Comments by "hugh mungus" (@hughmungus2760) on "Whatifalthist" channel.

  1. Chang Kai Shek was a right wing nationalist with very traditionalist views and didn't have an issue with the private sector existing unless it was working against the interests of the nation. Thats basically what china is today.
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  2.  @gideonmele1556  call it normalcy bias or the fact that people know the alternative is So much worse.
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  3. The US absorbing more latin culture will make the US more like a latin american country. That pioneer sprit could easily end up being sidelined by latin values due to demographics.
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  4. Collapses as a result of aging demographics is also one of the most idiotic things. Old people do not start revolutions. Young people who will have their hands full looking after their elderly parents Do not start revolutions. Young people who aren't the fking Joker also don't just decide to kill off their elderly parents because they are a burden.
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  5.  @AbeYousef  This will never happen because the US has made it an explicit policy to never allow another country or coalition of countries democractic or not to overtake it in power. The US actively interferes with EU countries and was arguably behind Brexit and Definately behind the faisco in ukraine and syria which greatly weakened the EU.
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  6. Theres a chinese saying 'eating till full and keep gorging' at the present chinese society is far from reaching the point where day to day life is 'boring' Most people are still striving to escape grinding poverty or still have fresh memories of what its like to be in poverty. You are not going to see large sections of the population set fire to society for no other reason than to 'be a man'
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  7. when did Russia surrender? Also germany only surrendered when it was literally conquered by foreign armies.
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  8.  @Ushio01  those assumptions are made on the premis that mass immigration of that scale is politically sustainable. All it takes is a more competent version of Trump to get elected and the whole thing goes out the window.
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  9.  @illbenchyourgirl5398  You sound like you're desperately trying to hide your insecurity by throwing every sexpat talking point ever made. If asia wasn't a threat to the dominance of the west, the US wouldn't be freaking out over china right now.
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  10. also, From a grand geopolitical standpoint, america turning into a far right military dictatorship would mean the death of american power around the world. None of america's current allies will want to be associated with a country that just put millions into death camps You would be naive to think a military junta that just purged millions of 'leftists' will give up power and all elections in a decade.
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  11.  @reek4062  the 'deep state' or whatever you want to call them attempted to create a new world order aka the 'rules based order' but it turns out most people in the world don't like being told what to do by a distant authority.
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  12. excessive property speculation is the number 1 reason why despite having more than enough housing for everyone, people in china still struggle to afford housing. Allowing the bubble to pop right now was at the outset an intentional act. As is the state's refusal to do large scale bailouts. Ofcourse this will result in a few years of sluggish economic growth and dissatisfaction among the invester class. But they are a small minority which pose a risk to the legitimacy of the party. Infact, declining housing prices is something the youth have been asking decades for.
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  13. A chinese napoleon who is also an elon musk style eccentric that employs human genetic engineering, cybernetic and cloning.
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  14.  @total3117  Maybe in the west, In asia being white is quickly losing its allure.
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  15. in the 13th century, Taiwan was more or less uninhabited except for some primative tribes
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  16.  @geraldmeehan8942  and my point is that it wasn't because they couldn't it was because there was nothing of value there so they didn't need to. Also in later dynasties Taiwan Was occupied by china.
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  17.  @JLudwig-c4l  the reduction in oil usage has more to do with de-industrialisation in the US and efficiency gains, but somehow I don't see the US today coming up with something akin of the 'great green wall' or building the north-south water transfer project like china to deal with desertification. Zero covid won't last forever either because of advances in vaccine/treatment tech or because of genuine fatigue of the majority of the population, currently only a handful of cities in china are affected whole the vast majority have never once came under lockdowns. This is why zero covid is still quite popular in china. Provinces don't hate each other anywhere near as much as Dems hate Republicans. I've yet to see any evidence of the same kind of political polarisation in china between provinces you see on public display between the Dems and the GOP. Replacement rate is 2.1 per woman, the US is at 1.6 well below that. As far as anyone is concerned, both the US and china are screwed for birth rates, but china does have 4x more people than the US. Population age wise, the US and china are both neck and neck with china being 1-2 years younger, Long term wise both are expected to become old, but still doesn't change the fact that china will have vastly more people than the US for the forseeable future.
