but it knows it has no hope against America and its Asian allies. And its war weariness might rise surprisingly high as One-Child Mainland families wonder where their only son "disappeared" to during service to the Party.
    2
  2638. That's what might shock the PLA when they discover the ongoing maintenance and modernization costs of their assets. Unlike China though, America can both manufacture spares and feed and fuel itself when isolated; when shots are fired, China will be spending most of its energy just trying to give regain the confidence of civilian ships scared off by threats of getting caught in the crossfire to sail in with vital supplies and hard currency from export sales.
    2
  2639. China's submarines don't seem to do much better, apparently they keep getting found on sonar by multiple navies and even once literally caught by a Vietnamese fishing net.
    2
  2640. More like Taliban + Pakistan + Russia + Iran + China against a corrupt Afghan government who were still more loyal to their tribe over the nation. It was an impossible task we inherited from the mistake of the Bush Doctrine.
    2
  2641.  @royhuang9715  There's also a lot of Chinese nationals who feel something isn't quite right with their country, and it becomes clearer when they hear the outside perspective especially in an interaction and not just as a clip of media. It's not a European racist conspiracy either, as there's growing confidence to ignore short-term economic gains and call out concerns about the PRC from the historically 'non-aligned' SE Asia, India, and Africa too. Westerners largely know their own issues already, since their own media dramatizes it all. In fact it's a feature that helps call to action and address those issues before they fester into something to really overreact on.
    2
  2642.  @RANDO4743  Right, China acts more like an empire since it's aggressively claiming territory already long governed by its neighbors. Most US military presence overseas though is done by invitation, since for the hosts it's more beneficial to have Americans contribute to their defense than to use more of their own smaller economy to develop and maintain a full-featured one all on their own.
    2
  2643. Naval warfare is far more technical. There's no combating a modern land robot with ambushes and booby traps of improvised weaponry, at sea you're either equally capable of finding and fighting it or you're sent to the bottom.
    2
  2644. "Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive." -- Theodore Roosevelt
    2
  2645. Welfare is actually important in an industrialized economy, America doesn't run on dumb replaceable menial labor anymore and public support fills in for what the private sector finds unprofitable yet required (education, healthcare, disability, etc). Plus it keeps the taxpayer's wallets open instead of in open revolt (remember for every servicemember or their family there's like another 20 Americans who have no direct ties to the uniform), and it keeps the civilians supportive of standing US interests unlike say Russians or Chinese who are more likely to expatriate and naturalize out at the first opportunity.
    2
  2646. America has lost plenty of planes to ground fire, who were using the same family of weapons that dominate the PLA, so US forces have plenty of practice jamming and dodging missiles in defense. The last time the PLAAF was shot at in anger, it came home with a dud first-gen short-range Sidewinder back when the West still considered the government on Táiwān as "China".
    2
  2647. Hypersonic weapons would only really work if the targeting can be updated constantly before the missile sees the target itself, and long range tracking capabilities are not that good with China's smaller AEW platforms and quickly-passing orbital satellites.
    2
  2648.  @zoka7108  Sure about that? During WWII the US at the height of its might opted specifically to not attempt to take the island because of the terrain difficulty and uncooperative population (Táiwān had been the largely compliant southern end of Japan for a half-century by then). Having fought mostly guerilla insurrections ever since, America has a lot of experience in what works best against an organized military -- this is actually being debated as the next military assistance package since the ROCAF only has so many places to keep F-16s and F-35s safe from an attack during an extended conflict.
    2
  2649. But those missiles require constant updates on where its target is, lest it moves out of range before the onboard radar can take over or worse mistakenly pick a similar sized target like a civilian container ship or tanker. The PLA doesn't have as many AWACS assets, drone and sea based sensors aren't as capable, and they would all be the first things targeted by our stealth fighters. Soon enough China would be limited to rapidly outdated satellites (themselves likely targeted by EW shenanigans), and their remaining long range anti-ship missiles become little more than expensive targets.
    2
  2650. Besides needing more fuel for maneuvers and survivability against ASAT systems, I don’t hear much about commercial satellites requiring concrete-penetrating radars and other exotic sensors.
    2
  2651. They were building for a Chinese domestic market that's now tapped out, especially given their still lack of chargers and parking in most Chinese cities on top of their stalled economy. Luckily for them the rest of the world is hungry for EVs, and they have a mercantilist government who will take on more debt for however long it takes to ensure they remain the only affordable choice.
    2
  2652. The "light truck" emissions exception explains a lot of the growth in size of USDM offerings, along with the MSRP. Hopefully updates to these standards as EVs become available closes this outdated oversight and makes new cars more affordable going forward.
    2
  2653. ​ @longhairdolphin Roaming SIMs bypass the Great Firewall.
    2
  2654. ...for as long as the Chinese government continues its dedicated support and subsidies for it to remain the only affordable option.
    2
  2655. There's a myriad of flowcharts and checklists to clear before any of them are allowed to takeoff, it's part of the cost of buying and flying one of these planes. Chances are you've already flown on one that's was previously part if not wholly boneyard.
    2
  2656. Probably comparable to the amount of support currently given to oil companies (especially from military security) and ICE manufacturers (through tariffs and tax breaks).
    2
  2657. I rode an electric motorbike with a smaller and more exposed battery in Beijing, where we experience all four seasons. It ran just fine.
    2
  2658. We did this before to get Americans off their horses and into ICE cars, which not only involved creating the entire petroleum industry but also paving a nationwide network of roads. Supporting EVs is much simpler since we'd really only have to beef up the transmission grid. The primary obstacle isn't technical, it's political.
    2
  2659. That won't happen. The aviation market has determined that two cutting-edge engines costs less to burn and maintain than four at any discount.
    2
  2660. The A380 has the fatal flaw of being designed primarily around humans, meaning no practical second life as an airfreighter that would have kept development and production going. Trying to do so would be like turning an apartment complex into a warehouse, or have a cruise liner load shipping containers -- it's way easier to renovate in the other direction. Ironically Boeing engineers weren't confident that the 747 would remain profitable ferrying only passengers, and so originally designed it as a cargo plane with seats bolted on. That's why the Queen of the Skies will still be in the skies long after the last revenue passenger has deplaned.
    2
  2661. Because the amount of project management and disruption involved -- including physical upheaval of entire neighborhoods -- is often prohibitive to do at a reasonable cost. China also gets a lot of similar pushback from their subjects, the difference is the Chinese government is not shy about silencing protests and actively convincing the rest of the country that their projects are pushed through for the "greater good".
    2
  2662. China already does both to us, so it's not like we'd be forcing the issue on them.
    2
  2663. Technical protocols don't have much space for humanist considerations, so of course the humans are ultimately considered fully replaceable.
    2
  2664. CS is almost the new liberal arts degree -- most graduates would only have the basic skills compared to what's already well developed at the tech companies, so their portfolios of projects aren't exactly competitive.
    2
  2665. ​ @mrt094 Right, fully remote work means fully offshorable work. There's an extreme risk if the tasks don't involve other more human factors like cultural sensitivities and personal privacy liabilities, which tech jobs are not exactly known for needing.
    2
  2666. I graduated in sociology, but make six figures in cybersecurity. Turns out humans are the weakest link in a computer network, and having studied humans I'm better placed to identify issues and steer the "Layer 8" away from bad actions and towards best practices.
    2
  2667. I already choose to use the cashier kiosks wherever available, less time pressure to order promptly and social pressure to pay extra for what's fundamentally all the same task.
    2
  2668. Right, much of the tips being given are from getting shamed into giving more.
    2
  2669. Only outlawing the lower tipped wages will prevent employers from "miscalculating" their mandatory make-up contribution. The entire West Coast has already done so.
    2
  2670. It would have to reflect the right wavelength, and the microwave-infrared space is a massive area to cover. This would also increase production costs and likely compromise feature like stealth coatings that help it evade interception altogether.
    2
  2671. All this high tech for container security is just like the Border Wall -- it's useless without the people (i.e. paid labor) trained and ready to react to incidents. Remember they're only a force multiplier, and zero times any multiplier is still zero. What shareholders hate but really need to consider are plussing up security personnel, not only guards on the ground but also the investigators and auditors to deter, detect, and defeat the insider threats tipping off the thieves if not getting stuff "falling off the truck" themselves.
    2
  2672. Right, the best way to make people pro-social and more conservative is to provide something of real value to lose. And no, being alive itself is not enough seeing how little we actually value other humans.
    2
  2673. More like just the politicians and their corporate/ideologue influencers. But sadly we keep electing them, especially because the winner-take-all system means elections naturally converge on just two viable choices.
    2
  2674. If legally immigrating was so practical, the visa lines at US embassies wouldn't be an over year-long wait.
    2
  2675. It's more the disincentives to immigrate "properly", with the ever narrowing and lengthening paths towards legal immigration.
    2
  2676. It doesn't last the lifetime though. Once the kid comes of age or gets provided an alternative guardianship, the parents can still be subject to deportation with like a 10 year ban on reentry.
    2
  2677. For specific use cases, then you run into the problem of overly selecting high net worth families who end up pricing out housing for current citizens and dramatically raising the costs of living for everyone. All for a narrower set of industries they work in. Meanwhile plenty of lower pay (but still a huge pay bump compared to home) but vital agriculture and service work remains unfilled because those jobs are beneath the select few who score high enough to enter.
    2
  2678. The legality of immigration keeps getting more narrow and qualified, but we're not funding the staffing to process the backlog it creates.
    2
  2679. ​The poorer and more populous the country, the harder it is to convince the American consular officer at the visa window that your qualifications are bona fide and you'll remain in the parameters of your visa (i.e. not overstaying it).
    2
  2680. EV production is still scaling up. As EVs becomes less expensive, more drivers get the experience in owning them, communities gain the chargers to top them up, and garages get experience in fixing them, EVs will inevitably become more common. Remember it took a few decades to get us off the horse and behind the wheel, and that was at a time when the government still had to literally pave the roads for cars to drive on.
    2
  2681. We'll see in a couple years how well Chinese EVs hold up; they may be cheap, but they're not throwaway-just-buy-another cheap. Parts quality and repairability is not exactly the strength of Chinese brands who have always produced for inexpensive and disposable.
    2
  2682. Efficiency unfortunately comes at the price of resilience. It's clear that JIT shipping and other cost cutting measures just don't handle shock very well.
    2
  2683. More like consumers demand cheap prices, only possible with polluting processes and poor working conditions that have become unacceptable in America. The US didn't want to end up like China or India, which are short on clean air, fresh water, and nontoxic soils.
    2
  2684. The wings get in the way of a jetbridge that can reach the doors behind it. Other than the pushback tug, there should be no vehicles or movable structures that go over or under any part of the plane because of the high risk for damaging collisions.
    2
  2685. Only in America. It's like 1% or less overseas, which is about how much it costs business the labor to handle cash. The extra percent goes into cash back, rewards points, and features like purchase protections that similar cards abroad don't offer.
    2
  2686. America's higher fees pay for the higher cash back and rewards points rates that encourage people to use that specific card. Considering all the loud cash-only conservatives, cashless payments would drop off substantially without all those businesses nationwide effectively investing in their digital payments network, which already happened with debit cards when those rates got regulated.
    2
  2687. I've been licensed for motorbikes, racetrack, and combat trucks, yet I still take public transit wherever practical.
    2
  2688. We were ironically the global leader in passenger rail transport up to about a century ago, but they were all through private companies (and utilities like public transit naturally tend not to profit) and so were easily bought out and its rights of way paved over.
    2
  2689. Problem is that's an increasingly rare option, especially for a young house that you don't have to worry as much about fixing up.
    2
  2690. You'd have to trust the seller about their claimed usage and maintenance. A bad buy could cost you dearly in wasted time and money, and there's no dealership with a specialized staff to hand off issues to and warranty to claim against.
    2
  2691. Meanwhile CA stays expensive because so many rich and skilled people want to move in, while many retirees don't want to leave.
    2
  2692.  @appalachianwoman561  Open standards and competition. EVs don't require the drilling, refining, and bulk transport of HAZMAT, nor does it even require being tied to the public grid. Electrification is democratizing because our local region if not our own property doesn't need constant input from a multinational corporation to generate power.
    2
  2693. Right, wealthy folks get to retain so much of their wealth exactly because of how many arcane deductions they can afford dedicated accountants to administer. A simplified tax code with auto-expiring exceptions would go marathons in getting the rich to pay their fair share.
    2
  2694. Low taxes mean low political engagement, since the people are even less inclined to watch and protest where their taxes are going. I've been to even lower taxed regimes and it is _rough_, yet you still pay up a similar amount due to all the "fees" the authorities ask for.
    2
  2695.  @Nswix  Only because we built our transport networks around cars, paving over a lot of rail lines in the process. Not all of us want to drive every trip either if provided a feasible alternative.
    2
  2696.  @williamhaynes7089  Right, "I want to run my money flow like those of today's cash-only cannabis shops" said no establishment since like 1990.
    2
  2697. It's in the government interest to have well educated citizens though, because human capital is a direct input to economic vibrancy and national security. But some "pro-business" politicians want to take away taxes-paid development of lifelong critical thought and open mindedness in favor of privatized shorter-term technical training colored through dogmatized history lessons.
    2
  2698. When its production stalls, which it's far from reaching especially as more places pair their panels with batteries to store their often daily excess.
    2
  2699. Elevators have 1D movement on exclusive tracks specifically designed around its cab. Having that same comfortably reliable service in the chaos of public streets is infinitely more complex short of practically banning use of the roads for anything other than self-driving vehicles with similar enough traffic negotiation algorithms.
    2
  2700. I never saw the real advantage of delivery. I always go pick things up myself so that I’m not waiting on vague arrival times and calls from confused drivers.
    2
  2701. @squibbelsmcjohnsonShelf stable items are one thing. It’s another when quality deteriorates within minutes to the point it could make you ill 🤢
    2
  2702. Oh we know what to inspect, and we've owned multiple vehicles that are old enough to buy booze. The truly good ones of the make/model/trim/color we want are just exceedingly rare to find on the used market, and being its only owner minimizes surprise trips to the parts store and junkyard.
    2
  2703. The rich buy cars with cash. Financing is essential because most of us don't have that much cash to drop before something else in life (like work) needs us to show up.
    2
  2704. It'd be nice if electric motorbikes were more aggressivly developed, since they generally have batteries you can pull out and charge out of any wall socket. But then most Americans don't know how to ride one properly especially given the high speeds our roads compel us to drive at.
    2
  2705. You could technically take out the raw cells and refit them into a watercooled casing. I was at COP28 and one of the electric sports cars they have outside does exactly this.
    2
  2706. That's a body engineering issue, not inherent to the drivetrain within. ICE cars have gotten similarly more sensitive to seemingly minor fender benders over the years.
    2
  2707.  @TheBooban  On a classic combined hybrid the two do help each other out instantly as needed. The clutch system can engage both especially when charging because the electric motor is the generator to charge the battery (its role naturally switches based on if the more powerful force is the electromagnets or the spinning shaft linked to the engine and wheels).
    2
  2708. Height generally increases costs, both of construction and for maintenance when you need to periodically clean the panels. There's a balance to be struck based on the land usage underneath.
    2
  2709. Due to lack of supply in things that support child rearing: affordable housing, decent education, time off work, and extended family who can babysit.
    2
  2710. There's only so much you can skimp on before you end up burned out from chronic demoralization, and/or left behind from lack of investing in self-education and experimenting in hobbies. "Self-care" became a hot topic for a reason.
    2
  2711. And we're still critically short on medical personnel of all sorts, as the pool of patients keeps growing while Americans opt for occupations other than medicine. Perhaps look at your administrators who's taking up a big chunk of the payroll, and whose role would be discovered redundant and laid off had we had a more centralized organization over the public utility that is healthcare.
    2
  2712.  @Murcans-worship-felons  I believe it's more the latter. In talking about their "faith" in Jesus they also conveniently ignore how He was a military age Middle Eastern male who roamed the streets with hoodlums and loudly advocated about socialist ideals.
    2
  2713. They're certainly alive and doing well, especially in applications that don't involve the protective enclosure of a passenger car (bikes, motorbikes, marine, aviation, hiking, etc)
    2
  2714. I load OpenStreetMap data to update my Garmin units, which also make them useful when I'm out of its native region
    2
  2715. Yes, if anything we're undergoing a profit-price spiral moreso than a wage-price one.
    2
  2716. Or just learn to zero your credit card balance every month. Debit and gift cards have less protection against the inevitable hack, because it's specifically your money getting stolen and not the bank's.
    2
  2717. I'm surprised nobody pitches for tax hikes on golden parachute packages and stock buybacks.
    2
  2718. I was wanting to try renting a Tesla last summer, but the markup was so high that it was much cheaper to get a regular car and fill the tank. It seems like a big reason Tesla rentals failed is because rental companies tried to recoup their acquisition costs far too quickly, thus the “lack of demand”.
    2
  2719. I've seen an immersed shredding process that takes old tech (including lithium batteries) and outputs intermediary substances that can be easily refined back into production-grade material.
    2
  2720. Tesla is just newer competitor to a mature market in America, and the reduced staffing requirements (i.e. union jobs) to produce EV parts doesn't make the legacy maker lobbyists excited to go all in on electric.
    2
  2721. Wouldn't happen even if technically feasible: ships are way more efficient at moving goods in terms of energy used per ton of payload.
    2
  2722. What's dropped from taxes becomes mandatory "fees", often bribery in nature and an even less transparent and more exploitative way of paying for routine services. Check out what life is like in Africa for that low-tax weak-state paradise.
    2
  2723. It's not. Wild chickens are pretty lithe and athletic looking, the ones we eat are deliberately obese with muscle too bulky to actually use.
    2
  2724. Chinese after-sales support is certainly a major concern. Just like anything in “New China”, it’s only impressive because it’s new; look closer and you’d find it to age and deteriorate way faster than its completion date suggests.
    2
  2725. Yet there are fields full of Chinese EVs that were “sold” and fully registered, because of those government rebates that Chinese makes “didn’t receive”.
    2
  2726. We still have to meet certain conditions to enter China’s market, only to start getting “investigated”, have our permit renewals get held up, and ultimately be forced to abandon operations once the Chinese alternatives have our trade secrets and supplier relations.
    2
  2727. 4x10s was once a rising alternative, though I haven’t heard much about it lately
    2
  2728. Chinese brands make US makes seem reliable when after-sales services are inevitably needed. They're notorious for scarcity of parts and few mechanics even at the dealership knowledgeable enough to perform anything more intensive than a brake flush, while Chinese carmakers are more interested in designing the year model around flashy new features rather than improving the durability of their builds.
    2
  2729. The merits measured aren't always economically rational though. Some are subtle like "career potential" which discounts women. Some are more blatant like Party loyalty in China.
    2
  2730. ​ @George-k6o9t Outside the Persian Gulf, all the cheap and fairly sweet oil has already been extracted. Plus over the decades we've been getting more strict about its pollution like lead and nitrous oxides, which further ups the price at the pump. Finally electrified transport is becoming so popular that it doesn't make sense to invest in expensive new refining capacity. We may not yet be at peak demand for oil, but we are at peak production. And when production doesn't keep up with demand, inflation happens.
    2
  2731. ​More like Japan doesn't have the raw resource blessings that make large battery production economical, whereas hydrogen can be had wherever you have water. It's ultimately more democratized, the problem is the physics of containing the literally smallest and most leaky substance in the universe.
    2
  2732. Transportation is the single biggest driver of upward mobility, but space-hogging cars of any sort isn't the answer. The real solution lies in mass transit to handle routine commutes and popular demand centers (stadiums, shopping districts, the airport, etc).
    2
  2733. You underestimate the "threat level" that you pose to the Chinese government. Just being able to talk criticism and vote in elections makes you a person of interest to at least steer towards their narrative through their propaganda, especially when tailored through your data that they gather.
    2
  2734. That would only last until we fall to those who continued to develop their robotic military. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and the ability to defend our space. But is the military-industrial complex overpaid? Compared to the rest of our science and technology sector, yeah they're pretty cost inefficient. We should really put some focus on making some existing systems cheaper and more numerous, because we lean too heavily on highly capable but expensive assets.
    2
  2735. Yes, Táiwān is the keystone to preventing unchallengeable CPC expansion and keeping watch over PLA naval movements into open ocean (especially the nuclear-armed submarines). Táiwān is also the China with whom America fought with to stop imperialism, first by the Japanese, and now by the Communists. Really the only way for America to not intervene is if Táiwān itself votes to reunify with the Mainland, and the "stability"-seeking Party has done a bang up job making China overall toxic to associate with.
    2
  2736. American banks haven't enforced PIN-confirmed card transactions for some reason. This would force businesses to upgrade their machines and bring the POS system to the customer. I'm still coming across places which can't even read the chip, and have to swipe the card instead.
    2
  2737. It's a bait-and-switch. Same reason why commercial interests lobby to not mandate including taxes in the price, but for restaurants this omission also includes gratuities.
    2
  2738.  @adriannaconnor6471  That's a problem with the restaurant's management, not the customer. Just as often they fail to pay the worker to match the federal minimum wage when enough tips weren't given.
    2
  2739. I'm American and the 20~30% upcharge for taxes and tips is the thing I hate most about returning. This pandemic I've noticed that I don't really miss the sit-down experience.
    2
  2740. Problem is topping up EVs, which is solved by installing more chargers. Cars took a few decades to replace horses and wagons until there were enough gas stations.
    2
  2741. If your streets are really well maintained, e-scooters could work. However their relatively tiny wheels make riders more vulnerable to a wipeout (compounded by higher speeds, lack of helmet, lack of structure to absorb the crash, and greater ability to zone out), whereas a bicycle can handle hazards that even motorcycles must avoid.
    2
  2742. Taxes aren't as big a driver as prices, and prices follow demand. CA's prices are so high because for every one leaving there's like 3 more people (including corporate "people") trying to buy out that vacancy.
    2
  2743. But then you become California, and your own people move out.
    2
  2744. Which means the downstream effect for developing nations would approach like 400%.
    2
  2745. Only when we offshored our manufacturing.
    2
  2746. America provides a lot of money to farmers too, that's the problem: it's distorting supply and overly shaping demand in favor of what's being "saved" by those subsidies.
    2
  2747. ⁠Culture and institutions outlive its people, and that’s what fundamentally has to change.
    2
  2748. More like NIMBY incumbent homeowners regularly vote down neighborhood densification proposals so it doesn't change the "character" of the place they bought.
    2
  2749. Do you have a better narrative that accounts for socioeconomic opportunity and prosperity (or lack of) so racialized that it shows up in cold numbers without mentioning race?
    2
  2750. What about the skilled immigrants who come in (if not already pay rent here) and maintain the US economy while native families shrink from the ever-rising costs of raising children to competitive productivity? Would they be banned from partaking in the American Dream and further assimilating as Americans?
    2
  2751. We would, but we're too individualistic and selfish to put voter pressure on the budget trims that are actually needed -- particularly subsidies for corporations and established retirees, even when we know supporting youth and their parents has a far larger multiplier on returns.
    2
  2752.  @megapangolin1093  No the geometry inherent to a powered kickboard is a big reason: small wheels with a high center of gravity means it's real easy to faceplant over a pebble. I regularly ride bicycles and motorcycles, and never felt more unsteady and wary than on a motorized kickboard.
    2
  2753. Not enough places to charge it, and too many random fires from Chinese brand batteries whose sourcing is mandatory when made in China.
    2
  2754. At least until we get the stats on how many injuries and garage fires cost Americans compared to non-PRC alternatives.
    2
  2755. After the last inflation shock in the 1970s, Reagan had America mistrust the government and believe in themselves for solutions. That's been the narrative dominating American politics ever since, along with associated side effects of neglected infrastructure which no private entity is capable of rectifying at a profit.
    2
  2756. I feel like we’re bound for another FDR, who has to fix another corporatist-driven Depression but is hamstrung by the traditionalist activist judges appointed by predecessors.
    2
  2757. ⁠@AlanHinsonAlso the COVID supply break excuse to raise prices to where corporations think prices ought to be, having “suffered” years of unusually low inflation.
    2
  2758. Practically every major food crop uses GMO though, cross-breeding new varieties fron natural mutations come too slowly. However low/no-chemical pesticide foods can still be found.
    2
  2759. But that would be "socialism" 🙄
    2
  2760. Tell that to the independent artists getting their work stolen without an AI attorney to send lawsuits and argue their case for compensation.
    2
  2761. Commercial leases are often like 10 years, and there's considerable costs of switching tenants due to the alterations they'll further do to suit their needs. Just taking down their front lobby can be a major undertaking.
    2
  2762. Existing residents fight against more housing too, because it would decrease their own home's resale value. Incumbent homeowners regularly vote like a cartel to prevent densification projects like new apartment complexes and mass transit services.
    2
  2763. The demand isn't there, at least not until there are residents nearby (ideally in the same building).
    2
  2764. What's the alternative then? Fossils are choking us, nuclear is too risky in an incident, and hydrogen leaks out of everything. Electricity doesn't require as much different and moving parts, and excess work can even be recaptured instantly for more efficient usage.
    2
  2765. Not sure about it being specifically American, China and Korea likewise hold crippling household debt loads because of how ingrained it's become for status and opportunities to be linked to ownership of real estate and luxury goods.
    2
  2766. ​ @410kane  People were saying the same about ICE cars when they rode horses and could easily get feed for them on the trail. The advantage of EV chargers is that they can be installed basically anywhere, without all the HAZMAT considerations that a gas station has to design for.
    2
  2767. ​ @SamWesting  More like because production dropped because we're not burning through it like we used to. Oil companies already see this coming, and have basically stopped investing in increased extraction and refining capacity as they diversify to becoming "energy" companies.
    2
  2768. Where do you get the parts for your e-bike? I'm looking to eventually do some conversions as well
    2
  2769. Or give it new life. Electric drivetrains provide acceleration and turning performance that are otherwise found with racetrack-only cars.
    2
  2770. "Trickle down economics" certainly happens with rising prices. Can't say the same about rises in average buying power though. It's as if not investing in improved production is a great way to reduce supply and inflate revenue.
    2
  2771. Technology allows hierarchy to flatten a bit, but filtering and leadership from middle management is still crucial to effective production. Otherwise you end up like the Russian military where a handful of colonels and generals end up enforcing routine personnel planning and discipline that sergeants should be handling. Or the shitshow that Twitter under Elon Musk is undergoing with nobody between the c-suite and the sysadmins.
    2
  2772. Inflation is down, not prices.
    2
  2773. I'm perfectly happy to have Costco chicken for Thanksgiving
    2
  2774. Huh, in Beijing Dongcheng and Chaoyang the Starbucks locations that even had their own restrooms were closed to customers.
    2
  2775. We would need cheap broadband to every home first, and the Comcast-Cox oligopolies would fight tooth and nail to block the publicly-owned fiber network that's ideal to enable remote work and school (and they've already succeeded in some communities)
    2
  2776. It's also the guard rail against a deflationary death spiral, where tanking demand begets tanking paychecks.
    2
  2777. I look for the elite lounge access, which in North America is often free snacks and soft drinks every weeknight, and free dinner and alcohol abroad 🍷
    2
  2778. I've lived in both, and I see the parallels. Dubai has a more competent government and more mixed population, but still a disturbing amount of callousness towards regular people and poor build quality especially on newer private developments.
    2
  2779. Mexico builds decent cars already, often exported straight to US dealerships. Should've just bought local lol
    2
  2780. For a some industries in China the retirement age is effectively 35. So between getting a practically-required postgraduate degree and age-defined unemployability there's only like 10 years or less to get from entry-level to independent pension within the field they spent their whole youth preparing for, which is impossible for a single person and ludicrous to think about with a family involved. Given such conditions it's no wonder China's birth rate seems to be crashing even harder than its economy.
    2
  2781. Táiwān is part of "China", but not part of the PRC. The only reason it's not a "country" is the widespread agreement that only one government can be recognized as the representative of "China".
    2
  2782. Being a straight white male doesn't need to be brought up because societal preferences and benefits are given by default. Be anything else and the sense of identity quickly rises because of the biases and barriers that exist compared to the "norm" of a straight white guy.
    2
  2783. ​ @fanghe-z1j Which then yielded to democracy, just like South Korea, Indonesia, and Chile. Communist props by contrast double down on authoritarianism instead.
    2
  2784. Trade doesn't necessarily deter war. Germany was a top trading partner for the US going into WW2.
    2
  2785. Zero-COVID recently showed that situation can reverse very quickly at the convenience of the Party.
    2
  2786. "China" which the PRC dominates, but whose exclusive authority will always be disputed as long as the ROC exists to provide a living example of an alternative to the CPC.
    2
  2787. They'd be ejected from the Party if they spoke honestly 😂
    2
  2788. And directly harms domestic capacity to develop its own competition. Hence why large hopeful nations like India and Indonesia also charge hefty import fees.
    2
  2789. Considering how much new and used Toyotas go for these days, if anything they’re not building fast enough.
    2
  2790. Politics is the eternal challenge to minimize disappointment, and Western institutions are the most consistent at being the least bad option. The alternatives prove to be more impotent and/or imposing.
    2
  2791.  @kz-xv1ou  The thousand-fold increase with no end in sight of Mainland Chinese escaping specifically to more democratic America says otherwise about the system back in “New China”.
    2
  2792. China says they're mass producing Na-ion batteries now, but we've yet to see them actually on sale.
    2
  2793. ​ @texasgermancowgirl Right, as much as Europeans seem to earn compared to Americans, one such field where that's reversed is in software development.
    2
  2794. It's own people, discontented from stalled prosperity and a buildup of annoyances and abuses from the ruling Party.
    2
  2795. Hopefully Nusantara actually opens with a public transit system, unlike the unusually car-dependent Sejong City in Korea.
    2
  2796. Right, the Smiling Curve model deems Manufacturing as the most price-sensitive and most substitutable middle stage of the production process compared to R&D (i.e. valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. This is why whole societies get stuck in the "middle income trap" when they fail to educate and innovate themselves into unique value propositions, and explains why China is so desperate for "high quality" growth.
    2
  2797. Problem is Mainland China will get old and senile before they become rich. Ironically support for reunification in Taiwan is concentrated among the elderly, with pro-separation sentiments rising among the youth. South Korea has the same situation, and seeing the reunification of Germany didn't help the pro-unity argument.
    2
  2798.  @liulaolao7269  Number two... for now. Just because they rocketed up there doesn't mean they're set to stay in orbit or advance further once they run burn through the fuel of young workers and easy-profit jobs.
    2
  2799. If you think the IMF is bad, try taking a Chinese state loan where the interest rates are higher and the satisfaction terms are more vague and up for the lender to reinterpret at their convenience... except for lowered repayments and especially debt forgiveness that you need most.
    2
  2800. Most politicians prefer dictatorship domestically. I'd wager the people in general would much rather be democratized citizens over dictated subjects at home.
    2
  2801. It's the cost of all those roads and bridges, especially ongoing maintenance for inferior quality builds on "assets" that fail to attract anywhere near the amount of use it expected. Overcapacity is a thing. If you study other new big projects like airports, you'll see there's a reason they build up a single site over multiple stages instead of going for 100% completion of the master plan.
    2
  2802. It was the ego of CKS that kept Taiwan part of "China" instead of cutting the KMT losses and getting recognized as a separate sovereign.
    2
  2803. Ukraine is demonstrating solid unity under deadly hardship, while Russians flee to Türkiye, Bali, and Dubai.
    2
  2804. "China" colloquially has become synonymous specifically to Mainland China, even among pre-Return Hong Kongers and ROC citizens. The Party-run PRC has consistently demonstrated its intolerance and incompatibility with the open questioning and challenge of government policy enjoyed outside of the Mainland, hence the continued divergence of national sentiments among the Chinese-speaking community globally. Officially these are all recognized as in "China", but more as an academic concept grander than the territory actually ruled by Běijīng. Like exactly no country outside the PRC and ROC recognizes Mongolia as a sovereign part of China.
    2
  2805. That's just words on a page. In reality Taiwan has never been under the rule of the PRC, and the ROC has no hope of forcibly seizing back the Mainland. Functionally the two sides were always independent ever since the ROC abandoned Hainan in 1950.
    2
  2806. It's also because China is getting offshored, meaning less orders and jobs in general.
    2
  2807.  @tarstarkusz  "Possible" in a democracy isn't as long as under an authoritarian regime because security against dissent is expensive and oppressive, and there's plenty of other worthwhile interests demanding attention and funding.
    2
  2808. According to a Chinese military think-tank article published earlier this year, sparking multiple regional wars (hinting at Ukraine, Israel, and Korea) is what Běijīng would like to have so that it distracts the US and its critical regional partners (NATO, Israel, and Japan).
    2
  2809. Except Germany wasn't as dependent on American agriculture to literally feed itself, and their narrative of happiness through pure economic prosperity falls flat on Westerners who are undergoing more emotion-based shifts in culture. The main danger is that China might be peaking in its potential to secure its interests before it begins stalling from the Party's own unintended promotion of aging, debts, and pollution, so it has to strike soon before the iron cools down forever.
    2
  2810. A: Autocrats and the corporate executives hooked on the market environment simplicity they offer.
    2
  2811.  @haydonditchburn2194  Single point of failure. It'd be the focus of airstrikes, sea mines, counterassaults, and if Taiwan had a year a "Blue China" nuke.
    2
  2812.  @DavidWilliams-DSW558  Not anymore, the ¥2 note was discontinued in the 1990s
    2
  2813. It's really only the Koreans who hate on Japan, as bringing up their invasions and "lack of remorse" is a quick and consistent way to rile up domestic political support... just like in the PRC. Other countries they've invaded have largely forgiven the past and would gladly intake Japanese people, culture, and aid.
    2
  2814. A consistently growing economy became the post-Mao basis of the CCP's legitimacy over China. This prosperity has been slowing down as China enters the middle-income trap, and they risk not getting out without the freedom to challenge, disrupt, and overhaul themselves. Being challenged is antithetical to the Communist system, so the only other option is denying access to even the thought of it.
    2
  2815. I notice it says 國 instead of 国 though. I'm wondering if this is a subtle slight against the PRC, because modern usage of Traditional script in the Mainland feels like a deviance of the expected communication 🀄
    2
  2816. It's very American to inflate its issues because that's how to grab attention in a democracy. Luckily that dramatization also helps rectify those issues before they grow too big to handle.
    2
  2817. "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away". I'm guessing this is why the Party is such an aggressive control freak.
    2
  2818. Not with the way it's been autocratically governed all its history. Mechanization and industrialization means throwing more random people at the problem no longer resolves the issue as quality ones in the right positions, which an unchallenged leadership like the CPC prevents from happening due to oversized self-preservation interests. All its democratized neighbors show far more promise in the long run because the people themselves can eject and replace leadership as they see fit.
    2
  2819. Even then fresh-blooded Americans are an overwhelming net gain. Immigration is the reason the US will continue to grow tall compared to ethnostates that are nowadays peaking if not already in decline.
    2
  2820. Those same old folks try to call us out for historical revisionism. Yeah we're revising it more accurately, sorry not sorry you were lied to.
    2
  2821. My family has a farm where electricity is expensive and cuts out too frequently, but luckily the new house is designed to install solar panels and storage batteries. We're already saving considerable amounts on the power bills due to superior grounding, and with Starlink and solar panels hope to be capable to go fully off-grid without interruption when needed.
    2
  2822. Wind turbine blades are primarily glass and carbon fiber encased in resin, and more inert to the environment than even composted food waste. Most times we just bury them, special landfill preparations not required -- they'll be good to dig up and recycle once we have an economical way of separating the materials.
    2
  2823. It does require controlled storage for the life of its fuel though, which can be thousands of years. Even fusion isn't completely free of long-lasting toxic byproducts. Really the only nuclear that's safe for life is the one we're standing on: the heat of the Earth's mantle, where if anything goes wrong is no more dangerous than routine volcanic activity.
    2
  2824. Right, as pricey as I think transit is in Amsterdam compared to everywhere else (even some parts of America), I doubt I'd ever rent a car instead on a future visit.
    2
  2825. I passed 9 AP courses in my high school, which was in a gang infested neighborhood and could literally see into Mexico. But we still had all those options because it was California, a state that values public education.
    2
  2826. A lot of it comes from the right, who constantly identify new targets to hate and their build political unity with. We're not going to get past identity politics when socially conservative opposition keeps employing it as a way to block legislation, dominate the narrative, defeat more open-minded competition, and impede justice for those born outside their caste.
    2
  2827. Right, in Mainland China the state legally owns all the land, so acquisition is much simpler. They only have to compensate the occupants enough for them to leave quietly and not spark a mass revolt.
    2
  2828. Don't forget "well regulated Militia".
    2
  2829. It's written as "Sgt.", arguably short for "Sergeant" which is an accepted address for E-5 through E-8 in the Army. Specifying Sergeant E-5 would be written "SGT".
    2
  2830. Collectively. Often the progress itself advances one funeral at a time.
    2
  2831. As was said in the video, the mere existence of a "rogue" Táiwān directly challenges the narrative that the CPC is needed for the Chinese people to prosper. It was a threat to the Party when it was a KMT dictatorship, even more so now that ultimate power is decided by the people themselves.
    2
  2832. Burning oil as fuel makes up like 2/3 of its consumption though, and the electrification of transportation will massively cut into the overall want for petroleum.
    2
  2833. More likely they'll just install specialized high temperature models.
    2
  2834. He is Polish. His name is Hubert Walas.
    2
  2835. ​ @angelalim0502 It might still be Chinese companies, but it will have rising local competition and not nearly the amount of Chinese workers. The lost fees and taxes would ultimately hurt the PRC coffers considerably more than our pocketbooks.
    2
  2836. The unfortunate side effect of increasing efficiency is taking away from "unnecessary" resilience measures.
    2
  2837. The prices were also fixed there in the 1970s. This surge is more from a volatile mismatch of supply vs demand and is likely to come back down as both sides stabilize.
    2
  2838. That'd be expected considering the everyone on the plane spent the equivalent of a few thousand dollars today.
    2
  2839. That's what long haul Premium Economy offers though. For short haul the seat features are mostly covered by domestic narrowbody First Class, so there'd have to be a serious overhaul of class differentiation for to get a merely "Premium Economy" experience and pricing.
    2
  2840. That and the full length double deck
    2
  2841. It'd be an expensive modification, seeing how the old airport was clearly not in the master plan with a major expressway and business parks splitting the two. More likely the old airport grounds were planned to eventually close, redevelop, and become a new expansion of the city proper.
    2
  2842.  @jayg6434  Most likely decommission and part them out until the last A380 lands. It doesn't have much of a future hauling freight due to its strictly human-centered design that's ill-suited to modify for pallets, unlike the 747 that is fundamentally a cargo plane with seats bolted on.
    2
  2843. That's really the point of EK buying up every A380 somebody doesn't want anymore.
    2
  2844. It's too expensive to operate and its maximum takeoff weight is too low for the space it offers. It might do as a combi (passengers on top and cargo on the two decks below), but only if they cut open a door for full-size pallets without harming the integrity of the plane (the top deck forms an integral part of the structural stability) and beefed up the in-cabin fire extinguishing capabilities.
    2
  2845. The 747 IS a cargo plane, airlines just bolted down some seats for us
    2
  2846. The 747 was built fundamentally as a cargo plane because Boeing had the foresight that passengers alone might not keep the model aloft. Turns out it's much easier to make storage space habitable than it is to turn a human-centered design into storage -- it's like asking a cruise liner to take on shipping containers.
    2
  2847. 737 Max was a cheap way for airline bean counters to do what they really need a smaller 787 for. Unfortunately they got what they paid for.
    2
  2848. A lot more people have to fly between the same few cities to keep the A380 aloft... as if we already complain enough about overpriced overcrowded travel destinations. I doubt there will be another such human-centered airliner after the 380, the way it's designed means there's no real second life hauling freight (and thus continued parts and service sales) -- it's far easier to turn a warehouse into apartments or a container carrier into a cruise liner than the other way around (which is why the 747 was genius). So enjoy the superjumbo while they last.
    2
  2849. Americans have the money though. We complain about inflation because we're competing harder against each other due to the supply shocks of China's Zero-COVID and Russia tossing explosives all over Ukraine. Meanwhile China is failing to recover because the average consumer have exhausted bank accounts and anxiety about their future earnings, while working age Russians are fleeing their country at their earliest opportunity.
    2
  2850. I'd give top marks to Doha, and I wouldn't mind an extended layover in the new Istanbul terminal. Changi has the annoying gate checkpoints, and Dubai is basically one long badly-lit shopping mall.
    2
  2851. I'd have to return after they're all done with the construction at Schiphol, as I wasn't so impressed going through there (both Schengen and foreign). That is if EU entry there didn't take so freakin long and Amsterdam wasn't so darn pricey. But yeah having the train station embedded underneath the terminal is fantastic, and felt much more organic than say Frankfurt or Shanghai Hongqiao.
    2
  2852. Krakow and Istanbul airports are quite far from the city, but are still very much accessible by public transit. Mainly because there's greater usage of public transit over self-driving in general.
    2
  2853. I can't even get a Roomba (which also use only cameras) to run until the room is bright enough to where I can see too. And then it still bumps into things with considerable speed even if it knows something is usually there. Lidar is just better at avoiding collisions. Hence why I switched to a non-Roomba robovac, and why I don't trust riding in a Tesla especially at night.
    2
  2854. Russia was brought in primarily to help keep their scientists busy after the Soviet collapse, and prevent them from going rogue with their powerful skills to the highest bidders. It would not have happened had the USSR still existed, and this is reflected in the functionally separate Russian modules of the ISS.
    2
  2855. America's global security presence is the main reason for worldwide prosperity. If we draw down and let "multipolarity" take over, it just introduces multiple fault lines of conflict (including extremely destructive industrialized interstate wars). Both World Wars and 9/11 showed we can only isolate and demobilize so much before an enemy comes to us at home.
    2
  2856. Likely significant ownership, allowing preferential berthing and services to Chinese vessels. On top of being great listening posts at critical chokepoints of commerce.
    2
  2857. Winner-take-all voting guarantees convergence on a two-party system. Disenchanted Republicans will more likely sit out and wait for someone more sane instead.
    2
  2858. It's like the 1920s again with how super concentrated all the growth in wealth has been going.
    2
  2859. Omicron is only getting started. There was already a positive Omicron death in Texas.
    2
  2860. It provides local manufacturing capability when access to farther full-sized factories gets disrupted for whatever reason. In the meantime these make custom builds more practical to produce.
    2
  2861. ​ @tooltalk Right, I've yet to meet any American who has been impressed by a Huawei phone. They've all been people from developing countries who couldn't afford an iPhone or Samsung.
    2
  2862.  @thomaszhang3101  Sounds like how the Chinese treated me and every other arrival I know landing in Shanghai in the past two years.
    2
  2863. If you knew what migrant crossers were holed up in, you’d understand why the homeless would rather stay out on the streets where at least they’re free.
    2
  2864. Now if only incumbent Boomer NIMBYs didn’t constantly vote down those dense housing developments and public transit projects that would increase the accessibility of new homes, fearing the impact on their paid-off equity and “character” of their car-centric migrant-free neighborhood.
    2
  2865. Right, largely Boomer NIMBYs love to vote down housing developments and public transit projects to save their massive home equity and the “character” of their car-centric migrant-free neighborhood.
    2
  2866. Apple has been enjoying ridiculous amounts of profits in over a decade straight, time for it to actually invest it in its own improvements like we expect a business should.
    2
  2867. The chips are not that advanced, and memory is one of the simpler components to fabricate. The chip-making embargo will make it inaccessibly difficult to replicate especially since a lot of the chip fab process is specific knowledge locked in the brain of an extremely specialized and experienced engineer.
    2
  2868. More like Japan needed to climb in value-added contributions before it was undercut by offshoring. After the US, Japan is the most prolific designer of IC chips, literally telling Taiwan and Korea how to fabricate them through their lithography masks.
    2
  2869. The consequences of something going wrong are too great -- which it inevitably will especially as usage increases, hence the select few countries trusted to operate and maintain nuclear power. Plus nuclear keeps getting more expensive, unlike wind and solar. Geothermal holds more promise, as we have the deep drilling experience to potentially tap into anywhere on the planet (itself largely magma heated by nuclear reactions), and the worst that could happen wouldn't be any different than what's already been experienced in the history of life on Earth.
    2
  2870. Concentrating solar energy to melt salt may be a better solution, as the raw heat is easy to store and tap into when demand fluctuates throughout the day.
    2
  2871. Any longer and you could have just dropped him off at T2 and made him walk 😂
    2
  2872. ​ @MirzaAhmed89 Accent is a big tell, as it indicates where they grew up or at least the parents they grew up with. For immigrants who choose to come to America, simply having residence in the US is effectively thought of as part of the compensation, which lowers the dollars per calorie they demand for their often hard labor.
    2
  2873.  @michaelvick2872  At the same time, human supervisors are important because otherwise the lower level workers start skating and nothing productive gets done. Or worse compliance violations rack up uncontrollably.
    2
  2874. The PRC promotes a model of deception, backstabbing, and enforcing vague policies only as convenient. At least the US admits that the homeless exist, and that welfare handouts isn't as big a priority as defending the free space in which one can rise and fall on their own.
    2
  2875. Those were natural supercells, not cloud seeding. Problem is lack of infrastructure and preparation for such a rare event.
    2
  2876. Besides physical flood control, Dubai government could also improve their public communication skills. Like temporary signs on the ground would help a lot, instead of figuring out the detours published through inaccurate mapless postings on its social media accounts.
    2
  2877. There's already a sewage system, but it doesn't double as a storm drain.
    2
  2878. There is a sewage system, but it doesn't double as a storm drain (nor do you want it to).
    2
  2879. We’re not very good at choosing the “merits” though. Being too selective for high-earning college-educated professionals can make the hosting community more expensive, inconsiderate, and artistically bland as the place gentrifies and homogenizes.
    2
  2880. If anything African millionaires moves their assets out to places like Dubai, Europe, or America as fast as practicable. At least that’s what I noticed and heard about while I lived there.
    2
  2881. It's more intense because the domestic market saturated as the average Chinese consumer's buying power shrank during and after Zero-COVID. The sudden availability of Chinese EV exports are largely due to lack of demand at home, not a surge of quality production.
    2
  2882. ​ @kenho-wr5ul2rh7m Every developed industry is trying to manufacture Na-ion batteries. China is just trying to scale up before anyone else.
    2
  2883. We might not Na-ion batteries in all our cars, but its production for static applications (buildings and camps) and already-heavy movers (ships and trains) would free up capacity for EVs.
    2
  2884. You're not wrong. Unlike every other EV manufacturer, Chinese brands overstate their expected range. And then they self-immolate frequently enough that its discussions online are a top item for censorship and punitive actions.
    2
  2885. ​ @XXTerminator-ih4yr I owned a Niu electric motorbike. It spent a surprising amount of time in the shop (front wheel dealigning, sticky throttle, quickly worn shocks, etc). I doubt a Chinese cage will be any more impressive.
    2
  2886. 13:30 Small is the way to go on BEVs, ideally as motorbikes (which a lot of "freedom-loving" Americans ironically fail to license for). We can see this hint in the massive popularity of electric-assisted bicycles. I had an electric motorbike and when I wasn't riding the Beijing metro the e-bike (which I modified to 125cc performance to roll with regular traffic to avoid the untrained riders and parked cars in the "bike lane") was the only way I got around town in all four seasons. Easily charged off a standard wall plug at home and the office, and there was always a charger with the bike since it's only a common power brick.
    2
  2887. China is more worried that the US could blockade China. They depend on open sea lanes for affordable food, fuel, and foreign revenue. An invader would need to disable like half of the US to stop its self-sufficiency, whereas an invader into China doesn't even need to step foot on its soil.
    2
  2888. The US tried to stay neutral and open in WWI, and cut off oil to Japan who was undergoing its own offensive imperialism into China by that time.
    2
  2889. The US is arguably the peacekeeper, providing Europe the space to enjoy that peace dividend through all the "wars" that contained threats away from their homelands and global sea lanes. Now they're realizing that an alliance of one isn't a credible enough deterrence, and that they need to invest in their own capabilities in order to contribute and benefit from the actual mutual support that an alliance promises.
    2
  2890. For America at least. Europe didn't wake up until last year.
    2
  2891. Georgia was too small and too far away, whereas Ukraine is a major agriculture supplier who's on the doorstep to the EU.
    2
  2892. ​ @MrRedsjack The risk is if they assert being other than American (i.e. entry on another passport) when they're in trouble, the US has no obligation to support them. So no evacuation offers or jail visits when their trip goes tits up.
    2
  2893. Consumer-driven "recycling" itself was a marketing campaign by plastics producers who both knew their products was economically unrecoverable, but didn't want to take responsibility for all the waste and damage they were creating. Hence they shamed us into thinking we can do something about it, instead of sticking to the more containable glass, metal, and paper packaging we had been using before.
    2
  2894. If you live near an ocean coast, especially the flatland of an island, you'll have noticed. There are entire Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations that could be flooded by saltwater within this lifetime.
    2
  2895. Without serious review and tweaking though, AI threatens to simply amplify the existing issues we have more than solving them.
    2
  2896.  @JayMcKinsey  That's granted the automation will work properly and efficiently by then -- remember computing is a massive energy suck and AI even moreso. A steel rail that gets you nearly where you wanted to go anyway is overall much more cost effective, especially when paired with mass transit or shorter-range taxis at both ends.
    2
  2897. Fresh-blooded Americans (immigrants) are generally more energetic, educated, and productive than native-born ones who are stale by comparison.
    2
  2898. What I don't understand is why it didn't use the existing wide empty median on I-5. There'd be a lot less land seizures needed, allow for cheaper at-grade rail instead of building and maintaining all those viaducts, and it would constantly market itself as the faster ride for all the drivers it blows past.
    2
  2899.  @themiddlekingdom9121  It might not be the exact variant, but precursors to the Spanish Flu were noticed in China the year before its global outbreak and China itself wasn't hit as hard with it likely due to preexisting immunity. Even to this day data from China drives the choice of variants to vaccinate for in yearly flu shots (there's generally only room for 3 or 4 variants before they start interfering with each other).
    2
  2900. It wouldn't be "no stops", more like intermediate stops in places that car drivers often fuel up on the I-5 drive already. Places like Buttonwillow, Kettleman, Panoche, and Los Banos could serve as park-and-ride locations for Valley customers who might appreciate the significantly shorter drive until they get direct service from said future branch.
    2
  2901. Cloud seeding requires clouds saturated enough to rain coming by, and even then it's not reliable, and even if successful that means someplace downwind doesn't get the rain/snow it expects. Desalination generates a massive amount of sealife-killing hypersaline brine, and is costly to dilute back to normal levels for dumping. The solutions aren't so simple and inexpensive, otherwise they'd be more common by now.
    2
  2902. Thing is where the sun is shining and where the water is over a whole mountain range (coastal May Gray and June Gloom are famous here). Plus there's limited options to affordably dispose of the hypersaline brine that results, there'd need to develop industrial applications for super-salty seawater so that not all of the RO waste has to be rediluted for dumping.
    2
  2903. I'm on an LG. Yes I know it's damn near medieval now, but it has physical features I still use that newer flagships have long dropped like dual physical SIMs and a headphone jack.
    2
  2904. I'm not optimistic Trump will, not all "change" is necessarily advantageous. But a shakeup in our domestic institutions and priorities is certainly needed.
    2
  2905. Sounds like a greater issue of NIMBYs who scheme to prevent more housing in order to keep their own property values inflated.
    2
  2906. We'd need to first know about the abuses in order to petition for those changes. This is why a free independent investigative press is so important, because the corporate legal teams who wrote and truly understand their nonnegotiable contracts won't be revealing what their "agreements" actually mean.
    2
  2907. Except the ones deciding are corrupt officials who take the "no-strings-attached" Chinese loans (unlike the Western ones that demand improvements in governance and education), and squirrel those funds away to their offshore bank accounts while leaving their own people hanging.
    2
  2908. America puts overseas bases where they're welcome. These host nations are often more concerned about a reduction of US presence -- like when Iraq nearly fell to ISIS or when the Philippines lost the nearby Scarborough Shoal to China.
    2
  2909.  @zhuochengtan  The locals would if they were taught, but China brings imports their own workers and makes crucial schematics Chinese-Eyes-Only by design and policy. JICA, KOICA, and Western builds are more expensive partially because they offer education for design and maintenance to the locals.
    2
  2910. I've lived in Africa. The corrupted politicians would sing praise about China, but locals on the street see colonization. It's just being done through debts and "agreements" since Africans are now aware of how they lost their nations the first time around and are too well-armed for a straight invasion to work these days.
    2
  2911. Democrat leadership hamstrung by powerful conservative interests like low-density homeowners and rural agriculture.
    2
  2912. ​ @asdasdasddgdgdfgdg His timelines can be aggressive, but the overall trends he predicts from are solid.
    2
  2913. 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
  2914. ​ @SignalCorps1 Right, I don't trust the specific timelines that PZ puts out, but the underlying trendlines are still solid.
    2
  2915. 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
  2916. 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
  2917.  @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
  2918. Simple minded commenters focus solely on America's money supply, when global aggregate supply is what's driving prices upward.
    2
  2919. 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
  2920. It would have to continue at likewise inflating rates to keep that upward spiral. Like he said, it's naturally self-correcting.
    2
  2921. 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
  2922. 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
  2923. 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
  2924. 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
  2925. Only more visibly. Obama committed the Pivot to Asia after our economic faceplant under Bush Jr got Beijing emboldened.
    2
  2926. 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
  2927. 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
  2928. 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
  2929. 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
  2930. 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
  2931. 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
  2932. 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
  2933. 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
  2934. 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
  2935. 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
  2936. ​ @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
  2937. 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
  2938. 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
  2939. 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
  2940. 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
  2941. 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
  2942. 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
  2943. 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
  2944. 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
  2945.  @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
  2946. They kinda can't, a fully free float would annihilate China's economy and with it the CPC's grip on power.
    2
  2947. 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
  2948. 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
  2949. 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
  2950. 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
  2951. 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
  2952. 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
  2953. ​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
  2954. 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
  2955.  @pietwandelaar1743 In technical aspects. In other skills and achievements humans care about (notably artistic), the average Singaporean seems lacking.
    2
  2956. 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
  2957. 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
  2958. 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
  2959. 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
  2960. They’re likewise struggling with a weakening consumer base, or the infrastructure to support sustainable mass electrified mobility.
    2
  2961.  @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
  2962. They're becoming overstock because Zero-COVID meant domestic demand cratered, that's why China is trying to dump them overseas. This is likely to backfire in widely-shared videos of their cars catching themselves on fire with disturbing regularity.
    2
  2963. I'm under the impression that Taiwanese don't have that conniving mistrust that Mainlanders developed from generations of Communist rule, though they also (at least to me) seem more fanciful and naïve by comparison. Churchgoing Asians tend to be even more deviant, as being outgoing and open to strangers is how the religion survives and grows especially in foreign environments.
    2
  2964. It's moreso from phone usage. Children should really be learning human communication and manners by physically being with their peers, but overworked parents settle on handing their kids a tablet to fill their free time in between lessons centered around passing standardized tests.
    2
  2965. That's just true regardless of religion. If an autocrat can hide or hand-wave religious hypocrises (like cult leaders often do), identifying with a common faith won't shield the people from official abuse.
    2
  2966. Habitually oversold opportunities with troubling results.
    2
  2967.  @sorguvasfen2426  Corporations. Their mandate to serve shareholders above everyone else and industrial lobbying to suppress tax rates on organizations and elites over promises of short-term political support leave us in the hole for economic utilities like healthcare, infrastructure, and education that being natural monopolies the private sector can't help but inflate prices on. So after defense which is vital at deterring regional conflicts from growing into truly devastating industrialized interstate wars and cutting America's access to the rest of the world, what's left over is spent mostly as forced gratuities to end-of-life seniors instead of the youth and young families who really power America's prosperity.
    2
  2968. South Africans?
    2
  2969. Not all Chinese "engineers" are properly trained, the term also gets used for low level technicians with little cross-training in related specialties.
    2
  2970. Boulder City began as a government program supporting the likewise public project Boulder/Hoover Dam... it's essentially public housing gone right. It only became its own city decades later.
    2
  2971. I've been up late on all six populated continents and the only place I had to feel alert was in South Africa. "Shitholes" like SF and NYC are tame compared to some places abroad that I've gone.
    2
  2972. They'll seize property (even tearing down historical sites like the Beijing City Wall) for public works like roads and airports. For more private development like apartments and malls it's not so aggressive.
    2
  2973. Likely Communist China will continue to degrade as the Party continues its strategy of try-hardisms, because it can't fathom the idea of relaxing its grip and trusting its people... whose moral compass they themselves destroyed in "revolutionary thought". Their narrowing tolerance for an acceptable mindset leaves them bewildered as to why the constant messaging to 'love the Party' and '(PR)China deserves respect' still leaves so many of its subjects to "lie flat" if not expatriate their wealth and family at the first opportunity.
    2
  2974. Modern farming is quite high-tech, as labor everywhere is getting unavailable and pricey. I'll be inheriting my family's farm but will need a crash course in agri-tech since I've only recently got the house hooked up and haven't yet started flooding the fields with Wi-Fi.
    2
  2975. Passenger rail companies were no saints themselves; the whole American ideology around tipping originated from rail companies not paying wages to the freed slaves who began working for them. The appeal of the car was that you at least have more control about operating and maintaining it.
    2
  2976. I'm an American and I'd just stick with metric the whole way, even for subjects about the US. It just communicates the data better.
    2
  2977. Right, ironically America's existing 100+ year old rail network is still going strong because of how much stuff it's called on to move.
    2
  2978. Problem with HSR is that it's constantly competing against cheaper slow rail and buses, faster planes, and driving the toll roads. The increase in fapiao (tax receipt) revenue isn't making up for all the debts accrued in construction and operation.
    2
  2979. Have you seem their (lack of) pollution controls? Even if they burn and consume less per capita, their lack of care for the environment makes them more negatively impactful.
    2
  2980. My 18~49 aged friends in China say the working conditions are stifling, constant inspections to find reasons to get rid of people, while no longer being granted vacations outside of expensive national holidays. They're all looking for ways to find jobs abroad and expatriate.
    2
  2981.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  Because up until recently, the Mainland couldn't do anything else without obviously fatal effects to their economy and standing. Even now they hesitate to pull the trigger because forcefully gaining Táiwān is likely not worth the subsequent loss of trade -- especially basics like food, fuel, and high grade minerals -- that their continued prosperity and overall political stability relies on.
    2
  2982. There's also the political appointees between the IC and President who filtered the information based on 43's interests and preferences, giving a rosy picture leading quickly to "Mission Accomplished".
    2
  2983. Japan has since interpreted its constitution to allow for strikes into other territories, not to seize it as part of a "war", but to reduce the enemy's capacity to strike Japan itself. This is essential because the standoff distances of modern missiles allow for unlimited offensive missions without those enemy pilots even leaving their own airspace.
    2
  2984. 1/6 was a political minority trying to seize power through revolutionary means, problem was they're a political minority and had not nearly the amount of support needed for the desired overthrow. Plus America is a very politically engaged society (despite the lack of voter participation) who would constantly question the legitimacy of the overthrowing regime and support a forced return to the previous ways of changing our leadership.
    2
  2985. Right, education expenses are exempt from the $50k/year foreign exchange limit, so things like rent for a student's private room in an expensive apartment near campus (which they're really sharing and pocketing the difference) aren't counted in the annual cap.
    2
  2986. I'd bet Sydney and Melbourne, just over 5m each 🇦🇺
    2
  2987. It's your money that eventually must pay, but at least it's still there in your account when the bank-funded credit line was one affected.
    2
  2988. ​... until your debit account gets cleaned out because someone skimmed your swipe, and you find the banks aren't as motivated to get it back compared to when it's their money gone missing from a credit card.
    2
  2989. Ironic how the Indian economy suffers from too much individual hustle and not enough 9-to-5 grinds 🤌
    2
  2990. Sagging transmission lines explain part of it (electrical resistance increases with temperature), especially if it needs to cross the better part of a state to reach the customers.
    2
  2991. More like test scores are the state religion. Education involves open-mindedness and critical thought (which flies against Party interests) as opposed to rote memorization. This is a big reason why Mainland China is so lousy with its per capita productivity despite graduating so many "engineers" (i.e. mislabeled basic-level technicians).
    2
  2992.  @andrewlechner6343  Right, at least our airlines could still buy and fly an EU-built Airbus.
    2
  2993. That's not far enough, we'd need to go back to like 1996 levels.
    2
  2994. For gifts it's the thought that counts, in this case suggesting a place they already enjoy shopping at. What makes gift cards valuable is the limitations on where to spend the money, as opposed to straight cash that can cause mental paralysis by having too many choices. If that sounds economically irrational, that's because humans are themselves irrational.
    2
  2995. Those that do are taught to be so far removed that it’s like asking Americans to think about post-slavery Reconstruction.
    2
  2996. ​ @changliu3915 The "historic norm" for China also involves an autocratic court committing to constant westward conquest, followed by violent collapse of the dynasty. It's only "peaceful" within the core of China until it's not, all brought about by the decadence of an aristocratic elite (which today is the Communist Party of China) who insulate themselves too much for too long from the average Chinese citizen.
    2
  2997. What's common is the lack of viable competition, whether it's one-Party China or corporate-captured America. What's different is that America has been there before during the Gilded Age a century ago, where government trust-busting and the allowance for labor unions prevented the even more drastic deconstruction which anarcho-communists violently pushed for. China though has always been an autocracy that gets ever more brittle over time until the state suddenly shatters; the closest alternatives being the separated and only recently-democratized ROC on Taiwan, and the much more ethnically mixed Singapore (whose Chinese population largely hail from the more culturally distant southern provinces).
    2
  2998. ​... in English. Chinese language media is a lot more prideful and bellicose.
    2
  2999. This is why Taiwan is considered a mortal threat: the continued existence of a democratized ROC is living proof of what a Chinese ethnostate could be without the Party.
    2
  3000. ​Right, you'd have to actively ignore all the negative content about America -- made overwhelmingly by Americans themselves -- to say Americans don't bash on America hard enough.
    2
  3001. EV chargers don't have the HAZMAT requirements that gas stations require, so are much more liberal in where they can be placed once we decide on the interface and installation standards.
    2
  3002. That's granted the PRC even lasts that long as a unified state, because they're trending towards a hard exclusive choice between continued prosperity or continued Party rule over the coming years.
    2
  3003. Americans in general aren't shameless data thieves -- there's customer outrage for violations of privacy.
    2
  3004. Taxes drop considerably if you're residing out of state for employment under "Safe Harbor". That's why as an expat (i.e. out of the US where no other state can try to claim my paycheck) I continue to file with CA, and I know others who switched their tax state to CA for this.
    2
  3005. As someone who lived in Mainland China and tries to stay in touch with events there, it's painful to hear cheap TTS bots completely butcher the names 🤖💬🙉
    2
  3006. I'm curious, how much more work did you have to do to set the scene and lighting for your first face-revealed essay?
    2
  3007. Regulation we benefit from like GDPR-compliant tracker cookie opt-outs, convergence on USB charging (not just USB-C but also Micro a decade ago), and increasingly user-level repairability.
    2
  3008. COVID and all the shift to WFH ironically showed that there is plenty of capacity to handle all that traffic that was no longer internal to the office, meaning ISPs really were holding back and seeking rent off of retail customers.
    2
  3009. Perhaps, at least until productivity suffers or compliances get violated because the managers left are spread too thin to check in on everyone without excessive time wasted on regular massive meetings.
    2
  3010. Right, under American laws and corporate culture, shareholders >> executives, employees, customers, and everyone else.
    2
  3011. Hence why the much lighter jail sentence.
    2
  3012. Right, CA still has plenty of opportunities for upward employment, whereas "low tax" locales are often still waiting to import a job creator.
    2
  3013. A ban on end user access isn't going to work, but a ban on monetization is a different story.
    2
  3014. There's also a generally sociopathic willingness to step on others without shame, and getting attorneys and accountants to minimize your tax liabilities and maximize rebates through the arcane (often self-authored) legal situations only people of wealth can effectively take advantage of -- accessing the socialized benefits of the entire taxpayer base accelerates the wealth you already have at the expense of everyone else.
    2
  3015. The phone I want is a dual-SIM LG V20 with an AMOLED screen and a modernized chipset. No phone made since then sports all the physical features that I regularly use.
    2
  3016. Natural resources is just lucky, but being the world's primary currency, business language, and brain drain is because the US is a unique value proposition.
    2
  3017. Don't forget the profit-price spiral, which may be the stronger driver nowadays with so much consolidation in various markets.
    2
  3018. I just listened to a Hidden Brain podcast about what's basically the "King Effect" in media, which involves the vast majority of flops, a small percent of one-hits, and a tiny elite who go on to have durable careers. Basically the best chance of long-term success comes from not following what's trendy now and thus getting into a "path dependence" trap (i.e. pigeonholed), and more shamelessly throwing out a variety of unique shit until something sticks. It can take a long while and is not guaranteed to succeed, but the chances fall to zero when you stop trying.
    2
  3019. It'd be substantial, but not any worse than what junk your email receives. Plus CL is a much more pure form of buyer-seller connection service as opposed to the likes of Uber who are far more controlling (and arguably responsible).
    2
  3020. More efficient to coordinate decisions as a single organization.
    2
  3021. They're so cheap that it doesn't make economic sense to pay for the labor to diagnose and repair it. What I'm surprised about is how little in recycling fees we pay into it because they're physically a massive source of e-waste.
    2
  3022. 2:06 To be pedantic, cell phones are still radios. Same with WiFi and Bluetooth and anything communicating cordless. They just modulate their basebands a different way.
    2
  3023. Mild inflation is how we're incentivized to keep spending and investing, especially during a recession. This countercyclical ability is why the world converged on fiat money, since depression-level busts had to basically wait for new gold and silver to be found often from an overseas colony.
    2
  3024. You're supposed to pay sales taxes regardless of the marketplace it was transacted in. For small one-offs it's not worth finding the violators, but as you get more established and efficient at pushing products you also have less of an excuse to "forget" about filing properly.
    2
  3025. I was an AMD loyalist back when I was still building my own gaming rigs (nowadays fiddling more with networking equipment). Some saved dollars and Meltdown later, I’m glad I didn’t contribute to the strategic fiasco that became today’s Intel.
    2
  3026. Made in China isn't the issue, it's Designed by China that is with the uncertainties that absolute unchallengeable compliance with vague PRC "laws" presents.
    2
  3027. His known universe consisting of just the top half of his skull 🧠
    2
  3028. Daegu is primarily manufacturing and military, which means organization-supported amenities that more flexible and competitive knowledge work in Seoul doesn't offer.
    2
  3029. ​That's what happened. His dad didn't file for his Consular Report of Birth Abroad at the local US consulate and formalize his jus sanguinis citizenship at birth.
    2
  3030. Argentina: First time?
    2
  3031. ⁠It was a trade dispute that blunted Japan from potentially peaking its economy over that of the US. But it would still only peak and stagnate, as fundamentally they fail to get their workforce and culture past the 1980s.
    2
  3032. If Chinese history is an indicator, it will likely be a yet another violent transition out of the autocratic dynasty/government that got them there.
    2
  3033. China’s economy is also #2, but way closer to that of Japan than to the US. Japan’s downward trend likewise seems to mirror that of the PRC.
    2
  3034. If it doesn't affect the current leadership's popularity, it tends not to be enforced. It simply remains on the books to be used when it's convenient to take down potential challengers.
    2
  3035. Fiber would be promising because considerably more strands can be pulled in the same amount of space that a single coaxial or twisted-pair cable would take up, meaning time and costs saved. I recently worked on a building that incorporated all three, and the fiber was by far the easiest to pull.
    2
  3036.  @americanidiotinchief259  They really need more interesting stories, pushing past childish black and white roles with headache-inducing CGI. But this is what Party censors expect of their filmmakers, under a false assumption that an invincible China is a culturally attractive one.
    2
  3037. Ability to defend too. Even the most mild conflict could completely shut down Taiwan chip production, but Taiwan’s allies still need chips to produce the precision weapons needed to effectively fight back.
    2
  3038. That’s the result of corporate attitudes towards its labor. There’d be more pride doing Made in USA if company management provided a workplace environment and mission to be proud about.
    2
  3039. Natural disasters aren’t as fundamental an issue for TSMC, whose main operations are regularly affected by earthquakes and typhoons. I’d say they were trying to gain the benefits of both AZ’s lower acquisition costs while being close enough to CA’s educated workforce.
    2
  3040. It used to make sense, but then reality got more nuanced and buyers aren’t going to go get a graduate degree just to understand.
    2
  3041. Asian parents grew up in a time and place where age equates to wisdom and status. That doesn't translate to a place like America where prosperity is best sought through youthful experimentation and market disruption.
    2
  3042. GE was massive back in the day, like Samsung or Sony massive
    2
  3043. ​ @benmcreynolds8581 It's too straightforward to weaponize nuclear materials, even if it's nowhere near the power of a full warhead. That proliferation concern (along with cost vs mining virgin uranium) is why the UK and US stopped reprocessing spent fuel, and why France only recycles its waste once instead of indefinitely.
    2
  3044. ​ @MissRora It's swift compared to having the different banks (not only separate businesses but also often different countries) negotiate transaction costs, reconcile the transfers, and ensure security in between on their own as they did before joining SWIFT. WU is all in-house, which is why a WU remittance is so much faster.
    2
  3045. December drop: Video about the evolution of credit cards, just in time for all the Christmas spending. January drop: Video about the random convergence of video topics, following the December surge of videos describing the evolution of credit cards.
    2
  3046. I know of Citigold Lounges, but those are in their bank locations meant for clients with like a half-million or more in their accounts to meet with a manager in person.
    2
  3047. One not so easily solved is chemical pollution, caused by its massive industrial runoff and urban development of former farmland. Mainland China relies on imports for inexpensive untainted food, and that remains the PRC's biggest weakness even if it does secure all the energy it needs.
    2
  3048. More like anti-Putinist.
    2
  3049. A lot of US aid involves education and low visibility local projects (new wells, community centers, etc), not something flashy that national politicians can tout to maintain their rule. The American strategy is more developing simmering support and desire for the US among the populace that can be tapped into later even if relations sour in higher level politics.
    2
  3050. ​ @GameFuMaster That minimalism also includes family size. Children are a huge drain of time and money until they're likewise educated enough to enter their own self-sustained career paths 20+ years later. Notice how practically all the FIRE folks are childless.
    2
  3051. Although most of Africa was colonized by the UK and France, who did invest some effort back into their colonies (even if primarily for the colonizer's benefit), as opposed to the short and highly extractive relationship Japan had with Korea. Newly-independent African countries often weren't terrible places at the time, but the tribalistic and kleptocratic Liberator generation kept their otherwise-rich nations basically stuck in the 1960s.
    2
  3052. Ironically the US military seems more aggressive at electrifying its generator and vehicle fleet than many parts of the civilian sector. Insurgents can't target fuel convoys that aren't running.
    2
  3053. "Automatic" is a normal description for a handgun, describing its automatic recharging which for long guns is dubbed "semi-automatic". "Fully automatic" describes a firearm that shoots as long as the trigger is pulled and there's ammo to discharge.
    2
  3054.  @NK_Khoo-Malaysian That’s because America’s comparative advantage is in _innovation_; those “lazy” workers being the same kind who design and give you the photomasks from which the chips are etched through. Actual manufacturing is the least value-added, most price-sensitive, and most substitutable stage of production compared to R&D in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end, hence why the US and other developed economies stay rich despite offshoring its factories. America is only plussing up its chip fabs to keep some production capabilities at least for vital equipment, not to replace every IC in every IOT POS.
    2
  3055. State control went away, but the cultural effects have lasted.
    2
  3056. Lose your principal hand over fist, just like a Chinese homeowner.
    2
  3057. ​ @tombo416 Not as much as how anxious and remorseful they get if we leave. They'd only have to ask Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China).
    2
  3058. They have to wait until Israel is done with Hamas and gets out of Gaza.
    2
  3059. China also has a much simpler, almost single-issue platform: basically achieve "national glory" by "reunify Táiwān" and "win-win cooperation" without truly listening to the desires of the other side. This as BRI "partners" are finding out makes for frustrating negotiations as the vague goals are just as often used to excuse Běijīng from its disappointing project performance and ducking out of its own guarantees.
    2
  3060. Hizballah had similar roots as an charitable NGO, ironically one that received aid from Israel.
    2
  3061. The energy comes from its younger people. An aging society is a deflationary one, which economically is a destructive downward spiral.
    2
  3062. ​ @gavinrose5971 Right, if anything the largely private-run utility of America's healthcare is the worst example of wasteful "big government".
    2
  3063. They saw the same news of Korea's still-tanking birth rate falling below 0.7
    2
  3064. Those are more local policy problems, created by NIMBYs who vote against densification and public transit projects to inflate their own home prices.
    2
  3065. The Brits let go of all of HK thinking that Mainland China would converge towards Western free market democracy, which seeing all the progress with other anti-authoritarian movements going on in Asia seemed to be happening until 1989 proved that the Party plans to continue without challenge. The Brits made HK (and by extension Shenzhen) what it became because it was a piece of China 'with Western Characteristics', unlike the mess on the Mainland under the brittle centralized corrupt governance of the Qing, the pre-democratized Republic, and the CPC's "New China". Continued rule under the Party likely will just make HK into a mere inconvenient bedroom community of the Pearl Delta area with funny street names (mostly to maintain appearances as a "Special" Administrative Region).
    2
  3066. Hotter global climate allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture, creating more extreme weather events. This results in events like record snowfall followed by record snowmelt-driven flooding.
    2
  3067. I recently learned that the Independence Arch in Seoul was built to commemorate its independence _from China_, and erected to commemorate the establishment of the Korean Empire (which was the Joseon Dynasty but no longer beholden exclusively to China).
    2
  3068. Sure, trust a poll taken before the nationwide lockdowns and in a place that doesn't tolerate negative statements no matter how accurate.
    2
  3069. The Muslim World seems to be as ignorant of the PRC as much as they're overreactive to slights from the West. Probably by intention seeing how they made themselves so dependent on China now that modern transportation allows trade routes to reliably circumvent the Middle East, leaving little else to offer outside of petroleum and sometimes tourism. Might also have to do with its core dominated by autocratic kingdoms who share similar regime security interests, leading them to grab effectively slave labor from faraway corners of the world while they dump war refugees from neighboring countries into Turkey and North Africa.
    2
  3070. It's more than collecting your meme pics, where you post and what inspired you to do so is very useful information in building your dossier. Marketers do this to create targeted ads, and political groups do the same for messaging and steering your mentality in their favor. Having live updates on what you view and where you post really simplifies the process of gaining verified insight on how you think and thus ways to hijack it. Also Chinese phones dominate because they don't have to pay off the R&D that went into a new design, and thus can afford installing the same quality components at a lower price to the consumer especially with Chinese state subsidies and marketing support. It's similar to economic "dumping": using abnormally low prices (enabled by stolen tech and state-level resources) to kill competition and gain market advantage.
    2
  3071. They're used to top off between snowfalls, not as 100% of its operation. That's the difference between existing ski slopes in the US and the fully artificial one in the cold desert of northern China.
    2
  3072. Have you seen the average American? Finding food of some sort isn't an issue there 🍟
    2
  3073. Have you seen an average American? Finding food isn't a problem 🍟
    2
  3074. They're trying to arrest the crew and ideally the boat and cargo too, because that helps build the intelligence on operations and ultimately the legal cases against the sponsoring cartel. This is why they shoot to disable the engines, then move in to pick up the pilot and perhaps the boat too if he didn't scuttle it in time.
    2
  3075. Hence why it's nice to be an permanent expat getting paid in dollars -- I have the financial stability of the USD, but also personally experienced that Africa has more youthful energy, and SE Asia has more forward thinking, than the libertarian shitshow back in the States.
    2
  3076.  @happymelon7129  I don’t hate China as a people or classical culture, just the “新中国” state and the modern society it developed under the “guidance” of the CPC. Having just moved out of Beijing last year, I’ve learned that the more pessimistic stories about the PRC tends to be the most accurate.
    2
  3077. I’ve lived in Africa. Shorts and fires were a regular occurrence by the huge amount of QA rejects that China dumps into the local market, while we never had issues from European imports. Locals also expressed concern at how little concrete and rebar went into Chinese-led building projects. Don’t be fooled that China doesn’t likewise think of Africa as a land to exploit at its inhabitants’ expense.
    2
  3078. ​ @wormboii OP keeps spamming this anti-American story on CNA posts, pitching a mistaken narrative that the rest of East Asia already has sufficient territorial defense and aggression deterrence power by themselves... in support of the "multipolar" pitch Běijīng and Moscow talk about.
    2
  3079. Democracy also means adaptability and cultural vibrance. It's not as decisive, but democracies trade political efficiency for overall resilience.
    2
  3080. Both sides of China held the belief for decades that they are the rightful successor to "China", and would soon defeat the other. Táiwān basically dropped this impractical notion after Chiang Kai-Shek died, but the Mainland hasn't and if anything sound more confident to finally restart the mission they failed at back in 1950.
    2
  3081.  @NicholasONGYS  Exposure to the whole virus though seems to create messier less binding antibodies as opposed to ones trained on clean spike proteins created through mRNA or viral vector. This could explain why the inactivated virus vaccines have performed so badly across all variants.
    2
  3082. ​ @edwinchan5603 ...for the much fewer EU passengers going _to China_. Not the same story for direct flights to other parts of Asia.
    2
  3083. They'd just get rescheduled to Schengen or Japan or SE Asia or some other travel hotspot. Flights into China itself are costly because demand collapsed.
    2
  3084. Basically it's a widening divide between social expectations and personal achievement for the amount of time and work put in, especially in East Asia where the culture enforces conformity to traditions at the cost of opportunity through exploring alternatives. Thus a widespread feeling of failure and disillusionment among the youth.
    2
  3085. The PRC is the only country trying to justify its political and territorial claims using history, as opposed to the latest legal agreements and the realities of today. It's ironic how the "anti-imperial" Communists use the Chinese Empire to assert its legitimacy.
    2
  3086. To Taiwanese the Mainlanders are distant relatives and effectively strangers. It's like asking Black and White Americans to identify with their kind from across the Atlantic.
    2
  3087. Common language doesn't mean common allegiance. North and South Korea can tell you that.
    2
  3088. One Country Two Systems died in HK years ago. The only ones who believe in it now are the Communists.
    2
  3089. It's also new, with effectively promotional pricing as happens when Jakarta begins operation of any transportation network. Prices are likely to rise and seats become more available as the government tries to get the massive loans taken paid off, especially since China might delay payment but never forgives any debt.
    2
  3090. Grown through government debt, and without the foreign inputs needed to realize a full payoff.
    2
  3091. China overcounts its capita (it's estimated at actually 1.0 billion or less), and many are aged out of working if not hardly contributed surviving a whole life harvest to harvest. So the global damage of its activities is substantially higher and still growing than the official numbers suggest.
    2
  3092. That's what the locals themselves are saying. The average Mainland Chinese are way too often highly inconsiderate.
    2
  3093. You're not missing much. The threat is way too high of having your health code suddenly turn yellow/red and your trip gets interrupted (if not forcibly detained) for weeks on end... but unlike jail you're also paying for that quarantine and monitoring. We're specifically warned to avoid travel outside the province because of how often getting caught out happens.
    2
  3094. Táiwān, Norway, and New Zealand got through it superbly. Many African countries also handled it quite well compared to the resources they had on hand.
    2
  3095. Historically it brings more fault lines of conflict. The last time the world was substantially multipolar were the years leading into WW2.
    2
  3096. That’s why Macron called for less dependence on the US, as insulation against shortsighted strategic mistakes like Trump.
    2
  3097. Also more productive to learn Traditional script, since that's the character set that the largely pre-Communist diaspora read and write with. I find it easier to figure out Simplified later when I'm already familiar with the Traditional characters they simplified; the other way is noticeably more difficult.
    2
  3098. Actions speak louder than words, and the Party fears someone who understands what they’re saying only in Mandarin without having 'morality with Chinese characteristics' distort his observations of their acts.
    2
  3099. Unfortunately an Infinite Demand Mod isn't a part of reality.
    2
  3100. The strategy assumes the surrounding land will become wanted in the future, which doesn't always happen. Meanwhile the operation and maintenance costs have to be paid.
    2
  3101. Yes. Operation and maintenance costs adds up.
    2
  3102. Australia doesn't want to stay economically dependent on China to the point that relationship considerations also steers its politics. China has been doing the same against the West, especially with trying to develop the "dual circulation" to reduce reliance on foreign customers for continued economic growth that tolerance for the Party relies on.
    2
  3103. Just because China seems to be rocketing up doesn't mean it's not going to peak and stall -- this is in a country where tolerance for the Party rides on continuous upward movement, and their growth is already slowing down.
    2
  3104. Not so much guns as replacing their bicycles with mopeds
    2
  3105. Sample size was probably stacked with “elite” (i.e. ethnic Chinese) Indonesians too.
    2
  3106. Neutrality requires the national investment in a military to strong enough to back that stance. Without that credible threat, you’re merely a target.
    2
  3107. SE Asian animosity towards Western states is a fairly new and variable phenomenon compared to the simmering suspicions towards Chinese people over those millennia.
    2
  3108. That's why Universal Basic Income regularly gets touted as a solution, especially now that AI is growing to replace rather than augment human labor. It's not a new idea either, the original Luddites pitched an early version of this as power looms in centralized factories began unemploying skilled weavers who previously enjoyed WFH levels of scheduling power.
    2
  3109. Mainland China has been sheltered throughout the pandemic, the government refuses to authorize more effective imported vaccines, and local vaccination rates are not that high especially among the elderly (they prioritized younger workers). So what we're seeing is what Omicron COVID would do to an essentially unimmunized population.
    2
  3110. We'd congratulate them for making it, while also updating our intelligence on their patterns and signatures for when we want to find them again 📡
    2
  3111. Yeah, rage
    2
  3112. Because China attacking it constitutes an act of war, being a fully active (even if immobile) Philippine Navy vessel. This would invite America to kinetically retaliate on behalf of the Philippines.
