Comments by "Bo McGillacutty" (@Mrbfgray) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. Releasing an earthquake sooner than later reduces intensity and damage. One part of Cali San Andreas fault where the rock is exceptionally slippery stresses never build up and only small quakes happen.
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  2. Any advantages N. America has can be quickly overwhelmed by moronic policies, as we've seen recently.
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  3. Seems the colonies, the Americas are so much more civilized, we haven't invaded eachother in over 150 yrs. (with a few very minor exceptions)
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  4.  @wylldflower5628  How can it possibly NOT release the stress? No doubt releasing one section will further load adjacent sections, that's a separate thing. Darn good reason that after a major quake you don't expect another big one in same area anytime soon. Likewise, as time goes on the risk continuously builds along with the stress. Hypothetically you could release ALL the stress on an entire fault before it gradually builds up again, not hard to understand.
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  5.  @wylldflower5628  Not sure what "new thinking" applies here. All in rough approximations: plates move on the order of 1 to 3 centimeters per yr relative to each other, but they 'stick' grind and flex (wind up) near faults. Intuitively, they make up for a century or 3 all at once when they rupture, longer the wait the bigger the slip/energy released. 4 or 6 on Richter Scale are tiny compared to an 8, a 9 is more than 10X bigger than an 8. On the higher end, sudden offsets of several meters happen. (Problem with log scales is ppl don't understand them, but otherwise we'd be talking about a 10 to a 1M quake) 4 is barely perceivable, a 6 won't likely wake you up, a 9 may level your house but certainly will define your yr if nearby. Plates are driven by viscous magma under the influence of massive convection currents, they can only move so fast, reliving the stress won't have much effect on average plate movement. Stands to reason that if you could frack entire fault line, say('grease' it hypothetically), gradual movement is safe, pent up energy, wound spring release is not.
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