Comments by "Fredinno" (@innosam123) on "Understanding Western Civilization." video.

@ingold1470 That implies that modern leftism continues dominant. Which seems kind of unlikely- not really want to be a Trumpet here, but 2020 was only barely won by having the entire elite class and populist left unite against the least popular president in decades (at least on paper). Which is not a stable alliance, which is why there is almost desperation to implement the policies to ensure they stay in power as soon as possible (HR-1, Multi-Billion dollar stimuluses with flimsy justifications, etc.) The ‘Merkelite’ EU is only lasting as long as Merkel remains in power. Without her, the EU in its current state is doomed. Mainly because no one can really replace her. The current ‘West’ basically doesn’t have a leader anymore, or really a stable dominant ideological faction. The most likely scenario is a brutal ideological civil war a la Spain 1938.
31
Space Colonization? Probably should ask about Ocean Colonization first, deep ocean Aquaculture and mining are much closer to economic feasibility, and the economic, technological, and societal baseline for it already exists (oil industry, aquaculture industry, tourism/cruise ship industry.)
10
@marinuswillett6147 Canada also never subsidized the colonization of the less habitable parts of the country as much as say, Russia, as well. Also, there’s not enough people to colonize those areas. The Peace River region is relatively habitable (farming is barely possible, resources are abundant, temperatures are cold but not too extreme), but is practically empty.
7
Is Latin America part of the West in this analysis? Because it would seem a little strange for it to not really be ‘Western’ despite failing badly in the 20th century.
7
@shorewall Japan is Asian, I think most people would agree on that. If you’re going by Western Influence, you have to put Korea and Japan in the same category...
7
@apathak34 Ok, I sent a link to Peter Zeiahn’s newsletter, but it didn’t go through. Basically, the Dems have lost the vast majority of both Senate and House Elections since 2000, despite having a nominal voter majority. The factions in the Democrats are far more divided than those in the Republicans, and despite a nominally higher number of voters, cannot keep everyone happy for very long. And Trump managed to catch an abnormally large # of minorities despite being “racist”. Turns out minorities aren’t oppressed classes who beat on every leftist’s whim.
6
@nikomann88 The Americans don’t have a vested interest in maintaining and strengthening Western Europe either- actually even less, because it geographically doesn’t make sense. Latin America is a good second option if you’re being mercantilistic- and China and India are larger long-term threats than Brazil, Mexico or Argentina can ever really be. Even Brazil has 2/3rds the population of the US, and it’s harder for them to make use of much scale due to geography.
4
@nikomann88 The migrants coming from the border are mostly Central American. And no amount of economic development is going to mitigate the Drug Cartels.
4
@boosterh1113 The Amazon’s soil is also not very fertile, so you also need tons of fertilizer or a long process of soil-building. Not sure how much worse it is in the end, in both cases, you’re effectively completely rebuilding the soil. There are parts of the shield that are farmable- mainly the Clay Belt and similar smaller pockets of fertile soil between the ancient rock. Obviously, not the easiest to get to.
4
@P4to D0l4n The British were busy elsewhere and didn’t really have much use for Patagonia, which is similar to much of Australia and South Africa in climate.
3
@adamnesico I mean what people in America would call “Asian”- specifically the Sino-East Asian cultural sphere. Japan is separate from it the same way Britain is separate from European Culture. People like to pretend it is- but it really isn’t.
3
@SteelSagas The number of countries have vastly increased though the 20th century...
2
@nikomann88 Also, the pink waves probably did more long-term harm than the military dictatorships.
2
@lilemont9302 Ever heard of Oil rigs?
2
@semigeo6911 Mars is extremely isolated from the world economy, and developing ANYTHING there requires insane amounts of capital. Neither are good for development. The soil is also toxic, and water is fairly difficult to get except in very specific areas (the poles) It’s going to be far cheaper to just not pollute as much on Earth. Light Industry is already fairly clean. It doesn’t even make sense to colonize outside of Earth’s Hill Sphere in our lifetimes. The economic argument doesn’t add up. The economic argument for space development even in Earth Orbit makes little sense. And no, I don’t take Starship seriously, especially not at its proposed numbers (130x below current launch costs/kg, LOLWUT?)
2
@apathak34 Except the point is that they *don’t*. Biden is not going to be able to do that. You need someone who’s liked by the entire coalition, which is *hard*. And Biden is not it.
2
@narsimhas1360 The easiest place to colonize is around the Earth. Venus is good if you want a planet, but it’s still farther away. You can argue it’s the best , but... we don’t really have any idea how to maintain a self-sustaining biosphere and modern economy. No space agencies are focusing on it because it’s not their goal. And Elon isn’t even pretending to take a stab at the problems with actual colonization.
1
@semigeo6911 It won’t even get to 10x. Hell, I’d be happy if they could get the price down to F9 equal /kg- about 250-300 mil. But few would use something that expensive. F9 hasn’t spurred massive a massive new commercial satellite boom other than the as yet unproven business model of Starlink (and Starship is overkill for Starlink) But F9 launches 24 times a year and is far less complex than Starship. Reusing the 2nd stage is only likely to mitigate the extra complexity, since F 9 is already reusing the majority of the rocket. Prices /kg have not decreased much, despite new competition arriving on the market. When Tesla was facing competition, they cut prices. But not SpaceX. Why? I appreciate the comparison to a successful scientist. ;)
1
@lilemont9302 Because we already have bases on the ocean. We have ONE base in Space, which has less people than even a fraction of an oil rig (which has hundreds of people). Is it self-sustaining? No. But it’s mostly because they don’t really need to. But new tech with aquaculture and underwater mining will eventually require more self-sustaining cities, especially as we move further out past the shoreline.
1