    2
  3113. They also need considerable initial and refresher training. A casual user more often becomes a liability by accidentally shooting someone they didn't intend, or getting mistakenly shot by responders because they weren't acting as expected of a friendly. In a close quarters environment like a school, it'd be more productive to learn how to fight with improvised weapons (which are plentiful depending on your level of imagination) and get familiar with all the potential escape routes.
    2
  3114. Trained falcons are regularly let loose in the Middle East to likewise scare off other birds, not just at airports but also luxury hotels and other venues 🦅
    2
  3115. America still has the experience of those times, reflected in the warship design and training regimen of the crew. These are crucial realizations that the Soviet architects and their PRC inheritors never really had. Plus America gets regular updates to its battle damage procedures with not-a-drill incidents like Israel attacking the USS Liberty, Iran bombing the USS Cole, the USS Forrestal fire, the occasional collision with submerged terrain, and SINKEX scuttlings through live weapons tests.
    2
  3116. Once the dog with the right temperament gets selected, likely the same way paratroopers are trained: from platforms, to cable rigs, to the drop tower, to a plane.
    2
  3117. That's why the forward logistics ship concept is getting looked at, since these can perform reloads in any area of calm enough water instead of fixed ports at well known locations. Resupply while underway and under threat was never feasible in the history of naval warfare, ships always had to retire out of the enemy's weapons range to get restocked.
    2
  3118. Air Force Base horse 🐴🪽
    2
  3119. It's certainly the most strategic, there's a reason a US supercarrier gets dubbed "90000 tons of diplomacy"
    2
  3120. Without air supremacy and tons of deck armor though those boats are just targets. The US recently did a moving target upgrade to bolt-on guidance package to the existing stockpile of hundreds of thousands of cheap but very effective GP gravity bombs -- the whole fleet could be sunk a dozen times over and there'd still be plenty of ordnance left.
    2
  3121. ​ @sheezy2526 It already is connected, digging in piped sewage is the one megaproject that Dubai kept up with. Nearly the whole emirate is on the network now, and poop trucks are a very rare sight.
    2
  3122. That's more a generic term for the entire region from Syria to Somalia
    2
  3123. Right, America's conservatives are so damn hypersensitive that they conflate discomfort with a mortal threat.
    1
  3124. Problem is that importing Western mRNA vaccines would be political "surrender" and therefore not an option. Plus the anti-COVID measures lets the Party practice how to control the population in a time of war and collapsed trade... like the invasion of Taiwan that they keep promising.
    1
  3125. I forget exactly who, but apparently there's one guy who can't spend his windfall fast enough because his chemical company provides most of the country's reagents for PCR tests. And the money only floods in faster now that the testing has gone en masse and basically daily in a growing number of cities.
    1
  3126. Automation is a mitigation, not a cure. Ultimately if automation develops to the point that young adults are no longer needed, it’s developed to the point that humans in general are no longer valuable.
    1
  3127. Natural monopolies like vital utilities requires government regulation and control, because they're not going to keep its prices reasonable by themselves.
    1
  3128. Thing is do you already have the money to pay cash on those procurements? During a downturn, banks will be less willing to lend to developers too just like they would prospective homebuyers.
    1
  3129.  @HowMoneyWorks Right, higher taxes are only fair when your peers and everyone wealthier than you are comparatively paying at least as much of the increase. Without this actual sharing of the cost burden, it just becomes a forfeiture of power and influence.
    1
  3130. Its elitist proponents be like "the check is in the mail", even though direct deposits have been the norm since Reagan died.
    1
  3131. Because only 4 years were granted. Had another leftist-led recovery been allowed to eventually bear fruit, the next GOP administration would have a more robust internet-connected economy to overheat and crash like Trump had inherited from 8 years of Obama, and Bush from 8 years of Clinton.
    1
  3132. The sociological term is "lateral violence", usually in the form of the left-vs-right culture war. It's used to distract us from the true source of disservice in top-vs-bottom "class conflict".
    1
  3133. America's elites want to keep us doing left-vs-right "lateral violence" to distract us from the true source of disservice in top-vs-bottom "class conflict".
    1
  3134. ​ @jerrycan1756 Democrats are more likely to though, especially after the political shellacking they got proving playing their platform safe through lawyer-like tones doesn't gather votes, and would have to get more populist with their top-vs-bottom narrative to generate excitement. Democrats were always the party of the lowly American, whether it was aspiring Southern homesteaders heading westward with dreams of a slave-worked plantation, or later the descendants of those former slaves and other identities lumped in to the power minority. Republicans were always the party of big business, going all the way back to the banking, newspaper, seaport, and railroad barons of antebellum.
    1
  3135. Makes me glad that I work in tech, but not as an easily remoted/offshored/automated code monkey 🔌📻☎📡🔊🔧
    1
  3136. Americans are sufficiently gaslit into believing their failure to thrive is an individual problem.
    1
  3137. If you still want a paycheck from a place that values loyalty, you'd have to look to the public sector. Individual private enterprises failing rarely affects the greater economy, but a government organization that fails to keep its employees loyal will inevitably generate spies and insider threats, who would be especially dangerous because the work they have access to affects entire communities.
    1
  3138. Good to know Patrick Boyle whom I already follow is the example of "good financial influencer" 💰😀
    1
  3139. He's telling us that it doesn't work the way it's set up now. He even says it's a bad idea to follow social media"influencers" on their picks for specific things to invest in.
    1
  3140. I got my degree in sociology and now make six figures in cybersecurity; turns out humans are the weakest link in an information network, and it's really valuable how to influence users towards best practices.
    1
  3141. Not where housing is desired though. Sure you can scoop up an abandoned Rust Belt shack, or even live in Hawaii but only on a volcanic homestead. There's a reason housing prices are insane in the places they are.
    1
  3142. And governments wonder why their native population is shrinking, forcing them to explore other policies about more open immigration, hoping on technology, and tampering expectations on the standards of living.
    1
  3143. ​ @Nswix It could be the design of the community, i.e. too dense with those who need it while lacking cheap reliable transportation like a walkable public transit hub. I know a few people who used to be in Section 8 housing and are now homeowners; you wouldn't know the old house was publicly-assisted unless you were told.
    1
  3144. Boomers in general vote against densification and public transit improvements because it would change the "character" of the community. Even now they sell their prime real estate to higher-bidding corporations to pay for selfish consumption like dead-end eldercare and retiree-only communes.
    1
  3145. 11:15 Making government in general suck and then convincing Americans to vote for smaller government (whose diminished capabilities conveniently favors the already-rich) sounds like the Republican Party’s grand strategy.
    1
  3146. Millennials and under can't find homes because when the retirees sell off to fund their terminal care, we're constantly outbid by corporations.
    1
  3147. It needs to be though. WFH cottage industries was the pre-factory norm, and factories are only getting more automated. There's no technical barrier to WFH on routine office tasks, just organizational ones.
    1
  3148. Yes, a corporate-run economy that values individuals they can move at their convenience, and hates dependents who demand time and effort the worker could otherwise be producing for the company, isn't going to be sustainable without constant outside input (i.e. immigrants).
    1
  3149. Right, the elite rich don't "earn" that much compared to already owning it, living off the interest and cycling through personal loans borrowed against their privileged corporate shares.
    1
  3150. ​ @evanbarnes9984 Right, can't make lemonade if you don't get the sugar too. Otherwise you just end up with lemon juice 🍋😗
    1
  3151. It's still a useful data point to compare with for a subsequent scaled-up study.
    1
  3152. Maybe should have went into nursing instead: chronically understaffed, surrounded by female classmates, and always appreciated for helping haul the limp bodies of knocked-out patients.
    1
  3153. Hence why so many men across America voted MAGA. They crave that sense of worth from project-based occupations that were offshored and automated away, which service grinds and wokeness have failed to substitute for.
    1
  3154. ​ @CharlieKellyEsq Fat doesn't mean well nourished. If anything obesity is more a consequence of the chemicals that corporations keep adding into the production chain. This ends up as empty calories that don't make us any more energetic and productive, and ultimately drives up healthcare bills far faster than our paychecks.
    1
  3155. The automation capability was long there. Elevator operators by that point mostly functioned as a comfort for passengers who at first were spooked by fully automated movements of anything.
    1
  3156. Manufacturing offers good pay without such a high knowledge barrier to entry. Unfortunately that means making stuff is also the most cost-sensitive and most easily-substituted step of the production process, compared to IP-inventing R&D in the beginning and brand-building Sales & Services at the end. These higher value-added stages explains why developed economies can stay rich despite offshoring its factories... any why the ones that have yet to move up and out ultimately get stuck in the middle-income trap.
    1
  3157. Until everyone else gets that idea too and you’re getting so much competition that you end up deciding between acquisition or closing shop, starting down the path of the corporations we all love to hate.
    1
  3158. Apparently the hardship from that rain and mud made it one of the most communal and fun in recent memory.
    1
  3159.  @BasedRoots The quickness that we’re dialing up the temperature though we’re trending to reach a higher peak that life on Earth hasn’t experienced since before the dinosaurs.
    1
  3160. There's a lot more parity of capabilities on land, many more opportunities even for the untrained to kill or disable the foe because no equipment is needed to move around. In the air and especially at sea, the technically and technologically superior force practically always wins.
    1
  3161. FBI hires convicted hackers to help with computer investigations and cybersecurity tasks.
    1
  3162. Next video depicts the Japanese War where the Communist North invades the South, while questions linger about the disposition of Shikoku Island with the ROC retreat to Taiwan.
    1
  3163. Right, blockades are considered an act of war. It's the maritime analogue of laying siege.
    1
  3164. Taiwan shouldn't, because then they'd fail to be self-reliant enough to defend itself from a foreign invader of any sort. Plus the KMT was an equally autocratic ideologue to their CPC opponent, Taiwan democratized only like 30 years ago.
    1
  3165. The PVA advantage only lasted a few months until the UN forces recalibrated their combined arms tactics to allow effective concentrated firepower to balance the local manpower deficit. Even today the Chinese would rather gloss over their performance at 지평리/砥平里 and what it meant for their whole involvement in Korea (their original mission was to wholesale destroy the UN forces, not just aid the North).
    1
  3166. Complete with the large and diverse but decadent and corrupt Earth Nation defending itself from the invading martial and modernized Fire Nation
    1
  3167. A China theater game would be very politically sensitive... not only would you be fighting the Japanese, you'd also be fighting the CPC, fighting Chinese warlord remnants, dealing with a cartoonishly corrupt KMT Chinese government, half the missions are retreats and delaying actions, and the West would be indisputably protagonist when the Flying Tigers finally show up and The Hump flights begin.
    1
  3168. Jungle cover and tunnels still largely defeat the infrared sensors that drones rely on
    1
  3169. Unfortunately America couldn't strongarm France like it could the Netherlands with Indonesia 🇳🇱💸→🇮🇩 Hence partially why the greater mess of a more fractured Indochina that had two competing states of Viet Nam
    1
  3170.  @pavilionman64  Said as if the CIA was the only one being shady. News flash: the entire world of espionage is like that, and has been since antiquity. If you want to talk about shady you should ask the Russians, whose intelligence community is estimated to be even 3x larger out a of population less than half of America's 🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♀️
    1
  3171. Wow that's the most butchered pronunciation I've heard... Bandung is pronounced bahn-DOONG 🇮🇩
    1
  3172. Another reason the war dragged on was because Mao wanted it to continue. The PRC only agreed to the ceasefire after Stalin died and the subsequent Soviet administration stopped providing materiel aid to the PLA.
    1
  3173. Right, the atomic bombs were a convenient excuse to capitulate wholesale to the Americans compared to the true annihilation that the Communists offered. Seeing what happened to the un-nuked China and Korea afterwards, the Japanese predicted it correctly.
    1
  3174. It echoes Japan before and after WWII: on par with European powers only to get its forces divided and defeated. Both were colonizers exerting near full political control over its holdings with all the expenses that incurs, and ultimately both overextended.
    1
  3175. The way North Korea's economy has been, the KPA are likely a glass cannon who will find out the hard way they can't eat expended brass and empty rocket racks.
    1
  3176. Although similar can be said for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India when they were still part of the British Empire
    1
  3177. Do we also "Blame Canada" for the Iran-Iraq War? 🇮🇷🦫🇮🇶
    1
  3178. Although the West is posturing for the simmering final conflict over Táiwān to be deliberately not quick, instead full of insurgency and unfulfilled political objectives for the occupier (i.e. the CPC). America would know best, having spent decades at the wrong end of rockets and IEDs.
    1
  3179. Ironically the 80s were a time where the US tactically sat out the main battles, its only direct operations being raids overthrowing the unpopular dictators in Grenada and Panama.
    1
  3180. I kinda want to hear more about the way the Germans kept their deployment preparations so well hidden leading up to the offensive
    1
  3181. Africans are genetically more diverse than the rest of the world combined 🧬 In that aspect, this was a "world war" 🌍💥
    1
  3182. That's because the credibility of those achievements is always questionable. Communist China isn't transparent enough to trust especially as they specifically frustrate and forbid independent verification.
    1
  3183. It's not a single 150t chunk of heat-hardened metal alloys.
    1
  3184. At least American pilots aren't driven to suicide while flying.
    1
  3185. ​ @tomlxyz Also the increased demand for space in homes as people demand extra rooms (ideally with more costly soundproofing) as work studios.
    1
  3186. "Can" is the key word. I also work in an office, but my job involves making sure everyone else is able to WFH. There's not really any remote capabilities that can resolve a random physical problem like a power supply or server's hard drive gone bad.
    1
  3187. My job: "keep emails flowing" 🧑‍💻 Not a whole lot of WFH capabilities for anyone when a work server's storage drive, power supply, or VPN link randomly goes belly-up.
    1
  3188. Only for those who saw a need for a room nobody sleeps in and could afford it. Historically people didn't have so many places to hide away from the rest of the household.
    1
  3189. "My job involves security"?
    1
  3190. ​ @Aldroid151 But it salvages your mental health, especially when you're younger and are still developing your personal and professional life. WFH is best when you're no longer trying to move up in responsibilities and opportunities, including the less-awkward random chance of finding people to befriend if not share your life with during detours in your commute.
    1
  3191. It's the dilemma of IT systems administrators who are often targeted for cuts and contracting out because they're visibly seen as "doing nothing". That "nothing" is usually being the help desk during the day (so a lot of waiting), and doing vital maintenance and upgrades during lulls and after-hours (asking for overtime and/or more staffing to stagger the hours). Ironically they're the ones goalkeeping the organization's most critical information, and enabling everyone else to WFH. There's not a lot of remote capability to physically replace a server's busted power supply or storage array drive.
    1
  3192. "Lazy union government workers" protect especially direct access to extremely sensitive data and materials. Entire communities can experience immediate lifelong damage if those processing it were instead compelled through low pay or professional policies to monetize it like in the self-serving private sector.
    1
  3193. You'd need a gym everyone likes going to. The only exercise I personally enjoy enough indoors are rock climbing and martial arts, everything else I have to be under the open sky.
    1
  3194. Face-time is crucial when you're not simply maintaining your current level of social and professional skills. There's a reason among that the first to drop fully remote arrangements was schools for children.
    1
  3195. The Spiderverse style has been artistically influential, but Avatar is just Dances With Wolves in space.
    1
  3196.  @tomlxyz More like places with high religiosity and childhood mortality, particularly Africa and South Asia. Lack of state elder welfare doesn’t explain China and Korea where birth rates are cratering the fastest.
    1
  3197. Yet at the same time it seems we have a lot more retirees than expected living well into their 80s and 90s, drawing SS checks the whole time. Hence why the recent considerations to raise the retirement age.
    1
  3198. That's how bad it was before the ACA for the rest of America who couldn't afford or were denied coverage.
    1
  3199. ⁠… because Chinese state support allows Chinese companies to charge the lowest prices for the same quality and yield. The point of the tariffs is to make it so that China does not become unilaterally able to clear its own debts as an unfree sole source.
    1
  3200.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  More like the CPC has caused far worse times, and silenced those who dare to express their experiences that counters the Party’s narrative of being overall “great, glorious, and correct”. Past major dynasties and the Republic on the Mainland have quite a few things in common: they all committed similar mass atrocities on the Chinese people, and they all transitioned through mass violence with not insignificant domestic support.
    1
  3201. Gold and other limited-quantity media has the problem of being spent or hoarded at exactly the wrong stage of the business cycle. Going fiat basically eliminated the deep busts that led to bread lines and empire-ending revolts. That economic and social stability is what we gain at the price of our past individual labors gradually expiring over time.
    1
  3202. The libertarian narrative of personal freedom with state-enforced security is a utopia. A low-tax weak-state regime merely allows elites to further entrench themselves, which for the rest of society leads to violence as the vehicle of social mobility and community gangs as the protection. Hence why all the "fees"/"tolls"/"tips"/bribes endemic to low-tax weak-state Subsaharan Africa, and the dramatic devolution to this in Haiti.
    1
  3203. Putting a estimated date makes it inaccurate and reduces the trustworthiness of the report. What's important is the trends that indicate mortal challenges to a China that keeps trying to enforce a stale artificial "harmony" in an environment that's really more complex and chaotic. Remember the USSR was considered extremely strong even as its developments stalled in the 1970s, and Berliners widely thought the Wall would never come down into the year that it did.
    1
  3204. Even the "1.4 billion" figure is propaganda. Independent estimates put China's population at like 1.0 billion, average late middle-aged and shrinking... and that's the optimistic end.
    1
  3205. Average of 78 before or after China's failed Zero-COVID program?
    1
  3206. Largest by value in production, wealth, and influence. China is a manufacturing superpower, but manufacturing is the least value-added, most price-sensitive, most easily substituted stage of the production chain compared to the R&D in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end. That's why XJP is so desperate to develop "new productive forces" as China gets stuck in the middle income trap, which is only getting deeper with global demand for direct-from-China collapsing.
    1
  3207. It is what the CPC wants us to believe about their China.
    1
  3208. ​Right, Běijīng might think all this is a US-led conspiracy, when it's really just themselves successfully grabbing eyeballs... which overall is increasingly not seeing in their favor.
    1
  3209. The Golden Age of Islam ended ironically when Islamic dogma began to dominate Fertile Crescent commerce and politics.
    1
  3210. "Submission" is in the name though, which justifies submission to men who claim to have a closer connection to God/Allah yet unfortunately are still human. It's not uniquely Islamic, but characteristic of religious societies in any form.
    1
  3211. It'd be bad for all wealth transfers, that's why at least in America it'd only start to apply at estates worth more than most small businesses.
    1
  3212. It would heal with every funeral and new birth, if certain local powers didn't intentionally reopen those old wounds to indoctrinate those old thoughts.
    1
  3213. Right, why are so many Americans buying premium airline seats to get to famous vacation spots when they supposedly can't afford groceries nowadays?
    1
  3214. At least there's fat to trim. Just like fat, the "excess" labor is a buffer that promotes operations continuity. Remember that efficiency and resilience are competing interests.
    1
  3215. It's not the best, but the "vibe" part is accurate because we overly focus on the prices and not the concurrent surge of wages and the relative ease of switching jobs.
    1
  3216. It wasn't separatism, but their institutional weakness and selfish attitudes that's dragging themselves down and making separatism apparently attractive.
    1
  3217. Price deflation creates a similar dilemma of tanking demand tanking employment. It's a death spiral with no harmless way out.
    1
  3218. Only to have a more stable foreign currency to ultimately convert into USD, much like Argentina is already doing with their direct CNY trades.
    1
  3219. Only Beijing-Shanghai and a couple other corridors are truly profitable. There's probably 10x more track that's net loss even after accounting for the local fapiao generated, because passengers and mail don't pay as much as bulk cargo. However most HSR viaducts aren't built as freight-capable quad track that really would've expanded China's internal transportation capabilities beyond the classic river routes.
    1
  3220. More like climate change, where the predicted ultimate fate still trends towards true, it's only the timeline that's been too pessimistic earlier on.
    1
  3221. A politically and economically centralized nation full of inefficient state-run industries and useless jobs to pad employment numbers, blaming the deliberate acts of some outsider group for its failure to relive a past ethnocentric glory, and openly scheming for total resource independence to support an upcoming forced assimilation of its neighbors? Sounds like the “New China” of the CPC 🫵🏼 ☭
    1
  3222. ​5% _target_, not actual achievement (at least not without additional debt and creative accounting). True growth is likely near if not under zero.
    1
  3223. ​ @stunstar4553 I wouldn't consider Tiānjīn and Chóngqìng -- which are large enough cities to be their own province -- as said "poor" examples.
    1
  3224. Demand for which is also slowing down, as China pressures for payback on current loans for what keeps turning out to be disappointing quality and revenue on their projects.
    1
  3225.  @1krani That’s what the US is already. A lot of implementation inefficiencies and ineffectiveness comes from having states reinterpret and reprioritize national policies, which they can easily do being themselves sovereign over their own jurisdictions.
    1
  3226. Not nearly as much as America's adversaries becoming belligerent as its self-righteous autocratic leaders seek ways to maintain their political legitimacy in the face of civic deterioration under their rule. America's "aggression" is reacting to deter them from doing something more rash, like another case of trying to "cleanse Ukraine of fascists".
    1
  3227. Not sure who the writer was, but they forgot they already published a Battle of Manila video not even a year ago
    1
  3228. Bad pronunciation of proper names is annoying to hear as well. Sadly this is an ongoing issue and makes them sound like they don't do proper research or listen to themselves.
    1
  3229. The young productive Russians are fleeing though, putting the Federation's future in doubt. If all that's left of Russia are meatheads and old farts, it won't have any alternative to submitting its economy and influence to China.
    1
  3230. Owned doesn't mean livable, after acceptance there's still the interior work to do which often costs just as much. All in a structure and compound that's clearly deteriorating as soon as the sales office vacates. At those rates it's probably more cost effective to just live in a car or a tent.
    1
  3231. That doesn't mean we can relax outside those windows. If anything the PLA might start the invasion in the couple months of storm before the calm.
    1
  3232. We've tried ground-launched Sidewinders before, it was called the MIM-72 Chaparral.
    1
  3233. Libertarians promote shrinking government as a utopia. They don’t tell you how easily the process spirals downward into a gang-run anarchic hellscape.
    1
  3234. Hence why America stopped intervening over primarily humanitarian reasons.
    1
  3235. Losing the interest of the US is exactly what they fear most, they know the prosperous peace they enjoy is ultimately due to American presence much like the British before dropping out of East of Suez. The rest of the world knows this to some degree as well, having their own versions of blood feuds to fight especially as climate change alters the distribution of water. This is why "multipolarity" is a deceptive ideal, because it just means multiple fault lines of conflict.
    1
  3236. As long as nuclear warheads are controlled by self-righteous unchallengable autocrats, yeah it looks that way.
    1
  3237. Hypersonics we haven’t yet admitted to field, in line with our habit of actually waiting for it to be practically ready for production before publication. We just finished a successful test of an ARRW off of Guam, which hints at how confident we are at striking targets in the Western Pacific. And unlike Russia’s nuclear-based deterrence or China’s “carrier killer” concepts, American hypersonics when they do get deployed are meant to be fired off regularly.
    1
  3238. The US Navy has been inviting itself into battle ever since it was invented to bring the fight to the Barbary Pirates across the Atlantic. Its ships may not be firing in anger every year since, but it always had sailors who have.
    1
  3239. Israel is trying to beat Gaza into surrender, much like the British did to the Afrikaners in the Boer Wars. China is deliberately trying to erase the Uyghurs as an identity.
    1
  3240. Muslim states are largely autocracies who desire what the PRC achieved: political and economic impunity off the backs of a numerous disposable low-born populace.
    1
  3241. Factories that need to be upgraded with robotics and ICs that are largely made overseas, because if Russian self-reliance in their invasion of Ukraine is an indication, not having technological superiority means a lot more blood and caskets for the same gains instead.
    1
  3242.  @Shoelessjoe78 Southern Syria where Israel and Palestine are now was historically a place for Arab kingdoms to dump their exiles. Even today the refugees and their descendants in the surrounding states are often seen as threateningly anti-government troublemakers.
    1
  3243. So cull the seniors and encourage teenage motherhood? That surge of youth is what supercharges an economy. Although it didn’t work out so well for aggressively pro-natal Nazi Germany, nor does it seem to serve Subsaharan Africa these days very much.
    1
  3244. Sadly Republicans lack courage to stand up to the whims of Trump. But it's all the result of themselves cultivating a fortress mentality that's subject to their Fear of the Year.
    1
  3245. Before Omicron, The Economist estimated China's true death toll at closer to 2 million. Censorship and fast cremations make it impossible to get exact figures, but corroborating evidence and the Party's known habit of grossly underreporting embarrassing numbers make millions of Chinese already dead the more likely scenario.
    1
  3246. That's why I call them "traditionalists", because they're trying to reinstitute a traditional hierarchy with themselves and their toxic intolerant ideals on top.
    1
  3247. The infographic may be largely false as a description of Project 2025, but the points are real threats. P2025 at its core advocates for executive impunity, enabling a right-wing President to institute those listed ideas.
    1
  3248. The Korean War happened not even a decade after the US entered WW2. American forces were using a lot of WW2-era equipment back then too.
    1
  3249. ngl That merch pitch at the end got me chuckling, since as a fairly informed Millennial veteran I understood all those Presidential references 🗳 Don't need any more shirts though, but would consider bottle-opening fridge magnets 🧲
    1
  3250. For those curious, "Da'esh" (داعش) is the acronym used in the Arabic-speaking mainstream to delegitimize the group from Islam as a whole, and is pronounced like "dah-esh" (or "dah-EESH" to make it sound more toxic). It's notable because acronyms in general rare in Arabic, and is similar in sound to terms that translate to "one who stomps on" and "one who sows discord".
    1
  3251. The US ratified its 26th Amendment to the Constitution which standardized 18 as the legal voting age (it was often 21 before) because of all the uproar by young adults being drafted to fight in Vietnam before they were able to vote.
    1
  3252. Zero-COVID later, we need more coverage of China as they get more belligerent as a declining power just like they accuse the West of doing. It's incredibly critical.
    1
  3253.  @albacan  Statistically China must have more than a few thousand deaths. It would explain things like the steep collapse of cell subscriptions, crematoriums running 24/7 for weeks straight, etc. Authoritarian behavior of grossly underreporting bad news -- like how Chinese statistics report deaths as "pneumonia" as opposed to the underlying flu or COVID -- only indicate that China isn't performing nearly as "superior compared to the West" as they keep wanting us to believe.
    1
  3254. The Muslim world itself sold out. This is probably a long game the West is playing; when the money stops flowing, there's already a narrative of an even worse enemy to their faith than the Americans.
    1
  3255. The only reason we really care is because Anne wrote in a diary that survived and became iconic. I'd wager there are thousands of similar cases of "it was either my family or yours" that quietly occurred.
    1
  3256. America and other democracies are hypersensitive to public outcry, it doesn't take much disruption to get the President to make public statements about it. China and other autocracies are the opposite, they prioritize gagging any media showing opposition to their policies. Problem is Shànghǎi is full of foreigners and more independently-minded Chinese who will publish anyway.
    1
  3257. That the CPC needs this "struggle" against COVID to maintain respect among the Chinese people, especially as their economy begins its unrecoverable stall of aging, debt, and pollution and the people can no longer be distracted by promises of prosperity under the Party.
    1
  3258. If you're effectively vaccinated and/or have been exposed to a few rounds of variants, neither of which China has.
    1
  3259. Effective treatments exist, but the Party is too proud to have the West come and rescue their public health situation. The variants are now around the regular flu in terms of deadliness, but the Party needs this "struggle" against the disease to maintain its legitimacy especially as China's overall economy has started to stall. As the Chinese people have begun realizing, their government's stubbornness to the "Dynamic Zero-COVID" strategy is more about politics and control than it is science and public health.
    1
  3260. The Party doesn't want it. To them asking for Western aid might as well be unconditional surrender.
    1
  3261. Ironically many of the PVA were KMT soldiers captured in the closing stages of the Communist takeover and voluntold to deploy to Korea as basically cannon fodder, since the CPC was suspicious of their true loyalties. This could explain why such a large share of Chinese POWs refused to repatriate back to the PRC, even though KMT rule at the time was widely seen as just as blatantly corrupt, inept, and abusive.
    1
  3262. A big thing that wasn't mentioned was how well organized the retreat was -- none of the major equipment or supplies that survived combat to reach Heungnam was left for the Chinese to capture, instead it was shipped out for use in the next year's counteroffensive or destroyed at the docks in the final demolition (which also disabled the port for the rest of the war). In fact after recovering practically all the troops, tanks, and trucks, the UN forces still had enough capacity to rescue almost 100,000 Korean civilians as well, whose descendants today comprise a not-insignificant share of South Korea's population. Meanwhile the successful evacuation mangled Mao's original mission to annihilate his anti-communist adversaries, and the PRC quietly shifted to a strategy of wearing down Western resolve by attrition through deliberately sabotaged ceasefire negotiations over the coming years.
    1
  3263. Private companies have been neglecting OJT programs for the longest time, which coupled with all the COVID early retirements of career mentors as well as degraded recruiting in government and military (where some sort of OJT is still generally part of the inprocessing) means an ever-shrinking pool of entry-level candidates who know how to adult.
    1
  3264.  @greentea8852  Escorted by government minders on a prearranged agenda, or could they wander about freely and converse with random residents?
    1
  3265. Australia: the inverse of Canada that's hotter, drier, and actively hostile ☠️ Even the seasons themselves are flipped around 🎅🌴
    1
  3266.  @jamesbuchanan3562  Indonesia still had alarming numbers of people dying despite full inoculation with Sinovac and CoronaVac. All my Indo friends got AZ or Pfizer boosters as soon as they were available.
    1
  3267. To _profit_, if money is your primary concern. Religions that survive multiple generations aren’t exactly printing money either for the amount of followers and influence they have, except where they enjoy favorable tax exemptions.
    1
  3268. Right, China's rise wouldn't be nearly as alarming had it gone more the way of the Republic now on Taiwan. Instead Beijing opts to "Make China Great Again" through the same old imperial arrangements with yet another unchallengeable autocratic dynasty at its core.
    1
  3269. Guns. In both places not everyone is packing, but it's also not terribly difficult to find someone who owns a few pieces and proudly knows how to use them too.
    1
  3270. The PRC would know, even its own people realized continued Zero-COVID measures was more political than medical.
    1
  3271. The economy of scale is what allows Walmart and other big chains to offer all that variety delivered to your door. A local shopkeeper would have trouble leaving the store even if their fleet was as cheap as a teenager on a moped.
    1
  3272. Republican voters believe they're "_temporarily_ embarrassed millionaires". They openly want the same personal benefits and social impunity if provided the power.
    1
  3273. I'm trying to convince my landlord to switch out my heat-pump Bosch combo for something more reliable. All the symbols I have to translate and fixed dial presets I have to override leading to unexplained error shutdowns is really irritating.
    1
  3274. Right, if you take military spending out of both, how much is that GDP then?
    1
  3275. ... in jail.
    1
  3276. The CPC ☭ A diverging Taiwan gives the Party the justification to further reinforce societal controls and get everyone to ignore the insane amounts of debt they're racking up, while Taiwan and the West squabble over how much of the reality about the Republic of "China" they're willing to recognize.
    1
  3277.  @troywalt4834  Satellites are naturally weak and laggy signals, and can be easily jammed or hacked. Iran stole an American drone mid-flight just by remotely commandeering the controls. A drone that has a line of sight pencil beam to a manned asset and is hard-coded to prioritize commands from there would be much harder to infiltrate.
    1
  3278. You can tell it's there, but the return is so small that it's hard to distinguish it from the background noise, and even harder to keep a lock on it especially with the puny radars on the missiles themselves.
    1
  3279. If they can afford to develop it. The project partnered with Indonesia and even then they're finding it a bit too expensive with still no firm timeline on initial delivery.
    1
  3280. Airlines have a very high barrier to entry, and aren't that profitable for the costs of operation. Competition won't be as strong especially if governments abandon them, which means higher logistics costs and reduced mobility going foward.
    1
  3281. 🥇
    1
  3282. During a conflict, it's generally better to be open to the initial waves of refugees, since these tend to be women, children, and professionals with valuable skills. As the conflict drags on though, you start seeing hardier but less skilled people who will also be much more persistent in trying to cross in while the rest of their family waits at home or in a refugee camp for their sponsorship to immigrate, for increasingly economic reasons rather than political violence and vulnerabilities.
    1
  3283. Right, it would take time for a new Russian expat to earn the trust that they don't secretly serve the old country, whether by intention or exploitation of any ongoing personal vulnerabilities they couldn't shake off in the escape. This limits their opportunities largely to routine maintenance, open source development, etc where they don't have the powers to hide their activities until they develop that trust over time.
    1
  3284. Yet Visa can handle tens of thousands of transactions per minute globally, whereas Bitcoin has to compromise the inherent security of the blockchain with Lightning side channels just trying to keep up. And that's considering most people with a cell phone haven't even generated their own crypto key pair yet, while happily moving money through transfers of airtime credit and other financial apps which structurally operate more similarly to traditional banking and card networks.
    1
  3285. Lightning is basically an off-block side channel where microtransactions can be done before publishing it into the main blockchain. It trades the blockchain's inherent security for convenience, and there are scenarios where this can be used to compromise Bitcoin transactions (e.g. mass closing of channels and flooding the block, creating errors in legitimate transactions in the race to verify them all).
    1
  3286. The US specifically prevented Taiwan from achieving nuclear capability because of the threat of a cross-Straits conflict blowing up into WW3. Taiwan remains however a breakout power, able to build a warhead probably within a year if it wanted.
    1
  3287. If you look at China-flagged movements globally, they want to take as much resources around the world as they can get their hands on. The real infrastructure they build focuses on getting those resources to the open sea where they ship it over, not so much is done with education and interconnecting the host nation like an actually benevolent aid package. It's all but copying what the Europeans did with their colonies a century ago.
    1
  3288. In a cross-Straits war there's really no land for casual combatants to booby trap, and no reporters around amplifying the message of the resistance -- in the air and on the sea would be nearly pure combat of technology and experience. If anything invading Taiwan will be the Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan for the PRC.
    1
  3289. Indo and M'sia only protest because they don't want to prematurely get cut off from the lucrative trade with China. Given their history with both Chinese and Communists though, I'd wager if they must decide it's going to be with the West.
    1
  3290. Rumor is Australia is getting British Astute boats anyway, since the UK is about to complete its original order (and thus have engineers about to go idle) while the US is still maxed out at the shipyards trying to build for itself. This would explain why the UK is part of this alliance for a theater on the other side of the world.
    1
  3291. The C919 is smaller, shorter-ranged, and less fuel efficient, making it a tough sell for airlines that plan to fly it over the next 20~30 years. That's on top of being like 60% imported American parts. COMAC has a long way to go to hope to be the next Embrear let alone an Airbus or Boeing, especially with China's economy itself stalling from aging, debt, pollution, and global divestment.
    1
  3292. Sadly the way the A380 was designed it won't have much of a second life as an airfreighter either: the top deck can't be removed to make space for lucrative oversize cargo, the cockpit is in the way of a nose door, and it doesn't have the thrust/weight ratio needed to take advantage of all that space before reaching MTOW. Being designed for passengers first it's impractical to retrofit, much like trying to turn apartments into a warehouse or a cruise liner into a container carrier. Part of the genius behind the 747 was that it's actually a cargo plane with seats bolted on, as the engineers had doubts for its success carrying only passengers. I can see the A380 possibly becoming a hybrid where the middle deck can get loaded with ULDs, with passengers only on the top deck. It will be a rare conversion though, as pretty much every other airframe will end up in a boneyard to part out to the few airlines and routes that have economical usage for the superjumbo.
    1
  3293. Right, a common currency really needs a common budget to work properly. I doubt Brasilia would prefer to have its public spending driven by Beijing.
    1
  3294. Taiwan has been a threshold nuclear power for decades now, they could probably get a warhead together in a year. In fact America has had to stop the ROC from proceeding further to not antagonize the Communist Bloc. Granted this was before Tiananmen when the Mainland seemed to be heading the Western way, much like how Taiwan was likewise about to end the KMT dictatorship and democratize.
    1
  3295. Let's hope if the war obliterates anything Ukrainian, it's their infamous corruption that had kept the country weak.
    1
  3296. That's because the government isn't putting downward pressure on the debt amounts it's forgiving, it's just paying out whatever the college bureaucracies say they're worth.
    1
  3297. The USSR prioritized its STEM grads, and look where they ended up. STEM folks are notorious for being horrible at leading other humans, not to mention they often dive into solving whether could it technically work without really asking what are the wider effects of trying. China today is heading down a similar path of developing technical prowess yet undermining their efforts with toxic mistrusting relationships and an increasingly brittle society facing self-made aging, household debt, and soil pollution. If anything humanities and social sciences will become more important over time as those products are harder to reverse-engineer, they're not as vulnerable to automation, and they help focus efforts on what truly matters to humans.
    1
  3298. Uncontrolled subsidies, not questioning and limiting payouts to what college administrators say they're worth.
    1
  3299. That's not necessarily a bad thing, going through the suck helps let the soldier narrow down what tasks are useful and what's BS (even if they say all of it is).
    1
  3300. That leadership probably won't come from a place that can't even openly discuss its own history. Limiting themselves to STEM fields won't help either, STEM grads tend to make for horrible managers of humans.
    1
  3301. Not necessarily, online can do dry instruction, but for application in the real world full of humans, there's no substitute for meatspace meetings. Education is more than just memorizing formulas, it's also learning how to get others to care about your work.
    1
  3302. Because America in general is so political. If you want to avoid ideological controversy in your higher education, China's universities have plenty of seats reserved for foreigners (even then most "foreigners" there are just Chinese anchor babies raised domestically).
    1
  3303. It's not, but post-Tiananmen "patriotic education" ensures that Chinese students avoid exploring narratives outside what the Party says, and to rat out fellow students who try. Colleges look the other way because they're a reliable source of money, and the "teaching" of politics is really less a deliberate agenda and more a reflection of American willingness to confront and converse about politics regardless.
    1
  3304. Although America's colleges were cheaper and at least as good when the state provided more funding. The problem is their priorities followed the Boomers, cutting education to save on what makes retirees happy voters.
    1
  3305. But that would be “socialist”, says those who look forward to their next “business-related” tax break and Social Security check.
    1
  3306. Violent crime anyway. Commercial crimes like fraud and hacks are surging.
    1
  3307. Reported crime.
    1
  3308. That's because the last times America demobilized it got sucker punched into WW1, WW2, and 9/11. Better to fight small fires (localized conflicts) far away than to let it grow into a raging wildfire (industrial interstate war, now with nukes) that burns down the neighborhood.
    1
  3309. Beijing calls even the mildest resistance against them as a casus belli. It's pretty obvious they're actively hunting for righteous indignation if you've seen their untranslated Chinese state news over the past two decades.
    1
  3310. That treaty though was proudly punitive to keep Germany from rising again through reparations debts regardless of changes in leadership and policy. The current sanctions are meant to degrade Putin's ability to cause that damage in the first place.
    1
  3311. Nuclear is also expensive and increasing in costs while also creating thousands of years of hazard on the tail end. Renewables by contrast are getting cheaper and more available. The main problem isn't sourcing, it's storage of the excess for when demand surges later like it does every evening.
    1
  3312. Russians still largely tolerated Putin, especially when considering their prosperity compared against the relative fiasco of post-Soviet Yeltsin's Russia. We've been warning about how his political adventurism is going to cross the rest of the world, who will ultimately push back; no other real democracy recognizes Russia's need to reimpose the USSR's political colonies in Eastern Europe. The same can be said with Putin's PRC umbilical cord and their dreams to reestablish China's old imperial arrangements over East and SE Asia.
    1
  3313. Paradox of Tolerance: to have a tolerant society, intolerance cannot be tolerated lest it take over like a psychological cancer.
    1
  3314. China and Russia already weaponize the internet through nearly shameless trolls and hacks, with China further destabilizing poor countries by feeding local corruption through their loan arrangements and not demanding better governance and transparency like Western aid does. The weakening of globalization comes more from the realization that a "Sunshine Policy" ultimately fails, as the prosperity emboldens autocrats while not effectively compelling them to interpret the rules the way everyone else does.
    1
  3315. China is certainly eyeing for an opportunity to take back the relatively resource-rich Siberian Far East that the Russians "stole" from them back in the 17th through 19th Centuries.
    1
  3316. I feel that Indonesia still has a simmering yet healthy suspicion of anything Communist and/or Chinese too.
    1
  3317. Combat eats through stockpiles surprisingly quick. Really the only weapons we have plenty of are a couple hundred-thousand dumb gravity bombs left over from carpet bombing Vietnam, and only because we're not producing bolt-on JDAM guided fin kits fast enough.
    1
  3318. Remember last time a bunch of traditionalist reactionaries tried to fight for their state and way of life? They lost ownership of all their slaves. A century later they lost legally sanctioned dominance over their descendants too. America's "Great Experiment" doesn't reward going back to a flawed past.
    1
  3319. It's also what's counted in "defense" spending. The US includes Veteran's Affairs expenses, while China isn't publishing how much it spends on militarized "internal security" even though it's likely at least as much as what's going to the PLA.
    1
  3320. ​ @michaelmayhem350  The PLA is trapped in its own country though, they'd only be overwhelming if we literally tried to invade China. For the air and sea battles we're all expecting though, there is no place for crafty ambushes and suicidal berzerking; the side with the superior technology and the combat experience to employ, supply, and repair it more effectively will determine the victor.
    1
  3321. So lobbying by Northrup-Grumman and Raytheon are the cause of Russia further invading Ukraine?
    1
  3322. The PLA has fairly new equipment, although they're also "Designed in China" and it's not like they have a great track record against adversaries who actually shoot back in the past like 50 years.
    1
  3323. The PRC government is very much right-wing: ethnocultural dominance, traditional values, paternalist governance, Make [this country] Great Again attitude... all the hallmarks of fascism. Remember that the term "Nazi" is itself a contraction of the German for "National Socialism", and the CPC promotes combining both nationalism and its idea of "socialism".
    1
  3324. Problem is popular media thrives on edgy dissent, and modern China discourages alternative thoughts and vaguely defines where the edge even is. Notice how cultural powerhouses deliberately dramatize their own issues, while forgettable ones are full of mere pretty faces and childish plots.
    1
  3325.  @GamingAccount-ru1gi  The PRC wouldn't want to risk it now, even with conventional weaponry. The CPC can't afford anything but a quick and decisive victory as they would inevitably lose trading partners to import food, oil, and other crucial resources from, and most families only have one child which would be societally devastating if a critical mass of them get lost in battle. Plus there's Taiwan's highly defensible geography -- there's a reason the US opted not to invade Japanese Formosa even at its height in WWII. And then afterward the PRC would have to reconcile its not so "peaceful rise" to the rest of the world, the negative ramifications of violently conquering Taiwan would be like Tienanmen x100.
    1
  3326. Taiwan has a formal partnership with the US, who could convince others to join in Taiwan's defense or at least economically-damaging disengagement with the PRC. It's also logistically trivial to get to with its open ocean, no surrounding countries to get transit agreements from.
    1
  3327. Although the US also won by coming in after the first punches were thrown. We don't do as well capitalizing on preempted operations.
    1
  3328. That might change though. The ROC long abandoned it's actual intention to reclaim the Mainland, and now the majority of its citizens reject even being called "Chinese". With the PRC's grand fumble on its "one country, two systems" policy, Taiwan is on the path to formally reconciling its de facto independence.
    1
  3329. Taiwan and Japan are threshold nations when it comes to nukes. If they wanted, they could likely assemble a warhead in a year. It just hasn't been worth the financial and diplomatic ramifications yet.
    1
  3330. Reinstitute SEATO?
    1
  3331. Just keep tapping the right side of the screen (on mobile apps) or drag the time slider
    1
  3332.  @lordcarl3374  HK was never physically defensible, whereas Taiwan has the world's biggest ocean (i.e. open sea and air access) as its backyard. Plus the PRC already had military and armed police presence in HK, whereas in Taiwan it's just an office building of bureaucrats.
    1
  3333. China is already committing what is basically transnational organized crime with its state-owned fishing hordes stealing fish worldwide. Although Taiwan's equivalent isn't too much better, just much smaller and less blatant.
    1
  3334. China has a "no first use" policy with its nukes, but it might end up using them on Taiwan under the excuse that the PRC considers Taiwan as part of China.
    1
  3335.  Golden Eagle  Old generals might capitulate, but pro-unification sentiments might not reach all the way down their chains of command. Remember that Western military doctrine values independent initiative in the absence of good command; if anything the lower ranks (which as a conscripted population includes practically everyone) would self-organize into their own militias, providing the PLA occupiers with one or two generations of armed resistance and disappearing enough of them to raise questions on the Mainland about what's happening to their only sons ⚰️
    1
  3336. There was a SEATO before, but that disintegrated with South Vietnam
    1
  3337. No, there isn't much of a land battle for the press or plainclothes combatants to complicate the battlefield. Nearly all the coverage will come from seeing Taiwan getting bombarded by the PLA, inviting the rest of us to support Taiwan's defense.
    1
  3338. Strict traditional values disappeared because the nation would not survive by sticking with it. Remember when SK started out, it was poorer than most of Africa.
    1
  3339. Developed countries, especially puritan ethnostates, are not in the position to let "perfect" get in the way of "good".
    1
  3340. Which if it was undergoing a demographic collapse is probably too toxic and anemic from the folks who got it to what it became. Like bloodletting vs blood transfusion, having fresh blood and minds from immigrants is the key to revitalization.
    1
  3341. Muslim World just refuses to believe the West can care for Muslim populations, like the Uyghurs and Bosnians. Probably because their state governments want that same unchallenged despotism with economic strength that China achieved, and so steers all its masjid sermons and public narratives to indoctrinate its people accordingly.
    1
  3342. The world would like China’s economic capabilities, but not necessarily its finished products. Being so “open” hints at an inability to afford being selective with who they can close deals with.
    1
  3343. China’s military modernization began in earnest following the Gulf War, when the Iraqi Army invading Kuwait got curb-stomped and Beijing realized their PLA was too similarly equipped and indoctrinated.
    1
  3344. The reasons come from an alienizing (i.e. lacks Asian faces) West and an overbearing China. SK offers a non-threatening and actively inviting alternative. Similar transnational niches exist out of Bollywood, Nollywood, and Latin America, but SK made it a government priority to go global in the arts.
    1
  3345. Please research the proper pronouciation of native names before recording. Skipping this risks you getting a reputation of not actually having done fact checks are are just another opinion-driveling clickbaiter. 천리마 sounds more like "chul-li-ma". Even worse was your previous video about the 재벌 that dominate South Korea, which should sound more like "jay-ball".
    1
  3346. Yet China isn't exactly building any soft power of its own, they lack a popular modern culture and it's only getting worse with increasingly vain, childish, censored media products -- India, Egypt, and even Nigeria attract a wider reach than the Mainland. The way they're going there won't be popular calls to support the PRC once it goes over the looming peak into the self-made downward spiral of aging, household debt, pollution, and corruption in the next few decades.
    1
  3347.  @spacemonk26  Controlled access and hefty punishments for abuse would certainly help with our unique firearms-related problems; our military already does so to the point of complete base lockdowns over one missing sensitive item. As a prior servicemember, it's not comforting to see my fellow civilian Americans (especially politicians) not treat the discussion of firearms with the seriousness that everyone in uniform does.
    1
  3348. Chinese companies are moving everywhere to get around the divestment. While it's mitigating, it's still damaging to them because of the permanent added barriers and reduced opportunities to Chinese workers.
    1
  3349. Right, China is already about ready to drown in its own debts. The HSR network alone is expensive to operate, lacks passengers, can't move truckloads of cargo as China actually needs, and carries an cumulative debt load that dwarfs its real estate sector. There are likely other industry-level liabilities that we're not hearing about until its just about to kick the Party-state in the nuts.
    1
  3350. It does hint at including social media features beyond user reviews in future updates, much like Mainland Chinese shopping apps are doing now.
    1
  3351. At least he's consistent in butchering all of the Korean, I don't think he's said a single word correctly
    1
  3352. I'd think the Koreans would instead point their nukes at Japan, as the hate is strong having been indoctrinated from childhood throughout all of living memory, despite China having invaded more often and more thoroughly subjugated the Koreans over the longer history.
    1
  3353. Are the patents actually good and defensible though? Or are they more like the near jokes that the USPO was handing out in its early years?
    1
  3354. These don't really exist in China either. China's structures often become hazards in a fairly mild incident, and they age surprisingly quickly due to shoddy workmanship. Plus China's healthcare coverage is a joke, covering almost nothing on a medical bill.
    1
  3355. Bigger doesn't mean better -- the average Chinese worker is far less productive and only getting older. The CPC's allergies to dissent makes its education and creativity lackluster, and these are exactly what's needed to break out of the middle income trap. And China's own debts have shot up alarmingly fast, like five times the growth of America's in the past decade, much of it into shoddy hardly-occupied "real estate" because of even lower trust in their stock markets. Now they're having problems just keeping the lights on, because most of their coal plants are optimized for higher grade Western stock, and they might not have the funds to get alternative sources built without the social unrest caused by multiple freezing winters during the wait.
    1
  3356. The US is currently undergoing something like the Great Resignation or Renegotiation, with former workers leaving old bosses out to dry in the resurgence of consumer demand as a strategy to finally experience that "rising tide" that's been promised for decades, but was instead dammed away with rich man tax breaks and offshoring.
    1
  3357.  @brentdallyn8459  Right, it's otherwise inexplicable about crematoriums running 24/7 nonstop and the steep dropoff of cell subscribers (likely not just dual SIM users abruptly abandoning one provider)
    1
  3358. That growth requires energy (which they're having trouble sourcing without high grade Western coal until they install cleaner alternatives while current funds are running dry), creativity (which is stifled by discouragement and enforcement against dissent), and the youth to produce and develop that growth in productivity over a couple generations. China would've had that room, if they weren't also old, cold, and constantly worried if something they once said will get them caged in an interrogation room signing vague confessions.
    1
  3359.  @527ctguy  Right, China spends at least as much on internal "stability" forces as it does on the PLA. That's why its "military spending" seems so low -- it's not counting all the propaganda, guns, intelligence efforts pointing at its own people.
    1
  3360. We also habitually dramatize our faults and challenges, because that's how we at least partially resolve them too.
    1
  3361.  @RaulGonzalez-rs1be  As in their buildings are built so shoddy that they fall apart with alarming regularity. You can literally see that they age faster than their completion date suggests.
    1
  3362. America at least listens to its people, because there's open discussions, independent journalism, and public elections. The CPC's patronizing attitudes makes it surrounded by sycophants and tunnel-visioned in its policies, which then have to overreact to unforseen/deliberately hidden issues that festered underneath.
    1
  3363. Problem is China can't continue, it faces aging, debts, and pollution that simply can't be mandated away. Meanwhile America can find someone else to fill their order, and increasingly create small batches of it themselves.
    1
  3364.  @michaelotieno6524  Only through direct payments, increasing reliance on imports, and a low bar definition of "poverty" compared to the true costs of upward mobility. It wasn't so much through anything the government did to help durably develop the impoverished. At least in America you're free to move about the country to where the jobs are, and changing residency is fairly straightforward; China's prescriptive hùkǒu system means a migrant loses nearly all their gains in private sector upcharges for things like schools and healthcare because they're not a "resident", all the while still enriching their executives and Party officials.
    1
  3365. The CPC plays a father figure by infantilizing its nationals with childish slogans, tribalist ideals, blanket bans, and habitual overreactions. The West at least gives more privacy, predictability, and personal liberty to its residents.
    1
  3366.  @arthas640  Right, this "woke" vs MAGA battle is tame compared with what America experienced before, like even the assassination-a-month Civil Rights Movement, not to mention 1812 and the Civil War where its continued existence was really in doubt. The CPC is starting to realize that they can grow the pie all they want, but if it tastes like shit it won't matter how they slice it.
    1
  3367. The US military probably spends a workday a week shamming off, but at least its salvaging morale if not building rapport with your buddies in the unit. Unlike some classroom lecture on Maoist doctrine that is useless trivia in combat, and likely just propping up a facade of loyalty because you really joined the PLA for the job perks and not necessarily the Party.
    1
  3368. China loves to show off its HSR, which is deep in operating debt (having to compete with buses, planes, and regular rail to all the smaller cities) and physically built too weak to offset the costs with freight trains. Hence why the US rail network is nearing saturation transporting bulk goods and HAZMAT while China is paying triple to truck it over (before all the long daytime restrictions and random traffic "inspections" all along China's roads).
    1
  3369. America always criticized its debt load, but the debt doesn't necessarily make it weak. In fact the one time America cleared all its debts, speculations went so crazy that it caused the Panic of 1837, a depression and stagnation that lasted a decade with multiple states going bankrupt and defaulting.
    1
  3370. More realistically the CPC will be asked a lot of discomforting questions when entire neighborhoods of only-sons start to "disappear" during their combat deployment.
    1
  3371. The "continue" part is up for debate, since looming aging, debt, and pollution could see China stalling if not falling backwards. We might already seeing the effects as the CPC shifts focus away from peaceable marketing and towards ideology and militarism, trying to shift away from relying on increasingly impossible growth as the basis for continued tolerance among the Chinese people.
    1
  3372. Hence why the long fight for $15/hr and human dignity in the workplace, which is starting to come to fruition now that businesses realize they can't threaten with finding replacement workers or automation that itself shows a lot of troubling biases and limitations towards the customers.
    1
  3373.  @michaelotieno6524  China's middle class isn't doing so well either, with so many in multiple generations' income worth of debt just to attract a spouse and a better hùkǒu. All for overpriced "real estate" so shoddily built and maintained that it probably won't even make it to the end of the 70-year land use permit.
    1
  3374.  @steenkigerrider5340  Arts, history, and humanities are what really drives education, because education is all about finding the norms and then stepping outside of it to explore ways to grow. Creativity and innovation come from intelligently violating established rules. STEM focused education by contrast is often tunnel visioned in technicalities and ignores what people actually care about. Hence why they often make horrible managers and don't do well in politics. This is why you often see a large organization headed by someone who studied something like English literature and then used those skills to get into law.
    1
  3375.  @Mr.Septon  Yet there's an active political fight over how much we'll allow those elites to continue getting away with. Hence the "woke" "socialists" who want to get the pie shared more broadly vs the MAGA folks who are trying to return to an ignorantly flawed version of past "prosperity". The US isn't necessarily overstretched, since practically all of those bases exist practically by invitation. For friendlier countries it allows them to spend less of its budget to gain a similar level of effective defense than if they had to fund and experience all that combat on their own, and even for places like Cuba or Pakistan the American presence provides a convenient scapegoat to redirect any internal unrest. America is incredibly resilient and the American Pie overall has not lost its flavor. China can try to grow their pie all they want, but the CPC is realizing that theirs tastes like shit and no amount of slicing will ultimately get people to bite... and it's all the fault of who made the recipe.
    1
  3376. Overtake forever, or peak and stall? 🐇🐢
    1
  3377.  @qjtvaddict  Which when civilian shipping in the SCS and ECS gets scared off by the crossfire will be shockingly upcharged (overland) or useless (by sea).
    1
  3378. The Foreign Legion is a part of the French Army, just set up to recruit foreigners
    1
  3379. National Guard are an asset of a US state, occasionally called up for federal service. Their primary mission is a lot more localized.
    1
  3380. Also the PLA, except in Mainland China there's no competing military whose allegiance lies with the state of China... that army was ejected to Táiwān (ROC Armed Forces).
    1
  3381. Still the same battle of efficiency vs flexibility, where of course America's Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in getting costs and competition down also leaves us vulnerable to changes in the global geopolitical situation (e.g a war in Ukraine eating through our stockpiles far faster than we're able to replenish them).
    1
  3382. That's because prices for basic goods (water bills, groceries, etc) don't rise or fall to match the income of the buyer; the poor simply have less to invest once their survival needs are met, whereas the rich have disposable wealth to spend on high-cost durable goods that aren't consumed during its useful life and might even appreciate in value over time.
    1
  3383. Right, if Africans don't educate their way ahead of growing global automation, they'll end up tribally fighting likely violently over the scraps of what little opportunities are available for them at the low end. But education has consistently meant staying out of menial jobs and parenthood longer against the pro-natal pressures of religion and tradition.
    1
  3384. Minding other countries and keeping any fights far away is minding its own affairs. When America tried to disengage, it got sucker-punched by WW1, WW2, and 9/11.
    1
  3385. No, it just means they're officially talking government to government. Doesn't mean they're no longer willing to destroy each other if given the chance.
    1
  3386.  @jantschierschky3461  Right, Nigerians are seen as quite obnoxious especially those fresh out of Lagos. But enough given time abroad eventually they do mellow out after realizing they don't have to practically scream and act so confrontational to every stranger they meet.
    1
  3387. Isn't is more accurate to be "gbo"? (I know the sound doesn't exist in English)
    1
  3388. Problem is practically nobody really trusts a Chinese stock market, and those who do aren't allowed to buy an considerably influential amount of shares. That's why the Chinese people basically threw all their investment efforts at the "safety" of real estate.
    1
  3389. Japan, Korea, and Táiwān also democratized and unlocked their cultural potential: hence anime, k-pop, and bubble tea. The CPC spends a lot of its resources (with a budget probably even greater than the PLA's) stopping this in the name of "stability", with censorship efforts deliberately extending into other countries. Even Indonesia and the Philippines (#1 and #3 economies in ASEAN) removed their dictators through popular movement, and have since elected their leadership through the collective voice of all their citizens. But the even more developed Mainland China doubled down on authoritarianism, which is coming back to haunt them as aging, debt, and pollution stall the economy on which the Party's unchallenged rule rides on. Hence the Wolf Warrior Diplomacy and new cross-Strait crisis they're banking on to keep up the Party's appeal back at home at the cost of foreign attraction... and thus all the "anti-China" videos we're seeing a lot of these days from pretty much everywhere that lacks corporate sponsorship.
    1
  3390. Also superior industry and moral justification: the Brits stopped trying to buy Southern cotton when the Union declared its goal to end slavery.
    1
  3391. In Chinese language media, the US has already been made the enemy for even more minor and vague issues. This is really a conflict driven by the CPC, although luckily at least urban Chinese seem to know this despite all the censorship and propaganda. For the rest of the world, it's slowly realizing the overall parasitic trade relationship with Běijīng. Companies surrender critical IP and trade secrets just for cheaper goods and tenuous temporary access to the Chinese consumer market. Meanwhile BRI recipients receive a small army of Chinese workers who wall themselves into colony-like compounds and provide less local work opportunities than promised, while getting troublesome build projects, proliferated corruption, and added debt that's even harder to clear than their existing Western ones.
    1
  3392. We still have to prepare for a Běijīng that lashes out with the PLA as the Mainland runs out of profitable economic opportunities for the CPC to justify its continued uncontested rule.
    1
  3393. "Highly specific" subject to very loose interpretation by the Party, as with all of their other laws.
    1
  3394. Probably waited until the UK lost its voice in the EU
    1
  3395.  @SerenityM54L2SAM5L5N1  Because they're part of the horde of Mainland imports, or the minority of rich HKers whose wealth depends on the whims of Běijīng?
    1
  3396. In both cases, it's subversion of injustice.
    1
  3397. Right, the last time the Republicans ordered combat that ended well was 1990, which was against an opponent with clearly inferior equipment and narrowly-defined tactics.
    1
  3398. WW1, WW2, and 9/11 proved that there's a pretty shallow lower limit on how much we can stand down and look inward.
    1
  3399. Western countries have more capacity to include and integrate immigrants, unlike ethnostates like China. Foreigners don't remain all that "foreign" in an open society.
    1
  3400. It's still more rosy than reality. There's a New Zealander named Tony who's an economic policy consultant in Beijing and runs the channel "China Update", and his daily videos are even more grim.
    1
  3401.  @Zergcerebrates  It wouldn't take so long if Maoist ideology hadn't set China so far back with purges of its culture and human resources. The PRC is still trying to catch up to where China could be if the Chinese people weren't so restrained by the Party's tunnel visioned campaigns and gaslighting of project failures.
    1
  3402. "Flexible employment" (gig work) isn't exactly opening their own business.
    1
  3403. Air defenses and AWACS assets are the first priority the US would target though, because air dominance is what rebalances the fight for the often outnumbered Americans. Its pilots regularly train on Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD and DEAD) to clear the way for follow on operations.
    1
  3404. That's not how the demographics work. The bulk of China's population is rapidly aging because they failed to bring up enough younger people to succeed them, whereas America gets a constant supply of young and relatively healthy immigrants who compared to in Europe readily assimilate and Americanize.
    1
  3405. Most of them without effective air defenses either, vulnerable to cheap guided bombs and possibly even cheaper grenade-carrying racing drones.
    1
  3406. If you count the outrageous amount they spend on military-grade internal policing, the PRC would be well over the US on how much it spends on "state security". Yet they still can't project its will much past the shores it currently controls.
    1
  3407. Western aid demands improvements to governance and transparency, which is exactly what corrupt African officials don't want. Hence why they go for Chinese and Russian alternatives who purposely look the other way.
    1
  3408. I see parallels with how the US treats its black population, sending more police than public support because those in power don't want to see them as equals. Hence the escalation of protest that because they're not addressed at lower levels too often ends in street clashes and riots.
    1
  3409. When it does happen though, it would play in favor of the West's resilience and creativity. Mainland China is already deep in a clash of civilizations mindset, but has little experience with dramatic setbacks which makes them brittle. Add how the PLA ranks are now filled by only-sons and how infamous the PLA is in taking casualties to achieve an objective, and the Party would be spending an increasing amount of its war chest on internal "stability" on all the families whose only son "disappeared" on deployment (not to mention all the simmering anti-Beijing elements who'd take advantage of the realignment of security forces). Plus China increasingly relies on imports for food and fuel, and that would further deplete their savings, supplies, and popular tolerance paying for overland alternatives because all the civilian ships are scared away from the crossfire. The PRC has to go hard on a quick and fairly painless victory, because that's the only way the Party can win -- and it's the same mistake that Imperial Japan did. Their China wouldn't survive years of warfare, sanctions, and businesses that went elsewhere, which is bound to happen in their promised invasion of Táiwān and the generations of insurrection that will immediately follow.
    1
  3410. That's because hate is stronger than love, and those seeking power gain popularity by inventing someone to rally against. The Nazis were voted in by striking out against Jews, nowadays it's more anxiety over accelerating economic inequalities successfully deflected usually on foreigners instead of faceless corporations and robots.
    1
  3411. Capitalism/communism focuses on production, libertarianism/socialism on distribution, and democracy/autocracy on policy. Arguably it's possible to be a capitalist socialist democracy.
    1
  3412. Right, South Korea and Táiwān were likewise horribly repressive regimes when they started out, but are now highly respected cultural powerhouses. The difference is that their dictatorships ultimately yielded to its people, unlike their NK and Mainland counterparts.
    1
  3413. Westerners directly, or do you mean all the local simmering feuds and foreign funded anti-US forces who deliberately targeted regular civilians to sow fear and doubt about the post-Saddam government?
    1
  3414. Semantics are nice, but ultimately the popular interpretation is what matters. Much like how "autopilot" actually still involves pilot presence and attention, but "common sense" interprets it as complete automation as seen with Tesla driving mistakes.
    1
  3415. Doing the opposite just further empowers the Communists who can claim their Western-seeded prosperity as totally their own, as was ultimately seen when the US opened up to Mainland China. But unlike Western dictators, Communist regimes are willing to fight to the death against dissent, challenge, and change even when their governance becomes a clear hindrance.
    1
  3416. Yet the outlook in West and Central Africa isn't promising if their governance doesn't improve. The Middle East is likewise rich but not advanced, which also spells trouble for their future as oil production plateaus along with their national budget.
    1
  3417. Yet Russia is getting beat back by Ukraine despite the advantage in both numbers and capabilities, which is only set to degrade further as NATO kit gets implemented.
    1
  3418. You're hinting that Singapore (a territory that Malaysia deliberately ejected) contributes and gets support from the West; why then is it wrong to figure out what external entities its Muslim neighbors gets and receives support from?
    1
  3419. It's a global force. Empires aren't so keen on conversing and negotiating agreements with their counterparts abroad.
    1
  3420. What's back is America's progressive itinerary, not just stuck on the ground with its toxic baggage 🛫
    1
  3421. Yet America retains its "imperialism" because those countries fear the alternative... who aren't nearly as interested in letting you express yourself ☭
    1
  3422.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  China isn't short on hubris itself. The Party's paternalistic approach leaves a lot of its people bitter (but too scared to say so), and its exclusive tribalist pride will alienate it from receiving help from abroad when it eventually needs it like so many failed empires and dynasties before. In their narrow pursuit of money and political stability, they ended up developing strong headwinds like an aging population, unattractive modern culture, explosion of debt, and overall lack of trust. I wouldn't be surprised if America regains its lead position by simply waiting out the PRC's peak 🇨🇳📈📉 And much to the chagrin of the Mainland government, Táiwān's very existence proves that Chinese people can in fact thrive without the Party 🇹🇼
    1
  3423. The "same" rules become an issue when China gets included, as they always want to "negotiate" them at their leisure through the lens of vague philosophies and even then enforcement gets interpreted very loosely.
    1
  3424. @ The target of the Plaza Accords wasn't Japan, it was America and its domestic monetary policies at the time pushing up the value of the USD versus the rest of the G5. Japan was just in the wrong place at the right time to make the same inflationary mistakes over the next decade, one which their economy was too rigid and protectionist to recover from when the JPY bubble popped.
    1
  3425. It doesn't mean they'll ultimately end up on top, the USSR was similarly all about hard skills while neglecting the fuzzy emotional things humans actually care about. A less systemic example was the hubris of the early post-war US in thinking that nukes were simply a very efficient explosive until they realized how very very permanent its radioactive damage would persist.
    1
  3426. Power is a zero-sum game. By definition it's the degree of what one side can do that the other cannot.
    1
  3427.  @Elzilcho87  We're free to point out mistakes and obvious biases. That's not the case in China.
    1
  3428. Lack of employment security makes tenuous predicting such dramatic increases of income. Go to any place staffed with minimum wage entry-level jobs and note how many of them should statistically be in the prime of their career.
    1
  3429.  @luisoviedo-perez2896  More like that's what our politics naturally converges on in a winner-take-all system where the collection of losers becomes the only other side. Unfortunately this administratively simple concept also encourages pushing the extremes as a way to differentiate one from the other, since the real political spread is more a continuous spectrum.
    1
  3430. If it can hold Táiwān and somehow gain all its current comparative advantages, much of which can't be replicated in a Běijīng-ruled environment. That's even before considering the insurgency that the Taiwanese will put up if they do get successfully occupied.
    1
  3431. Clean air is pretty important to society.
    1
  3432. Renewables already produce local excess, and there's active development in storing it for nighttime/calm winds. Besides battery advances, there's also pumped-storage hydro, which is basically using the excess energy to pump water back up a hill for a dam to use later.
    1
  3433. Bicycles are cheap and quite effective (especially when specifically designed to haul cargo), but most places would rather skip straight to cars because of its other advantages to its users (superior shielding, electricity generation, less muscle use). The issue with green energy is convincing people that clean air and stable sea levels are totally worth the extra cost.
    1
  3434. Just ask the oil companies.
    1
  3435. Natural gas has proven it can supplant coal, and burns cleaner. Then there's active development in storing energy, one of the most promising being pumped-storage hydro, which is basically a dam beside a hilltop reservoir created specifically to be released when renewables falter and recharged by pumping it back up during the daytime excess.
    1
  3436. Táiwān would do better with masses of cheap weapons and training on improvising more for guerilla warfare. If it takes the constantly-warring US decades to withdraw from an insurrection, there's no way the much less practiced PRC will last that long especially after entire neighborhoods of families lose their only son on deployment.
    1
  3437. More like 500k repatriated back to Japan, those staying behind numbering like 1~2k. It's just not convenient to think how so many Taiwanese look fondly at Japan, who brought infrastructure and rural development to the island, especially after the "White Terror" of the invasive gangster KMT.
    1
  3438. The loss of Táiwān will bleed over though, first with the Senkaku/Diàoyú, then perhaps a "liberation" of the Ryukyu from Japan, on top of punitive strikes against the Home Islands.
    1
  3439. Right, the whole conflict over Taiwan stems from the stubbornness of Chiang Kai-Shek to not give up on his "China" while they were ahead.
    1
  3440. No, where it's implemented the usage rate stalls while survival and rehabilitation of users improve.
    1
  3441. Republicans complain about drugs from illegal immigrants hopping the fence, when most of the drugs come either by boat or are snuck past Customs at staffed border crossings.
    1
  3442. "Personal responsibility" Republicans made drug usage a crime to hide from rather than a condition to seek help for.
    1
  3443. And what of the waste it produces which remains dangerous for thousands of years? We haven't figured out how to safely reprocess the ones we have now, and back then we weren't trying to replace every fossil fuel plant in the world.
    1
  3444. If you conveniently ignore thousands of years of radioactive waste it produces. We still haven't figured out how to fully reprocess all the waste we have now.
    1
  3445. Nuclear is expensive and has been rising in costs. It's likely cheaper to use wind and solar, with excesses stored in pumped-hydro projects.
    1
  3446. i.e. Their plan is to kick the can down the road and hope somebody will be able to recycle it later on... while the can is full of toxic waste and not getting any younger ☢️
    1
  3447. Depends on the local geography too. A shore with a steep dropoff won't see nearly as much swell as one leading towards a vast expanse of shallow flats.
    1
  3448. Already takes another 20 years to design and build, and thousands of years of toxic waste, all for 50~100 years of production.
    1
  3449. There's also pumped-storage hydro, which can pump water back up the reservoir when prices are cheap for use later when demand surges as the sun goes down. Any elevation difference can be considered to transform into this energy storage solution, even abandoned mines.
    1
  3450. Defenses against earthquakes have been engineered into structures for centuries, the danger is really only for those who use nothing more than mortar for their brick/cement block builds.
    1
  3451. Problem is the radioactivity generated remains dangerous for thousands of years. Fossil fuels could be phased out and the climate rebalanced in that time, while a single incident with nuclear waste can render whole areas permanently inhabitable.
    1
  3452. Anti-ship missiles are fairly dumb without external precision guidance all the way to the target, which would be degraded by EW and shootdowns of surveillance assets. At some point someone's warhead would mistakenly strike a container ship thinking something that big was an aircraft carrier. Regardless of who launched it, this would scare off civilian traffic around Mainland China in general, and it's the Mainland that would more quickly empty its coffers paying for insurance upcharges and overland alternatives for the food, fuel, and mass export revenues it relies on.
    1
  3453. 1) Kickbacks, reliance, and fear of retaliation from China; 2) Harmonization with a fellow autocrat; and 3) Uyghurs are ethnically Turkic, who are not as central to wider Muslim world
    1
  3454. Beijing destroyed all its negotiating leverage with HK. It’ll take a couple generations until the Taiwanese might be open to considering converging with the Communists again.
    1
  3455. Trump made it a vital campaigning platform for the GOP though.
    1
  3456. America's role as the world's police fighting smaller local conflicts before they organize into industrial-scale wars is the reason for post-WW2 global prosperity. Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named as such because that one power maintained trade security for like a third of humanity at the time.
    1
  3457. The one with delayed macroeconomic consequences, while emboldening aggressive adversaries with personal endorsement.
    1
  3458. We need a voting system that allows for convergence on more than the winner-take-all from the collection of all losers, perhaps ranked-choice ballots.
    1
  3459. ​Biden wasn't the one who cultivated the Afghan leaders who abandoned their people, and were entrusted to do their duty as we departed as the Office of the President (i.e. held by the previous guy) firmly promised.
    1
  3460. Scary, but not unheard of. The previous culture war of the Civil Rights Movement was a lot more visible and violent. Same with the labor movements of a century ago, not to mention the straight up Civil War.
    1
  3461.  @retrodripsupport7510  The price of efficiency is lack of resilience, i.e. putting all the eggs in one basket. COVID and China supply shocks show that it is possible to be too efficient in the corporate hunt for quarterly profits.
    1
  3462.  @douglasgyi  We don't necessarily want China to fail, only the haughty (can't do wrong, conveniently forget Mao years and 1989), exclusionary (Han ethnicity >> everyone else), and patronizing (unchallengeable authoritarianism) attitudes that the CPC advocates. However the CPC deliberately equates itself to "China", and so calls for Communist downfall sounds like calls to take down the Chinese people, which the Party can then use to rally hateful support.
    1
  3463. They're scared that it ultimately means political reforms. The CPC doesn't want to continually defend its dominance against political competition, even though that's what free market actors have to do all the time.
    1
  3464.  @ivanbudianto1962  Make friends yes. Make families no, at least if they want to keep their identity as authentically "Japanese".
    1
  3465. That will backfire spectacularly. The "uneducated" literally help keep our food affordable, along with keeping America's massive agricultural exports competitive. Plus coming down hard on whole groups of 'undesirable' newcomers also discourages consideration from the ones we really want.
    1
  3466. That's exactly what Japanese companies say they support, but in practice are wholly hostile to.
    1
  3467. The US recently came out with an improved bolt-on JDAM kit that turns cheap gravity bombs into warship killers -- there's tens of thousands in the existing stockpile launchable by practically anything that flies, each at 1/20th the cost of a regular anti-ship missile. A dozen-sortie raid would easily overwhelm even the most heavily-armed cruiser, and would be overkill for the practically defenseless patrol boats and coastal cutters that make up the bulk of the PLAN fleet.
    1
  3468. Land forces aren't that useful in a largely air and sea battle of cross-Straits combat. In fact they may be a liability having to feed them all, especially when food and fuel prices explode in the absence of shipping to Chinese ports who got scared off by the crossfire.
    1
  3469. America has been tearing itself apart constantly, critics have doubted its continued existence since 1812, various Panics, the Civil War, the anarco-communist insurrection, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement where even the President wasn't safe from some random sniper. These critics underestimate the American ability to come back and help each other just as fast. China also has a long history of revolt and reform, but each reform often requires a full and usually violent change of leadership, which is exactly what the Party fears.
    1
  3470. Chinese soldiers aren't paid as much, but they're also stuck doing a lot of political indoctrination classes while American units regularly get sent to field exercises if not the combat zone. Plus PLA equipment gets enough complaints of breakdowns in garrison, imagine how reliable those would be in the degraded maintenance of war.
    1
  3471. The US wouldn't be fighting to dominate China, it'd be more returning enough fire and gathering allies to make trade with China undesirable and prolonging the pain until the Party's dragon starves and collapses under its own weight as food, fuel, and foreign reserves dwindle. Even seizing Táiwān won't guarantee Communist victory, because it'll be followed by an insurrection in very defensible terrain by a prepared hostile population... who have been asking the US their direct experience on how to defeat the political agenda of a modern occupying force.
    1
  3472. But then the PLA's budget is split between defending its territory from its neighbors (nearly all of whom carry considerable discontent with China), rehearsing and performing grand parades, and regular stand-downs for political indoctrination. This doesn't leave much to go toe to toe with a opponent with much more training and combat experience... and there's no land war for casual combatants to ambush them from.
    1
  3473. Veterancy and experience would be especially important in this scenario, because there wouldn't be much of a land war where casual combatants can hide and ambush from. For air and sea operations, pure technical superiority is all that really matters.
    1
  3474.  @HDsharp  What makes you say that? Maritime SE Asia is leaning anti-China -- I was just there, and that's the feeling I got talking with the locals.
    1
  3475. The effect of the spending depends on access too, Afghanistan is literally surrounded by major anti-US powers on all sides so a lot of that money had to go into basically bribery for the gatekeepers. For Táiwān though there's only open ocean and plenty of friendly ports nearby... combine that with defensible terrain and a hostile population, and the island is arguably the Afghanistan for Mainland China.
    1
  3476. US doesn't have to overpower China either, just dissuade trade with sanctions and potential crossfire, starving the Mainland of the food and fuel it has to import. That's if America wants to preempt the looming challenges of aging, debt, pollution, and corruption which threatens the continued prosperity of the PRC (and thus the legitimacy of an unchallenged CPC) anyway.
    1
  3477. Once the missiles launch the supplies will dry up anyway. Anti-ship missiles aren't terribly smart on their own -- especially when the long range sensor assets are under attack -- and it only takes one container ship being mistaken for a juicy aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship to really scare away the civilian traffic who were sailing to China.
    1
  3478. Don't forget that the Taiwanese will be fighting too. Even with a PLA takeover there's still plenty of space on the island from which they can hide and mount an insurrection... and they're increasingly asking the US on how even a minimally armed but determined population can defeat the political agenda of an occupying force.
    1
  3479. Russia relies more on subterfuge -- it's estimated that their intelligence community is like 3x the size of America's. The cost being a culture-wide lack of trust in each other, on top of having not much else going for the average Russian citizen.
    1
  3480. Right, Maritime SE Asia has been heading anti-China despite their "non-aligned" policy because of all the hostile acts with Chinese fishing hordes emptying the local seas. Indonesia alone could make it really hurt for China by stopping ships going through their waters -- they're already readily suspicious of Chinese, Communists, and acts of anti-Islam -- and along with Vietnam and the Philippines would easily empty the PRC's treasury by forcing them to use more expensive overland routes for basic food and fuel. I wouldn't be surprised if undeployed PLA forces were even left largely unmolested, just so they can eat through the Mainland's dwindling supplies and fuel unrest among China's civilians to cause even more division in operational efforts.
    1
  3481. The US wouldn't have to occupy or even dominate the area around China though, just provide enough return fire for civilian ships to reconsider the waybill and insurance rates for sailing into Chinese ports with the food and fuel they rely on. Even a stalemate would mean the Party loses when their treasury and shelves empty out over the course of a year or more; no amount of patriotic education will suppress the literal starvation and subsequent desire to flee from or fight the failing authorities.
    1
  3482.  @liu3gz  Which would make China unbeatable in a land war where simple machining and infantry moxy negates the advantages of high tech weaponry. Unfortunately the battles will be more at sea and in the air where casual combatants can't fight (or on Táiwān where the roles reverse), and China's reliance on imports for food and fuel means it won't be able to afford both beans and bullets for that long without getting distracted by the rising unrest back at home.
    1
  3483.  @codechannel528  At the same time the PRC is not recognized as the government over Táiwān. It's more like North and South Korea where they both officially claim each other, but are effectively dealt as separate equal entities.
    1
  3484. Probably because we decided to airlift everything instead over the decades, and had uninterrupted time to boat in as needed in-theatre prepositioned stockpiles.
    1
  3485. Storage goes against the tenets of JIT, which try to reduce these to the point that upstream components consistently arrive "just in time" for processing and minimizing the "waste" of warehousing. It's the age-old tradeoff between efficiency and resilience.
    1
  3486. Chances are they were. All our big gun battleships are no longer seaworthy and there's no new ones planned, having been replaced by guided missiles fired from practically every other platform. Other than a few museum pieces, it'd be better to just recycle them into new ground artillery shells.
    1
  3487. It's also deterrence, both for adversaries and for corruption.
    1
  3488. The lack of available inventory limits how quickly the supplies can be manufactured into products. The factory might have the capacity to ramp up, but there's nothing left to work on until the factories upstream also put out more.
    1
  3489. Did BRICS ever take off as anything more than a marketing pitch and occasional conference?
    1
  3490. Only because the Chinese people can't buy cars anymore due to wasting away in Zero-COVID, so Chinese companies have to dump their stock somewhere. Which will likely backfire considering all the crash safety and battery self-ignition problems they have. The reliability of Designed in China high-performance aircraft and maritime engines has been pretty shoddy too.
    1
  3491. Well-armed, well-armored, and doesn't carry that many dismounts for its size? Sounds a lot like the Mi-24 Hind
    1
  3492. I wouldn't put it past Beijing to nuke Taiwan, especially as they see the island as already theirs and have repeatedly proven more than willing to exterminate whole communities of Chinese subjects for their political objectives.
    1
  3493. Reliable though? That's pretty important in the often-fired and degraded maintenance conditions of a live battlefield.
    1
  3494. Enemy infantry on a tank is deadly, but luckily it can shrug off machine gun fire. Hence the term "back scratching".
    1
  3495. Maybe for certain units or missions, but not as the default weapon. That may change though as drones make the battlefield more hazardous and meat on meat firefights start going literally underground.
    1
  3496. Yes, the PLA basically panicked into reorganizing itself after seeing what the Coalition did in Kuwait. The PLA at the time was alarmingly similar in equipment and doctrine to the then Iraqi Army.
    1
  3497. There are ways to defeat superior firepower, not only by targeting the FO assets and their communication links, but also by playing insurgent who readily goes into hiding and waits for a more advantageous local situation. It's how America's ambitions were nullified in Vietnam and Afghanistan, which ironically means US forces are well-versed in performing similar themselves -- rumor is the US is teaching the ROC exactly how to pull this off, because chances are it'll be the Chinese playing the role of occupier this time around, with Táiwān and the US raiding and disrupting the narrative of PRC dominance at every opportunity.
    1
  3498. At the same time the Chinese are aging and increasingly dependent on the outside for basic resources, not just raw industrial material but also food. Their own environment is too polluted to support itself, and their own people discouraged from really experimenting with possibly more productive ways of doing things through raw deviance from the norms. Arguably Mainland China is still far more vulnerable than its opposition. The rest of the world can adapt to constant cyberhacks and more expensive gadgets, but skyrocketing food prices and collapse of quality would create an explosion of internal unrest that will further distract China's forces. A PRC seizure of Táiwān impresses few others outside the Mainland, and would more likely raise alarms with the rest of the world to divest and disengage from China as fast as practicable -- ultimately China will be stuck too old and unloved to prosper like the unchallenged Party pitched.
    1
  3499. Because battles are getting more technical, rewarding individual skills and maneuverability moreso than outright numbers and bravado. Plus nowadays it's mostly only-sons making up the fielded ranks of the PLA, whose loss would be devastating to overall morale back home.
    1
  3500. At the same time most countries outside of Africa have ROC "trade" representatives who issue visas, negotiate government policy with the host nation, and do everything else that a normal embassy would do. Táiwān just isn't openly recorded as an independent sovereign.
    1
  3501. Back then they also had a lot of experienced soldiers fresh from the Chinese Civil War, where those same "short attack" tactics were used just as often. But now effective engagements have gotten more technical and it's nearly impossible to hide in open air like they used to, so whatever glory they achieved is now mere history. Their weakness against more modern armed hostilities has been hinted with the PLA's manpower inefficiencies at achieving their combat objectives against Vietnam and India, and would only be worse now that their ranks are mostly only-sons whose loss would be devastating to morale back home.
