Comments by "Fredinno" (@innosam123) on "Whatifalthist" channel.

  1.  StrategicFooyoo  China needs foreign currency (like any nation without a hard currency), and they’ve got that from exports and debt. Exports to the rest of the world collapse due to trade sanctions, and all of a sudden foreign currency debt levels explode, or the Chinese starve. (They have to import food to feed themselves despite using excessive inputs of pesticide and fertilizer, causing water pollution to get even worse.) Chinese foreign currency debt is 2 trillion. Or 13% of GDP. Most Western nations are inherently considered hard currencies and are trusted in international trade. Unlike the Yuan. The USA negotiating with the Fed is not necessarily default. Also, note that the president can appoint the Fed Chairman. Also, note that the reason the Fed doesn’t directly fund the US government has to do with legal handicaps the Federal Government gave the Federal Reserve*. It’s currently *illegal for the Fed to print money and just give it to the government (effectively being the same as a US Treasury banknote). Also, note every developed economy is attempting to fight *deflation* due to the baby boomer retirees. Instead of the inflation being pumped into QE, some could be given directly to the government. Also note that implementing a 5% VAT could raise $355 billion/year (excluding rebates, adding rebates would likely increase the real rate to something like 7%). https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/0721_vat_for_us_gale.pdf A Carbon Tax would raise ~$250 billion/year. That would cut the deficit by 2/3rds. Both are supported by economists as good ways to reduce the deficit ASAP. Both could easily be implemented by a competent Democratic Administration (like the Clinton Administration did in the 90s). The reason the deficit is so high is the inability for Republicans to actually cut spending. Few nations have ‘funded’ its future liabilities. Not Canada. Not the EU. Not Japan. Not China. Not Russia. Literally every country WITH pensions has massive unfounded liabilities. https://www.weforum.org/press/2017/05/global-pension-timebomb-funding-gap-set-to-dwarf-world-gdp China in particular is nearly as bad as the US. If the US is fucked, so is everyone else. Assuming the CCP isn’t sacked after being in the world to the brink of a nuclear war? The biggest issue with ANY nuclear tactical use is that it risks easily turning into a nuclear war. China attacks American boats with nukes, the US retaliates by nuking Chinese shipyards and naval bases. The Chinese retaliate by attacking US cities, because they think those shipyards were too close to population centres or because hitting land was a red line. Then the world ends. There’s the other thing that if a world war actually started and tactical nuclear weapons became a risk, the US military would dust off SDI’s Brilliant Pebbles (which was actually somewhat affordable- a couple hundred billion), which would give the US all the leverage in a nuclear exchange. It hasn’t happened yet because that hasn’t been a threat since the USSR collapsed. Launch and satellite costs have also fallen since the 80s. Of course, so could China. But then, neither side can effectively use nuclear missiles to gain an advantage on each other.
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  2.  StrategicFooyoo  Take a closer look at the numbers. https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports#:~:text=Exports%20in%20China%20averaged%20649.59%20USD%20HML%20from,February%20of%201983.%20source%3A%20General%20Administration%20of%20Customs. It's a 'record' off an overall stagnation in the numbers as companies start to divest from China despite China's Made in China 2020 plan attempting to increase trade margins on the high-end.
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  3. Well yeah. That’s why reforms were made later on (like under Caracalla and Diocletian) were done to help fix the tax problem. Also, Rome was far more reliant on trade tariffs than on taxes- and Roman citizens were only partially exempt. They still paid taxes, just less than non-citizens. Of course, once everyone became a citizen, that distinction didn’t exist anymore, and the lower rate was the base rate. Also, Rome’s population was probably >50 million, while the army was more like 350,000 (double in the late empire.) Ie. Less than 1% of the total population.
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  4. Also, France tried to colonize Korea and New Zealand.
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  5.  Fuck YouTube  “Invasions and wars of conquest don’t happen anymore.” Sure they do, ask Russia.
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  6. Eh, the Chinese only ever fell internally, or to horse warriors- The Japanese were simply outnumbered fighting the Chinese. They managed to destroy Korea because its military was mostly incompetent, but guerillas hindered their movement across Korea as a whole....
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  7. What is your viewpoint on projects like Brilliant Pebbles and the SDI program?
