World War III Updates

[FourFans]

3 hours ago, skybert said:

Dibs!!

because he's off...or will be thereso getting...Biff says:

Edited April 21 by FourFans

[Clark Griswold]

I would say that I'm Ukraine War continuation skeptical but not opposed exactly, they passed the "funding" bill but as a skeptic I would be less skeptical, cynical and maybe supportive if they passed a funding vehicle (bureacracy speak phrase for tax increase or creation) to pay for this appropriation 
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/20/betrayal-complete-mike-johnson-passes-61-billion-ukraine-aid-violates-hastert-rule-again/
Like climate change preening / virtue signalling... if the activist / big mouth / holier than thou person advocating for a low energy life style actually lived that way themselves I'd take them seriously, but as they are not actually for paying for it but thru debt issuance, continued funding seems less than honorable
Follow up: 
So as I know there are CODEL staffers lurking on this thread /s… the IRS says there were 161 million income tax filings, divide that into 60 billion, that’s about $373 per filer, propose an amendment or stand alone bill to 2023 income tax filings and collect the money, not holding breath but that would go long way to burnishing your credentials and supposed commitment to the LIO and love of it 
 

Edited April 21 by Clark Griswold
Tilting at windmills not complete yet

[fire4effect]

15 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

I would say that I'm Ukraine War continuation skeptical but not opposed exactly, they passed the "funding" bill but as a skeptic I would be less skeptical, cynical and maybe supportive if they passed a funding vehicle (bureacracy speak phrase for tax increase or creation) to pay for this appropriation 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/20/betrayal-complete-mike-johnson-passes-61-billion-ukraine-aid-violates-hastert-rule-again/

Like climate change preening / virtue signalling... if the activist / big mouth / holier than thou person advocating for a low energy life style actually lived that way themselves I'd take them seriously, but as they are not actually for paying for it but thru debt issuance, continued funding seems less than honorable

This.

I paid a ton in taxes this year, so I guess I'm doing my part. LOL

Ahh the hypocrisy. Taylor Swift and her private jet. HAD to be there to watch her boyfriend throw his tantrum in person instead of watching it on TV. What would have happened if any of us had done that to our boss? Not to mention all the electricity used for her Era's tour. Generated most if not all by fossil fuels. I wonder how many in the Go Green crowd would give up everything in their life that contains plastic (think cellphone). A big problem as I see it is the lack of true scientific literacy in Congress. Laws of thermodynamics/physics don't care what is written in a law. 

 

[Lawman]

This.
I paid a ton in taxes this year, so I guess I'm doing my part. LOL
Ahh the hypocrisy. Taylor Swift and her private jet. HAD to be there to watch her boyfriend throw his tantrum in person instead of watching it on TV. What would have happened if any of us had done that to our boss? Not to mention all the electricity used for her Era's tour. Generated most if not all by fossil fuels. I wonder how many in the Go Green crowd would give up everything in their life that contains plastic (think cellphone). A big problem as I see it is the lack of true scientific literacy in Congress. Laws of thermodynamics/physics don't care what is written in a law. 
 

It goes way beyond Plastic.

A society without soaps… most medications… superior lubricants to machine parts… fertilizers growing 8 billion people in food.

The sheer stupidity of somebody that thinks human existence can exist at this scale without petroleum is just unaware of anything petroleum is used as a precursor or provides the bulk chemical make up of. They just think a barrel of oil = gasoline = bad stuff for global warming.


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[dream big]

On 4/19/2024 at 5:38 PM, fire4effect said:

Ukraine sees allies protect Israel from Iran attack and asks: What about us? (nbcnews.com)

Actually makes a great point.

We have a named operation obligating us to provide Missile Defense for Israel; there is no such legal obligation for Ukraine. 

[gearhog]

13 hours ago, Lawman said:

The sheer stupidity of somebody that thinks human existence can exist at this scale without petroleum is just unaware of anything petroleum is used as a precursor or provides the bulk chemical make up of. They just think a barrel of oil = gasoline = bad stuff for global warming.

If the equation is simplified as: scale * consumption = global warming, does it make any logical sense whatsoever that those who are imposing climate change policies would only treat scale as a constant, and consumption as a variable?