    1
  3502. There's also the issue of fighting an insurgency (which an invaded Táiwān will likely become), where casual combatants with improvised weapons can still take on and politically defeat a better supplied occupier. To survive you need your equipment to be protective and your weapon to be reliable, and the PLA does not have much relevant experience anymore with persistent armed hostilities nor the degraded maintenance environment of a real battlefield on modern materiel.
    1
  3503. Arguably the reason it didn't last time is because the US remained engaged, containing local fires before they grew and spread out of control. An isolationist America like Trump's MAGA movement wants will likely end up getting us sucker-punched into another multi-trillion dollar disaster, just as our military got dragged into deployments in WW1, WW2, and 9/11.
    1
  3504. And a weak America is what will happen if Trump decides to continue disengaging from the rest of the world because "America First". Last time we looked away, we got sucker-punched by 9/11. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
    1
  3505. Likely Russia-backed "private interest groups".
    1
  3506. Trump began the disengagement, and it sounds like he'll continue America's retreat once he's back in office. Just like fighting fires, armed conflicts are easier to contain when they're small and handled early; America keeps "warmongering" to begin with because it's akin to backburning.
    1
  3507. Really Trump and his "America First" retreat. Biden inherited the aftermath, and by then surging the defense budget and recruitment efforts became cost prohibitive and politically untenable.
    1
  3508. Except he doesn't have that much money. He owes way too many people.
    1
  3509.  @insidiousvictim  More consular officers processing visa applications with more straightforward paperwork requirements. Make it so that waiting for a decision from the embassy is faster than hiking up all of Central America. Unless you somehow believe that it’s “wasteful” to grow any part of the government that isn’t coercive security.
    1
  3510. Young men often show up first being the most likely to survive the journey. The thinking is they’ll then sponsor for their wife and children after they establish residency.
    1
  3511. He’s wise enough to not be the smartest guy on the team
    1
  3512. The visa windows are already high and have only gotten higher over the years, but more importantly there’s not enough of them to hand out those disappointing blue slips saying “Denied, but if something changes you’re welcome to reapply (and pay) for another attempt”. Hence why so many find it faster to just voluntarily create a criminal record for illegal entry hoping to get it later expunged by an asylum claim.
    1
  3513. A more sealed border is just a challenge. The demand problem won’t get solved unless we have more visa windows and hire more consular officers to adjudicate applications for legal immigration in a more reasonable timeframe.
    1
  3514. 9:51 "Military doctrine is the logic of a soldier's professional behavior"... and then there's America's military who famously doesn't follow its own thinking 🪖🤪
    1
  3515. If the ambient light is too dim or the target too far away, it could still hide in the amplified clutter
    1
  3516. For vehicles I don't see why not. But for personal ones on your vest, you wouldn't have an antenna long enough to poke out.
    1
  3517. Food and fuel will still flow, but not nearly as cheaply as when imported by sea straight to the cities along the seas and navigable rivers. Mainland China is likely to still starve because of how unaffordable these vital resources will get when sent overland through the far end of the country instead.
    1
  3518. Our favorite color Hyper Lime, aka PT Belt Yellow? 🟨
    1
  3519. The FX-05 isn't offered for export, so nobody else really knew of the internal mechanisms when it was first revealed. H&K dropped their lawsuit after the Mexican MoD let them inspect the models and technical details, although questions remain about why the external shape and features converge so similarly to the G36 (Mexico's police forces at the time were armed with the G36, hence accusation of intentionally similar styling for user familiarity).
    1
  3520. I'm sure Russia would step in, but being China's resource monopoly plus the additional expenses of overland transport compared to by water would mean the Mainland would blow through its reserves rather quickly. We wouldn't even need sanctions to pull this off. Just the crossfire alone would scare civilian traffic into staying away from China -- to a fairly dumb EW-blinded OTH anti-ship missile or a randomly-placed sea mine, an oil tanker looks a lot like an aircraft carrier
    1
  3521. If patriotism was so high, why does the PLA need political commissars and regular political indoctrination? Could it be that most of the recruits enlisted more for the social prestige and economic opportunities, and are too likely to run from a real battle?
    1
  3522. There was a reason the US basically abandoned the blatantly corrupt KMT after WWII: it was thought the recently-allied Communists had their act together better.
    1
  3523.  @TheMattTrakker  ← Case in point.
    1
  3524. A Japanese takeover was also part of the calculation behind the US seizing Hawaii
    1
  3525. This is why Taipei is such an irritant to the CPC, because Taiwan is living proof of what Chinese people could achieve when the people themselves are the ultimate authority... especially given how the KMT's "White Terror" on pre-democracy Taiwan made the island politically not much better than their Communist competitors on the Mainland.
    1
  3526. Exactly. Communist China has a stranglehold on selfish shortsighted capitalists.
    1
  3527. ​ @TomStarcevich-fb3qo ← is a Russian bot playing America. Not even hiding it either, look at the name.
    1
  3528. Putin used his KGB skills to lure transactional Trump into his trap. Our officers dare not try to confront Trump's thinking as they all "serve at the pleasure of the President".
    1
  3529. A Fifth Column exists in America. They call themselves "MAGA".
    1
  3530. He'd better. Everything "American" conservatives and MAGA celebrate have a throughline to Reagan's policies turned into the GOP platform.
    1
  3531. ​ @carbonstar9091 Voting Americans, conveniently conservative retirees who have the platform to tell younger progressives to get back to work and that voting at all isn't worth their time.
    1
  3532. Beijing's definition of "stability" is its complete unchallenged rule. Hence why it spends at least as much on its police and censorship as on the whole PLA to maintain "internal stability".
    1
  3533. ​ @causewaykayak Buying out the private land to create that buffer is prohibitively costly. Border ranchers might complain about the trash the transients leave behind, but the outrage will be nothing compared to government seizure of their property.
    1
  3534. Money and hand-me-downs only buys so much with the West's largely demobilized industrial base. Meanwhile Ukrainians are fighting endless waves of Russians with substantial assistance from Chinese men and materials supposedly coming from North Korea.
    1
  3535. Ironically enforcing the borders is the main reason illegal immigration from Mexico became such a huge problem: it deterred migrant workers from going home out of fear they can't hop back over for another day job. Meanwhile America's demand for them didn't fall in kind, and where's demand there will be supply.
    1
  3536. Americans abroad though are a much more diversified population, including huge cohorts of retirees, returnees, and anchor babies. The overseas demand is not so concentrated in working age folks, and the ones who are tend to be more transient and not looking to naturalize out.
    1
  3537. Ironically Taiwan's ROC Armed Forces also have them, though their role is more like chaplain-counselors than thought MPs.
    1
  3538. Just revoke permissions on the missing units and change the cryptologic access keys. The comm guys and contractors would know about this contingency.
    1
  3539. The Fat Electrician sums up his videos best as "Don't touch America's boats"? Size doesn't matter, it just has to fly the US flag. It'll be harder for our adversaries to maneuver if we had more cruising around ⚓️🇺🇸
    1
  3540. Likely a radar-absorbing coating that isn't so intensive on maintenance for the shape of the new aircraft (likely NGAD). Much like how the B-21 Raider can sit on an open tarmac whereas the older B-2 needs climate-controlled hangar, or how the F-35 can be stored and maintained onboard a ship at sea.
    1
  3541. Somebody had a lot of fun rendering the NGAD for this video 🖌
    1
  3542. 1:31 We always hear about Swiss and formerly Swedish neutrality, but forget that Austria is also a militantly non-aligned nation surrounded by, interoperable with, but not actually part of NATO. Although this constitutional commitment to neutrality was kind of forced on them in the wake of WW2 to get occupying forces (particularly the Soviets) to recognize Austria's sovereignty and depart. Austria's non-alignment is a weak spot for NATO and the EU though in favor of Russian intelligence, as it only criminalizes espionage targeting Austria but not other foreign entities in the country (so plenty of "diplomats" and "tourists" stalking each other). With the density of international organizations and being within the Schengen Area, Austria is often considered the world's Spy Central 🤵‍♂️🇦🇹🕵
    1
  3543. If you think this is strange, look up the Battle of Castle Itter. That was an operation late into WW2 where the US Army teamed up with the German Wehrmacht to rescue a herd of Nazi thoroughbred horses from the advancing Red Army, who were more interested in eating rather than breeding every animal they came across 🇺🇸🇩🇪🐴☭
    1
  3544. Hopefully easily-terrorized conservatives don't end up instituting something similar to comfort their fears over things that don't really exist -- the way prisons tend to work is that if somebody wasn't in a criminal gang going in, they will be coming out.
    1
  3545. Also helped that when the tires busted and they rode on bare rims, a squad of them rolling in the distance sounded enough like a tank
    1
  3546. Rough terrain with 100 lbs of gear, faster and farther from rear support than before. It's asking a solution in making Long Range Recon Patrols into a day trip.
    1
  3547. Size too, there's only so much space on a dirt bike to fit it all into
    1
  3548. Having that only son "disappear" on deployment will quickly become a point of popular protest when it affects so many Chinese families. Political patriotism be damned, their family line just ended and they'll be impoverished from now until the grave (Mainland China's "socialist" benefits are laughably small and often not worth the paperwork to claim).
    1
  3549. To be fair the PLA positions there were tactically very unfavorable due to the flawed UN Peacekeeper ROE. T&P also did a video about this.
    1
  3550. The ones who are left anyway. Beijing also implements limits to gaming time for China's youth, so a cyber version of the One Child Policy.
    1
  3551. Now imagine being a PLA soldier, where you get a full day worth each work week in classes for Xi Jinping Thought. Makes our Death by PowerPoint exciting by comparison.
    1
  3552. The ultimate solution points to improving the average citizen's education and civic engagement. The Wisdom of the Crowd relies on the wisdom within the crowd. Devolving into authoritarianism and smaller communities just makes its society more brittle.
    1
  3553. Well we did prohibit alcohol through a rare Constitutional amendment, and all that did was develop the industry of professionally organized crime.
    1
  3554. One HVT is one thing, a dozen narcosubs hitting our beaches every day all along our massive coastline is another.
    1
  3555. It's a huge problem in Germany, Spain, and the UK too. They just have better public medicine to treat it.
    1
  3556. I spent OEF by Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, and B1s were always taking off from there at full afterburner. Don't know if they were dropping payloads in Iraq or posturing over the Gulf as negotiating leverage for the JPCOA with Iran, but I'm glad I never had to find out directly.
    1
  3557. Yeah, it should be made of all the globally warming carbon emissions used to create and the coins and maintain the transaction environment, which then makes all our spending undeniable once traced. Great idea.
    1
  3558. Wikileaks seems like Mainland China: wanting to gain respect and admiration through tangible progress, but crippled by leadership with a toxic mindset and a destructive vendetta.
    1
  3559. The fiberglass and foam tubes are not, but the sight with all the electronics can be separated and recovered.
    1
  3560. Right, that "multipolar world" the competitors keep pitching simply means more conflict, especially since said competitors are a lot less open to changes and sharing of power too.
    1
  3561. Inflation (via printing money) is a buffer against the truly destructive doom loop of deflation, which limited-quantity media like gold easily spiral into. The Depression-level "busts" of gold-backed economies were historically resolved through finding more gold... through conquest and colonization.
    1
  3562. I only use AliExpress for items that can't be bought anywhere else, which averages to just over one order per year with them.
    1
  3563. I'd say our de minimis threshold should match that of the sending country, like maximum $7 for packages from China. That would undercut Temu's supposed "efficient supply chains" if even the material costs exceed the maximum value, and significantly delay further shipments due to having to first route through straw senders in other countries.
    1
  3564. As we saw during the oil price surge leading into the Great Recession, distance incurs a significant cost and making things more locally (especially as 3D printers come out) will ultimately become the trend in the long run.
    1
  3565. ​ @viridianacortes9642 This is why defending Taiwan is critical, the ROC is living proof of what Chinese people could achieve as a liberal democracy. Mainland China is doing the insane thing of rule by yet another despotic dynasty expecting eternal glory, but trends towards the same violent hard reset of China as a state.
    1
  3566. Hence the threat to Taiwan within the next 5 years when Xi tries to make his case for a 4th term as head of the Party.
    1
  3567. America has been on the "verge of collapse" since the War of 1812, yet somehow comes out of every depression and culture war even more aligned with it's ideal of "liberty and justice for _all_". The current Woke vs MAGA battle is tame compared to even the Civil Rights Movement considering how much more united and coordinated the racist traditionalists were at the time.
    1
  3568. If you think Tesla is fumbling though, look into that BYD competitor and notice how alarmingly regular their batteries catch themselves on fire and don't deploy the airbags in a clearly serious crash.
    1
  3569. "Give me your tithes today and you too can one day fly in luxury and style (in the afterlife of God's Kingdom)" -- every megachurch pastor
    1
  3570. Remember that the loyalty programs also include a lot of customer data, especially our spending habits from the cobranded cards 💳
    1
  3571. The detours into the Valley through highly-productive (i.e. unusually expensive) farmland is a big reason the CA HSR project has blown through the budget a few times over. The prudent option would have been to use the existing I-5 right of way where much of the central portion also has a generous unoccupied median, saving money for the even more expensive acquisitions in the big city termini and expanding along the CA-99 route at a later date after the whole CAHSR concept gets proven. But politicians got in the way of good choices and now the whole service is under threat of never rolling.
    1
  3572. Even the private railroad companies that initially tied together the US with steel rail required massive government financial support. In that case 100+ years ago it was the granting of rights of way that were at times miles wide which the company could lease or sell off to pay for the costs of construction and operation. All that literally free real estate combined with the pre-labor union working conditions and the then vital too-big-to-fail role that rail played in transport were all deliberate government policies to prop up "private" rail.
    1
  3573. After the military there's still the insurgency to worry about, and they're already picking off the supply lines that make the Russian forces vulnerable. Russia would have to commit far more resources just to ensure food and fuel make it to where they need it.
    1
  3574. There can be orbits around any celestial body. While a lunar one isn’t exactly practical, theoretically having an Earth-facing communications satellite there could guarantee access to short but critical message relay for almost half a day every day due to just being so distant from enemy anti-satellite assets.
    1
  3575. That shortsighted transactional mindset is why corporate businessmen tend not to last long in politics anywhere in the world. They're just too selfish and greedy to thrive in the public sector where upholding values and celebrating priceless symbols are at least as important as money.
    1
  3576.  @hh8638  Small missions with minimal funding often have just a fenced off townhouse, with one side sealed off for ambassadorial work to the host nation government, and the other open to the public for consular services. This arrangement is common for African country missions to each other.
    1
  3577. Those also tend to be "political hires" chosen personally by the President, often as a 'reward' for their help in the election campaign. Political appointees are often outsiders with little or no prior experience in public service -- their main qualification being that they have an existing close relationship with the President.
    1
  3578. Probably too small to support a full-timer and all the logistics having one resident would entail. More likely served as needed by an embassy in a nearby country like Jamaica or Colombia.
    1
  3579. A consulate is a subordinate part of its embassy. Their primary function is to provide consular services (visas, passports, government loans to citizens in need abroad, etc), as well as extend public outreach projects as directed by the embassy.
    1
  3580.  @rivaldi3956  Not much you can do, unless you have the solution to stop all sudden violence and natural disasters in foreign lands. Easier to just have a go-bag ready if an evacuation gets called for.
    1
  3581. More likely you'll be an part-time Honorary Consul, which isn't nearly as privileged as a full-timer (immunity only applies while actively handling official duty, and there's not usually much work to be done)
    1
  3582. And it was clearly talking about "hardship" for the US Foreign Service, which funnily enough does not have embassies to itself inside the US.
    1
  3583. Three streets surround the US Embassy in Canberra, I'm guessing your bus drove around almost the whole perimeter then. Google Maps says the nearby embassies for Belgium and France are almost as big, definitely larger than any of the High Commissions.
    1
  3584. Yes it would still be US property as was agreed when the post was first established. So if the US and Iran normalize relations, the place would again serve as the embassy grounds (after rebuilding the facilities), like what happened in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City
    1
  3585. No they're still under DoD, some extra bonus for embassy duty, but otherwise regular combat pay like their fellows out in the FOBs.
    1
  3586. Probably for medical care you can't completely trust like the no-bonus places
    1
  3587. Because most nations don't recognize Taiwan as the representative sovereign for all of "China". But it does have a completely separate immigration and customs regime, so it warrants a separate "trade office". Likewise "consulates" for Hong Kong and Macau usually report directly back to the sending nation, instead of being subordinate to their embassy in Beijing.
    1
  3588. Check with your own Ministry of Foreign Affairs, see if they're hiring
    1
  3589. Any major power in risky territory will look not much friendlier. Chinese, Russian, British, and Australian embassies also look fairly locked down in cities known for high crime rates or mass protests.
    1
  3590. Would you stay in the Bahamas if you needed open heart surgery? They'd more likely evacuate you back to the States, and that's probably where the 5% came from
    1
  3591. Hmm, never skipped the metal detector, but have fast-tracked through Immigration and blew by Customs with roller bags full of dirt cheap South African wines and beef. Not for sale in the host country though -- that would be smuggling -- but practically inhaled by coworkers at the next residential compound party.
    1
  3592. Could also be the HVAC system, backup generators, or even water treatment equipment. They're not uncommon things to put on the roof of a modern office building, and "security" also implies some level of self-sufficiency.
    1
  3593. There's also the rail companies, who were infamously not saints themselves. The regulations that limited their competitiveness as car and plane travel rose were instituted decades before for a reason.
    1
  3594.  @artilleryisbetter  No but still rising home prices means CA isn't have trouble finding people willing to pay its taxes.
    1
  3595. The highways were designed for transportation flexibility, and built before we realized we were overcapacity on Earth's ability to recycle our waste. But arguably because the rights of way are already there, we could convert the median and maybe a lane in each direction to accommodate a more energy efficient rail network to all the places the people and goods were going anyway.
    1
  3596. Back then, it'd be over $500b in today's dollars -- and that's with the discount of cheaper land, labor, and litigations of the past.
    1
  3597. California's HSR would have made way more sense if it just used the basically empty median on I-5 with a separate bus/rental car connection to the destination cities (much like newer airports today) while waiting for the communities to grow towards the station. But no, some idiot politicians decided to hamfist a more expensive route.
    1
  3598. The Interstates were built more comprehensively earlier. If anything it proved the benefits of spending so much on a nationwide high speed road network, and those who followed benefitted from falling costs of constructing the required tunnels and viaducts.
    1
  3599. That also means a greater harmonization of economic wants, since most drivers were only stopping by out of necessity and not desire. If anything the freeways simply facilitated more collection of people into the big cities, which has been the trend for all of human civilization.
    1
  3600. Also fun fact: The Interstate number origin is intentionally opposite that of the US Highway System -- US-1 is on the East Coast going to US-101 on the West, while I-5 is on the West and I-99 is on the East; also applies to the even numbers going up/down the country.
    1
  3601. No but plenty of U.S. roads are still winding paths with at grade crossings. That's exactly what the Interstate network sought to supplant.
    1
  3602. I believe American commerce can boom again if we commit to a national project making publicly-owned fiber optic connections nearly as ubiquitous as paved roads. South Korea basically did this and they enjoy the fastest internet in the world for hardly any money out of pocket, and the UK has great success in renting throughput to ISPs instead of letting them own the lines (i.e. access) too like Comcast/Cox/AT&T does here. It wouldn't be nearly as disruptive as building freeways either. You can fit a lot of fiber in a 1" pipe, and switching stations wouldn't be bigger than a garage (HVAC and backup generator included).
    1
  3603. I'd imagine that instead of humans in the trucks the whole route, there'll be driver-mechanics stationed along the route on-call to respond to a breakdown, kind of like how smaller tow trucks do for passenger vehicles. The longest gaps might be served with a human riding inside with a coordinated return trip.
    1
  3604. Which can only purchase from that one state-run monopoly. Hence a can of beer that starts at like $10.
    1
  3605.  @Eltener123  Because at this time Taiwan cannot be seen as separating from "China". It's just a signal meant to keep appearances, even though nobody takes it seriously. Besides, the ROC has no official presence with Mongolia and the other nations affected, so there's no authority to officiate those handovers in territory.
    1
  3606. Fixing America first requires an overhaul of our voting system, abolishing winner-take-all in favor of ranked-choice polling nationwide. That way third parties become viable contenders to the two-party duopoly that our current first-past-the-post system naturally converges on, while also disincentivizing the trend towards the extremes, especially considering the regular governance sabotage from the easily-terrorized (and thus mobilized) traditionalists. Once real disruptors to the bought-out established parties are able to gain representative power, we can begin to separate money from elections and all the corrupted considerations, deliberate inefficiencies, and overlooked wastage that brings between campaigns. Only when thoughts instead of dollars dominate our public discourse will we be able to truly progress from trying to relive has-been conditions towards where our country ought to be as "a more perfect Union".
    1
  3607. Mass manufacturing won't be coming back to the US, or at least the easy high school-level jobs won't as anything returning will be automated and require more skill. Customized fabrication is promising though as 3D printers get better, which could end up democratizing manufacturing in general -- it may not provide a living wage, but it'll be cheap enough to perform as a hobby instead.
    1
  3608. China doesn't help itself when it advertises everything it does some sort of ideal model, while severely suppressing and undercompensating all the real domestic criticism and protest its projects create.
    1
  3609. China is just slightly larger than the US Lower 48, but half of it is inaccessible or uninhabitable. It be like if everything west of Missouri was like Nevada.
    1
  3610. "if". You're asking for perfection from imperfect humans further divided by jurisdictional lines. Because "when" a mistake happens, it can take out whole areas from usability permanently. Doesn't matter what the fuel is either, because anything above-ground going nuclear is significantly more toxic to the environment.
    1
  3611. Probably interferes too much with shipping lanes, which are also critical to China's economic security. Plus there's the yearly typhoons, which very few turbines could withstand.
    1
  3612. Sadly the fixes aren’t always elegant, respectable, or even get to the root of the issue
    1
  3613. Missed an opportunity to say "New Yorkers would gladly pay $9 to drive faster than 9 mph through Lower Manhattan"
    1
  3614. Probably something of even greater concern, hence why most don't formally ask the US to leave. Ask the Philippines and Iraq what happened in their territories when we did.
    1
  3615. Until the Philippines realized it can't defend its claim in the South China Sea (Kalayaan) without a lot more advanced support. Until the often pro-China Duterte got elected, there was even movement to reintroduce some US military presence~~ somehow skirting its own constitutional ban on foreign military "bases".
    1
  3616. Depends on the city. For older denser establishments in East Asia, Europe and the Eastern US there's substantial public transit options. But for places whose growth boomed after the Great Depression (Western US, SE Asia, Africa, Middle East, etc), public transport can be a massive time suck of lost potential wages. Fixing it requires an overhaul to the city layout, and a lot of people won't be happy about the eminent domain levied against their homes for the needed improvements.
    1
  3617. Had the UK continued to recognize the ROC as "China" at the time of transfer, that may have been possible.
    1
  3618. HKers aren't standing with HK anymore, that Hong Kong was killed and the survivors are trying to migrate elsewhere before they suffer even more Mainland maladies.
    1
  3619. Mainland China was similarly much more vibrant until the XJP administration sterilized the whole place.
    1
  3620. Right, under Beijing HK's unique selling point deteriorated into merely administering USD-pegged HK Dollars, basically as a way for PRC entities to salvage the value of their Renminbi.
    1
  3621. British rule made HK and by extension Shēnzhèn into what they became today, instead of outlying military bases and inconvenient bedroom communities serving Guǎngzhōu up the river.
    1
  3622. It's also staffing issues from all those who retired early or left for other careers.
    1
  3623. WP: I guarantee you that bricks were once shipped through Amazon's logistics system. Therefore this video was a Wendover Production about bricks 🧱
    1
  3624. Yet high-density homes and public transit are what wealthy conservatives fight against and they seem to be winning and pleased.
    1
  3625. Yet the video basically says it's all those local governments (captured by cartels of NIMBYs) that are the biggest obstacle to better governance.
    1
  3626. Probably because we exhausted the carrying capacity of that pre-internet "paradise", paying for further expansion of those old designs with higher living costs instead of getting more efficient in the spaces we already had.
    1
  3627. Blocked by local cartels of rich conservatives who dominate the small cities that make up the state's metropolises. California is a lot more Red than most outsiders realize, especially in the implementation or protest of statewide policies.
    1
  3628. NIMBYs are the ones forcing the policies to fail, and are conservative by definition -- they fight against change because their local political cartel benefits at the expense of larger interests.
    1
  3629. They're easily blocked by rich conservatives who effectively have a cartel on the policies of entire cities.
    1
  3630. Ironically that calls for a more centralized republic at the cost of local government power, against the traditional interests of local autonomy and States' Rights. But larger centralized power is what societies globally have been converging on since industrialization.
    1
  3631. The harmonica you brought FROM PRISON? 🤣
    1
  3632. Washington Metro as the poster child of insufficient mass transit in America? (survived SafeTrack) I approve
    1
  3633. MBTI became the new Blood Type horoscope, although unlike blood types and zodiac signs there is some logic and measured correlation to the Big-5/HEXACO model used in actual psychology 🧠
    1
  3634.  @MrGuy-c3x Spoiling, though not so much in attitude as in opportunity; Things like neighborhood NIMBYism and politically prioritizing senior benefits and landed homeowner tax breaks over youth education and family welfare erasing upward mobility for their children before they have a voice as votes.
    1
  3635. Out of all the Chinese culture Mao annihilated in his Cultural Revolution, unfortunately that self-centered imperialist mindset wasn't one of them.
    1
  3636. And the Party still wonders why "New China" fails to achieve global appeal.
    1
  3637.  @svencejohanson9051  No, progressives are the teenager, which is why y'all react to annoying "wokeness" like it's some sort of barbarian invasion.
    1
  3638. Pensions and stock sales are technically not local work. Plus places like the Philippines and Thailand and Belize have residency schemes that specifically cater to foreign retirees.
    1
  3639. I believe that the pension should really be based on a percentage of how much the current taxpayers could pitch in each month or year. If the real income of young workers trends downward, so should the gratuities involuntarily paid to retirees.
    1
  3640. That's why it's important to tax wealth (and especially penalize hidden assets), not just income which the rich can get passively with additional deductions.
    1
  3641.  @celtne6860  Increase supply. Inflation is fundamentally demand overwhelming supply.
    1
  3642. Ironically anti-welfare anti-contraceptive conservatives blame parents having kids they can't afford as irresponsible.
    1
  3643. Right, I just heard an NPR podcast that said how so-called "irresponsible" single or cohabiting black parents avoid marriage because their tax burden shoots up in a dual-income filing.
    1
  3644. Humans have gotten by through villages and extended families that can look after the kids for free while both parents are busy. Now we pay through the nose for daycare and babysitters because those trust networks no longer exist in the developed world of largely isolated nuclear families.
    1
  3645.  @dr.j5642  That's at current prices too, which will shoot up should shots in the Straits scare off civilian shipping, constraining China to far less economical overland alternatives.
    1
  3646. China is kicking alright... kicking out the foreign assets and overseas demand it needs to keep its economy afloat and the Chinese people contented.
    1
  3647. The US has been "on the brink of collapse" since the War of 1812.
    1
  3648. I'm surprised more wasn't said about China's irredentist claims on the Russian Far East, which it had lost to Moscow in an 19th century "unequal treaty" and has since been realized to contain vital hydrocarbon and freshwater resources that Beijing desperately desires control over.
    1
  3649. We asked the same question about the same China (🇹🇼) back in the late 1930s, and got our answer at Pearl Harbor.
    1
  3650. Sounds like you underestimate the suspicion China's neighbors have developed towards especially Mainlanders, some ancient some recent but all commonly popular.
    1
  3651. Only made, the designs come from the US and Japan. The making part is getting spread especially back to the US, while the physical sensitivity of chip fabs would quickly destroy its ability to spin up after hostilities end.
    1
  3652. And they've been preparing an elaborate unwelcome mat for the PLA over the past half century.
    1
  3653. Hypersonics are magnets for self-blinding plasma shields, which also serve as a beacon to defending radars. Those missiles require not-so-invulnerable external guidance all the way in unless they slow wayy down.
    1
  3654.  @ylstorage7085 Military, defense contractors, and anyone with a security clearance were long advised to avoid using ChatGPT for anything, including helping speed up innocuous unclassified tasks like routine administrative reports (which could then be revealed if someone outside happens to ask the right question). What they would have are fully siloed copies if not their own secret LLM analyzers.
    1
  3655. That's comparable to a professional-grade drone, which these are considering they're programmed on the ground and fully autonomous once airborne with no further communications with the launcher.
    1
  3656. There's no transceiver, it's flown fully self-piloted. The pro-grade avionics are what's jacking up the unit price.
    1
  3657. It's also the avionics that guide the plane once launched. These drones use inertial guidance with GPS corrections and don't communicate once airborne, which improves its stealth as there's no radio signals to intercept.
    1
  3658. It's programmed on the ground and fully self-piloted once launched, so that there's no radio communications to alert its target. That avionics is why it costs more like a professional grade drone.
    1
  3659. It's not the airframe, it's the avionics. They're deployed in fully self-piloted mode, which is why they cost more like a professional grade drone.
    1
  3660. No, it's programmed prior to launch and carries no active communication gear. That's part of the reason it's so stealthy, and the more advanced avionics needed for full autopilot is why a cardboard plane can cost $5000.
    1
  3661. I'm guessing having a visually appetizing meal after the shoot is a fringe benefit 😋
    1
  3662. Fun fact: If your earwax is gunky (instead of flaky), it also means you have strong body odor 👂🦨
    1
  3663. It's way easier to revoke a stolen mobile wallet than it is to remember, cancel, and wait for replacement of the lost physical cards.
    1
  3664. Right, there's no compulsion to change because all the owner sees is additional upfront costs, while not enough of the liabilities of fraud and hacks tied to their outdated POS system.
    1
  3665. It's because we're too "business friendly", not mandating upgrades to their technology before it ends up as an agent to some hack.
    1
  3666. A lot of American POS card readers are hardwired to a physical phone line, and there's no impetus to force all those businesses to purchase a newer cellular/wifi-based model. The "business friendly" lack of compulsion is why the US is so far behind because the vendors don't want to pay for the "unnecessary" upgrade.
    1
  3667. No it's actually normal to get your bags at the stopover as long as you book it as two one-way flights. The point is that there's often no price difference if you do this (including with whole days in between) compared to a straight-through layover where you're expected to stay in the terminal.
    1
  3668. No it's actually normal to get your bags at the stopover as long as you book it as two one-way flights. The point is that there's often no price difference if you do this (including with whole days in between) compared to a straight-through layover where you're expected to stay in the terminal.
    1
  3669. There'd still be regular staffed lines. This wouldn't replace every entry, just however many the share of passengers are able to figure out.
    1
  3670. There'd still be regular staffed lines too.
    1
  3671. I'm just 5'5" but muscular for my height (which for me means seat width is more important than legroom). 160 would be the lower limit of my healthy weight.
    1
  3672. For smaller shorter-range regional planes they might. Anything from 737s upwards would have inflatable life vests instead, since it's probably difficult to design a seat being weighed down for hours on end to still float well.
    1
  3673. Crash safety I'd imagine. Same reason car headrests are stick out so much too, to limit your head movement in a violent toss.
    1
  3674. Dams are deathtraps, both ecologically to the river on both sides and to the budgets required to build and maintain them properly. Cisterns are safer.
    1
  3675. They're letting the opposition continue publicly showing its toxic ineptness.
    1
  3676. He sounds like he has more faith in China than Chinese people themselves. I was just there, I've heard directly their less rosy outlook once they realized I was an English-speaking foreigner and not a potential Party informant.
    1
  3677. Chinese nationals can't complain.
    1
  3678. The Sunshine Policy of peace through interdependence didn't work with Russia, and if anything it emboldens the PRC into asserting its supposed destiny of hegemony.
    1
  3679. Because they're talking heads we don't have to watch because the conversation itself is the substantial part?
    1
  3680. Self-censoring to keep your friends and family off the government hit list is exactly what the Party wants you to do. But the way modern China's vague and conflicting "laws" are enforced though still doesn't guarantee protection from police harassment and detention, so it's ultimately self-defeating to stay quiet.
    1
  3681. What's really maddening is that the oil companies knew it'd be uneconomical to recycle most plastics this whole time, which led to them inventing the whole "recycling" numbering system.
    1
  3682. Corporations see more profit from outrage than objectivity. Sadly our own laws demand that their top priority is to gain dollars, the act of which rewards sociopathic behaviors.
    1
  3683. Yeah they need to fix that text-to-speech narrator lol
    1
  3684. I'd imagine an ASEAN+Taiwan+Japan blockade to starve Mainland China enough that the Party risks internal capitulation, as China's lands are too deserted/polluted to feed everyone and overland supply lines would not be enough.
    1
  3685. 8:12 The city of Surabaya in Indonesia has its origin myth rooted in a legendary fight nearby between a crocodile and a great white shark 🐊🦈🇮🇩
    1
  3686.  @Al_MageMaster  Although now we have vaccines and other treatments that make SARS-2 largely tolerable, and further mutations are more likely to become less damaging because with our collective immunity, becoming a mere nuisance will become the only way the virus survives. Which is a problem for Mainland China, which at this point is largely unexposed or inoculated with vaccines that doesn't seem to protect as well as it should based on accounts from other countries taking them. This means an alarming amount of the over 1 billion people will be hit significantly harder if they ease up and the virus gets in, hence why they continue this expensive zero-risk policy.
    1
  3687. Still useful as parts, displays get cracked and buttons/cameras/microphones/Lightning ports go bust somewhere in the world all the time
    1
  3688. China making something and Chinese using it themselves seem to be very separate ideas.
    1
  3689. They still are, because there's so many ways to source the energy. China just happens to still be very reliant on coal-fired generation, particularly optimized for high-grade Australian ones that the Party has basically banned.
    1
  3690. Because the unchallengeable Party wants it to be. They're enjoying the exodus of foreigners, and increased intrusiveness and impunity they can impose on the Chinese people. If they actually wanted to exit the pandemic, they'd have approved and imported the BioNTech-Fosun (we know it as Pfizer) vaccine over a year ago along with everyone else.
    1
  3691. Local officials are either with the central government or are deemed against it. That's why they take the vague directives and go to insane lengths to "prove" they're on the side of the central Party. But then if it backfires the central Party refuses to take responsibility. It's the whole Inner and Outer Party dynamic depicted in _Nineteen Eighty-Four_.
    1
  3692. PRC needs foreign tourists and the valuable monies they exchange into CNY.
    1
  3693. ​ @mouseisbroken ​​ Because Chinese is still not all that useful outside of China or communities of ethnically Chinese people, and the colony-like isolationist attitude of overseas Mainlander communities makes it unlikely that Mandarin will grow in popularity and utility. Around the world I've found that even Korean is a better lingua franca, despite not being a UN official language.
    1
  3694. Can't riot, but can assemble for protests and not get tossed into jail or later visited by police about it.
    1
  3695. In China that doesn't seem to be the case, else their ubiquitous Meituan/Didi/Hellobike rentals would at least come with blinkers like every other rideshare around the world (they all have electronic locks that communicate through cellular messaging, and many have solar panels integrated into the front baskets)
    1
  3696. Haters claim it’s cloud seeding, ignorant that it can’t create supercells and wouldn’t be deployed to downpour directly on a city.
    1
  3697. I lived in Indonesia. The locals actually have a lot of suspicion and criticism of China: the way overpriced and delayed Bandung HSR, taking raw ore back to China instead of minerals first refined in Indonesia, paramilitary activities near the Natuna Islands, and Chinese submarine drones they keep finding in their waters. Americans by contrast were a lot more tolerated whenever there wasn't some gaffe about perceived insults against Islam.
    1
  3698. Climate change will probably result in heavier rainstorms, followed by more severe heat waves and dry spells. The wanted rain would just be more random and intense, but not regular.
    1
  3699. That's if Indonesia can get the rest of SE Asia to formally follow its lead as it already dominates the bloc and region... and yielding to a hegemon is anathema to being "non-aligned"
    1
  3700. And then the PRC banned the BBC ☭
    1
  3701. SARS-2 is primarily airborne. Large stores provide more space between people, often has better HVAC filtration, and dedicated staff (security or greeters) to enforce masks and capacity limits.
    1
  3702. Outside of urban China, yeah it's actually pretty normal
    1
  3703. Especially for conservatives, who by definition are easily terrified of change.
    1
  3704. Corporations love dictators. Autocracy simplifies the business environment for short-term profits.
    1
  3705. There's also a rising undertone of hostility from the Chinese government, propagating into the public through its state media. I'd expect the unwelcome attitude to last beyond the end of lockdowns, meaning a relative lack of opportunity and optimism for foreigners moving forward.
    1
  3706. If they're uniformed and authorized to enforce laws and policies, they're basically police.
    1
  3707. Didn't think I'd enjoy an over 15 minute basic geometry lesson, but here we are ➕💯
    1
  3708. Small businesses just mad the public didn’t pay all the costs for the updates to their POS machines, because somehow the act of accepting legal tender isn’t a cost of doing business 🤷🏻💴
    1
  3709. For this to continue though, China has to remain peaceful with its neighbors. SE Asia has also been arming up for a kinetic confrontation because of the expansionist and exclusionary actions by its neighbor across the SCS.
    1
  3710. It can be a backhanded compliment too, learning to avoid China’s mistakes and incompatible ideas for the world’s largest Muslim nation and third largest democracy.
    1
  3711. North America uses different cell frequencies, necessitating a different radio chipset. Plus anyone with complaints will be doing transoceanic shipping, where regular air shipments goes against their pro-environment goals on top of increasing restrictions on lithium batteries going by plane.
    1
  3712. That's if it's proven to be a domestic manufacture, and not rebranded pre-ban stockpile. Strangely there's more news about this in Western media than in Chinese, pointing to deception.
    1
  3713. I'm still putting along with an equally old LG V20. Sadly even with FP5 there's still no direct replacement for all its hardware features that I regularly use.
    1
  3714.  @308_Negra_Arroyo_Lane  Perhaps to signal that China is not the only major power he’s capable of talking with. He’s still Indonesia’s Defense Minister, and the TNI are markedly more anticommunist and Western leaning than the general population.
    1
  3715. It doesn't help they only ship within Europe too
    1
  3716. It’d be Japan before that, as there’s more high profile Japanese joint projects and America might change its president next year.
    1
  3717. Might also be to caution China that he’s willing and able to talk with the competition too.
    1
  3718. Both sides have been preparing for this for decades, though only recently the Communists are becoming competent with modern warfare now that technology and experience made obsolete simple camouflage and misdirections that the PLA historically specialized in.
    1
  3719. ​ @BrotherCheng Right, I don't mind maintaining a handful of open chats on 10 different apps (I meet people from all around the world), but I know a lot of users want all theirs in one place and in America it's through SMS+iMessage.
    1
  3720. Wouldn't be such a threat if China approved the Western mRNA vaccines, but that's considered a political surrender.
    1
  3721. Yeah I would've upgraded a long time ago if I didn't have to physically live in Europe to get one.
    1
  3722. I doubt the HarmonyOS will do much better than other alternatives like Samsung Tizen: Chinese consumers are not that valuable per user due to their low individual buying power (even before the structural downturn the PRC is nowadays facing) and unfree payment networks they’re limited to. Meanwhile well-informed foreigners would be wary to give their data to the CPC intelligence community. So basically the Huáwéi user base will be limited to Party patriots and naïve newcomers.
    1
  3723. It's all for nothing because China remained sterile and complacent on its whole-virus vaccines that no longer work. Now the Chinese people are effectively unimmunized against a disease that spreads faster than measles while the rest of the exposed/vaccinated world moves on 🏁🐢🐇
    1
  3724. The Soviets gave the CPC Manchuria and considerable materiel support, whereas the other Allies withdrew. The KMT were also a corrupt incompetent bunch, which left many Chinese citizens ripe to consider the Communist alternative. Had the otherwise superior KMT focused on defending China Proper instead of overextending into Manchuria, we probably would have had a North and South China (akin to East and West Germany), and they'd have reunited once Communism fell in the North at the end of the Cold War.
    1
  3725. For Taiwanese, life under CPC rule is not peaceable; money does not buy love, which is the only thing the PRC can really offer after the Cultural Revolution destroyed Chinese culture, and even then the Party's selective enforcement of its own laws make economic prosperity tenuous. They've even stopped identifying themselves as "Chinese" because of how toxic the Communists have made the label "China".
    1
  3726. @agapp11able Over the long term I see the CPC facing the same question about their own legitimacy, having destroyed Chinese culture in the Cultural Revolution, and increasingly having difficulty guaranteeing economic prosperity and gaining the admiration they think they deserve worldwide. An attempted takeover of Taiwan -- and even a successful one having to face generations of armed resistance -- would only accelerate the decline when China's only sons in the PLA keep disappearing or returning home in urns.
    1
  3727. It's least disruptive for the ROC to pretend that it wants to reunite with the Mainland under its own terms. But over the years the PRC has made the term "China" so toxic that Taiwanese are abandoning the label, and are considering whether to formalize its separation (which inevitably includes reigniting their war against the PLA).
    1
  3728. Not just US media, but stories from all over the world of standoffish and inconsiderate Mainland Chinese visitors, and the projects created from PRC aid packages that are questionable in both design and intent. Basically reminiscent of European colonialism with an Asian face.
    1
  3729. Still not as bad as daily traffic from jet airliners, where some residents in Narita have been holding out in the literal midst of an airport since the 1970s.
    1
  3730.  @magictrick8833  China is like that also, 70-year leases on land. This exception came likely because the local government was concerned that the homeowner could inspire a wider revolt had they forced her out.
    1
  3731. Most of China supports its government now, but that support/tolerance depends almost totally on continuing an economic rise that is getting more difficult to achieve as it enters middle income levels, trapped by a lack of real trust in its products and in how the rest of the world fits in to the Chinese Dream. Combine that with an upcoming cliff of self-made aging, household debt, and soil pollution whose solutions are politically distasteful, and CPC rule increasingly risks imploding as they approach -- the bigger question then is if the PRC can hold together as a unified state, or end up degrading into a weaker shell of regional partnerships if not provinces going rogue from Běijīng and declaring independence altogether.
    1
  3732. Most Western media sources parrot the figures coming out of China, either because they can't independently verify or because they're too lazy to try. Either way it would help for them to mention that they're repeating a Chinese news source instead of fully owning the report.
    1
  3733. To the Ukrainians, American equipment is well worth the price of saving their sovereignty.
    1
  3734. Weak passwords can be way more damaging and are much simpler to coordinate against. “Here’s the standards, follow it or else” doesn’t have nearly the same complexities as enforcing price controls and subsidies with taxpayer money getting spent.
    1
  3735. Hand-drawn animation is peak storytelling. Don’t ruin the legacy with a live-action knockoff.
    1
  3736. Hand-drawn animation is peak storytelling. Don’t ruin the legacy with a live-action knockoff.
    1
  3737. Try the Gulf States, where the temperatures can break 50°C and gets just as bad at night -- low 40s with 90% humidity 🇧🇭🇶🇦🇦🇪🌡️
    1
  3738.  @condorX2  Misreporting, which is easily done where the only people to impress is a secretive unchallenged Party who's anxious about never looking bad. I'd wager their embarrassing statistics is missing at least one zero.
    1
  3739. Apparently about half the provinces have implemented rationing. Of course not in the city centers where foreigners and the affluent would take notice.
    1
  3740. ​They have long term _goals_, but the planning is not well thought out and never detailed enough to put manageable boundaries on the lower levels who actually have to implement said "plan". Hence why the Party is constantly having to react to their own poor results.
    1
  3741. Voluntary contributions won't work, it's just squandering the wealth and influence of the donors. What has to happen is all peers and superiors being forced to pay at least as much to minimize freeriding.
    1
  3742.  @lettucesalad3560  China would never reveal it though, and I'd bet they conveniently didn't keep track of how many bodies they burned anyway. The Economist though put out an estimate that China lost upwards of 2 million to COVID; so still better per capita than America, but also a more alarming statistic pointing at China's medical ineffectiveness which the Party doesn't want its people to know... especially with Omicron now in country and threatening to break out particularly during CNY and the Olympics.
    1
  3743. But COVID is increasingly tolerable, accelerated by Western-made mRNA vaccines which China refuses to give in to. Doing 3+ weeks of quarantine with every travel isn't so sustainable, especially when the global competition is moving on.
    1
  3744. Many want to leave, China is no longer a fun and inviting assignment due to the near total shutdown of leisure travel and the constant threat of getting medically detained for simply going through a surprise "red zone". An evacuation order would fund the trip out and maintain pay status while they figure out what to do next.
    1
  3745. Ironically technology could start putting downward pressure on height, capping the upward trend: high-performance vehicles like aircraft and eventually spacecraft as well as underground/overwater spaces we're looking to inhabit want to minimize meatspace which favors smaller folks, while staying youthfully healthy for longer allows previous tech-enabled benefits to really stack up.
    1
  3746. It's sad how America's tax policy robs from young producers to give to the end-of-life and often obsolete-minded. But that's the unfortunate side effect of one man one vote democracy when the most consistent voters are the ones who have not much else to do but get politically indoctrinated by the TV and have all day to line up at the polls.
    1
  3747. The $4000 was a down payment she wanted to commit to the plan, which also sealed the criminal case against her.
    1
  3748. China lost respect and credibility for this habitual thievery. Now that its future growth prospects are in doubt, there's not much left to attract further foreign engagement (and thus more forced knowledge transfer that they still need).
    1
  3749. Also the fact that the PRC considers all Chinese persons worldwide as essentially their subjects, regardless of what passport they hold or where they reside. It's the Chinese government who holds a truly racist worldview.
    1
  3750. Problem is the Chinese Dream doesn't empower the ethnically non-Chinese. Anyone can integrate into the core US or EU identity through residency and naturalization, whereas an Hàn ethnostate China doesn't beyond token minorities.
    1
  3751. The US has higher concern with security, which compartmentalization is a key componen to limiting damage. America isn’t going to see WeChat-like shopping convenience when regular commerce is vulnerable enough already.
    1
  3752. Suspicion towards China is the sentiment of literally the rest of the educated world. While the US is more potent, it’s also fundamentally more liked and trusted worldwide.
    1
  3753. As much as American companies want to borrow ideas from WeChat and other Chinese platforms, we are also averse to excessive centralization of services and the multiplication of damage that a single scandal or security breach could cause.
    1
  3754. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests: "wasteful" redundancy and "uneconomical" alternatives immediately becomes vital when the one source gets disrupted.
    1
  3755. Not conservative Boomers, they'll have unrenewed licenses if not be buried by then. Younger Millennials and Gen Z aren't so concerned about "range" as they are lower ongoing transportation costs and improved air quality.
    1
  3756. I can see those fields rolling into jobs in data analysis and marketing, though those careers aren’t straightforward to break into.
    1
  3757. ⁠I have a sociology degree and make six figures. Turns out there’s a huge need to identify and shape human preferences towards best practices in cybersecurity.
    1
  3758. That basically collapses the economy for everyone even if you do the “right thing” with your finances. Check out the structural issues China is facing with an overly thrifty consumer base.
    1
  3759. Russia could easily reconquer the far smaller Baltic States, at least before Finland joined the alliance. Now they’re not so sure especially since the rest of the Scandinavia has formally aligned itself against Moscow.
    1
  3760. The IOC needs to get over its aversion to a multi-city Games like FIFA already has. San Diego+Tijuana have tried multiple times to be allowed to make a border-crossing bid, and was never given the chance despite the US side having had a full on Olympic Training Center that were only some temporary bleachers away from becoming competition venues.
    1
  3761. "State-sponsored" means just that, sponsored by a state. In other words, funded, contracted, if not hired by a government. Highly-centralized regimes like China and Russia are infamous for pulling off hacks that only a government-funded operation have the patience and sophistication to commit. Massive organizations like Yahoo are so huge that they probably have teams of people just to replace dead hard drives and order replacements in all their different types. Losing track of every service and operation is easy at the top where they're worried about how to fund every HR, legal, marketing, and sales program on top of hard ops. Most Americans can't even come close to an accurate inventory for every single thing they own just at home.
    1
  3762. Chuckles in Pacific Northwest
    1
  3763. By that same token there's plenty of space to retrofit into bike infrastructure like dedicated lanes and racks. This invites more usage and the positive economics that come with increased bike and foot traffic, and eventually communities close in and densify as demand reduces for maintaining space for driving and parking.
    1
  3764. China threatens to steal the livelihoods and food supply for like half of ASEAN, based on a "history" that literally nobody else recognizes.
    1
  3765. Small donors too, i.e. actual voters.
    1
  3766. Condoms require more human action, which increases the likelihood of failure. Perfect use statistics isn't what counts in the real world. That said, layered defenses (like pill + condom) are more ideal: there's redundancy if one fails for whatever reason.
    1
  3767. ​ @chanceriordan "Fine" isn't the same as "Great", which is what his MAGA constituents expect.
    1
  3768. The difference is China isn't as afraid to waste their money on local corruption. Going forward the difference would also be how quickly those projects deteriorate due to more shoddy quality without constant maintenance often exclusively contracted to Chinese companies, and you're left struggling to figure out what they did because they took the blueprints, equipment manuals, and spare parts.
    1
  3769. Infrastructure has to be built correctly though. If you approve the paving of primarily vehicle roads, you end up dependent on owning and driving relatively expensive cars even for short trips when walking or biking would have sufficed like before. Then without sidewalks, crossings, and viaducts, your infrastructure project ends up literally separating communities from each other. And then you have to pay for ongoing maintenance indefinitely, because otherwise they become more dangerous to be around over time.
    1
  3770. Arguably they are. China has exploded in the amount of debt they took on, even after building with such marginal quality that even Africans are concerned about the lack of concrete and rebar going into the Chinese projects there.
    1
  3771. The US Government banned use of Zoom for internal telemeetings because of its gaping security flaws
    1
  3772. The Skype technology has largely forked into Microsoft Teams, which is surprisingly elegant for an enterprise-level collaboration app
    1
  3773. It takes a decade just to design one airframe. We’re talking about at least a generation of uneconomical and almost daredevil levels of flying before these new companies get their products refined enough for regular passenger service… only to begin consolidating again due to market pressures.
    1
  3774. Probably because its own people hesitate to get the shot. Same wide mistrust exists in China.
    1
  3775. Capitalism hates dependents, whether they’re schoolkids or pensioners. It’s too sociopathically shortsighted to value and invest in its future workforce.
    1
  3776. It's what American and Chinese cars have in common: being a garage hog 🐷🔧
    1
  3777. That's mainly because Chinese themselves aren't buying EVs, or much of anything that isn't consumable or disposable. There's a glut of Chinese EVs at the moment that are ready for export to those places that will certify them for the roads (i.e. not rich high-speed nations who require the most stringent safety standards).
    1
  3778. Tbf the Luddites were WFH artisans who were against the idea of being told to report to factories for longer hours at less pay and safety. It took another century before the rise of labor unions started balancing all those insane profits back towards the workers.
    1
  3779. Workers don't get paid when furloughed or laid off. Meanwhile it's not so easy to not pay specific shareholders when convenient; shareholders aren't on the hook for company debts; and shareholders are practically never dependent on just that one company for its income unlike the workers.
    1
  3780. I just moved to the Middle East where gas is cheap and I'm still considering an EV, mainly because of the almost nonexistent maintenance... and thus no need to search for garages who won't try to upcharge and scam you for the quality of work they don't provide.
    1
  3781. ⁠Yanks don’t have to make any, they tell you how to make it. You’re literally lost without American-designed blueprint photomasks.
    1
  3782. It’s necessary to settle on a common set of rules. Differences in what these arrangements ought to be sets the stage for conflict.
    1
  3783.  @jasonsmith5616 Right, the other signatories didn’t pump up a speculation bubble. The Accords were fundamentally about the US Dollar getting too strong compared to the G5.
    1
  3784. Yet China still made the same mistakes dumping their family wealth into real estate and other speculations, without a following generation ready to buy it off. Notice the other signatories (UK, France, and West Germany) didn’t experience such a bubble.
    1
  3785. Yet China made all the same mistakes as Japan, becoming protectionist speculators with not enough youth to pay it off. Notice the other signatories didn’t have such a bubble afterwards.
    1
  3786. The world (not just the West) is increasingly aware of the risks over the where components are made and assembled, particularly from the PRC. The US is seen as more capable, but also more benign since the main data gatherers are corporations who have to regularly publish their interests and market their offerings. Washington's spooks are a lot smaller in size and budget than the ones funded by Beijing, so have to be more judicious about who they target with their time.
    1
  3787. That rise came at our expense, and it's proudly employed against the people for "state security" purposes under the guise of maintaining an artificial "harmony". There was a false belief that economic development would inspire political reform, but instead they've use every spare cent to censor reality and divide us.
    1
  3788. Nigeria as a whole is under threat, but the Lagos area will thrive
    1
  3789. It’s really long term inflation they’re targeting. The only real power the government has to limit price hikes within an election cycle are dictated price controls.
    1
  3790. No, it's either never published per NDAs, or drowned out by the noise of conspiracy theorists and other opinionated loudmouths.
    1
  3791. The Chinese system is influencing the world, but only rarely to the benefit of China
    1
  3792. America keeps the seas open. Containers stuck in port due to fear of piracy or extortionist tolls aren't very profitable.
    1
  3793. Ironically the locals are concerned about the durability of Chinese construction, which use a disturbingly marginal amount of concrete and rebar. European colonial builds still standing they likely are not.
    1
  3794. I've lived in both Africa and SE Asia, and the locals say that China is at least predatory as their old European colonizers. But unlike what Europeans left behind, they don't see the Chinese builds lasting as long because of how marginal the quality of construction is.
    1
  3795. Or have the foresight because that's what they did a century or two ago.
    1
  3796. The problem comes when China decides it's worth the effort to recoup their "investment"
    1
  3797.  @yyds66666  Peace through power, specifically the silencing of criticism and bad news no matter how relevant it is.
    1
  3798. Right, pipelines move oil, roads move tanks.
    1
  3799.  @ubermenschen3636  No, America looks for actual ROI, not lebensraum for low-skilled citizens. That's a big reason the US isn't as aggressive in offering loans, and when it is the terms demand improvements in governance that make the gains more durable.
    1
  3800. Buildings that the locals fear are more prone to collapse, seeing how little concrete and rebar actually gets installed. Meanwhile they're at risk for losing access to their territory that their (often kleptocratic) government put forth as collateral.
    1
  3801. The debt of a single person or business isn't nearly as damaging as the economic domination (i.e. colonization) of an entire country
    1
  3802. We're coming out of an ice age. But what we're doing is rocket boosting temperatures towards a new maximum.
    1
  3803. Chinese real estate 🏚️💸
    1
  3804. The US is ironically more socialist and equitable than China in practice.
    1
  3805. It doesn't even have 1.4b people. Independent estimates are closer to 1.0b and already shrinking.
    1
  3806. 5% if you believe their targets...and creatively accounted achievements. Even that is a painful slowdown from the expectations and financial plans of the median Chinese resident.
    1
  3807. Definitely feels like it now. The PRC proved to habitually overpromise and underdeliver, and the rest of the world is hungry and willing to take what China once achieved for their own but with much more transparency. There's a reason Beijing started going "wolf warrior", and it's not because of true confidence.
    1
  3808. I occasionally do too, but I still end up buying from a cafe (often a Starbucks) because I want to be productive on my laptop instead of being completely lazy at home.
    1
  3809. Not even a blockade, just sail near some container ships and let China's swarm of relatively dumb anti-ship missiles mistakenly hit the biggest target it sees. That would make it clear for the rest of the world to stay away from China, and the PRC would implode from the lack of food and fuel imports that it relies on.
    1
  3810. Right, if all the civilian traffic gets scared off Mainland China would quickly implode in riots over unaffordable rationed tainted food. I doubt all of China's security forces can take on the entirety of a hangry China, especially when parts of it are starving themselves.
    1
  3811. The PLAN would have to be able to hold the blockade, which is unlikely given how most of its ships lack effective air defenses would be devastated by a cheap guided bomb from a stealth plane above. I'd imagine Western allies would likely crack the blockade through "humanitarian aid" cover protecting cargo ships from stoppages by the PLAN.
    1
  3812. Land wars allow a less sophisticated combatant to ambush a superior military, but there wouldn't be much of a land war to fight here (and the battles that do happen would be against the PLA instead). The air and sea combat being most of this fighting would favor the side with superiority in systems technology, logistics under fire, and combat experience, which the West has in practically every aspect.
    1
  3813. National disintegration is just as common in Chinese history. This is likely to happen again if cross-Straits crossfire scares away civilian ship traffic and international customers are angered enough to seek permanent replacements to China... it wouldn't take long before food prices skyrocket, revenues and wages collapse, and whole communities in the Mainland riot to the point that the PAP and PLA are overwhelmed.
    1
  3814.  @MrThemneboss  They say they toe the Party line to please their overseas embassy/consulate minders, but in reality they'd be among the first to expatriate when given the opportunity knowing how much less stifling it is away from China. That is unless the PRC can pull off a dramatically decisive victory in their favor, which is unrealistic given how inexperienced the PLA is and how much everyone else is preparing for that showdown.
    1
  3815. Japanese bases aren't much farther, and the US is far more practiced in logistics under fire. Even without troops, merely supplying equipment and intelligence to Táiwān while grounding their PLA counterparts would be plenty of help. This strategy works superbly against Russia invading neighboring flatland Ukraine, so imagine how much pain the Mainland will feel crossing 110km of open ocean that every can monitor just to land on Fortress Formosa.
    1
  3816. Problem is the levelheadedness is disappearing in the PRC. The Party's Mainland has lost practically every opportunity for easy prosperity as unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, chemical pollution of farmlands and freshwater sources, widespread corruption, production inefficiency, mass underemployment, and lack of useful education ensures an unrecoverable stall. Rising anger over obviously politically-driven Zero-COVID measures only further inflame the simmering hate against the Chinese government. Without indefinite wealth growth distracting the Chinese people, the Party's only option to rescue its rule would be creating a common hate to rally against -- hence the explosion of overt anti-US messaging and media. Unfortunately compared to the US the PLA is nearly clueless with logistics under real fire, and their otherwise overwhelming army can't swim themselves 100km across the Strait with all the needed gear. Táiwān by contrast could pull off an effective defense and insurgency with much less equipment and personnel, especially if Western allies sit back and take potshots at PLA planes and boats crossing the Strait.
    1
  3817.  @Greg_call America’s Pacific territories are not covered under NATO responsibilities though. Only Alaska might count being connected to a continent with a beach on the Atlantic.
    1
  3818.  @QuantumAscension1 Burnt rocket fuel is still pretty toxic. Also all the diesel fumes, truck tracks, foot stomping, constant lights, and deafening (to wildlife) noise endemic to any operation.
    1
  3819. Liability? It’s America’s bastion for the Western Pacific. It doesn’t need to be profitable to be productive, just look at any Interstate freeway.
    1
  3820. Does China have enough working hypersonic missiles? Those things are extremely expensive, not something to waste on easily repaired airstrips or redeployable radar sets.
    1
  3821. ⁠ Right, if America has the balls to scare off civilian ships and take out China’s port facilities, the Mainland will starve for affordable food and fuel. No amount of overland alternatives can sufficiently feed all of China, especially when the vast majority of its people and industries are on the coast on the other side of the country.
    1
  3822.  @anonymous.marshall Well yeah, are you too young to remember 9/11?
    1
  3823. The real reason these territories don’t become states is because of Republicans, who don’t want to degrade its social conservative base by adding two more consistently left-leaning Senators. Turns out that American traditionalism isn’t that popular globally, really only Alberta might pull right if Canada lets them go south.
    1
  3824. Unlike the jungles of Vietnam, there’s nowhere in the open ocean for casual combatants to ambush and regroup in, and no space to support independent reporters who can enhance their image. It’s all air and sea battles, which favors the side with superior technology and practical experience with it (both of which America has far more of).
    1
  3825. China likes to censor its critics by trying to get videos age-restricted.
    1
  3826. Japan is a breakout nuclear power, they could probably design and test a nuclear warhead within a year if it wanted to. They've long had the materials and knowledge on how to start.
    1
  3827. Now remove most of the affordable food, fuel, and ore that China has to import, and how productive will China be then?
    1
  3828. Ironically those narco subs are inspiring a project of attritable supply ships that will keep Taiwan fed and fighting.
    1
  3829. Not to mention how the US has tens of thousands of gravity bombs in stock right now, ready to bolt on a cheap glide kit for use against all those practically defenseless PRC-flagged boats.
    1
  3830. The political status and geographic layout of the target makes known forward deployments problematic. However we did get a crash course in ramping up materiel production in the internet age, which will be fully online by next year and well ahead of any PLA mobilization.
    1
  3831. The US might fall into some disorder if conservative reactionaries continue stubbornly fighting for their losing grip on the reality of the world. China however if they can't so much as seize and control all of Taiwan within a year or two (a real possibility considering the social and physical environment), there might not be much of a PRC left after its popular implosion once it becomes impossible to hide yet another Vietnam.
    1
  3832. US infrastructure is a century old (especially considering the freight rail network and the US Highway System), of course China looks like a shiny new baby by comparison
    1
  3833. That's basically how the Mainland was cowed into allowing 50 years of an SAR relationship with HK and Macau: the threat of being cut off from every other major economy around the world if they seized Kowloon and HK Island by force.
    1
  3834. It was a rocky start, but the US did grant independence as promised and liberate the nation from the Japanese (who were much more rapacious colonizers). This is why the Philippines celebrates it's independence on June 12 (from Spain) instead of July 4 (from the US)
    1
  3835. I'm guessing you haven't seen Wolf Warrior 2... pretty big superhero complex there (and taken seriously) whereas Americans criticise the silliness of yet another "white savior" war fiction. Oh and China is also sucking up your personal data, feeding it into their AI for voter and attitude shaping projects.
    1
  3836. Depends if the growth was immigrant or native-born: the immigrant always has more energy
    1
  3837. The most annoying part about the graphics: aircraft icons painted with the national flags instead of their proper air force roundels
    1
  3838. They're likely having second thoughts after seeing how effective an externally-supplied insurgency is against a modern occupier -- Ukraine has NATO, and Afghanistan is surrounded by anti-US supporters.
    1
  3839. We also learned that casual combatants with improvised weapons can still defeat the political objectives of a modern military. A booby trap inside the home can kill just as well as an fancy automatic turret outside, and this is ultimately what we're making the CPC fear with Táiwān as they recently see with Ukraine and Afghanistan. They're trying to modernize their military to try to keep out our superior global logistics capabilities, because the better we can supply their opposition, the more obvious their weaknesses and defeat becomes... and the unrest stirred among the Chinese people back home could bring a dramatic downfall of the current Mainland government from within as people realize the core Party is no better than the local officials they already complain about.
    1
  3840. The war ultimately began by Putin, it will ultimately end by Putin. Which considering the political corner he backed himself into might only end with his ejection from office by whatever means.
    1
  3841. Taking Taiwan allows Chinese submarines to slip into the deeper Pacific Ocean with much less chance of detection. The PLA Navy does have a few nuke-carrying boomer subs.
    1
  3842. Filipino visa overstays are way too high and the pull to return home too low for visa waivers. There's a reason only developed countries get visa-free entry to the US, even though these include notorious overstayers like Canadians and South Koreans.
    1
  3843. That would put US troops uncomfortably close to Mainland China, and the Vietnamese can hold their own. Wouldn't be surprised if they have secret listening posts though; the US and PRC set up a few during the Sino-Soviet Split.
    1
  3844. China is also watching how well it would bode for them if they committed the PLA to "liberate" Táiwān like they promised, especially the years of messy insurgent resistance that comes after they achieve full occupation.
    1
  3845. China is still not as automated as the US, and with multiple countries' worth of an undereducated population to keep politically contented with jobs it's not as incentivized to improve labor efficiency at the cost of entry-level jobs -- if you notice what China sells a lot of them are noticeably the same design with varying quality and random branding stickered onto them, pointing to a strategy that still favors volume and raw market share over the innovation and niche-finding that actually pulls out of the middle-income trap by amplifying the efforts of fewer specialists. The US isn't as concerned with providing make-work jobs as with profitability, hence why the Rust Belt and dead company towns exist while at the same time productivity per worker is not only way ahead of China but also the gap keeps growing.
    1
  3846. I'm thinking that's most likely to happen. CA has naval assets, TX has has naval targets. Texan supplies would get cut dramatically without their coastal refineries (which many forget CA also has itself), and then further degraded with surgical aerial strikes against the Texan power substations that aren't ready for tapping in to the surrounding grid. Which would happen after CA's army of programmers hack havoc upon TX's more hardware-based IT and manufacturing facilities. All the Texan small arms prowess would do little by the time they at best bicycle in to the battlefield.
    1
  3847. Unless Russia willingly cedes their Far East to China (and they're not), this would spark a nuclear exchange; it'd be the Sino-Soviet Split gone hot. Plus the PRC already gave up those claims when they finalized their borders with Russia after the Soviet collapse.
    1
  3848. Recognition for a separate Taiwan might be pitched at that point, and unlike Russia's "liberations" much of the West might actually go for it. Really the only solid "One China" countries are in Africa who aren't going to be able to send much help to Beijing.
    1
  3849. Also has to do with the potential of propagation of the technology to third parties. Being too chummy with places like China or Iran tends to limit your options.
    1
  3850.  @majungasaurusaaaa  Right, the F35 can help surgically blind the air defenses so that an A10 can mop up and take out the more numerous launchers and support vehicles before another long range radar makes it in.
    1
  3851. If it gets shot down though, which is a considerably bigger if with the A10. America has a lot of practice doing SEAD, and advanced long-range SAMs also have a minimum distance before they become targets themselves. Some newer SAMs are designed for close-in killing of drone swarms, but drones are light and disposable whereas it might have to expend most of its loadout downing one A10 (granted one was ballsy enough to go with guns instead of knocking it with a missile).
    1
  3852. That's because the A-10 is a primarily gun with a very rugged and repairable plane built around it, and is what it fires most often because of the often visual nature of its CAS missions. Even its closest Soviet counterpart Su-25 wasn't built specifically for its autocannon.
    1
  3853. The Su-25 is really the only other CAS platform out there, but it's also more dependent on its wing-mounted ordinance than its autocannon. Mind you the ones fielding the Frogfoot were also providing tanks and vehicles, so its design philosophy was not as independent from the type of combat it was expected to see.
    1
  3854. Which means they might try initial pushes in like the two months before as a surprise, dismissing the excess losses as "patriotic sacrifice"
    1
  3855. Yeah I'd bet it's China's answer to the Nighthawk stealth striker.
    1
  3856. That doesn't guarantee its destruction into unusable debris. The skin alone uses a coating that is useful to study and try to replicate. Plus there's likely internal designs and components that really need to stay secret.
    1
  3857. America would have to repair its alliances first, having been damaged by an orange dictatorship-seeking manchild. Russia, China, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes would love to see Trump reelected and keep democracy distracted so they can solidify the ground they gained.
    1
  3858. If the US is smart it would direct spending to make the current forces more durable and efficient on the same budget instead. America still has the edge in experience and diversity of resources, so its coalition just has to remain like 5x more mission effective than the PLA (which hasn't fought a pitched battle since the Gulf War, as it showed they would get creamed in combat) for the fight to balance out.
    1
  3859. It'd be far more costly to end up in WW3, which our taxes spent on the US military have deterred by ensuring no other (inevitably less tolerant) rival power gets too confident. That's why it's called Pax Americana, in the line of Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, and Pax Britannica where a single military protected the trade routes of like a third of humanity in its time.
    1
  3860.  Eliza V  The US problem is largely a political one which we're actively identifying and fighting to change, and has a democratic process with which to implement those changes of leadership if not the policies directly. Can't say the same for China, whose culture has degraded to consistently overselling and lying about everything as the strategy to get ahead, because they lack the ability to truly challenge the obvious and endemic corruption in its government.
    1
  3861. Vietnam hates China. They've only been fighting for independence from their northern neighbor for the past 2,000 years.
    1
  3862. NK nukes are most likely going to detonate on NK soil as nuclear mines. Their delivery systems are too primitive to get really anywhere else, but they can cause mass panic down south by blowing radiation their way ☢️
    1
  3863. The US alone wouldn't make it, but allies and neutrals would. The PRC's friends are practically all fair-weather, not exactly up to join arms with the Party if the money stops coming in 💸
    1
  3864. Not much would've changed in the last three years. It'll still be a bunch of infantry duking it out while gasping for air.
    1
  3865. Or it's America's version of a modernized Burke, which is what the Type 055 took cues from.
    1
  3866.  @zszs100  If you add China's inward-facing "stability" forces, it's much closer to parity. Combined with aging, debts, pollution, and falling FDI, the PRC is on the path of going broke and shattering under the brittleness of its overly top-heavy civic structure.
    1
  3867. Because a land war provides opportunities for casual combatants. That isn't available for anti-Western forces in a cross-Straits conflict, because there's no plan to actually invade the Mainland -- in fact all the roles would be reversed.
    1
  3868. Hypersonics are useless without precision long range guidance, which would likewise be under attack in a combat scenario. The US by contrast just came out with a JDAM kit that turns cheap gravity bombs into ship-sinkers, hundreds of thousands of them in the current stockpile.
    1
  3869. Táiwān (along with Japan and South Korea) still remains a breakout nuclear power, able to produce a warhead probably within a year. It would be cause for grave concern if the Party's shows of strength ironically inspire their neighbors to develop a nuclear capability independent from the US umbrella.
    1
  3870. Táiwān resisted the Mainland-invented Hànyǔ Pīnyīn for the longest time, hence their schizo romanizations
    1
  3871. No, Táiwān's chip production prowess relies on its human capital: the ability to get its most specialized engineers experienced and quickly redeployed to the fab station that needs the most attention as they start deviating from their subatomically tight tolerances -- this is why their biggest competitor is South Korea and not a more spread-out Mainland China, Japan, or US. A PRC seizure would see the irreplaceable loss of these critical Taiwanese brains, not to mention those fab stations that were knocked completely out of alignment in the process. Even if China manages to redevelop a native production level equal to that of today's Táiwān, it would already have been surpassed by the nimbler South Korea, maybe Japan, and probably even Singapore.
    1
  3872. The West doesn't even need to declare an embargo, just maneuver and provide enough return fire to scare away civilian ship traffic -- anti-ship missiles are not that smart and on final approach could too easily mistake a fuel tanker for an equally large aircraft carrier, especially if the desired enemy warships are nearby. It likely won't stop all trade traffic, but the upcharges on those willing to sail in as well as more expensive overland alternatives will see the PRC's treasury emptying a lot faster than expected. And Mainland China depends heavily on imports for unpolluted food and high-energy fuel.
    1
  3873. Right, there's a reason the US didn't even try to invade Japanese Táiwān even at the peak of its strength during WWII.
    1
  3874. Missed an opportunity to say "Would New Zealand be doomed to change their flag... would anyone even notice?" 🇦🇺🇳🇿
    1
  3875. Right, the last time China had a respectable naval force was like the Tang Dynasty. If numerous Imperial Japanese Navy ships in WW2 were lost largely due to poor damage control by its crews, imagine how much worse it would be for the PLA Navy who have never experienced the wrong end of enemy ordnance.
    1
  3876. Right, the atom bombs were a warning that they could cheaply wipe out a lot of Japanese people. A true cleansing though would've involved boots on the ground.
    1
  3877. A shooting war will scare off the ships needed to affordably feed and fuel Mainland China, and with it the energy to continue effective combat.
    1
  3878. How? Have a shooting war scare off the flow of food and fuel, then maintain a defensive posture sit back and watch.
    1
  3879. F-22s are deemed outdated for the doctrine we plan to fight with, which involves tactical networks directing standoff weapons that the Raptor can't be retrofitted to join in on.
    1
  3880. I've been to China, breathed their air and ate their food. A war would scare off the food and fuel they need to continue their "development". They might be able to breathe better from activity shutdowns, but what's left of their food would be neither plentiful nor net nutritious with all the chemicals they dump into it... I can literally smell and taste the difference in healthiness between in China vs abroad.
    1
  3881. One hypersonic missile would cost like 4 JDAMs and the plane dropping them, and their efficacy hasn't really been tested in a real combat environment where its long-range guidance assets are degraded by EW. Meanwhile attacking warships with gravity bombs is a proven technique, and overcoming GPS jamming is already an ongoing field.
    1
  3882. Missiles are more expensive, so are available in fewer numbers with fewer platforms to launch from. Gravity bombs with a small computer and servo fins attached are stupid cheap by comparison, and practically any plane can carry them. If they can sink battleships, they're plenty good to take out the numerous missile corvettes and frigates the adversary would commit to battle.
    1
  3883. GPS counter-jamming has been an active field of development, I wouldn't be surprised if an option the missile/bomb might take is to head straight for that odd signal source.
    1
  3884.  @hotrod7938  It was a benefit from employment because the government never obliged itself to administer it, unlike with other utilities such as piped water and central electricity. This scheme worked when we were still the world's factory, but now that the corporate leadership sold us out we really must take a hard look at how much we could be saving on the healthcare needed to remain competitive where we still are through a public universal single-payer setup.
    1
  3885. Which is what the PRC is attempting to buy through BRI and other aid programs especially to developing countries, hence their support in the UN. However, money only goes so far -- unlike the West where people's voices are valued, Chinese still have an image as patronizing and distant. If the choice is unavoidable, most countries would look more towards America as soon as Chinese cash stops flowing.
    1
  3886. It's be the Sino-Vietnamese War, which happened after America's Vietnam. The PLA pulled out after "opening the road to Hanoi", which probably meant they were incapable of actually neutralizing Vietnamese forces in the inevitable prolonged jungle and urban battles despite how many men the China sent down south (again).
    1
  3887. Antagonism against the CCP already is a suprisingly common sentiment within the Chinese Mainland. Not the majority now but still considerable and would probably explode like a firestorm if the Party fails to continue buying support from economic prosperity -- which is already beginning to happen, hence their rising military and diplomatic aggression to redirect frustrations towards foreign enemies.
    1
  3888. Especially their depot technicians and ground crews, who keep the vehicles rolling and planes aloft. I don't think there's ever been a time where the PLA activity has been stressed to the point where maintenance deviates from textbook standards and the crews have to start getting creative.
    1
  3889. China would have to go on a major conquest of Russia, well past what it claims since Russia's eastern arsenal is practically all on the other side of Japan.
    1
  3890. Distribution. The same problem that makes like half the humanity's food end up wasted. It'd be even worse in both price and throughput having to be all imported overland.
    1
  3891. It's everyone but China and Iran, which indicates backroom dealings with the Houthis. Even then they're overstocked from cratering demand and are desperate to move inventory... their grander political-economic strategy failed.
    1
  3892. SOT attendants still staff in developing economies, or places like the GCC countries that are full of folks from there, as the rollout of kiosks for the density of potential customers is a lot slower. Looking like one such client but actually being an American IT worker, it's a bit annoying having them watch the whole time expecting me to encounter difficulties with the interface.
    1
  3893. Practically all locations still have a manned cashier to serve those who don't use the kiosk or have a card to pay their orders with.
    1
  3894. America is not harmonious by default, if anything it thrives in disruptive chaos.
    1
  3895. A lot of salt is mined from the earth (including today), historically at great expense of labor. Salt from evaporative ponds are slow to produce and take up a lot of valuable coastal space.
    1
  3896. The PRC is almost blatantly maneuvering to gain control of territory from practically all its neighbors, making irredentist claims based on past imperial conquests no matter how tenuous or far back (Eastern Siberia, all of Mongolia, etc). The Nine-Dash Line is historically unusual, as Chinese dynasties tended to draw political borders using water features themselves -- hence why Taiwan remained separate until the Qing, and why Europeans were originally given islands like HK and Shamian instead of sections on the Mainland.
    1
  3897. Chinese themselves regard the Manchus as Chinese, along with the Han, Mongols, Hui/Uyghurs, and Tibetans. Not sure if it's to save face for getting conquered by "lesser" nomadic barbarians, but that's how it is. The early post-Qing ROC symbols used "Five Races Under One Union" as its theme to reflect this sentiment.
    1
  3898. There really should be a fourth video, as there's so much to be said about the CPC's Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution (where a then Party-estranged Mao literally called the people to "bombard the headquarters" in violent uprising), the successful coopting of global recognition, 1989, and the various clashes with Táiwān the whole time 🇨🇳 Not sure if the post-Mainland ROC will even fit, as it has quite a fascinating history of its own: KMT corruption and authoritarianism, evacuation of China's wealth, the invasive retreat and 2/28, the West's dismissal and abandonment of the ROC until the Korean War made Communists a worldwide "threat to democracy", almost 3 decades as America's "permanent aircraft carrier", its loss of status as a "nation", the successful transition to democracy, and the growing distance they have with their Mainland "compatriots" 🇹🇼
    1
  3899.  @sunhuatom  Divided from the inside isn't necessarily weakness, critics were predicting the downfall of America during the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. Each time the US came out more united as "Americans" and less localized with their neighborhoods and states. Chances are the current "woke" movement will end up the same way.
    1
  3900. Right, in a few decades the PRC risks shattering under the self-created pressures of aging, household debt, pollution, and officially-promoted paranoia.
    1
  3901. Han Chinese don't have a great record of consolidating and controlling China, hence the breakup of Tang China into dozens of simultaneous dynasties until the Mongols defeated the collection of local rulers and actually reunified China as the Yuan. Then came the Han-ruled Ming who had a decent beginning, but became insular and decadent until they were overrun by the Manchus who established the Qing. Once the Qing got overthrown, the early ROC was little better than a kleptocratic self-stabbing bloodfest getting slowly gobbled up by Japan. It was only after considerable Soviet support to the CPC that the PRC got established, and even then the destruction of China by Han Chinese didn't end until after Mao died and more pragmatic leadership arose. This is probably the calmest few decades a Han-ruled China has seen in history. But it's likely an anomaly that will inevitably break down from the self-created challenges of aging, household debt, pollution, and a not so incorruptible Party that is increasingly paranoid of dissent and revolt by its own subjects.
    1
  3902. Americans would be even more triggered by Islam to see how Saudi Arabia (and also Iran) were before 1979.
    1
  3903. Immunity from a natural infection seems to fade far faster than one trained by a vaccine. I wouldn't be surprised if inactivated virus vaccines are likewise less effective than its mRNA based alternatives which provide more clean spike proteins for the immune system to identify and make antibodies against.
    1
  3904. "Most" doesn't necessarily mean "practically everyone". There are still plenty of holdouts and that's where the virus is flaring up the hardest.
    1
  3905. Search for matte screen protectors, and you'll at least get the glare reduction. Unfortunately they're a bit hard to find especially outside of Apple and flagship models.
    1
  3906. Glossy users want the screen protection without the blurry wash-out of a matte finish.
    1
  3907. That's on top of the nearly 2M deaths that The Economist estimated already happened in China from the previous more deadly variants.
    1
  3908. Ironically if it's not COVID they're coming in for, it's COVID they'll catch just waiting their turn with everyone else.
    1
  3909.  @skydragon23101979  It would be a longer war than Beijing expects. An invasion is a land war where casual combatants with improvised weapons can still stage attacks of their choosing and defeat the political goals of the occupier. The last time the PLA tried to hold territory from an enemy who fought back, they were sent scrambling back north by surprised Vietnamese militias -- Taiwan has been preparing defenses in depth specifically against a Mainland invasion for decades, and now are receiving training on how to defeat an occupier by the US who have 20 years of experience on the receiving end of such insurgencies. Ukraine has far too many analogies for the CPC to dismiss in their plans to forcibly reunify Taiwan, and if anything Beijing has become even more hesitant to pull the trigger considering how they'll likewise just unify the rest of the developed world against all their interests.
    1
  3910.  @skydragon23101979  China wouldn't be completely cut off from vital resources, but the prices for food and fuel will rocket up due to the much higher costs of overland alternatives and cause immense internal unrest especially as foreign funds deplete, the CNY becomes worthless, and increasingly unpaid local security forces abandon their duties. The dedollarization movement ironically makes this worse as it makes USD more valuable while reducing America's debt burden. Every simmering conflict against Beijing (India, Tibet, Xinjiang, HK, Japan, ASEAN claimants) threaten to flare up simultaneously along with rising restiveness at home, leaving the PLA and the Party distracted to the point of fatally embarrassing ineffectiveness. Any shots fired from either side of the Strait makes China's coasts uninsurable, cementing the Mainland's deindustrialization and fall from prosperity as the global economy commits to decentralize its supply web away from the Middle Kingdom. Ultimately will become obvious to everyone that the PRC's rise was not because of superior CPC governance, but instead foreign tolerance of its rule over China.
    1
  3911. Escaping the middle-income trap requires a workforce that is comfortable exploring and disrupting their way into more value-added fields like R&D and Marketing, but these attitudes are exactly what the Party wants to discourage because of how quickly it turns to thought experiments about politics and society.
    1
  3912. Cue all the haters who say PZ got the timing wrong like literally everybody does, casually ignoring that the overall trends he described are still solid.
    1
  3913. Right, focusing specifically on elites would be like surveying West Africa by only asking the Lebanese community.
    1
  3914. Sadly corporations are sociopathic, ultimately caring for nothing else but money and the efficiency of autocracy is just too attractive. They only pretend to have morals insofar as to protect their access to their markets.
    1
  3915. Actively defending political campaigns could be itself seen as government manipulation of our democracy, which lends legitimacy to the already loudmouth conspiracy theorists our media is completely spammed with.
    1
  3916. Reality of human nature is nowhere near ideal though. A "multipolar" world would just mean multiple fault lines for militarized conflict as each "pole" tries to assert its sphere of influence (including on itself as a defense against getting dominated by its neighbor). The last time we had an effectively multipolar world, it ended up in a couple World Wars.
    1
  3917. From what I saw earlier this year, not many. All the tourism is domestic, and the international terminals are still bare (not much better than during Zero-COVID) with like 4 out of 5 shops shuttered.
    1
  3918. Strong winds at its back... while trying to perform a soft landing of its stalling export-driven economy. If you're familiar with aviation, you'd know a tailwind is exactly what you don't want at this time.