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  8. One interesting side note when doing my own research: Japan’s birth rate is close to the highest amongst similarly industrialized Eastern Asian nations (despite a very aged population- the primary difference between Japan and everyone else is that Japan had a baby bust at the end of WW2 because everyone there thought their world was ending) and is (very slowly) increasing since 2015, with the possibility of reaching replacement by 2100 (which makes sense to eventually happen, as everyone who’s not willing to give birth die out or get replaced by cultural groups with higher birth rates - something which is kind of happening in Israel with the Orthodox Jews) Also, its economy is more adapted to bad demographics than anyone else in the region (or the world, really), and has a semi- independent foreign policy with the ability to do what it wants without American approval. So you could see Japan being able to carve somewhat of its own sphere of influence, especially if China ends up failing in its own bid to become superpower. The bad demographics also had pretty good timing for making Japan no longer a threat to the US right when Japan needed to ally against China. Japan could become a sleeper power/black swan power, becoming a major player, despite everyone counting it out as a lost power since the 90s, the same way people counted it out after its defeat in WW2. Either way, the 21st century is a bad time to be a Korean.
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  9.  @RA9U1  So basically you’re for federalism?
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  10.  @derFleetadmiral  Don’t call America when Russia comes knocking on the doors of Poland and the Baltics. Ukraine would have fallen by now if not for Western support- and there’s no reason Putin would stop there on the long-run if the West just showed their belly. Russia has to either be stopped in Kiev or Riga.
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  11.  @jaketaber8553  Well, TBF, does Pheonix or Los Angeles have water?
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  12.  @Web720  Technically, it’s been going on since the dawn of modern medicine, though biotech and genetic engineering has made unprecedented new strides as we get better at gene editing. We are at least starting to identify genes most associated with longer/shorter lifespans, which should buy a few decades of lifespan for most people.
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  13.  @porterwayman8643  The Roman Empire reached peak decadence during the Crisis of the Third Century. It was on the road the recovery when the West fell, as proven with what happened with the East after the Great Migration (ignoring the Rise of Islam).
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  14.  @alfalafelstine1536  China claimed Okinawa by claiming it was a *tributary* of China. Not even actually part of China. They don’t really care, they just use historicity as an excuse to take land.
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  15. @Tall Jakee Why would they piss off every SE Asian nation for useless maritime claims in the South China Sea? And there’s a good reason. China is running out of water and needs to bring in more- either from the South or the North. Controlling Vlavadivostok would make the rest of Siberia much harder to defend. Also, they want to green the Gobi Desert with water from Tibet.
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  16. What if Polk Suceeded?
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  17. @anderson I mean, there is ONE other option. Build solar mirrors in space to restart the Sahara Monsoons, turning the desert back into grassland.
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  18.  @RioX001  Helium 3 is overhyped, it’s only good because of not having the issue of neutron production. Considering we’re going to have to learn how to deal with that whether we like it or not to develop fusion in the first place, Helium 3 is pretty niche.
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  19.  Luís Filipe Andrade  In math, a ‘singularity’ is generally considered to be an error. Computer tech isn’t even following Moore’s Law anymore.
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  20. The idea that Rome was doomed because of elite decadence doesn’t explain how they were able to survive in the East. Or how Rome was largely restored by the East before the Plague of Justinian Thanos snapped the empire’s population. Clearly there were countervailing forces (ie. the Dynasties and politically incompetent leaders could be replaced. Otherwise, both the East and West would have fallen, because they were derived from the same political system (only until after the Arab invasions were major reforms in the Eastern government made.)
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  21. Does the Right Wing want to create a racial hierarchy? No? Then it’s not Apartheid. Basically no one on the right (aside from the very fringe neo-Nazi and alt-right) want to get rid of minorities or segregate society.
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  22.  @georgios_5342  Bruh, no one got substantial reparations from WW2 but the Soviets. Poland deserves reparations too, and they got communist rule instead. Yeah, the Greek governments were doing a poor fiscal job in terms of spending. But Germany, Scandinavia, and France also had have higher welfare states as %GDP. This was a problem with both taxes and spending.
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  23.  @itsirrelevant4565  Greece can leave the EU whenever they want and default on the euro debt if they want. No one is forcing them to stay.
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  24.  @raydavison4288  According to Wikipedia, France has a taxation rate (all government levels, incl. EU) of 44% of GDP. The US has a taxation rate (all levels of government) of ~30%, with total spending ~38%. Both in the US have stayed mostly static at these levels since the Reagan administration (minus a few percent bump in spending post-08.)