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  18. drones used in the ukraine war haven't even shown off the true extent of what they're capable of. Essentially you're still using cheap civilian grade quad copters and small propeller driven cruise missiles that aren't intelligent. Swarming drones haven't really been used for one reason or another
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  19. Incel logic
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  20.  @chaost4544  In the past america was a different country with a different economic model. unskilled mass immigration made sense when you were a manufacturing economy and need cheap labour. It doesn't make sense when you're a consumer economy with a large welfare burdon.
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  21.  @chaost4544  Some degree of immigration is always going to be needed to fill certain market niches but thats a far cry from the open borders policy that would be needed to make up for demographic trends in the US. In previous eras of american mass immigration the american domestic population had a heathy birth rate. Today dometic american demographics are every bit as bad as anywhere else in the developed world. Which goes a long way to explaining why its so politically unsustainable.
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  22.  @chaost4544  maybe you're right. But the political consequences of mass immigration cannot be ignored. The most disruptive and destabilizing presidency in recent american history has been in part the direct result of unfettered mass immigration. I can only see this continuing to be a trend. Also, you have to consider as the population of the US grows, so too does the need to import more immigrants, which becomes a logistical problem and again, causes major political backlash in border state. Theres also the issue of a lack of high quality immigrants, increasingly the US is accepting third world immigration which tends to be a huge net drain in the near term and provoke the worst political backlash.
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  23.  @chaost4544  saying that immigration contributed to a civil war in the US isn't exactly reassuring.
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  24. as a chinese Im actually happy that the housing prices finally came down. I might actually be able to afford a place to live in my lifetime. Screw the speculators. if you got enough money to buy a house for investment purposes in china, you can afford to lose money.
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  25. In the past the chinese state feared a popular call for western style democracy because the west is doing significantly better than china. Today no such thing is happening because the west is undergoing some truely embarassing levels of regression. What would people in china even replace the current system with? You've failed to name that.
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  26.  @crazychase98  The fact that they're resorting to fistfights means its not a serious conflict. A war over taiwan will absolutely be a serious conflict.
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  27.  @Liam-iv7wk  literal 'return to monke' brainrot
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  28.  @chickenfriedlobster  Zeihan is amerian exceptionalism embodied, he totally ignores the same problems that plague america's rivals when it comes to dealing with the US itself.
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  29. China has one of the world's highest personal savings rates where the majority of the population put over 40% of their income into some form of savings. They'll be fine.
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  30.  @hughjass1044  either way you'll have half the country that refuses to respect democratic outcomes and possibly the creation of a shadow government that may get into a violent confrontation with the people in power. Then the civil war starts.
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  31.  @csmth96  No thats the mentality of a true believer, a zealot. the same people who would strap explosives to themselves and do suicide bombings. Which. after 20 years. won the war against the US.
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  32. If chang had won the civil war, china would just be ruled under conservative hereditary oligarchy consisting of the decendents of chang's original inner circle. Taiwan literally had to wait for chang to die of old age to attempt to move to democracy and only succeeded because the US helped it every stage of the way. In a world where the US would not want china to become a powerful democratic competator to itself, it would do everything to ensure chang's goons stayed in power. at least until china became so powerful on its own that then they'd want to push for some messy colour revolition, where they will probably back the communists.
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  33. never ask a Zeihanist about 3 things: The impact of Artificial intelligence. The effects of a nuclear war between major powers. The long term impacts of shifting ethnic demographics. Their entire world view collapses if they have to address any of these.
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  34. Eeesh. your lack of respect for the scientific method is just sad. Just admit you don't know what you're talking about.