    1
  3919. HSR viaducts don't look beefy enough to handle freight, which is huge handicap considering passengers and mail don't pay nearly as much as bulk and palletized cargo. Meanwhile China is still starving of more efficient ways to haul heavy goods other than trucking it everywhere where both ends are not on the relatively few river and canal corridors. Their approach is a huge missed opportunity in not building out heavy quad-track to run both HSR and freight trains simultaneously, with cargo subsidizing the movements of more thriftwise people.
    1
  3920. I don't know about that, obesity is becoming noticeable everywhere regardless of wealth growth.
    1
  3921. In English there's an idiom "The balloon went up", meaning committing to battle (a command balloon was a reliable signal for distant artillery batteries to begin firing). Běijīng needs to decide how literally they're willing to take this definition as the Party continues to militarize efforts at domestic governance and foreign negotiation.
    1
  3922. The opaqueness and secrecy behind Chinese efforts of all sorts doesn't help.
    1
  3923. No we haven't. We'll still continue to push for diversification and friendshoring in case the ruling Party doesn't speak like they truly mean, which we've finally come to realize is habitual. It's more Beijing is salvaging its reputation to attract Western wealth before yet another real estate developer failure digs Mainland China even deeper in the financial hole.
    1
  3924. Seems economic prosperity is finally bringing political reform to China... now that the prosperity is collapsing.
    1
  3925. The Party will just rebrand their "New China" ship as a barge, deliberately sitting low in the water for stability and capacity. Right up until the water overtops the main deck and the Chinese people kept captive on board realize that Party members up in the bridge have already evacuated with all of the proper lifeboats.
    1
  3926. Capitalists think in quarters, not generations. This is why businessmen may be too shortsighted to drive policy, and we end up saddled with expensive mistakes down the line.
    1
  3927. Soviets were at least honorable with their words and agreements. Beijing has a huge disconnect between its statements and its actions, and by comparison the ruling Party seems to employ powerless interns and new hires in trying to craft those legal justifications and diplomatic bridges.
    1
  3928. This is why Trump must not return to office and allow the realization of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which wishes to impose a despotic Executive Branch and break down the separation of powers within the government while under a Republican administration, in order to turn the US toward a traditionalist theocratic autocracy. That negative reform by conservative idealists would dismantle the stability of our cross-administration bureaucracy and dramatically diminish the appeal of democracy in general, while making American civil society just as brittle as the one in likewise socially traditionalist authoritarian Mainland China.
    1
  3929. XJP was left speechless for a long while when asked how China would like if their business arrangements overseas were truly reciprocated. Guy would have been slaughtered in open political competition.
    1
  3930. The Philippines were let go partially due to domestic questions about America acquiring overseas territories through conquest instead of self-determination. If the Filipinos self-determined to further integrate into the Union instead, it'd be more difficult to argue against that. Washington already has enough headache trying to not promote Puerto Rico with statehood despite multiple popular referendums due to its effects on America's finances and Congressional balance of power.
    1
  3931. We'd all be best listening to the outsiders actually living within the PRC's economic structure, over that of the outsiders looking at its façade and brochures.
    1
  3932. It is, but probably a lot closer to Germany and Japan level than to the US.
    1
  3933. Visible unrest would be rare, but anomie and underperforming would be commonplace. Beijing loves to complain about Western decadence, when really they're looking not at a camera but at a mirror.
    1
  3934. You mean bearish? "Bull" means optimistic, coming from how it fights through the upward swings with its horns
    1
  3935. Hence why Beijing spends probably less on the PLA than it does on "internal security" ensuring the Chinese public don't develop a "class consciousness" by isolating and censoring their shared grievances against their government.
    1
  3936. If anything the Party wants guys like Tony and Michael Pettis around to inform about the reality of modern China that they're not getting from their own lower levels full of sycophants, without the Chinese public knowing since they don't publish in Mandarin on WeChat.
    1
  3937. AI is an amplification tool, which unfortunately means like politics and the internet that without preexisting pro-social limitations and consequences, the most hateful anti-social expressions will drown out everything else and the opposition has to get more extreme just to be heard.
    1
  3938.  @billpetersen298  It will be interesting how the AI will negotiate the opposition of China's own laws (like freedom of speech/religion/assembly/etc are enshrined in the PRC Constitution) and what the ruling Party actually desires.
    1
  3939. They’d infiltrate Republicans directly too and likewise stumble in their spycraft, if they “looked the part” to get hired in the first place. If anything the influence on conservatives could be more nefarious because it’s hidden through proxy shills promising the profits of working with China to our executives and influencers.
    1
  3940. Tibetans to Běijīng basically are terrorists, hence why Tibet is so locked down and inaccessible to foreigners. Yet the PRC blames Israel for just starting to approach Gaza the same way China has been persecuting Tibet.
    1
  3941. China was self-sufficient during the Cold War, and staying there kept them poor. They "let some people get rich" for a reason, but it came at the price of polluting out their farmlands and switching to energy sources they weren't naturally blessed with. Globalized trade lets them import the shortages, but the problem is they're also trying to dismantle what's been working by pushing for a "multipolar" (i.e. multiple sources of conflict) world with their autocratic anti-Western partners.
    1
  3942. That's ironically what will happen if Beijing continues advancing their vision of a "multipolar world", because that just introduces more fault lines and conflicts of interest between the regions.
    1
  3943. Ironically I just heard a The China Project podcast reading an article about how Chinese gamers are 7% more likely to find a romantic partner, including getting married and having children within their 20s... just like the Party and older parents keeps advocating for.
    1
  3944. Right, if anything Chinese "no strings attached" loans only proliferate the corruption that keep those countries risky and poor. There's a reason post-Cold War Western aid demand improvements to governance and education.
    1
  3945. China isn't really growing though, outside of debt-driven state projects. And HK only prospered because it was a Western portal into China -- without that foreign influence it would've remained a pirate cove turned inconvenient bedroom community for Guǎngzhōu up the river.
    1
  3946. "New China" is making it more clear that its "leftist" "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" is really just a synonym for socially conservative fascism. The CPC is basically trying to resurrect the Imperial Japan that they actively teach its subjects to hate.
    1
  3947. More like just African diplomats, because it's too annoying and increasingly displeasing to be a tourist of color.
    1
  3948. Knowing how centralized the Chinese MFA is plus Xi's further concentration of power, I would not be surprised if Wang Yi either parrots what Xi believes or what he thinks Xi wants to say.
    1
  3949. I don't see how this improves the travel situation until they get rid of the "health kit" (internal passport) "close contact pop up" minefield that rules your day to day life once you're cleared into country.
    1
  3950. Battery fires aside, their crash performance (of which the insurance industry driven IIHS is the most stringent in the world at least for those inside the car) will likely prove their safety is either sorely lacking, or they'd need to beef up their quality controls to the point where they're not so cheap and profitable to satisfy USDM vehicle standards.
    1
  3951. More likely business as SOEs are championed and private enterprises are left to wither in desperation for inputs and customers.
    1
  3952. The problem with hydrogen is it's so lightweight that it leaks out of literally everything -- containing useful amounts for a useful amount of time in a reasonably compact and lightweight package is its most major issue, and the problem is fundamentally physical. Plus the most efficient way to get the pure hydrogen needed is from not-so-green hydrocarbons, itself a problem of scaling up short of sustained nuclear fusion to provide the massive amount of energy required to desalinate and electrolyze plentiful seawater. Japanese car makers were late to the BEV game because they focused so much effort on hydrogen. Like fusion, hydrogen for transport is a lofty goal but remains experimental at best.
    1
  3953. It would hurt Germany’s export figures but not necessarily its image and prestige, considering how much time a Chinese brand ends up in the shop by comparison. It’s like China is even copying the American strategy of selling garage queens.
    1
  3954. ⁠Pretty much the only global invention that came out of “New China” is the modern vape pen, and even that had heavily derived from earlier Western efforts 🚬
    1
  3955. It's so characteristic of the PRC government to use SARS-2 to terrorize its realm into compliance... a terror it basically created itself with potentially far more effect on Chinese nationals from lack of immunity by doubling down on forced isolation and its outdated whole-virus vaccines, while the rest of the world finds SARS-2 becoming just another cold virus as it struggles to spread among more previously exposed and strongly vaccinated people.
    1
  3956. Wars that are far smaller than the state-on-state slugfests that burned down entire kingdoms. Wars that were going to be fought whether the US or anyone else was there or not, but whose presence if not more direct action allowed someone to stabilize their state instead of letting the conflict grow into something larger. It's always easier to extinguish a house fire than it is to contain and backburn a wildfire. The reason all those bases exist is because the host nation wants American forces there -- even if as a convenient scapegoat to redirect anger over domestic issues -- and because the hosts are concerned about the consequences of America's absence; ask Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China) what happened with their territorial integrity after making US forces leave their lands. In terms of casualties, China has killed millions more people just from the Tàipíng Rebellion, the Great Leap Forward, and Dynamic Zero-COVID than America has in all its wars combined. This pathological attitude for mistaken "progress" and paranoid "security" is what an autocratic China threatens to proliferate, deliberate or not.
    1
  3957. The Ming Treasure Voyages didn't seek to acquire territory, but it did forcibly installed friendly local administrators at the trading ports, and established a regular military presence in the sea lanes which facilitated open trade throughout the Indo-Pacific. If you think about it, the US does much the same thing since the end of WWII, hence the globalization and prosperity we enjoy today.
    1
  3958. China doesn't have "colonies" because the belief is that all of 天下 is a sovereign part of China already, even if they don't know it.
    1
  3959. The way those buildings were built, I doubt an independent authority would certify them for human habutation.
    1
  3960. It's much like the construction projects within China: appearance over actual overall positive cost-benefit.
    1
  3961. The CPC is in a different universe, an entire existence diving deeper in its own fanfiction because it refuses to be corrected by regular, anonymized, truthful popular polling.
    1
  3962. More like China must enforce its laws. Unlike the US which is constantly pressured too be "fiscally efficient" and "small government", China certainly has the staffing and the confidence to wield government power. Problem is the PRC runs on official corruption and a culture of cheating.
    1
  3963. Hey Tony, could you check the audio levels? Your content portion is significantly quieter than other YouTube videos, ads, and even your own intro 🔉
    1
  3964. Pro-corporate Americans blindly believe the figures the PRC puts out, not helped by mainstream media sources also repeating the stats from the same Chinese state sources. They can't be bothered to do some actual research and listen to folks who have lived in China about what's really going on there.
    1
  3965. Don't bank on it. If fear for COVID falters, it'll become tangibly obvious how badly "New China" has stalled and is getting abandoned by the rest of the world.
    1
  3966. Unfortunately a "realistic" response the rest of the world now takes is just not politically convenient to the Party's fear-based narrative.
    1
  3967. A cop once told me that cannabis is really not a gateway drug, but gambling is definitely a gateway crime since the debts involved spiral into increasingly disturbing motivations in an effort to pay it off... predatory loans, scams, drug trafficking, kidnappings, murders, and everything else you expect from vulnerability to criminal organizations.
    1
  3968. China advocates for a "multipolar world" but ironically believes they would be the only "pole" in East Asia.
    1
  3969. Most foreign brand cars are built in China too. Tesla simply has the most robust BEV lineup which is what Chinese customers want (and are also hard steered into getting due to the restrictions in registering any other type of vehicle).
    1
  3970. ​Right, Chinese language media is unusually mute about such "glorious" news of achieving semiconductor self-sufficiency. Most likely because what was really "acquired" was the last batches of pre-ban chips from Taiwan back in 2020.
    1
  3971. Chinese EVs also have half the range of what they advertise, unlike other automakers who often undersell to minimize disappointed expectations and its threat of retarding demand for all EVs for like an entire generation.
    1
  3972. This is why Beijing spends at least as much on "internal security" and censorship as it does on the entire PLA. The CPC can't afford for the Chinese people to imagine an alternative without the Party, especially when published with Asian faces and Mandarin language like what comes out of a democratized Taiwan.
    1
  3973. Wokeness is a mere annoyance, it's MAGA that's destructive to what makes America great. Republicans have long held an strategy to sabotage good governance and sell a libertarian alternative which their rich cronies are conveniently best positioned to exploit at the long term expense of an actually free market.
    1
  3974. Right, a politically separate Taiwan was a mere demerit to the CPC back when the Cold War "White Terror" ROC was just an anticommunist mirror image of the oppressive Mainland. A democratized Taiwan however is a mortal threat to the continued existence to the Party.
    1
  3975. It'll be interesting how the ROC will handle the ultimate test of a democratic republic, where the branches of government as voted in by its people express competing policy agendas instead of being all aligned under a common platform as it historically enjoyed.
    1
  3976. Taiwan is a nuclear threshold power in its own right. In fact the CIA once discovered and had to stop the KMT from completing its own bomb back in the 1980s.
    1
  3977. That would definitely not be the isolationist and transactionary Trump.
    1
  3978. All of China got conquered at least twice by by non-Hàn invaders even before Europeans started showing up by sea.
    1
  3979. Right, if the US is "in decline" as they say, why do other countries increasingly seem to dismiss China for signals from America? This delusion is what happens out of an environment that is basically all order and no listen.
    1
  3980. Yet the US is keeping its interest rates up because consumer spending, corporate profits, and the price inflation its causing are too high.
    1
  3981. "New China" feels like a shell of arrogant nationalism wrapping a mantle of vapid materialism over a core of chronic clinical anxiety. "They don't make 'em like they used to", and "the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten".
    1
  3982. Problem is the convention may not be valid anymore, as a vibrant economy is no longer as possible going forward (due to aging, debt, and pollution) and is likely getting deprioritized permanently in favor of ethnonationalism. Word on the street is that the Party is on a power trip with "anti-COVID" measures with how effective it was ending the HK protests, dissuading foreigners and their ideas from entering, and getting Mainlanders used to government-imposed hardships and inconveniences under a wartime posture. This is why pessimism is so high despite how "safe from COVID" the country claims to be, and why interest in expatriation has exploded.
    1
  3983. All of China is vulnerable to a similar outbreak, because the nationwide immunity is weak from lack of exposure and effective vaccination. Variants will only become less damaging and more virulent in order to survive, but the Party conveniently ignores that first part because the "controls" they impose make a really good excuse to practice and refine measures to restrict movement and censor complaints which are useful to political projects like stamping out other protests up to a wartime posture for their promised invasion of Táiwān.
    1
  3984. They might be able to produce it, but they can't brand it as such. They'd unfortunately have to build their reputation from scratch, and without the continued export-grade quality controls enforced by foreigners it's an uphill battle.
    1
  3985. Mainland China is fairly isolated in terms of capital flows, as intended by the PRC government. I'd imagine the hit to the overall world economy could look more like 2008 but with the actors flipped. The bigger impact might be in the supply chain when Chinese businesses can't pay their suppliers or workers, but we've been diversifying out of China for a while and a China recession will only accelerate the permanent divestment going forward.
    1
  3986. Right, passengers and mail only pay so much and hence why they're a net drain on the economy (especially with people not able to move so freely). The expansive tollways fare not much better considering the artificial time and speed restrictions imposed, incentivizing trucks to overload and be even more of a danger to other traffic and occasionally the bridges they cross. Ironically the US remains the envy of rail -- as a freight network -- still saturated and profitable over 100 years later.
    1
  3987. I've heard that Wall Street analysts quietly value the RMB's true value at over 9 and still growing.
    1
  3988. NZ is far away and not a major source of trade secrets that the PRC is interested in, which means they're not as concerned about aggression from Beijing like China's neighbors and larger trade markets are. This gives the Kiwis the position to focus on domestic interests like expanding their export markets as opposed to handling national security concerns.
    1
  3989. A truly prosperous society would prioritize the welfare of its customers and employees over executives and shareholders. Unfortunately we now have it backwards.
    1
  3990. First thorium reactors have to prove economical to operate, which they have yet to achieve.
    1
  3991. It's a common tactic of militant social conservatives to blame other faces to save your own.
    1
  3992.  @blafonovision4342  For utilities like healthcare and infrastructure perhaps, but certainly not to the extent of making an inefficient SOE for nearly every industry like China has.
    1
  3993. More like YouTube is too crooked for this channel, and every other video that criticizes its corporate ownership who are still biased towards Communist China.
    1
  3994. Xi's ideological turn toward statism started happening years before COVID. The pandemic is merely their excuse to implement the nationwide police state needed to protect the Party as "New China" stalls from all the aging, debt, and pollution that they themselves caused and can't really blame on anyone else. This is why there's a lack of excitement or optimism around his third term. In fact there's concern Xi would try a Putin-like political "defense" by attacking Taiwan as he hunts for his own "Make China Great Again" achievement.
    1
  3995. Considering that like a trillion dollars worth of bona fide Chinese gold bonds issued by the Qing Empire and Republic of China still haven't been paid since the Communist takeover, I wouldn't hold my breath.
    1
  3996. China's future relies on the thought of "if you build it they will come". Problem is you can't guarantee consumers will come, especially with the PRC's reputation of being patronizing and disposable.
    1
  3997. Yes, he's a New Zealander residing in China
    1
  3998. Maybe not globalization as a whole, but definitely unlimited libertarianism that sees capital and production capacity overly seeking efficiency at the expense of resilience, and ending up concentrating in a few places like Mainland China.
    1
  3999. Xi Thought is basically just "I alone can save us". In America we know how well that went for the previous guy, and there's nothing inherent about so-called "Chinese characteristics" that makes their version fundamentally different.
    1
  4000. Right, anything to deflect blame of the permanently deteriorating economic outlook of the Party-run PRC.
    1
  4001. The USA isn't perfect, but it does have the means to moderate and correct itself -- there's a partial national revolution every two (legislative) and four (executive) years, with smaller ones somewhere with every periodic local election. Making gains in the next cycle is what the whole drama between "woke" progressive vs MAGA traditionalist culture war is about. America doesn't have to be the ideal role model for the rest of the world to tolerate (if not invite) its presence. It just has to be better than the alternative, whether that's a more arbitrary (i.e. even more people targeted/detained/killed) and self-serving autocrat, or having to spend its own limited resources trying to keep secure just as much space for free movement and peaceful trade.
    1
  4002.  @Zei33  It's not as much industrial chemicals though, mostly organic sewage and plastic trash.
    1
  4003. Beijing isn't seeing the deterioration with the Global South, whom they see as their alternative to cultivate political and economic favors with to continue China's prosperity. However they're in a bubble with the usually corrupt politicians elected through deliberate administrative filters and often mass apathy; the true feeling on the street is far more ambivalent if not suspicious of Chinese activities, with European or American development aid with its demands for better local governance favored much more readily.
    1
  4004. Food alone is plenty, all the US has to do when the shooting starts is declare the ECS and SCS uninsurable and then all the ships with the food and fuel China needs goes elsewhere. No amount of overland alternatives will be able to make up the volume, proximity, and affordability of these vital resources.
    1
  4005.  @niveajones6400  China has only approved their own attenuated virus vaccines, which were weak to begin with on the original strains and practically useless against Omicron. They have yet to approve any mRNA vaccines despite having tested them, and their own alternatives are not much more promising. However the Party deems it more damaging to "surrender" to the West by approving and importing their vaccines.
    1
  4006. US also has plenty of friendly ports in the area to call. China doing the same would be alarming in indicating the development of their global military logistics network.
    1
  4007. Right, 8 is definitely not an auspicious number when it's going rate of CNY/USD
    1
  4008. The Shànghǎi Police Database Leak only had about 1 billion entries for the whole nation, and considering the lack of live births that's probably close to the actual population of China before Zero-COVID ended.
    1
  4009. ⁠It would be because of Elon, overselling us on janky “cars”, and preventing Tesla from improving on quality and the greater BEV market from becoming adopted by the wider driving public. That’s before he was given the power to bring his attitudes against resilience into government.
    1
  4010. Unfortunately Trump only calculates in cash dollars, not seeing the value in teachable experience (Ukraine) or mobility chokepoints (Taiwan). His focus on autocrat-facilitated easy money explains why he’s fallen so deep into the promises of Putin and fantasies about China.
    1
  4011. GDP just measures transactions, not true productivity gains. I'm wondering how much of the GDP data comes from just the sales of medical supplies and services targeting COVID 🤔
    1
  4012. Western divestment must be leaving the PRC with a lack of new political soundbites along with the lack of new IP to steal.
    1
  4013. If wages are up, it's likely due to internal debt instead of an influx of foreign funds.
    1
  4014. Probably because they don't report in Mandarin and thus don't trend among Chinese citizens, so they're a useful more truthful view of China that its ruling Party isn't getting from their brownnosing subordinates.
    1
  4015. For "New China", stagnation might as well be a spiraling decline due to the political implications on the Party's legitimacy for continued unchallenged rule.
    1
  4016. China like a bully is only confident to punch down. Their own diplomats are known to express a supposed right of impunity against “lesser” nations, which at this point they view as everyone but America, and they openly dream of the day of that flipping too so that they become the world’s supposed master race.
    1
  4017. Scandinavia, not China. The only Democrats praising the PRC are the ones with corporate interests.
    1
  4018. The modern “China Dream” is more like Party Delusion.
    1
  4019. ⁠If you can find them.
    1
  4020. Yes, the PRC is still grasping at their narrative that COVID came from abroad. It's a desperate attempt to salvage justification for the past three years of increasingly ineffective Zero-COVID.
    1
  4021. The Party doesn't want to "surrender" to the West by admitting a need for outside assistance, especially for their "success" against COVID through their "unwavering" orders.
    1
  4022. Yeah, YT is clearly captured by pro-autocrat corporate interests. It's hit or miss to see comments that criticize either the CPC or the GOP.
    1
  4023.  @bamkobe1  Right, Russia had superior technology last year only for it to get abandoned from horrible sustainment performance and towed away by a local Ukrainian farmer.
    1
  4024. The CPC is another dynastic autocrat ruling over China, just tied by philosophy rather than bloodline. Unfortunately that also leaves China vulnerable to the cycle of violent disintegration when the ruler loses the tolerance of the Chinese people.
    1
  4025. Bhutan doesn't have direct relations with any of the UN P5. This is intentional to harmonize with its Indian protector and New Delhi's stance of ultimate non-alignment.
    1
  4026. Hopefully not the wrong lesson of expressing its prosperity through conquest.
    1
  4027. ⁠It’s only a joke because Beijing thinks we’re too gracious to reciprocate their own policies against them. So many supposedly China-friendly countries reviewing their trade policies hints that we’re overall not willing to remain so linked with the PRC.
    1
  4028. Only because China is ruled by coercive Communists. See Taiwan for the counterexample of a Chinese ethnostate under a different polity.
    1
  4029. “American blogger Chris is a typical example”? No, a typical American if they travel abroad would go to Latin America, Western Europe, or Southeast Asia.
    1
  4030. It’ll take much more than no-cost couch sessions to correct the minds of Mainland Chinese. Apparently on the Chinese internet, videos of animal abuse — a common subject for nascent serial killers — are unusually popular and considered perfectly tolerable to Party censors (China basically lacks animal welfare laws).
    1
  4031. ​ @lassepeterson2740 Coal isn't the problem, EVs get twice the miles per ton of carbon emitted on 100% coal and it only gets cleaner from that through more green sources. What is a problem though is how often all that energy undergoes sudden thermal runaway due to China-grade quality controls.
    1
  4032. EVs get twice the miles per ton of carbon emitted on 100% coal, and it only gets more efficient with cleaner sources mixed in. Plus power plants don't move so pollution controls are way easier to enforce.
    1
  4033. Hopefully it means American automakers start engineering cars that customers are proud to keep, as opposed to keeping their reputation as oversized garage queens while the C-Suite and worker unions continue fighting over the diminishing profits.
    1
  4034. Itself an achievement considering how much mechanically simpler EVs are.
    1
  4035. Storage facilities require an even stronger build, especially since it's not mostly open air like a residence and who knows what stuff they'll stuff into there. Plus they'd need to get the elevators working if not upsized for all the hand trucks coming through.
    1
  4036. I've seen estimates that China's economy is like 40% smaller than officially reported (so still #2 but much more distant). Plus they're still deep in the middle-income trap and trending towards deindustrialization. Short answer is likely never.
    1
  4037. @Peak White Monkey SerpentZA and LaoWhy86 (both of whom had lived in China for over a decade until just before COVID) are the first to tell you how the Chinese government at all levels are the most knee-jerk reactionary policy administrators they've ever dealt with. Living there myself, this still hasn't changed.
    1
  4038. There is a natural tension between efficiency and resilience. As going all in on the efficiently autocratic PRC has shown, there is such thing as being overly-efficient to the point of becoming brittle to some sudden shock to your operations.
    1
  4039. Hatches were there, but its gaskets went missing.
    1
  4040. They achieved what they said it would do, just not in the way they really desired.
    1
  4041. It’s not even that strong of a ban either, since access to services in the app itself wouldn’t be affected. It’s not like China’s Golden Shield (Great Firewall) that actively blocks all communication with Western competitors.
    1
  4042. It’s not even that strong of a ban either, since access to services in the app itself wouldn’t be affected. It’s not like China’s Golden Shield (Great Firewall) that actively blocks all communication with Western competitors.
    1
  4043. Also a dozen countries (i.e. tolls and potential points of disruption) over land between China and the EU market. At sea there's really only two piracy hotspots in between (Strait of Malacca and the Arabian Sea).
    1
  4044. ​ @jimbobhirstyeshuaslave5860 China is notorious for all the chemical additives and absorbed pollution in its agriculture. I was 10kg heavier and near diabetic from living and eating the food there, and it wasn't because the local cuisine was so tasty. There's a reason the rates of cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases in China are so alarming including among its young adults.
    1
  4045. Wait til we start getting China's "final warnings", which even the Soviets had joked about
    1
  4046. Or desperate for cash, as friendly Global South alternatives don’t offer nearly as much profitability, exchange value, or willingness to remain industrially offshored as the developed Western markets.
    1
  4047. The Muslim world effectively just wants a State of Palestine at the expense of Israel, they’re ironically not as concerned as Westerners about the Palestinian people and will likely minimize support for their new regional competitor once Palestine gets established.
    1
  4048. Debt. Which if its estimated amount of 3~5x its GDP is true would make the US seem prudent.
    1
  4049. In CNY, not enough. In any other currency, far too much.
    1
  4050. Especially now that fracking and green energy collapsed the America’s absolute need for OPEC oil, leaving the US free to look at what remaining value its autocratic friends really bring.
    1
  4051. Don't count on consumer protections under the pro-corporate GOP government.
    1
  4052. That's assuming Pakistan and Nigeria even stays together. There's already ongoing armed internal conflicts in Balochistan and the Middle Belt.
    1
  4053. Until they cap out on the $50k currency exchange annual limit. Might be doable for now but eventually this will cause foreign migrants to seek alternatives on where to invest their time and remit money from.
    1
  4054. It doesn't, but unfortunately for the average Chinese family "real estate" is the most consistent thing to invest in given their lack of private land ownership and joke of a state-run stock market.
    1
  4055. Ironically they're now too old to fight and will just end up competing against China's security forces for rations in the event of a conflict. If the PRC gets into a war, all its enemy has to do is return enough crossfire to scare off civilian shipping and watch as the Mainland starves from lack of affordable food and fuel -- no invasion needed and thus no opportunity for casual combatants to fight back.
    1
  4056. China classically believes it is sovereign to 天下 (i.e. the whole world), where the supremacy of its ruler should not be questioned everywhere its court controls and anywhere living Chinese blood flows.
    1
  4057. If China doesn't start widely accepting foreign credit cards and conveniently letting foreigners go about town without a Chinese SIM, casual tourists will be in for an unpleasant experience.
    1
  4058. Even 10% unusable is considered uneconomical. Mainland China is just brute forcing its way to supposed self-sufficiency through debt spending, but it's going to run out of money and its people's patience long before then.
    1
  4059. It's the domestic corruption China's "aid" feeds that will ultimately keep Africa poor for as long as African politicians keep receiving from China.
    1
  4060. Apparently China's strategic missiles already got hacked with "return to sender" tweaks, hence the purge ongoing especially within the Rocket Force.
    1
  4061. Under their definition, yes. The five major ethnicities being the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, and Uighur.
    1
  4062. China's Zero-COVID (and to a lesser extent Russia's invasion) don't get as much attention as it deserves as we suffer from the inflation those supply disruptions caused. Instead all we hear is narrow-minded contrarians parroting "money printer go brrrrrr".
    1
  4063. Social conservatives need to artificially victimize themselves to comfort their failing worldview. It's mental masochism.
    1
  4064. Right, just because it's possible does not mean it's profitably scalable. Chinese state media will try to take advantage of survivor bias in what few make it through, conveniently ignoring how deep in net waste SMIC produced to get there.
    1
  4065. Businesses often signal reaction to a loss of trust by changing its leadership. The CPC has proven over the decades that it doesn't matter who from their cohort is at the head though, and a deeper change of leadership is necessary if China is to reverse its deteriorating trajectory.
    1
  4066.  @3rdpig  An active blockade isn't necessary, just pull insurance for foreign flags sailing within the First Island Chain and watch the prices of food and fuel skyrocket in Mainland China as shipping movements tanks to a trickle. No amount of airlift or overland alternatives would be enough to replace the loss of cheap waterborne transportation straight to China's demand centers in the coastal cities.
    1
  4067. Imagine being a Party member where lectures like this take up days of your life.
    1
  4068. Hamburgers being a politically convenient Western cuisine, unlike their "clean" and "pure" Chinese dishes.
    1
  4069. Trump is a higher risk but higher reward, especially since he is more likely to sell out American interests for personal gain unlike the Democratic opposition who are more considerate of America's leadership reputation and inclusive philosophy.
    1
  4070. There's more opportunity with Trump to get him to sell us out.
    1
  4071. American exercises often deliberately handicap in favor of the adversary in order to 1) not reveal its true performance limits, and 2) discover how far degraded they must get before it's an even match.
    1
  4072. Followed by the undeniable military retreat and ultimately cultural disenchantment with the socially prescriptive authoritarianism that got Japan there. The CPC isn’t much less vulnerable as the US Navy is the one keeping food, fuel, and exports affordable for its “New China”.
    1
  4073. China’s long-term “planning” proving to really be just dreaming, falling apart as soon as reality hits.
    1
  4074. Racist as it sounds, there’s a kernel of truth since China clasically treats all persons of Chinese blood as its subjects regardless of nationality or location. Hence why all the calls for ethnic solidarity by state media and Little Pinks.
    1
  4075. SG relies on globally open seas just to feed itself. China putting up even just administrative barriers in the SCS to express its sovereignty there presents a direct threat to the continued prosperity if not survival of Singapore.
    1
  4076. Those largely disappeared from the rest of the world, apart from Japan's Sony.
    1
  4077. Western democracies readily change leadership and thus momentum, it basically undergoes a political revolution every couple years. Autocracies are not so resilient when change inevitably occurs, because even the most beloved dictator will still die someday.
    1
  4078. Ironically, Imperial Japan called for more regional insularity from outside powers about this time 100 years ago, right before mobilizing its military to make this happen by force.
    1
  4079. It was probably too disruptive to global trade, at least before COVID saw companies ordering a now glut of new vessels.
    1
  4080. Peace Through Power, yeah
    1
  4081. They’d argue anyone can beat down an unarmed petitioner, but food inspection requires training and judgment… which doesn’t speak well of China’s ability to educate.
    1
  4082. I learned from living in China that the more pessimistic reports tend to be closest to the truth. There's no honesty about modern China's leadership, just sunshine and panda farts of how the Party always achieves progress.
    1
  4083. Autocracies think everything must be under the control of a single entity. It's beyond their worldview that independent actors can converge on their own especially when it's against them.
    1
  4084. The way they're going, the CPC is going to ultimately face the same fate as every autocratic dynasty that ruled China before. All their high-tech surveillance might prevent spontaneous popular action, but it can't inspire popular action either when the Party needs their people most.
    1
  4085. In Chinese language media though, the new Cold War sounds like it began like a decade ago. We English speakers are just only realizing it now.
    1
  4086. China doesn't have the evidence, because there is none. The PLA are the ones trying to play chicken against US forces who have had decades of prior experience with the Russians.
    1
  4087. Dams build up pressure, and will eventually collapse catastrophically depending on the quality of its build and maintenance.
    1
  4088. Autocratic major powers are feeling cornered, ironically by the falling birthrates and visible voluntary expatriations compelled by the stalling economies they themselves are responsible for.
    1
  4089. Hence why COVID lockdowns ironically resulted in a baby bust; the lack of space and strangers counterintuitively made their live-in partner less exciting.
    1
  4090. Red tape isn't the main barrier to marriage and starting a family in China as much as the lack of personal matches due to changes in cultural expectations and economic realities.
    1
  4091. Marx outlined a possible trend, not a prophecy. He sought to raise class consciousness to prepare society to benefit from the next industrial revolution, but also warned of premature overhaul in an underdeveloped economy as was eventually pushed by Communist Parties who corrupted his arguments for their own autocratic ends.
    1
  4092. Much like everything else modern China has developed
    1
  4093. Tony provides a valuable independent assessment of China that Party officials can't risk reporting, while doing so not speaking in Mandarin which can get spread immediately by Chinese netizens. That's why he's able to continue living and working in Mainland China.
    1
  4094. CPC Dec 2019 to Nov 2022: "u n w a v e r i n g" CPC Dec 2022 onwards: "We never meant that. Foreign forces. Corrupt locals. Weak victims."
    1
  4095. Though if you inspect how this "real estate" gets constructed and maintained, you'll probably be glad you never bought in 🏚
    1
  4096. Conservative autocracies have difficulty believing that opposition is anything but an elaborate conspiracy of a single enemy leader, rather than the convergence of thought by those who independently analyze and decide for themselves.
    1
  4097. If Beijing can unify the focus of amnesiac drama queen democracies like America, they must be doing something terribly disturbing.
    1
  4098. Just shows how a few generations of bad governance can overturn even the most durable positions.
    1
  4099. Yet China habitually practices sudden sweeping changes based on political convenience.
    1
  4100. Right, if anything the world is more equal now that democratized nation-states of legally equal footing have become the norm. Overturning this to become what Beijing says is "multipolar" just sounds like bringing back regional imperialism, with tensions and conflicts on where each strongman hegemon claims its borders to be.
    1
  4101. We shouldn't, but Western MSM parrots them anyway which amplifies the perceived accuracy of Beijing's creative accounting.
    1
  4102. They should be careful what they wish for, because if it's "economic independence" they want from the West, it's economic independence from the West they'll start to get. And the PRC is nowhere near ready to rebalance its overcapacity industries against its underperforming agriculture and domestic consumption.
    1
  4103. A reality shaped by media, hence why inflated sense of global centrality and domestic crime rates. AI will only make this distorted worldview worse just like automation enjoying still largely past agro-industrial commerce rules has made economic inequality worse.
    1
  4104. Chinese vaccines were marginal to begin with, and as shown by other countries that took it are practically useless against Delta and especially Omicron. I'm sure they're rushing to develop a domestic mRNA or viral vector vaccine that works, but trust for COVID vaccines among the Chinese people is not great and likely even worse for a Made in China version.
    1
  4105. Masterworks sells supposed shares in pieces of fine art, which are itself a common vehicle for money laundering, tax avoidance, and overall concentration of wealth due to the fact that there is only one original copy and thus the price can be made basically arbitrary.
    1
  4106.  @skydragon23101979  What's old about those? If anything recent news is that the truth about the PRC's grander economic outlook is even worse than previously believed.
    1
  4107. ​ @dntstpmving Considerably smaller range and infrastructure support, as well as more demanding checks to ensure the pressurized fuel tank isn't liable to suddenly burst. CNG is great for like city buses and other public transit vehicles that don't leave the area of their depot, where they can install a dedicated CNG fueling and maintenance facility.
    1
  4108. I think DuoLingo is the one example where something Communist Chinese (i.e. shaming and bullying its customers) was copied and done more effectively in the West 🦉
    1
  4109. There's a natural tension between efficiency and redundancy. This long imbalance towards cutting costs also explains why China became the center of global production, and why currently the supply chain shock is pinned by the few privatized West Coast seaports who had never set up resource sharing arrangements.
    1
  4110. It doesn't have to be the best out of the gate, this can come later. What's important is that the Phoenix fabs start way ahead of the Mainland China competition, who are still working out the kinks all the way back at 14nm.
    1
  4111. Nothing has happened that the Party failed to prevent you from seeing. It's like how their nongovernmental buildings remain standing but only because they're fairly new; if you look closer you'd find an alarming rate of degradation, and the ones that did collapse so far just weren't in a place local security couldn't isolate from unattached foreigners and prevent an embarrassing media storm.
    1
  4112. Only <2% access news from sources not edited or under the thumb of the Party, which highlights how isolated Mainland Chinese are from true global sentiments which are significantly more suspicious of PRC intentions and not nearly so hateful or blaming of "warmongering" Americans.
    1
  4113. I'm not hearing as much Mandarin in Korea anymore either.
    1
  4114. Comparing to the Party's promises of indefinite economic growth (in return for permanently unchallengeable leadership) to its indefinitely stalled economic outlook, yes Mainland China is crashing to the point were practically anyone who can will jump out. The terms "躺平" and "摆烂" weren't Western inventions.
    1
  4115. Those programs and taxes stabilized American society from self-eating laissez-faire capitalism fueled by the ultimately pro-cyclical gold standard. The New Deal institutionalized labor unions, where the alternative would have been full on Communism.
    1
  4116. Seems like they try to define the "global south" as those places who seek an alternative to the inclusive anti-tribal democracy that the West converged on... and fail to come up with a system that's just as economically vibrant and politically durable.
    1
  4117. Yeah, they're underneath the North because their weak/exclusive/extractive institutions enrich a small elite rather than the greater nation.
    1
  4118. That's assuming we'll still have such courses to offer in this anti-humanist pro-corporate political environment.
    1
  4119. If an embargo compelled an Asia-invading Imperial Japan into war and defeat, then why not also do the same to an Asia-invading Communist China?
    1
  4120. But not for the Party, who never forgives debt and likely never will as long as they rule over China. Which is ironic considering they're themselves ignoring the trillion or so USD worth of gold they're obligated to pay off as the recognized inheritors of Qing and Republic issued government bonds.
    1
  4121. IIHS further includes small front overlap and roof strength tests, which are high pressure high rotation collisions found in near misses and rollovers. There’s a reason insurance companies who pay for treating injuries caused in these types of wrecks had these tests added in beyond the government’s minimum guidelines.
    1
  4122. Communists losing face 😀 Great!
    1
  4123. Post-COVID China is more living proof that supply-side “trickle down” economics ultimately doesn’t work; nobody will buy if they don’t have spending money. Give consumers buying power and taxable receipts will come.
    1
  4124. America is the edge; we’re still the ones dictating the specifications and funding purchase orders.
    1
  4125. The US is raising its shields against CPC habits to take foreign trade secrets for temporary access to the Chinese market, if it's even compensated at all. Even then Western defensiveness doesn't come close to how protectionist Beijing is to guard their SOEs.
    1
  4126. Yet they still somehow believe America is waning compared to them.
    1
  4127. America confidently dramatizes all its issues too, we're damn near shameless about all the problems we have and our ideas to fix it. The PRC however can't even get its own numbers straight despite complete control, it's like their continued employment depends on "meeting" higher expectations.
    1
  4128. Or a standing dictatorship or at best an illiberal oligopoly. In any case all bought out by Běijīng.
    1
  4129. The Party will likely nullify and conveniently forget all those debts its government and SOEs took, and silence anyone who tries to claim their money back. They've already done this for the nearly $2 trillion worth of Imperial and Republic era bonds that China owes worldwide.
    1
  4130. The territorial limit China "respects" is China's claim over the entire South China Sea, trapping its SE Asia neighbors to their coastal waters. And I'd wager China's claims will soon enough climb onto land justified by "historical" activities and ultimately classical sovereignty over Tiānxià.
    1
  4131. Problem is "China's territory" encroaches on the the territories everybody else recognizes.
    1
  4132. 11:45 Remember kids, the safest way to see 🐱🦐 is to first choose high-ranking parents.
    1
  4133. Even subsistence may be a stretch, considering how much of China's arable land has since been wasted by industrial pollution and urban development.
    1
  4134. FYR: Niger is a French name and more correctly pronounced "nee-zhair" 🇳🇪
    1
  4135. Xi and other autocrats need those foreign conflicts when efforts to correct their self-made problems inevitably fail.
    1
  4136. The then equally-oppressive but less-competent KMT lost the Mainland, but Chiang Kai-Shek was too prideful and confident to cut his losses and declare his own "New China" on Taiwan which complicates diplomatic relations to this day. Officially the ROC maintains claim over all of "China" (including Mongolia and the SCS) but more as a historical artifact than a serious policy.
    1
  4137. Anti-ship and anti-air missiles on their own are pretty dumb, which only gets worse as speed increases making fabled hypersonics effectively useless. I'd imagine the West with its plethora of networked surveillance assets would not mistakenly hit civilian craft nearly as often as the unpracticed and isolated PLA. That threat alone would scare off practically all critical materials trade for China.
    1
  4138. The dragon has been waking up, but only to find that it's already eaten through and thoroughly polluted its surroundings and has to venture much further out just to feed itself putting everyone else on edge against it too.
    1
  4139. China has to work quite hard to keep Indonesia favorable to it, because the ongoing undercurrent of suspicion against Chinese and Communists (especially among the politically potent Islamists) means sentiments there could turn against China really quickly.
    1
  4140. China's GDP may or may not beat Japan for #2, but it's becoming clear that it's nowhere near the US and is likely now falling further behind.
    1
  4141. Public opinion is still the deciding factor in a democracy, which can (and occasionally has) overturn said government. For example, Indonesia only seems to be getting cozier with China but this is a very tenuous growth -- there's an ongoing undercurrent of suspicion against Chinese and Communists which have led to things like the May 1998 Riots (a lot of violence which got directed at Chinese-Indonesians) and the jailing of Jakarta's former Chinese-Indo mayor Ahok. I was there during the nationwide Omnibus Act protests, where the demostrations got heated to the point that my Chinese-Indo friends would wear a songkok/hijab if going out to help hide their Chinese face.
    1
  4142. China needs Europe for its Euros because the RMB holds such marginal value as a cross-border currency. The only ones really transacting in Yuan are those whose money is even more worthless to convert into USD, EUR, GBP, or JPY.
    1
  4143. "Crisis" in Chinese is written as 危機, the first character meaning "danger" and the second "opportunity". Pro-PRC enthusiasts have to hold cognitive dissonance to improperly separate the two logograms, when they should really be read together as in "chance for peril".
    1
  4144. Indeed, the PRC's failure to develop its economy beyond an export-driven model means their prosperity can be taken away just as drastically.
    1
  4145. The US isn't even party to UNCLOS, mainly because of the Part IX dispute over how the International Seabed Authority will handle resource extraction rights. The US does accept and enforce everything else in UNCLOS, much moreso than certain parties who are fully bound to the treaty.
    1
  4146. China historically uses water features as borders instead of as territories too. That's why as much as possible they limited foreigner presence to literal islands.
    1
  4147. Between the "engagement" of pro-MAGA diatribes and bot-written calls for "investing advice" vs unmonetizable informed public debate, it's clear where Alphabet's interests lie.
    1
  4148. The CPC needs conflict to salvage its political legitimacy now that its people can no longer be distracted by a growing economy. Remember that "struggle" is their fundamental philosophy.
    1
  4149. Right, the Philippines asked the US to leave at the end of the Cold War and that's exactly what the Americans did. Even made foreign operated bases illegal in their constitution. There's a good reason Manila has been trying to reverse that decision from decades ago.
    1
  4150. Having lived in Mainland China (and as Tony still does), I've come to realize that the most pessimistic news about 新中国 is usually the most accurate.
    1
  4151. Taiwan presents a mortal threat to the CPC, because it's very existence is living proof of what a Chinese ethnostate could be without the Party.
    1
  4152. ​ @tonysu8860 Businesses are known to think in quarters instead of generations. STEM folks are infamous for being horrible managers of people because things that humans value are better felt than analyzed -- there's a reason they're rarely seen holding office in openly competitive politics. Thus business executives and engineers are poor choices of people to run a country, and unfortunately those are the type of folks who dominate the CPC ranks and rule over modern China.
    1
  4153. I'd imagine the Chinese authorities appreciate the likes of Tony and Michael Pettis, who provide a rare independent insight into their own country because they can't trust the sycophants and their rose-tinted reports who comprise the Party and the government. All these foreigners have to do is never report speaking in Chinese and start trending on Weibo.
    1
  4154. He's a non-celebrity academic who doesn't publish in Chinese where it can go viral, so he's provides useful independent reports about the PRC that promotion-seeking Party sycophants don't want to reveal.
    1
  4155. That would collapse the value of the RMB as way more Yuan wants to leave, while disappointment about the "real estate" actually offered in China discourages a balancing inflow.
    1
  4156. Just like Trump. And just like Trump, the longer they're not punished the more confident they get doing intentional destabilization for personal comfort and glory.
    1
  4157. ​ @DK-ev9dg America never acceded to UNCLOS, mainly because it questions the bureaucratic efficiency and fairness of the UN in administering experimental deep sea mining rights.
    1
  4158. China used to be self sufficient until they poisoned their farmlands with industrial chemicals and urban developments.
    1
  4159. They're not even parents anymore. So many couples are practicing a Zero Child Policy because of how hopelessly unaffordable China has become.
    1
  4160. Yeah Taiwan might reunite with the Mainland... when the Communist Party of China is nothing more than a history lesson.
    1
  4161. Don’t vote for Trump then, the Republican platform doesn’t believe in diplomacy as anything more than a mouthpiece to air their demands and grievances at other countries.
    1
  4162. So Basically Trump is praised for making direct confrontation at the elite establishment, even though he himself is a born-rich urban elite who ultimately has no problem sacrificing even his closest relationships to save himself.
    1
  4163. The rising tide is impounded by dams of defended wealth.
    1
  4164. They're socially conservative anti-woke and still going broke. The problem is they're overly pandering their idealism.
    1
  4165. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests. Apple and other who stayed committed to China are experiencing the "eggs in one basket" problem for not investing enough in alternative sources.
    1
  4166. Most of the world outside of Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe (i.e. the countries that gained independence after the establishment of the PRC) do not follow the Beijing's One China Principle, and maintain standing "unofficial" relations with Taipei. Meaning the majority of the world sees Taiwan as separate from the Mainland, even if they're not a "sovereign".
    1
  4167. Right, even with intact facilities it'll be nowhere near the yields without the hyperspecialized knowledge of career engineers to tweak the fabs back into spec constantly. Plus they're extremely sensitive to the purity of inputs, which is increasingly rare in a Mainland China that continues to irreversibly pollute its own water. PRC chip yields will be chronically behind short of Taiwan voluntarily ceding itself whole back into the rest of China.
    1
  4168. Chinese diplomats seem very controlled through the Chinese MFA, with little autonomy or agency to so much attend outside events without clearance from Beijing.
    1
  4169. They’ll hit 5% growth… by indebting itself an auspicious 8% of its GDP 💸
    1
  4170. More like confirmed Omicron outbreaks + CNY. The Olympics is coincidental.
    1
  4171. If we're lucky, something like Taiwan. If not, something like Russia.
    1
  4172. Beijing's "alternative" to Western democratized capitalism is just dictatorship with more money, omitting mention of the toxic society and ultimately political violence that emerges in the bottling up of personal expression.
    1
  4173. Using Western vaccines would be an act of surrender for a Party that spent the last couple of years touting its effective pandemic controls. Exposure to the whole virus seems to create messier and less binding antibodies than ones trained on clean spike proteins, which could explain why the Chinese vaccines failed. Unless Chinese pharma firms manage to develop an effective and trusted one of their own, at best they could finally grant EUA to the Fosun vaccine (which is called Pfizer/BioNTech elsewhere).
    1
  4174. Chinese vaccines aren't effective -- it was marginal against the original strains and have only decreased with the variants that since came to dominate -- and the Chinese people themselves are not very trusting of it either. But importing Western mRNA/viral vector vaccines might as well be an act of surrender for the Party, who had spent the last couple of years using effective COVID control as the main argument to silence critics especially as the gag of easy prosperity degrades from unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and widespread chemical pollution.
    1
  4175. Autocrats in general lack self-correction abilities, the PRC just has the money and industrial might to counterflood its sinking ship and appear to stay upright while fundamentally still taking on water.
    1
  4176. ⁠Not to mention the widespread sentiment dating back to the Dutch colonial era that Chinese are exploitative foreigners when their immigration and comprative wealth grew dramatically. There’s a long simmering cultural suspicion within Indonesia against non-Muslims, Communists, and Chinese.
    1
  4177. All the CPC has going for it is scale, but that's just inherited from being in control of China and not from the controls it tries to have China perform. This scale has thus far overcome the inefficiency and incompleteness of modern Chinese products. But just like how the Qing withered and fell from industrial technology overcoming the raw scale under the command of a self-righteous autocratic government, global networking and AI developed from more accurate and uncensored sources threaten to do so again.
    1
  4178. The Muslim World seems to care more about the creation of a Palestinian state at the expense of Israel, than it is in developing the resident Palestinians into prosperity. Western citizens seem to actually care more about Palestinians as a people rather than as a geopolitical pawn.
    1
  4179. Meanwhile the price of new and used cars everywhere else has surged, with Chinese brands seeming the least affected. It just shows how isolated China is from the rest of the world, and how unwanted their designs are where it is available.
    1
  4180. It’s based on how useful those countries are in potentially helping salvage the reputation of the CPC’s “New China”.
    1
  4181. Seems the CPC wants what each of its autocratic imperial dynasty predecessors wanted: stabilizing its uncontested rule indefinitely, except through proliferation of an ideology instead of a bloodline. Sadly this also hints at its termination only through mass violence at and by the Chinese people.
    1
  4182. China’s true situation is diverging so far from their own narrative that it’s just easier for its officials to believe its own 💩
    1
  4183. They believe everything can be controlled by superior force, particularly through technology. What they're not seeing is that it's superior institutions which invents and wields that technology, most dramatically seen when Europeans began China's "Century of Humiliation" by sailing whole fleets in force from behind their classically westward-facing land-based military posture.
    1
  4184. Right, both public and private organizations in more open societies know that turning themselves around when their momentum is backwards invariably involves changing the leadership. That's something the CPC is desperately trying to avoid as the fortunes reverse hopelessly on their "New China".
    1
  4185. They can't even grow rice or anything well, so they rely on truckloads of fertilizers and chemicals just to get a marginal yield. They're not even in the same race as Western farmers in terms of cropland productivity, and their best fields are now destroyed by industrial runoff and urban development.
    1
  4186. ☑️ Socially traditionalist in practice ☑️ Coercive force as the main marker of national strength ☑️ Negotiations primarily by personal connections ☑️ Promoting a return to a past glory that enforces fixed status by birthright ☑️ Unapologetically attacking political opponents of the tactics they themselves use far more regularly Yup, Trumpism and the Communist Party of China are essentially the same polity.
    1
  4187. China doesn't really offer any other trustworthy form of investment for its people due to the overly centralized ownership of enterprises, only concrete shells that at least you can see.
    1
  4188. I'd predict it's more a symbolic win to publicly snub the Americans, but the bulk of their transactions will quietly still remain in USD or other more trusted currencies.
    1
  4189. It's more hype gas to the tankies than it is actual gas in real fuel tanks.
    1
  4190. It's just a diplomatic snub against the US they can hype up on their local media, but most likely they'll quietly continue transacting in USD because the RMB has such little trust or usage outside of Mainland China directly.
    1
  4191. When they develop their own effective mRNA or viral vector vaccine, since the classic whole virus approach they used isn't working nearly as well as they hoped (confirmed by all the deaths worldwide who had the Chinese shots). The Party can't stand to lose face by importing the Western ones that have been out for a while, and proven to be safe and effective against crippling symptoms. Then there's the problem of Chinese people having little trust in the quality of their own products, so the hesitancy is going to further retard distribution even if it was available today.
    1
  4192. Authoritarians need to invent and inflate enemies in order to distract from their own abuses upon their people.
    1
  4193. They're there because the host nations want them to be. The hosts are even more concerned about what happens after American forces really do go home, as the Philippines is finding the hard way after closing and taking over all the US bases at the end of the Cold War.
    1
  4194. If it was fake he wouldn't be apologizing for the sounds of construction, sickness, and temporary changes of equipment in every third video. Adding noise to simulate live recording is unnecessary work for a lone-wolf effort like this channel.
    1
  4195. There's plenty of nationalism in the US, but if anything it's the opposite of the expansionist threat these autocrats are inventing. It's called "America First" because its proponents want to _dis_engage from the world, forfeiting a Pax Americana where truly devastating industrialized combat is largely deterred by the forward deployment and relative house fire containment actions of America's constant "wars".
    1
  4196. Problem is even our academics and mainstream media parrot China's officially reported information out of an inability to independently gather it themselves, if not out of lazy ignorance. So when a supposedly trustworthy Western source publishes a positive story about the PRC, it's because they're limited to deliberately pro-Party framing and not because of what we'd actually think if we could see the whole picture.
    1
  4197. Unfortunately the way Xi purged the Party, there's less and less to be gained from talks with anyone but him. And even then he does more lecturing than listening.
    1
  4198. Right, Communist China is threatened to peak soon before its inevitable descent from aging, debt, and pollution. It seems increasingly uninterested in maintaining peaceful trade, but a total collapse of civilian trade (especially food and fuel) from cross-Straits crossfire and the breakdown of stability by its own rioting people that would follow would give the Party pause in forcibly fulfilling its promise of finally conquering that "renegade province".
    1
  4199. Běijīng is likely to remain on their "dynamic zero-COVID" strategy until they are able to develop and distribute their own mRNA or viral vector vaccine, since the classic whole virus approach they rely on isn't producing effective enough antibodies especially with the later variants. However the Party refuses to deign to import Western ones, including the BioNTech-Pfizer one that Fosun Pharma had been testing in China and hoped to get at least EUA a year ago. Couple this with long-standing fears over quality controls, and it looks like Mainland Chinese people are going to remain terrorized by their own vulnerability for a long time while the rest of the world moves on.
    1
  4200. 7:07 CEOs would be wise to listen to the warnings of Bill Bishop. China's loose interpretation of the law means anything no matter how far in the past or how little controversy you've created since, it can and will be used against you at the convenience of the Party; think MeToo but for money, where instead of personal violations it's "state security".
    1
  4201. Doesn't seem so, they're not included in the common definition of the West because of their weak apolitical institutions and/or future economic prospects.
    1
  4202. Also the fact that limited-quantity media like gold causes spending sprees and wealth hoarding at exactly the wrong points of the economic cycle, hence the outrageous "booms" and catastrophic "busts" of the pre-fiat world which were often only resolved through finding more gold (usually through conquest and colonization) to inject back into circulation. Fiat has the advantage of governments being able to deliberately influence its value countercyclically, moderating the effects of overheats and recessions. Hence why practically all currencies are fiat nowadays.
    1
  4203. It's the price of Pax Americana. Remember before the World Wars was also a "multipolar" world involving multiple fault lines for militarized conflicts.
    1
  4204. ​ @SirShiv7 Reality is the USD is not going anywhere. Even with the sanctions, no other currency has the stability and global trust of the greenback, and BRICS members aren't going to cede enough of their economic sovereignty to create a common one for themselves.
    1
  4205. Seizing TSMC doesn't automatically guarantee access to its superior fabs: most of the productivity comes from Taiwan's wealth of human capital, and those extremely specialized engineers will likely not be willing or available (due to expatriations or deaths) to work at the same level under forced Mainland ownership. Retaining that vital human resource requires more soft power, and Beijing is already bleeding what little it has to begin with.
    1
  4206. More like exploring a shift in the relationship strategy following China's shift to a more insular and aggressive stance. Those old metrics of "merit" are no longer valid anyway -- the ever-anxious Party is dismantling that hopeful Old China in favor of the Maoist "新中国 New China", and America needs those folks who think laterally and aren't afraid to try new approaches in the face of doors now locked shut.
    1
  4207. A democratized ROC is a mortal threat to the CPC on the Mainland, because the very existence of a separated Taiwan is living proof of what a Chinese ethnostate can be without the Party.
    1
  4208. The CPC and "efficiency"-seeking multinational corporate executives.
    1
  4209. It's a bifurcation that's deliberate from the Chinese side, given their Great Firewall, one-way capital controls, and Dual Circulation strategy. China is literally an information isolate due to their blanket ban on (usually American-run yet generally) global web services, instead trying to defend and prop up uncompetitive domestic equivalents.
    1
  4210. Communist China is losing its attractiveness and influence, but realizing why would be fatally painful for the Party.
    1
  4211. I wouldn't be surprised if the conflation was intentional. It's a fairly foreign idea to separate ancestry from legal nationality and mental allegiance -- hence why Chinese state actors tend to target Overseas Chinese even if their family expatriated generations ago.
    1
  4212. Although considering how disposable the Chinese people have been to the CPC, I wouldn't be surprised if they dismiss the deaths (especially those of retirees) as a mere business cost.
    1
  4213. Still not really pushing for jabs, especially since the inactivated virus approach they currently rely on has proven almost useless. I see more warnings against scooter batteries indoors than I do for vaccinations.
    1
  4214. Summer 2021 yeah, before the embarrassment of Shanghai and Shenzhen
    1
  4215. It would affect air and long-haul truck travel first though, since they're the least energy efficient methods of moving stuff. Those near railheads and ocean seaports are less vulnerable to the changes in climate and fuel prices.
    1
  4216. 7:42 America's population pyramid prediction looks remarkably consistent, which is good for governance and the socioeconomic environment it maintains in which the markets rely.
    1
  4217. "Stalling" is more accurate, since it doesn't necessarily mean losing altitude at that moment. But whether by workers aging out or something more dramatic, eventually gravity will take over and the grossly imbalanced top-heavy PRC will find itself unable to recover.
    1
  4218. It wouldn't surprise me if China wants to weaken Russia in order to gain more control over the Central Asia -stans, a continuation of the westward conquest strategy that China has committed across the dynasties.
    1
  4219. Lei's Real Talk mentioned than a Party insider leaked that Li's death was a lot more horrifying, and that his body was quickly cremated despite the wife's request for a proper autopsy. Speculation, lies, or truth, what we do know is that Beijing isn't going to convincingly reveal what it actually knows.
    1
  4220. Especially for Argentina and other places that were selling in CNY to exchange for USD and EUR due to their even more worthless currencies.
    1
  4221. Chinese elites mistakenly believe Americans are towed by a "small number" of "dark force" extremists because of the way they readily steer Chinese public opinion through their own walled garden of state-run media. In reality there's a consensus of first-hand accounts detailing the distateful and disturbing aspects coming from 新中国, while promotional stories are easily revealed as scripted, falsified, or self-censoring something substantial. Criticisms about the US are likewise seen as amateur compared to the flames we're already spitting out ourselves.
    1
  4222. Of course the stabbings are an "isolated incident". Any socially traditionalist American trying to redirect attention away from their toxically violent sentiments for every white male mass shooter could tell you that.
    1
  4223. True or not, it's still an official talking point of the US now and has impacts on diplomacy and relations going forward.
    1
  4224. The PRC under Xi is only serious about making the CPC look great, glorious, and correct. The Party's problem is they're committed to a lot of expensive mistakes, and they don't have a dignified way out.
    1
  4225. It could have been an early form of what became SARS-2, hence the one-off spike in its detection. Plus the pressure to not preemptively villanize China with all the tourist and student money they were bringing.
    1
  4226. Which fortunately means their millions of soldiers and militia will be uselessly stuck in Mainland China, because too many of their unprotected transports will be sunk or trapped in port once the relatively few warships with anti-air capabilities are dealt with. There is no place for casual combatants to stage ambushes against a superior force at sea, this will be a battle where better technology and combat experience determine the ultimate victor.
    1
  4227. Yet America’s first war as an independent nation fought the British again to assert its right to the open sea and unmolested trade opportunities.
    1
  4228. Thing is it’s not productive either for the cost of operation and maintenance. As was mentioned, freight-capable lines would have been a wiser decision, which is why the US can still move bulk and hazardous material about the country far far better than anybody else even on tracks older than anyone alive today. HSR serves more as a marketing tool than as a real people-mover, since it still competes with flights as well as much cheaper buses and slow trains. And Chinese consumers are very price-conscious.
    1
  4229. It was more like a fortified field hospital, and not a very good one either -- other countries would have done faster, cheaper, and better with tents. Over time the template degraded into the prisons known as "fāngcāng".
    1
  4230.  @skydragon23101979  The Party will always find some fault with the US given any level of resistance. Their whole premise is based on perpetual "struggle", and they'll create or amplify an "enemy" to redirect attention away from the core narrator.
    1
  4231. The Chinese equivalent of Millennials and Gen Z were schooled in post-Tiananmen "patriotic education" and enjoyed until COVID an economy that supported the government narrative, so they had high expectations about the respect they "deserve". It looks like this pride has been dramatically tempered lately given the PRC's collapsing economic prospects going forward (real estate troubles, tech sector crackdown, international divestment, etc), punctuated by their sudden inelegant exit from the long "unwavering" and obviously abusive Zero-COVID policy.
    1
  4232.  @CorePathway  "China" as the Party-run PRC is defining it, especially now that Taiwan is deciding to diverge from the label.
    1
  4233. Oh great, another characteristic marker unique to Millennial kids 🪫🤏🏼
    1
  4234. It seems ground-up right angle plugs are becoming more readily found in the US. They're already common overseas in places where they use NEMA or multi-standard sockets.
    1
  4235. 10:01 Well now I'm curious, what is a PTC switch? I want a full 5 minute explanation on thermal cutoff devices and what makes PTC technically unique.
    1
  4236. It's not just in gaming, their physical retail presence like Miniso and Mumuso shops have expanded globally by outwardly pretending to originate from Japan and Korea.
    1
  4237. It's the domestic politics in China that prevent it from being more of a family heritage or transactional interest, as the Party's demand for sterilized thought limits modern Chinese culture to distorted and inauthentic "safe" depictions of itself.
    1
  4238. ​ @Super_Mario_Esq Doubt it. If she was doing 996, she likely didn't come from a prestigious family nor develop the guanxi to overcome her lack of social inheritance.
    1
  4239. Next video idea: Comparing Chinese food in China vs American-/Australian-Chinese cuisine choices and their closest equivalents 🥡
    1
  4240. The old Trucial States (Bahrain, Qatar, and UAE) are also small and safe, but aristocracy, inconsideration of strangers, and conspicuous consumption is their norm. Meanwhile Japan is quite large yet safe, and not such elitist braggarts whose politicians invite street-level interactions and rich folks blend in. It's not so much the size of the nation as its culture's bias towards public cooperation or competition.
    1
  4241. They were already trying to do so, but the bans mean they can't parasite as hard from American resources and will have to blow their own money developing replacements. What they make will likely not interoperate as well outside of China's insulated bubble either.
    1
  4242. US companies can and have resisted calls by the US government to cooperate; privacy is marketable with American consumers and largely worth defending. In China privacy isn't really expected, and the law there (which the CPC is above anyway) demands that companies not resist state security. That's the difference.
    1
  4243.  @unifieddynasty  The PLA predates Xi, and they're generally more hawkish than its civilian leadership and disturbingly expresses more foreign policy independence than a military ought to.
    1
  4244. The ruling CPC is a backstabbing parasite, I'm surprised it took the US this long to finally debride with as much effort as it really requires. Beijing has long declared the US as its mortal enemy and views lesser nations as places to dominate, which are antithetical to a post-colonial world.
    1
  4245. Turbofan engines they designed and made themselves, or bought through a foreign firm and still require foreign managers and QA?
    1
  4246. If November 2021 was an indication, it's not in the way the Party desires. Now they're dealing with mass unemployment and a collapse of family wealth with their real estate financing crisis.
    1
  4247. They've been trying to this whole time, but still are not beyond theft or forced tech transfers for the bulk of their gains. This will become even harder as foreign firms divest and customers become more wary of Designed in China services.
    1
  4248. More like Macron is looking for a "win" to salvage his tenuous presidency, while the EU as a whole becomes more guarded against Beijing.
    1
  4249. Well you wouldn't hear from anyone who's within China and not aligned with the Party narrative, even though they exist in considerable (and probably alarming) numbers.
    1
  4250. China is already so protectionist that it bans access to Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. Chinese users have to turn on a VPN just to avoid the shitshow of a Baidu search.
    1
  4251. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese products were considered low-margin trash in their first attempts at global products too.
    1
  4252. Japan and Korea still rely on American chip designs and European fab components. Sanctions would be just as devastating to their operations.
    1
  4253. If designed for it the battery can extract some energy back with regenerative braking. However the mass of the bike and rider and relatively low speeds amount to practically no gain. Even on a 50+ kg e-moped it's hardly worth it.
    1
  4254. It balances the well-supported army of Red China shills. I lived in Beijing and if anything I learned that the more pessimistic reports about the Mainland tend to be closer to the truth.
    1
  4255. Austria seems to expect privacy in public, since they have such restrictions on even private car dashboard cameras that deploying them as intended (i.e. just recording what's seen on a normal drive) usually violates so many privacy laws that it's easy for the footage of a traffic incident to become legally inadmissible.
    1
  4256. ​ @nichellesimpson6709 WeChat and Alipay are apps, and those QR codes link to a "mini app" which usually have the same registration requirements as a dedicated app. Having an active (unblocked) account on both super-apps is practically required for everything you do in China. And they're only useful in China; my WeChat and Alipay have since been dormant on a spare phone I had used while living in China.
    1
  4257. It's no longer the constant thick smog of before, but it's still not healthy. Seems only India and SE Asia have it worse, while you can breathe easier practically everywhere else in the world.
    1
  4258. ​ @bladeofapollyon537 A lot of tech runs rural areas as well. American agriculture is overpowered because of how automated the production has become... hence why among the biggest proponents for user repairability are farmers fighting John Deere for the ability to maintain and modify their tractors.
    1
  4259. Right, there's a deliberate administrative suppression for ICE cars and motorbikes. That's why EVs and scooter-shaped electric "bicycles" are the norm nowadays, long-term maintainability be damned.
    1
  4260. @Ethio news China has certainly been trying, but they can't even feed themselves without imports because they polluted too much of their arable land with industrial pollution and new urban developments. A disruption to free trade caused by any Mainland aggression cannot be hidden in the explosion of food prices and collapse in quality, and the Party can only tell the Chinese people to ignore their emptied stomachs and disabling indigestion for so long.
    1
  4261. Or they desperately want to think so. This coming from the same narrow-minded technocracy whose focus on loose environmental regulation and one-child families now cripples China with unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and deep chemical pollution of its soils and waters. And unlike last time, the Party won't have either the economic prosperity or the ballot count to retain popular buy-in to their grand plans.
    1
  4262. The privatize-everything proponents are the type who want the chance to take power for themselves following the market shakeup. Unrestrained capitalism rewards sociopathic decisions and converges on "efficient" untouchable monopolies, and notice how they hand-wave mechanisms (which never includes a government with teeth in policymaking) to ensure continued competition in non-utility industries if they even mention it at all.
    1
  4263. Basically a microcosm of underregulated capitalism, where short-term rent-seeking ultimately destroys the environment it once thrived in.
    1
  4264. Yes, in terms of carbon emissions, global temperatures, and its effects on future costs to adapt to a more extreme environment.
    1
  4265. What’s still mysterious is how Falun Gong continues to muster so much money to advertise and operate its annual Shen Yun theater on top of all its various news channels (who both deny its relations with Falun Gong while also have unusually few commercial sponsorships)
    1
  4266.  @darylfoster7944 Libertarians believe in government so weak that strongmen actors can acquire and entrench their superior position at the cost of everyone else indefinitely, making anarchy and other radical polity ideas more attractive. Note how violent things got a century ago before labor unions were able to blunt the knife of laissez-faire economics tearing apart American society.
    1
  4267. Symbols are just a ruse in this region. It's not unheard of for Red Crescent marked ambulances to be caught unloading ammo and promptly struck, but all you'd see from the media is a bombed out ambulance.
    1
  4268. There's a reason veterans look back nostalgically on their time in uniform from under the security blanket of their DD-214.
    1
  4269. Which only proliferates voting against the right-wing idealists who keep shutting down operations.
    1
  4270. So far the hours worked do get paid off. The threat comes if a certain small-state anti-government side gains more power and institutes more "business practices" (i.e. unpaid overtime, manager impunity, unrealistic metrics, etc) into the bureaucracy.
    1
  4271. At least it's a government we can steer through votes and public debate. Unlike say a petro-kingdom where your birthright limits your potential, and you're shamming your way through your job once you hit that ceiling.
    1
  4272. The "free market" of now entrenched incumbents provided young Americans no substantial property or lifestyle for them to protect. The government is the only other option since the private sector clearly cannot self-regulate.
    1
  4273. Flexibility on the employee's terms. Not being forced back into the job market due to another round of stock-inflating corporate layoffs.
    1
  4274. Corporate attitudes to its employees deteriorated the appeal of the "free market" narrative. Going further would only trend us towards the low-tax weak-state libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa.
    1
  4275. ​ @outwithrealitytoo Although even if there's nothing on there, it's still vulnerable to getting hijacked for someone else's cryptomining or DDOS efforts.
    1
  4276. I ride a motorbike, which has most of the same benefits at the cost of some flexibility in maneuvering and parking. But yeah two wheels is really the way to go, and I've heard having 10~20% of us switching to bikes could practically eliminate congestion on current road demands.
    1
  4277. Japan have zaibatsu, SK have chaebol, and China has the CPC, who are all monopolistic power brokers. The countries are all also very racialized, with their education and mass media regularly referring to their Chinese/Japanese/Korean race as a means of explaining their own achievements and exceptionalisms. The "strength through racial unity" is the image they themselves portray, and there really isn't a competing narrative when so much of the true business negotiations and decisions seem to happen only after hours in exclusive breakout groups behind closed doors with tons of alcohol.
    1
  4278. Children are still decades of a huge financial drain, and parents know this. This is why family sizes have been shrinking worldwide (yes even in sub-Saharan Africa).
    1
  4279. Better than hopeless fascism, fed by hate towards scapegoats for your commercial obsolescence.
    1
  4280. @John Doe That takes years of training though. Training a nurse is far more involved, and not that many people find joy in the physically demanding and emotionally taxing tasks nursing involves.
    1
  4281. There's also no shortage there of poor migrants, whether from the countryside or from abroad.
    1
  4282. It's a shame that Americans continue to be shamed into giving tips, which is rooted in literal slavery and economists have found to proliferate socioeconomic stagnation. Even if you want to reward your server, only a few states (nearly all west of the Mississippi) allow for this without your payment going into subsidizing their employer's operations.
    1
  4283. It is the free market, who were free to globalize worker competition while M&Aing their way towards monopoly. Now they're at a loss with so many workers gone into self-employment, as well as more convenient WFH and gig work, while uninviting nativism and the still ongoing pandemic disrupts the inflow of immigrant alternatives. And no, limited-quantity mediums like gold and Bitcoin aren't the solution. If anything they would make the downturn worse, because they tend to get hoarded exactly when the economy needs it circulating. The advantage of fiat is that it can be devalued, meaning it gets put back into the economy now before it ends up buying even less in the future.
    1
  4284.  @lajya01  Inflation is more that demand outpaces supply. The truck's sale price wouldn't rise if production and inventory had also managed to keep up.
    1
  4285. I've always been interested to see an income per calorie metric. Likewise a measurement of value-added for others' earning versus your own, which would reveal the wide impact of the public sector.
    1
  4286. Not so ironically, all the kinetic losses the Philippines took from China came after ejecting US forces at the end of the Cold War. A strong military of your own separates neutral countries from mere targets, and the AFP has clearly not been up to the task ever since Manila asked all the American servicemembers to go home.
    1
  4287. Schooling was never truly determinative of career: school teaches you a base of knowledge and how to think with it, while on-the-job training actually makes you productive. Case in point: I work in IT... but my degree is in social studies. I scored my current gig because of my OJT from the Army, coupled with clearer communication skills having come from a less technical (and assumption prone) background.
    1
  4288. ​ @Misaka-gt5yj ​​Humanities are what help prevent STEM folks from becoming completely mad scientists with no consideration of what other humans actually care about. Also helps them organize and present information in a way that non-technical people (especially managers and executives who are way more likely to have studied something not in STEM) could understand and appreciate.
    1
  4289. Right, especially with the Party's "resolute" persistence in "Dynamic Zero-COVID" measures (i.e. refining its social controls) indicating that the economy is now considered disposable compared to ideological objectives.
    1
  4290. Not really. "Woke" companies are more experimental with their products, and experiments of any sort (including regular business startups) often fail. But it only takes a small percent of success to make it all back and more. The "fails" of a "woke" company come more from public missteps in messaging, or unrelated business decisions only professional market analysts find and care about. If anything, those corporations with a clear social bent (progressive or conservative) tend to do better than unprovocative neutral ones because there's an underlying story to sell. https://youtu.be/axFJ3ICNT6g?t=10
    1
  4291. I was half-expecting transnational employment migration to get a ranking on the EE National Leaderboard 😂
    1
  4292. Which explains why China is so aggressive at ensuring it can import its own workers to BRI projects worldwide, even for the most menial tasks that any local could do.
    1
  4293. The CPC is scared to realize how not popular they would be if having to actually compete for power... against an opposition who would make good on promises of tackling hypocrisy corruption which drives Communist career progression.
    1
  4294. Part of the reason for CA’s water crisis stems from the agriculture industry’s opposition to regulate farmland water consumption (it’s currently use-or-lose water rights based on an inaccurate original assumption of indefinite aquifer recharge). Hence why farmers flood their fields with aquifer water to export high-intensity crops while the cities are told to conserve usage and let the lawns die (even though water usage in the cities isn’t as dense per person to begin with)
    1
  4295. Despite that, it’s still true that you get what you pay for. I’ve heard horror stories from other devs who tried to outsource even relatively straightforward coding tasks to India. There’s a reason they’d rather immigrate to here instead.
    1
  4296. *facts that are usually incomplete in scope and biased in analysis, especially before the integration of social psychology to become Behavioral Economics
    1
  4297. Considering traditionalists easily terrorize themselves into a unified and amplified narrative (regardless of facts or rationality) while progressives converge on mutual ideas like herded cats, yes.
    1
  4298.  @stevexracer It’ll be a tyrannical oligarchy by an unelected and increasingly inherited elite. Whom you celebrate vainly believing you can become one too, even as they alter our laws and policies to make it more impossible for newer competition to arise.
    1
  4299. It's more the comfort of knowing that if you do need to sell, the money will be there.
    1
  4300. If you're white yeah. Remember in those days darker skin, funny accents, and "Communist" sympathies were all valid reasons to legally take away what you had.
    1
  4301. Mostly already housed people, who individually don't want their own home prices to fall from increased supply competition. Notice how little effort is conveniently made towards making voting easier for the homeless, transients like college students from other towns/states, expatriates, and those in hours-away outskirts who may have a different idea of how to move up.
    1
  4302. It probably wouldn't be an annexation, more like vassalage akin to Mongolia or East Germany under the USSR. North Koreans themselves wouldn't provide a net benefit to the rest of China, who have their own self-made fundamental problems of overly low value-added in a stalling economy to navigate.
    1
  4303. I avoid sit-down restaurants and such whenever I'm in America because of how it always ends with the server always trying to shame you into giving extra. It's already annoying enough that the sales tax isn't in the list price.
    1
  4304.  @kristoffer3000  Same has been said about climate change: it's coming slower than previously expected but signs of its inevitability only grows stronger. Real question now is how bad it will get.
    1
  4305. It's like human-induced climate change: it's coming slower than initially expected, but its arrival only grows more inevitable. The real question is how bad it will get.
    1
  4306.  @here-and-there1071  In America you can make a legal challenge over the "fair market value", that's why land acquisition is so slow and expensive and explodes the costs of the original project. In China you can also resist to negotiate the payout, but if in the process you become a popular figure who symbolizes a wider struggle the Party could come down and make you lose a lot more than your house.
    1
  4307.  @victoriap1561  Although with debts you can apply for bankruptcy protection. If you lost your savings, you're just broke.
    1
  4308.  @Drake00075  Americans would find a use for the chewing gum and be proud of it too. It'd be a roundabout and not obviously rational solution, but it speaks to America's flexibility when challenged.
    1
  4309.  @draunt7  From what I understand that's what Xi's conservative "princeling" faction has been doing: erasing the voices of the debate through selective promotions as well as investigations of corruption conveniently targeted at the more progressive "populist" camp... degrading "socialism" in favor of "Chinese characteristics".
    1
  4310. Or it might not be "weak", but a deliberate strategy to have the Mainland undeniably fire first and make the fight for Taiwan a defense of democracy in Asia.
    1
  4311. Though with such high prices, chances are they had to borrow from less reputable sources.
    1
  4312. A durably free market requires information symmetry. You’re not going to research the relevant parts of med school in the time it takes to choose which surgeon best meets your requirements and negotiate the rates for your limb reattachment. Healthcare fares poorly as a marketplace because it’s the provider who holds all the power, especially as you move away from routine procedures like a periodic dental cleaning. The only way to rebalance this lopsidedness is with an equally powerful adversary, which unless we institute some sort of labor union for medical patients means just the government.
    1
  4313. Healthcare is a "natural monopoly", acting more like a utility than a free market actor. This is why every other developed country instead offers a public option if not government administration of its medical services. Regulations can certainly be simplified, but giving up public influence over for-profit providers would be like letting local gangs maintain the roads.
    1
  4314. Healthier for us anyway. Which is good considering how expensive healthcare is nowadays.
    1
  4315. They're cashing in because they face a permanent stall from self-made aging, debt, and pollution. Unfortunately Mainland China still remains far short of the value-added they need to offer to not get replaced by global competition.
    1
  4316. Japanese and Koreans had images to uphold though. Modern China just tries the same cheap business model again under a different name.
    1
  4317. Kuwait would get hit hard, as they're almost totally dependent on oil and almost totally bereft of sympathy especially from its Gulf neighbors. Oman on the other hand has the best chance of making it through, as they're geographically more blessed and culturally not so haughty.
    1
  4318. Not to mention how much bullying they'll be subjected to, being from a "poor" family or an obvious minority.
    1
  4319. Hence why statehood for speculated-into-bankruptcy Puerto Rico is a non-starter. Beyond, well, granting statehood to an island full of Spanish-speaking non-Protestants inserting two consistently progressive Senators into the Congress.
    1
  4320.  @jasonquigley2633  That's mostly because Chinese isn't all that useful outside of China. Even when you do encounter it abroad, it'll be written in the "old" script unless it's a PRC-sponsored facility, and too often they're talking in a different unintelligible dialect like Cantonese, Hokkien, or Teochew. Despite all the BRI builds and liberal deployments of Mandarin teachers, for global experiences it's still more profitable for an English speaker to learn French, Spanish, Russian, or Arabic. Even Japanese and Korean might make more useful lingua franca due to their popular culture influence worldwide.
    1
  4321. California might not be as central, but it will still remain the leader since wherever former residents move to isn't all the same place and so dilutes their contribution to the global industry.
    1
  4322. There’s still overpopulation, it’s just concentrated in the retired and the religious. What we lack are the young and educated.
    1
  4323. Automation is the ultimate goal. A human no matter how desperate for work cannot compete against a developed automated substitute.
    1
  4324. An invasion of Taiwan would be especially crippling for Mainland China once the crossfire scares off the civilian ships -- Western opposition wouldn't even need to control the seas, just launch enough return fire to make it unsafe to enter. China is too polluted to feed itself and high-sulfur coal is useless to modern military operations. By the end of a year most the PLA might be deployed on the Mainland to quash internal uprisings over rationed tainted food and petitions for answers about why their only sons disappeared on deployment.
    1
  4325.  @r3dpowel796  American corporations looking for a quick buck from clickbait sensationalism 🤬 US government media is more like "look how pretty our national parks are" 🏞️
    1
  4326. The CPC is positioning itself such that the wanted changes to hostile policies and self-supremacist attitudes make a Mainland crash the only option to eject the Party.
    1
  4327. I feel like if the Party collapses and "New China" fractures into less-centralized governance, the ones least who will be least surprised would be 1-point-something billion Chinese people.
    1
  4328. Brazil on the EE Leaderboard: This Economy is Not Yet Rated 🔞
    1
  4329. tldr: 1) Engine-powered mechanization 2) Electrification and standardization 3) Computer digitization 4) Artificial Intelligence
    1
  4330. Mainland China likewise screwed it all up because they continue to carry much more domineering interests, punishing Party members only for failures of results instead of wider failures of integrity.
    1
  4331. Right, Scandinavian countries aren't criminal dens despite the lack of capital punishment or even harsh prisons in general.
    1
  4332. ​ @zadovrus1624 Right, even China's fantastic growth required an exclusive Hukou system that prevented in-country migrants from accessing local schools and healthcare. And that's when China actually had plenty of skilled young people to hire. The average native-born American worker is only getting older and less able to uproot the whole household over the promise of a job.
    1
  4333. Problem is China's cake should be four times bigger, and chances are it'll never get there. But the CPC relies on this promise to maintain unchallenged rule. Also note how many Chinese nationals would readily buy property overseas if given the opportunity, versus how many foreigners laugh at the thought of putting "Chinese real estate" and "asset" in the same sentence. There's a massive disconnect between the Party's messaging and actual market actions that point to fundamental pessimism with Communist China.
    1
  4334. When the place keeps getting ruled by an unchanging unitary authority, there'll inevitably be constant challengers who believe they carry the true Mandate of Heaven, or struggles to break off and create their own Tiānxià. This could explain why China keeps flying apart throughout history, and why they seem to spend almost as much time fighting each other as not. Even today "Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away" remains a strong attitude especially in cities farther from Běijīng as the people go and do whatever despite the official state policy and Party doctrine.
    1
  4335. China already relies heavily on imports: for basics like food and fuel. Unfortunately a manufacturing based economy is far more energy intensive than one built on services, and all the pollution those factories produce (especially with so many local officials who are willing to look the other way) isn't conducive to growing crops and keeping clean waters. This is actually a huge reason that China can't really afford to take back Taiwan by force. Even without an embargo the risks of crossfire would scare away civilian ship traffic, and soon enough China is burning through all its cash reserves paying for shipping upcharges and overland alternatives.