They're both variable. And as was said above, those advocating for the policies to stop global warming are saying they're for reducing consumption, but their actions indicate they'd like that to be the constant.

I don't think they're stupid.

[Lawman]

If the equation is simplified as: scale * consumption = global warming, does it make any logical sense whatsoever that those who are imposing climate change policies would only treat scale as a constant, and consumption as a variable?
They're both variable. And as was said above, those advocating for the policies to stop global warming are saying they're for reducing consumption, but their actions indicate they'd like that to be the constant.
I don't think they're stupid.

If you actually start looking at original founding members of things like the Sierra club, there is a deeply inhuman meritocracy of human survival they are advocating for silently. John Muir was an advocate for white ascendency and soft extermination of lesser peoples. People that read things like Population bomb and think it is a sound science from a place of money and power don’t want there to be 8 billion people on the Planet. These were champions of Eugenics, which at its time was a widely regarded pseudo scientific thought and now through revision its something we normally just associate with the Nazis.

That doesn’t make that the sole platform of the eco movement. There are utopian-futurists in that movement who want to see us ascend technologically (people that think of things like mass scale tidal power generation), there are opportunistic parasites (people funneling trillions of future investments to the cause so they can be a ground floor owner in that investment). There are the dogmatic zealots (think green-peace/morons like Greta) who see this like an extreme religious crusade.

There isn’t just 1 monolithic ecological identify. But what I’ve found is most of them want no discussion of the trade off to anything they are presenting as the sole and only problem. They want to just do arithmetic in a game that is regulated by calculus/physics.


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[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Lawman said:

If you actually start looking at original founding members of things like the Sierra club, there is a deeply inhuman meritocracy of human survival they are advocating for silently. John Muir was an advocate for white ascendency and soft extermination of lesser peoples. People that read things like Population bomb and think it is a sound science from a place of money and power don’t want there to be 8 billion people on the Planet. These were champions of Eugenics, which at its time was a widely regarded pseudo scientific thought and now through revision its something we normally just associate with the Nazis.

That doesn’t make that the sole platform of the eco movement. There are utopian-futurists in that movement who want to see us ascend technologically (people that think of things like mass scale tidal power generation), there are opportunistic parasites (people funneling trillions of future investments to the cause so they can be a ground floor owner in that investment). There are the dogmatic zealots (think green-peace/morons like Greta) who see this like an extreme religious crusade.

There isn’t just 1 monolithic ecological identify. But what I’ve found is most of them want no discussion of the trade off to anything they are presenting as the sole and only problem. They want to just do arithmetic in a game that is regulated by calculus/physics.


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And I think people don't realize how natural the anti-human instinct is. You ever met someone  who boils issues down to "humans just suck" or "humans are a cancer on the Earth?" My wife was like that way back. Never actually acted in a way that indicated she believed it, deeply compassionate and attached to her friends and family, but if you mentioned the environment, boom, humans are the worst and we probably need fewer of them. 

 

That impulse, I think, is just part of being a species with a hyper-advanced intellect and self-consciousness/awareness as a primary characteristic. Similar to how racism is a natural but "toxic" manifestation of tribalism. Keeps you alive in the jungle, but less compatible with advanced society. These impulses must be overcome with reason and wisdom. Instead the environmental movement has given in to them absolutely. 

[Lawman]

And I think people don't realize how natural the anti-human instinct is. You ever met someone  who boils issues down to "humans just suck" or "humans are a cancer on the Earth?" My wife was like that way back. Never actually acted in a way that indicated she believed it, deeply compassionate and attached to her friends and family, but if you mentioned the environment, boom, humans are the worst and we probably need fewer of them. 
 
That impulse, I think, is just part of being a species with a hyper-advanced intellect and self-consciousness/awareness as a primary characteristic. Similar to how racism is a natural but "toxic" manifestation of tribalism. Keeps you alive in the jungle, but less compatible with advanced society. These impulses must be overcome with reason and wisdom. Instead the environmental movement has given in to them absolutely. 

Oh agreed.

I just find it fun to see how “see no evil” the people claiming to be concerned act when you point out the Eugenics origins or others from their favorite causes.