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  25.  @rawshitirule  Because of lack of legal protection for anything. Expanding is difficult when you’re working under the table, and corruption tends to be much worse. Unemployment insurance is a thing, but it’s not great being unemployed either.
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  26. Oh ff sake...
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  27. Not sure how China gets a massive empire when it’s supposed to shrink by half within 30 years.
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  28. What if Britain lost the Falklands War?
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  29.  @keshkeeper14  No.
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  30. Yes, the Right does have internal conflicts. The issue is that socialist/leftist movements are much worse at this. The only time that internal conservative divisions actually changed things in recent years was when Trump sabotaged the 2020 Georgia Senate Race. The Democrats can’t get any legislation, on the other hand through, despite controlling all branches of government.
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  31.  @michaelweiske702  Hey, remember when Virigina elected a Republican to Governor and New Jersey went within 3 points in 2021? And how both were actually important elections rather than a temporary house appointment? And the reason is that the vote was split. Also, probably Sarah Palin.
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  32.  @michaelweiske702  Well, from what I can tell, it's more like 'never-Palins'. Sarah Palin isn't popular in Alaska and has been out of politics for over a decade. Even then, she got the greater % of the vote and would have won without ranked-choice voting, indicating that the populists are probably the dominant faction. The 'never-Trumpers' exist, but not enough to provide much incentive for the right to continue to radicalize. Alaska is also moving left federally (not at the governor/state level, however), for many reasons- in part because of (ironically) population decline, partially because the Alaskan right-wing hates their federal election candidates. Being a centrist like Murkowski doesn't work anymore. The 'never-Trump' faction exists, but so does the 'only-Trump- faction.
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  33.  @SuperCrow02  Tibet is 90% Tibetan. Even Xinjiang has constant terrorist attacks despite being more throughly colonized.
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  34.  @johnwilson6324  Considering China is trying to conquer entire provinces of Japan and India? Yeah, no, they’re not fine. It’s the same as if Russia was trying to annex Alaska and Hawaii. And yeah, way to throw Asian-Americans under the bus. Not to mention if China starts invading shit, those refugees are going to flood into Europe and America in numbers that would make Syria look like a picnic party. Also, net migration from Mexico is now 0. You can solve the migrant problem by helping Central and Latin America develop and by defeating the Drug Cartels. Or if you prefer, with a wall on Mexico’s Southern border, because that’s where the migrants are coming from now.
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  35. What if the Ottoman Empire never existed?
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  36.  @danielkelly8870  You're basically describing a economically left-wing, culturally right-wing system. Like Latin America, but without the corruption and incompetence.
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  37. You can fund another war, just cut some social spending or remove the Medicare Premium Cap. The entire Ukraine aid over the last year is ~$100B or so. In comparison, total US gov revenues for 2023 are around $4400B. And we need part of that money spent to keep the domestic defence-industrial base anyways sustainable (pre-Ukraine, a major worry was running out of supplies due to low stockpiles due to low defence-industrial production). Politically is a different question, but Ukraine is the only one where public polling has gone negative, and probably due to the stalemate.
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  38. Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave. We should have built SDI.
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  39.  @harshjain3122  Thanks. 1. I don’t doubt the US could keep forces in the Middle East if they wanted to- the issue is that there’s no obvious reason to. Afghanistan survived so so long because it was a base against the terrorist-infested region. Arguably, the garrison (which was indeed a garrison, it was well below 10,000 men even before peace negotiations began, which is the size of a large US garrison, like Thule) was useful enough to keep, but… too late now. Oil is not a good reason to now either. The US also never was very involved in Africa. The thing is that it probably won’t matter until as such Turkey or Iran start to become major powers, or India becomes a larger threat than China. The only other theoretical currency competitor is crypto, and it won’t matter if it is forced to go underground because every major economy put massive restrictions on it. Gold has existed as an option since Nixon went off the Gold Standard. If people wanted to trade solely in Gold, they’ve had almost 50 years to do so. Yuan… That’s like going from fighting a bear to taking a dunk in lava. Getting money into China is easy. Getting money out of China… is harder. Especially nowadays. 2. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/manufacturing-production https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/manufacturing-pmi Note the comparison between 2008, 2000, and today. This is despite inflation panic and mass supply shortages. Most stuff that made sense to outsource (textiles, etc.) were already outsourced long ago. Also, the decline of US manufacturing accelerated enormously after 2001…at the same time China joined the WTO. This appears to be unique to China, as things like NAFTA (1994) have little correlation with a sustained pattern of decline. This is consistent with many studies on the subject-China is infamous for effectively product dumping things like steel (which makes no sense to outsource, it’s heavy AF and low value/ton) onto the global market. The reversal should reverse the previous trend…in theory.