    1
  4336. China's rise would certainly be more palatable if the rest of the world felt they had at least some window to influence public opinion and ultimately its leadership. That's what America enjoys now, even despite the constant wars and shenanigans abroad.
    1
  4337. Haters gonna hate, but it sounds like the biggest obstacle comes from the house rules themselves. Good luck asking to make changes though.
    1
  4338. It's hard to really tell, but is probably close to true seeing how official growth figures only seem to get less exciting each year.
    1
  4339. Singapore is what the PRC wants to think it is on a bigger scale, but that's ignoring that S'pore: > is a democracy with open contests for national representation, and the ruling PAP accepts the results even when its popularity wanes; > is a multicultural society that accommodates all its major groups, instead of trying to Sinicize everyone; > is admittedly dependent on foreign immigrants; > doesn't present the threat of conquest against its neighbors; and > doesn't tolerate even the perception of corruption within its government 🇸🇬
    1
  4340. The former isn't necessarily a problem, except in the unchallenged one-Party system only an exclusive select few truly have a say in the political system when they're not busy backstabbing each other at the first opportunity.
    1
  4341. A year later we find it's about 10% disability from Long COVID, and like 1% mortality (which would rise if local hospitals are slammed). It's actually more debilitating than polio (75% asymptomatic, 0.5% jumped into the nervous system), but brain fog isn't nearly as alarming a picture as getting stuck in an iron lung. The anti-vaxxers are totally wrong. Get your freakin jabs.
    1
  4342. I think they will, but not for long. Too many headwinds looming from aging, debt, pollution, and the end of easy profits. China might ultimately get back on top again, but definitely not through the way it's structured now.
    1
  4343. Ironically those same suburbanites NIMBY away densification and public transportation projects that make car-free commutes and tourism practical, fearful of the change in "character" of their McMansion communities.
    1
  4344. That's been a continuous process ever since it was built. Saltwater and high winds means all that steel requires perpetual inspection and protection.
    1
  4345. But also more brittle under load and more toxic under fire.
    1
  4346. And get shoddy workmanship as a result. Then on top of that the Chinese demand to contract for its workers to perform the (overly-)necessary maintenance, using the blueprints and institutional knowledge deliberately kept secret from local engineers.
    1
  4347. The whole philosophy behind capitalism is using personal greed to develop satisfactions to needs and wants of all sorts. Problem is the biggest rewards go to the most sociopathic actors, which is why private business interests shouldn't be driving public policy as a whole.
    1
  4348. I'd bet it would remain as a forum as similarly toothless as the UN, just populated by autocrats or corrupt populists wanting to be an autocrat.
    1
  4349. ​ @Ur3rdiMcFly ... because the host nations want them there -- at least for a lightning rod to redirect domestic political conflicts if not for a self-policing permanent source of tourist dollars. US forces are tolerated because their absence invites even bigger threats. Just as Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban), and the Philippines (China) found out, while Pakistan becomes increasingly unstable after taking over all the American bases there.
    1
  4350. Sustained by what? China relies on imports just to feed and fuel itself.
    1
  4351. Too bad for people that "industry" and state security are all China really cares about. Hence the callously inconsiderate "Chinese characteristics" of its "socialism".
    1
  4352. Hopefully Indonesians will remember that there are four other points of Pancasila (i.e. the standing national interests of humanity, democracy, unity, and social justice) and just simply religious faith when electing their next leadership.
    1
  4353. Or learn to recognize accents and not let "improper" pronunciation get in the way of actually communicating.
    1
  4354. China won't surpass the US. They're barely surpassing Japan and their economy is stalling not only from aging, but also debt, pollution, and corruption. There's a reason Beijing is becoming more belligerent against its neighbors, and it's not because of true confidence.
    1
  4355. I lived in China. It is not as developed and amazing as the state media and our blindly-following mainstream media declares it to be, and even the Chinese locals at least have some idea that they're not nearly as "great, glorious, and correct" like the ruling Party says.
    1
  4356. Cables are key. For fixed locations it is always more cost effective to be hardwired.
    1
  4357. We're at the point where technology is making it such that more educated = more productive. The education though is increasingly costly though in terms of youth and money spent to not have the entry-level of your working life automated out of reach.
    1
  4358. For now, but improvements in energy storage (green sources regularly output temporary excesses with increasing peaks) and sources (even cheaper wind/solar, hydrogen, deep-drill geothermal, etc) trends for Millennials to see net zero for a good chunk of the Earth within their lifetime.
    1
  4359. They'd probably retort they'll be even better... speaking through a snorkel on their face 🤿
    1
  4360. Comparatively, America is so right-wing that even facts sound "socialist".
    1
  4361. "If you want to go fast, go alone; If you want to go far, go together". "Business friendly" states are certainly taking the first route with their promotion of "freedom", but usually stall because their residents are just as free to flee to places with better public support down the line.
    1
  4362. They won't. Probably rely on some ideological private schooling scheme while waiting for the state to flood... liberal lowlands first.
    1
  4363. Problem is the incumbent NIMBY homeowners -- who are also well established resident voters compared to new migrants and renters -- not wanting their own home prices to drop due to increased supply.
    1
  4364. Especially for the liberal lowlands where most of the well-paid migrants have been moving to.
    1
  4365. Right, the very economic developments and societal attitudes that made those states wealthy and too costly to live in are the same ones that challenge the conservative worldview about how an economy and society should be like.
    1
  4366. "Free market" is a double edged sword.
    1
  4367. Colder climate societies tend to be more communal, while hot weather ones get more tribal and territorial. A warming climate would be a huge risk for chronic violence.
    1
  4368. Pretty much the story of every migrant: grow up where it's more inexpensive/productive and then export yourself.
    1
  4369. Until it gets "political" (i.e. supports social progress). Sounds kind of like "Communist" but really socially-conservative Mainland China.
    1
  4370. Autocratic powers can never blame themselves, because any sense of weakness invites their demise. They'd rather redirect our frustrations at left-vs-right (lateral violence) to distract us from the true source of oppression in top-vs-bottom (class conflict).
    1
  4371. California has a well diversified economy though: high-value agriculture, mass media, tech (especially financing them), and a surprisingly active contribution to defense. Losing someone like Musk isn't as damaging as the media dooms it to be, simply because California just creates a bunch of new startups among all the hungry immigrant and high net worth folks who immediately fill the vacancy. CA's houses aren't expensive because people don't want to live there.
    1
  4372. It would certainly explain why Dubai's newer high-rises seem to have quality issues compared to older builds from before the explosion of Chinese construction contracting.
    1
  4373. Although ironically those long-term plans don't include literally living on as an ethnostate, having brought their populations to age and shrink with every generation since their initial Baby Boom blew out.
    1
  4374.  @Veylon  I think letting China fall to the Communists was an even bigger blunder, but the ruling KMT at the time was likewise blatantly corrupt and untrustworthy to have their own freedom with our investments.
    1
  4375. ​ @Phyt5 Right, conservative America's extreme libertarian bias makes our government relatively understaffed and underfunded for a country where our daily life doesn't involve separate negotiations with strongmen-led local gangs. I've lived in the weak-state libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa where the low tax payments causes political apathy due to lack of popular investment in the community, creating a power vacuum where paying fees and "fees" is expected.
    1
  4376. And then ultimately administered by politicians who don't care because the DC Area is not their residence where they'd be lobbying funding and policies for, and DC residents aren't their voter base.
    1
  4377. Short of Canada willing to cede its petro-province Alberta, there are no potential new Republican-leaning US states. That's how right-wing the current US is compared to the rest of the world, at least beyond theocracies with very tenuous futures.
    1
  4378. I'd say let's move the US capitol to St. Louis since it's about the modern center of America's population, kind of like how DC used to be when it was founded. Perhaps two flawed economies will cancel each other into prosperity lol
    1
  4379. Far more Chinese companies want to go public in America than the other way around, despite being the next biggest economy with all the efforts of Beijing to promote "stability" and "prosperity" in every aspect. That's how much America runs circles around the competition.
    1
  4380. Uyghurs seemed to get a raw deal from China ever since they teamed up with the Hàn to genocide the Mongolian Dzungars who previously inhabited what is now Xīnjiāng back in the 1700s.
    1
  4381. BRI recipients are usually corrupt, and the leaders benefit at the expense of its people when they skim off the loans and budgets. This is why there's often a dissonance between the grateful words of the politicians that get put on the news, versus the less warm sentiments of the actual people on the street.
    1
  4382. All foreign reporters are considered fishy to the Chinese government.
    1
  4383. ​@@stevep7303"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Sadly we're not angels. Having lived in the low-tax weak-state libertarian paradise of Subsaharan Africa, I'd say that libertarianism is like breathing pure oxygen: it's actually quite toxic to humans.
    1
  4384. There was certainly a lot of bloat in the Argentine government, but the danger is some of the fat being trimmed may actually be necessary muscle and bone. Remember stock prices often shoot up following a round of layoffs, but some of those workers were the ones developing the company's competitiveness going forward.
    1
  4385. The "woke" liberals aren't wrong, it's just harder to tell a story about nuance when simple is so much more pleasant to the brain. It took generations to erode the relatively straightforward social arrangements of feudalism and slavery out of modern societies.
    1
  4386. That's also a fantasy though. Hang out with actual Koreans and you'd find a strong undercurrent of anxious, conniving, and toxic socially conservative mentality.
    1
  4387. However hypersonics are _expensive_, and only useful with accurate long range sensor assets to make sure the relatively dumb missile hits a valid target instead of the first big ship it sees (like an oil tanker). The US by contrast just came out with a bolt-on JDAM upgrade that turns cheap gravity bombs into effectively torpedoes from above at a tiny fraction of the cost... with surgical strikes the US could overkill practically all of the PLA's surface air defense assets on land or sea and still have thousands of bombs to spare.
    1
  4388. The rest of the world would be pissed though as the radioactivity spreads globally, and might convince the PRC to use its own nukes in response. Hitting the relays and substations that transport the energy though would equally neutralize the power sources and limit the overwhelming civilian panic to within the Mainland.
    1
  4389. We're only realizing that a "Sunshine Policy" does not work, and in fact the prosperity brought by free trade emboldens the very self-serving imperialist autocrats that the rest of the world would rather live without.
    1
  4390. The collapse of peaceful trade would be the end of the Party's China, with customers worldwide angered into divestment and aggressively seeking permanent alternatives. Coupled with the PRC's entering into a downward spiral of overleveraged debts, unreversed aging, and industrial pollution, the unrest caused by battle losses and explosive price inflation will make the Mainland interior devolve into another cycle of violent insurrections and panicked exodus that is just as common in China's long history.
    1
  4391. That's what the CPC is starting to do, and it's scaring off foreign capital while angering Chinese people who have nowhere else they can invest outside of real estate. China is already overburdened with debts incurred by redundant hard builds of infrastructure whose quality doesn't seem to give confidence that it will actually stand decades of use. Too many of China's buildings and high speed trains today go mostly empty because they were developed to satisfy Party policy, not actual customer demand.
    1
  4392. The big problem is that by disrupting the capitalism that enabled China's rise, it disrupts the economy especially in the cities where survival depends on the free flow of goods and money. And the cities are not only where the centers of power reside, but they are also much more able than rural villages to put up a mass revolt even in the face of military force.
    1
  4393. Only to find that China is a gaslighting abuser who literally everyone else warns about 🤕
    1
  4394. Question is will the savings get spread to all of us, or hoarded by its monetary owners as we've been increasingly permitting them to get away with since WW2 ended?
    1
  4395. ​ @cassavamellin Mostly from a profit-hoarding elite who gaslights the rest of us into blaming our peers and outsiders ("lateral violence"), successfully convincing us to empower an oligarchic administration who only trends to turn up the heat as they liquidate America's advantages under the promise of a slice of the sold shares.
    1
  4396. Practically all those orders are for Chinese state-controlled airlines, relying on direct government orders to subsidize itself. The open global market doesn't see the value in these offerings with disappointing operational costs, coming from a place that keeps proving habitual dishonesty... which is vital in the assurance and improvement of aviation safety.
    1
  4397. It's most severe in China though, with the promise of money so entwined with continued tolerance of the unchallengeable ruling Party. A democratized country would just change the leadership to try turning things around, but China's people can only build up resentment and indifference about the good of their nation.
    1
  4398. China graduates more "engineers" (a lot of them more like blue collar technicians) than anywhere else in the world, and yet so many of them also fail to get jobs at home. If anything there's more potential with the humanities grads... if China was an environment that permits honest jokes and critiques about themselves.
    1
  4399. Shows how controlled the media space in China is, with so few people either courageous enough to converse, or are state plants who got trained on how to express or omit certain talking points.
    1
  4400. Because it can be either automated (China is largely underdeveloped on the assembly line due to political pressure for keeping up employment numbers) or emotionally draining. The internet also exposed how the abusive attitudes that result is not normal or okay, and how little support you get if disabled by the job.
    1
  4401. It's not like the Chinese to sponsor a "defection" with so many of its useful secrets revealed at once. They have a face to save and a idealistically "cooperative" image to uphold, unlike more experienced and shameless adversaries like the Brits, Russians, or Israelis.
    1
  4402. That's why the Aussies haven't given asylum yet, his whole story still needs investigation. This is true for any asylum seeker.
    1
  4403. US would have vaccines to spare had Trump not completely botched the first lines of defense (mask wearing, actually sealed and monitored borders, enforced quarantine, etc). There's also questions about the AZ vaccine, though that pales to the mistrust and hesitation to take a Chinese alternative even by the Chinese themselves.
    1
  4404. "Politically correct" in English carries different connotations though. The "PC" crowd is all about inclusion and rectifying the inequalities that categorizing humans created; even the most militant ones would be at best a nuisance for pushing minor language changes like "they" and "Latinx". Meanwhile the "correct" in the Communist sense is found among social conservatives: this is the side that in America terrorizes family planning institutions, questions democracy, proliferates opportunities for violence, and advocates for economic strongmen to continue entrenching themselves into monopoly by taking down regulations. With further rebuilds of strict gender roles and racial hierarchy as they gain dominance.
    1
  4405. Efficiency and resilience are diametrically opposing tensions -- as the COVID supply shocks showed, it is very possible to be too efficient due to the lack of standby alternatives and explorations into possibly better ways of operation. America has been "on the verge of collapse" since 1812. And various Panics. The Civil War. The Anarcho-Communist insurrection, the Great Depression, and the assassination-a-month Civil Rights Movement -- the current "woke" vs MAGA battle is mild compared to what the US has survived before. What America lacks in "efficiency" it more than makes up in surprising resilience. By contrast the classically autocratic China throughout history suffers violent internal revolt just as often as it enjoys harmonious prosperity.
    1
  4406. Even Africa isn't that passionate to stand with China when the chips are down. I've lived there, and to the average local (not the sellout politician) China presents an opportunity for transaction but not so much an inspiration to achieve like Europe or America.
    1
  4407. It's ironic how even though Chinese people highly value education, the most valuable education then and now comes from violating the mental bounds and social prescriptions of China.
    1
  4408. This is why the PRC wants the ROC to disappear: Taiwan is living proof of what Chinese people could achieve if they were more like a Western democracy and less like the Party dynasty.
    1
  4409. Unlike the classic way of thinking that power comes through strength, Western democracies like to show that power comes through creativity and adaptation. I've heard that both Nazi German and Soviet adversaries found it difficult to plan against American battle doctrine because the first thing we'd do is toss the manual and try something else.
    1
  4410.  @debabratabanerjee7461  On land there's plenty of chances for casual combatants to organize ambushes. It's not the same in the sea and air where superior technology and experience determines the victor, and with China there won't be any offensive land operation on the part of the Americans to get sucker punched on patrol by.
    1
  4411. It's just like a royal family, just tied by ideology instead of bloodline but with all the same conspiracies and backstabbings. China under yet another autocratic dynasty means it's just as vulnerable to yet another cycle of violent overthrow.
    1
  4412. Chances are the next Miss Didi will come from South or SE Asia
    1
  4413. There are not many separated houses, and they usually cater to expats and expat-biased locals (the kind who send their kids to international schools). These are in gated communities and yes they have been subject to lockdowns as well.
    1
  4414. Many of which follow a similar copy-paste template, yet YouTube seems more sensitive to corporate critics and demonetizing independent reporters. Obviously Alphabet doesn't see crypto scam spam as a priority.
    1
  4415. Problem is the Chinese authorities are practically certain to lie or omit key facts about what they find to avoid embarrassing the Party in power.
    1
  4416. The PRC government likely won't grant that same transparency and cooperation with this incident, especially if what they already suspect as the facts would embarrass them. If it were a true accident, Boeing and NTSB representatives would have been publicly fast-tracked for entry and integration into the investigation.
    1
  4417. Right, any body parts found would be likely teeth and bone fragments. A shoulder blade if you're lucky. That's how violent the impact was.
    1
  4418. China especially lately spends on developments where there's little demand or growth potential, and what it does build is of questionable quality. Can't exactly rely on high-speed anything when they're already having occasional collapses of viaducts and tunnels.
    1
  4419. China already owes nearly $2 trillion in debts from the Qing and Republic era before the Communist takeover. There's no reason to believe that the CPC will honor any of China's debts to anyone, foreign or domestic.
    1
  4420. I'd imagine if the PRC takes Quemoy and Matsu, Western powers are going to seriously reconsider their trade relations and overall "One China" policy in general. The Taiwanese independence movement could be emboldened, other nations will not protest if not encourage this split, and meanwhile Mainlanders are going to ask very discomforting questions on why their sales and salaries collapsed while prices of basics skyrocket.
    1
  4421. I think there was really a movement to simplify characters to improve literacy; the Republic tried and the Japanese managed to do so. But what became Taiwan abandoned this project probably out of spite for the Communists, and the illiteracy problem got simply resolved through better education overall. So now there's a divide between the Simplified Mainland and those who at least before thought "New China" was the way to go (i.e. Singapore, parts of the Malaysian Chinese communities, and most of Africa and the Middle East who recognize the One China Principle), while the rest of the Chinese-speaking world continues with Traditional.
    1
  4422. Ironically Hollywood has done this before, modifying scripts to satisfy the censors of the most lucrative overseas film market at the time... Nazi Germany. Sadly Hollywood's producers and bankrollers are still a greedy conservative old white boys' club, in direct contrast to the "far left" actors actually in front of the camera.
    1
  4423. Wondering how much of that was through corporate buyouts as opposed to actually learning and developing the technology on their own
    1
  4424. I found it amusing that the video wrote the "Nice to meet you" phrase in Simplified (妳好,认识你很高兴!), but in the subtitles it's in Traditional (妳好,認識你很高興!)
    1
  4425. He's likely more accurate with what he wants to say in Chinese. Plus his anti-Party sentiments carry more weight when spoken in Putonghua for other Chinese to understand directly. The problem with leaving China as a Chinese especially during Zero-COVID is that the policy actively discourages departure for other than business or education or some other activity that supports "development" of the nation -- the immigration officer has he authority to cancel the passport (by snipping the MRZ of the data page) of anyone whose answers they suspect. An itinerary to an "enemy" Anglophone country would be especially scrutinized, and entering that country goes through a lot of the same questioning of "What are your plans here?" and "How did you convince China to let you out given the stricter exit policies?". These conditions explain why specifically irregular entries by Chinese nationals has surged.
    1
  4426. But also a PLA that is very inexperienced beyond small unit combat, and which hasn't really improved its kill-death ratio over the decades even against India or Vietnam. It'll be interesting how the PLA would fare in the degraded maintenance environment of a battlefield with largely new untested equipment, and how tolerant of losses China will be with irreplaceable only-sons filling the ranks.
    1
  4427. We'd laugh. Seriously. Watching it would just underscore the low quality of Made in China, and why the only consumers enjoying Mainland media are the ones who can't access alternatives. Then we'd respond with a Netflix series that more accurately portrayed the battles and conditions, and probably be more sympathetic to the average PVA grunt to boot.
    1
  4428. Likely by attacking the long-range guidance assets that it relies on to get within final striking distance. The faster it flies, the less mistakes it can make along the way before becoming a very expensive dud.
    1
  4429. Most Taiwanese don't think of themselves as "Chinese" anymore, and they strongly value their democracy. Plus Táiwān is very defensible (there's a reason it wasn't invaded during WWII), and the population is well exposed to military life with increasing emphasis on asymmetric warfare lately. If anything Táiwān would be the Afghanistan of Běijīng.
    1
  4430. Especially seeing how un-American the "Americans" were. We'd likely produce a whole TV series just to show how we actually spoke and fought on the road to Hamheung. Of course including "advancing in another direction" fueled by literal Tootsie Rolls.
    1
  4431. Batteries are usually measured in ampere-hours (Ah) or milliampere-hours (mAh). To find the total energy capacity you also have to multiply by the cell's voltage, which is often like 1.2V for NiMH, 3.7V for lithium, 12V for lead-acid, etc.
    1
  4432. More like disappointing economics, which right-wing policies are no better at resolving. But corporations don't have faces whereas migrants do, so they're easier to blame.
    1
  4433. If supporting babies is putting an entire government in a financial bind, imagine being just their parents 👶🏻💸💸💸
    1
  4434. The same ones arranging for Hollywood to put out two or three movies with the same theme by different studios within a year of each other?
    1
  4435. Capitalists blinded by greed, what else is new?
    1
  4436. The CPC is constantly anxious about its legitimacy and control of its people going forward, just like every autocratic emperor and warlord before them. Hence new projects to keep workers busy, resulting in padded numbers and shiny new structures they can pitch as evidence of their superior governance, even if such builds remain underutilized for their (unusually short) lifespan. It's all smoke and mirrors going by predictions of what they wish the future will be, blinded by their own ego and without bothering to ask the people directly like most true democracies would.
    1
  4437. Except in China it's all levels deciding on whatever looks good, increasing the fraudulence by compounding the rounding errors if not toying with weights or outright fabrication at each office.
    1
  4438. Lack of rain and cheap imported labor keeps down maintenance costs, freeing up funds for more solid and aesthetic designs.
    1
  4439. And as we've seen it's not terribly difficult in a land war for casual combatants to defend their homeland and defeat the political objectives of an occupier... Rumor is the ROC is asking the US exactly how this can be achieved from someone who spent decades on the wrong end of an IED.
    1
  4440. China today is undergoing what sounds like multiple respiratory epidemics there, and we're very aware of how an airborne illness centered around China turned out last time.
    1
  4441. The "law" as vaguely defined and solely interpreted by the Party-run police and justice system. Something your own family did could also have you thrown into a Chinese jail even if they've never been to China but you happen to be.
    1
  4442. For renewals it's already on file.
    1
  4443. ... because they're more pro-China than the rest of the West? Reports like this from CNA are late and light compared to even some of Global South outlets publish nowadays.
    1
  4444. It's a bold claim to say China is "keeping the peace" when it's really more America's constant "wars" containing local blood feuds from combining into a truly trade-severing industrialized interstate war. Also there's a reason the Chinese people themselves don't buy Chinese stocks, instead dumping all their savings and then some into tangible (or at least promised) real estate.
    1
  4445. This is for renewals, where you already proved your US citizenship to someone before.
    1
  4446. Táiwān is all Běijīng has left now that their "guiding hand" steered China's positive economic development down a cliff.
    1
  4447. America has been "on the verge of collapse" since 1812, yet comes out of each crisis more aligned with its ideals of "liberty and justice for all". The CPC fears a politically fragile autocracy like China can't flex enough in similar situations -- as is historically the case with the violent transition of every dynasty in China's history -- but in trying to harden themselves for it only serves to make the society they rules over more brittle. Elite-ruled China is like elite-owned china: stiff and impressive on the outside, only to irreparably shatter with a decent shock.
    1
  4448. The countries China is offshoring to also demand the knowledge to do it all themselves. This capacity in itself is valuable resiliency in the supply chain, especially seeing the shock of the "global manufacturing hub" going through the hard shutdown of Dynamic Zero-COVID with alternative sources not available.
    1
  4449. That was then. China can't even feed itself without American soybeans nowadays. Turns out you can't eat from concrete farmland and drink water flavored with heavy metal.
    1
  4450. With the surge of Americans applying for passports nowadays but no real increase in the government workers vetting and processing them, be glad that the application fee didn't undergo inflation too.
    1
  4451. If you're renewing, it means you've already proven US citizenship.
    1
  4452. It's a renewal, meaning someone is checking that you're the same person from previous passports where at some point someone did verify your identity in person.
    1
  4453. It wasn't so much an ability as much as what the early primitive analog guidance system ended up doing as it chased down the target
    1
  4454. You need identification to register to vote. Besides voter eligibility, this also determines the local ballot measures your ballot will have for you to vote on.
    1
  4455. Data entry into the database is a very minor and menial part of the overall labor. With the surge of demand for passports, be glad the application fee didn't undergo inflation too.
    1
  4456. You're just doing the menial data entry part. Having you ensure you didn't fat-finger your own name means the workers on the other end are free to do the actual government tasks and get your passport made faster.
    1
  4457. Investigations and security measures. A US Passport is probably the most wanted single document in the world, so there's a lot of checks to ensure its holder is an actual American and not a flight risk over some pending legal case or government debt repayment.
    1
  4458. Well yeah, they just get to do the real work now instead of menial data entry from paper applications.
    1
  4459. ​ @stevencher9968 More like now under 1 billion Mainlanders, increasingly senile and disenchanted with the direction of their country and livelihoods under the unchallengeable "great, glorious, and correct" CPC.
    1
  4460. The older ones might, but the youth are willing to put up a fight or die trying because they don't see a future under the thumb of the CPC.
    1
  4461. It doesn't matter who wins the election in Taipei, because just the very existence of the ROC is a mortal threat to the CPC in Beijing, as Taiwan is living proof of what a Chinese ethnostate could be without the Party.
    1
  4462. It's not "independence" from "China", but the ability of the people in the ROC on Taiwan to deter a further forced change of government.
    1
  4463. They provide visibility, which is the competitive edge in the myriad of things others want us to focus on. Also you'd have to be intelligent and knowledgeable to maximize nuance in minimal time.
    1
  4464. More from Southeast Asia too, but from like Myanmar and Laos and not the part of ASEAN that's rising.
    1
  4465. Right, the One China Policy recognizes a single "China" with Taiwan as organic to it, but not necessarily recognizing Taiwan as under PRC sovereignty. The US and most of the world recognizes Beijing as the representative of "China", but likewise realizes and liaises with China's competing government in Taipei until the two sides peacefully integrate by mutual agreement. As a democracy, this effectively means the people of Taiwan must freely vote to annex itself with the Mainland in order to end Western interests with Taipei without contest.
    1
  4466. Arguably the KMT "theft" was a good thing, because Mao's Cultural Revolution would have seen those treasures obliterated instead. Also Taiwan was just as severe a police state as the Mainland (albeit an anticommunist one) until after the Cold War ended.
    1
  4467. The travel plans question was always there.
    1
  4468. There's the Mobile Passport Control (CBP MPC) app which any citizen of the US/Canada/Visa Waiver Program country and Permanent Resident can preload their passport and customs declaration into.
    1
  4469. Which is an extremely hazardous downward spiral, especially since China already occupies the bottom of the price range whose value was only propped up by not so price-sensitive foreign buyers.
    1
  4470. Or they try, but find the lack of outsider QA and feedback negatively affects attracting further purchase orders.
    1
  4471.  @horridohobbies  Occupied by who? China is shrinking in population, especially among the youth who would be actually moving in. Not too many immigrants rushing to enter China either, especially ones willing to pay Western prices for concrete shells with cracked concrete and inoperable elevators that they still have to complete the interiors of.
    1
  4472. ... but like 70% of global wealth. China wants foreign money not foreign faces, and the ones they are attracting aren't nearly as profitable to stamp in and support.
    1
  4473. I was done with Dubai having twice visited even before my office assigned me to there. I mainly went because of all the places I can go from Dubai, although ironically I ended up flying competitors of Emirates because of how overpriced and tacky the EK experience has become.
    1
  4474. Which is a deliberate marketing campaign by Party-controlled RedNote admins, trying to make Americans curious to sign up and suddenly changing the feed algorithm to serve English-language content. We'll see in a few months whether Party censors can still sufficiently filter all the content to Mainlanders while still attracting foreign engagement.
    1
  4475. Yeah I thought China's skylines were dark at night when I was there, then I see the windows of Dubai's high-rises don't show much activity either compared to Europe, the Americas, and anywhere else in Asia I've been.
    1
  4476. Agriculture is massive in America. In fact China would starve without the excess exported from the US.
    1
  4477. The one that comes to mind is Razer 🖦 Although I'm personally more a Logitech guy 🇨🇭
    1
  4478. China's debt is grossly underreported and malinvested. Investigating their books for the true extent gets you targeted as a spy due to vague "national security" concerns. Says a lot.
    1
  4479.  @M3.Lorenzo  Inflation is naturally self-correcting without further aggravation. Deflation is a downward spiral of reducing customer demand reducing the want for labor.
    1
  4480.  @M3.Lorenzo  It's still self correcting, higher lending costs just lower the point where that balance occurs. Setting those interest rates is practically an art though, because they're attempting to predict and steer months to years in advance the highly uncertain decisions of humanity.
    1
  4481. Although if well controlled it does wonders for your metabolism and your figure 💃 I use my credit cards wherever possible, but zero the balances every month and know that these accounts are definitely not the ones to charge anything considerable against.
    1
  4482. Adult renewals were always easier to process because our looks don't change as dramatically in those 5~10 years, hence the adjudicators can easily verify you're the same person from the previous passport.
    1
  4483. Lithium will still be important in weight-sensitive applications like cars, but at least things like facility power backup systems won't have to compete for that lithium when sodium ion batteries hit the market.
    1
  4484. Foreign workers take up jobs that locals usually don't, they have to clearly outweigh the costs of recruiting and legal consequences. Hence why seasonal farmhands in America became foreigners after the post-war boom. The social status implications of performing menial labor are even worse in South Korea (common professional trades are looked down upon even if they do earn more), and worst in the Gulf States (foreign labor have to be recruited for practically all except government positions).
    1
  4485. Right, China only leads in rare earth refining because they're willing to sacrifice their water and agricultural security to be there.
    1
  4486. Right, China only leads in rare earth refining because they're willing to sacrifice their water and agricultural security to be there.
    1
  4487. Everyone knows CCP = CPC. Other than some local organization understood through context, there's no confusing the Party in the PRC that either abbreviation points at.
    1
  4488. It doesn't help that Koreans are grossly underemployed, driven by a culture of extreme competition that discourages alternative occupations, and constantly distracted from domestic corruptions by the continual employment of racist hate against foreigners
    1
  4489.  @kingenimatix7013  That's kinda what happens when social conservatives (American, Chinese, whoever) are alarmed about their social status declining over time.
    1
  4490.  @ameerasvana  Same here, I have a couple of premium cards but because my balance is zeroed each month I get all the massive perks at the few hundred dollars owed across them all for annual fees. The only times I even approached the credit limit was because there was some delay in processing the travel expense reimbursement.
    1
  4491. Nukes no. But cruise missiles, sea mines, and air defense weapons hold a lot of potential. China stands to lose if it can't freely access the area it's trying to deny for everyone else.
    1
  4492. Except Duterte relies on temporary shows of force, instead of more durable fixes to the institutions of governance. The Philippines risks reverting into oligarchy after he's gone because chances are the next leader will be an even bigger corporate sell-out.
    1
  4493. As the video described, the jobs don't want whole classes of people and it's too easy to fire them for even being above a certain age (it's still legal to discriminate by age, sex, race, etc). Hence why a lot of "retirees" turn to running their own small shop, and all the obstacles they face surviving there too.
    1
  4494. It'd be nice if China stopped giving the rest of us plenty of material to work with. But that wouldn't play well with its domestic audience.
    1
  4495. Debt. Just outrageous amounts of debt that the CPC hopes will get forgotten just like the trillion or so dollars worth of gold bonds China already owed when the Communists took over.
    1
  4496. Or rather more Americans are discovering there's the rest of the world to go see.
    1
  4497. Technically in well insulated boxes using dry ice, which only last so long especially in the tropics where most of the unvaccinated live. If they're not ready to transfer the jugs promptly into a deep freezer (not just a regular one) with reliable power (likewise a regular issue with those same countries), it's just too wasteful to ship over.
    1
  4498. Mexicans haven't been that big of an issue for a while now, even before the "decoupling". The real surge of illegal migrants are coming from places like Venezuela, Haiti, and surprisingly Mainland China.
    1
  4499. Singapore is also almost totally reliant on open trade, which COVID is preventing. Hence why CNA would put so much focus on the pandemic.
    1
  4500. The countries with a higher share of Chinese vaccines among its vaccinated seem to have a more virulent spread than ones using more Western alternatives. Since a natural infection appears to provide a weaker immune response than one trained with a vaccine, it makes sense that the traditional inactivated virus loads that Sinovac and Sinopharm use likewise aren't as strong.
    1
  4501. More like it's already straining from the surge of applications after COVID measures ended.
    1
  4502. Go to the US. Quarantines aren't enforced and vaccines are freely available. There are even packages available through travel agencies for vaccine tourism to America.
    1
  4503. They have your photos from your previous passports.
    1
  4504. Americans themselves no. There's other things we can do instead when mechanization and automation does the same work for pennies per labor hour. That's how the average American produces like 7x worth what an average Chinese worker does.
    1
  4505. There's way more money the government isn't getting from tax evasions and bad filings.
    1
  4506. Yet somehow the average American worker is like 7x as productive as a Chinese one — a gap that actually seems to be growing — and it’s the Americans dictating the technical specifications and directing the branding. Look up the Smiling Curve and see where each country falls on the graph of value-added ✍️↘️🏭↗️🤑
    1
  4507. Problem is the CPC won't allow the Chinese people to be as experimental and adaptive as they could and need to be. It'd quickly bring up discomforting discussions about how the country itself is run.
    1
  4508. I feel like I'm not as vulnerable to such deceit, because I'm a permanent expat hopping around to a new pin on the globe every few years, and planning to retire back the ancestral country too. She'd have to be more authentic with me when our next move could adventurously be Africa or Central Asia, only to end up a few hours from where she started. That's probably why I don't get so many dates to stick around 😂 Their loss 😎
    1
  4509. Corporate dominance and the voting cartel of older generations continuing to decrease access to the less established younger folks and immigrants.
    1
  4510. ​ @dominick6131 Right, sex only after marriage is really just a patriarchal religion "tradition", also more easily enforced because so many people would be hitched by their 20s anyway. Other traditional cultures that weren't subscribed to Eurasian patriarchy philosophies were famously more promiscuous.
    1
  4511. There's only so much demand domestically, and Chinese consumers are not only very price sensitive but increasingly so with Zero-COVID draining their savings. Meanwhile more profitable international tourism has cratered, with the government's persistent threat of surprise detention (first by "infection" and increasingly some vaguely defined "crime"), while 5G speeds don't mean an improvement to the web service access -- I had my VPN constantly on because of how useless Chinese websites were for anything but in-country shopping and navigation.
    1
  4512. Probably went to University of Texas schools too, seeing as they're similarly bent on cars occupying their plentiful flat land.
    1
  4513. It won't change for them, they were always targeting the database that's been there, rather than the unique configurations of individual computers.
    1
  4514. Chinese skylines certainly looked quite dark when not camouflaged by a scheduled nightly light show.
    1
  4515. Illegals can't renew a passport they never possessed.
    1
  4516. Even native Arabian spirituality. Dubai's style revolves around tacky status-seeking consumerism; Abu Dhabi, Doha, and especially Muscat have a more authentic feel. The "safety" comes from readily deporting troublesome foreign citizens and silencing publicly dissenting Emiratis. It's only safe on the open streets, once the doors are closed it can quickly become a very different story. To become the best they'd have to attract a more diverse population as permanent residents than car-driving millionaires and barely-paid temporary workers. And they'd need to build more transit-connected human-centered communities within Dubai to stop saturating its roads to Sharjah every night.
    1
  4517. Hopefully they reserve space along the tollways or another route for the rail lines needed to connect the cities. It'd be a mistake to repeat the same thing that happened to post-independence Jakarta, where they paved over the colonial-era tram lines to express the "modernity" of personal cars.
    1
  4518. Chinese law is still more actually draconian because of how it's enforced in practice: instituting a deliberately wide space of uncertainty and fear.
    1
  4519. No, the surge of demand but no real increase in staffing to process it means without our direct entries into the database, inflation would have happened.
    1
  4520. Want to return to the age of ocean liners then? Those are even worse.
    1
  4521. Though that's like Americans and the Metric System: it's a disadvantage to not understand it if you ever leave the bubble of your country. And not experiencing other nations is likewise a competitive disadvantage to your overall career potential.
    1
  4522. The equalization factor of the Gaokao might be breaking down though. Apparently the easiest versions of the tests are given in the Tier 1 cities, granting even more advantage to those who come from a "good family".
    1
  4523. That's kind of the point. They'll readily deport a tax-consuming retiree unless they pay in to a pricey Golden Visa.
    1
  4524. Indonesia doesn't want to feel tied to one side or another, hence why the TNI aggressively diversifies the equipment it procures. Literally just an airbase could have F-16s, Su-30s, an Embraer, a British Hawk, and a Korean T-50 parked next to each other. Problem is the TNI still doesn't have enough equipment for the amount of area they're supposed to cover. Budget skimming and the non-interchangeability of parts and trained personnel doesn't help their combat readiness either.
    1
  4525. Hackers would be individually targeting you to get through the secure web session you're submitting through, which if that's the case you have bigger security issues altogether.
    1
  4526. Engineers by themselves are lacking too, you need both sides to ask how it'll work and why even bother.
    1
  4527. Only if Indonesia threatens the territorial integrity of its neighbors, which it isn't anymore. If anything they're too focused on just holding itself together.
    1
  4528. If you love driving go live in Texas, and see how "just one more lane" doesn't actually bring back the open road drivers believe the experience should be like. There's a reason car-centrism is consistently demonized in city planning documentaries.
    1
  4529. Ironically the latest video hints at this in his case study of Dubai
    1
  4530. ​ @darksavage596 From what I've seen, the Blue Line still won't include double-length trainsets that the Dubai Metro network desperately needs, nor will it reach demand centers like Global Village and Motor City.
    1
  4531. If Prop 13 was meant to protect retirees, it's a counterproductive policy. We should be attracting younger workers, not further subsidizing terminal benefits.
    1
  4532. It's the "high context" aspect of these cultures that would challenge learners to be "functionally literate", and also make it unlikely to gain a following outside of those born into the culture. The explicitness of low context societies is also what makes it approachable by outsiders. The Indonesian/Malaysian language itself is a manifestation of the natural progression towards low context language, being a simplified lingua franca that enables communication and trade among the Javanese and Sundanese and all the other hundreds of peoples with their own languages and social arrangements in the region. Likewise the mongrel English and the democratized cultures that dominate its use make it unlikely to be displaced by one more ethnically-centered.
    1
  4533. Turns out AI moving around in the physical world needs a lot more training. Sit-down work is trivial by comparison because it's not competing to exist and navigate among humans in a digitized space.
    1
  4534.  @Urbanhandyman  Still means crossing streets in the correct direction. Not a comfortable experience for pedestrians especially ones not familiar with that part of the city. And that's without dodging all the street thieves and homeless campers.
    1
  4535. The Brits and Boers wanted to keep the fight as a “white man’s war”, as they feared what would happen if they started arming nonwhites.
    1
  4536. Germany and other Western countries are open to immigration up to naturalizing them, so they're not as worried as ethnostates whose own population has to provide the labor.
    1
  4537. Inactivated viruses have a proven safety record, but vary wildly on if they actually work. There are ongoing outbreaks in China that call for sudden and complete lockdowns, which shouldn't be the case if the vaccinations are as protective as promised.
    1
  4538. I think it's not yet advisable. There's supposed to be a two week gap before or after since there's not enough data saying it's safe to mix them before you clear the components out of your system.
    1
  4539. Found nothing on non-clickbaity sites. Chances are it's not a specific concern versus the more traditional alternatives; lingering effects of any vaccine would become noticeable within the first three months.
    1
  4540.  @philnightjar1971  China habitually skimps on quality wherever they think they can get away with it. Which would be fine for disposable consumer gadgets, but even their fantastic infrastructure if you look closely too often shows signs of peeling concrete, exposed rebar, broken elevators, water leakage, etc that you'd expect to find in builds that are decades older. This could be why the vaccines China offers had to use traditional inactivated virus loads, which are at least consistent in performance even if they are marginally effective.
    1
  4541. Vaccination doesn't prevent catching the disease, it prevents you from ending up with Long COVID and a hospital bill afterward.
    1
  4542. 15~30 minutes of waiting mostly depends on the clinic, regardless of what vaccine you just got.
    1
  4543. Only thing missing is a metro system from the airport, meaning you're relying on renting a car or taxi
    1
  4544. Ironically what may have really triggered the Japanese surrender to the Americans was the Soviet reentry into the war, which threatened the wholesale eradication of traditional culture under the "revolution" of Communism -- a prescient notion considering what subsequently happened to Mainland China and North Korea. The atom bombs were more a convenient excuse having already suffered incendiary firebombings of equally large devastation.
    1
  4545. It's a stopgap, but will likely fail sooner to variants -- whole viruses are noisier than the pure proteins that mRNA and viral vectors produce, so the antibodies are likewise weaker to bond. Just be ready to take a booster.
    1
  4546. No, vaccines are training for the immune system. Just like how boot camp and skills school would make a soldier survive better than throwing the same kid straight into combat. That "rush" is simply not waiting years for academics to process the data, the trials were accelerated because the safety of proceeding far exceeded the risk of any side effects or getting infected during the wait.
    1
  4547. Dubai has been building out its piped sewer network over the past decade or so, reaching the last neighborhoods by 2025. It's the one megaproject they didn't stall construction on. Poop trucks are a rare sight, by now mostly either scrapped or repurposed as mobile pumps for maintenance works and the yearly spring floods.
    1
  4548. Predictable because we have over a century of experience with weakened virus injections. But if it's so marginally effective it's almost inert (especially against mutations), it's not doing us much good for all the effort we're putting into the production and distribution.
    1
  4549. Notice though it's not "command _accountability_". There should be a threshold that takes into account how much the commander either ignores if not encourages, or attempts to prevent and punish war crimes among his ranks.
    1
  4550. For those who think it's because Sweden isn't wasting it on its military, remember they were on their own (independent defense industry and all) and barely joined NATO earlier this year, ending over 200 years of well-armed neutrality. So yes it is possible to afford guns and butter if the government administers public utilities like defense and healthcare.
    1
  4551. It would just end up like Rhodesia, creating more insurgents than they're killing because they'd be trying to quell large established communities putting out casual combatants. What'd be more productive is sending them against traditionalist militias who advocate and train to disrupt if not overthrow the government when they lose power at the polls.
    1
  4552. MAGA targets poll workers, when they really should go after sociopathic commission-based insurance adjusters and debt collectors. But no, they continue to play the meatshield against the top-vs-bottom class conflict that's the true source of destitution and disappointment... just as the Big Business GOP wants them to be. Progressives have to likewise generate a populist in order to address this legalized robbery (which in a winner-take-all voting environment means taking over the existing Democrats, not diluting numbers in third parties). There's a reason the leftist candidate Andrew Yang achieved a surprising following among otherwise right-wing communities.
    1
  4553. The whole premise of recycling comes from this customer gaslighting for corporate waste. Yes, the whole campaign behind the ♻ symbol was meant to "empower" (but really shame) consumers into accepting the failures of the plastics industry to figure out how to ecologically dispose of their waste.
    1
  4554. It's too bad Fairphone can only ship within Europe. It might have been my next phone, especially as my old LG struggles with modern software bloat.
    1
  4555. If you're fixing aircraft, you're likely one of those "certified mechanics" officially allowed to take wrench apart a plane. Although it's a government certification instead of a corporate one, ensuring that what you put aloft over us all uses properly procured and documented parts.
    1
  4556. ... only costs 5~10x per try compared to the bill of giving birth. And then you still have to give birth.
    1
  4557. For such a car-centric society, it amazes me how incoherent their road layout is. It's like their urban planners had no foresight for consistency in wayfinding, instead relying on "just one more flyover, bro".
    1
  4558. Right, especially with already very price-sensitive Mainlanders who are struggling to get paid in China's deflationary downward spiral.
    1
  4559. "Individual authority is the one thing authoritarians can't copy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LfbsW-5tAk
    1
  4560. That only works if the one checking is using the same technology and has access to the US government database, which is unlikely when you're entering another country.
    1
  4561. It's exactly the same mistake America committed itself to a century ago, as well as capitals of post-WW2 decolonized nations like Jakarta and Manila seeking to "modernize" itself when it paved over their extensive tram networks in favor of cars and buses.
    1
  4562. Planners probably thought to do everything the opposite of Seoul, which includes digging in metro lines and stations before the surrounding area makes it economical to open for operation.
    1
  4563. If anything, mass transportation is a bigger driver of economic success for a locale. This is why the centrality of the Seoul area has only grown as its subway reach encroached into Incheon and surrounding Gyeonggi Province. Not including a metro system into Sejong City is a massive oversight and an expensive retrofit to correct.
    1
  4564. Alternatives are being experimented, but none are emerging. Even crypto needs the blessing of US regulators to even start being anything more than tokens of speculation.
    1
  4565. They're "neutral" by necessity. With the Soviet collapse they'd be more openly pro-Western if they weren't landlocked.
    1
  4566. Yet the UAE and other "neutral" countries like Qatar and Singapore host substantial American military presence, and are all doing quite well.
    1
  4567. That's a significantly longer route, most ships are trying to go East-West and not south to Australia. This desire is the whole reason Singapore exists. Plus the Sunda Strait is even worse for ships than Malacca -- going through Indonesia you'd likely have to go around the far end of Bali.
    1
  4568. Looks like China will have to cater harder with Indonesia to discourage them from setting up something similar across its vast and defensible archipelago too. Which will be a tough sell considering Indonesia's deep suspicions of Communists and Chinese, as well as consistently closer ties with Japan.
    1
  4569. Seizing those islands would lead to Taiwan declaring independence, since they won't be able to take it back nor is peace proven to be an option with the PRC. This would catch the PLA flatfooted, not nearly prepared enough for an immediate offensive across the Strait, while Taiwan has time to gain international recognition and rally allies for the inevitable battles ahead.
    1
  4570. There's a lot of simmering divisions within the US, but the most violent movements are all fractured into individuals and small groups which even if they do find each other wouldn't be able to agree on their tactics and objectives before being hunted down by law enforcement or popular revelations. Jan 6 illustrated what these disorganized sentiments could achieve, which was basically nothing but embarrassment and reducing the sympathies of the police who won't be as favorably selective in enforcing the law anymore.
    1
  4571. That's how poorly the early PLA fared with amphibious assualts, Hainan being the one major exception as it was too far to effectively command and supply from Taiwan. Nowadays these tiny islands stay with the ROC because seizing them could lead to Taiwan cutting their losses and suddenly declaring independence, and the PLA wouldn't be nearly prepared enough for an immediate cross-Strait offensive.
    1
  4572. Luckily Taiwan has direct access to the open sea which allows for unfettered supplies and trade, which sadly the Kurds don't.
    1
  4573. A ground war can't be avoided, and that's where the Taiwanese people have an opportunity to go toe to toe with any PLA occupiers; notice how much heartache insurgents gave the US forces despite near zero naval assets or air defense. Rumor is there's discussion that the next round of American defense sales to Taiwan won't be high-tech F-35s and such, but instead much simpler equipment and training on how to perform effective insurgencies which the US military has plenty of experience with. One or two generations of Mainland families finding their only sons dead or disappeared could create a lot of unrest and questioned loyalties among the people of China.
    1
  4574. The Republic of China did. Those were the islands that the PLA failed to take by the end of the Great Retreat.
    1
  4575. This may be the more likely casus belli since Mainland China risks increasing unrest as it settles into the relative decadence of the middle income trap -- being probably too old, polluted, and corrupt to escape -- and the CPC's unchallengeable rule relies on an environment of easy profits. The Party also gets easily spooked by any visible scenes of internal protests.
    1
  4576. Those cracks were always there. NZ relies the most on China for its economy, not having as much of an Americas or Europe as its alternative. Joining the statement wouldn't provide much more effect on China as they already think "they're all against us", but the "reciprocal" diplomatic and economic fallout would definitely make things harder for NZ going forward.
    1
  4577. US forces left when it was asked to. A big reason the US has so many bases around the world is the concern of what would then happen in America's absence.
    1
  4578. America could adapt quickly because our own military doctrine is fairly vague and according to our adversaries we violate it constantly. We can stay in a losing fight for decades on end with our experience intact because the internal relationship structure can get bent so wildly, with say colonels randomly trusting in some sergeant's bold idea. A more regimented setup would likely break earlier trying to maintain itself under the chaotic pulls and pressures of real warfare, where uncensored information from below is key to profitable decisions from above.
    1
  4579. It's the exact borders of Israel that's the main dispute. Israeli settlements encroach and fracture what a lot of countries consider properly Palestine.
    1
  4580. Hizballah resides mostly in the mountainous south of Lebanon. Movements to and from them are more likely to be seen on a detour elsewhere.
    1
  4581. It was more the independent Islamist HTS, but Western-backed rebels did also make considerable gains in the chaos of Assad's flight.
    1
  4582. Fractured control (like so-called"multipolarity") leads to conflict as each side tries to expand their influence space into each other. It's much like how life in a state with an effective military and police force is much more stable and predictable than one run by local gangs -- the state's monopoly on violence allows the residents to focus on more productive things within legal boundaries (which is why democracy is important because the people ultimately get to also decide those boundaries).
    1
  4583. The Paradox of Tolerance means tolerant societies ironically must not tolerate the intolerant (such as the censored and thought-prescribing PRC), because otherwise intolerant ideas spread like a psychological cancer.
    1
  4584. Depends, whose courts are you best able to defend yourself in?
    1
  4585. 4:36 I’m wondering what map the maritime borders came from, because it doesn’t follow either the UNC Northern Limit Line or North Korea’s claims
    1
  4586. It's unlikely the Afghans would let it get reattached for long. China expresses far too much animosity against both Muslims and Turkic people -- they've habitually invaded westward throughout its entire history -- and any cooperation would likely be a temporary transaction until one side gets into the position to backstab the other.
    1
  4587.  @Thanatar13  Humanitarian aid and civil society can't exist without first establishing predictable security, and Afghanistan's literal and cultural terrain provides plenty of spaces to sabotage the peace. The strong local tribalism would mean colonial methods of governance to keep the place together, and it's not in America's interest to be seen as an openly colonizing power when its reputation is already that of an informal one hypocritical to its ideals of democratic self-determination.
    1
  4588. That's basically the stance now, just monitoring and making sure Afghanistan no longer provides a threat to the US regardless of who's in power.
    1
  4589. Fixing it was really limited to breaking Al-Qaeda, developing Afghanistan was secondary. It's an impossible task anyway since we'd always have to clear with Pakistan, Iran, Russia, or China just to move people and supplies. Unlike say Germany or Japan where we have free access through the open sea. In fact Afghanistan basically exists as a buffer between its larger neighbors -- that thin arm stretching to China was granted to them by the British Empire specifically as a separator between them and the Russians.
    1
  4590. China opens more coal burners than it balances out with green energy. If anything we're too distracted from their net increases in pollution because of their claimed renewable capacity and "developing country" status.
    1
  4591. I have more optimism in geothermal, which comes from a natural nuclear process and the petroleum industry is already drilling and pumping at the deep depths most places would require to tap into Earth's own heat.
    1
  4592. The CPC doesn't care how many Chinese will die for their projects, but modern media can help ensure the type of Chinese people dying (only-sons for nearly everyone on the Mainland and with him the family legacy and retirement plan) makes China's public war-weary way faster than the Party would have hoped despite all the "patriotic education".
    1
  4593. PLA land forces wouldn't really be targeted, the West would probably avoid it so that the soldiers can be seen starving out the Chinese people as rations dwindle with the collapse of global trade with the Mainland. The primary targets would be the PLA's Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force assets which can strike at its neighbors over the horizon.
    1
  4594. Even with all those overland alternatives, it can't replace the capacity and affordability of maritime trade which exchange their loads right in China's population and production centers. Beijing would run out of money (especially valuable foreign currencies) just trying.
    1
  4595. Just make ship movements through the South and East China Seas uninsurable: embargoes or dominance not required, simple return fire of guided missiles would do. Affordable food and fuel would disappear as sea trade collapses, and the Chinese people would take care of the rest.
    1
  4596. Formidable, but not insurmountable. Technical quality (i.e. technology, logistics, and experience) is the dominant factor in air and sea combat where there are no casual combatants to set traps nor roaming media to hijack public opinion, and the US has a considerable edge on the quality of its airborne and seaborne forces. US political goals were defeated in Vietnam and Afghanistan (and only after like 20 years in each), despite relatively overwhelming industrial capacity and practically secure supply lines throughout. If anything the US knows best about how to thwart the objectives of a superior but overseas power -- its very existence hinged on ambushing Redcoats while developing powerful relationships abroad.
    1
  4597. Power. It's a zero-sum game because power is relative to what you can do while others can't. Sharing power is a fairly new and niche development in the otherwise brutal and indifferent competition that is natural life.
    1
  4598. Táiwān wants to not be ruled by the CPC, that's the basic issue behind this whole conflict.
    1
  4599. It's a pressure release, but nowhere near a realistic and affordable replacement for the maritime trade direct to the coastal population and production centers that will get scared off once the shooting starts.
    1
  4600. Not even actually target the ships, just returning fire would create a void of shipping insurance and cause maritime trade to steer clear of China.
    1
  4601. Unfortunately ASEAN can't even agree to negotiate as a unified bloc, and Běijīng prefers it this way to divide and conquer SE Asia by consistently demanding only siloed bilateral conversations.
    1
  4602. Not NATO formally as a whole, but a lot of its members would independently support a US-led effort to thwart PLA objectives and prevent the effective expansion of a condescending unilateral autocracy.
    1
  4603. Collapse of trade would be the most likely scenario: just scare off the civilian ships and watch the Mainland implode as food and energy prices there rocket out of reach despite all the overland alternatives Beijing was trying to build.
    1
  4604. Everyone else also thinks so, including China. Ironically it's those outer islands like Guam, AS, and PR that provide more volunteers per capita into the US military than the States themselves.
    1
  4605. Invade is unlikely, but striking at "American forces and those who harbor them" is certainly plausible.
    1
  4606. Overland won't make up for the collapse of current sea trade routes getting scared off by the crossfire; Beijing would run out of money paying for movements due to the reduced capacity and efficiency compared to shipments by ship. Plus the polar routes would have to go past the not so friendly Japan and US (Alaska).
    1
  4607.  @PaulColclough47  Zeihan's specific timelines might be imprecise, but I've yet to find anyone with a better data-driven grasp of global trends.
    1
  4608. Smaller ships that lack real anti-air defenses, vulnerable to guided gravity bombs which are dirt cheap to drop compared to missiles and which the US has hundreds of thousands of base shells already in stock.
    1
  4609. Yeah for a regime so worried about its survival, it’s ironic they’re considering moving the leadership closer to the reach of their adversaries
    1
  4610.  @lakeblackBLM  Yet it's also quickly aging, exploding in debts, thoroughly polluted, extremely underweight in modern culture attractiveness, and has to militantly prevent people and capital from expatriating. In a couple decades China will be entering undeniable stagnation if not decline, and they'll find that smooth roads and promises of money will no longer be enough to continue the Party's unchallenged reign.
    1
  4611. Most of that pollution is also concentrated where the people are as well. Chinese cities regularly experience unhealthy levels of smog, and the rivers are increasingly uneconomical to cleanse for drinking with all the industrial chemicals getting dumped/leached into them.
    1
  4612. You can blame the corporate libertarians who were unleashed by the Republicans, who got America's politics and conservative narrative to effectively sell out our ideals in the name of "freedom", "business", and private profits.
    1
  4613. Not said: one cat does silly actions and will sleep in your lap, while the other knocks down your shelf items and scratches up your furniture.
    1
  4614. Unless they get into a real war though, they're going to lack a lot of combat experience to survive and fight in the degraded repair and maintenance state that hostilities will impose. It's one thing to fight lightly armed pirates with a brand new vessel, it's another to successfully dodge mines, escape submarines, return fire, and survive limping back to a faraway friendly port at half speed on a cracked screw, an overworked boiler ready to explode, and a critically sleep deprived crew.
    1
  4615. Americans know the expanded connotation of "army", but prefer the terms "military" (from Latin mīles meaning "soldier") and "armed forces" to distinguish the full range as opposed to the land force branch. Also up until recently the PLA really was a primarily ground force army, with subordinate navy, air force, and support branches. It was only in the last 10 years that the PLA reorganized to put each branch on equal footing, and institute theater commands with geographic responsibilities, much like how the US is.
    1
  4616. A single currency basically requires a single budget to function optimally, which essentially means a single government. ASEAN is nowhere near that stage yet.
    1
  4617.  @donderstorm1845  Processed food, much of which they have to originally import from somewhere else. Chinese fishing armadas aren't scraping clear the seas off of South America and Africa out of resource-sharing and conservation concerns closer to home (i.e. they already minimized fish stocks off their coast).
    1
  4618. ​ @23strawbale But at least as much by supply disruptions caused by Russia's threat to the rest of Europe, and China's Zero-COVID restrictions amplifying its debt-riddled downturn.
    1
  4619. ​ @23strawbale But at least as much by supply disruptions caused by Russia's threat to the rest of Europe, and China's Zero-COVID restrictions amplifying its debt-riddled downturn.
    1
  4620. He mistakenly flipped the labels for Five Eyes and AUKUS
    1
  4621. Rumor is Australia will be getting British Astute-class subs, instead of the more expensive American Virginia type.
    1
  4622. ​Arguably the privileges of wealth come largely from inheriting the accumulated resources, social networks, and specific knowledge from the old who came before.
    1
  4623. Trump is just following his Dem predecessor, again. Notice how American-backed forces are largely sitting out this offensive.
    1
  4624. That might not be the case soon enough as China continues to seize their seas and steal all the fish. SE Asia has a popular but nowadays simmering anti-Chinese sentiment that could boil over once again even through a single dramatic event.
    1
  4625. Disappeared along with South Vietnam
    1
  4626. It'd make more sense if Oman was given control of Socotra and Djibouti took Perim, but it seems that the Saudis and Emiratis are trying their hand at expanding their influence the way the US does.
    1
  4627. What investors seek is consistent protection of their assets, not constant renegotiation over “fees” and promises that get broken, i.e. rule of law. You see more activity from China in Africa because Beijing has up til now been more willing to tolerate and proliferate the corruption.
    1
  4628. Those wars didn't formally end, but they're no longer devastating industrialized combat that threatens global lines of peaceful communication and trade.
    1
  4629. ​ @Fred_the_1996 A "multipolar" world that the anti-Americans promote just means multiple fault lines for militarized conflict. The last time we had a functionally multipolar world, in ended in two world wars.
    1
  4630. Although the anticommunist dictatorships that America propped up tended to yield to its people and democratize (South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Chile, etc). Communist-aligned ones would instead double down on repression, and now the last one Mainland China is finally facing the structural weakness that its top-heavy rule built causing permanent stagnation and threatening its downfall.
    1
  4631. The US destroying the pipeline would invite more outrage than it's worth. Putin however has a history of committing false flag attacks.
    1
  4632. Same can be said for America's GOP, making short-term economic erections that topple over and leave Democrats to rebuild more slowly but with better stability (and then get dinged for not going "fast enough" for its critics' shortsighted capitalist worldview).
    1
  4633. Labour would listen to people who actually work. It's in the name.
    1
  4634. He did mention the Atlantic provinces... by not mentioning them 😏 It's quite clever 🤣
    1
  4635. Problem is nothing pollutes like nuclear can in the event of an incident, the chances of which only grow with each new site.
    1
  4636. Nuclear is extremely expensive, rising in lifetime operational costs, and slow to come online and generate a profit. And if you think Thorium is the savior, it is more expensive to process and its byproducts can still be weaponized into a nuclear warhead ☢️
    1
  4637. It's still in active research, but there still hasn't been any real breakthroughs in sustainably containing the reaction.
    1
  4638.  @sumkindacheeto  Although the US still has a huge network of freight-capable rail, lines over 100 years old and still going strong hauling bulk and HAZMAT that isn't economical to truck. A lot of abandoned rights of way are still intact and could be refurbished fairly quickly. In contrast to modern HSR viaducts (especially in Japan and China) which can't handle the weight of a fully laden freight train.
    1
  4639. Nuclear incidents are the worst kind when they happen for any reason though. There's no defense against fallout other than burying yourself and your supplies and waiting for the decay.
    1
  4640. Nuclear is extremely expensive, rising in lifetime operational costs, and slow to come online and generate a profit. And if you think Thorium is the savior, it is more expensive to process and its byproducts can still be weaponized into a nuclear warhead ☢️
    1
  4641. Limited-quantity mediums have the weakness that it tends to get hoarded during downcycles exactly when the economy needs it to be spent. Fiat currencies properly regulated have the advantage of increasing supply on demand to devalue and encourage spending, and vice versa in overheats. This is why currencies have gotten off metallic standards and not returned, and why limited-quantity unregulatable cryptocurrencies are unlikely to replace the fiat competition.
    1
  4642. ... as well as the collapse of that Golden Age whose subsequent hostility compelled Europeans to permanently circumvent the Arab World altogether.
    1
  4643. Palestinians want to be Palestinian in a Muslim state, not Israeli in a Jewish state. What comprises Israel and Palestine would have to transform into something fully agnostic to religion that also respects the rights of minorities, which would be unlikely given the characteristically evangelical and expansionist Islam of its majority coupled with the historically violent dispute resolution process of the Middle East. The closest analogue to such a one-state solution would be Indonesia, which had instituted itself as multi-faith nation. But even then there continues to be a lot of social tensions (occasionally with organized violence) between its Indo-Malay Muslim majority and the various other faiths and ethnicities in the country.
    1
  4644. The promise of quick decisive solutions is how politicians gather domestic support. It doesn't matter how feasible it is to achieve as long as their people believe them.
    1
  4645. That's because the balance of power is heavily stacked against Israel, since the Palestinian cause has a continent worth of Islamist states to draw support from. The whole video illustrates how vulnerable Israel is with the space it is left with should they evacuate the occupied lands of their neighbors.
    1
  4646. Republicans show themselves as more eager to fight... and to quit.
    1
  4647. Don't forget the insurgency that would arise during such occupation, which Taiwanese are ready to fight and the PLA is unprepared to combat. Remember the US was wholly frustrated by the improvised weapons and tactics of the North Vietnamese and Taliban, and rumor is America is teaching Taiwan's forces exactly how to defeat an occupier's political goals with its decades of experience on the wrong end of an IED.
    1
  4648. Taiwanese chips aren't as crucial as being able to detect the movements of PLA Navy boomer subs trying to pass by.
    1
  4649. The cheap labor isn't necessarily a productive one. Chinese government practices prevent China's labor force from being as efficient and reliable as required: hukou limitations on residing where the jobs are, increasingly politically-driven "education" leaving graduates underprepared, a constant sense of getting caught in "violation" or "underperformance" to vague and ever-changing government directives, and nowadays add "Dynamic Zero-COVID" physically preventing the movement of goods. China's main advantage was its scale and its willingness to forego environmental and human capital best practices to reach the market dominance it enjoyed until now. This stimulus however destroys the country from the ground up, and the ruling Party's arrogance leaves China with little sympathy from those it could use the most help from as it discovers an actually self-reliant "New China" is only a hollow shell of its imperially grand expectations.
    1
  4650. That's why I don't trust shortsighted private businesses and commercial interests as the best guide for our national policies: they're liable to sell us out.
    1
  4651. It would be in response to those Caribbean nations wanting Chinese presence after being deceived into trade deals with the US that don't end up anywhere near as beneficial as expected, while having their sea claims violated to include militarized outposts and violent fishing armadas. Only their defensive vulnerability prevents them from countering as openly forcefully as they really want to.
    1
  4652.  @theotherohlourdespadua1131  But at least it happened, unlike what unfolded on the Mainland in 1989 when the Party made it clear that "New China" should be more like the old dynasties except bound by philosophy rather than bloodline.
    1
  4653. Right, Muslim states seem to just want a State of Palestine as the expense of Israel, but aren't so actually supportive of the Palestinian people who might as well be foreign tribes that need to be expelled.
    1
  4654. Capitalism itself rewards sociopathy. That's why regulations enforced by an adversarial government are necessary to prevent the "free market" from imploding into monopolies.
    1
  4655. Til you expend all your willpower trying and just surrender to your impulses, which happens way quicker than anyone wants to admit. If losing weight in an environment where practically all the food is laced with fat-retaining pesticides and antibiotics were that simple, we wouldn't need medical intervention.
    1
  4656.  @holycow343  Right, for the whales and regulars not all that money got lost to the house; part of it got "lost" into an overseas bank account.
    1
  4657. Would be nice but the lack of one-way passenger demand makes it an infrequent opportunity.
    1
  4658. Bacon is medicine! Delectable, crispy, palliative medicine....
    1
  4659. I still know people who don't believe the severity of SARS-2 compared to the vaccine. Of course they're right-wing non-minority libertarians, easily irritated by the diminishing returns of their personal values as the economy itself transforms to reward creativity over discipline.
    1
  4660. Sadly a lot more mining is first required before we can develop the technology to make regular return trips past lunar orbit. Especially deep sea mining just for the methods for remote sensing, precise navigation, and mass movements at extreme distances.
    1
  4661. It'd be in Earth at that point, though that itself is overwhelming and consistent amounts of geothermal energy powered by natural nuclear decay that I'm surprised we still don't pursue more aggressively, especially given our century of experience with deep well drilling.
    1
  4662. Sales tax? Would a high-transaction inheritance ("death") tax count too? That's also arguably spending money on a service: the maintenance of wealth and legacy.
    1
  4663. This happens already
    1
  4664. As long as elections stay winner-takes-all, there will be only two sides: the team that won, and everyone else.
    1
  4665. STEM minded folks like the ones dominating the Chinese government often overlook or dismiss considerations that actually matter to people. Hence why in most other societies they're often infamously uninspiring as managers and rarely do well in politics.
    1
  4666. They'd likely join the list of places who regretted asking the Americans to "Go Home": Iraq (ISIL), the Philippines (Mainland China), and Afghanistan (Taliban). I can't think of any place that really prospered with the post-Cold War closure of a US base outside of maybe the SF Bay Area.
    1
  4667. No, the host nations invite US forces to stay -- otherwise they'll 1) take a huge and often unrecoverable drop to the local economy; 2) blow their own budgets trying to regain the same level of protection by themselves; and 3) lack a convenient scapegoat to redirect internal unrest The Americans will leave if asked, but that risks an even worse alternative. Just ask Iraq (ISIL) and the Philippines (Mainland China).
    1
  4668. Right, much like how the US Interstate Highway System was fundamentally to create a resilient network of high-speed roads for military convoys, but nowadays has become the primary pathway for civilian logistics and regular commuters.
    1
  4669. The US doesn't have nearly the same attitude. You never hear of the phrase "The Sun never sets on the Stars and Stripes", and most Americans would consider you poetic for saying it. We're just very expeditionary whether we're military, missionary, government, or civilian, and we readily move to anywhere where our presence is tolerated if not welcomed.
    1
  4670. Probably meant OCONUS, which has always been administered differently within the DoD
    1
  4671. Right, the sea lanes alone wouldn't be nearly as safe and open without the near constant presence of the US Navy on the high seas. A multipolar world might actually be more dangerous and chaotic, because one side's pirate/terrorist might really be employed as another's privateer/freedom fighter.
    1
  4672. CA's water rights scheme needs a complete overhaul. Those laws were made using an unusually wet spell over a century ago and have only caused problems since.
    1
  4673. So basically, singing the Star Spangled Banner is a high-risk high-reward endeavor. Just like the anti-royal idea behind America itself.
    1
  4674. They don't necessarily have to age well, since technology adoptions going forward could mean changes to the ideal layout and materials anyway. I'm working on retrofitting a fully concrete house with wifi and a cell booster, and it's maddening trying to route the necessary cables because the designers didn't consider how to wire the place to support mobile devices.
    1
  4675. The act of understanding that "useless" stuff is also the type of knowledge that develops our minds to critically question if that advertisement or fad actually works out in the longer term.
    1
  4676. Sounds like a recent option, because I've never heard of that. Then again the last time my name was on a rental contract, the iPhone 4 was just coming out.
    1
  4677. Vendors can legally refuse cash because there's no existing debt to be paid off prior to the sale -- the item is still the vendor's property until the customer completes the transaction to buy it.
    1
  4678. ​ @DominikPlaylists The only way a credit card would take 3% of your net worth is if you 1) Don't zero the balance every pay period like you're supposed to, or 2) Somehow straight away get invited and accept the initiation+annual fees of an AMEX "Black" Centurion card
    1
  4679. No, you just have to be a US citizen who can get to the local embassy or military post office.
    1
  4680. Mailed votes don't appreciably differ from in-person ones. Trump's handling of COVID would have been a way stronger influence.
    1
  4681. Employers seek every reason to not pay up. That's why Southern states fought a literal war in defense of unpaid lifelong slavery.
    1
  4682.  @webx135  Right, if wages kept up with productivity, Americans would have the purchasing power of at least $21/hr now
    1
  4683. Businesses tend to think in the short term, like 3-month quarters. They're not known for holistic and long-term considerations. Hence why private businesses owners shouldn't dominate policy like they do now; at the extreme case they end up like President Trump.
    1
  4684. Or it would incentivize increased production (which lowers prices) now that masses of people can buy more than a week's worth of groceries and gas at a time.
    1
  4685. Democrats have been trying to shake off a their "soft on crime" image, which is a slow process as voters gradually realize that detentions and tough limitations actually tend to create more crime than it deters.
    1
  4686. Republicans have the handicap of human tendencies towards fear and simple narratives. It's naturally easy to terrorize conservatives. A progressive mindset that includes nuance, lateral thinking, and foresight requires education and experience beyond the local community, but that costs time and money.
    1
  4687. tldw: Cooper Black is inviting and legible despite (even thriving on) imprecise placement, hence its popularity
    1
  4688. No, nuclear is expensive and costs are rising. Then there's a thousand years of toxic waste afterward to deal with. Future likely is more in pumped-storage hydro and geothermal. Also it's fairly simple to winterize a wind turbine, and once made into electricity it actually flows better when cold. Pipes and valves aren't so straightforward to defrost.
    1
  4689. Nuclear is expensive and getting more so. Plus there's having to deal with its toxic waste for the next thousand years. No, the future is likely more in hydro soaking the excess renewables during the day, particularly pumped-storage which takes advantage of any elevation difference including old mine shafts.
    1
  4690. Republicans hate spending on "socialist" public projects, even on the brain-dead obvious benefits of infrastructure. Unless it's a bridge they can slap their names on.
    1
  4691. Coolant pipes and valves probably froze, so the reactor was put into idle.
    1
  4692. No, it's more preventative since supply gets reduced when high winds threaten to blow down a major line in wildfire country. Sadly it's becoming more common, and energy storage technology isn't yet at the point where we can reliably and economically store our daytime local solar excess.
    1
  4693. It costs less only in favorable conditions, and those periods could be shortening as we continue changing the climate. Also try buying those survivor kits when you're first spending $10k+ in due electrical bills and necessary home repairs.
    1
  4694. No, lack of cold weather hardening. Pipes and valves (including for gas and nuclear) statewide froze up, and they're not as simple to defrost as wind turbines.
    1
  4695. A warm Arctic means a weaker polar vortex, meaning more meandering southward. So yeah it makes sense that Texas got as cold as Alaska.
    1
  4696. China's is more concentrated on the eastern half where 95% of the population resides. America has to serve a customer base that's way more distributed, including bits of Canada and Mexico.
    1
  4697. Republicans say it's "socialist" and "too expensive", saying the market can do better. The Great Texas Blackout finally made a dramatic illustration of what market-driven infrastructure is (in-)capable of.
    1
  4698. Fossil fuels and even nuclear don't fare any better, and those valves and pipes aren't so straightforward to safely defrost.
    1
  4699. They wanted cheap market-driven power. Well they got what they paid for.
    1
  4700. Not to mention a surprising number of Californians already own winter clothes, snow chains, and even *gasp* guns 🤯
    1
  4701. As global warming makes the polar vortex weaker and windier (i.e. dips further south), Texans might need to prepare for colder winters.
    1
  4702. Meanwhile everyone who watched anime growing up are like "and this is a problem, how?"
    1
  4703. That Red Redoubt will only continue to come under contest as people keep moving in, ultimately demanding the progressive policies that better serve urban communities where voters are more compacted, diversified, and specialized.
    1
  4704. Makes me wonder how much of this conservative surge is merely the terminal input of privileged Boomer retirees before they're buried under(water).
    1
  4705. When I was doing contract work in San Diego, there were multiple military bases (i.e. among the most car-dependent environments anywhere) that I commuted to by bicycle. Luckily SD County consciously caters to cyclists with its extensive network of bike paths. It was great getting to work already energized and with zero problems finding parking.
    1
  4706. Inflation compels spending and continued labor, some of which ends up improving overall productivity. If the velocity of money is low then the economy stagnates, and ultimately the society is left more vulnerable to other nations who did make those prior investments on themselves by punishing contented savers through constant slight price inflation.
    1
  4707. It's durable because it has more mass to sacrifice. The rising limitations on weight, attenuation of radio signals (cell, WiFi, etc), and ease of modification mean grand projects using it will just keep shrinking though.
    1
  4708. @BuiltforSin "Historical" can also mean obsolete. Thick wall buildings aren't conducive to pipes, cables, and wireless signals. Letting the old stuff stand just means a shrinking customer base over time as future generations abandon its lack of functionality and efficiency in what else we expect a building to provide for us.
    1
  4709. America should try out UHT milk, which is shelf-stable until opened. Living abroad this is what I normally see and buy, and I don't find it too different from our less pasteurized counterparts 🥛 Same should go for eggs. We really should stop washing off the protective layer that makes eggs shelf-stable only because the FDA doesn't trust Americans to wash/discard the shells upon use 🥚
    1
  4710. Tribalism and religion. They hardly care for the welfare of complete strangers which has to happen to build a modern nation, and believe that with merely enough faith and a beating heart that "God will provide". That's what I observed anyway -- I've lived there.
    1
  4711. Ammunition and ergonomics make the assault rifle. Even in combat American soldiers tend to use semi-auto mode, because even a burst fire will scatter the shot and waste ammunition outside the closest indoor situations which itself calls for specialized training.
    1
  4712. Or instead of nuclear we could invest more in geothermal, especially as those costs have dropped dramatically. They can be placed theoretically anywhere, limited mostly by the costs of drilling, pumping, and maintenance -- this takes advantage of the fact that the heat in Earth's mantle is itself coming from a nuclear reaction.
    1
  4713. Yet you're still going anyway...
    1
  4714. Which is why I wipe my gadgets of the original OS and install a cleaner fully open-source one, lock down all the permissions, save no recents, and store only a select few of my backups in the cloud. I get some strange ads in the process, so it seems to work.
    1
  4715. When we say defund the "police", it means less beat-down beat cops and more specialized first responders.
    1
  4716. Conservatives don't believe that color should affect a person, but at the same time intentionally set up an environment in which it does. This is why they want to be "blind" to color, so that certain groups get conveniently funneled into certain roles without shedding light on their societal design.
    1
  4717. Asian Americans experience popular discrimination based on personality, hence the stereotype of submissive rational bandwagoning money-hoarders. Corroborating that stereotype (great grades but lacking originality and artistry) then gets used against the applicant, who was raised to expect that academic performance alone should be sufficient to earn a seat on campus. Suppressing what else were capable and passionate about is what's hurting Asian America. Ironically the solution involves rebelling against our parents' conservatism and explore riskier fields like entertainment and politics.
    1
  4718. The "racism" at least tries to directly counteract the racism that brought us to this point. Allowing to to fester as it does now is like leaving a cancerous tumor untouched: it will just grow out of control and exacerbate all our other societal injustices.
    1
  4719. No, they'll probably go even more aggressively "legacy" for the income and exclusivity. The Asians who would get in would be on student visas in a foreign passport.
    1
  4720.  @adamentcause  The first half of 2A describes a "well regulated Militia". Licensing is a common and generally reliable regulation. Everyone in the military has to prove proficiency with the basic gun rules and not be considered an uncontrollable danger by their comrades and their leadership to be permitted access to anything deadlier than a pocket knife, so what makes casual civilians more trustworthy with firearms?
    1
  4721. It's not an algorithm predicting your actions without you knowingly entering input, it's behavior and declarations you'd do in the intentional and voluntary process of licensing that reveal your likelihood of abuse.
    1
  4722. I'm wondering if they get a direct feed from the PA, which they can immediately invert and cancel it out from their other mic sources. That way they can remix back in the PA at a more comfortable level.
    1
  4723. Weight is part of it, but doesn't explain why it's so widespread even for heavier "durable" goods like cars and washing machines.
    1
  4724. The Ottoman Empire was not exactly friendly, to the point that Europeans began the Age of Sail and subsequent colonization of the rest of the world just to get around what was effectively the Turkish blockade of the Silk Road.
    1
  4725. Sleeper trains with cabins 🚅🛏🛏🛏
    1
  4726. Ironically "pro-business" Republicans are convincing themselves that defeating the persistent advanced threat of an autocratic Russia on the for near peanuts in the budget and no direct confrontation through our own soldiers is somehow not cost effective. I wouldn't be surprised if their arguments are inspired from pro-Russia sources, which only underscores how much of a threat they are to us should we disengage and let them fill the void.
    1
  4727.  @noahvankooten9775  Yet democracy is preferable to autocracy, where the minority gets to take away the rights and opportunities from the majority, and what America originally fought to separate from. Remember that when the Constitution was written, it was still a luxury to have an education which develops the reasoned mentality that the Framers trusted and empowered.
    1
  4728. We may want to consider an amendment that clarifies that the Constitution is a living document subject to modification and reinterpretation with the times, because apparently "promote the general Welfare" isn't clear enough (i.e. promote the Welfare for whom exactly?). Also term limits.
    1
  4729. The problem is the types of IDs they accept, which are skewed and targeted accordingly. For example: accepting concealed-carry weapons permits (which requires owning a firearm and proving its legality), but not school or work IDs, and also making it inconvenient and expensive to get a general state-issued ID (selective DMV closures and staffing changes). On top of that they may want additional proof of residency, so even a passport that proves citizenship alone isn't enough.
    1
  4730. Pretty sure that's the Red's strategy, to sow distrust in the existing institutions so they can replace it with the Party.
    1
  4731.  @sga3084  The Constitution as the country was in the past, not where it is now and headed for "a more perfect Union".
    1
  4732. That's granted the financial education is useful too. It'd be pointless if your takeaways from the class are checkbook balancing and shunning all credit cards.
    1
  4733. Cash is an even bigger liability for theft and loss, and businesses have to handle way more of it than any individual ever would. That's why they overwhelmingly converge on digital payments as soon as practical.
    1
  4734. DEI staff conspired with another company Crowdstrike to publish a bad patch?
    1
  4735. More like they're blaming "Sleepy Joe" since he's in charge right now and Trump must never be shown wrong.
    1
  4736. "Just works" part has an asterisk though. So much time spent finding fixes and installing updates for my specific setup.
    1
  4737. My Crowdstrike-less Microsoft systems at home and at work perform just fine. I didn't even notice this outage until I tried to get gas on the way home and the station told me they have to go cash only at the moment.
    1
  4738. The American way is business owners screwing its workers at every opportunity, so workers resist wage-cutting improvements at every opportunity.
    1
  4739. That's easy to say now that Hawaii is no longer the target of an expanding and increasingly aggressive Japanese Empire at the time of its annexation by America.
    1
  4740. Overcapacity means beyond demand saturation. US arms production has the opposite problem, not building fast enough for how much global markets want it.
    1
  4741. Too well perhaps. Now China is facing a deflationary downward spiral because not enough people want to buy Made in China, an imbalance which will only accelerate as Běijīng pushes for even more production.
    1
  4742. The US has been "on the brink of collapse" since the War of 1812. Each crisis brings us closer to that ideal of "liberty and justice for all". Remember that walking upright is involves each step forward catching yourself while literally falling. It's not the same as a more "stable" four-legged gait.
    1
  4743. Sure it's not cashing out to prop up the CNY, keeping the exchange rate from tanking and causing panic among all the Chinese people whose wealth is already disappearing in bad mortgages and randomly locked bank accounts?
    1
  4744. Inflation is self-correcting, because it compels spending some of which becomes capital investment and improved productivity. Every economist agrees this condition is better than the downward spiral of deflation where tanking demand tanks the job market, like what China is facing.
    1
  4745. Only newer facilities, and only recently. Remember there’s also Party pressure to ensure entry-level employment was always available.
    1
  4746. More like not paid as well for the hours worked, even with all the government subsidies.
    1
  4747. Unstable exchange rates are the result of the government who administers the money supply.
    1
  4748. Xi is an autocratic ideologue, and what's beneficial to the real economy is too discomforting to his worldview.
    1
  4749.  @AraAra-n6o  Have you seen what happened during the Civil Rights Movement? There were a lot of high profile killings while some radicals openly called for even more identity-based segregation and violence. Before then was the even more bloody Labor Rights Movement, and before that the even more bloody Civil War. This current "woke" vs MAGA culture war is tame by comparison, and the traditionalists are struggling to form a coherent justification to "conserve" their narrow outmoded worldview. Plus gun laws are not as permissive as in the past anymore. Changes of leadership is a good thing, because often fresh eyes on a fresh face is often what's needed to change momentum. Organizations of all sorts do this regularly when their performance is stalling or reputation becomes troubled. China doesn't have that outlet, so their changes of polity inevitably involve mass violence upon each other. America has a lot of issues, but they're habitually overdramatized and in the process gets partially resolved from the public attention. China tries to do the opposite, hiding their issues until it's far too late which results in even more traumatizing overreaction. While America practices resilience by constantly negotiating through chaos, the state and civil society of China is like china -- hard and impressive looking until it takes a decent shock. I just moved out of Běijīng last year. There was noticeably more activity in the shops and airports and train stations during Zero COVID than after the post-pandemic spring surge, the opposite of what the rest of the world experienced. This can only be explained by a deep downturn from lack of payable demand.