It’s like my earlier example, we can absolutely abandon petroleum… it’s just gonna cost us several billion people and a quality of life they hope to find themselves on the other side of the fence on.

Good news though, we can all get behind a real renewable oil source… whale oil.


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[gearhog]

We here in the US just spent $60 Billion to counter Russia, and $8 Billion for Taiwan to counter China.

Today, the US is drafting sanctions against China for helping Russia.

Our leadership, in their divine wisdom, is effectively forcing two world superpowers into deeper levels of cooperation. If China is going to be sanctioned for providing military assistance to Russia anyway, why would they not go ahead and open up full bore production if the US is already threatening them over the Taiwan issue? I honestly wonder who has the larger industrial production capacity, US and allies, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

 

Edited April 26 by gearhog

[Biff_T]

5 hours ago, gearhog said:

Our leadership, in their divine wisdom

This.  

I don't think they've ever read a history book.  I'd recommend our leaders read a few books about WW1 and WW2.  They are setting us up, in textbook fashion, for  WW3.  Morons. 

[Skitzo]

This.  
I don't think they've ever read a history book.  I'd recommend our leaders read a few books about WW1 and WW2.  They are setting us up, in textbook fashion, for  WW3.  Morons. 

What is the alternative? Do we leave the Pacific except for remaining in Guam? What position does that put our allies in the Pacific in vis a vis an ever growing China? If we leave the Pacific we will resign our status as a Global Super Power that has sustained the current International Order and acknowledge a bipolar or multipolar world.

Is it in our nations best interest to do so?

In Ukraine, do we give up and allow Russia to take it? If we did nothing at the start isn’t that akin to Neville Chamberlain and Hitler?

I’d argue each nation with interests has its own agency in the matter and is acting in accordance with what it believes to be its own best interests. John Mearsheimer 101.

It’s a zero sum game — it’s all about power and security. Both domestically and internationally.

You could make an argument that we are already at a low level of or run up to Word War currently with Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Hamas, Iran and Israel and the Houthis. The only powder keg that hasn’t kicked off yet is in the Pacific. But, it could easily. Imagine a scenario like the P-3 colliding with a PLA aircraft in today’s geopolitical landscape.

I think the best case scenario is a rapid realization that we have deliberately set up our military to be sized for a war in one theater and deterring in another. We did that because we were still the leading superpower.

We are facing a challenge that calls into question our ability to win with our current force structure given the problems around the world.

Whether our politicians are marching us steadily towards wider conflict isn’t as important as whether or not our politicians are equipping us to win that conflict and if we will have the political will to see that conflict through.

If we are successful we delay or defeat the pattern of Great Powers not remaining Great Powers.

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[Negatory]

2 hours ago, Skitzo said:

If we are successful we delay or defeat the pattern of Great Powers not remaining Great Powers.

What evidence is there that a nation can ever defeat the cyclical pattern of natural rise and decline of great powers?

How will our economy, whose workers demand to be paid 3-5 times as much as an equivalent Chinese person, remain competitive?

How will we deal with wealth inequality again? You guys want the nice solution of what FDR did for America in the 30s, or do you want the more likely solution resembling the French guillotine? Oh, right, no one wants either. Well history says it’s between those if you want change.

You can’t fight and defeat China forever, so it’s probably advantageous to not destroy our blood and treasure in trying to stop them from harnessing their natural advantages of population, wages, and national unity that we just don’t have.

Why not acclimatize to the idea that a multipolar world is an eventuality, and we only get to prolong what we have if we don’t destroy it all in a war?

If we’re spending 4-5 times as much on the military as China is and not able to impact them effectively, there is no winning move. We overextended. We got too comfortable. We allowed the rich to take too much. 122% debt to GDP, $1.8T deficit, $34T debt. The dollar will cease to be the reserve currency within our life times.

Only way out is for the American people to simultaneously stop infighting, accept a significant cut to current QoL (think ~40-50% reduction in salary expectation), and to gut any gov spending that doesn’t provide ROI. We can’t do that. We can barely even have a civil discussion between military officers about politics when they disagree.