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  40. What if Oil didn’t exist?
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  41.  @Cneq  Yeah. Ironically, the fact the US is more multiethnic and multiracial makes a conquest of Mexico or the Caribbean much easier. Especially as Birth rates across most of Central and Latin America are stabilizing at around 2-ish. This means that the 2 main cultural reasons (not wanting to integrate Catholic people of mixed or inferior races, and not wanting to be ethnically dominated by a foreign group) to not taking over the entire North American region dies. South America is more iffy. Geography doesn’t make sense here, as these places are effectively an ocean away from the American mainland. Also, someone like Argentina or Brazil might stop eating rocks and actually become a major power here.
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  42.  @nobodyherepal3292  Honestly, by the time Augustus took power, the civil wars so far were so destructive that people were mostly just sick of fighting. Also, the people who were trying to 'preserve' the republic were corrupt enough that the faith in the system was long dead.
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  43.  @landgabriel  The Carribean isn't that different from the Med in geographical terms.
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  44. Alexander Lopazan More like what if Red Alert actually happened.
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  45. Tall Jakee ‘Han’ is an artificial ethnicity. Really, ‘Chinese’ is less of a language, and more a language family (like Latin). Guangdong is practically North Vietnam genetically and culturally (kind of). They don’t need to tap into minority groups, because almost everyone is a minority group that’s not on the Yellow River Valley to an extent.
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  46. Is this Japanese Empire Catholic?
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  47.  @AbeYousef  I think people kind of use the stereotypes to place BC in the liberal camp, especially if they’re Americans, who pretty much know BC as Downtown Vancouver and the touristy Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island (ie. the most liberal parts of BC), and extrapolate from Seattle. It’s especially obvious once he put Kelowna in the “Weed and Hippies Camp” (lol). A lot of the reason Washington is liberal are transplants from other states over the past 50 years (same as Colorado), which are disproportionally more Liberal than transplants to other states. No sane Californian or other resident from a liberal area ever heads to Vancouver for cheaper housing like they do in the rest of the Pacific Northwest (even if the border didn’t exist). So the leftwards-pushing effects of political migration into BC are not major. Also, the minor cities that usually are conservative strongholds despite the major cities are larger in BC.
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  48. People don't really talk much about this because it's a difficult problem to solve, and there's no comparable movement like there is for Climate Change. There are a few things we know should increase birth rates (of those that have been tried) that should be feasible: 1. Solve the Housing Crisis. Duh. 2. Encourage people to get married. No marriage = no kids. 3. Ban dating apps so people actually have to go outside to find partners instead of being swarmed by hundreds of date requests (really hard to find a mate when you're competing in such a giant pool and people only choose the top 10%. Dating apps also suck generally.) 4. Pension reform to increase pension benefits based on the number of children they have. Children used to be a financial insurance policy, and this will make pensions more stable on the long run. 5. Stop trying to push women into full-time work and increase work benefits/flexibility for working mothers like Scandinavia does. 6. Ban abortion. Probably the most politically difficult, at least in the states. Most abortions are elective- so the vast majority of 'saved' babies just never end up being born (and a disproportionate number of the remainder have genetic defects), but still. One thing to note though: This is one case where technology might change things dramatically in the form of life extension. Since tech CEOs and billionaires want to live forever, this is one field that gets tons of funding. It's probably not one technology, but multiple, and will be disseminated in rich nations first. That would change these dynamics dramatically.
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  49.  @КГБ-л3п  The issue in the Middle East was a complete lack of cultural understanding alienated the people who DID actually have reason to support the US. And in any case, the Kurds DID end up rising up and joining the US, and were a critical reason ISIS didn’t just take over. Russia is part of the West. Not to mention they have a bunch of ethnic groups who hate Russia (basically this area’s Kurds.)
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  50.  @skygge1006  The Chinese military also sucks in terms of training, experience, and leadership compared to the German one in the World Wars. I think it’s unlikely Japan and India would not side with the USA against China, and likely Europe as well post-Ukraine.
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