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  35. AHAHAHA. You've lost it bro. People burning AI researchers and geneticists at the stake? You sound like a doomsday preacher. Maybe its time to touch grass.
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  36.  @delgado.adrian160  ships are multi hundred feet long slabs of metal. Spotting them with over the horizon radar or high attitude drones is pretty easy. A US fleet would also not be sailing with their radars turned off so they'd show up on ELINT even earlier. I won't get overly technical with how tracking a ship at range would work but needless to say, its quite easy to do in the modern age by any major military. Hypersonics are going to make it exceedingly difficult for the US to operate safely anywhere near the chinese coast. Which is the whole point. Also if the US intends to shoot down chinese satellites, the same can be done to the US. And the US has alot more to lose in that war since US hardware is operating half way around the world while china is operating right off its coast. A protracted oil blockade would bring all of asia to its knees and US allies would sue for peace long before china does. If the US cannot stop a chinese blockade of taiwan, then taiwan loses. And the whole US operation fails. China has enough raw resources to sustain itself if it no longer needed to manufacture for export. Especially when you factor in land trade with Russia. At best you cause economic damage to china. But since this is a war, chinese people aren't exactly going to care about the degraded standard of living. Japan is in no shape to get involved, they all together lack an expeditionary force and would just be throwing away their navy on a suicide mission if they tried to sail into the straits. What can blow US ships out of the water can take out japanese ships too. South korea can't afford to get involved because of North korea. The fact of the matter is I don't downplay any US weapon system. The US simply does not have a counter to chinese A2AD. Its been openly admitted that the US can't stop chinese land based launchers from blockading taiwan because the US does not have the capability find them as recon assets can't get close the chinese coast.
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  37.  @sam8742  yeah cause voting for the same pack of liars over and over totally fixes things right?
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  38.  @tjones44236  Thats just a natural effect of urbanisation. No country is exempt from this.
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  39. Its assinine to assume that shrinking demographics will cause a country to disintegrate. Historically its rapidly growing populations are cause instability. Not declining ones. I mean what would people even fight over? the decline in population these days is due to modernity not some government policy
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  40. yeah lets watch another arrogant airhead doompill about a different country that he has zero actual understanding of.
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  41.  @joedapro1118  taiwan was basically a colony of the US.
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  42.  @korakys  Obviously if yugoslavia was reformed it wouldn't hold because nobody would know how to bring it back together. All im saying is theres alot of nostalgia for the time before the breakup.
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  43. No country with nuclear weapons is irrelevant.
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  44. wait wait wait are you unironically telling people to trust anti-chinese CIA funded sources to present accurate, unbiased data?
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  45. democracy suffers the larger a country is. This is why india can't keep pace with china.
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  46. Lol you sheer lack of understanding of how the chinese system works is quite frankly ruining any analysis you make because just 'assuming' china will collapse in a few years automatically throws and calculation off. No, the current china is Not Maoist. It isn't a peasant redistributionist economy undergoing massive de-traditionalisation. Its actually a nationalist mixed economy more akin to the US under Hoover/FDR, trying to solve issues relating to economic imbalances and foreign geopolitical pressure. Culturally china is rapidly RE-Traditionalizing with many practices that were formerly done away with under Mao being brought back and celebrated. Its like you look at china, look at the word communist. and don't bother doing an ounce of research deeper.
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  47. the mongol invasions also took place over a period of nearly 100 years.
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  48. local bureaucrats in china are for the most part democratically elected, weeding out the bad actors and underperformers is essential for the party to function at the higher levels because thats where they get their candidates for higher offices.
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  49.  @kaisercollins3097  Most countries didn't politicise covid and it still spread around the world.
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  50.  @bno6156  china doesn't have to invade anyone else to take on taiwan. just make sure the infrastructure for US warfighting in those countries are sufficiently degraded. As it stands the US has a handful of large bases in asia where most of their assets are parked. If those get bombarded the majority of US military assets get blown up on the runway.
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