That’s pragmatism.

[FourFans]

1 hour ago, Negatory said:

How will our economy, whose workers demand to be paid 3-5 times as much as an equivalent Chinese person, remain competitive?

1 hour ago, Negatory said:

their natural advantages of population, wages, and national unity that we just don’t have.

You apparently haven't been paying attention to what's actually happening in China.  They have none of these advantages anymore.  The one thing they had going for them was being the world's workshop...but that was economics planned by central committee.  It came at many costs, one of them being technological innovation, and it's over.  They are in the process of a demographic collapse thanks to 40 years of the one child policy.  Even if they implemented a national breeding campaign, it would take 30-40 years for them to reap the economic benefits...and they haven't.  The wage 'advantage' is no more.  Mexican labor is cheaper by almost three times now.  Mexican production quality is ALSO better.  China may be able to make things, but they can't do it cheaply anymore (their middle class wages have skyrocketed) and they can't produce anything of high quality. 

What's more, they never had a national unity advantage.  Everything their government does it to control their people, not dominate the world.  We don't have to do anything to beat the Chinese economically besides wait.  Militarily, all we'd have to do is close the Strait of Malacca and watch them starve in the dark, as they import so much food and energy.  Oh-by-the-way guess what kind of weapons we just leant to the Australians in Darwin: Cruise missiles that can hit ships in the strait of malacca from over the horizon.  As for national debt?  You think we're hurting?  Go google Chinese hyper financialization.  The dollar may or may not remain the reserve currency, but the Yuan will NOT be taking it's place in our lifetime.

Yes, the Chinese are great at long term intellectual planning, but NONE of their execution has followed any of that planning.  They are screwed and all we have to do is not save them.

Multiple historians, demographers, and geopolitical analysts have reached the above conclusions.  Ray Dalio would be one exception, but reading his work it's clear his love of china is underpinned by strong emotional ties that clearly color his analysis.  But even he doesn't paint a very rosy picture for them, specifically because of their economics and debt.

Don't listen to the rhetoric, look at the details and facts. 

Edited April 27 by FourFans

[Negatory]

8 hours ago, FourFans said:

Don't listen to the rhetoric, look at the details and facts. 

Okay. Way ahead of you here.

8 hours ago, FourFans said:

Yes, the Chinese are great at long term intellectual planning, but NONE of their execution has followed any of that planning. 

Economic: They achieved multiple milestones from the 80s to present day ahead of schedule. They have delivered on promises to virtually eliminate poverty and increase the quality of life of their society. You said that we don't have to do anything to beat China economically except wait. I think a lot of other countries think that about the US. We are not closing our debt gap and we are not becoming more competitive (except in niche areas in tech). Also, our middle class is shrinking while theirs is growing.

As one example of international competitiveness, Tesla is getting F'd because they can realistically only compete with the 15 other Chinese EV makers in a tariff environment like the US, where we make it cost 25% more for them to deliver. In Asia, the EU, and everywhere else, American industry is becoming less competitive.

As another example, we lost the Chip War for microelectronic chips in the 70s through the 2000s. We literally only have Micron, which produces RAM, because we were not competitive with other countries.

Military: They have achieved multiple milestones from the 90s to today. They are set to deliver on future milestones that challenge US dominance. They also don't have to maintain an empire, they get to operate in an A2AD environment or within the bounds of close asia environments to achieve their goals. I'm good not talking about specifics here, but I am sure you'd rather us not go to war in an away game with China and understand how it wouldn't be a good thing for us.

Also, good luck closing the Strait of Malacca and just chillin. First, doing that militarily is not trivial especially with anti ship systems the Chinese have. And we live in a glass house too, you know? Don't think our society or economy would like it very much either.