    1
  4750. The US is in a rough patch, but a mild one compared to ones America has lived through before. The downturn in China is even more severe and they have no experience negotiating it, especially as changing leadership to change momentum like any troubled organization or government would do is unthinkable for the ruling Party.
    1
  4751. It's not written, but it is a case of economies going hotter than they could sustain past a couple generations and subsequently burning themselves out.
    1
  4752. ​ @boxtears "5.5%" only through creative accounting, lying, and malinvestment compounded with all the previous years of the same. Remember the GDP number reported by Běijīng is their planned target, not their measured achievement.
    1
  4753. Post-CKS Táiwān is the "China" we wished China became. Even Mainlanders who visited the island tend to think so.
    1
  4754. That's why modern times introduced the Term Limit. Unfortunately not a feature of family businesses, though good ones will at least not pass on power to children who lack significant work experience from outside.
    1
  4755. "K" was the old way of romanizing ㄱ, then the Korean government standardized is as "G" ("K" when it ends a syllable). "K" got transferred to ㅋ, which was formally "K'" (note apostrophe). Though it is an alphabet, so it's more efficient to simply learn to read the 한글 than to always try transliterating "Han-geul"
    1
  4756. It's still strange for me to hear about K-dramas, since I've always been in places where Bollywood, Nollywood, Telenovelas, or American sitcoms dominate. Guess that's why my Korean doesn't improve as well when I'm outside the country.
    1
  4757. Problem is are the corrections prescribed actually the best actions? China's government has a habit of overreacting to issues that their critics saw coming a long time ago, but we're ignored if not silenced.
    1
  4758. You're optimistic about the quality of the real estate you'd be buying. From what I've seen, Built By China structures show signs of aging and degradation alarmingly fast.
    1
  4759. Korea is an Old World country that thinks ethnicity first and nationality as an afterthought. She's ethnically Filipino so that's where the hate went.
    1
  4760. Korea is an Old World country that thinks ethnicity first and nationality as an afterthought. She's ethnically Filipino so that's where the hate went.
    1
  4761. The big Korean businesses usually snuff out rising competition through buyouts or legal action, often happily supported by the Korean government. Until this changes, it will be difficult to attract workers towards smaller yet promising startups.
    1
  4762. Mexico seems to tolerate inequality a bit more, whereas in Korea this tolerance is shrinking especially among the young. Koreans don't remit as much from abroad either.
    1
  4763. It's also Shanghai, where it would be discovered immediately. If they're testing new components it's going to be in some third-tier city you've never heard of.
    1
  4764. More nefarious components are probably being beta tested in some third-tier city in another province. Guangdong is too high profile for it to be rolled out there straight away.
    1
  4765. What I learned living in China is that regulations aren't necessarily rolled out evenly nationwide, it's more like the US where localities have a lot of autonomy on how to enforce the laws and make up their own policies too. It's akin to seeing everything fine in New York when shenanigans are going on in South Dakota.
    1
  4766. Unpopular opinion: I heard the guy doing a lot of confirmation utterances, as well as bringing up anecdotes she confidently validated. It's not beyond the flow of conversation between assertively well-informed participants. But because he's a dude and gender roles are such a sensitive topic, any form of interruption on his part gets assumed to be confrontational and demeaning. If you want some truly abrupt interruptions, try an hour of BBC HARDtalk. Bias of note: I listen to podcastable videos at 2x speed.
    1
  4767. Yet the West is far more productive per hour worked. Turns out Eastern "work culture" involves a lot of toxic management and wasted time.
    1
  4768. West is still way more productive per work hour. Asian work culture is full of waste through endemic inefficient and toxic personnel management.
    1
  4769. There's about as many Korean speakers as there are Francophones, but Korean is only spoken on the peninsula and part of Manchuria, whereas French also nets much of SE Asia, the South Pacific, and half of Africa.
    1
  4770. Savvy capitalists are too selfish to think in socialized benefits. They will however socialize their costs like it's the only way up.
    1
  4771. Seriously I've traveled to Seoul for both an outpatient eye and inpatient throat operations, paying "full price" as a foreign tourist... which ends up less than half of what I would get billed in America for the same procedures. Korean clinics have way better quality in facilities and service too. A single payer system works in healthcare because it acts like a utility. All a "free market" does is add complexities onto providers and costs onto patients, because of the lack of standards and duplicated administrators.
    1
  4772. I own multiple firearms, but rarely do I bring any of them out of the house. The mental training I got from taekwondo growing up gives me the ability to deescalate or depart from a situation of potential violence, but also the confidence to fight back barehanded or with improvised weapons.
    1
  4773. They're also not born-rich k-drama leads.
    1
  4774. ​ @greedyreader15 Ironically it's those "ideal" men who spoiled for choice aren't compelled to settle and work on the relationship in front of him.
    1
  4775. The constant engagement is stifling if not abusive though. What's expected while dating feels like being tryhards in romance.
    1
  4776. ​ @universelegion3470 Capitalism destroyed the personal free time and local community life which facilitates meeting and accepting realistic people with all their quirks and flaws from the impossible ideal.
    1
  4777. Korean employers famously add the hurdle of beauty and pedigree upon their applicants. Wouldn't be surprised if other Asian and Middle Eastern airlines considered your looks as a qualification too.
    1
  4778. Part of the decline in Korea may have come from the government considering regulations on who and how to cash out crypto. Because Korean participation was so outsized, the knock-on panic and devaluation became more dramatic than it should have been. Also, governments are quite capable of getting to 51%, especially if a few energy rich ones opt to collaborate
    1
  4779. Dubai is in a similar condition, except the sources are more sketchy and the investments more speculative. Which is a problem considering how dependent its economy is on low paid labor imported from South Asia.
    1
  4780. More a pretty face than a valid voice though, being a straight to grad school student with basically no full-time work history in the post-college world.
    1
  4781. Although I would think Bay Area folks would best understand the technicalities of cybersecurity, unlike some other random place that specializes in a completely different industry.
    1
  4782. Huawei is headed by a PLA officer, in a country that values harmony of roles. It didn't grow to the size it is now by protesting Party demands.
    1
  4783. Not competition, it's a matter of technical security. The US Government banned the use of Huawei and ZTE equipment in its networks years ago for a reason, and is now trying to convince the rest of the world to reconsider its information infrastructure too.
    1
  4784. The biggest challenge to cybersecurity is ignorant lazy users.
    1
  4785. Probably high schoolers, and overly sheltered
    1
  4786. Sadly I think without true competition to the political groupthink that is a one-Party system, accountability is going to fall well short of what the people deserve from its government. "Meritocracy" is a farce because technical prowess alone can't resolve what humans truly care about, which are more storybook than statistical.
    1
  4787. I somehow got 0.1% West African, but I'm 93% SE Asian with the usual Sino-Iberian mix. Then again even fellow Filipinos initially think I descend from some other East Asia country.
    1
  4788. The US talks openly about China, getting blatant in reaction to Wolf Warrior Diplomacy. In backrooms and high-level talks though, China has been comparing and pitching themselves against America ever since BRI grand projects weren't turning out like they advertised.
    1
  4789. "Past few years" being a key phrase, a lot of it coming from corporate meddling in production and distribution to maximize short-term profits. Mainland Chinese media though never took off because it's so limited to predictable formulaic stories, and it's only gotten worse as more experimental cinema in China got filtered and discouraged out of new production. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY5OJEMs59g
    1
  4790. The dichotomy of genders common in patriarchal societies. Which archaeologists would tell you isn't so clear cut in civilizations that weren't so centered around a strongman.
    1
  4791. Probably because y'all realized even agnostic equality comes with costs to your long-held exclusive advantages (or perception of eventually gaining them).
    1
  4792. ​ @lornam1142 There's a lot of pressure to reinvigorate upward mobility, but Koreans also have a much narrower definition of what constitutes dignified occupations and acceptable life choices. The perception of preferential treatment to power minorities -- which women as a whole have become a target not to mention the more exotic LGBTQ -- just becomes a sore point to address in domestic politics.
    1
  4793. The Paradox of Tolerance compels societies to not tolerate intolerance, because otherwise that hate will only spread like a psychological cancer. Western societies are much more inclusive, tolerant, and ultimately socially mobile than ethnostates where you're often born stuck in your status... and where altering that succession by blood usually involves blood.
    1
  4794. Right, the last time America tried to disengage, it resulted in 9/11. Turns out forward deployment deters mass destruction. So many host nations tolerate if not invite US forces overseas because they more fear the alternative where America is absent.
    1
  4795. Shànghǎi is the most open Mainland location, but also seems more pro-Party than smaller more isolated cities getting rougher treatment by their officials because nobody outside their province even knows the place exists.
    1
  4796. For the ones who are pro-Party anyway. Those who aren't so rosy about their government probably aren't willing to talk either.
    1
  4797. You're quite optimistic to assume that people in China are both well informed and free to speak their thoughts beyond the narrative set by state censors.
    1
  4798. Yet we’re compelled to buckle seat belts and surround ourselves with airbags and crumple zones on a regular basis. It will only get more cramped as we want to go places faster, but the laws of physics make meatspace an exponential expense as we experience nowadays in fairly gentle subsonic airline seats.
    1
  4799. ​No, the Philippine-American War, where the Filipinos who had expected immediate independence launched an insurgency when the Americans didn't leave and started instituting its own government instead. It was likewise a brutal campaign involving guerilla raids, town razings, concentration camps, and many other similar atrocities.
    1
  4800. EU spent its money on more productive things than explosive weaponry with a limited usable shelf life and no place to use them all before expiration.
    1
  4801. Swarms can become a liability as well if not directed properly, especially when EW and C4ISR strikes threaten your own control. It'd be strategically counterproductive if your numerous robots start mistaking container ships for aircraft carriers.
    1
  4802. I doubt we'll see how they really work until the China gets into a real dragged-out shooting war. The US military has plenty of practice kludging up maintenance and repair solutions in the field; the last time the PLA had a multi-year test, Stalin was still alive and gracious with Soviet spare parts.
    1
  4803. If they work. Navigating is relatively simple, independently discriminating valid targets and effectively engaging is another, and a true AI would take up more computing power than can be put on a small swarmable drone. Communication links would be constantly attacked, and eventually those assets could be hacked and turned into liabilities instead. There's a reason these drones remain fairly close to their human operators in all but the least technically hostile environments.
    1
  4804. China wouldn't want to destroy the West -- it still needs customers to sell to so that the citizenry remains distracted with money -- it more wants to be the center of the world in terms of commerce and influence like it thought it was before. But optimism for China has become tenuous including in emerging markets like Africa and SE Asia, and what little love it did gain during its pre-2008 rise has practically all been lost.
    1
  4805.  HMS Blackprice  Right, leftism is rising in America because of the right's failure to release the rising profits to the hard workers on the shop floor, instead damming in the rising tide for their C-suite execs and faceless investors through special private stocks and arcane tax breaks that the average American can't access. China doesn't control how America splits up its pie, and btw most leftist Americans aren't looking to China as a model government either.
    1
  4806. Yes, they land in Poland and then truck it to the Ukrainian border. The Ukrainians then take over and figure out how to sort and route them to the battle zones so they're not spotted and struck by the Russians.
    1
  4807. Yes, the very existence of Táiwān is proof that a Chinese nation can likewise prosper as a democracy. Equating the CPC's authoritarian paternalism with "China" has been vital to the Party's narrative and their continuation in power.
    1
  4808. They were once, but only a few years and it was under the government that's still there 🇹🇼
    1
  4809. Patton was likely talking about permanent castles and redoubts, not foxholes and trenches that get rebuilt as needed. Even with fixed strongpoints, they will eventually fall without support from a mobile reaction force.
    1
  4810. If they still work. One issue with older platforms is the risk that the enemy has become more capable of combating it, even in its upgraded form.
    1
  4811. Rumor is that US special forces have been doing a lot of exercises with the ROCA, likely training the Taiwanese exactly how to frustrate the objectives of a superior force, especially given all the direct experience the Americans have gotten from the other end over the past couple decades.
    1
  4812. Right, even if the PLA does manage to seize the whole island, they'll still be facing a generation or two of insurrections which the one-child Mainland can't afford. Pre-war trade levels will likely never return, and the PRC is nowhere near achieving the "dual circulation" self-reliant economy it desperately wants. The resulting unrest would overwhelm its internal security budgets as the simmering hate for the CPC on the Mainland starts rising faster than the ongoing body count on Táiwān.
    1
  4813.  @Soonerfrk11  North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and a bunch of corrupted African nations might send their love, but the way they're positioned would be token support if they themselves want to survive the aftermath. Especially since the Mainland might start fighting itself with the unrest from all the dead only-sons, rationed food and fuel, and lack of customers compared to the Make China Great Again imagery the Party keeps propagandizing, whether or not they successfully seize Táiwān. Also that billion Chinese nationals aren't exactly all employable, let alone military grade. Even in the Qing era it was clear that hordes of humans can no longer compete against mechanized might, and a smartphone-carrying replaceable menial laborer may end up more of a liability as he videotapes his hunger and lack of productive purpose from an idled factory floor.
    1
  4814. My fear is that the PRC will nuke Táiwān if it gets frustrated enough, calling it legal because it was used "internally"
    1
  4815. The CPC will be waiting a long time though, Taiwanese thoughts on reunification soured after Tiananmen and collapsed after the HK crackdowns. Even if the Party stays on its best behavior for the next two generations to wait out the passing of enough who despise them now, by then the Mainland itself would be on a steep downward spiral of aging, debt, and pollution. Basically the only way now for Běijīng to assert control over Táiwān is by force.
    1
  4816. Maybe in a completely surprise invasion, which won't be anywhere near a surprise. It'd be impossible to hide the buildup of troops and equipment.
    1
  4817. Even worse than Vietnam, it could spell the end of the PRC. While the PLA fights the ROCA and the subsequent insurrection, civilian traffic will get scared away from the crossfire and trade bans. This means food and fuel starts getting rationed, all while the body count of dead only-sons keeps rising. Unrest on the Mainland would mean internal security forces will be briskly blowing through its budgets, and some Party officials will inevitably get caught trying to escape to their homes and families overseas. Ultimately Běijīng goes broke and the simmering hate for the CPC explodes into open revolt, and China begins yet another cycle of violent dynastic change.
    1
  4818. By the time that happens, Mainland China would be clearly not fulfilling its promises of indefinite growth that the Chinese people's tolerance for an uncontested CPC relies on... especially with how much debt the households have taken to capitalize on China's continuous rise. This explains why the Party's focus has gone more ideological with "wolf warrior" diplomacy and the shows of force against the prosperous democratized ROC.
    1
  4819. If they can afford it. I doubt there'll be nearly as much excitement at the thought of your data going through Russian or Chinese servers.
    1
  4820. No, it's still like trying to hit a speeding bullet with another bullet; air defense systems are already disadvantaged even at sea level. It'd be more practical to hack the system and reduce service to the opponent.
    1
  4821. @otheym It's not only amateurs, all astronomy will be affected getting blinded by the satellite itself or the radio signals it's outputting. Plus there's the kinetic hazard to any astronauts who would be sharing the orbits, especially once the satellites start occasionally crashing into each other. This could be incredibly distracting for, say, near-Earth asteroid detection efforts from the ground where it'd be relatively cheap and sustainable.
    1
  4822. The only other real competitor is the EU, whose privacy laws might be attractive for the consumer, but Europeans already enjoy fast cheap internet practically everywhere in the region. Russia or China would be a non-starter, and developing countries would be indefensible against global hacking efforts.
    1
  4823. The CPC might not have much of a choice though. Their unchallenged rule up to now hinged on indefinite economic growth, and looking forward they'd be in trouble within a couple decades due to the Party's tunnel visioned policies leading China towards unreversed aging, massive debts, and permanent pollution. Conquering Taiwan could be what the Party needs to ride out the looming decline, but it would have to involve total victory over Taiwanese forces and the subsequent insurrection who have been preparing for this invasion since day one.
    1
  4824. Problem is the Mainland can't wait another two generations. The PRC is likely to peak within a couple decades before an unresolvable downhill slide from aging, debt, and pollution which the Party overlooked in their quest to maintain respect and achieve national glory.
    1
  4825. With unreversed aging, household debt, and permanent pollution looming, the CPC is running out of options to maintain legitimacy as a regime not worth challenging since up until recently they've delivered on the promise of indefinite economic development. Taiwan is a backup plan to shore up national glory where a quick and clean victory would give the Party more time in power. But even without foreign support, trying to seize what's left of the ROC will be anything but quick or clean -- it'd be even worse than what the US encountered with Afghanistan and Iraq, since Taiwan has been preparing for this eventuality since day one.
    1
  4826. The pre-80s ROC wasn't any less authoritarian than the PRC, but non-Communist regimes eventually democratize. This is why the West has been disappointed with the Mainland after overtures of trade failed to make the CPC comfortable with political reform, and now we're settling into waiting out China's hardening shell become too brittle to support its own weight from increasing aging, household debt, industrial pollution, and endemic corruption as the Party continues to stubbornly trust its own tunnel-visioned STEM mindset over the Wisdom of the Crowd.
    1
  4827. All that influence can be reversed by public mistakes, as the Mainland had done with 1989 and HK, and cemented with their laws about anti-secession and national security going global. Bought-out businesses would only last so long if their customers become angry.
    1
  4828.  @aburetik4866  No, the US isn't that vulnerable. Americans can do without cheap manufactured goods, China can't do without food, fuel, and foreign sales.
    1
  4829. I'd say the rise of China would've been more palatable and welcomed had the Mainland gone more the way of Taiwan.
    1
  4830. It's preferable to all sides, but the Mainland basically killed off any lingering sentiments on the Taiwan side after how they treated HK who doesn't even have an army to fight back with. The strongest supporters are all old and dying off, meaning there's pretty much no hope of Taiwan voting itself out of existence within the next two generations before the Mainland begins its own decline from aging, debt, and pollution.
    1
  4831.  @prfwrx2497  Right, air assaults only provide a temporary foothold until surface forces can arrive with reinforcements and supplies. Practically never has any hostile territory been subdued solely from above.
    1
  4832. Right, the PLA is really inefficient in its use of manpower to achieve objectives. Their advances in Korea and India quickly stalled and eventually started reversing once the enemy adapted. Then there was Vietnam where they got demolished on the road to Hanoi by militias and reservists -- there's a reason this war is hardly mentioned in China. For all its bluster, the PRC can't afford to actually commit to combat, especially a drawn out one full of insurgency that its adversaries experience. It would be absolutely devastating to the Chinese people to deploy an army filled with green only-sons throughout the ranks with lackluster protective equipment and leadership who are indifferent to losses.
    1
  4833. I've heard they spend a workday's worth every week just on developing loyalty: classroom, songs, and slogan shouting. Upper leadership must still be concerned how fast their soldiers will break down along with their expectations of New China superiority in the face of actual adversity.
    1
  4834.  @royhuang9715  On the contrary: upcoming problems of aging, debt, and pollution mean that Mainland China could already be approaching its peak before entering a downward spiral. If there's a time to reclaim Táiwān (including suppressing the resulting insurgency), it has to be done sooner than later because the window of opportunity could be undeniably too small well before the PRC's 100th birthday.
    1
  4835. There's still the insurgency to deal with afterward, and Táiwān has both very defensible terrain and a hostile population who see the threat coming. Rumor is the ROC government is getting advice from the US on how to defeat the political objectives of a modern occupation... straight from a source who spent decades on the wrong end of an IED.
    1
  4836. Right, the US likely still has many more cards up its sleeve, especially ethereal capabilities involving EW, sensors, and cyber.
    1
  4837. "Small" still scales up dramatically though. Remember how disruptive the weeklong Ever Given blockage was?
    1
  4838. Modern carriers are far more survivable, with watertight compartments everywhere and everyone on board trained to contribute on saving the ship. It's been that way for a long while now; when they went to scuttle the USS America through weapons tests in 2005, it proved a lot more difficult than expected despite nobody aboard doing damage control.
    1
  4839. Western forces are likely to come and break the siege under guise of keeping international waters open, especially if the PLA starts seizing or shooting up neutral civilian vessels. On the far side of the island it will be way harder for the PLA to maintain that perimeter and close off Taiwan to outside supply lines.
    1
  4840. There's also the air-dropped inventory, which the US already has hundreds of thousands of cheap gravity bombs ready to bolt on inexpensive guidance fins. The PLAAF would need to absolutely dominate the skies constantly for the entire campaign to ensure some stealth fighter squad doesn't saturate a relatively rare air-defense capable ship to the bottom of the Strait. If the Mainland doesn't own the skies, it won't own the ocean or the island either.
    1
  4841. The chip fabs would be unusable though, especially with their extremely specialized engineers either dead or escaped. The chip designs still have to be imported from primarily the US and Japan too. Really the biggest threat is that Chinese boomer subs have free access to the deep ocean, solidifying Beijing's nuclear triad.
    1
  4842. They have no anti-air defenses though. If the PLAAF doesn't dominate the skies over the entire Strait, that's a lot of soldiers lost and shipwreck hazards created by even cheap guided gravity bombs.
    1
  4843. That's if the enemy can find the ships, there's only so many airborne and orbital sensors with wide enough coverage that they would have and those would be the first under attack as well. Add in pressure from submarines and land-based assets, and for Mainland China past their EEZ they might as well be playing Battleship with their missile stock.
    1
  4844. Although that giant would also be brittle, full of internal disease, and relies on you for both food and lunch money. China already spends at least as much of its GDP on internal "stability" forces as on the military, a cost that will only grow as their only sons die or disappear in battle, while available food degrades in both quantity and quality.
    1
  4845. On the contrary, China needs peaceful open access to the seas for food, fuel, and funds from exports. Crossfire would scare away civilian ship traffic, and China could empty its coffers paying for overland alternatives, exacerbated by increasing costs for internal "stability" as food availability degrades and only-sons die/disappear. Even without full control of the East and South China Seas, the West can gain the upper hand simply by rendering any travels near China expensive and unsafe, even by just escorting passing ships (many of which approach the size of a supercarrier) who might get struck by a Chinese missile by mistake.
    1
  4846. They influence the rich corporatists being baited by promises of access to the Chinese market, but that effect only goes so far with a very individualistic American culture.
    1
  4847. China would be dead with only 10 or 20 -- nearly all of its remaining clean water sources could be fatally irradiated by striking a few mountains and dams, and it would quickly overwhelm the PLA to handle the panicked mass movement of millions of people seeking direction from unprepared Party officials who spent their entire careers trying to one-up each other instead of developing standing relationships for mutual assistance. The threat from China is that it's maneuvering to make more of the world exclusive under its Orwellian unilateralism.
    1
  4848. Half of the US nuclear arsenal is actually retired and awaiting dismantling. Half of what's still active are in storage and not loaded into a missile for immediate deployment. Less than 1500 warheads are ready to fire.
    1
  4849. The US has the alternative of cooperative engagement capabilities, letting a stealth fighter like an F-35 do the spotting for a heavily-armed F-15 or F-18. Plus we practice buddy fueling regularly. Suppressing our big slow AWACS and tankers would definitely be a frustration, but not necessarily a show-stopper.
    1
  4850. I'm skeptical about the camera moving at 10x per second, I'd wager it's more a rotating mirror setup
    1
  4851. Saudi wealth is shrinking as the world trends away from oil. And it's not only money either -- there's only so many citizens loyal until death to the House of Saud who also hold rank in the military (remember they have to compete against the much tamer civil service).
    1
  4852. A lot of radars don't do 360° scans. Flexibility comes at the cost of precision, which is increasingly important as air targets get smaller and more maneuverable. Even ones that do spin in a full circle often will stop and focus when firing.
    1
  4853. Military GPS would include cryptography that allows it to get fast and accurate location data even in an environment where the enemy is jamming or spoofing fake GPS signals, which is critical for certain weapon systems. The ship wasn't in such an environment, and probably was using the Garmin to verify simple tasks like steering its way back to port.
    1
  4854. Right, we probably won't see for a while how much Western intelligence made Ukraine's deployments of the right kinds of supplies and personnel more efficient, compared to how Russia is almost blindly sending their troops into hostile territory.
    1
  4855. If China can get there without breaking down and needing a tow. Even then it's a great opportunity for the US to update its identification signals library, while letting the media's dramatization of the event push for more government funding. There's a reason America's adversaries don't come close to US shores: they don't want to instigate a Sputnik event that will popularize America's efforts against them.
    1
  4856. America also has a huge roster of friendly bases and range extension assets (sea oilers and air tankers), with the technology shared with partners to various degrees. The reason America is a "superpower" is because it is able to move and strike from practically any direction, it's more a matter of how economical it is to stage en route resupplies for a particular mission.
    1
  4857. Right, the expense of a hypersonic warhead limits it to only the most high value targets, and only if they can track it all the way to terminal phase. Physical saturation remains the most viable way to sink a ship... and with the recent JDAM moving-target upgrade, the US ironically now has hundreds of thousands of warheads to potentially drop on even the most sorry patrol boats.
    1
  4858. I'm waiting to see what the IIHS rates their crash safety. We have very stringent standards for this since we drive so fast for so long so regularly (and crash ourselves at such severity).
    1
  4859. Still cheaper than gas. Have you seen what that goes for nowadays?
    1
  4860. How often though? West of Chicago most city-dwellers have to drive for even the shortest trips because of how car-centered the roads were built.
    1
  4861. Right, airlines don't want to have to spend more than necessary getting its pilots certified on new platforms especially with the current pilot shortage, a problem that won't be easing up as the military pipeline dries up due to the shift away from manned fighters and the taxpayer-funded flight schools they would have gone through.
    1
  4862. Civil aviation in general standardized on American units and the English language.
    1
  4863. Biometrics are something you leave behind constantly, that's why verifications with these by itself is not good security practice. Governments could easily gather your genetic and biometric data through multiple ways if it felt you're worth their time, ancestry tests just make it convenient database to pick from.
    1
  4864. More like inefficiently designed, but that also makes it more resilient to changes as well as open to experiments. This is why we continue making orders to other countries about how exactly to make their fundamental components, and then be the one whose marketing and support continues the sales flow -- it's the R&D and Sales & Services where the real value-added profits are.
    1
  4865. Right, Chinese are great at disposable drones that require line of sight at helicopter altitudes. But try to reuse one from airliner height into another country... there's a gaping lack of satisfied customers.
    1
  4866. China already institutes bans on Tesla cars, and those were never used in combat.
    1
  4867. If you hadn't noticed, look where Russia and Ukraine ended up.
    1
  4868. That 100 miles is still an enormous force multiplier for the defender: there's no hiding the troop ships, planes, and supply lines crossing such a huge and open space. Guided missiles (and more recently with the JDAM QuickSink upgrade all those cheap readily-available guided gravity bombs) would demolish PLA deployments before most can even step foot across the Strait... right into well-prepared defenses spanning the whole width of the island. If the PLA doesn't seize Taiwan and end all the subsequent insurgencies by the end of a year, they might as well beat feet back the Mainland because all that stoppage of peaceful civilian sea traffic would have made food prices skyrocket to literally riotous levels back home.
    1
  4869. It won't be the bleeding edge that Taiwan itself is making, but it is insurance that TSMC's institutional knowledge won't be completely lost if the Taiwan-side fabs and engineers are.
    1
  4870. Consumers want simply sealed disposable gadgets. Dell doesn't do sealed or disposable, and neither do the IT professionals they cater to nowadays.
    1
  4871. They outsource that to Linux, which they offer as an alternative option on order
    1
  4872. Which besides America's "money printer go brrrr" was at least as much from the massive supply-side disruptions caused by Russia deciding to go forcefully "liberate" Ukraine, as well as China shutting itself down due to the political hyperallergy of Zero-COVID.
    1
  4873. My tech job is resistant to layoffs because I work primarily in the bottom half of the OSI Model. It will be a long time before AI or a foreigner-controlled robot will be trusted to pull cable, bolt in equipment, engineer the fundamental network and firewall policies, and troubleshoot issues from the human user all the way to the power socket.
    1
  4874. That's the ideal, but often there's at least unpaid overtime if not other benefits and compensations they conveniently forgot to make sure you were aware of on the way out.
    1
  4875. The real marvel is how much the Chinese state subsidizes costs to enable such blatant dumping. It ironically costs more to buy it in a developing company where China's QA rejects usually go because China is specifically targeting valuable USD from American wallets.
    1
  4876. Wage theft is a massive problem in tipped industries as a whole. We're literally giving more money to the wealthy especially when considering the greater effects of how tips reduce socioeconomic mobility.
    1
  4877. Any place with a mandatory service fee should not be asking for tips on top of the bill.
    1
  4878. That's not a mistake.
    1
  4879. In America's case it's institutionalized with companies nudging us for higher rates over the years.
    1
  4880. Ironically that's how modern tipping started, as a way to for European aristocrats to publicly flaunt wealth through loud announcements of coins hitting the tip jar. Early Americans rejected this notion as elitist until after the Civil War when freed slaves needed pay but nobody was used to giving black men fixed wages.
    1
  4881. Sadly tipping just reinforces upward immobility, contributing more to the problem than it tries to solve.
    1
  4882. Tip-shaming is the biggest thing I hate when visiting the US.
    1
  4883. Now if only publicly voicing this opinion didn't result in misguided popular condemnation especially by those who still think pure hard work at the lowest ranks guarantees upward mobility, because unfortunately the most rational and reasonable voices aren't the most attention-grabbing.
    1
  4884. Because boneless is better. Fight me.
    1
  4885. It just means an easier time for those who do. It's not just a human thing, all of nature is fundamentally a competition to the death.
    1
  4886. Right, it pretty much turns the country into a one-trick pony that's fragile to even the perception of setbacks.
    1
  4887. Department stores aren’t as modular as the larger mall, as unprofitable departments don’t just shut down like struggling independent shops would. There’s not really a reason for especially younger consumers to wander around a department store when ecommerce on mobile devices grants access to even larger selection of products or directions to niche store locations.
    1
  4888. I would certainly not trust an individual "independent contractor" with having all the systems and processes required to deter and react to organized burglaries.
    1
  4889. ​Rather there's no new technology that the average worker is able to readily exploit for themselves. It's us getting exploited by new technology because of the difficulty to learn and refusal by its current masters to share the knowledge needed to administer, maintain, and improve it on our own.
    1
  4890. Seems a lot of the problems with modern capitalism stems from insider actions, whether it's shareholders hoarding profits or dock staff tipping off cargo thieves.
    1
  4891. Cheapest is actually by floating, then by rail. Trucks are the most convenient because it's door-to-door and doesn't require direct access to a canal, port, or railhead, but it comes at the cost per ton of at least 10x that of water and steel due to the extra fuel burned and staff paid.
    1
  4892. Deflation is often worse because it discourages economic activities as people wait for lower prices. This leads to layoffs and capital flight to places where people's wallets are still open. If government ran like a business, nothing would prevent price gouging on the vital but usually unprofitable utilities it runs or regulates. Or it fails like 90% of new ventures do and now you're getting taxed even harder for a fraction of the services by local gangs instead. The last time the US cleared its debts, it led to the Panic of 1837 which was basically a Great Depression that recovered only through industrialization funded by new California gold.
    1
  4893. That's an involvement that could take years, basically like public school for employability but with an added clinic for drug rehab and mental health issues. We're barely able to fund winter shelters as it is because homelessness is still seen as an individual failing and not a community interest.
    1
  4894. More like corporate buddies who promise to "trickle down" their growth on the government "investment".
    1
  4895. Security from standoff and firefighting contained smaller conflicts is vital though. The last time America tried to disengage and draw down it got sucker-punched by 9/11. Previously also WWI, WWII, and the Korean War.
    1
  4896. Then complain about getting priced out of living in the US, because there's no entry-level agriculture and services workers whose pay is too low for born Americans but a small fortune as an immigrant's remittance.
    1
  4897. "Legal" immigration keeps getting more complex and qualified, hence more "arbitrary" and inefficient because of the ever growing list of considerations to clear per application. Irregular migration keeps growing in popularity because the "tough on crime" (in this case illegal entry) attitude really just makes it more impractical to complete the "proper" route. The current scheme is a far cry from how the ancestors of many "full-blooded Americans" originally arrived, with no verification of identity, criminal history, or means to support themselves.
    1
  4898. A criminal history in the home country wasn't a big deal back when merely surviving a boat ride got you automatic permanent residency with an optional change of legal name. People can be done with their less stellar ways for good by a simple change of environment. The real question is how much of their old loyalties are they willing to abandon as they begin a new life here.
    1
  4899. It means there's a big disconnect between the wants of the people (both legal residents and prospective immigrants) and the laws defining "legal" entry.
    1
  4900. ​You also get Republicans permitting worker abuse, best done against their ever widening definition of "criminals". That's why illegal immigration isn't getting resolved.
    1
  4901. ​Legal immigration doesn't exist with a practical amount of paperwork and processing. Applying for legal entry shouldn't require years in advance trying to prove impossibly specific qualifications.
    1
  4902. Actually enforcing the border would quickly turn into "government overreach" with how much land needs to be seized, and salaried law enforcement officers need to be hired. And on the "legal immigration" side how many more salaried government officials have to be hired to process the backlog of visa applications. All the while we suffer massive inflation from agriculture not harvested and services not rendered.
    1
  4903. Ironically Trump oversaw a record-breaking surge of illegal immigration.
    1
  4904. The backlog where the wait to get in line at a US embassy for a tourist visa is now more than a year. Imagine how much worse the process is for those wanting to legally move here.
    1
  4905. We're not funding the paid government staffers required to process the current backlog. That's why irregular entry has become so popular.
    1
  4906. ​Republicans proudly sabotage good governance for political gain. Something about a "small government" ideology despite -- or perhaps because of -- a weak state not being able to effectively challenge the entrenchment of private industry strongmen, whom they're conveniently already in relations with.
    1
  4907.  @haihengh  Jus soli is the norm in the entire Western Hemisphere though. Largest country that follows the strict Old World citizenship by ancestry model is Haiti.
    1
  4908. The Old World is made up of ethnostates, that's why. In the whole Western Hemisphere, citizenship by birth is the norm.
    1
  4909. ​ @James-sz2hr No, the problem with autocrats is that the more comfortable they get, the more aggressive they become. Deterrence is more productive than appeasement.
    1
  4910. You've obviously never experienced a visa line at a US embassy. Right now the wait for an appointment is like 1~2 _years_.
    1
  4911. Which is one of America's strengths. Old World ethnostates often concentrate their immigrants into dedicated districts, which discourages assimilation. Meanwhile America's Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves in the US are lacking in namesake migrants because they're so free to live wherever and take the full brunt of American culture.
    1
  4912. Just like he solved it last time with a record-breaking influx from the south when he tried to seal it off?
    1
  4913. The law needs to stop getting more impossible to complete, and we need to staff up the government to process the backlog of all the applicants who already paid their fees.
    1
  4914. Haha yeah, Brexit is a total fiasco we'd best not follow.
    1
  4915. That's not what the over-amplified right wing wants to hear. They hate thinking they could be the source of their own issues.
    1
  4916. Illegal immigration gets incentivized by the legal paths only getting tougher to clear.
    1
  4917. None. It takes years of legal permanent residency to even apply, and that clock doesn't start until their individual cases get resolved first.
    1
  4918. Right, if anything "legal" immigration has gotten so convoluted that it's becoming impossible to complete. Hence why the trend of irregular entry straight to asylum claim route.
    1
  4919. Much harder to stay there too. Not only because of more selective immigration enforcement but also lower pay for the costs of living there.
    1
  4920. Meanwhile the other political side sees an endless supply of cheap labor they can abuse and eject at the pleasure of their businessowner constituents, while deliberately not providing "government spending" to staff up and actually process all the irregular entry and visa overstay cases properly.
    1
  4921. It's not enforced because the "small government" party is terrified of the amount of spending needed to actually seal the border. That Wall they keep talking about is just a massive blank mural and Tough Mudder event without the paid government officials who are trained, equipped, and positioned to react to every approach.
    1
  4922. The whole Americas is practically agnostic to the genetics of that blood. Trying to justify ancestry for national identity is just copium by old hats getting outcompeted by fresh-blooded Americans.
    1
  4923. Yeah unfortunately the plastic cups are usually too flimsy to store in the seat back pocket for reuse. Usually if I get a personal water bottle on board I save it and get it refilled by their 1.5L ones in the galley
    1
  4924. Until they get into a US-grade high-speed crash, then the American hospital bill would wipe out the savings. I might trust Chinese makes with motorbikes because at least you wear your own safety gear.
    1
  4925. Luckily chargers are simpler to install because they lack all the HAZMAT requirements that gas stations need to satisfy. But there's still a lot of capital-intensive drilling and pipefitting to put in a charger, not to mention the energy storage and transmission upgrades that the government needs to help with.
    1
  4926. I always wondered why plug-in hybrids remain so rare. An additional inverter doesn't sound like that much of an alteration to a dual-power drivetrain.
    1
  4927. Corporations have been wanting us to migrate towards a subscription model. The deteriorating return on car leases is arguably them getting exactly what they asked for.
    1
  4928. ​ @michaelhutchings6602 If the growth is in commerce inspectors, auditors, and prosecutors, then yes. Corporations and their executives get away with far too much improprieties if not outright crimes.
    1
  4929. The free market concept breaks down when competition gets acquired/litigated/bankrupted out of the market. That's what China banks on as it subsidizes its champions to loss-leading prices.
    1
  4930.  @SS-dl6oq  I just moved out of Beijing last year. It was a disappointment having to experience so many more annoyances than pleasant surprises, unlike say my time in SE Asia or even Subsaharan Africa.
    1
  4931. Also near impossible to repair due to long backorders for parts and lack of service manuals even for dealership mechanics. Chinese brands go for disposable, no sense of quality and maintenance after the sale.
    1
  4932. One-third conversion efficiency is still like twice as good as the best fossil fuel engine technology.
    1
  4933. Then just triple the amount of heat batteries. They’re 1/10th the price per pound compared to battery cells.
    1
  4934.  @zurielsss Right, 100% remote means 100% replaceable, either by an expat living large in SE Asia or Latin America, or ultimatey by a foreigner working in their own home city no-visa-required.
    1
  4935. Fully WFH is great if you already have an established social and work skills for your current lifestyle. But to advance at least some in-person time is necessary, because there’s no substitute to being vulnerable to each other in the same space with no excuses about lag and volume and camera framing (and lately AI-assisted distortions), as well as the potential permanence of even the most casual digitized conversations. This is why classrooms were among the first to drop remote lessons, why dating by video chat often causes more trouble than it solves, and why industry trade shows have come back more popular than ever.
    1
  4936. Compare that to back in the US where diners often wait for waiters and still get asked for tips at the end.
    1
  4937. Sadly the most viable solutions are dismissed as "socialism", especially by the born-privileged libertarians who dominate our politics and cultural narrative. There may be hope though as the under-40s gradually become the only voters remaining, as their progressivism has surprisingly accelerated with age due to conservative policies not providing enough value for the young to conserve.
    1
  4938. Right, China destroyed its food security with all the soil and water polluting industry we offshored there. We can live without cheap trinkets, can't say the same about groceries.
    1
  4939. Another factor is the weight of the vehicles, which has kept increasing over the years. Road wear is estimated using the fourth power of weight -- a fully-laden big rig driving by once can equal years of foot and bicycle traffic on that same path's degradation.
    1
  4940. Well would you rather treat wheeled passengers like they already treat wheeled luggage?
    1
  4941. The dollars the rest of the world uses are $100 bills or digital.
    1
  4942. ​ ToonShader Before the transaction, the item is still the property of the seller thus there is no debt to be repaid. Hence the seller can still decide whether to accept cash or another form of payment.
    1
  4943. "It ain't broke" because you're not the Mint, who is trying to make cash both hard to counterfeit yet economical to produce.
    1
  4944. Businesses large enough to need the speed of digital payments would close shop even if cash is readily available. The manual labor to organize, write down, and then process any transactions in the meantime isn't worth it; they're better off just waiting for the power and internet to come back online.
    1
  4945. China publishes a lot of patents, but most of them are junk and rarely close to innovative.
    1
  4946. The companies themselves aren't healthy. They're overleveraged on debts while global demand especially for Made in China is drying up.
    1
  4947. Although that hangover was worsened by tariff reciprocations and the gold standard, which compelled people to hoard money exactly when the economy needs it spent. At least fiat currency provides the option to make a controlled devaluation and get money moving again without the invasive conquests for additional gold that resolved previous "panics".
    1
  4948. Deteriorated health too, especially if you were a blue collar worker. Meaning a lot of that savings and potential memories will be getting realized inside of medical facilities.
    1
  4949. Thing is people do get laid off. Deflation begets a downward spiral of tanking demand tanking the want for labor. What you're talking about with electricity is increased production. It's technically not deflation because the demand is still there to consume it.
    1
  4950. Also the transaction fees, which American providers charge upwards of like 4% whereas the rest of the world is more like 1% for card swipes. But merchants eat the cost anyway because USD is that valuable.
    1
  4951. ​Capitalism built human productivity, but civilization requires investing and maintaining things that aren't themselves profitable. Left alone, capitalism would M&A and litigate away competition until untouchable monopolies form.
    1
  4952. I pay for everything I can with credit cards because I have the discipline to zeroize the balance each month; I don't even know what the interest rates are because I never owe it. Then I can occasionally redeem the points I accrue for a premium flight upgrade or an entire hotel stay at nowhere near the full price. Also a huge comfort to not be on the hook for any fraud, because it's the bank's money getting stolen instead of out of my own account on a debit charge.
    1
  4953. That's not what politicians and media outlet sponsors want you to think though.
    1
  4954. They'll be electric, which are far simpler to design. The Chinese gas burner reputation is so poor that even Africa doesn't import them.
    1
  4955. They'll invariably be electric. Chinese companies don't have the quality control needed to make commercially reliable and more complex fuel burners like jet engines and ICE cars; EVs are stupid simple by comparison.
    1
  4956. Width is what really jams up traffic. Two-wheelers of any sort would go a long way in clearing congestion.
    1
  4957. Something more productive, like hunting and prosecuting tax evaders? The average American is shelling out a decent chunk of our overpayment returns making busy work, while the yacht-owners sail off with the offshored wealth all of us helped to make.
    1
  4958. Scaling up to the size of the US wouldn't be so elegant, especially since so many Americans rely on informal and experimental income. It just presents a much larger attack surface for the already most hack-attempted government in the world; state-level tax filings like CA's CalFile holds more promise at least for now. Plus it also helps that Dutch cybersecurity is among the best in the world relative to its population base 🇳🇱👩‍💻
    1
  4959. CA's housing is artificially inflated because of conservative NIMBY homeowners who fight against apartment builds, transit improvements, and raises to the relatively low property tax rates.
    1
  4960.  @orangecayman520  Conservatism ruined California. NIMBY homeowners artificially reduce housing supply and suppress property taxes, making everything else more expensive. Most Californians leaving are not the rich or skilled ones, but non-immigrants squeezed out of the middle class with no other place to go back to.
    1
  4961. Ironically, Californians are escaping conservative homeowners who limit housing supply by fighting against apartment builds, transit improvements, and raises to the relatively low property taxes; rich/retiree NIMBYs are the reason CA's income tax and other costs of living are so high, and why those without wealth or well-compensated skills are leaving.
    1
  4962. This battery swap method already exists with electric motorbikes whose batteries you can lift out by hand, specifically the Taiwanese Gogoro network that's now spreading into South and SE Asia.
    1
  4963. ​It's called the North America Charging Standard (NACS), which is the Tesla charger released from proprietary to open technology.
    1
  4964. Among traditional car makers, I hear the best reviews from Hyundai in regards to their EVs. Yet as bad as a Tesla car can be, it's still not as bad as the Chinese brands who overpromise its range and lack reliable after-sales support.
    1
  4965. Check your brake lines, tire tread, and refill the washer fluid. There's not much else on an EV to maintain.
    1
  4966. It's only in America that malls as a retail concept was troubled, because it's only in America where most malls required practically all patrons to drive themselves in, as opposed to being a stop of a nearby bus or metro line. Elsewhere in the world malls are a popular place to hang out whether you spent any money or not (and usually you do) because you didn't need to convince yourself that parking your car there was a convenient way to spend your day compared to wherever else you could drive to (and that's assuming you have exclusive access to a car at that time to begin with).
    1
  4967. That's the price of having multi-generational institutions and interests, unlike private ventures where despite all the greedy efficiency something like 90% of them don't even make it to their 10th anniversary.
    1
  4968. Private businesses though are 90% waste if you look at how many ventures fail within 10 years.
    1
  4969. We tried, and we were rewarded with WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and 9/11. Unfortunately there's more value in being so forward deployed.
    1
  4970. Well yeah, the more you have the more you should contribute. Would you be happy paying a greater share of your wealth than all those above you? That's why some rich folks call for higher taxes, to prevent that freeloading from their peerage.
    1
  4971. Last time America paid off its debt, it led to the devastating Panic of 1837 that only recovered via the CA Gold Rush a decade later. Turns out debt tempers speculation bubbles. Those other countries provide benefits to America like specialized products, cheaper resources, narrative amplification, and immigrants who often ultimately choose to naturalize and become Americans who are on average more entrepreneurial and productive than native-born.
    1
  4972. Try living in Sub-Saharan Africa to see where low tax payments ultimately lead. You do love those transactional "fees" you'd rather pay for all your specific wants instead, right?
    1
  4973.  @benjaminanderson5176  Yeah privatized everything does so well for Sub-Saharan Africa, where private conglomerations, low tax payments, and transactional "fees" on routine services are the norm.
    1
  4974.  @alejandroramirez-ih7jv  Right, solid blocks of legalese is not easy to sift through even with graduate level fluency. It would help to have more bullets, tables, and flowcharts, and also not have things like the "Privacy Policy" be a separate (and deliberately even more daunting) document.
    1
  4975. There's way more harbor options on the East Coast as well. The West Coast is dominated by sheer cliffs and direct exposure to the open ocean with few barrier islands or peninsulas calming the waves.
    1
  4976. Minimum distance is the space needed to evacuate the aircraft within 90 seconds. Turns out we can pack in pretty densely and still make it out.
    1
  4977. Those likely won't happen, too many people would fall over during an emergency evacuation. The harnessed half-standing seats we saw before could though, granted the setup is intuitive enough to put on and doesn't add too much weight.
    1
  4978. Minimum distance is the space needed to evacuate the aircraft within 90 seconds. Turns out we can pack in pretty densely and still make it out.
    1
  4979. Stick shift is still an incredibly useful skill, especially if you're truly a world traveler and end up behind the wheel outside of the US for any reason. I regularly go around the globe for work, and I've had to drive legally on both sides of the road, in both a car and on a motorbike, shifting gears in both automatic and manual.
    1
  4980. Not as quickly as gas, hydro, or battery storage. Electricity production has to very closely align with demand because the grid itself has almost no capacity to buffer any excess power.
    1
  4981. More like heavy debt-driven government subsidies to prop up its export-led economy.
    1
  4982. Northern Mexico is also drug cartel central. Not exactly the security environment anyone would be comfortable trying to ensure protection in considering how compromised their Federales already are.
    1
  4983. They're not economical for full-scale production.
    1
  4984. Planes that everyone uses are also highly regulated and tightly controlled from production to operation to disposal by parting out -- it's prohibitively expensive to enter the core fields and very very few people are certified to ultimately participate. Difference with aviation is that this extreme level of control needs to be kept up over the next 10000 years because there's no simple scrapping at the end. What nuclear advocates ask for is like flying revenue service jumbo jets but with the equivalent of WW1 level aerial technology. There's way more to understand and develop before expanding public access.
    1
  4985. Newer reactors are still research projects. Either they're not economical to operate, or the byproducts are too easily weaponized (including being concentrated enough for a devastating dirty bomb) over the often centuries-long course of their half-lives. This is why developed countries hesitate to add deployments at this time.
    1
  4986. Still illustrates mass disasters in general, which will inevitably occur at a nuclear plant somewhere especially if there's more sites built.
    1
  4987. Still needs more research too to become both economical to operate while not a weaponization risk. Until that's sorted out it's safer to minimize new deployment of our existing designs.
    1
  4988. Most of whom are pro-nuclear, not having considered the risks over its full lifecycle.
    1
  4989. Last time was the Interstate Highway buildout, which had a lot of riotous issues destroying communities and splitting up the survivors, all to primarily serve people coming from farther away.
    1
  4990. You also have to be in an environment that permits you to keep what you have. Asians are generally left alone regardless of immigration status, while Blacks and Hispanics live in more fear of legalized disruptions and seizures even if they're born citizens, hence the more opportunistic shorter-term mindset.
    1
  4991. Asians groups are very identifiable, due to the distinct cultural links to the origin countries, combined with recent arrival and lack of mixing. Other races tend to be much more mongrelized to the point that even genetic tests have difficulties determining lineage.
    1
  4992. ​ @TomikaKelly It's "cheap_est_" that doesn't go with "reliable"
    1
  4993. Republican regressives and their right-wing media sphere are trying to fake it til they make it.
    1
  4994. Yet consumer demand is still strong and corporate profits are breaking records. What we’re really feeling is inflation from a profit-price spiral.
    1
  4995. It's possible to drive only by sight, but we also use our sense of hearing and feel to drive. This is how most humans can get to a similar level of competence at a tiny fraction of hours behind the wheel compared to all the video Tesla has to download.
    1
  4996. Which means even more expensive education by state-subsidized schools, as well as job training that companies hate funding on "entry level" hires.
    1
  4997. California is easy street compared to most of the world. I'll put my faith in robotaxis when they reliably negotiate the roads of New Delhi.
    1
  4998. Not necessarily. They're still space-hogging cars and will still create time-sucking traffic even when fully automated.
    1
  4999. Depends on the place though. In Asia it’s a wash because the low labor upcharge and sometimes questionable quality of regular groceries makes buying your own ingredients only worth it at restaurant size quantities direct from wholesalers.
    1
  5000. Delivery services in general is better in Asia, with low labor upcharges, shorter distances, and the use of low cost scooters/e-trikes 🛵🛺
    1
  5001. Right, the only time I actually had time to prepare and clean up meals for one was during COVID lockdowns.
    1
  5002. It’s not so much menial as tedious, especially when living solo with only a Roomba to help clean. The only time I had time to prepare and clean up a simple protein and salad lunch for one was during COVID lockdowns. And those were the half of the time during split staffing when I wasn’t in the server farm maintaining the ability to remote work for everyone else.
    1
  5003. China has to import the core technologies, in particular processors (where hardware backdoors can be baked in and impossible to defend against) fabricated in Taiwan using American photomask blueprints. "Made" in China isn't as risky as "Designed" in China, and Chinese companies are compelled to use Designed in China parts as soon as they're available... an effort that's accelerated by us buying Chinese brands where they reap all the revenue.
    1
  5004. Practically all the inflation we're seeing is due to profit-price spiral, enabled by the COVID supply shock that corporations conveniently forget to roll back their previous markups on.
    1
  5005. Thank the corporate consolidation that enables more market efficiency... to raise prices without competition.
    1
  5006. ​ @NNOutBurger_Gaming Asking for demobilization is like asking for less fire stations. They're there because it deters and suppresses faraway conflicts from growing into far more destructive and costly industrial-strength trade-breaking interstate wars. Remember the last times America tried to draw down, it got dragged into WW1, WW2, and 9/11.
    1
  5007. American voters are so individualistically selfish that they're woefully ungrateful about what's provided just by being in the US.
    1
  5008.  @slicksiderepairllc2822  You asked about paying taxes, I gave an answer about where taxes are not paid. It's a similar story in any country where proper payments to the government are easily avoided/evaded, with the political apathy that results from citizens lacking personal investment in their own nation.
    1
  5009. If you want to see what a lack of tax revenues brings, try living in Subsaharan Africa paying even more on their fees and "fees".
    1
  5010. Cashing out just means those corporations will have zero interest for your protest going forward. The endowment funds were never that influential but at least they currently have some voice to express the pressure coming from their student and alumni body.
    1
  5011. A degraded car battery still has a lot of value as battery storage for buildings and other less weight-sensitive applications. I'd wager a market for old EV cells will arise as more people consume them.
    1
  5012. "No one"? East and West Coasts is like half of America's population.
    1
  5013. What wasn't great was the supply constrictions over the past couple years that hit the car buying market especially hard. We've been resolving this and other market shock threats by divesting and diversifying out of Mainland China.
    1
  5014. ICE cars had the same criticisms compared to the trusty horse when affordable models first rolled off the assembly lines
    1
  5015. The tailpipe emissions are the fundamental target of this whole EV push, since that's what's more difficult to enforce than fixed industrial pollution sources like mines and power plants. ICE motorbikes can pollute just as badly because the emissions controls for something so small and weight-sensitive aren't as effective. Go to any big city in Asia and you'll smell what I mean.
    1
  5016. If it costs you that much, don't use the stealership for service.
    1
  5017. Battery swaps are more feasible with electric motorbikes since you can pull out the batteries by hand. All of Taiwan can be ridden around on one without having to plug in because nearly the whole island is covered by Gogoro battery stations.
    1
  5018. EVs are still the tiny underdog though compared to the support given to a century of ICE cars.
    1
  5019. It's ideal in terms of adding to otherwise destructive land usage, but the capital costs are higher because of the higher heights and wider spacings required to fit cars underneath. For now it seems governments are still trying to get installation of solar in general off the ground, and securing supplies of all the new panels to get costs down so that subsequent subsidies (which the many pro-libertarian critics keep categorically calling "government waste") also don't need to be as high and vulnerable to ongoing politics.
    1
  5020. @intermsofreality  It's still restricting unless there's also provisions to legalize status without leaving the US (and the associated 10-year ban on reentry), but such a path is often derisively dubbed "amnesty".
    1
  5021. Policies are more favorable to married couples than to dating singles.
    1
  5022. Conservatives aren't thinking that far ahead. By definition they bias more towards the past rather than the future.
    1
  5023. I'm constantly traveling for work, and definitely see how the hospitality industry heavily biases towards childless couples and against those with kids.
    1
  5024. I wonder how prices for the N95 ("N" standing for not oil-resistant) compare to usually more expensive R95 (oil resistant) and P95 (oil-proof) respirators nowadays
    1
  5025. More like corporate greed and NIMBY voter cartels who benefit from higher prices, and are positioned to make the rest of us pay for it.
    1
  5026. Reaganomics.
    1
  5027. Separation began a decade before the dollar fully floated. More likely its automation and offshoring that caused the real split between wages and productivity, with a gap growth that only partially recovered when the internet democratized the technology.
    1
  5028. Yet any action the government does to correct this is "socialism".
    1
  5029. Can't help themselves if what little they have keeps getting taken away in police sweeps and street crime. On top of opportunities denied because they don't have an address to put on the job application.
    1
  5030. Mental health programs were exactly the type of "wasteful" welfare that Reagan targeted for politically convenient budget cuts. Ironically he was also from California.
    1
  5031. NIMBYs are by definition conservative, which tells you all you need to know about their worldview and future potential.
    1
  5032. In the protective cocoon of a car, there's not much room to compete against always-online smartphones. Most of Garmin's revenues instead come from high-reliability applications like aviation or marine, as well as environmentally-exposed hiking and biking.
    1
  5033. No, the bulk comes from commercial applications who need high reliability navigation. Trucks, planes, and boats often carry a Garmin unit of some sort.
    1
  5034. I've had smartphones crash and reboot especially on a long sunny drive, and I wouldn't trust them on my bike where it encounters sweat and rain. Purpose-built gadgets are designed with their more extreme environments in mind.
    1
  5035. I sideload OpenStreetMap data, which is basically public domain. I still have units running fine even though they're 3 or 4 smartphones old.
    1
  5036. Consumers aren't their biggest priority, it's the commercial trucks, ships, and planes that they've dominated. Lack of consumer movement gets balanced out by increase in ecommerce logistics.
    1
  5037. Also anyone who hikes, bikes, or motorbikes would get a separate waterproof sunlight-readable unit
    1
  5038. They've always been in those different markets, but professional and outdoor applications are a growing share as smartphones supplant usage in the inherently protected cocoon of inside a passenger car.
    1
  5039. Dedicated navigation devices are far more durable and reliable. I don't have to worry about my smartphone crashing and rebooting in the middle of a drive, and it can more easily take the heat of a dashboard on a long sunny trip. I also don't have to worry much about sweat and rain on my bike unit, again unlike a smartphone.
    1
  5040. I don't trust even those. Cryptotokens are still basically the realm of criminals, pessimists, and speculators because it hasn't proven to be all that useful as a medium of mundane everyday transactions.
    1
  5041. Healthcare is a natural monopoly, because unlike the regular market the information asymmetry is insurmountable — no buyer is going to “market research” by going through all of medical school just so they can argue that a specific procedure is “medically necessary” and haggle over the price. Healthcare ought to be run like a government-regulated public utility, just like every other developed nation had long figured out.
    1
  5042. Right, a credit card's balance is the bank's money until you pay it off, and the bank has entire departments working to get their money back (regardless if lost by nonpayment, fraud, or hacks). Your debit card though, you're ultimately on your own.
    1
  5043. @CW Right, there's a reason businesses converge on spending on the security of the bills and books provided by digital transactions. You can see the contrast of remaining cash-based with the measures medicinal cannabis shops (who generally don't have access to digital banking) have to take with all the cash they handle.
    1
  5044. It's most dangerous to 100% WFH jobs, because there's no stopping it from instead contracting an expat or total foreigner living more cheaply overseas.
    1
  5045. Stronger than China, that's for sure. I was just there, it's obvious that's a place in total denial of suffering a recession.
    1
  5046. If your timeframe is short. I graduated during the Great Recession and spent most of my 20s in temp jobs. This "recession" is not even close.
    1
  5047. Costs can be considerably cut down by using aluminum wiring, which all high-voltage power lines already are because at a slight increase of diameter it transmits the same amount of electricity at half the weight and 1/3 of the cost (which also suppresses wire theft). This can be achieved by updating wiring codes and investing in production of mains-level CU/AL interfaces to prevent the infamous electrical fires that arose from connecting metals with different rates of thermal expansion -- basically what power plants and substations already do at a smaller scale.
    1
  5048. Chargers will get there, especially since they don’t have the HAZMAT issues of gas stations and so can be installed practically anywhere. Gas stations also took a couple decades to get us off our horses who could be fed on the trail.
    1
  5049. What's not being mentioned is the growing gap between corporate profits and raises in our paychecks, while we simultaneously allow companies to monopolize necessities like housing supply and internet access.
    1
  5050. They want the taxpayer to fund that. They want someone else (public education or private competitors) to pay for all the training so they can poach workers on the cheap, instead of hiring based on aptitude and personality then providing OJT like they used to.
    1
  5051. ​ @jamesgardner2101 Trump still runs the Republican Party, and the GOP have enough people in Congress to block legislation before it gets to the President's desk if they choose.
    1
  5052. Amtrak has quite a few factors going against it: 1) Amtrak doesn't own a lot of track (making it lower priority if a freight train gets in the way); 2) The tracks it does have access to are not suitable for high speed operations (level crossings, tight turns, etc); 3) far distances between the more varied destinations Americans head off to (not like a simple annual hometown return in other countries); and 4) low density at the destinations (where a car is needed and so they're also working against more comprehensive rental centers at airports)
    1
  5053. For all the HSR glory we hear about China, they were far too overconfident about the amount of revenue it would generate from fares and local fapiaos (tax receipts) -- passengers and mail just doesn't pay as well as dumb bulk cargo -- hence the chronically half-empty trains (who's competing against cheaper buses and sleeper trains or faster planes) and a debt load that dwarfs even Evergrande. It'd be a different story had those lines been beefier quad tracks that can handle full freight loads while the G trains blow past. Ironically the "failing" 100+ year old US rail network is still saturated with traffic and profits. Sadly we're not hearing much about expanding capacity or access to this proven success.
    1
  5054. That'd be ideal, since the right of way are already settled. Problem would be all the congestion it would generate in the couple years of construction since it will involve lane closures.
    1
  5055. It's arguably a good sign than the Saudis (whom we have a problematic relationship with) are having to explore partnerships with China now that America no longer really relies on MidEast oil with all the security commitments in a chronically troubled region that entails.
    1
  5056. That's the promise of sodium-ion batteries, which aren't as energy dense but are far cheaper and less impactful to produce for fixed applications like buildings.
    1
  5057. Yet they seem to fail at finding simple spam (i.e. posts with "👇👇👇👇👇👇"). I'd bet it's a deliberate policy to reduce expectations of how much content they're truly able to filter, and the subsequent legal liabilities they would face for profiting from inflated "engagement" metrics due to their own negligence.
    1
  5058. The economy by the money flow is doing fine, it’s the distribution of that money that isn’t. Plus so many consumers are mentally anchored to pre-COVID prices which enjoyed long flat inflation, and now suffer the profit-price spiral that corporations take from us sparked by that supply-side market disruption.
    1
  5059. So the takeaway is America's taxes take from the youth and give to the old.
    1
  5060. It's likely from all the antibiotics and other chemicals used to fatten them up as fast as soon as they're born and sexed, this is common practice for broilers nowadays
    1
  5061. So why then does America continue to be the biggest target for Chinese industrial espionage efforts, the biggest subject for their foreign studies, and the most attractive destination for Chinese expatriation?
    1
  5062. Huh, I see Ford, Chrysler, and Cadillac fairly regularly, including in Mainland China.
    1
  5063. There’s plenty of competition, Chinese brands just enjoy overwhelming artificial support by its government through programs like state-sponsored industrial espionage and massive discounts on electricity rates.
    1
  5064. China’s subsidies through state-sponsored industrial espionage and heavily discounted power consumption rates are often not counted when trying to criticize America.
    1
  5065. They’re also getting better at producing for themselves and becoming a direct competitor to Chinese working taxpayers in China. Offshored Chinese firms can only import so many Chinese in lieu of locals before the host nation questions how “not imperialist” those Chinese industrial colonies really are.
    1
  5066. The “enemy” is loud, not so much numerous by the headcount of nations. If anything they’re more openly leaning West.
    1
  5067. ⁠Working harder just means more of your efforts enriches the executives and shareholders. It’s increasingly more profitable to quit and join a competitor or alternative.
    1
  5068. On the other hand we’re in this collapsing middle dilemma because of deregulation away from limits on corporate competition, meaning established players can combine to the level where newcomers can be easily bought or litigated out of existence. And the shareholders love it.
    1
  5069. We already have that, but clearly it's not enough. Especially with thefts and aborted picks where the customer puts down the item someplace else.
    1
  5070. Still not cheap enough against ink on packaging to replace the barcode on a disposable candy bar wrapper.
    1
  5071. But then you hire with the thought of "potential" and discount past mistakes, which heavily favors white men.
    1
  5072. White men were also favored for their "potential" and more often had past mistakes forgiven. An easy feat since most of their decisionmakers were other white men in a patriarchal Eurocentric social environment.
    1
  5073. I don’t, but it’s a common “merit” that in America the often white male managers consider as they overly link the image of an individual face to the company and position.
    1
  5074. A low skill $45k/year job has simple metrics to measure performance on. It's also why some such jobs were so easily offshored and ultimately automated out of our job market altogether. As the value-added (and pay and resistance to offshoring/automation) rises, what counts as the compensable "merits" becomes less straightforward.
    1
  5075. What "merits" though? Like "potential" which biases against women?
    1
  5076. The US though isn't subsidizing Tesla with government-sponsored IP theft, below-cost electricity, and an economically suppressed skilled workforce.
    1
  5077. It's all the data the Chinese government can demand and get through these cars. Remember EVs (and increasingly modern cars in general) are basically spy-in-a-box smartphones with seats and wheels. Think of how modern warfare is being fought through the eyes of cheap expendable drones, now have them roll by your house a couple times a day. And if you understand Chinese-language media, China has been practically at war with us for the past decade. We just don't realize what they've been saying in Mandarin this whole time.
    1
  5078. If I was going to buy electric, I'd start with a motorbike. That's what I rode in China... modified to reach highway speeds so I can safely ride with the cars (whose behaviors are enforced by cameras capturing front plates) instead of all the clearly untrained and oblivious riders in the "bike lane"/frontage road/parking spots/sidewalk (yes they're all these simultaneously). It's far easier to keep charged since you can carry the battery to any wall socket, goes much farther for its size, and can be parked practically anywhere. Plus there's not nearly as much capability for it to capture images and upload to Chinese government analyzers like a ground-based modern spotter drone, unlike a full sized car with all the cameras it has and constantly uses "for quality assurance purposes" (see the T&Cs you must consent to just to "own" and operate). Sadly import restrictions against foreign motorbikes are already very well established 🏍😢
    1
  5079. ​ @DeeepXXX I'd like to see their IIHS ratings, which are more applicable to the consistently higher speeds of America's streets.
    1
  5080. Ever tried getting replacement parts to repair a BYD though? Although Tesla isn't a good example, you'd need to compare with real established car companies like Hyundai.
    1
  5081. Ironically our military is the one keeping the world's oceans safe and free for civil ship and air travels to all; a "multipolar world" just means multiple fault lines for militarized conflict. Abandoning this arrangement would ironically seriously restrict our access to global markets, both to buy as imports and sell as exports.
    1
  5082. China is the only exporter who subsidizes their industries through persistent government-sponsored commercial espionage, below-cost electricity rates, and a deliberately suppressed skilled workforce.
    1
  5083. The two-way link would be another system riding on a GPS satellite, like a transceiver for separate dedicated Personal Locator Beacons carried on life jackets and by backwoods hikers (which themselves have to first calculate its own proper 4+bird GPS fix to transmit out). Communication capabilities with users isn't integral to the navigation system itself like it is with BeiDou.
    1
  5084. The question is do we want to stoop to the levels of cheating and disturbing invasiveness that the Chinese are almost proud of pulling off? We already blast private tech companies for trying, now imagine if America's "tailored access" capabilities were given the go-ahead to become a full on dragnet instead.
    1
  5085. So like China, rely on coerced and cheated research, gather data with disturbing (often illegal) methods, and habitually oversell our achievements?
    1
  5086. ​ @fintech1378 Not even then, because there's a lot of competition from Cantonese, Hokkien, and Teochew speakers too. And the Mainland's insistence on Simplified script further fractures Chinese intelligibility from the more global Traditional writing.
    1
  5087. Too many Americans expect a grand reopening to mark the end of the epidemic, but ideally it will be so gradual that we wouldn't be able to agree on the date it happens
    1
  5088. The economy is run by people. There won't be much of an economy if its participants are sick and dying. Even professional economists say the fastest way out of the epidemic is to stay home and wait.
    1
  5089. That sounds like what an HOA ought to be, but is usually not.
    1
  5090. Drone swarms are a different story, requiring cheap fast mass defense instead of powerful expensive solutions. Effective defenses against drones are still in the works. Japan may have not wanted to attempt splashing the North Korean missile, as that might invite even greater escalation as opposed to keeping it at saber rattling.
    1
  5091. Until a new one gets founded which pays the raised wages. The demand will be there, it's just up to the establishment to adapt accordingly. Most businesses fail within 5 years anyway so in the larger picture it's not really that devastating.
    1
  5092. Something about "bringing jobs", but they're dead-end ones which just occupy your time (especially if involuntary part-time) instead of providing the funding to skill up and move on.
    1
  5093. That's exactly what management wants, deflecting the animosity of low pay away from themselves and onto the "ungrateful" customer.
    1
  5094. A considerable part of your compensation could be your looks, taking advantage of biases on gender, race, and attractiveness. You'd likely not earn nearly the same amount as a homely brown small-chested woman, even with exactly the same skills.
    1
  5095. Tips were a very European aristocrat thing, corrupted in America as a way for the customer to give even more to the benefit of the business owner. Elsewhere in the world, gratuities are also known as literal bribes, and there's no real benefit giving bribes to a restaurant for a routine meal.
    1
  5096. Be wary that not reporting tips counts as tax evasion, which has taken down even well-protected mafia kingpins. Your taxes from five years ago can be randomly audited, and they're annoyingly detailed. Maybe you just have to pay a fine, but you might also be flagged eligible for another "random" audit down the line.
    1
  5097. D2C is only better if the C side already knows what they want. As much as we rag on middlemen, they're the specialists of outreach, interpreting trends for suppliers and advertising what's available to customers.
    1
  5098. It's especially bad in Mainland China, where government subsidies induced all these fly-by-night companies to crank out cars that now rot away in junkyards despite being "sold", fully registered with plates, and otherwise ready to drive its first 100 km.
    1
  5099. China has the advantage of the state owning all of China's land, so it can start construction with minimal compensation to current users. Even then it's still bleeding money because passengers and mail only pay fairly little, with gross overcapacity as Chinese consumers continue to ride much cheaper buses and slow sleeper trains instead.
    1
  5100.  @lamorthonyfairyfriend4082  It doesn't help we have a very self-centered culture of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and celebrating acts of rebellion. This anti-social mindset also explains our relatively high rates of illicit drug use and improper firearms discharge.
    1
  5101.  @InsomniacPostman  Right, especially if you include the current homeowners who consistently resist both denser development and increases to CA's relatively underpriced property taxes. The rent is astronomical because of simple supply and demand -- with the supply artificially reduced.
    1
  5102. There's enough inbound demand that replacements are bound to arise. Plus CA also has a massive ag and defense sector, which aren't nearly as mobile as coders and office workers on laptops.
    1
  5103. Developers can't buy out another ranch parcel and build there? CA's concern is that the open lands left there are all wildfire country 🔥
    1
  5104. Skilled immigrants promptly backfill the vacancies, and they're often more concerned about societal tolerance and chance access to potential clients than to ideals like lowered taxes, large private spaces, public political expressions, etc. Maybe their inheriting kids or grandkids would move to save on ongoing costs, but out of these migrants CA is bound to get replacements to Oracle, HP, Elon Musk, whatever at much higher rates than wherever the ones they bought the house from ran off to. Plus CA still has massive agricultural and defense sectors, and they're not nearly as mobile as coders and office workers on laptops.
    1
  5105. With the monitoring and censorship on Chinese-run internet, Brazilians will more likely sit out the competition too and just wait for cheaper terrestrial links to eventually reach them.
    1
  5106.  @badbad-cat  That Long March booster crashing uncontrolled into a village earlier this summer — videoed by Chinese locals and originally posted to Kuaishou — looks convincingly not from some dedicated foreign anti-China program.
    1
  5107. You're wearing the wrong mask then. I use a proper rubber frame respirator with replaceable filters (originally to ride in the chronic air pollution), and don't have any issues riding with it.
    1
  5108. Riding within arm's reach of car traffic is psychologically discouraging for all but adventurous able-bodied men. Cycling will continue to be a "men's sport" as long as bike paths aren't comfortable enough for women to ride on.
    1
  5109. They're both bicycles, just motorcycles are motorized (with a fuel-burning engine). "Cycling" refers specifically to bikes driven by batteries or muscle.
    1
  5110. Cycling was never going to replace cars, but I wouldn't be surprised if an appreciable increase in pedaling becomes permanent 🚲
    1
  5111. Depends on the jurisdiction. I don't know of a place in America that bans flashing bike lights because they're historically rare to encounter on the road compared even to emergency vehicles.
    1
  5112. Most bike paths don't provide enough separation from the cars, discouraging all but adventurous able-bodied men from riding. That's why cycling is also a gender issue.
    1
  5113. The youthful athletic feeling is partly why so many older dudes take up cycling, hence the term MAMIL (middle-aged male in lycra)
    1
  5114. They're more expensive and require a separate driver's license, registration, insurance, and protective clothing. Pedal and electric bikes are way more accessible.
    1
  5115. With proper equipment you could haul a literal half-ton with a bike. I could even imagine how to modify a Home Depot lumber cart into a towed trailer.
    1
  5116. If Arizona wants to keep its character from before, all it has to do is keep underfunding its education system. Those coasties will eventually leave when another promising startup state arises... but they'll also take Arizona's now-growing economy with them. Unfortunately you can't have your conservative lifestyle and growth in buying power anymore, that ship sailed with globalization and will only return as robots.
    1
  5117. Arizona and California are easy mode for autonomous cars though. When they can successfully navigate the crowded chaos of northern India during monsoon season, that's when they're truly ready to replace a driver on the open road.
    1
  5118. That would mean fighting the huge agricultural industry and the incredibly flawed water rights system they enjoy. Unlike every other business who can pick up and leave they're literally tied to the land, and are also among the top growing regions in the world in terms of productivity... like East Asia ironically pays top dollar for rice from California, whose flooded fields also support seasonal bird migrations for half of North America.
    1
  5119. Right, those businesses from the coasts aren't moving. They're expanding.
    1
  5120. Desert living can actually be quite sustainable, you just have to control your water sources well. Humidity and flooding are huge drivers for facility degradation and the costs of environmental controls.
    1
  5121. Lack of market competition means lack of substitutes.
    1
  5122. It would. Deflation induces a downward spiral of wages, production, and overall buying power too.
    1
  5123. Downward prices necessitates even more downward wages and job opportunities. Inflation is self-correcting whereas deflation is a downward spiral, which is why deflation is considered even worse.
    1
  5124. That’s why across-the-board taxes are vital, and even encouraged by some billionaires. Philanthropy is at best far more limited in effect and at worst a forfeit of influence among their peer bracket.
    1
  5125. It’s the profit-price spiral fueling inflation.
    1
  5126. Corporations are always winning, especially the ones that own farms.
    1
  5127. It'll get even worse under Trump as Republican policies scares off the immigrants we need to pick and process our food on American soil. US citizens don't have the price advantage of a strong USD exchange rate at their permanent home.
    1
  5128. I always felt something tasted and felt off about America's food served east of the Rockies. The cuisine in California does hit right by comparison, at least when not munching through the EU or Japan.
    1
  5129. It shouldn't be, but HFCS gets added into everything in American foods because it's so available, and this seems to cause havoc in our bloodstreams probably because the sweetener is so dense. Plus the mouthfeel is noticeably different. The past few years I've been seeing a switch back to more traditional table sugars, honey, agave, as well as artificial sweeteners (often sucralose).
    1
  5130. So all of Alaska will have to survive on fish and whale meat? There's not exactly a lot of edible greenery up in the Arctic.
    1
  5131. Our governments are so leveraged because Americans remain hopeful that growth and refinancing will overcome that debt load… at least in this lifetime. Even if given direct decisionmaking power over the budget, Americans would still vote: ☐ Raise taxes. ☑ Increase debt. ☐ Reduce service quality and availability.
    1
  5132. I’ve learned to only trust Japanese makes used, anything else is a crapshoot because they’re engineered to be needy for maintenance.
    1
  5133. We don't have that long to wait as our jobs, kids, and bills are here now. If California is an indicator, more vacancies won't necessarily mean cheaper housing since any openings get immediately backfilled by skilled immigrants who aren't as picky about their new neighborhood.
    1
  5134. For too many people though, it's the only real option.
    1
  5135. Americans desire their house to reflect their lifestyle. They don't want, say, a fully separated kitchen that hid the long-gone servants making the meals, and a wooden house makes opening the wall a lot more straightforward. Lumber and nails are cheap compared to bricks and rebar, and the preference remains to be able to remodel or even rebuild a house because what is "proper" now might not be so a generation or two later -- indoor electricity and plumbing were a huge headache when first installed, and even worse when it would involve drills and sledgehammers; today we're adding WiFi, cell signal propagation, alarm systems, CCTV, etc as considerations, and these are best served with a dedicated lockable space for centralized IT equipment.
    1
  5136. Most Asian Americans immigrated the country as middle class FOBs (especially when including adoptees and wives of those who already had a place in America) and the barrier to entry has only been getting higher, meaning a greater skew of already-rich Asians. Refugee influxes were temporary and are no longer a considerable driver of overall Asian American figures. Plus other POCs outnumber Asians like 6 to 1.
    1
  5137. Yards are getting smaller though, the trend over time has been towards larger indoor space.
    1
  5138. Homeownership is a class issue, and in America class is synonymous with race -- legally so up until recently and socially so today. It will take generations to rebalance, and even longer as long as hierarchy-by-pedigree seeking conservatives continue to resist.
    1
  5139. Of course KFC survived. The Colonel is hardier than the Clown, going into places where Ronald dare not tread (like sub-Saharan Africa 🌍🍗)
    1
  5140. It's been clear over the decades what we demand is more government spending on ourselves. This is a Tragedy of the Commons situation, only made worse because we value individualism to the point of toxic self-interest.
    1
  5141. ⁠China is especially vulnerable being so dependent on manufacuting for tax receipts.
    1
  5142. China lacks youthful optimism. That’s probably the worst condition out of anything.
    1
  5143. Nowadays China has gotten their dockless bikeshare programs down pretty well now that it's consolidated down to just 3 companies (Meituan, Hellobike, and Didi). Although having double-width sidewalks, subsidized cellular data, and an army of cheap workers driving maintenance trucks of all sizes helps a lot too.
    1
  5144. You're real likely to crash standing over such small wheels though. Past running speed it's real advisable to at least be seated and lower your center of gravity.
    1
  5145. Russians are already finding out how junky Chinese cars are. They break down too often and it's impossible to find parts, which they're quick to complain about since they're not afraid to turn wrenches themselves.
    1
  5146. That's why Chinese state supports have to be counteracted with import tariffs, especially when further price cuts to entice buyers inevitably come at the cost of road safety and build quality.
    1
  5147. Real world range on a Chinese EV is like 2/3 of what's advertised. Everyone else cautiously undersells how far they can really go.
    1
  5148. The reputation will only get worse once fender benders happen and owners find out the hard way how difficult it is to get parts and after-sales service from Chinese brands. Chinese cars may be cheap, but they're not one-time use cheap.
    1
  5149. It doesn't exist. Modern China only values new things, and up til now they're simply able to completely replace what broke.
    1
  5150.  @ikematthews6866  Ask the Russians. They’re finding it impossible to get replacement parts after discovering their new Chinese EVs are disappointingly unreliable.
    1
  5151. I've been hearing that Russians aren't very happy with their Chinese brand cars. They're breaking down too often and it's impossible to find parts, which becomes quite front of mind in a self-help Slavic culture.
    1
  5152. A stable permanent address would help a lot, which you often won't have until you've established your career. It's especially important in Red States that are hostile to anything but voting in person on a workday and conveniently don't send electronic reminders.
    1
  5153. Winner-take-all voting guarantees results ultimately converge on two sides: the one victor, and the lot of losers.
    1
  5154. ​As long as winner-take-all voting converges the results to exactly the one victor and the lot of losers, your only choice is to try to win or surrender unconditionally.
    1
  5155. Or there’s not enough testers and labs to get through the backlog. Remember regulations exist because they were written in blood.
    1
  5156. Corporations gotta pay off those stock buybacks somehow.
    1
  5157. Having driven the roads in China, I can say outside of the few major thoroughfares built last century (designed to handle tanks and large missile trucks) that Chinese equivalents seem to degrade surprisingly quickly and require almost monthly resurfacing. News leaks of some viaduct or tunnel collapse seem to happen just as often as ones in the States despite being brand new (often not even open yet), whereas the the ones coming down in the US tend to be ones that were in service for the better part of a century already.
    1
  5158. Americans are too inconsiderate, inattentive, and incompetent to speed past each other safely and consistently. And too proud being these “I”s to have the discipline and get the training to perform as well as thought.
    1
  5159. No the US is quite mid in terms of tax rates. Try Europe to see how much they pay into their government services and gas tanks, and they largely mooch off the global trade routes kept open by the American military. On the other hand, if you want to see what a low-tax weak-state libertarian paradise looks like, look no further than sub-Saharan Africa.
    1
  5160. Standardizing a walkable utility tunnel that fits all these pipes might help, but then you're constantly patrolling it for intruders too.
    1
  5161. I think hotel points are a better value than airline miles. Nicer amenities enjoyable over a longer time, wider and more stable options, less carbon output per patron, and not as likely to suddenly disappear since properties can be sold much easier than a plane.
    1
  5162. Americans believe they can receive world class public services with no payment of taxes nor appreciation of the the work involved.
    1
  5163. Those at least you can wash and wear again. What’s not so reusable will be stuff like beef pushing past $15/lb because of the few food processing conglomorates lacking cheap migrant workers at the meatpacking plants.
    1
  5164. Which is troubling considering the economy Biden inherited from the previous guy now getting another term.
    1
  5165.  @IsaiahMiguel ”Fixed” by sacrificing American workers and global market share in manufacturing, while letting corporations gaslight us into believing it’s our personal failures in between their hostile takeover schemes.
    1
  5166. Then move to Wyoming.
    1
  5167.  @bighands69  Problem is it's nearly unavoidable in foods sold in America. You'd have to basically leave the country to access meals that don't contain HFCS.
    1
  5168. Not really mentioned was the impact of domestic travel -- which are largely businesses or long holiday passengers who prioritize low fares and high speed -- rather than international visitors who need an extended break from long flights and tend to relish the experience on the ground a bit more. Large (China, India, Brazil) or archipelagic (Indonesia, Philippines) countries with high domestic demand don't have airports that are that much better than in the US.
    1
  5169. America desired considerable separation of roles, which was easy when surrounding farmland was cheap and needed during an age driven by coal-fired factories. Problem is the land use policies haven't updated now that all the easy plots are taken and the economy cleaned up the air.
    1
  5170. Cheap nearby land is all taken though. Then there's the issue of transporting them all especially trying to cater for the older American mindset of driving a small living room door-to-door.
    1
  5171. We still rely on landlines, and we still need more of it. Cell and WiFi are relatively short extensions of what its landlines haul. The only places I know that have to hop towers with directed microwave radios are areas where there's a local problem with snipping and stealing the physical cables.
    1
  5172. I think if we connected every premises with a conduit and fiber line like we did with paved public roads, America could could have another economic boom from all the time and money freed up from overpriced broadband, on top of more development of IT skills for the average American from the need to train and employ linelayers and network engineers nationwide. It physically would not be nearly as disruptive either compared to how we built the Interstates, because the rights of way already exist under literally a single lane of every public street.
    1
  5173. They likely are made in the US. They're just not designed by the Big 3, which given its reputation for spending more time in the garage may be not suitable for a smaller government office who don't have a dedicated motorpool section.
    1
  5174. The alternative is continuing to destroy the entire world. At least with mines the pollution is all local or at worst regional.
    1
  5175. National debts are different in that unless you're in a straight up kleptocracy, they're very much invested on durable assets and economic development as opposed to personal consumption.
    1
  5176. More local green sources? The grid isn't as stressed if the distances are shorter, and especially if there's more storage of the excesses that wind and solar regularly provide during the day.
    1
  5177. Or give it new life, if you focus less on the motor vibration and more on the raw acceleration and turning rates that an EV offers.
    1
  5178. EVs are cheaper to operate and maintain once you buy it. The only required fluids are the brakes. I ride an electric motorcycle and top it up at the office, so I've paid almost nothing to drive thousands of miles in stop-and-go traffic.
    1
  5179. The mass market wasn't suping-up or re-engining their rides to begin with.
    1
  5180. Most people would buy new anyway, very few soup-up or re-engine any car to begin with. Although EV drivetrains are smaller and more flexible, so it's possible to electrify basically any ICE car.
    1
  5181. Also the advent of sodium-ion batteries, which are not as energy dense but also carry far fewer fire hazards and could displace what we use lithium now for applications that are not as sensitive to weight (fixed storage, possibly trains and ships, etc). This alone would free up significant amounts of Li-ion for where it's most required.
    1
  5182. I'm hoping that EVs are able to have the charger ports easily swapped out as needed until we converge on an open global standard. Besides NACS/Tesla, there's also SAE/CCS1, the EU's CCS2, Japan's CHAdeMO, and China's GB/T.
    1
  5183. If you can find gasoline. Production is already leveling off because the oil companies know the demand won't be there as electrified transport displaces fuel burning.
    1
  5184. Good luck fitting a diesel in a Tesla without lifting it. EV drivetrains are much smaller and more flexible than ICE ones, so you're likely cutting into the chassis itself just to fit an engine and transmission.
    1
  5185. Bitcoin just proves to be more of a shuffling in capital rather than a true democratization in wealth creation.
    1
  5186. If you multiply the cost of talented IT professionals with how many may be needed, the DoD arguably might be underfunded 👨‍💻👨‍💻👨‍💻💸💸💸💸💸
    1
  5187. CORPORATE GREED best explains the continued rise in prices, enabled by consolidation and sparked by pandemic supply shocks... where prices were conveniently not reverted when the supply chain did. Yet Americans were distracted by "immigrants" and "Dem policies" as we elected the most pro-corporate candidate imaginable.
    1
  5188. ​ @remfan170 What we also have are a few faceless greedy corporations funding and distributing all of America's agriculture. It's not America's ability so much as its arrangements.
    1
  5189. Fuel prices are only part of the cost, and much of it can be technically substituted with electrification (i.e. clean local sources). The more persistent threat to our wallets comes in the temperature ranges and availability of clean water which are not simple to control short of very capital-intensive indoor farming (compelling even more reliance on corporations), as well as the unavailability of inexpensive skilled labor which is politically hazardous to address.
    1
  5190. You wouldn't want deflation, it's a doom loop of falling prices begetting falling paychecks. Slight inflation works as a buffer from this cliff during a downturn.
    1
  5191. It doesn't help Americans are so demanding of low-rise suburbia, which consumes farmland and compels the survivors to work with corporations to guarantee productivity and prices.
    1
  5192. Not to mention the time-sucking preparation and cleanup work for home-cooked meals, especially living as just singles and couples that many of us are nowadays. The only time I had to cook for myself properly was during COVID... and even then it was far faster to eat my simple meat and salad meal than to make it and clean the dishes.
    1
  5193. Korea and Philippines are likewise brand-conscious consumers of Starbucks
    1
  5194. It was a legal court order with actively linked evidence for something Apple already had the capabilities to perform, not a demand for a new feature.
    1
  5195. Unfortunately we need to wait until enough Boomer car zealots are buried before the voting patterns shift towards the younger generations who have experienced more of the developed world and aren't so romanticized by driving themselves about in rush hour traffic.
    1
  5196. Right, cost of living is going up in desirable places all over the world as rich Russians and Chinese swallow up real estate (with all its downstream economic effects) to salvage the savings of their increasingly worthless money.
    1
  5197. What we'd need first is a change of voting scheme that would allow for third parties. Winner-take-all means that results naturally settle on exactly two sides: the one victor, and the lot of losers. So until the underlying polling scheme changes (and it's Red States that are preemptively banning exactly that), your only choice is between trying to win, or completely surrendering (including voting third party or failing to vote).
    1
  5198. We're getting new leadership. Whether it's a skilled lateral redirection or an amateur jackhammering down on our foundation is up for us to vote on this November.
    1
  5199. Which is a lot milder than the bubble booms and Panic busts of the Gold Standard days. Inflation serves as the buffer that keeps a down cycle from immediately descending into a deflationary death spiral.
    1
  5200. The real plan was corporations finally having a "supply shock" excuse to raise prices and conveniently not bring them back down afterward.
    1
  5201. If the US is in a recession, China is in a full on Gold Standard Panic bust.
    1
  5202. More like how already-connected people make their specific and exclusive activities tax avoidable.
    1
  5203. I'd argue to mandate expiration dates on all deductions and avoidances. Most new ventures fail within 10 years, so a 10 year limit could be a useful timeframe to force a review of whether a deduction is actually creating new business opportunities or if it's merely entrenching the winners.
    1
  5204. They don't. The 1% contribute less share of their wealth than everyone below.
    1
  5205. They're filing taxes, but end up paying almost nothing because of the laws that reward their specific and exclusive situation -- due to their own lobbyists drafting the bills and getting them passed into the tax code.
    1
  5206. Tax breaks are arguably government spending -- refunds to individual tax entities that could have instead been spent maintaining and developing the economic environment that all businesses and residents rely on (infrastructure, education, healthcare, child/elder care assistance, etc).
    1
  5207. Singapore also feels kinda sterile, with some not so glamorous things lurking not far underneath the facade.
    1
  5208. Allowing unrestricted access to firearms is problematic, it is also must involve strict controls and a sober culture to give guns the respect they deserve. Even the most disciplined gunslinging nation of Switzerland had to recall issued ammo from its men because it kept getting used in murders and suicides. There are other ways to fight before finding an armory and after running out of ammo, things like shovels and winches and remote controls that don't immediately raise suspicion but can improvise weapons in the field. I say this as an American veteran owning multiple guns, yet who doesn't feel the need to carry anything heavier than a multitool even through some rough parts of the world overseas.
    1
  5209. If you ever drank Chinese tap water, you'll understand why we refuse to mine and refine with the same intensity.
    1
  5210. Western attractiveness is quite aggressive. Even all its “domestic problems” nowadays fails to deter its global desirability.
    1
  5211. Russia doesn’t have nearly as large a treasury or human capital to recover. But they are absolutely stacked with weapons including nuclear ones, and it’s not comforting to predict where these will end up when Russia’s revenue stream dries up.
    1
  5212. ⁠Because there are fewer people, and prisoners aren’t considered homeless.
    1
  5213. ​ @regina-vb5ik If you're talking about reverting to Republican administration, that's not necessarily a good idea. It's like driving a car -- merely going faster tends to bring harder crashes, especially as they usually do so through loosening controls instead of tightening directions.
    1
  5214. Shortsighted capitalists fool themselves into believing it's just the cost of doing business there.
    1
  5215. Funny you say that, because Koreans tend to look down upon those who drive a Hyundai instead of a BMW, and use a Samsung instead of an iPhone.
    1
  5216. ​ @regina-vb5ik Right, it's not new investment into the PRC.
    1
  5217. Other brands will try, but will they end up as valuable? The low (in fact beneath zero) inflation indicates Chinese replacements will remain second-rate knockoffs that China's customers resign themselves to rather than actually being happy patronizing.
    1
  5218. More like "Why did China end Zero COVID so suddenly with no plan or preparation?"
    1
  5219. Only in trying to get the Americans to yield, which they’re unable to force unilaterally. This is more like the Beijing needing fresh sound bites for its narrative that the ruling CPC remains “great, glorious, and correct” ☭🔊
    1
  5220. ⁠Those US bases are there because the host nations want them there. Case in point: the Philippines ejected the Americans at the end of the Cold War, and they’ve been losing their seas to China ever since.
    1
  5221. China also had its entire state violently overthrown dozens of times from within when it stopped convincing its people that their country was worth dying for.
    1
  5222. Sounds like Washington is trying to feel if Beijing is ready to alter course and meet in the middle, because otherwise the US will continue distancing its capital and knowledge from the PRC.
    1
  5223. …or a well trodden track towards a violent collapse when the link between civil society and their autocratic ruler diverges to the point that it snaps.
    1
  5224. Right, since like the Great Depression "leftist violence" in America has been pretty much always the result of escalation by police or other right-wing instigators.
    1
  5225. Wouldn't be the first time. We've survived the organized violence of the Civil War, the anarcho-communist insurrection, and the Civil Rights Movement. And each time the more humanist side made gains over the self-interested idealists.
    1
  5226.  @balung  It's not white supremacist, that's for sure. Nothing brings people together faster than identifying what you're not.
    1
  5227. The loudest "conservatives" often get found out to themselves commit the wildest debauchery.
    1
  5228. Russia took away that cheap energy, and Germany’s growth was already showing signs of struggle before that.
    1
  5229. Russia put a stop to that. The way its leadership thinks, it would have eventually happened short of Russian Forces entering Germany to “secure” the other end of the pipeline.
    1
  5230. Germany builds a lot of stuff, but physical products eat up a lot more capital (and subsequently wages) than services and the process can get more easily offshored.
    1
  5231. Beijing does not want Taiwan to decide, because they know the vote will be against the PRC especially after what happened with Hong Kong. Hence why Taipei keeps trying to attract more American attention to deter a forceful seizure by the Communist Mainlanders.
    1
  5232. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth", and the PLA hasn't taken significant casualties since they turned tail out of Vietnam.
    1
  5233. One China Policy dictates Taiwan is part of "China", but as a competing polity and not necessarily part of the PRC.
    1
  5234. Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau were given its independence... only to come back towards the US in Free Association. Hawaiian sovereignty would likely just end up the same way unless it accepts being played by the US, Japan, China, and Russia similar to how it was before America took control.
    1
  5235. The A380 is the cruise liner of the skies, which unfortunately means it struggles to have a second life doing airfreight because it was designed primarily around passenger comfort instead of usable space (plus it has a fairly weak thrust to weight ratio despite the four engines). Enjoy it while it lasts, because in a couple decades the last one will have its airworthiness decertified (Airbus allows up to about 30 years regardless of perfect maintenance, whereas Boeing would try to assist keeping it aloft indefinitely).
    1
  5236. It also looks like a non-traffic span, at least for commercial size vessels. I'd wager the ship was having steering issues and drifted out of the proper channel.
    1
  5237. Right, autocrats get more aggressive the more comfortable they get. They only respect power, which makes deterrence more productive than appeasement.
    1
  5238. Overcapacity means there’s more ability to supply for a demand that’s not there. The prices for Japanese and Korean makes reflect there’s definitely a want for their products.
    1
  5239. Iran's symbolic animal is the lion 🦁 Or at least it was until the Ayatollahs replaced it all with 🇮🇷
    1
  5240. Peace through deterrence. If Russia feels it’s inviting credible retaliations on itself, it will reconsider even firing its shot.
    1
  5241. It was a Stalinist plot to spread Communism, now that Mainland China was seized, Korea was correctly assumed to be less strategic to the Americans at the time, the Soviets had the atom bomb, and the ROK forces were completely dedicated to counterinsurgency rather than conventional warfare. But it was a green light welcomed by Kim Il-Sung who wanted a unified Korea, and Mao who needed leverage for Soviet technical assistance while paying back for all the ethnic Koreans who fought with the PLA up until then. A big reason the South nearly fell was because they had no tanks and other heavy weaponry, which the Americans had denied to Syngman Rhee as he kept openly threatening to use those in his own surprise offensive against the North to likewise reunify Korea.
    1
  5242. Wasted because China has been losing leverage, only proving its carrots more rotten and sticks more brittle than they claim.
    1
  5243.  @erj3397  Japan is already actively developing roboticized eldercare. That's a big reason behind all the androids we've seen from there.
    1
  5244. Everyone has been pursuing Na-ion batteries. CATL just happens to be the first to announce mass production.
    1
  5245. It's a faulty routine software update, not an intentional cyberattack. Although I'm sure Russia is taking notes.
    1
  5246. For now. But if detained you're just a case number to the consulate, because Chinese authorities could prevent you from contacting American officials (and they often do) and there's nothing the diplomats can do but protest and move on.
    1
  5247. If they were questioning him for so long, there's likely evidence that he was participating in some form of low key espionage.
    1
  5248. They learned not to stopover in the Western Hemisphere, because wanted officials can then get arrested. Remember Meng only got released after admitting guilt and providing evidence of their dealings with Iran that got her caught in the first place.
    1
  5249. The ones in China are intrusively obvious though. Other places make you make it more clear that you're searching for cameras when doing so.
    1
  5250. No, we don't force Chinese ventures to be controlled by a Western firm, taking their trade secrets while blocking the free flow of their funds in and out of the country along the way.
    1
  5251.  @littlerockdoc3183  Right, it wouldn't take that much effort on the part of Americans either. One errant anti-ship missile -- China has plenty of dumb supersonic ones that lock onto the first thing it sees after a set distance -- and then very few civilian ships would be willing to sail into Chinese ports without a massive upcharge.
    1
  5252. Agriculture is among the biggest targets of IP theft by the PRC. “New China” paved over too much of its arable land and poisoned the rest with pesticides and industrial runoff, and has become unable to feed itself with the crops and methods it uses nowadays.
    1
  5253. The only harmony an autocratic China recognizes is deference if not control under its own mandate. Everyone else is a barbarian to be subjugated.
    1
  5254. ​ @notjohnnyrico Right, it will end up as a demographic danger if there isn't easily accessible respectable occupations for all that youth. The situation is even more dire in Nigeria although there is a release valve in their willingness to emigrate; Indonesians seem very stuck to home and you hardly see Indos (especially non-Chinese ones) anywhere globally for how many people it has, meaning Indonesia's government will be the one having to deal with all those frustrated young citizens.
    1
  5255. ​ @JackRoopers They're still petrostates powered by imported foreign labor, and would crash as quickly as the world weans off of oil much like they did when pearls got lab-grown before that. Oman (the lowest on the list) has the best chance of making it out okay because the locals actually work, unlike the rest of the GCC.
    1
  5256. So France, with its hand stirring up half of Africa. Or the KSA, whose Wahabbist roots and continued state support evangelize medieval violence with modern weapons against "infidels".
    1
  5257. Too late. China is way overcapacity on production and going nowhere on domestic consumption, so they'll be desperately dumping their wares wherever they can for at least another generation... and as apolitical capitalist consumers we'll be buying.
    1
  5258. ​ @SimonTmte Unfortunately pure capitalism is too shortsighted to see children as an investment. Businesses already hate when its workers tend to their "unproductive" "time-sucking" dependents.
    1
  5259. Conveniently ignoring all the Chinese and Africans who come from the same direction if they can’t wait the 18+ month delay just to get in line at the local US embassy.
    1
  5260. Up through the 1960s, North Korea was the economically stronger side compared to the then largely agricultural South.
    1
  5261. China would starve without trade. If Shanghai was an indicator, the Mainland would implode in riots over unaffordable rationed tainted food if all of China had to feed themselves from their own polluted soils after scaring off civilian ship traffic from the crossfire.
    1
  5262. Nearly all classified information is temporary, at least for the US system. Generally they last only up to 25 years, the only exceptions are for WMDs and living human intelligence sources, and even those are regularly reviewed for extensions.
    1
  5263. Confidential classification generally means information shared between governments, including adversarial ones. Closed door negotiation proceedings would be one such case of Confidential information.
    1
  5264. But they're also hiding their presence, indicating more nefarious intents.
    1
  5265.  @jeffhsu7027  And it's likely intentional because it's profitable, much like Facebook's "inability" to filter for spam, misinformation, and hate. However China's fishing hordes also isolate their hired fishermen in order to steal real food from distant lands.
    1
  5266. Táiwān isn't exactly a leader of ethics on the high seas either, they just don't have the scale or organization of the Mainland
    1
  5267. Europe provides much more support for its citizens though, the West is in practice already more socialist than the "socialist" PRC. Plus the Western numbers don't use overly generous definitions of "employment" like China's 1 hour per week.
    1
  5268. We've all had that freedom, even in China they're not forcibly vaccinating people. Problem is the options the Mainland government permits are also useless; Mainlanders have been going to HK and Macau for Western ones that work.
    1
  5269. People are stubborn, too often dismissing even the original deadly strain as "just the flu". China's heavy handedness probably did eliminate uncontrolled spread at some point, but they wasted the opportunity to get people ready to fight it off themselves through effective vaccines and increased medical capacity.
    1
  5270. Except for how nuclear byproducts remain unalterably toxic for like 10000 years afterward. There’s a reason only the most competent societies are trusted with its possession ☢️
    1
  5271. Sand used as heat batteries are exactly the type that’s not getting plundered.
    1
  5272. Capacitors are better as a buffer as opposed to a storage, especially given how catastrophically they break if something inside fails.
    1
  5273. It’s 50 Hz in most of the world.
    1
  5274. Surveying and submitting Chinese names for international recognition for features on the Philippine eastern seafloor? Sounds like China's "territory" is a lot broader than the rest of the world expects.
    1
  5275. The West has better damage control. Not so salvageable are PRC-built toppling bridges, cracked dams, and leaking tunnels.
    1
  5276. Negative assets. Their builds keep physically falling apart, don't get as much actual use as expected, and are much more expensive to maintain than was promised.
    1
  5277. Western loans ask for lower interest rates and are more willing to be renegotiated. China by comparison is a predatory subprime loan shark who want their money back, even when their overall numbers are lower than the Western ones already taken. It doesn't help the BRI recipients don't get the productive human capital development they expected either, since so much of even the most menial tasks are done by imported Chinese workers.
    1
  5278. Western alternatives aren't as attractive because they often demand improvements to governance. "No-strings attached" Chinese ones still have room for the politicians to skim from.
    1
  5279. Probably because you're not in charge of keeping Chinese loan sharks off of your property.
    1
  5280. If the 10m house has a bad foundation, I'd rather have the 1m one.
    1
  5281.  @CoinShow  Kuomintang (國民黨), the ruling single party of the Republic of China up until Taiwan democratized at the end of the Cold War. Even though they were anticommunist, they were just as brutal and instituted just as severe of a police state as the CPC did on the Mainland until they yielded to democracy (see the "White Terror 白色恐怖").
    1
  5282. More smaller man-portable weapons. Problem is the Taipei government wants to continue a deteriorating strategy of totally preventing all PLA presence on the island.
    1
  5283. How it's enforced matters. The ROC constitution has no effect in the PRC and vice versa -- and the PRC constitution itself doesn't really hold weight either due to how unlimited and arbitrary CPC rule acts on the Mainland. If the People's Republic seeks to be the sole unchallenged representative of "China", its government should first be predictably bound by its own words.
    1
  5284. ​ @igoldenage Well yeah, and California has led America's economic and social trends ever since rail and telegraph connected it to the rest of the US.
    1
  5285. Because they'd also be spending it just as fast. China's capital controls means its main value globally lies in being able to liquidate into USD or EUR even more worthless currencies like Argentine Pesos -- CNY itself isn't widely trusted to hold its value and be worthy to collect.
    1
  5286.  god o Randomness  I've lived in Lagos. The main roads they're protesting on don't have a lot of fixed business property around, and everything is behind 3m high walls or are fenced-off empty fields.
    1
  5287. I think it's more the PRC against the rest of the world (especially their closest neighbors including Russia), as the CCP is realizing that all the money they can promise doesn't necessarily earn respect and deference. Without an attractive modern culture, they have to turn to more coercive methods to expand their influence.
    1
  5288.  Andy c  I'd say that's what the state government and pro-authoritarian conservatives nudge toward, but there's considerable pushback from a progressive movement who fight for "Star Trek" or at least a "Brave New World"
    1
  5289.  @DontUputThatEvilOnMe  Apparently the Soviets likewise quipped how difficult it is to make war plans against US forces because of how often we ignore our own doctrine
    1
  5290. I deliberately brought an old LG smartphone to China, which not only frustrated the performance of inevitable hacks (I can feel the unexpected sluggishness and the heat of the CPU getting maxed out from doing something that I didn't command) but also allowed me to be more observant on the streets. Main issue with this setup was it took literally 1~2 minutes to scan anything on WeChat, which was especially annoying during Zero-COVID where everywhere you entered (including your own apartment) the guards demanded to see your "Health Kit".
    1
  5291. It sounds a lot like America's social conservatives: create an environment that raises problems, and blame everyone else for the results.
    1
  5292. No issues in the Middle East either, though I still have to search sometimes due to how many other channels I'm subscribed to
    1
  5293.  @momsnearu466  Which doesn't bode well for the PRC, because in the 100 km of open water with nowhere to hide we'd be splashing their transports as fast as they get built and manned. Then they run out of food and fuel having scared off the civilian trade routes with the crossfire.
    1
  5294. Nobody would be trying to invade Mainland China. All the opposition has to do is keep fighting making the area unsafe for civilians, and soon enough the Mainland would implode in internal riots over unaffordable tainted rationed domestic food as sea trade gets scared off by the crossfire.
    1
  5295. PLA soldier: "Let us march to the glory of New China!" US soldier: "I'd rather hump 10 miles every day for a week than do this dog and pony bullshit."
    1
  5296. She still has family in the Mainland, and the PRC has become more aggressive in punishing their subjects who badmouth the Party, even while abroad and in a different language to a non-Chinese audience.
    1
  5297. It might be more accurate to call PRC citizens "subjects", because citizens can challenge their leadership.
    1
  5298. More like YouTube is taking social engineering directives from China. Content creators regularly mention how their videos with any unflattering Mainland clips get demonetized, age-restricted, or generate strikes against the channel, while more provocative ones against anyone else are still easily found and offered to feeds.
    1
  5299. What constitutes America's empire though? US presence abroad are either by invitation, or by fear of what would happen in their absence -- even having these "hostile" American forces nearby to redirect popular frustrations towards makes local politics convenient.
    1
  5300. Compared to the indefinite upward growth the Party promises its people (which is its primary argument to continue its unchallenged rule), China's economy really is failing. Hence why the focus on emotional nationalism to prop up their legitimacy before its people overwhelm the state with demands for tangible change.
    1
  5301. The same can be said for the right. How big of an overlap you see depends on how far you are from it.
    1
  5302. If you add all the fishing boat rammings and foulings, as well as the bludgeon battles in the Himalayas, China is still going kinetic against its neighbors.
    1
  5303. China is big enough to isolate internal issues as being the problem of some "lesser" or "other" place. The hard lockdown of top-tier Shanghai got people questioning how protective Zero-COVID really was, but the November outbreaks including in Fortress Beijing leading into the Urumqi fire made everyone realize that the Party's "medicine" was more damaging than the disease itself. Chinese people are extremely tolerant of abuse... as long as there was someone else they could believe performed worse to similar conditions.
    1
  5304. Gu and Yi don't show up in the quarterly report of persons who chose to expatriate, meaning they haven't actually renounced citizenship at the embassy like they're supposed to.
    1
  5305. Most likely she has permanent residency, which allows competing for your resident nation despite being a citizen elsewhere.
    1
  5306. Even without sanctions, enough civilian ship traffic will be scared off and collapse their imports of food, fuel, and foreign funds. This is why they're so desperate to cleanly seize full control of Táiwān and the SCS, because the war for those the PRC keeps promising is the final "struggle" between the Party's China now and its "rightful" place as the political-economic center of the world.
    1
  5307. If there's one thing the CPC is great at, it's channeling the attention of elites and mass media. Real democracy is dangerous for them because it constantly challenges those authorities, who practically never can remain on top over an entire lifetime through merit alone.
    1
  5308. That's sadly why hate-filled self-harming social conservatism still sticks around despite all the evidence presented by robotic academics
    1
  5309. Certainly thankful in the West that demonetization and deplatforming is the highest price we'd have to pay
    1
  5310. Indeed, if anything China owes a life-debt to the US for deterring a devastating Soviet sunrise upon the Middle Kingdom.
    1
  5311. Once they get past those riverine islands though, things get a lot more hairy. Out of thousands of warheads I'm sure a decent number of them have enough half-life for a full kaboom.
    1
  5312. If the self-righteous Trump and Putin weren't in power, we could totally see a Tom Clancy The Bear and the Dragon plotline develop.
    1
  5313. ​ @duskonanyavarld1786 Out of thousands chances are some of them still got enough half-life left for a full kaboom.
    1
  5314. It's the advertiser strategy: blast the audience with your message and eventually it'll stick just from overwhelming the competition for memory and attention.
    1
  5315. It certainly supported Al Qaida, which was the whole reason America came in the first place.
    1
  5316. It has to be bogged down by politics, if the military were free to pursue its own agenda it would just expand the list of potential "enemies" until it's everyone not in the same uniform. Our civilian police forces themselves are already paid not to trust you, let's not empower a military junta on top of that.
    1
  5317. Makes me wonder how beneficial it is trying to be solidly "non-aligned"; you get neither the domestic coherence of a pro-Communist state, nor the economic strength of the NATO side.
    1
  5318. Right, America is pretty inept at the what makes an empire an empire: colonialism. The only times we were successful at forceful takeover was either by absorbing the locals (Native Americans and Hawaii), or granting full sovereign independence with a reduced force remaining by agreement (Cuba, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Germany).
    1
  5319. It's the short codeword for leadership in innovation and progress
    1
  5320. As with other progress-retarding politics, it seems a lot of these will disappear by sunlighting and tracing the source of sponsorship preferably to the level of individual executives.
    1
  5321. Geothermal is the nuclear power we ought to focus on ♨ At least if it leaks, it's not releasing exotic persistently-destructive materials that life on Earth would not survive exposure to 🌋
    1
  5322. Now you know why all those "environmental studies" for any project get so expensive and drawn out. Everything is interconnected, and effects can escalate quickly.
    1
  5323. Except airsoft guns often look exactly like the real thing. Plus marking the target is a big part of the satisfaction of shooting paintballs.
    1
  5324. A lot of airsoft guns are designed to look exactly like the real thing. Plus it's not as satisfying since they simply bounce off without leaving a visible mark (airsoft games rely on the honor system when getting hit).
    1
  5325. Being easily terrorized is the definition of conservative. They fear change and hate learning and adapting beyond a narrow set of ideals.
    1
  5326. Bunkers aren't invincible. Without active guards, a defensible environment outside, and viable plans to break sieges, someone could eventually be able to pour fuel down a vent and turn each shelter into a cremator.
    1
  5327. I was thinking it'd be great flight hours and shooting practice especially for reservists. Certainly better than being stuck in the motor pool doing classroom training.
    1
  5328. Just search "Texas helicopter hunting" 🤠
    1
  5329. I've fired many guns in full auto. I prefer to actually hit my intended target.
    1
  5330. If you want to get into cybersecurity, get some old rackmount components off of eBay, configure a new lab network, study what each component logs, and see if you can find alternative ways of accessing it.
    1
  5331. He's trying to get the reliable vote of old folks
    1
  5332. Interesting statement, because education and public sector researchers usually aren't paid as well as an industry CEO.
    1
  5333. We can adapt to new technologies with freely available training and convenient mobility, but it's ultimately a losing game as automation already has far superior mobility (i.e. the internet) and becomes increasingly competitive on training itself (i.e. AI machine learning).
    1
  5334. I graduated in sociology, dabble in art, and got OJT for SysAdmin. This wide knowledge actually makes my cybersecurity job more intuitive than if I studied it directly, because I can approach problems and foresee potential weaknesses from multiple angles. This is why "useless" studies are still important.
    1
  5335. Walmart marked the beginning of late-stage capitalism, where a lucky big few muscled into the position of gatekeeper for the "free" market and have begun entrenching their position. This will destroy our nation if we don't extract profit proportional to the labor they've extracted from us.
    1
  5336. TopShot501st Steve Jobs trained in calligraphy, and through art he built the one of the most reputable, most profitable technology companies in the world. The government of Greece put financial experts into high positions years ago, and their economy is still a wide-open money drain. There are some things about human endeavors, like politics and the economy, that no algorithm could ever hope to solve in its limited realm of pure mathematical optimization.
    1
  5337.  @josephgriffin2388  Failure to feed its people is a common cause of governments falling throughout history.
    1
  5338. The pneumonia can arise quickly and severely. I've read that some patients were dead within a day of bringing themselves to a hospital and chatting it up with the staff.
    1
  5339. Technically it's still a new virus because the only immunity we have from it is by exposure and recovery the hard way (and we still don't know how long that lasts either).
    1
  5340. To illustrate what could happen if we don't follow doctors' orders and physically isolate + face mask + wash regularly as directed
    1
  5341. The warning is more about what could happen to us if we insist on not following the instructions of experts.
    1
  5342. There are cases of COVID-19 patients having a normal conversation and dying only hours later, she probably saw a few of those herself
    1
  5343. Ironically evangelicals purposefully overlook and forgive Trump's un-Christian-like acts, because he's catering to the greater political objectives of Christian nationalism. This is sadly the "change" these anti-progressive traditionalists want America to institute.
    1
  5344. Walls are way better at trapping people in that keeping others out.
    1
  5345. Whose democracy? The one for the Bible-thumping traditionalist minority?
    1
  5346. Right, just because a country is fully occupied doesn't mean the war is over, as the US found out in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact rumor is the Americans are sharing their experiences with Táiwān on how exactly to defeat the political objectives of an occupier, having been on the wrong side of an IED for decades now. And a cross-Straits invasion could benefit the US with not only weapon sales but also the scramble for companies to restart manufacturing closer to home after losing access to China. Americans would complain about constant cyberhacks and rising prices of gadgets (then just adapt to a less digital dependent lifestyle), but the Chinese people would go into open revolt with the reduction of free trade leading to their food prices skyrocketing and quality collapsing -- as Lenin himself put it, "Every society is three meals away from chaos."
    1
  5347. Concentrating the whole nation's chip-making brainpower is extremely important though. South Korea is the main competitor to Táiwān because they're able to get the right engineer to the right facility in a few hours before the fabs deviate too far from the desired tolerances and start costing money -- China has an issue with both its education and the different provinces competing for investments and employees, and getting the one right guy to the right place still takes too long even with all the HSR not to mention all the government travel checkpoints and authorizations. Extremely clean water is also required, which is getting harder to find in Mainland China with all the pollution from industry and urban development. If anything Japan and even Singapore would achieve the target yields faster than the PRC. In chip fabs it actually helps to be a smaller and more nimble player.
    1
  5348. As Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan showed, it is very possible in a land war for casual combatants with improvised weapons to defeat the political objectives of a much better equipped and trained occupier. Rumor is the US is training the ROC how to do exactly this, having been on the wrong side of an IED for decades now. The Party will be in for a fatal shock when their much-hyped PLA shows their utter lack of real combat experience and protective equipment against even a fraction of the Taiwanese who join their local resistance group.
    1
  5349. Plus the loss of extremely specialized human capital required to run the machinery at acceptable yields with Taiwanese engineers fleeing, dying in the conflict, or refusing to work. The reason the only real competitor to TSMC being Samsung is because of Korea's sheer concentration of brainpower within a few hours of where they need to be as fabs start deviating from their expected tolerances.
    1
  5350. 12:00 On a a similar note, "warmongering" US forces aren't asked to leave their host nations abroad exactly because of serious concerns about what happens to them afterward in the absence of the Americans.
    1
  5351. Trump is likely to change down the limits on corporate impunity. You might see a trickle down of wages and stock prices, but woe is you when a dispute inevitably arises later on.
    1
  5352. Ironically America was greatest when the rich were taxed through the nose and we bothered to go defend a deeply impoverished shithole called South Korea.
    1
  5353. Americans desire institutional disruption and change, but really one targeting the top/bottom split rather than the left/right one we're still focused on... to the benefit of the top who aim to maintain "lateral violence" and prevent "class conflict" (those are the sociological terms). There's a reason that the leftist Andrew Yang drew a surprising following among classically rightward voting blocs.
    1
  5354. More like existing fires need to be contained. Better to fight them when they're just campfires rather than a unified community-razing firestorm.
    1
  5355. Probably because it's all exported. America's refineries are ill suited to process the super clean fracked petroleum that dominates the US oil industry nowadays, and the global electrification of transportation means by the time new ones are operating they'll be forever in the financial hole.
    1
  5356. Clearly not all the American heartlanders who voted for Trump.
    1
  5357. Petroleum-based budgets allowed autocrats to easily buy their legitimacy. Places that had to opt for cleaner energy sources also need more competent and democratized societal institutions.
    1
  5358. The overall want for oil though is in trouble though, and with it the economies dependent on drilling and selling petroleum.
    1
  5359. More like merely decisiveness. East Asian cultures were so determined to industrialize that they made children a financial liability, and now their racial purity is at risk of literally dying out of existence.
    1
  5360. ​ @CandiceMMartinez Casually ignoring how the last two world wars involved America not being involved in global affairs until those regional conflicts grew out of control. Isolationism makes this bound to happen again (nuclear-tipped this time) as a world without America everywhere fractures into "multipolar" fault lines of militarized conflicts.
    1
  5361. Although Europe doesn't seem to assimilate their newcomers all that well, probably due to ghettoized communities and limited socialization from host natives outside of the workplace. This leads to defaulting towards some off-putting old country ways in their new home, like placing faith over logic and life goals of high-status shamming over gaining pride from personal handiwork.
    1
  5362. Macroeconomic dynamics means debt isn't as crushing to countries as it is to individuals. That's because countries often use their debts to fund things that are vital but usually unprofitable on their own, like infrastructure, defense, and education.
    1
  5363. ​ @icu17siberia Overly saving though affects demand and thus productivity in general. This is the deflationary death spiral dilemma China currently faces as their modern culture of splurging only on real estate and education and skimping on everything else leaves them no ready alternative for their economy now that both of those "investments" have permanently stalled in returns.
    1
  5364. ​ @FemboyLegendGD You mean China is the hub of _imitation_. Most of those patents are trash or at best minor tweaks to foreign designs. The reason XJP is so desperate to develop "new productive forces" is because their native innovation capacity is so terribly weak.
    1
  5365. ​ @jaguarmemez Change "for the better" is in the eye of the beholder. Obama detractors were quick to point that "change" is not necessarily favorable for them, hence the surge of organized (and overwhelmingly white supremacist) militia groups.
    1
  5366. Republicans spent decades sabotaging effective governance to "own the libs" and discourage social progress, now there's a populist revolt against all public institutions. Conservatives now have to sleep in the bed that they made.
    1
  5367. Conservatives leaving California is a good thing, gets suburban NIMBYs out of the way so that mass transit and denser zoning increases the housing supply to meet the still overwhelming demand. CA's main economic drivers are anti-traditional disruptive developers like tech and defense anyway, if not increasingly automated agriculture whose farmers make way too much revenue from California soil to try anywhere else.
    1
  5368. Cool. One less competitor to outbid on a house.
    1
  5369. Military receivers already do this, but I'd imagine civilian ones would need to be totally replaced with models that can handle the increased power consumption of decryption as well as somehow get updates for those digital keys when they expire or get compromised and revoked.
    1
  5370. Right, bottom-up protest raise the visibility and priority of issues, but real transformation only happens when the top has either a change of heart or a change of head.
    1
  5371. Airlines need to really up their entry-level OJT investment because the military pipeline is getting dismantled as drones take over the skies... and these skills don't exactly translate when the pilot has zero physical risk flying payloads considered acceptably disposable.
    1
  5372. I'd prefer pilots exist, but the taxpayer-subsidized military pipeline is going dry and not enough of us are willing to bear the costs of what amounts to a medical degree for the more limited field of flying an airliner. But corporate executives are still more interested in scavenging for growth in its stock price instead of ensuring growth of its staffing pool with paying into the entry-level education and benefits that make the career more attractive to join.
    1
  5373. Well maybe advocate to re-regulate airfares so at least the airlines once again compete for market share through amenities. It'll lock in the current high prices but adjusted that's about what we were paying back in the "Golden Age of Travel", so might as well get better services out of it eventually.
    1
  5374. I remember it as being within 10 years, but yeah being a new venture is brutal regardless of recession, war, or boom times. Basically the most dominant factor to business success is simply the ability to try again after failing.
    1
  5375. The wider market would rather not pay more as a whole to comfort the minority of above-average passengers. Short of owning your own airline, you'll have to deal with the seats offered on a common carrier designed for the average traveler, much like the average human has to deal with the lack of social privileges given to taller folks everywhere else.
    1
  5376. I remember a Transpacific flight back in elementary school where me and my sisters got put in the smoking section. I think us completing all "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" reminded our neighbors that there were young children around, and more surprisingly nobody stopped us 🎶✈️
    1
  5377. I noticed flying through any cloud tends to be turbulent ~ there's a reason they're shaped fluffy and not stringy.
    1
  5378. The safety briefing basically always covers the same general things, so for my specific flights I boil down my passenger preflight to three memory checks: 1) Nearest door is fore or aft? (look around) 2) Where's my life vest? (feel around) 3) Which doors are good in a ditching? (safety card)
    1
  5379. ​ @aarondavis8943 They'll manage, but the question is whether they'll end up closer Airbus/Boeing or more like Sukhoi/Ilyushin in global marketability.
    1
  5380. @ “Slow trains” are the normal old style ones, with tickets sold between “soft sleeper” on the high end to standing room only. These get packed to crush level because of how cheap the fares are, smelling like stale fruits, tobacco smoke, and raw sewage the whole way.
    1
  5381. It's an extremely high barrier to entry due to the aviation industry's priority on safety, transparency, and fuel efficiency. That said I see Embraer becoming that global third option ahead of Communist China's COMAC.
    1
  5382. ​ @asw19B100 It seems it's cargo capability that gives an airframe a long life, after needy humans are no longer profitable to load. The human-centered design of the A380 makes a properly competitive airfreighter conversion almost as difficult as trying to turn a cruise liner into a container ship.
    1
  5383. It's a worldwide problem. Some Airbus and Embrear models were discovered to also be affected.
    1
  5384.  @brianloomis9351  Cell radios regularly retransmit data in case of interference. A faulty reading from a radio altimeter might not provide a second chance.
    1
  5385. The big weakness of the A380 is that it wasn't built for pure cargo -- the flight deck was placed too low for a nose door and it's too weak to have a good MTOW for its size -- unlike the 747 which is essentially an airfreighter with seats bolted on. While it's great for people, repurposing it for a post-passenger life would be like trying to load containers onto a cruise ship~ it simply doesn't work. Then there's the costs of operating four engines when two are just as powerful and reliable nowadays.
    1
  5386. Airbus already achieved that reality with their chronic tardiness in deliveries.
    1
  5387. Leaving the flight deck presents a security risk, requiring coordination with the cabin crew, and not only to guard the front of the plane -- nowadays a flight attendant has to be inside the flight deck to prevent a suicidal pilot from locking everyone else out while he deliberately crashes the plane.
    1
  5388. Airbus is like Apple, they top-down prescribe what they think the pilots want. Meanwhile Boeing installs small handles low on the dashboard for the pilots to literally put their feet up on during cruise.
    1
  5389. Mostly because the 777X has yet to deliver, so the more A380s they can snag the longer they'll have parts to keep the superjumbo in the air until they're ultimately replaced.
    1
  5390. For most airlines and their routes yes. It's really only viable for Gulf hubs that doesn't have so much point-to-point competition.
    1
  5391. They're not so much for flights as they are for parts.
    1
  5392.  @shrimpflea  Right, it'd be like turning a cruise liner into a container ship. The math just doesn't work out.
    1
  5393. The empty space provides potential for a new terminal or support facilities, perhaps a runway realignment. If the airport doesn't secure that space, the surrounding community will, and that makes it way more difficult for the airport to take back if it needs to expand its capabilities.
    1
  5394. Airports want to maximize the amount of space reserved to it, because the surrounding community will grow right up to the fence line and that will make it much more difficult to take it back in case a new runway is wanted. The space in between can also be used for future expansions, like a new terminal or support facilities.
    1
  5395. ​US government agencies aren't nearly so proactive using that data beyond what it was originally gathered for. US for-profit corporations on the other hand...
    1
  5396. Russian airspace advantage doesn't explain why it's so much cheaper to connect through HK and Mainland China as much as desperation for the wallets of foreign passengers.
    1
  5397. Problem is the MTOW is too low for the space it offers, and I'm not sure strapping on some beefier engines alone would be enough
    1
  5398. The middle deck is more suited for cargo loads. Pallet loaders that can reach the top decks would have to still be invented, plus I don't think passengers would be all that comfortable sitting underneath all that weight
    1
  5399. The biggest issue would be holding them down, since there's not that much footprint to install brakes or locks for how high the load could be on a person-sized pallet. This would make any of the fastening devices prohibitively beefy -- it's already hard enough keeping a food cart from rolling down the aisle.
    1
  5400. Lightweight bulky cargo flights are in demand now, but that won't be the case within three years. Those air waybills won't be enough to justify the costs of conversion and maintenance
    1
  5401. The A380 is fundamentally a passenger plane and has some major flaws for handling cargo: 1) the MTOW is too low for the space it offers; 2) the flight deck is on the main deck so a door can't just be cut out of the nose like on a 747; 3) the top deck forms an integral part of the fuselage structure so the internal space is further split; and 4) specialized pallet loaders would have to be developed to get cargo up to the top deck
    1
  5402. It's still prohibitively expensive though, considering the costs of maintaining and operating the base airframe, and the demand for it would collapse in within two years. Plus its maximum take-off weight is too low for the space it would offer. The design is fundamentally flawed for the demand going forward, not only for cargo -- it's akin to asking a cruise liner to take on shipping containers -- but even for passengers who've made clear they prefer simpler point-to-point itineraries even if it means smaller, less comfortable planes.
    1
  5403. Previous hijackers have bought premium seats, not only because if raises less concern over intent and how much stuff they bring aboard, but also because it's closer to the flight deck in front.
    1
  5404. High-density 777s are great and all, but I'm more amazed at how this TTS-sounding narrator manages to pronounce many of the names correctly 💬😮
    1
  5405. Batik is an upscale version, closer to what you'd get on Garuda in both amenities and price
    1
  5406. They'd have to be humbly and wholly truthful to begin with, which is something the safety-first civil aviation industry absolutely requires (hence why so much material for plane crash documentaries despite the relative rarity of incidents) but which Communist China can't get itself to act in its struggle for genuine global attraction.
    1
  5407. Some already were with 737s and 777s, but those are already certified for cargo so it was just a matter of unbolting the seats. The A380 was not designed for freight at all (it's too weak for the space it offers), so certifying it for even net-down loads by section and max weight took some work.
    1
  5408. The Soviets did successfully reverse engineer the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile after at least one dud got stuck in a Chinese fighter. It was such a direct copy that when the USAF got their hands on some of those knockoffs (dubbed the AA-2 Atoll), they found practically every single internal part was interchangeable between the two. Though it also helped it was a simple design to begin with, needing little more than the tools commonly found in a hobbyist machinist's garage workshop.
    1
  5409. Same reason why passengers love cruise ships: it’s designed for humans. Sadly that means it won’t get a second wind ferrying airfreight once its rising costs from age means passengers become unprofitable.
    1
  5410. The wing itself is a major drag though, it was designed for a longer version that ultimately never happened. Turns out that people prefer point-to-point no matter how nice the hubs are.
    1
  5411. The problem with rear loaded freight is the cargo can be much more dense than passengers, but the laws of physics favor a center of gravity forward of the main gear and wing box. This means there's a weight limit which defeats the usefulness of all that space.
    1
  5412. Far more cost per hour for so few passengers at such short distances.
    1
  5413. Passengers generally prefer direct flights, and airlines want to reduce the costs of fuel and maintenance. The A380 has a limited range of itineraries it economically satisfies.
    1
  5414. I'm not so sure. Stealth and maneuverability only go so far against an enemy especially if numbers are on their side. Volumes of targets are where the A-10 would shine, since it's designed specifically to be durable, available, easily repairable, and numerous.
    1
  5415. Cute until they get hangry and start clawing wildly at everything between it and its next eucalyptus-driven food coma
    1
  5416. And the wealth too. Don't forget how generous government budgets were back then in an age were Boomers just got done being born.
    1
  5417. It was done with humans constantly at the controls. Now we're trying to make a computer do that same task on its own.
    1
  5418. ​ @shdowdrgonrider More like we got more conservative, terrorized by government spending and reputational risk.
    1
  5419. China is able to make a pinpoint landing on Mars on the first try, but fails to install deorbit controls on its spent boosters which is decades-old technology that every other spacefaring program has long implemented. This shows the disturbing priorities of the ruling CPC as they can't be bothered to even try to demilitarize its ICBM-derived Long March rockets.
    1
  5420. Above average is practically always a disadvantage in a high performance vehicle. Meatspace compromises on its size and functionality.
    1
  5421. I wear sunglasses instead 😎 Opening my eyes to pitch black was never natural to me.
    1
  5422. Particularly local ones dominated by legacy residents and HOAs.
    1
  5423. Those fully automated harvesters are American, it's among the biggest US exports to China. American cotton is expensive because it's top grade material used in the finest clothing, whereas Xinjiang cotton is more the disposable fast fashion kind.
    1
  5424. China focused on silk, not cotton. That's why there's no such history.
    1
  5425. Late-stage "Free Market" just means the freedom of entrenched incumbents to eradicate competition, form cartels, and fix prices.
    1
  5426. Made in China will degrade over time as Mexican manufacturers develop themselves as replacements.
    1
  5427. Most of the money is staying in Mexico though. Unlike BRI projects, Chinese companies can't convince Mexico to allow import of an army of Chinese workers who set up walled colonies with exclusive services where money flows can bypass the host nation.
    1
  5428. It's the transportation part that's an issue with Mexico, which besides safety its geography isn't very conducive to developing a lot of rail corridors or seaports. But luckily the rising costs of doing business with China is making investments with Mexico more competitive.
    1
  5429. Hypersonics are expensive though, like two F-35s worth per shot. Each one requires not only extreme materials engineering but also effective continuous external guidance to get it in the right area for a moving target like a ship -- such speeds with a relatively tiny onboard radar would otherwise guarantee a miss or a strike on a mistaken target like a similarly sized container ship.
    1
  5430. ⁠ @WillieFungo  Smartphones though are necessary to do more these days than just survive waiting for your death. iPhones have decidedly become the go-to environment for the majority of non-techbro users who don’t find joy subscribing and maintaining a dozen different services just to, say, message their mom a video they have stored in the cloud.
    1
  5431. ATL is all about efficiency, down to often feeling like the inside of a hangar. It likewise never gets praise as a place people enjoy being in.
    1
  5432. Security at the gate is so annoying though. I'd rather be done with it along with check-in and exit immigration.
    1
  5433. US airports are also much older, built in a time when the airlines themselves were the biggest influence on airport design. Human-centered airport architecture didn't really arise until after the Soviet collapse and civil aviation really took off following America's deregulation shakeup.
    1
  5434. ORD and YYZ didn't seem so bad compared to like LOS and MNL
    1
  5435. Because how much is it worth for you to clear security (if not also immigration) for the local price of that one thing?
    1
  5436. I think the space needed is a big part of the intimidation, because planes side by side require a lot more room than buses or trains and their associated platforms.
    1
  5437. Ironically the earliest airport terminals were modeled more like train stations, and wayfinding sucked.
    1
  5438. No, they'd be identified as false flag instigators. It would help illustrate how BLM/Antifa "violence" were really sparked from escalations by either the police or right-wing infiltrators.
    1
  5439. China could have been part of it, but then 1989 happened.
    1
  5440. Operating the ISS is expensive. Forcing China to build one itself also forces it to pay for itself, which will be increasingly burdensome for an unchallenged Party whose support (or at least tolerance) rides on the promise of indefinite growth but faces undeniable stagnation and eventual decline with looming effects of its own aging, debts, and pollution.
    1
  5441. Especially the tiny minority of owners who get nearly all the benefit from offshoring and technological advances. Lowered prices only satisfy a specific demand for so long, what we need is more consistent access to the improvements in general buying power.
    1
  5442. Boomers still dominate politics, especially now as retirees when work and kids no longer distract them from TV and voting. If anything things will first get worse because their voting consistency will attract more political attention to their expensive terminal benefits at the expense of everything else the government needs to budget for.
    1
  5443. Yet crypto is still stuck with largely criminals, pessimists, and speculators. Businesses instead find card fees equal enough to the labor and security costs of handling physical cash, plus the accuracy and speed of confirmed digital payments with dispute resolution avenues that blockchains are much too slow and scam-prone in comparison.
    1
  5444. That's part of how they're able to fund the more generous benefits compared to equivalent cards outside the US, along with America's higher 2~4% card transaction fees.
    1
  5445. You're generous to think the Democrats are a "political party". They're more a corporate-moderated flame war between a bunch of clashing interests due to the infinite paths for a progressive future.
    1
  5446. Few people feel better off, but that's a problem of media-driven marketing and not the underlying economics. Much like how non-whites didn't feel better off during the Civil Rights Movement when legal segregation was getting deconstructed, the news cycle filled with riots and assassinations.
    1
  5447. The opposition can only apply pressure, but the only ones who can effectively change the Republican Party are Republicans themselves. And right now they lack courage to do what's right as they cower from the extreme right.
    1
  5448. It's been happening already, with algorithms promoting "engaging" Russian disinformation and distrust, while suppressing anti-Beijing stories due to corporate interests.
    1
  5449. If anything we've been experiencing a corporate profit-price spiral. People forget there's a supply side to the equation as they keep complaining about money printing and rising wages.
    1
  5450.  @jesselee6026  Delta and Omicron are more virulent, which combined with more relaxed measures (i.e. no more hard lockdowns) means they'll spread rapidly. What's important is that they don't get so sick that they end up in the hospital. Meanwhile places dominated by the Chinese alternative have not been doing as well, with alarming numbers of fully vaccinated folks still dying of COVID. This lack of trust might help explain why China is doubling down on their Zero-COVID strategy despite being supposedly among the most vaccinated countries against the disease.
    1
  5451. Though Běijīng is freaking out at least as badly now that their biggest "partners" are realizing the depths of their intentions and methods, and are seeking to rebalance the overall gains and compromises of the trading relationship.
    1
  5452. Problem is if you wait they'll be sold by the time it's built... most times they're sold before construction even starts. That's how long the Chinese were sucked into the real estate pyramid scheme.
    1
  5453. With how often the PRC government villainizes "barbarians" (i.e. everyone and everywhere outside China) and how often Chinese "tourists" get caught participating in organized crime, it's likely not to change anytime soon. Even Venezuela has a more free passport than a Mainland China one.
    1
  5454. Wise would be to minimize presence in PRC-patrolled locales (not only the Mainland but also HK and parts of SE Asia). There's a reason Chinese themselves readily trade out their RMB into some other asset abroad by whatever means possible.
    1
  5455. The Chinese government treats its citizens like babies, so Chinese nationals have the attitudes of babies. It's literally called infantilization. Problem is the Party isn't consistent about their own standards either.
    1
  5456. Boomers have and for now continue to dominate politics that enabled the corporate raiding of our society, hoping that “trickle down” would somehow make a wave of wealth they could surf into the sunset.
    1
  5457. Now if it only had the competency to put it together, which would mean enraging its bloated public sector bureaucracies from the national to city district level.
    1
  5458. Not necessarily. Businesses in Japan often likewise fail to adapt to changing customer tastes and close shop forever too.
    1
  5459. It’s the most obscure way, not the most secure. Actually protecting the transmission requires a dedicated VPN pointing to each other, which at that point isn’t much different from a networked document scanner asking for an immediate print on a remote workstation.
    1
  5460. Document scanners and modern encryption methods dare to differ.
    1
  5461. Quality is good when the expectations are already well established and unlikely to change substantially. Pursuing a particular standard though can be a hinderance if they’re still developing.
    1
  5462. ​ @johnlay3040 Which would wipe out Mainland China. Independent estimates of the true PRC GDP-debt ratio makes the US seem prudent by comparison.
    1
  5463.  @cabasadefogo9533  Those are just centrally-controlled facades, and they only run 3~4 hours each night. Look in the windows though and at best 1/3 of them have lights on, even in residential towers that should have people in them in the evenings.
    1
  5464. ​ @jetli740 Practically anything more advanced than a home router has the ability to monitor internet traffic as the packets pass through it.
    1
  5465. A critical one too, basically handing them the capital, tech, and consumption needed to make it all work because the Party's plans just don't work. And still doesn't seeing how "dual circulation" still isn't, getting even farther to achieve instead with Western firms "derisking" away from "New China".
    1
  5466. The "Smiling Curve" states that manufacturing is actually the least value-added of the process, compared to development beforehand and marketing+sales afterward. This is how a developed economy powered by education and experimentation stays rich even after offshoring the actual making of stuff, and what the CPC is desperate to achieve but is mortally scared to allow for the required deviance from their narrow prescription of "proper" thinking.
    1
  5467. UXO is fairly straightforward to clear once found. Debts to a mafia that calls itself Communist, not so much.
    1
  5468. More like the Great Can't-Trust-Others'-Vaccination-Status Resignation
    1
  5469. If Muscat had Dubai's Metro it would be fantastic for easier access and global visibility, regardless of the character of Oman's future. Dubai ironically needs to follow Doha with its subway's size and reach if the emirate wants to remain attractive going forward.
    1
  5470. For ships this size (and thus capabilities), ballast water is a bigger ecological danger no matter what or who they're carrying.
    1
  5471. Doubt it, FL will probably turn the site into another private "Village".
    1
  5472. Or rather discomforting truth, violating the censored narratives that Beijing permits to publish and promote.
    1
  5473. It's cheap to be a flood-prone basin that few locals wanted to live in themselves. Unlike the former swamp of Washington DC though, Xiong'an can't drain excess water all that well.
    1
  5474. That would be ideal for the Party in this case, but it would also further discourage foreign direct investment that China is still very hungry for.
    1
  5475.  @marklnz  Underground is more elegant to expand, since you're not contorting the line to whatever property you were able to buy out.
    1
  5476. More like we're confident that we'll have enough PrSM and other stopgap weapons to defend Taiwan by the time Beijing decides to commit to their promised invasion.
    1
  5477. I'd think the donation of ATACMS more means that the PrSM is just about ready for serial production, not as much that we lack shelf space to stock up on the new missiles.
    1
  5478. ... with all that development polluting China's soils and making it more dependent on food imports as a result. Great job, STEM-minded/tunnel-visioned Communists.
    1
  5479. I've seen Built by China in person, the structures show signs of age alarmingly quickly.
    1
  5480. It's too close to sea level for naturally draining flood canals. Most of these Gulf cities are built on intertidal flats. A more effective (and more characteristic for these insanely rich oil states) method might be a storm drain network that dumps into massive underground cisterns farther inland, which they can draw from later for water in the summer.
    1
  5481. ​ @champ16ns12 Any cloud seeding would have been done over empty desert and inland farms, not right on top of a concrete city and not across hundreds of miles simultaneously. Plus the clouds had that sickly green tint characteristic of a natural supercell.
    1
  5482. There's a sewer system they've been building out for like the last 15 years which is nearly complete. It doesn't double as a storm drain though.
    1
  5483. Flooding is bad because there's no place to put a dam. A drainage system would have to flow inland away from the coast, probably to gigantic underground cisterns.
    1
  5484. Probably because Russian oligarchs discovered it’s way easier to exchange Rubles into Dollar-pegged Dirhams that it is into Pounds Sterling 💱
    1
  5485.  @IshmaelPrice Just shows how deeply laissez-faire libertarian the US already is despite all its complaints about “high taxes”.
    1
  5486. Funny how the places the rich concentrate on are Five Eyes states, or those that rely on visible US military presence… and the list of aspiration for ultimate residence isn’t too different for the less well-off. If the movement of people and their wallets count as votes, it’s clear that the Western “pole” is by far the only one worth pointing towards.
    1
  5487. That’s why pumped-hydro resevoirs may be key, either as new builds (any elevation change works including hilltops and old mine shafts) or by retrofitting existing dams.
    1
  5488. A star going supernova is brightest right before it goes dark forever.
    1
  5489. Plus the intentionally increasing difficulty of obtaining registration for an ICE vehicle, while EV plates are still open season.
    1
  5490. Do you know who QCs the iPhone? Hint: they're not Mainlanders.
    1
  5491. Buy in on "Boyler Plate" coin!
    1
  5492. ​ @BlindedByLogic Father Time isn't a spring chicken himself, especially being bribed by the senior care paid by retirees cashing out the massive equity off their then-affordable homes, often paid by corporations rather than young adults who actually need a place for themselves.
    1
  5493. Is it at least entertaining, like in Taiwan where they have constant fistfights only to break for a Legislative Yuan?
    1
  5494. It's also they're mostly retired, so they have all day to get politically indoctrinated by mass media and wait in line at the polls, taking advantage of pro-traditionalist politics that make voting deliberately inconvenient to working adults with their more "disruptive" progressivist ideas.
    1
  5495. Winner-take-all voting naturally results in two parties: the one victor, and the lot of all losers. Yet moderating alternatives like ranked-choice polls are exactly what's being preemptively banned by GOP-run states.
    1
  5496. Which is getting less relevant as technology and more nuanced historical studies renders that senior "wisdom" obsolete if not proven mistaken. Really their main advantage is the ability to relate to each other in person, having grown up in a more physically connected environment without the remoteness of the internet and the disruption of community-breaking globalized capitalism.
    1
  5497. I would support Reps and Senators to be eligible only three times consecutively, then be forced to seek some other office or go do something else entirely.
    1
  5498. Although there was a similar argument when we began buying ICE vehicles instead of horses -- gas stations were far away and the roads more suitable for legs rather than wheels. The EV adoption ultimately doesn't have as big of a barrier as long as chargers are rolled out at least as quickly; if you have electricity, you have the capability to top up a battery.
    1
  5499.  @somerandominternetdweller More like wood construction is cheap, especially with nobody else coming close to how much America in produces in farmed lumber 🌲🌲🌲🇺🇸
    1
  5500. "I got mine, you piss off" says those same people
    1
  5501. ​ @luthorcorp0 We already have so many jobs, companies just refuse to hire, train, and pay accordingly, because they really want skilled immigrants for whom a US address alone is valuable compensation and whom they can constantly threaten with deportation due to separation. It's not going to be durably better with Trump because so many of those new jobs are either remote-workable (able to hire an American expat or complete foreigner overseas who would accept lower pay as they enjoy even lower costs of living) or extremely automated (postsecondary education required to understand how to troubleshoot and tweak the factory stations, with only a handful needed for 24-hour operations). Meanwhile his small government platform discourages Americans from studying for vital and already-underpaid professions like teachers and physicians.
    1
  5502. The Panic of 1837 was supposedly as deep of a downturn as the Great Depression, but mostly limited to America because of Jacksonian pro-cyclical policies, and the resulting deflationary doom spiral wouldn't fully reverse until additional gold started entering the market from newly-admitted California.
    1
  5503. "If government would shut the doors and sneak away for about three weeks, we'd never miss 'em"... that aged well considering the deletrious effects of GOP-led federal shutdowns 📉
    1
  5504. The tariffs was America being protectionist against all countries during the Great Depression. The "ABCD Line" (as in encirclement by America, Britain, China, and Dutch) didn't arise until after Japan had seized Manchuria and began invading China Proper in 1937.
    1
  5505. Beijing is betting that Americans don't have as big an appetite for losses, so combat will be a deterrence in itself. I'd wager that they underestimate our resolve once they start slamming the cities of our friends, the largely air and naval battles won't be able to provide live news updates that attrite our willingness, and they overestimate how patriotic Chinese families will remain when their only sons disappear on deployment.
    1
  5506. STEM students in general have to be forced to take humanities courses, just to balance their minds and mitigate madness in their science. There's a reason STEM folks generally fail as managers and politicians: not everything humans care about can be enumerated as simple variables they can calculate.
    1
  5507. I'd bet the DOGE just turns out to be no better than a sponsor-validating "think tank" that's just directly funded by taxpayers. Elon is just being set up as a scapegoat when one of those DOGE ideas crashes well short of the moon.
    1
  5508. Capitalism in general favors and rewards sociopaths. That's why without the constraints of regulation, the free market M&A's itself into monopoly and charges through the nose the rest of us for the privilege of access to their economy.
    1
  5509. I'd bet think tank. They're the scapegoats when an "analysis" (always conveniently aligned with those of their sponsor) doesn't go as planned. Elon is just getting set up to be a mulligan for the bad ideas of Trump and his MAGA Republicans.
    1
  5510. Dubai makes even Hollywood seem super chill, the lack of petty crime in public areas makes the people (migrants included) even more selfishly obnoxious. South Korea and Shanghai aren't too far behind in their form over function mentality -- apparently a bit of personal danger keeps people focused on what's real.
    1
  5511. If the answer was that simple, he wouldn't waste a half hour plus production time explaining it.
    1
  5512. Look a bit harder at Google Earth and check out how not-flat and fire-prone the terrain is where it's connected to the places people actually want to move to. Agglomeration Effect is a real thing especially if you enjoy consistent compensation.
    1
  5513. There's also the fact that the Sierra Mountains trap smog, which compelled California to use a more detergent-heavy blend unique to the state. If you thought LA Smog is bad now, you should have seen the air quality from before even when less people were on the roads.
    1
  5514. It already is an agricultural powerhouse. Thing is we're selling off the limited water reserves that California farmers can realistically access as exports to multinational corporations and out-of-state markets, one which the scarcity-driven prices and historically unlimited usage rights only encourages more of.
    1
  5515. Democrats inheriting the interests of a more conservative and wasteful history.
    1
  5516. Yeah at least immigrants work. The homeless Americans that other states quietly bus in not so much.
    1
  5517. Inheriting over a century of entrenched conservative interests that they're still trying to negotiate around, especially after Reagan's governorship.
    1
  5518. We still need meat though. It's not hard to find the health issues associated with veganism, and cutting out animal products would compel us to evolve into the mindless inefficiently-digesting cows we're "saving". Even durable vegetarian diets still rely a lot on dairy and often eggs too.
    1
  5519. More like not enough employees processing the backlog of applications, along with a shortage of construction workers who have skills beyond balloon-frame bungalows. Regulations exist because they're written in blood.
    1
  5520. Yeah not so much "freeloading" as having some supplement, where you still need to hustle to make up for the rest of your living expenses.
    1
  5521. Particularly the older established bungalow-owning retirees who dominate local politics (and thus land use policies), benefitting themselves at the cost of everyone else who's dying to move in.
    1
  5522. HOA doesn't pay for schools and emergency services. Also the biggest source of homeowner stress is often the HOA.
    1
  5523. That's the tradeoff for not building up, instead opting to sprawl out 1-2 storey wooden McMansions into wildfire territory. But doing what the rest of the world figured out would ruin the "character" of your neighborhood at the cost of the masses of potential California taxpayers who are still dying to move in.
    1
  5524. Sadly that also discourages people from moving out to better opportunities, including living in the same area in a denser environment per popular demand. A lot of California's housing crisis is explained by older established bungalow owners refusing to move on from the Cold War.
    1
  5525. Democrat renters dominated by conservative homeowners who chose to be born some decades earlier and could buy when houses were still affordable, who spend now spend all their free time defending their real estate-based wealth and "character of the neighborhood" in city councils.
    1
  5526. Lack of housing limited by a policy preference for detached single-family homes, already occupied by long-lived owners with a well-established occupation/pension who don't want to let go of their low Prop 13 property tax rates.
    1
  5527. The only real "private" would be fully family-run, every other organization has various degrees of Party oversight into their operations. That's kind of the point of Communism.
    1
  5528. Or attempt to anyway. Every previous great dynasty fell basically because of internal political scheming and lack of more open criticizing of leadership within the court, leaving its empire vulnerable to domestic rebellions and military setbacks. Ironically the "stability" sought by its autocracies over the ages just makes the country more brittle.
    1
  5529.  @janielaurel  Has it been positively identified as Chinese and not from a Indonesian djong? Remember that the Javanese invented many of the sailing technologies and methods that China later adopted, their ships may have reached Ancient Greece, and were spotted in the Atlantic by the Portugese, and got as far south as Tasmania. The Chinese feared how a single djong held enough men to conquer a port city that they ordered them to anchor offshore far from the actual harbor during port calls. I wouldn't be surprised if a djong made use of the Pacific currents to get to the West Coast only to not figure out in time the more southerly return path.
    1
  5530. I'd bet it's from what is now Indonesia 🇲🇨 Their djong ships were equally impressive to the Chinese treasure ship (to the point that China didn't allow them too close to their harbors, since even one held enough men to conquer a port city), and they may have reached as far as West Africa and South America 🧭 Early Portuguese sailors relied on Javanese maps and navigators once they rounded Africa 🗺
    1
  5531.  @9to9archives  The CPC is trying to change that, they have an attitude pursuing the loyalty of Chinese people worldwide. Look up the "United Front Work Department" ☭
    1
  5532. It's a global issue, which up until recently the US was the biggest contributor towards. Respect for us going forward hinges on how much we at least try to support solutions to the problems we're imposing on others.
    1
  5533. You're way optimistic that space-hogging Americans will continue having families too large for an apartment, and discounting how migrants and immigrants often place a higher priority on time convenience over physical distance.
    1
  5534.  @NickCombs  Having the fraction of private property disputes to pay off helps a lot.
    1
  5535. Also the 15~25 year lag from the termination of leaded gasoline that those kids had been breathing.
    1
  5536. It'd better be, because the Boomer politicians and voting blocks currently holding back the wanted progress should be nearly gone by then.
    1
  5537. ​ @invinciblemode Singapore is an extremely new society, it doesn't have old interests from a pre-atomic era to cater to.
    1
  5538. Back then the government granted the rail companies a huge right of way (something like 50 miles wide, and taken without compensation from the local Native Americans) which they could sell and develop to fund construction and operation of the line itself. That doesn't exist anymore.
    1
  5539.  @brkbtjunkie It was way worse before, there was legal pervasive racism especially against Asians. Being still preferable to (usually) go into deep debt for a transpacific ticket shows how bad things had become across the ocean.
    1
  5540. Firing the boreholes would only affect a thin layer of the clay, likely making it brittle and vulnerable to cracking and water intrusion from the immense pressures down there. Ceramic sealants are likewise subject to degradation and eventual perforation by the water tables.
    1
  5541. It makes sense considering North America is basically the world’s supplier of lumber 🌲🌲🌲
    1
  5542. Dams are damaging and expensive to properly build and upkeep. What we'd need are underground cisterns. But even then that doesn't solve the lack of water in general. We'd need like 5 more years of above-average rain -- plus active injection back into the aquifers -- to return CA to the water levels its current Republican-biased agriculture-dominated water rights scheme was designed to consume.
    1
  5543. ​ @hikarikaguraenjoyer9918 Practically all profitable passenger rail uses the real estate scheme, even back to the days when railroad tycoons became tycoons by exploiting the sometimes miles-wide right of way granted to them by the US Government. Today the most profitable passenger rail network is the Hong Kong MTR, who also extract rent from real estate they own near their stations to subsidize train operations.
    1
  5544. I'd imagine actually dangerous countries require more concrete on the facilities and more mobile convoys, including splitting off assistants and press on separate advance movements instead of rolling as one massive unwieldy block.
    1
  5545. Wouldn't be the first, I know the Beijing embassy has fish ponds dug around its buildings 🐠
    1
  5546. The power of social media comes from network effect though. If others aren't in that one place, you're discouraged from further patronizing it. But it's that size of the network that attracts scrutiny and mandated controls.
    1
  5547. I doubt it. That's just introducing unexploded ordnance everywhere.
    1
  5548. I do systems administration and network maintenance. All that equipment is expensive, and there's considerable payments involved to access someone else's network (i.e an ISP). The internet is way way more than a series of single-WAN consumer routers.
    1
  5549. Good luck implementing that though short of training nearly every person as a full-on network engineer who installs a ton of optical fiber/powerful radios and commercial grade switching gear.
    1
  5550. As if it was better during the gold standard, where death-spiral deflationary busts were only resolved by finding more gold through conquest and colonization?
    1
  5551. Corporate price controls explain the inflation that sabotaged progressive politics, having used COVID supply difficulties to more than make up for the money they didn't get in the much flatter inflation environment since Obama got us slowly righted from the Recession.
    1
  5552. America's tax burden is mid for all the services provided. However much of it is spent on consumptive market distortions like terminal-life senior citizen subsidies, arcane tax breaks only the rich can access, and corporate welfare in general.
    1
  5553. Still not a comfortable thought considering everyone younger won't afford their own place ever without a windfall of housing supply.
    1
  5554. Right, liberals have a marketing problem, but conservatives have a morality problem.
    1
  5555. Although the players run the system, most notably older generations who have the wealth and free time to argue for their interests at the price of the kids in politics and public budgets. Expect things to get even more uneven as Boomers surge into retirement with years still ahead dedicated to getting indoctrinated by sophisticated pro-corporate social media messaging, lobbying their local governments, and reliably voting for themselves.
    1
  5556. Restrictive zoning making housing family-sized-or-nothing seriously restricts upward mobility. You'd be surprised how little space and stuff you actually need day to day. Source: I spent a winter in Seoul in one of those 50 ft² "one-room-tel". Per day they go for like $20, with discounts on longer leases.
    1
  5557. Greed isn't the problem of wanting more, it's wanting more _at the expense of others_. C-Suites and the whale shareholder oligarchy have clearly been gaining wealth off the backs of the workers on the shop floor, as seen by the divergence of productivity and wages ever since transistor-based systems became a business asset.
    1
  5558. Elite signaling and ingroup trust are phenomena with real effects though. If you're not sufficiently with it, you could find yourself ignored or shunned out of new opportunities.
    1
  5559. Initially blaming COVID supply disruptions, followed by Biden basically continuing the autarkic Trump trade war. Now that the previous guy is back, expect disappointment as protectionism prices ultimately outpace the pulse of gains from corporate deregulation.
    1
  5560. If you think our current cars are scary, wait until Chinese brands hit our roads. Designed in China tech is already notorious for being more intrusive, getting more political, and not having as robust data protection practices (i.e. easier to hack and leak).
    1
  5561. Too bad the last time the Nexus had both a separable battery and a MicroSD reader was the Nexus One
    1
  5562. I just want a phone that: 1) Has a MicroSD slot; 2) Has a separable battery, and a manufacturer who makes a double or triple size replacement with a corresponding case; 3) Runs the latest version of AOSP/LineageOS; and 4) Has two SIM slots. I'm currently on a Samsung Galaxy S5 Duos. What should I look at next when the common apps bloat up too far?
    1
  5563. It reminds me of the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) strategy, which quickly breaks down as soon as you have a kid 👶🔥💸
    1
  5564. I care about Cyber Monday this particular year because one of the vendors I bought from had its Rakuten cash back rate jump from 10% on Black Friday to 15% today. Not related to tech either, they sell shoes.
    1
  5565.  @alexlindekugel8727 The democratization of nuclear power also increases the chances of neglect, abuse, and eventually weaponization. Only the most well-governed countries are trusted to operate nuclear power by an even smaller number of design originators because of the expanding proliferation risks.
    1
  5566. It gets developed, but doesn't necessarily get implemented in a large nation, especially if previous developments make the new costs prohibitive compared to what's there now.
    1
  5567. Hardly so, the true libertarian utopia would be sub-Saharan Africa. Source: Me. I've lived in both.
    1
  5568.  @vnc81  Right, Singaporeans can get the outside perspective and yet they still elect the government and policies they have now. In China the government lives in constant fear of alternative views getting realized among its people, and they spend a lot of resources ensuring that even VPNs don't work all the time.
    1
  5569.  @KingScorpio84  China intentionally tries to sign loans in geopolitically strategic places in order to seize the "collateral" when they default. That's what happened with Sri Lanka and the 99 year lease they "agreed" to.
    1
  5570. Most of those "bases" are either empty fields that once held a military exercise, or the Defense Attaché office in the local embassy. The ones with resident armed servicemembers are more like a few dozen, and in countries that welcome our presence -- especially since the alternative is likely worse considering the near fall of Iraq to ISIS and the Philippine loss of control of local seas to China following an American drawdown in those places.
    1
  5571. The concern is what China will do with those builds once the host nation fails to pay up.
    1
  5572. And the biggest advocates are conservative rural farmers.
    1
  5573. The video mentioned that the runoff from the rivers is crucial in preventing the salting of the earth on those farms.
    1
  5574. More like conservative pushback from low-density homeowners and big agriculture who refuse to be more efficient with their own consumption.
    1
  5575. Where do we put all that super-saline brine though. California's cold oceans are also rich fishing grounds, and such drastic changes in salinity destroys the vibrant ecosystem.
    1
  5576. Yeah it helps preserve the fish stock and prevents the salting of the earth on estuary farms from ocean ingress.
    1
  5577. As a passenger liner it's a masterpiece and a favorite of frequent fliers. But Airbus failed to account for the human ability to tolerate habitation in what is basically retrofitted storage space, especially if it saves money in what is almost always a less than 24-hour experience. Having been built around passengers, it lacks the physical flexibility and the thrust-to-weight ratio needed to make a cargo version competitive -- it'd be like asking a cruise ship to take on shipping containers.
    1
  5578. Retiree NIMBYs drive the inflation of house prices in California too.
    1
  5579. 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
  5580. 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
  5581. Potential for incidents only rise with propagation. There's a reason they're so controlled.
    1
  5582. 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
  5583. None of the exotic waste products too, any effects would be no worse than routine seismic activity.
    1
  5584. 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
  5585. 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
  5586. Winner-take-all means results naturally converge on two sides: the one victor, and the collection of all losers.
    1
  5587. Set the age limit at the current average life expectancy.
    1
  5588. 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
  5589.  @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
  5590. The lack of competition led to the lack of enthusiasm for the Democrat platform.
    1
  5591. ​ @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
  5592. 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
  5593. 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
  5594. 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
  5595. 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
  5596. 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
  5597. Yet the worst crash in kids is happening in highly communal and self-censoring East Asia.
    1
  5598. 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
  5599. 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
  5600. 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
  5601. 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
  5602. Until you realize nobody wants to spend because they expect lower prices and revenues ahead. Deflation isn't necessarily correction.
    1
  5603. Which is useless when the foreseen battlespace is in the air and sea, where technology and technical expertise is the deciding factor.
    1
  5604. 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
  5605. 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
  5606. If the CPC continues on their quest for absolute control, likely how every other Chinese autocratic dynasty ended -- imploding violently.
    1
  5607. If not competing with the Philippines and their South Asia neighbors for exporting workers overseas.
    1
  5608. 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
  5609. 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
  5610. China has always been an autocracy, which means developments happen quickly. Whether good or bad.
    1
  5611. 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
  5612. 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
  5613. 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
  5614. 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
  5615. 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
  5616. Center of Mexico is just as isolated from the ocean, and doesn't have as many places for viable port cities.
    1
  5617. 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
  5618. 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
  5619. 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
  5620. 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
  5621. A: A country where millions more citizens are mis-skilled, medically disabled, and increasingly retired.
    1
  5622. 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
  5623. 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
  5624. 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
  5625. ​ @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
  5626. ​ @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
  5627. Legal isn't bad... if it's reasonably available.
    1
  5628. ​ @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
  5629. ​ @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
  5630. The government would then be blamed for the accelerating inflation and increasing reliance on imports in a migrant-free American economy.
    1
  5631. But then it runs into the conundrum of government spending on hiring expensive federal employees and overpriced contractors to effectively staff said wall.
    1
  5632. 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
  5633. 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
  5634. 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
  5635. 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
  5636. ​ @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
  5637. 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
  5638. I'm surprised at the lack of comments about how bad British food (as cuisine) already is 🍖🤢
    1
  5639. 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
  5640. 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
  5641. Pronouncing it correctly also helps with the auto-closed captioning some of us use.
    1
  5642. 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
  5643. Because it wasn’t enough to be the entire world’s second most favorite team during the 2018 World Cup 🇳🇬⚽️
    1
  5644. 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
  5645. The inhumane shortsightedness of straight "apolitical" capitalism is why business executives should not be leading governments or driving public policy.
    1
  5646. 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
  5647. ​ @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
  5648. 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
  5649. 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
  5650. 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
  5651. 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
  5652. 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
  5653. 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
  5654. 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
  5655. That just means you waive your rights and unconditionally surrender to the results.
    1
  5656. 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
  5657. But those don’t happen at noticable scales constantly like our burned fuel does.
    1
  5658. The filters add even more costs to an already uncompetitive coal.
    1
  5659. 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
  5660. CO2 accelerates the amount of water vapor trapped in the air. The effects stack on each other.
    1
  5661. The deamplification of pro-libertarian Republicans, who still believe that private interests are gracious enough to invest in unprofitable yet vital public goods.
    1
  5662. 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
  5663. 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
  5664. 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
  5665. 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
  5666. Just another reason to quit smoking 🚭
    1
  5667. 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
  5668. 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
  5669. 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
  5670. 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
  5671. 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
  5672. 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
  5673. 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
  5674. 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
  5675. 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
  5676. Continuously staffing, maintaining, and securing it from Russia's adversaries costs how much though?
    1
  5677.  @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
  5678. 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
  5679. ​ @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
  5680. 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
  5681. 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
  5682. The way they're built though, they'd be lucky to still be a salable property in 70 years.
    1
  5683. Just left China earlier this year. Not missing the diarrhea-colored tap water even within the 4th Ring of Běijīng.
    1
  5684. Mainlander Chinese are a low-trust society just with disposable funds. Unfortunately money doesn't buy conscientiousness.
    1
  5685. The way the Chinese state controls its money, there's not really a difference there.
    1
  5686. 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
  5687. 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
  5688. That's to collapse the whole thing. Disabling it might just need a truck bomb or a well-aimed bunker-buster.
    1
  5689. 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
  5690. 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
  5691. 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
  5692. Chinese factories are getting less orders too, and foreign brands especially are offshoring operations out of the PRC.
    1
  5693. His timeline like everyone else's often isn't precise, but the trends are ultimately accurate.
    1
  5694. 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
  5695. 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
  5696. 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
  5697. Do they have a weird greasy feel to them too?
    1
  5698. ​ @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
  5699. 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
  5700. 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
  5701. 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
  5702. They could bring out its people, but the heavy gear would have to stay behind. That would actually be the ideal scenario.
    1
  5703. 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
  5704. 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
  5705. 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
  5706. 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
  5707. 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
  5708. 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
  5709.  @jakemontone807  Ask East Germany. Oh wait.
    1
  5710. Winner-take-all voting means the results naturally converge on two sides -- the one victor, and the collection of all losers.
    1
  5711. 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
  5712. 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
  5713. 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
  5714. 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
  5715. 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
  5716. Or move to the West Coast, as many people complain many other states' homeless are getting relocated to.
    1
  5717. ​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
  5718. ​ @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
  5719. ​ @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
  5720. 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
  5721. 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
  5722. Efficiency and resilience are competing interests.
    1
  5723. 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
  5724. 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
  5725. 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
  5726. They'd be technical intelligence agents, not human ones. Professional spooks could be a Sam Fisher instead of a James Bond.
    1
  5727. 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
  5728. Petrostates benefit from higher oil prices, so it is a possibility.
    1
  5729. 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
  5730. Although newer isn't always better, like plastic components in machinery or service subscriptions instead of full ownership.
    1
  5731. 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
  5732. Not more than "normal", since Taipei doesn't want to cause popular fatigue with constant updates on median line incursions. It's similar to the deliberate ignorance in Seoul despite the now-nuclear threat across the DMZ. For outsiders though the PLA's moves aren't so familiar especially after decades of "peaceful rise".
    1
  5733. The CPC is too scared of the results, especially when the opposition starts digging into its history and publicly calls out the Party for its hypocrisies and abuses which the Chinese people are generally aware of but were unable to do anything about.
    1
  5734. Chip fabs are the most sensitive tools humans have ever created, with even something like minor seismic activity causing an urgent call to a hyperspecialized engineer sometimes in another city to rush in and adjust a specific machine back into its atom-sized tolerances or come up with an equivalent workaround before yields turn uneconomical and the entire facility's 24/7 production schedule gets screwed up (this is why only similarly-small South Korea is Taiwan's main competitor). Simple neglect and the disappearance of the staff is enough to sabotage much of the facility, and that's before battle damage of any sort.
    1
  5735. More like the US doesn't want Chinese nuclear-tipped boomer submarines to be able to slip into the wider Pacific at will undetected, especially now that the PRC is multiplying its nuclear arsenal to possibly USSR levels. Even a Chinese "washing machine" (PLAN subs have been described as comically loud) can go silent when it's under the sound-reflecting thermocline of the deep sea.
    1
  5736.  @PlaYer-sn5or  The status quo ended when Beijing violated HK's judicial autonomy in the name of wide and vague "national security" concerns, which served to prove "One Country Two Systems" is ultimately a farce with the CPC in charge.
    1
  5737. It's been done before, and those two enemies even clearly had offensive momentum, superior equipment, and years of combat experience at the time. Today the US enjoys a global logistics network and neighboring countries to those "superpowers" that appreciate America's counterbalancing presence.
    1
  5738. Taiwan is recognized as integral to "China", but not recognized as a sovereign part of the People's Republic. That's the Policy that differs from the Beijing's _Principle_, and most nations outside of Africa, Eastern Europe, and the -stans use the Policy to justify "unofficial" relations with Taipei.
    1
  5739. Right, the PLA is tasked to try intimidating the Americans out of the area, whom they also know they can't make even minor mistakes against either. It's a very delicate balance to not look like a "failure" back home yet not also create an incident that could lead to escalation.
    1
  5740. It's Taiwan that's diverging itself from "China", especially after seeing what the CPC did with HK under "One Country Two Systems" and having zero assurances the same won't happen to their hard-fought democracy (remember Taipei was also a one-party dictatorship until about 30 years ago).
    1
  5741. More like Chinese are owners of paper saying they "own" a home, ignoring its actual habitability or even existence.
    1
  5742. Unless they have diplomatic immunity though (meaning the worst punishment they can get is deportation), they're fully subject to the joke of the Mainland justice system. If anything a foreigner might be more aggressively targeted for such scams.
    1
  5743. Petty crime is not what the cameras are for, and their operators won't release footage because of the "national security" concerns that they're actually installed for. That's why Chinese would rather whip out their phone and film their own perspective, although considering the joke of the Mainland justice system they're usually better off uploading it to a blog post and gathering popular engagement that really would get the attention of authorities.
    1
  5744. Unfortunately China has a distorted justice system that focuses on all the wrong aspects of a case, still fumbling around in their attempts to practice "law".
    1
  5745. The US has Good Samaritan laws that protect those who try to help in good faith, even if their actions end up causing more damage. There's also a more robust system of courts and arbitration in case the "victim" wants to dispute. These don't exist in Mainland China.
    1
  5746. The KMT were not much better governors of China at the time the CCP ejected them from the Mainland, but at least they had the foresight to seize any cultural artifact they could carry to Taiwan after seeing what the Soviets did to Russia.
    1
  5747. The issue is getting Mainlanders to realize that when foreigners rail against "China", we mean the PRC in particular and not Chinese people worldwide. The CCP has done a tremendous job conflating the two, especially to its own subjects including the ones who quietly hate the CCP.
    1
  5748. The biggest hurdle is getting people to realize the difference between the PRC and "China" in general. Mainlanders in particular are ignorant of the dichotomy, taught to emotionally react against any challenge of "China" (the PRC) or refusing to identify as Chinese (a PRC subject) as an affront to the entirety of Chinese people worldwide.
    1
  5749. All the more dramatic remote hacking incidents I've heard while in China involved iPhones. My 5-year old Android might overheat from unexplained CPU usage until I pulled the battery and occasionally lose GPS capability for a few days, but at least my privacy settings remained intact.
    1
  5750.  @RexAlmen  The Republican sounds calm because they're the ones with the megaphone of corporate-sponsored mass media, backed by domination-seeking coercive forces (police, military, militias) taking advantage of humanity-wide negativity bias, which stifles wider questioning of past narratives and current arrangements.
    1
  5751. It's not always about meeting IRL, there's also the financial benefits of being a top streamer, and the feeling of being the "big brother" as a donating viewer. Livestreams have a very low barrier to entry into these communities compared to actually coordinating/advertising, traveling, and meeting somewhere in person.
    1
  5752. Unfortunately those maimed professional beggar kids are practically a lost cause. Only a full-on orphanage or similar organization that can provide 24-hour housing and support might be able to salvage what's left of their lives. As an individual you should never offer money. Ignore and avoid them because they're often not alone. If empathy compels you, the best you can do is amuse them and make them smile -- in effect become street talent competition yourself and get them to enjoy it.
    1
  5753. Problem is it won't be just the PLA fighting, but also its paramilitary, corporations, and even criminal organizations that the West wouldn't employ. The only way these totalitarians can win is through total war against their more measured opponent.
    1
  5754. "Designed by China" should be its own warning label ⚠️
    1
  5755. It's not true that "New China" didn't invent anything -- the PRC's most prolific invention is... the vape pen 🚬
    1
  5756. Hearing is the last sense you retain before going fully unconscious, so it's possible that a Near-Death Experience could be visualizing what you're hearing as it's happening
    1
  5757. STEM folks are an ideal target, because they're often so tunnel-visioned on technicalities that they ignore considerations about the wider effects on what humans actually care about. It's this narrow mindset that too often makes them horrible managers and inept at politics. You hear them grudgingly take those arts and humanities electives "required" for their degrees, but they're there for a reason: most people want to see beauty and hear stories, we're not nearly as impressed with you tweaking numbers. We also want to know why we should care about your project, and who it will actually empower.
    1
  5758. It's best to just get new devices. Send what you need into cloud storage which blocks any USB-based hacks before re-downloading on completely separate equipment. There's a reason corporations that go into China keep a stock of "China only" burner gadgets with minimal software.
    1
  5759. They desperately want the technology, and they spent the last three years in Zero-COVID until they could replicate it. Obviously they still failed.
    1
  5760. Considering how strong the dollar is, we still have plenty of economy left. More likely the inflation is supply-side with China shut down and Eastern Europe at war.
    1
  5761. Billions of people gotten those injections, and we would have long known about any side effects by now (they practically all pop up within the first three months). Considering SE Asia is a place that strongly values considerate conscientiousness, you're probably not the type they welcome every moment your wallet is closed... perhaps look into sub-Saharan Africa (which I've also lived in) where they're more impressed by confident provocative strongman attitudes.
    1
  5762. It was up to 21 days, and the pre-boarding PCR test was always there... on top of a second pre-boarding one, one upon landing, and a couple more during quarantine. I experienced the full gauntlet firsthand.
    1
  5763. I'm really wondering what criteria (and side deals) the Chinese embassies and consulates demanded to approve a certain lab. Luckily the place I went to took credit cards.
    1
  5764. Local governments are often the ones overreacting to some vague directive from above, and they're often not in places where people with constant VPN access are prevalent. That's why you don't usually hear about the more outrageous acts that the Chinese government is trending to ultimately commit.
    1
  5765. Something about anything sexual being especially sensitive, since violence can be tempered but carnal desires are as mentally rooted as eating and breathing.
    1
  5766. South Africa is a special case because of how brazen and aggressively they commit crimes. It's the least safe place I've been that wasn't a literal war zone. I seriously felt safer walking about the streets of Lagos and Accra than in Cape Town.
    1
  5767. The bottom is where we're headed as long as we keep getting distracted by the left-vs-right "lateral violence", rather than the top-vs-bottom "class conflict" that corporations and elites want to prevent us from realizing as they geyser up all the gains to Elysium while we're told to be glad about whatever "trickles down". There's a reason the leftist but populist Andrew Yang gathered a surprising following among the right-wing during his run for President.
    1
  5768. ​ @jamespn Google and other data brokers know your data is worth something and make a killing off aggregating our info. Giving China direct access every time we're in sight of their vehicle further gives them material for their political shaping projects.
    1
  5769. Phones are known to be mobile spies though (especially to its owner). It would have to be something benign like a Haidilao 🫕
    1
  5770. "Criminal" is a wide and vague definition in the PRC though. Pretty much anything can be construed as "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" if the police don't like you for whatever reason.
    1
  5771. It's normal for China as a whole, but world-ending for the dynastic autocrat in power at the time 🪓
    1
  5772.  @brainwashington1332  And China is quickly closing the gap, which when scaled up to their triple-sized population makes this extremely problematic. America by contrast is steadily decreasing its per capita consumption even while the population slowly rises.
    1
  5773. The ROC (Táiwān) also claims itself as the successor to Qing China, but unlike the PRC actually dates back to the fall of the Empire. This split wasn't fundamentally caused by an external occupier setting up a government in its image, but by an internal struggle for power that's quite normal throughout Chinese history. Arguably "China" has more parallels with the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires after the fall of the original Rome, especially if you include all their claims over all of Mongolia and bits of nearly all its neighbors. Plus China spent a lot of its own time as separated and competing concurrent dynasties, so it's also outright conquest as much as "reunification".
    1
  5774. ​ @djinn666 The ocean is huge, but deepwater ports are much more limited. Plus any anti-ship threat by anyone would basically cancel insurance coverage and discourage any ship from sailing in.
    1
  5775. ​​​@wsxgfhccr Vertical and indoor farms would be an answer... if SG can guarantee the energy inputs to operate them. A single layer of sunlight is free, but practically all the sunlit parts of S'pore are already dedicated to handling fresh- and floodwater.
    1
  5776. Ironically their best sushi rice is imported from California 🌉🍣
    1
  5777. Vertical farming requires constant energy input, which Japan and Taiwan are likewise vulnerable to. Though it would instantly improve yields since pests and weeds can be well controlled.
    1
  5778. ​ @mintcake2668 Maybe to just survive, but not to fight a war on which is a lot more calorie intensive. Plus their crops are practically always tainted with heavy metals and questionable chemicals which further reduces performance -- the water pollution extends even deep into their underground aquifers. When I lived there the food and bottled water (Nongfu Spring being among the worst) often had a strange metallic tinge.
    1
  5779. You should seriously consider getting Simplified Chinese subtitles for this series 🈸 These are looming disasters that the Chinese people are trusting an unchallenged Party dominated by narrow-minded engineers to pave the path of their country towards 🀄️
    1
  5780. China would have benefitted way more from slow heavyweight rail capable of constant cargo train traffic. Most HSR lines are built too weak for this, and it won't look good to the Party to tear down and rebuild a proper mixed-speed quad-track considering how much debt they're already in. So they'll be bleeding money from all the freight fapiaos they're not getting, since passengers and mail don't pay nearly enough to offset the costs.
    1
  5781. Most domestic traffic goes towards cheaper buses and sleeper trains, as well as increasingly the faster planes and self-driving the toll highways. This is the persistent competition that HSR is losing to.
    1
  5782. It does cost more, both on energy usage and wear on the equipment. It's an exponential rise. Also as the video mentioned China's soils are not that great to bear loads predictably, which is why they use so many viaducts where they can limit the number of piles to drive and control the quality of the concrete for the spans in between.
    1
  5783. Business travel is not likely to be as relevant anymore with so much development in telework, and China's HSR lines are built too weak to handle more profitable cargo trains.
    1
  5784. But it still has to be paid back, which aren't being reflected in the fapiaos collected from HSR movements of people and mail. China would have benefitted more by expanding slow heavyweight rail and freeways (not marginally-built toll roads that restrict trucks and can't handle the constant loading) that makes shipping cheap and easy, but instead opted to try marketing flashy passenger trains as some sign of graduation to the economic big leagues. Ironically America's century-old rail system is still going strong because of how much stuff it's called on to move. Defense is arguably preventative, last time the US tried to demobilize it got sucker-punched by 9/11. Even worse would be ignoring conflicts overseas as they boil over and drag America into a more destructive total war, as had happened in both WWI and II.
    1
  5785. How would it help though? What China needs more is a cheaper way to move goods (i.e. slow freight-capable heavyweight rail). Having no alternative to cross-province trucks, and then placing so many movement limitations and traffic fines on those trucks, is the opposite of what needs to happen.
    1
  5786. Have statistics on moving trucks coming in? The demand for housing still far outstrips supply, and those moving in tend to be the richer types who can afford a professional consignment.
    1
  5787. If they can carry freight, which not all HSR lines are capable of physically handling. Most people are going to fly instead.
    1
  5788. We'd have to overcome the conservative platform that assumes practically all immigrants as unworthy illegals, preventing the staffing to process the application backlog and instituting a more logical status change procedure once in country. Hence the surge of irregular entries most notably from China because asylum claims adjudicate faster than any other legal path.
    1
  5789. Well yeah, it's cheap energy they can use or resell funding a war that they have no sympathy or connection with.
    1
  5790. Untranslated Chinese state media sounds like we've been in a Cold War for the past like two decades. Most of us only started realizing this when the Great Translation Movement began revealing the difference between what's trending in Chinese-only media and what news about China gets published globally.
    1
  5791. Which is okay as long as the workers are Mexican, gaining pay and experience to set up their own competition in the future. Unlike having Chinese keep that internal at home, or importing them to Chinese walled colonies and engaging very little in the local market like it's set up in some countries.
    1
  5792. Economic excitement moved to SE Asia. ASEAN is the place to be nowadays.
    1
  5793. China relied on the consumption of the West to fuel their growth on the cheap. Beijing wrongly believed that other people's wallets would stay open for the PRC indefinitely no matter what they did.
    1
  5794. Ordos only came alive because the government forced some schools to base out of there. Even then the resuscitation is incomplete, and there's not really any other practical options to compel movement to the other concrete shell communities.
    1
  5795. They're not spending on real estate or durable goods either. They're holding their money because they're anxious about their future.
    1
  5796. All that profit got squirreled away by corruption, after getting consumed by state security and propaganda programs. Sadly the lack of paycheck and human capital investment leaves the average Chinese subject poor and uncompetitive.
    1
  5797. When I lived in Beijing, my apartment building (built only in like 2018) had signs saying "watch for falling objects", and they weren't depicting flowerpots or any other tenant-owned material either.
    1
  5798. It wasn't until the Sino-Soviet Split that China began making overtures to the non-Communist world as a potential partner against the 'common enemy' to their north.
    1
  5799. That's the concern as China's economy increasingly settles into the middle income trap, especially as its infrastructure and high tech products keep getting found out to be disappointing, and the country's potential becomes further retarded by aging, debt, and industrial pollution. Looking ahead the options only keep shrinking for the Party to maintain its unchallenged rule.
    1
  5800. The government could do more to prepare its people for its defense. If Taiwan was serious about being a "porcupine" that the Mainland dare not try to swallow, every conscript should be taught how to mount an insurrection with improvised weapons and have excellent knowledge of the island's terrain, as opposed to reaching the end of their obligation having barely fired their rifle.
    1
  5801. Notice it's the nations not directly threatened by Chinese attempt at rising regional hegemony who are more dovish, whereas China's neighbors have already decided to resist and invite more Western presence.
    1
  5802. The chips can be eventually substituted and fab'd elsewhere. The bigger concern is allowing the PLA submarines free undetected access to the deep ocean, especially since the PRC's nuclear buildup indicates they're no longer interested in mere "minimal credible deterrence" ☢️
    1
  5803. Apparently Ho Chi Minh once said "Better to smell some French dung for a few years than to eat Chinese shit for the next thousand years." Yeah the anti-Chinese sentiment runs deep in SE Asia, especially in Vietnam where they've endured One-Thousand Years of Humiliation by multiple Chinese dynasties.
    1
  5804. Taiwanese seem more like lovers than fighters, especially with democratization ending the KMT autocracy and "White Terror". But that doesn't mean they can't grow some balls, they might just need to be kicked there first.
    1
  5805. Taiwan never gained "independence" because Chiang Kai-Shek held fast to his dream of retaking the Mainland, and by the time it became obvious that this was impossible it was also too late with most of the decolonized world (mostly Africa and the Middle East) adhering to the PRC's One China Principle in order to gain recognition with China. Ironically the actions of a dictatorial ideologue decades ago puts Taiwan under mortal threat by a dictatorial ideologue today.
    1
  5806. I don't know, I wasn't impressed by China's KFC. Or at least not in Beijing, maybe they taste better in Shanghai?
    1
  5807. "China has rare earths" only because it's willing to heavily pollute itself in mining and refining it, not because China actually dominates as a raw source. We're more likely to institute ways of recycling wanted materials out of old gadgets, as opposed to growing crops with chemically spoiled soils and waters.
    1
  5808. The problem is the CPC deems American culture as fundamentally threatening, and actively discourages the Chinese people from seeing and absorbing Western media without the Party's commentary on how inferior and imposing the foreigners are. The US by contrast has always been open, or at least never closed off; Even before the lifting of racial immigration quotas there have been active and vibrant Chinatowns since before the Civil War. Nowadays it's a near everyday instance to interact with Chinese people, but usually it's those who read traditional script and speak Cantonese/Minnan/Taiwanese Mandarin -- with modern Mainlanders takes a lot more effort to get to the individual underneath and expand more than what we can simply see by ourselves on CGTN or People's Daily.
    1
  5809.  @jimmyhuang8382   Social sciences and humanities are important too, if not only to prevent a descent into becoming a mad scientist, but also helping you consider what motivates people and can get them to care about your work, and ensure what you make isn't going to create a consumer revolt or other disturbing implications down the line. For example, my degree is in sociology, and I tinkered with computers and networks since grade school. I put the two together into cybersecurity because human users themselves are the weakest link in a network, and through my studies in rhetoric and social psychology come up with ways to steer people away from bad habits and towards best practices. I see humanities as a fundamental part of society, because these arts and frivolities are what differentiate us from robots that merely follow commands, have difficulties creating solutions to unexpected situations, and whose satisfaction does not matter. Notice how heavily STEM-minded folks are too often horrible managers, and don't rise very far in leadership positions.
    1
  5810. @jack L  Or those who escaped the Mainland after 1949. The students coming in were the ones who went through the post-89 "patriotic education" reforms, which means regular study of Party philosophy and achievements without all the nasty counterexamples that can no longer be discussed within China or among other Chinese nationals (who could be Party informants). Hence the shock when they finally hear about it, especially when coming from others who grew up Chinese.
    1
  5811. Although Aldi certainly pulled off in reverse what Walmart failed to do in Germany -- cater to the local culture as part of the shopping experience.
    1
  5812. Africa was always cursed with a lack of navigable rivers for its size, which is why it's spent practically all its life as a collection of small tribal kingdoms that nobody (local or colonial) could really consolidate.
    1
  5813. The permanent way out is either education... or colonization. Either way it's clear that their old ways are dysfunctional, and they have to question what traditions are truly valuable versus which ones keep them vulnerable.
    1
  5814. ​ @jirehtheprovider Debit cards are also much more risky, because if your money goes missing the banks aren't as compelled to help compared to when it's the bank's funds on the line with a credit card.
    1
  5815. That's great if you have an EU bank account. Visitors won't. The need for a local bank account likewise deters independent tourists from visiting Mainland China, as their similar bank-linked WeChat+Alipay system doesn't consistently take foreign payment options.
    1
  5816. I didn't mind the 2% upcharge, because my USD had like 20% more buying power Down Under.
    1
  5817. Europe is highly protectionist. You're paying for the protection of EU industries and jobs.
    1
  5818. More like cash is a backup, able to elegantly reintegrate into the digital payment space when the network comes back up. It's cryptocurrencies that don't offer a trustworthy alternate mode.
    1
  5819. 9:13 China claims the Galwan Valley skirmish was "spontaneous". Nothing from Communist China is spontaneous. They have entire dedicated offices and layers on layers of clearances to ensure anything coming from their country especially from state organs is permissible, directed, or banned.
    1
  5820. Because it's new and expensive with more socialized benefits, and therefore a concern instead of an opportunity.
    1
  5821. ​Yet CA remains solid blue and too many people still want to move in permanently. The deeper issue is that traditionalist interests are literally dying faster than they are convincing new converts.
    1
  5822. Because the impact of an incident (which only grows more inevitable with more adoption) is too damaging for too long, and the controls to properly mitigate and contain these risks only keep rising in costs ☢️
    1
  5823. Most conscripts though discharge before getting their stripes; leadership positions are generally reserved for those who stay in uniform by choice. And there’s only so much government-funded jobs (including pricey contractors) that our economy can support.
    1
  5824. Which would probably end TSMC as the top dog, as trying to replicate its success throughout the country just ends up spreading thin the extremely specialized human capital needed to keep the lines running within subatomic tolerances. A takeover of Táiwān could be a godsend for Samsung, Sony, and Fujitsu.
    1
  5825. China wishes to be the Middle Kingdom again... well it's getting what it asked for.
    1
  5826. Capitalism itself prevents the formation of pro-family communities by compelling its workers to live as individual units it can uproot at its convenience.
    1
  5827. ​ @BlackSteelKeyChain Right, taxes provide a stake in society. The least prosperous ones I've experienced are the ones where taxes are easily avoided, substituted by individual fees and "fees".
    1
  5828. Religion needs to shake off its reputation among the youth as a holy justification for abuse and illogical optimism. Before the internet opened up all of humanity to schoolkids, its main source of proliferation was being the only worldview the family knew about.
    1
  5829. Which helps balance how pro-CPC greedy sociopathic corporations and their conglomorated ad-driven mainstream media have become since laissez-faire Reaganomics took hold.
    1
  5830. Wondering where these desperate daters are, because I'm an Asian-American who was in Beijing through last year and rarely got matches. My single white male colleagues found it similarly dry despite being there too. Even these days the Mainlanders I come across are obvious sellers, scammers, if not hoes.
    1
  5831. There is a pension system in China just like there's a state-run healthcare system, but what the Chinese government provides through both are so laughably inadequate that it's practically not worth doing the paperwork for.
    1
  5832. Value-added is the key word. You could be the largest maker of something, but if it's of disposable quality (i.e. more economical to scrap than retool) then the money isn't there.
    1
  5833. ​Right, if it's too detailed you end up losing the audience and likely getting some details wrong. What's important is the overall idea, which in this video is that China expresses a lot less inhibition toward technological experimentation because it feels that there's no other way to improve its global relevance without bringing up alternatives and challenges to its own sociopolitical order (as culturally-unique "soft power" artistic products love to do).
    1
  5834. ​ @hughmungus2760 That's because China puts up significant barriers to capital flows which insulate it from the rest of the more USD-backed world. That helped after 2008 to grow its economy and its pride, but following Zero-COVID this isolation is now having the opposite effect.
    1
  5835. ​ @testacals Young graduates can't get jobs commensurate to their studies because Chinese government actions suddenly discouraged their biggest sources of employment: real estate due to the housing bubble they're trying to deflate cutting the need for sales staff, and education due to an ideological push for "common prosperity" by ending paid after-school tutoring. So now they're doing gig work as delivery drivers and such because it's at least more flexible than clocking in to some far-flung factory every day whose orders are subject to cancelation and the facility to sudden closure.
    1
  5836. Modern China is way behind on soft power though, which leaves little sympathy to stay when manufacturing there becomes less economical; manufacturing is the least value-added and most substitutable middle of the production process compared to R&D (i.e. valuable IP) in the beginning and Sales & Services at the end.
    1
  5837. ​Right, the wealth isn't getting "spread out" as much as confiscated or just not made out of fear of adverse action by the state. The Chinese people don't protest because they never got the money to begin with.
    1
  5838. As time goes on though that excuse of historical wrongs holds less weight compared to what you do about the situation, especially now that you've been in sovereign control of your country for multiple generations. Remember places like Singapore, South Korea, and Dubai were once exploited colonies too, the difference being they didn't let kleptocracy and strongman arbitration to become the norm.
    1
  5839. It's all debt. That they're not going to pay back. Just like how they're not paying back the trillion or so dollars worth of Qing and Republic Era bonds that pre-1949 China issued and the succeeding PRC legally inherited.
    1
  5840. Only by finally fighting back. China began the assault back when it joined the WTO but deviated and violated the precepts of free trade with its generous state support while extracting, ejecting, and banning foreign competition over the past like 20 years.
    1
  5841. Chinese cars would fail our crash safety standards, as their lower speed limits and greater congestion allows them to get away with less beefy frames than America's roads require.
    1
  5842. China asks for "network sovereignty" across the internet. It should really be careful what it asks for 🇨🇳→🔥🌎
    1
  5843. It's called the Great Filter, which is the at some point in future where civilization either destroys itself through continuing to assert to the nuclear death self-interested tribalism, or secures our existence among the stars by expanding who we call as part of"us" until we effectively unite under a single identity of humanity.
    1
  5844. Unfortunately capitalism rewards sociopathy, that's why "self-regulation" is a farce and a mere delaying tactic. It takes a equally strong coordination of customers to prevent terminal monopoly, and the closest we have to such a union of consumers is a government.
    1
  5845. I see nothing of value being lost, having never opened a Netflix account even when they were still mailing DVDs 😂
    1
  5846. ​ @southcoastinventors6583 100% remote work from anywhere in the US also means the threat of getting undercut by some local or expat in Mexico or Bali, no H1B sponsorship needed. That's until AI can do the bulk of the work even cheaper. Occasional (like at least once a month) face-to-face is really the only thing making you more valuable than some face on a screen (if there is one at all), especially in more creative tasks where you don't want every word delayed by the internet just to be permanently tracked and possibly hacked. That means regular travel, helped by a lack of physical distance.
    1
  5847. The US itself does this when people renounce citizenship, and Virginia is notorious for taking their sweet time processing your outward change of residency.
    1
  5848. Because you get what you pay for in terms of access to services. Like Wyoming is isolated (mostly by choice), so just getting on a plane to anywhere is a couple hours drive (which quickly rack up taxi/parking/rental fees) to Denver if not a pricey regional connection.
    1
  5849. Shareholder-first corporate law leaves the few elite owners/institutional investors laughing at us plebes as the profit geyser propels them to Elysium, while the rest of us fight for what little of that stream trickles down.
    1
  5850. ​​The vast majority don't find that fun though. If it had wider appeal we wouldn't have such a chronic shortage of techs and devs (and we wouldn't be getting paid as well either).
    1
  5851. It's the same reason that the 2008 Recession didn't hit China as hard: China isolates its capital flows from the rest of the world. This hasn't really changed, so a crash in China would basically be an opportunity to everyone else.
    1
  5852. I think China's shutdowns and our overreliance on it at some point in the chain can't be underestimated. People are streaming away from the big cities (if not the country) to escape the madness, there are fire sales on blind boxes of nearly expired food, suppliers are unsure of their ability to operate in the next surprise lockdown, small businesses in general are going bankrupt at record pace. Mental health issues and suicides are surging. The Chinese people are treated by their proudly Sinovac-jabbing government as not effectively immunized (to the point where they stigmatize all survivors even if their infection was years ago), but the economy is not longer the Party's main interest compared to practicing this new "health kit" internal passport scheme. All this is happening at the post-9/11 core of the global supply network. The US might hesitate to declare a recession for political maneuvering, but it's nothing compared to the "counter"-revolution the PRC faces should the anti-alternative one Party state admit the obvious.
    1
  5853. I heard Jefferson really wanted to go Metric, not only because it's more logical but also because it was French and sexy ⚜️ However the guy they sent with the kilogramme weight sample got intercepted by pirates along the way, leaving Jefferson without the measurement tools needed to institute the new system and convince Congress to have us go Metric... the Metric System was literally stolen from America 🏴‍☠️
    1
  5854. Crypto in general is all shady, still dominated by speculators, pessimists, and criminals. It seems the only way it will gain wider adoption is through the assurances of government policy... which is antithetical to the very mission behind most cryptocurrencies.
    1
  5855. Right, I have yet to see or smell a poop truck in my multiple times visiting Dubai. Haven't spent enough time in the other emirates to compare how they're doing though.
    1
  5856. SD leans Republican, and consistently one of the biggest victims of fraud by its elected officials.
    1
  5857. ​ @AlexADumbDumb No, but they will use your data to target messages so your likeminded segment rallies and votes against America.
    1
  5858. Our tech giants are also in the CPC's pockets, from Cisco building the Great Firewall after Tienanmen to YouTube suppressing criticism of the PRC today.
    1
  5859. Same with Nigeria. Problem with both is they're nationally too disorganized to make productive use of their youth as they come of age, and in the absence of accessible economic opportunities they'll violently turn their frustrations on each other while plotting to expatriate. Notice both societies are also very tribal and proudly religious.
    1
  5860. I remember Amazon suspended my account when I made a credit card chargeback on a fradulent sale, so I started buying off of eBay, Walmart, Newegg, and any other retailer instead. Amazon immediately welcomed me back when I requested to reactivate my account two years later. I can do this all over again if I want to.
    1
  5861. Or rather “farmers” and “farm equipment” as technically claimable on their taxes, even though their land hasn’t felt the blade of a till in decades.
    1
  5862. I’d drive past a Ford dealer regardless of what they’re selling. I don’t mind renting and driving them, but I’d do mind maintaining one myself.
    1
  5863. Hybrids don’t require a charger. Most don’t even have a charging port.
    1
  5864. Headlines in English but not in Chinese, pointing to a propaganda deception campaign. Chinese language news is more concerned about their currency and housing industries.
    1
  5865. I replace mine once or twice a year when they start bloating up. Granted I use double-size ones (which come with its own unique phone case to fit everything in) that only a few niche Chinese makers produce, but luckily they're still very much available.
    1
  5866. They're a rare example of the public interest besting the voting cartel of incumbent homeowner NIMBYs who want home prices to rise.
    1
  5867. You can't swap the SIM out? Don't know about AT&T these days, but physical 5G SIMs are an option worldwide.
    1
  5868. Podcasts are worse? 🎧
    1
  5869. More like anarchist and libertarian. Political leftism (at least in the American sense) would be more cooperative and less trollish.
    1
  5870. I'm view #694
    1
  5871. ​@danielhalachev4714America has been "on the verge of collapse" since 1812, yet comes out of each crisis more harmonized with its mantra of "liberty and justice for all" (not just the privileged). Like the "woke" vs MAGA battle is tame compared to just the assassinations of the Civil Rights Movement, not to mention the Civil War and various Depression-level Panics that preceded it. China by contrast is looking at a future where they literally don't have the youth, and the ones they do have are too tunnel-visioned on technicals to produce things humans emotionally desire and are willing to overlook alternatives to get... including to Chinese consumers themselves. Domestic dissatisfaction will become a cross-generational concept, and with a ruling class that refuses to yield will only build up pressure until a more dramatic (i.e. violent) resolution that befell every autocratic dynasty before.
    1
  5872. For disposable things it doesn't matter, but for products where personal safety and operational longevity is expected Chinese brands have a ways to go. Financially the fund managers and money movers have always been more callous than the average citizen.
    1
  5873. All of China's maritime neighbors disagree.
    1
  5874. It's more comforting to know that your Ford lasted so long when it has the reputation for having parts that need to be fixed or replaced daily lol
    1
  5875. I own a couple electric mopeds, and they're great for getting around as long as you don't need to sustain highway speeds. Charges off any regular wall socket, demands practically no time in the shop, and they're so peppy that my relatives fear it because of how quick they are compared to similarly sized ICE bikes. Two-wheeled EVs are going gangbusters in places where riding is a normal way to get around, as opposed to America where we've limited ourselves to merely driving cages.
    1
  5876. The bottom line for a business is profit, while the bottom line for a government is _continuity_. Profit-making efficiency naturally conflicts with the costs of continuity-enabling resilience, which is why a businessman is a poor fit as a policymaker.
    1
  5877. It’d be disturbing if that was your grandma, because it’d mean she had your mom or dad fairly young, who had you fairly young in turn, and then still have the time to age up to the point where you understand grandma’s hotness
    1
  5878. Newegg became old hat
    1
  5879. eBay was my ecommerce lifeline (along with Walmart, Newegg, etc) after Amazon blocked me for reverse charging on a scam purchase that Amazon wouldn't investigate. They lost all the revenues from my purchases with eBay as I boycotted Amazon over the next two years, which they seemed to get the point because Amazon promptly reenabled my account when I finally came back and asked.
    1
  5880. "Engineers should be managed by engineers" is a self-defeating argument because STEM-minded folks often tend to be poor managers, too unappreciative of what actually motivates people. This lack of humanities in the hierarchy can explain why Google usually fails at gaining wider adoption of its projects as a competitor, and more broadly why STEM professionals usually fail at politics worldwide.
    1
  5881. Suburban sprawl and the lack of space+energy efficient motorbikes compared to cars make all these custom point-to-point deliveries uneconomical. This is why your delivery fees cost as much as the meal order and everyone still loses money.
    1
  5882. Searching forums if not programming your own solution takes far too much time and effort. The proprietary programs have the advantage of a much larger central knowledge base, human support, and programs that bought inputs from graphic designers and UX professionals. The approachability and convenience is what's being paid for. I say this as someone who uses FOSS distros as much as possible, does expeditionary field IT as a career, and as a hobby labs a SOHO network of mismatched bought-used commercial-grade components with some Pis sprinkled in.
    1
  5883. Manufacturing that does move back to the US is heavily roboticized. Politicians just falsely pitch it as some great job maker that most people don't have the training and mindset for, as it's a handful of positions that require more troubleshooting and programming skills than some simple task an army of middle school graduates could do on a few days of OJT. Ultimately it's more for national supply chain security rather than an easy way to put more money in the pocket of the average American.
    1
  5884. The technical schematics and funding orders still come from Cupertino.
    1
  5885. The market itself is the reason families are shrinking. Capitalism hates dependents, whether school age or senior age. Shattering communities through individualistic materialism and compelling women to achieve like men in the office leaves nobody at home for the kids.
    1
  5886. That's what old people are for in Korea. Senior poverty is a huge problem because retiree welfare is weak and they collectively failed to make enough kids who 1) exist, and 2) can afford to support their parents. This is why you see only elders sweeping streets and such there.
    1
  5887. Foreigners get welcomed because their labor and impressions are valuable to a still export-oriented economy, unlike their native compatriots whom they see as personal competitors.
    1
  5888. ​ @ArtSmosh1274 Right, doomscrolling and Twitch streaming has all but kept teens in their own bedrooms... alone. Statistics keep pointing to a drop in teenage sex and drinking ever since Wi-Fi and especially smartphones became household essentials.
    1
  5889. Excessive permanent migration of the rich and skilled, whom politicians convinced you to want. More menial and temporary work doesn't demand whole houses when a bed in a dorm will do.
    1
  5890. Indeed, capitalism hates dependents, whether school age or senior age. That's why they lobby to redistribute public funds away from dependents towards business tax breaks and discourage working families from spending time with them, although seniors can vote back against corporate interests while kids cannot.
    1
  5891. China made the war last way longer than it should have. Mao would constantly renege on promises of a ceasefire as long as Stalin was willing to supply materiel. It was only after Stalin died and the USSR stopped providing that the ceasefire finally took hold.
    1
  5892. It was assumed, but not necessarily legal. States and federal records don't automatically sync up because state sovereignty doesn't let the feds demand for it, and it's the states that registers voters and issues driver's licenses. Federal programs like Social Security and military enlistment don't require US citizenship.
    1
  5893. You have to be a Legal Permanent Resident to be a foreigner receiving those benefits though, which means having the Green Card and not spending too long out of the country.
    1
  5894. It's not any better even if you are a full US citizen
    1
  5895. He's neither a citizen nor a legal permanent resident, and it wasn't caught because the state (who registers voters) never asked the authoritative federal records about his citizenship.
    1
  5896. Might have to wait though being an illegal immigrant for so long before being allowed back into the US.
    1
  5897. The American "intervention" is to just reduce transactions with China, standing back and watching its tofu dreg political-economic structure collapse under its own weight.
    1
  5898. Simple. Just stop giving our valuable foreign money and IP to them.
    1
  5899. +3~5% but all done through debt spending, not net production growth.
    1
  5900. Not “again”, just with an updated timeline. The trend and ultimate fate are still on track.
    1
  5901. Right, China's economic figures is likely much closer to Japan than to the US, and its headcount is likely closer to 1.0 billion instead... largely burdened by uneducated unproductive old rural men.
    1
  5902. That just means China has nobody to blame but itself when its own bubble deflates way more dramatically than the ruling Party can handle. We’re already seeing the start, with Beijing scrambling to put out images of “growth” and “strength” under vague details to get foreign funds flowing back in.
    1
  5903. Which just raises the operational costs for China as it tries to maintain internal political stability. The problem of a shrinking productive workforce, overreliance on inefficient state-funded champions still holds true, and destruction of family wealth through real estate speculation still holds true.
    1
  5904. ​ @blairwich1935 All relying on foreign core inputs. And then all those "STEM majors" (often really just trade techs) only seem to make a global impact when working outside of China.
    1
  5905. The timing is wrong, but the trends and ultimate fate still hold.
    1
  5906. China has instead a system of deceit and corruption.
    1
  5907. No, that's been a threat ever since the Korean War ended. Nobody thinks about the North when moving to Seoul, and it shows how much the place just kept getting packed in.
    1
  5908. Not sure how nationalized Aussie rail really was if they still can’t agree on a single gauge
    1
  5909. Higher fees alone still wouldn't compel companies to make their products easier to repair and recycle, what's really needed are cost penalties for any disposal that they're not handling themselves.
    1
  5910. Old lead acid batteries are easy to recycle and harder to move around safely. I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of them really do get refurbished in country.
    1
  5911. That's exactly the type of applications he talked about near the end of the video
    1
  5912. Although CA does have a lot of issues taking an outsized share of water from the surrounding states due to it expressing to the max its outdated water rights.
    1
  5913. I doubt fake drainage intakes and concrete so flaky you could scratch it off with your fingernail was caused by the land sinking underneath it.
    1
  5914. Land subsidence is an aggravator. Every small island and sparsely inhabited tidal flat is still seeing itself going under.
    1
  5915. "Mainland China" is the PRC without HK, Macao, and Taiwan. The PRC includes the SARs but never encompassed Taiwan, though Beijing aims to change that. "China" (officially) includes all of these, plus a post-WW2 claim to the SCS.
    1
  5916. Chip fabs use an enormous amount of water, which needs to be extremely pure to boot.
    1
  5917. California earthquakes are mild though compared to what they get in the western Pacific. It's more like the state is saturated on land usage having to compete against all the want for agriculture, defense, and housing.
    1
  5918. You get what you pay for, and Chinese brands aren't known for their reliability and durability even in China. So it depends how disposable you think a car should be.
    1
  5919. They definitely do... if you can find one that wasn't snatched up by some cryptominer
    1
  5920. For a personal workstation, nothing really beats the performance capacity of a full fledged gaming rig complete with discrete graphics and sound processing (it doesn't have to look like one, only the internal components really count)
    1
  5921. I see 5G on my phone, but I don't "feel" a substantial difference in speed. Seems to suck a bit more battery though.
    1
  5922. Yet “business friendly” low-tax low-regulation regimes wonder why they’re not attracting higher-paying jobs.
    1
  5923. My older coworkers remember upgrading out of Wang equipment. We still sometimes find a random Wang branded mousepad.
    1
  5924. I work in public sector IT, which suffers from "fiscal responsibility" compliances and other considerations that gum up the procurement process. While there's no Wang equipment around anymore, I have occasionally found Wang branded mousepads and the like, and older coworkers have mentioned swapping out old Wang terminals.
    1
  5925. 14:20 “LAUNCH THE NUCLEAR BOVINE!” The one phrase that cross-agency RFID tag development group hoped to never hear 🐮☢️
    1
  5926. ​ @Nelo390 No, any elevation difference will work. I've heard of projects that use abandoned mines.
    1
  5927. Though it’s fundamentally a mismatch between the amount of youth and available occupations when they come of age.
    1
  5928. I've heard that sunlight induces creation of a hormone that halts the lengthwise growth of the eyes, hence why time spent in our relatively dim indoor spaces correlates with myopia. This explains why those eye exercises are useless compared to merely being outside regularly.
    1
  5929. It’s funny how we’re coming full circle back towards centralized computing with all these __aaS offerings, as well as trials of on-prem thin clients connected to what are basically modernized mainframes, as we seek to simplify hardware acquisition, software updating, and overall energy usage.
    1
  5930. Safer too. Larger wheels and a seated position means you won't automatically faceplant over a pebble.
    1
  5931. 17:12 Older workers are more compliant probably because they're literally more done with life. There's not as much potential ahead to worry about developing or salvaging when managing their personal relationships and economic decisions. It's not necessarily a Lazy Millennial/Gen Z thing either, I'm sure many Boomers held the same distracted attitudes at that age. The only difference is the intensity with society demanding constant connectivity and faster responses.
    1
  5932. Steaks were my go to meal when working from home and cooking for myself during COVID lockdowns, where I was in SE Asia at the time and I could readily get Australian grass-fed cuts from the supermarket for like $20/kg 🥩
    1
  5933. Cruise ships are human-centered environments that let you walk to each venue at your leisure, which is not the case on the streets especially in America.
    1
  5934. I'm sure someone has done so, even if it's only produced and published from overseas. US MREs are not that difficult to find anywhere we've been.
    1
  5935. Don't vote Republicans, they'll just deregulate corporations even further meaning even more competition for houses against well-cashed investor groups.
    1
  5936. Vietnam and Afghanistan disagree. Mainland China would also find out the hard way when they realize their inadequate unpracticed modern combat logistics make all that industrial might back home make little more than targets of convenience to precision airstrikes.
    1
  5937. Desalination is only a partial answer, as coastal urban residents drink only a fraction of the water that CA's agriculture demands -- plus it would still need to be pumped over the mountains into the Central Valley which is an expensive megaproject in itself. A more complete solution would involve things like injecting short-term excess water back into the aquifers, ending outdated no-limit water rights, subsidizing local rainwater capture systems, charging a premium on non-native landscaping (e.g. grass covered golf courses), and instituting electrified transportation and more mass transit so that just getting around by what for most vehicles is 100% burned fuel isn't making the climate change problem worse.
    1
  5938. Immigration works for the Americas where every nation was built on absorbing people from abroad. It's a much steeper learning and adaptation curve for Old World ethnostate cultures.
    1
  5939. It's still getting overpopulated, but now by retirees who consume resources like a younger adult but doesn't contribute nearly as much back into improvements in the overall economy.
    1
  5940. Palestinian politicians keeps rejecting a peace deal with Israel. The hardline Zionist conservatives that have an outsized influence on Israeli politics only makes the problem worse.
    1
  5941. If something like a Universal Basic Income doesn't spread the gains of productivity among all the surviving humans instead of getting hoarded by their much smaller cohort of owners, we'll still have the same problem of an increasing share of folks failing to reach the minimum standards for payable productivity. Expensive costs for child-raising and entry-level careers suppresses the compulsion to have children at all. That's assuming age-defying medicine and AI don't end up like nuclear fusion, the tipping point always some years into the future.
    1
  5942. Should, but here's a half hour explanation of why sailing between the islands was an experience worth only doing once.
    1
  5943. Somehow using the in-game icons from Civilization VI feels appropriate 🎮
    1
  5944. Only because the builds are new, they also fall apart disturbingly fast. I've lived in Subsaharan Africa, and even the locals were alarmed at how little concrete and rebar went into Chinese projects.
    1
  5945. ​ @MarvinPowell1 More like decentralized privatization of what should be a public utility.
    1
  5946. The world might not like America, but they fear what happens to their sovereignty and economy if the Yankees go home. Just as Iraq (ISIS), Afghanistan (Taliban) and the Philippines (China).
    1
  5947. American bases bring valuable US Dollars into the area, both through local service contracts and from off-base spending by the soldiers and their families. It's like a permanent source of foreign tourists, who although sometimes raunchy also readily police themselves too. And they'll also decisively engage anyone who threatens you or your friends. America doesn't have foreign bases because nobody else is willing to spend the enormous amounts needed to be just as effective at preventing local conflicts from exploding into industrial interstate warfare.
    1
  5948. Also notice how Philippine sovereignty claims wasn't challenged by China until after Manila ejected American forces in the 1990s.
    1
  5949. Right, if anything American hegemony is what's preventing regional conflicts from exploding into industrial interstate warfare. Ukraine is only a taste of what happens where Americans aren't.
    1
  5950. Plot twist: CIA and other IC agencies watch these Youtubers because they're doing all the tedious open source analysis, leaving them free to gather and compile the really secret squirrel stuff.
    1
  5951. Capitalism hates dependents, whether elderly or school age. South Korea is humanity's most extreme example of its effects since the nation is basically the Republic of Samsung and a few other chaebol conglomerates.
    1
  5952. Africans choose to have American business. And Russian and British and French and increasingly Chinese too.
    1
  5953. Colonies are extractive. Last I checked Americans pay for local services abroad quite handsomely.
    1
  5954. ​ @US_AND_IL_ARE_WAR_CRIMINALS The key to all of those liberations being opposition by the US against the European colonizer.
    1
  5955. But it's definitely scared of what will happen after the Americans really do go home.
    1
  5956. Universal healthcare pretty much requires a government takeover. The mess we "enjoy" today is a result of decentralized privatized practices of what in reality acts like a public utility.
    1
  5957. Or basically just Netanyahu and his cronies, who need to stay in office to shield themselves from their long list of criminal allegations. Israelis themselves indicate they're done making their point with Hamas.
    1
  5958. ​ @johnnygraves4118 It's already going to the people. Social Security and Medicare are massive money drains that basically benefit just the retired. Defense at least provides jobs for younger citizens.
    1
  5959. Have you seen what the rest of nature does? They'll go on genocidal rampages because you literally smell different. Humans are relatively peaceful by comparison especially compared to our pre-industrial selves, we just made tools that can quickly end whole communities and ironically that threat gets us to even moreso sit down and talk instead.
    1
  5960. Or just play the game "Pandemic" and put Patient Zero in Java. It always ends in a loss for humanity 🦠
    1
  5961. Apparently the road was temporarily closed during the exercise, the girls decided to trespass anyway as a shortcut.
    1
  5962. US bases are there because the host nation wants them there. They're useful because they bring valuable dollars from what are effectively permanent tourists, and even where the Americans are hated they're a convenient lightning rod to redirect domestic political issues upon.
    1
  5963. Russians do airlift vodka though. Their TU-22 bombers use what's basically vodka as its air conditioning refrigerant.
    1
  5964. BRICS is basically exploring a global order without the core Western economies. So far they're proving that Western values develop the human capital and provide the governing competency needed to actually build up towards their dreams.
    1
  5965. ​ @sktoh4469 English is the common foreign language among the otherwise Hokkien/Cantonese/Malay/Tamil home speakers, which makes it more akin to the pidgin English and French used in Africa (though not as joyous and expressive)
    1
  5966. Those extremes are realistic. GCC states often have work limit laws during extreme heat but are known to suppress the real numbers to keep their "guests" working, meaning highs over 50 could be more common than we're told. Also yes it does get surprisingly cold during a winter night in a dry desert (and does so surprisingly quick too).
    1
  5967. It would be if you're acclimatized to temperatures over 30, which it may have reached during the same afternoon. No kidding a day in a desert can get wildly different when the sun falls.
    1
  5968. ​@Walter_StroudPrevious Presidents weren't actively dismantling the government and trying to institute the practices of failure-prone private business though.
    1
  5969. Democracies are driven by drama. The Dems had weak marketing, platforming on college-level sociology not that many people appreciate.
    1
  5970. "Multipolar" just means multiple fault lines for conflict, any of which can quickly turn into a devastating industrialized war. Ukraine is only a taste of what will happen to other parts of the world when these other "poles" commit to asserting their polarity.
    1
  5971. Most of what we provide are for land targets, not as much the air supremacy and anti-ship weapons that the defense of Taiwan would be using.
    1
  5972. SE Asia might not fight with the US, but it probably won't fight against the Americans either. There's been a growing alarm in other SE Asian nations of how the activities of modern China are essentially trying to build colonies and steal resources, not to mention the simmering racial and political tensions within the society itself that among other things got S'pore its unexpected independence.
    1
  5973. There really were terra nullius up through the turn of the 20th century. Places like Bermuda, the Falklands, and all of Mauritius were uninhabited when they were discovered (often multiple times) and eventually colonized. The Senkakus would be a similar example, especially if there was not enough natural fresh water to support a permanent population before modern desalination.
    1
  5974. It's been a week and this video keeps aggressively recommended to me. I feel it indicates an alarmingly pro-autocracy editorial stance on the part of Alphabet/Google.
    1
  5975. Plot twist: he deliberately coaxed for that cleavage cash 🍼🤑
    1
  5976. ​ @misterchiv Until those rich migrants figure out how to reduce their legal tax burden, and you're priced out of the locale from all the money they "invested" in land and housing you could have used instead. In famously low-tax Dubai, there's already upward pressure on prices and a growing trend for all but the newest and most desperate lower and middle class workers to return home because all these Russian and Chinese oligarchs moving in are making the place unaffordable.
    1
  5977. Invasion involves hostile intent. These migrants were invited by the government you collectively elected but failed to prepare your communities to actually handle.
    1
  5978. Decades, through speculative debt so massive it needed at least one grand bailout by Abu Dhabi. Even then it's not planned or designed well for anyone moving about without a chauffeur; like its sewage system is only finally getting completed later this year.
    1
  5979. "Self Defense" nowadays must include the ability to strike deep into the industrial capabilities of its massive neighbor, which can be offensive depending on how they subsequently exploit the outcome (which China would likely claim to be regardless of actual action). Japan and Táiwān have long been threshold nuclear powers, able to build a warhead in a year or two if they desired. Ironically diplomatic action by the US was the only reason both programs were stopped.
    1
  5980. Licensing. They wouldn't have to shell out if it was a "parody".
    1
  5981. It's not very motivating when they already have their own major problems in their master plans of the post-oil future, and the millions of their own subsidy-spoiled citizens that they have to keep contented.
    1
  5982. The process though of establishing those "checks and balances" will be incredibly bloody, possibly nuclear. Remember the last time we had a "multipolar" world was with a rising Central Europe and Japan, which led straight into two world wars. There's a reason Pax Romana, Pax Mongolica, Pax Britannica, and Pax Americana are named after a single military power: that consolidation offered the stability for like a third of humanity at the time to freely trade in a secured environment.
    1
  5983. ​ @shaunnarine3974 All through government malinvestment, literally pumping up their figures by building infrastructure for industries that are already hurting for cash flow with what they have now.
    1
  5984. It's impressive considering she's jumping around with like 300 lbs of musical instruments, and still plays something coherent
    1
  5985. Mostly the old USSR, through treaties finally agreed on after the Soviet collapse. Even then there are still simmering irredentist claims against places like all of Mongolia and the Russian Far East.
    1
  5986. Japan under a conservative commerce-focused government finding it beneficial to increase the share of its working-age population by culling the retirees? Wouldn't totally surprise me.
    1
  5987. The Party has to show strength and resolve to itself and to the Chinese people, because its long history of abuses make it vulnerable to a sudden violent teardown if they ever relax on their vague and broadening checklist that consists their "national security" interests.
    1
  5988. Only thing missing is a headphone jack. Yes I can hear the difference, especially compared to older Samsung and LG flagships with high quality DACs.
    1
  5989. Technically Taiwan has the exact same claims as the Mainland -- it was the ROC who invented the 9-Dash Line in response to France's outrageous sea claims that Vietnam inherited -- but the democratized Taiwan has all but abandoned assertion of everything past what it actually controls.
    1
  5990. The Washington Metro is considered safe?
    1
  5991. Having lived in sun-Saharan Africa, I can say the locals on the street are a lot more suspicious and more disappointed about Chinese builds than their politicians say. BRI is not producing the pro-China shifts that Beijing expected, and ironically are becoming more cautious with what and how to commit foreign aid just as Western counterparts have been warning about.
    1
  5992. Memeable Data modeled a heterosexual dating app environment, and explained through math why it's so frustrating. Basically women not only have so many choices, but they also only like back the top 15% of men most of the time. Meanwhile the average dude might only get 1 match out of 100 swipes, which as you might already know most don't lead to a conversation, and most of those don't lead to a physical meetup. So basically straight dating apps just amplify the attention on elite men, who spoiled for choice aren't compelled to commit. Meanwhile most guys get increasingly desperate, which further intimidates women from venturing beyond their visual attraction comfort zone. https://youtu.be/x3lypVnJ0HM
    1
  5993. We had a base there. It was just too expensive to keep supplied so we consolidated and it's now an empty field, but our agreements with the host nation mean it's still a "base". This mismatch of definition could be more common than the narratives suggest.
    1
  5994. He should really, at least make a list with the source that revealed its location. I was deployed to the Middle East before, and can already tell some of those dots don't have a US facility on them but are rather that of the host nation. Or it's a military reservation that between temporary exercises is just an empty field.
    1
  5995. The problem is the CPC will destroy anyone who challenges their rule over China: foreigners or Chinese. As China enters the middle income trap burdened by aging, debt, and pollution, it will become impossible to gag the Party's critics with easy money. Táiwān is their last hope of silencing domestic dissent, but an invasion and occupation will inevitably give rise to an eventually-victorious insurgency... apparently one that the ROC has specifically asked the US advice about having been on the wrong side of an IED for decades. This would be devastating to the Chinese people whose only son disappeared on deployment, in a society made brittle to losses by lacking the imagery of obvious setbacks in post-Mao "New China". So while the PLA could ultimately seize Táiwān, it will most likely come at the cost of the CPC -- the unrest from the battle losses and collapse of peaceful trade would send "unified" China into a new period of Warring States as localities struggle to keep themselves alive by trying to separate their reputation from whatever is left of the central authority.
    1
  5996. For ethnostates like Continental Europe perhaps. In the Western Hemisphere it's ultimately antithetical to not accept and absorb the newcomers.
    1
  5997. Having survived through Zero-COVID Mainland China, no it's pretty bleak among the locals too. Think the Great Recession except your home is underwater forever along with nearly all your family's wealth.
    1
  5998. Taiwan and Mainland China have the same claims (including the expanded "stolen" lands that ought to be "returned") due to the One China policy. But from the Taiwanese side it is just a formality at this point, as their citizens increasingly abandon the notion of reuniting with the Mainland, even to the point of rejecting being called "Chinese".
    1
  5999. All countries do this to some extent, if there is a more vulnerable country to send aid to and gain influence with. Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan come to mind.
    1
  6000. It doesn't. Beijing just wants to solidify control of its western borderlands (and ideally expand further) just like every dynasty in its past.
    1
  6001. "Wars" that contain longstanding local conflicts and maintain sea and air lanes of communication and trade for the rest of the world. There's a reason America currently focuses support to Ukraine (Danube River and Bosporus Strait) and Israel (Red Sea and Suez Canal), as opposed to say Congo or Myanmar.
    1
  6002. The Nazis were on a crusade of self-righteous conquest. Israel is just trying to have a big enough moat to defend itself with. A recent video by Caspian Report details the physical vulnerabilities Israel faces if it evacuates from the lands it currently occupies.
    1
  6003. While horrific, the nukes mainly provided the Japanese with a convenient excuse to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets arrived. The fear of Communism was well founded, as seen in the destruction of traditional cultures in China and North Korea.
    1
  6004. Nukes are knowledge that's not going to be forgotten, and there's no real mechanism to ensure that all the warheads have been destroyed. Limiting who has them remains the best option, since the more actors who have just one, the greater the chance of one going rogue.
    1
  6005. Meanwhile conservative traditionalists try to further limit access to contraceptives, abortions, and sex education because of a "personal responsibility" ideology agenda, instead of reversing the hostile family environment that their own pro-corporate policies created.
    1
  6006. This is basically the "Great Filter", where the coming decades will determine if humanity will proceed into the stars in a democratized destiny, or stumble into darkness from corporate and autocratic greed.
    1
  6007. 1:56 (Pathogens invade.) You: "Let's play a game... 'The Blood is Lava'"
    1
  6008. Modern political demonstrations are almost always peaceful, it generally gets violent when the police themselves or pro-authoritarian saboteurs decide to escalate force.
    1
  6009. I feel TikTok is more psychological operations, autoplaying based on your feedback and gradually nudging you towards the interests of its masters by at least omitting videos they don't like.
    1
  6010. Even if it's just the next base over, it's much more economical to load and roll them on wheeled trailers. Plus unless they're on a mission tanks would be moving with their turrets facing backwards so the main gun doesn't accidentally punch into anything.
    1
  6011. "New China" feels both inferior and arrogant towards the rest of the world. They don't Wolf Warrior about a "Century of Humiliation", "containment", and "hurting the feelings of 1-point-something billion Chinese people" just for the lulz
    1
  6012. What often doesn't get said is that Ms. Meng was released from her luxury house arrest only after positively confirming the evidence against Huawei in the larger case of sanctions violations with Iran.
    1
  6013.  @floydwhatchacallit6823  STEM fields in general tend to be tunnel-visioned and ignorant of other considerations that people actually care about; in college they take humanities courses often begrudgingly and usually dismiss it as a waste of time. But there's a reason STEM-minded folks tend to not do well in open competitive politics.
    1
  6014. Inflation is caused by demand outpacing supply. Demand has surged back as COVID precautions get abandoned, but the supply isn't there as low wage workers skilled out to better jobs, private shipping companies fail to share resources, Chinese factories and ports can't operate, and Russia tossing even more chaos into the supply network.
    1
  6015. Wouldn't be surprised to get what you pay for when a professional walk-up test booth charges only ¥30 ($5) per test
    1
  6016. It may not look like it, but Africans have more genetic diversity than the rest of humanity combined. An entire "race" could be considered inbred compared to what's available within the population of Nigeria.
    1
  6017. Likely for power projection between the other side of the island and Guam. As long as we can bring in supplies to the east shore of Taiwan, the longer, deadlier, and more embarrassing to Beijing we can keep the inevitable Taiwanese insurgency alive when we're not directly fighting the PLA ourselves.
    1
  6018. Right, all that money for advertising had to come from somewhere 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇷🇺🇨🇳👨‍💻
    1
  6019. Gold, Bitcoin, and other limited-quantity media have the problem that it tends to be hoarded or spent at exactly the wrong times of an economic cycle. Hence blimp-sized bubble "booms" and Great Depression-level "busts" of yore. Fiat resolves these much earlier and moderates the cycles by allowing a deliberate devaluation, which gets money and the economy moving again, as well as vice versa when speculation overheats an economy and inflation gets too wild due to demand outstripping supply. This is why currencies worldwide have converged on the fiat concept, and why uncontrolled energy-intensive Bitcoin is unlikely to be more than a vehicle for shady activities and the occasional wire transfer. The underlying blockchain however holds promise to secure the accuracy and authenticity of records such as contracts, receipts, and the like.
    1
  6020. TIL that ТРРРРРРЫК is Russian for BRRRRRRRT 😂
    1
  6021. 3:28 Was this drawn later in life? Because I wish I had that technical doodling skill back in first grade 🖍
    1
  6022. Freeways don't turn a profit either, but they're vital to our economy. Amtrak is in many 'flyover country' locales the only reliable access to the rest of the nation.
    1
  6023.  @weijin701  If it comes at the cost of rare clean freshwater, yeah you should probably reconsider the value of such seasonal recreation. The US at least built ski slopes where snowfall naturally occurs and uses snow machines to top up between storms, northern China isn't so wet in the winter.
    1
  6024. To be really useful, China's HSR lines would need to be beefed up and quad-tracked to handle cargo; right now they're too weak to support more profitable heavier freight trains but they've already blown their budgets on construction, operation, and maintenance of their HSR lines. The US by contrast has its rail network filled with cargo, still making profits over 100 years later even though hardly any passengers ride the rails anymore. Plus the US has a free Interstate Highway System that allows trucks and pays itself off with the economic activity supported, while China's equivalent (where it's tolled and trucks aren't allowed) struggles to plus up their fapiaos (tax receipts) from cars and coaches.
    1
  6025. Stability. Things become dangerous when conflicts of political ideas can be expressed with weapons, especially when such weaponry involve an effective opposition of organized militants. China is well aware about the value of stability by actively discouraging and degrading the opposition before it can become self-sustaining and effective.
    1
  6026. It's supposed to pay off with the economic activity it supports, which for China is still questionable as they overbuilt for lower-paying passengers and not enough for higher-margin freight.
    1
  6027.  @rtgbhreth  Demand for those increased too, it got difficult to find even the simple $20 bolt-on bidets
    1
  6028. A pressure-driven one that fits underneath the existing seat is only $20, and the only tools really needed are a small pail and a wrench 🔧 I already had one installed in my toilet, though I looked again out of curiosity and they were hard to find online 💸
    1
  6029. Asia too, in-seat bidets are becoming popular in places that didn't already replace the hand pail with bum guns
    1
  6030. I got spoiled with the in-seat bidet that's fairly widespread in Japan, Korea, and Indonesia 🚽🇯🇵🇰🇷🇮🇩 Luckily I already installed one on my toilet last year ⛲
    1
  6031. Lack of state protection from foreign competition, and a more orderly economy that doesn't throw money at "investments" so haphazardly?
    1
  6032. China strategically prefers a split Korea for much the same reason.
    1
  6033. Capitalism itself isn't the problem -- it's the most efficient way to get resources where they're wanted -- it's the distribution of the products that come out of it. Without constraints, human nature drives us to wall in wealth and wall out challenges; this is why voluntary benevolence alone can't be relied on to maintain and improve society. Practically always the hoarded wealth has to be taken by force through either peaceful governance or violent revolution.
    1
  6034. The UAE in general is, Dubai itself is only 1% petroleum in its economy. More like it's funded by Russian and African oligarchs of various industries, with costs kept down by all the budget South Asian men they bring in for labor.
    1
  6035. It's the algorithm, she mentioned her fancy new dining room so that's where it focused.
    1
  6036. It's an Americanism to have daily "face time" at the office and be on-call at all times, a sort of holdover from the slavery and lassiez-faire eras of disposable workers serving business-owning masters. It's not as bad as in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East, but this attitude definitely comes at the expense of individual health, wealth, and happiness.
    1
  6037. My cohort had even tougher times, getting our degrees in the depths of the last recession where we had to get creative about how to survive post-graduation. For most of us that meant moving back in with the parents, fighting for a seat in grad school, and/or going abroad as an English tutor in Asia. For me and many in my unit then, even surviving a deployment into combat wasn't attractive enough for the few jobs available upon return. I'd imagine if you were still in high school and college during the recession, the parents would double down on having the kids take stable career paths. For my section of the Millennial generation, that exact notion deteriorated as our parents realized how even good grades in a good school and major can't guarantee prosperity, especially where automation threatens to reduce demand for new hires like in finance and office management. Many of my classmates ultimately ended up in occupations they actually desired, where they could still market their passion for the position since there was no stopping the retardation of our wealth from the lost early years anyway.
    1
  6038. It’s jobs not stolen from Americans because Americans don’t want to do it themselves, at least not at wages that keep the product cheap enough to also buy themselves. Meanwhile immigrants practically deem a US residence and ultimately the opportunity to naturalize is itself part of the compensation.
    1
  6039. Business as usual, which includes all the blatant corruption that characterizes practically all these postcolonial strongmen. There’s a reason Western aid packages demand improvements to governance and tolerance: it creates a civil society that their own people might not constantly dream of escaping — particularly to the “overbearing” West.
    1
  6040. Two years ago I remember being asked to wait months for the next appointment for a routine procedure in Seoul. Yeah Korea could use less K-pop trainees and more medical professionals.
    1
  6041. Or lack of puppeteer, seeing as they opted to negotiate a separate agreement.
    1
  6042. Modern weapons allow offensive actions to launch incredibly far from Japanese territory, so their defensive scope has to expand in kind.
    1
  6043. Republic of China at that, while the CPC and PLA were still camping in the mountains.
    1
  6044. SG might decline an invitation anyway to maintain neutrality, and avoid the discomforting question about its own political freedoms.
    1
  6045. Explain Shein then. They didn't explode in popularity because China was suddenly that much more efficient in producing clothes.
    1
  6046. They are not, because the global market is still buying.
    1
  6047. China only wants events that they organize though. Beijing literally pulled the plug on a concert held by the US embassy, so if they can't stand something as neutral as music how can we trust them with more substantial exchanges?
    1
  6048. Peace is what the ruling Party says they believe, but their acts point clearly toward shaping for an offensive in an upcoming kinetic battlefield.
    1
  6049. And this is different from all the foreign capital invested in China how?
    1
  6050. China's hosting of the AFC Asian Cup in 2023 was just canceled. It just shows how optimism about the PRC continues to crash down a cliff ⚽❌
    1
  6051. Because EVs go twice the miles per ton of carbon emitted when charged on 100% coal (so it only gets better from there), and pollution from its production are much more localized and controllable. You might never own one, but you’d be shifting into the minority going foward especially as today’s kids grow up not enjoying lengthy road travels.
    1
  6052. Both are true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if China believes democratic societies can revert their own decisions originally made after a lengthy period of consultations and debates at the speed of an autocracy. Hence their choice of deadline falling on American Independence Day.
    1
  6053. Which makes them conniving and untrustworthy. There’s a reason all their “friendships” are at best ones of convenience and temporarily aligned interests.
    1
  6054. Access doesn't mean people are using it. There's a reason China keeps opening more visa-free options to Western travelers with their valuable foreign currency.
    1
  6055. Russian planes aren't overflying or landing in Europe or really anywhere else much these days, out of fear they'll be repo'd or found not-airworthy to take off due to lack of proper maintenance.
    1
  6056. Must be a cost issue specific to China then if flights to all their neighbors aren't similarly affected.
    1
  6057. European travelers have largely lost interest in China. That's really why their airlines aren't bothering going to China while still flying farther to Japan and Bali and Australia.
    1
  6058. Especially how restrictive and randomly-closed Chinese airspace is. Check out the flight paths of planes flying through China and notice how many odd detours they have to take.
    1
  6059. European tourists aren't exactly trying to swarm into China. It's not a loss to Europe where there's plenty of other places they'd rather fly to.
    1
  6060. "Sanctioners" already bid their farewells to China. That's why the routes specifically for China (not farther Japan or SE Asia) were dropped.
    1
  6061. The newer PEK Terminal 3 isn't any better. If you didn't have access to the Air China lounge, the only place open to grab a bite from was a Starbucks.
    1
  6062. ​There's also the collapse of demand for flights _to China_. Notice how direct flights to other parts of Asia weren't affected.
    1
  6063. It helps because Russia isn’t making as much money on overflight fees, which are particularly pricey over Siberia.
    1
  6064. Problem is it does affect themselves, even if it's more reputational than direct. Inaction degrades trust and respect, which puts them in a weaker negotiating position going forward when they do want something.
    1
  6065. Whatever legalities applied in the past became invalid when China acceded to UNCLOS.
    1
  6066. As Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, you don't need to be formally indoctrinated in the military to effectively fight back.
    1
  6067. That would be a declaration of secession sparking the destruction of all-out war that Táiwān has been trying to avoid. It's still preferable for Táiwān to wait out the PRC as it begins entering its peak and decline from aging, debt, pollution, and an increasingly brittle Mainland society.
    1
  6068. Rumor is Táiwān is quietly consulting with the US about how to pull off an effective insurgency, straight from those who know the other side of the IED.
    1
  6069. Arguably Táiwān is what China would have become had it not been backstabbed by the Communists. If anything Mainland China is the deviant one, with decades of destroying Chinese culture and human capital to promote a German-Slavic philosophy producing abusive and socially brittle nations. Had the rest of China went more the way of Táiwān, China's rise would be a lot more palatable and not nearly as alarming.
    1
  6070. The cutoff in trade will happen when the PLA starts shooting, and everyone else starts shooting back. The crossfire will scare off civilian ship traffic and quickly make unpolluted food and high-energy fuel unavoidably expensive for the Mainland...no amount of overland alternatives will be cheap enough to make up the loss of the open sea.
    1
  6071.  @angxiang3186  If anything Táiwān will be the PRC's Vietnam: very defensible terrain and a totally hostile population. If the defenseless Xīnjiāng and HK needs this much surveillance and enforcement already, no amount of drones/cameras/police/soldiers will be able to pacify millions of even casual combatants on their home turf. At least not without entire Mainland cities going dark and hungry from the collapse in trade and asking why their only son was never heard from again.
    1
  6072. Ideally the Mainland becomes more like Táiwān and thus the China that everyone (including the PRC) believes China to be. But this all depends on how the CPC reacts to the idea of being just another political party that has to constantly compete for its reputation and popularity.
    1
  6073. Especially in the air and at sea, where casual combatants can't hide to ambush and regroup. It's all about technology and experience in a battlespace where people can't use their own two feet to escape the kill zone.
    1
  6074. Would you be medically okay at the end of those careers though? There's only so much you can cure from traumatic injuries or chronic conditions that rarely arise from a more controlled office environment.
    1
  6075. Be glad you can vote for alternatives to the PAP. Mainland Chinese don't have that opportunity.
    1
  6076. ⁠HK was a good base for Western firms to set up their branch offices at — it was a safe Western portal into China. Nowadays they might deal directly with Mainland contacts… but since the PRC’s failed Zero-COVID project are increasingly seeking alternatives to China altogether.
    1
  6077. It’s always been that way, much like Singapore-Johor Bahru or San Diego-Tijuana. The key is living and earning money in a more secure environment, which HK no longer is.
    1
  6078.  @albertjohn8723 SG is still a vital port for the world. HK doesn’t have such a unique advantage with GZ and SZ just up the river.
    1
  6079. The business gets more overspecialized and brittle to shock though without that foreign contribution and patronage.
    1
  6080. Mainlanders are widely seen as even worse when their wallets are closed. Just because they’re “native” doesn’t mean they’re better.
    1
  6081.  @GalaxySeeker-z8h HK was a backwater of fishing villages and pirate hideouts before the British came. It was the West that make HK what it is today. If it’s not a safe Western portal into China anymore, real activity will likely concentrate back up the river towards Guangzhou, and HK will become more a glorified bedroom community for it.
    1
  6082. I did see… and found other places that are cheaper and at least as convenient: Seoul, Taipei, even Jakarta
    1
  6083. Democracy flourishes, even if there’s no public demonstrations. The PAP at least concedes defeat when it happens.
    1
  6084. The dirt cheap price comes from unethical and ultimately unsustainable labor practices. Luckily for Beijing the rest of the Muslim world also effectively deem the Uyghurs politically disposable.
    1
  6085. Reducing growth in pollution, while Western countries already stagnated if not started shrinking their contributions a while back.
    1
  6086. It can, it's just been focused on highways and airports for the past 80 years. America's strength on rail has been directed on heavy freight, which is far more profitable than carrying passengers (also true with ships and airliners) and something China's HSR viaducts are built too weak to carry.
    1
  6087. Qatar seems more focused on building from the ground up, hence why Doha has less confusing roads and a proper subway system now while Dubai is still finishing its piped sewage network.
    1
  6088. Most places aren't so confrontational. Dubai Police however don't take sh*t from anyone though.
    1
  6089. The welcome is tenuous though, held together primarily by Western military presence since the British got what is now the UAE to quit their piracy and blood feuds on each other. It's only the safe access through the area that makes the region attractive ever since Ottoman demands compelled Europeans to sail around and bypass the Middle East altogether.
    1
  6090. VAT is still there but even the 5% you can't get refunded (like for restaurants and services) it's not as steep as the upwards of 13% charged in China.
    1
  6091. Politics in the PRC. Companies don't want to have its information stolen and staff barred from exiting the country for vague "legal" and "national security" reasons.
    1
  6092. Ah yes bussing people out to get the city's "positive case" numbers down, just like they did with Xī'ān 😒
    1
  6093. Yet Mainland China still demands negative test results for entry, even though they're the ones with all the deadly outbreaks.
    1
  6094. But if the hospitalization rate doesn't, why would it matter? Even in China practically all the positive cases are mild if not asymptomatic... the bigger health risk is China's "treatment" by effectively jailing every suspected carrier.
    1
  6095. That’s called being a businessowner. There’s an entire industry revolving around amateur people earning a living by sharing their experiences with little more than a phone camera and a social media account, depicting what they like, edited how they like, published when they like.
    1
  6096. Future opportunities are already taken by incumbent older generations and corporations. There’s little physical and financial space left for the youth to invest their expressions and occupations into.
    1
  6097. Due to education that’s useless in modern China’s socioeconomic environment. Beijing’s policies discourage exploration in the unlimited and already monopolized potential of Chinese arts and culture due to fears of violating the ruling Party’s political sensitivities. Japan and democratized South Korea are similarly weighed down by underemployment, but it’s not as severe because they have those alternative outlets in creative fields.
    1
  6098. Probably from standing in line together for mandatory nucleic acid tests 😂
    1
  6099. CPC civilians still experimenting with their explanation and narrative for the actions of what seems to be an overly-independent military.
    1
  6100. Up close those achievements aren’t so great or truthful. If anything we should be extra critical of the words coming from a place that lacks independent reporting.
    1
  6101. The nukes are there because of an even more aggressive Soviet/Russia. The bases are there because the host nations fear the alternative where the Americans are absent.
    1
  6102. But both its neighbors do, and they can bring crushing pain in physically isolating S’pore from the rest of the world.
    1
  6103. The "ghost" part is more in the bank accounts. Chinese consumers cost the same to support but aren't spending as much anymore.
    1
  6104. ​ @CHNCHAYIN The strategy is "if you build it, they will come". Problem is there's not enough "they" because they're too old and poor to use it and the businesses around it often enough.
    1
  6105. It's not don't build HSR ever, it's don't build HSR where there's not enough traffic hoping it'll magically come later.
    1
  6106.  @kshred3043  Compared to HSR, yes airliners are better suited. HSR lines are not built strong enough to handle loaded cargo trains, and the doors and platforms aren’t designed to roll pallets on and off unlike the belly of many planes.
    1
  6107. HSR doesn't move nearly as much freight, unlike passenger planes which regularly load up cargo pallets. Cargo is far more profitable than passengers, and its transportation is more needed considering how many overloaded trucks are long-hauling China's roads.
    1
  6108. America containing local conflicts is overall good for global trade and thus the world in general. What's worse is if a rival feels confident enough to get into interstate wars with industrial-level destruction, blocking out whole regions from peaceful access as they try to assert their own rules (invariably ones less tolerant of criticism and deviance).
    1
  6109. Infrastructure facilitates settlement, but does not guarantee it. Especially now that China is getting too old and poor to actually move in and set up shop.
    1
  6110. Truss bridges are held up by tension. Think of it like a suspension bridge, and how quickly compromised the structure would become if its tower got slammed into.
    1
  6111. Truss bridges are held up by tension, so "noodle" dynamics more similar to a suspension or cable-stayed span.
    1
  6112. Truss bridges are held up by tension, much like a suspension or cable-stayed span and having similar vulnerabilities.
    1
  6113. They're not designed to take a direct strike from a fully-laden ocean liner. No bridge support is.
    1
  6114. More like a design vulnerability of the structure, which as a tension-based span much like a suspension bridge doesn't have much tolerance to breakage on the main supports.
    1
  6115. The bridge supports are average size, it's the ship that's huge.
    1
  6116.  @tako2159  China was under the Soviet nuclear umbrella. It was also a war that China couldn't declare was won, since the US forces is still around and South Korea went to clearly surpass the North in every aspect.
    1
  6117. France just recalled their ambassadors to Australia and the US. I'd bet they're just salty about having their deal canceled even though France hasn't even started delivering, but it doesn't mean that France will automatically become buddies with Běijīng over it either.
    1
  6118. US learned that some land wars aren't worth fighting short of outright colonizing the place, and that its interests are easier to defend on the high seas and open skies where an insurgency manned by casual combatants and viewable by independent media is practically impossible.
    1
  6119. Nuclear propulsion ≠ nuclear weaponry. NPT doesn't say anything about using nuclear energy on warships.
    1
  6120. Nuclear power is still a ways off from nuclear warheads. The tech transition and buildup of necessary material to make it go boom is something that wouldn't go unnoticed.
    1
  6121.  @tzou550  Right, if China can't get its diesel-electric noise down, they're a long way from effective nuclear ones whose coolant pumps can't be totally shut down
    1
  6122. Or rather it’s balancing power in the region to deter any more aggressive moves from the Mainland.
    1
  6123. Meanwhile Chinese diplomats assert China’s right to impunity over SE Asia simply because of the “reality” that they’re smaller powers.
    1
  6124. Conflict resolution requires both sides to agree, and both sides don’t agree to the limits of the larger power’s sovereign reach.
    1
  6125. Democracy only within the ruling Party though, and even then one full of closed-door conspiracies not unlike the imperial court intrigue we hear about in dramas. It "works" only because the top-heavy structure still stands, but on a narrow and deteriorating base of Party sycophants as opposed to the broad reach of the entire citizenry's unapologetic input.
    1
  6126. Not in the European languages most of the world has some understanding of. But in Mandarin, China has been at war with the West for over a decade already.
    1
  6127. There was apparently a long line for the lavatories, and they had literally 3 seconds of warning due to how suddenly the clear air turbulence was encountered.
    1
  6128. It hurts their image that China can't protect diplomats and garner national respect from other nations. To the Party their reputation means everything.
    1
  6129. Well they are in the country they're credentialed to, but most choose to follow local laws anyway to avoid embarrassing their own nation.
    1
  6130. America has something that the China doesn't: effective vaccines and medical treatments.
    1
  6131. How will they get their food though? China polluted too much of its lands with industrial waste and urban development.
    1
  6132. If "safe" involves zero leisure travel and the constant threat of surprise lockdowns, it's better to go back home where effective mRNA vaccines largely limit the effects to a seasonal flu. Being imprisoned in an executive apartment (if you're lucky to not be taken to a "fever clinic") is still being imprisoned.
    1
  6133. If "safe" involves zero leisure travel and the constant threat of surprise lockdowns, it's better to go back home where effective mRNA vaccines largely limit the effects to a seasonal flu.
    1
  6134. They'd need an effective vaccine first, which they refuse to import.
    1
  6135. Chinese vaccines are not effective, that's why COVID strikes so hard despite China's supposedly high vaccination rate~ efficacy is so bad that surviving a natural infection is probably more effective. So until the Chinese people are given an effective vaccine, China is still limited to physical detention to fight the pandemic.
    1
  6136. There's plenty of rod, but without peer companions to develop positive aspects with all this does is teach the kid to lash out when they get to be the ones holding it.
    1
  6137. Or a Philippine one. Five Eyes shares secret intelligence, not public news sources.
    1
  6138. As if the reverse was any better? Arguably the growing wealth divide in America can be traced to corporate cooption of the US government starting with their laissez-faire crony Reagan. Likewise China's growth after the 1989 crackdown stems from America business interests taking precedence, getting America to forgive, "trust the market", and allow entry into the WTO. So now the US has a massive trade deficit, collapse of domestic manufacturing, shaken trust with its other Asian partners in the face of a more pushy China, and dividing worldviews on globalization fueled by "highly engaging" known information ops on social media, all because shortsighted profit-minded corporations dominated American foreign policy.
    1
  6139.  @leehyunsong7001  I've heard F-35 sales hinge on agreeing to enter its common combat information sharing network, so it also depends on if you can work with whoever else is flying the platform (one of which is Israel). Not every potential customer is comfortable with this, hence why Indonesia is working with Korea to develop their own alternative.
    1
  6140. Despite "steady" numbers, it sounds like Chaoyang District is now ordering all businesses to either go closed-loop or shut down. There's something substantial the Chinese government isn't revealing about their COVID stats and "superior" measures.
    1
  6141. It'd be seen as a "surrender" by the Party to admit to needing outside help. Zero-COVID was them buying time to come up with their own homemade mRNA-like solution, but despite the effort of their entire medical research industry they still failed to deliver. Even if they did succeed at producing one, they'd be hard pressed to have its people to get the jab due to lack of trust in Designed in China modern medicine as well as reversing the spin about their "success" at keeping the virus out altogether especially with the older and rural folks who are also the most vulnerable.
    1
  6142. Americans and the rest of the world are also far more immunized, and new variants are unlikely to become more damaging because they have to stay mild in order to survive. It'd only be a danger for the relatively sterilized Mainland.
    1
  6143. Want "objective" and "just"? Be careful what you ask for 🔍
    1
  6144. Singapore's government tries to maintain friendly relations with the PRC, even when they pose an obvious concern. It's their strategy to survive as a tiny independent sovereign state by trying to remain neutral in all conflicts and always have the ear of some other great power as needed.
    1
  6145. That's what Congress is concerned about, especially since networked target sharing is more robust nowadays. Navy seems to argue the Ticos can barely put to sea at all let alone get in range though.
    1
  6146. China's population is considerably smaller than they claim and older than who America can field. And there won't be a field for overwhelming Chinese numbers to fight in, as it's all an air and sea battle in the Strait where the mission is simply to keep Mainlanders from swimming to Taiwan.
    1
  6147.  @kit0134  Industrial output needs input though. China is a net and growing importer of raw foodstuffs and mobility-enabling petroleum. Most of its factories would be idled when the crossfire scares away civilian ship traffic bound for China, and Beijing tries not to go bankrupt paying for much more expensive overland alternatives to get enough food in and prevent yet another violent internal famine-induced dynastic overthrow.
    1
  6148. Better they get used rebuilding the world, rather than rust away in a harbor waiting for a crew of American sailors who having fought overseas just want to be home.
    1
  6149. AWACS equipment is already powerful enough to fry incoming missiles. I'm sure a larger ship has comparably greater capabilities. There's a reason America overbuilds its vessels in terms of electrical generation capacities, and complains about how older ships and planes have maxed out.
    1
  6150. Because of a female graduate? Women sharpshooters have been a combat threat for the past century.
    1
  6151. Gazans aren't, Hamas just uses them as involuntary "martyrs" because the militants deliberately hide themselves and their equipment among the civilians.
    1
  6152. The VLS canisters are the hard drives, standard throughout the navies they operate in. They just weigh several tons each, and the process would be like trying to hot swap them while standing in a canoe using a string from above. Trying to do the whole VLS block though is more like ripping out the whole rack from the closet and then bolting in and wiring up a new one.
    1
  6153. Part of maintaining that peace is credible deterrence, making sure the adversary knows how costly the retaliation could be for them should they opt not to cooperate. That's why there's all the news of weapon systems from "leaks" and parades -- China and Russia just like to publish before their stuff is actually ready, while the US tends to do so only after the "government waste" of many rounds of testing to weed out quietly failed experiments.
    1
  6154. If they're close enough and not a proportionally deadly threat, yeah it's preferable to use the gun with its much cheaper and more plentiful rounds. Even back in WWII when submarines still had deck guns, it was preferred to surface and fire with it on a fairly unarmed supply ship than it was to launch from the limited stock of torpedoes.
    1
  6155. An accountable human still needs to be in the decision chain for lethal force, it's the main concern of who exactly would be held responsible as fully automated combat system start getting fielded. It's not like the US is the only one mistakenly killing civilian planes either, just a few years ago a land-based Iranian SAM shot down a Ukrainian airliner that had just taken off from their own airport out of panic about a possible American air raid.
    1
  6156. I'd bet the engineers would conclude that it's not practical or cost effective to retrofit such a system for existing platforms, and designing new ones to take a standardized jig system could compromise other important aspects of the warship since now more than the VLS itself is getting its structures altered.
    1
  6157. Transferring loads to an from that rig just adds complexity, especially since each class and subtype of warship has different dimensions around the VLS block. It'd be unwieldy too since it also needs to be a crane that can lift several tons itself, so it will throw off the balance of whatever ship it's going on or off of much moreso than the changes of individual canisters.
    1
  6158. US doesn't have its own bases in the Philippines anymore. They'd have to bring in all the reloads, specific equipment, and trained operators to rearm a VLS since the Philippine Navy doesn't have similarly equipped ships.
    1
  6159. Soviet cosmonauts landed in the middle of their own country. Which meant having firearms on board in case bears found them before the recovery teams did 🐻
    1
  6160. Every military officer is a 4-year college graduate (or actively on the way to becoming one). The other option to get in a combat cockpit would be spending like 10 years enlisted before applying and graduating as a warrant officer.
    1
  6161. The dual part being the ability to handle constant traffic of fully loaded wheeled military supply convoys, in addition to the trucks and commuters that dominate the freeways today. Its use as an airstrip though wouldn't be evaluated until the civilian governments securing the rights of way and paying for the actual construction commit to the final build.
    1
  6162. The asbestos baked into what got ultimately got buried probably wasn’t worth it.
    1
  6163. The more severe the constraints, the better the imagination tends to be
    1
  6164. They're definitely seeding the clouds 🌧
    1
  6165. Dubai loves to promote its Hatta exclave. Thing is the only way to get there is a couple hours driving or taking a bus.
    1
  6166. Desert sand is useless because the grains are too smooth to stay stuck together even with cement.
    1
  6167. ​ @mohdalyase9274 Right, piped sewage is the one megaproject that Dubai kept going with. Poop trucks are a rare sight nowadays.
    1