Diplomatic: They are actively shifting the tide of public perception in ASEAN, Europe, and Africa. Just this year, perceptions have shifted, unfortunately not in our favor, with, for the first time ever, most ASEAN countries saying that they would choose to align with China over the US if forced to choose.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/03/us-loses-its-spot-to-china-as-southeast-asias-most-favored-ally-survey-finds.html

Information: They control the information narrative in China. We control very little here. This is unarguably an advantage for a great power competition.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/beijing-global-media-influence/2022/authoritarian-expansion-power-democratic-resilience

Pay: https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/global_labor_rates_china_is_no_longer_a_low_cost_country

You'll like that because the title supports your point that China isn't a low cost country. But then the data inside shows that managers in the US are paid 6 times as much as managers in China, and it shows that they do production for $12,000 a year. They say US machine workers will work for $33,000 but give me a fucking break. Not a chance. You know literally no skilled blue collar worker that would accept less than $60k a year. There is no realistic factory lifestyle young people can go do. Here's another one for you to look at, again, biased to the US because it was created by us:

https://reshoringinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/GlobalLaborRateComparisons.pdf

I'd love to see a non-biased, non US produced (without a political agenda), source that shows that wages are near parity. You aren't gonna be able to find it. I'm not going to argue that there are cheaper places like Mexico we can exploit. Great, let's go do it. But they can do that too (what is stopping China from finding a country like Mexico for these types of tasks?), and their population doesn't need their decadent wages to stay happy. We are still at a wholesale disadvantage.

And if you want to talk about military, nationalizing defense companies turns out is getting to be pretty fucking effective. Try to argue with me that Lockheed and Boeing are better than their companies. I will have to disagree from a cost effectiveness perspective and a time perspective. There are many estimates that their $200-300B they spend a year goes significantly farther than the $800B we spend a year. And they have been able to develop truly disruptive capabilities like hypersonic missiles and other assassin's mace weapons because they don't have to get 50 senators to agree to cancel an outdated weapons systems concept like the Carrier.

https://www.heritage.org/asia/commentary/china-isnt-just-spending-more-its-spending-smarter

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hypersonic-missiles-america-military-behind-936a3128

 

Remind me what hasn't followed plan again?

 

Demographics: This is our one point of potential advantage. But this isn't going to happen for decades, and if they can keep their population mentally prepared to work by identifying the problem early and banding together (their society is infinitely more collectivist than our individualist society), they actually have a chance to emerge victorious. And for us to maintain our advantage here, we have to accept significant immigration to bolster our deadening birth rates. While Hispanic and minority birth rates and population growth make up a huge portion of our young demographics, we are currently becoming more isolationist and closed-borders. 

8 hours ago, FourFans said:

Multiple historians, demographers, and geopolitical analysts have reached the above conclusions.  Ray Dalio would be one exception, but reading his work it's clear his love of china is underpinned by strong emotional ties that clearly color his analysis.  But even he doesn't paint a very rosy picture for them, specifically because of their economics and debt.

Yeah, and they have an inherent anchoring bias. Ray Dalio paints a picture that the US is on the decline - not that China will long-term supplant the US. He says it's likely that China will supplant us in the short term, but he doesn't really talk about the longevity of their empire other than to promise us that, one day, they too will fail. That is the argument. I am fine with believing that China can only momentarily usurp us, if at all, especially due to demographic issues. But then someone else will take over. It won't be us. 

 

Again, I ask, has an empire beat the long term cycle? Why will we be able to sustain power forever?

Edited April 27 by Negatory

[Biff_T]

14 hours ago, Skitzo said:

Muchos good points

I'd feel more comfortable if the civilian "leaders" telling the war planners what to do weren't money/power hungry, corrupt dumbasses.   

China is ripe for a war.   I beleive It's coming soon (sts).  

[Skitzo]

 
Again, I ask, has an empire beat the long term cycle? Why will we be able to sustain power forever?

No, they haven’t but that doesn’t stop them from trying when the alternative powers are not friendly.

I think things would have been much different had the UK and USA had not been on good terms post WWII.

During the Civil War, England recognized the Confederacy’s “Belligerent Status,” stopping short of recognizing the sovereignty of the Confederacy. The Confederacy had envoys on British Naval vessels, Ala the Trent Affair.

At risk were lucrative trade deals etc, but you could also argue that fomenting conflict between the two sides by respecting a belligerent status and remaining neutral was sacrosanct endorsement that either the South could win or a stalemate could emerge.

Otherwise they would have supported the North.

Neutrality equates to not caring about a return to the Status Quo - Ante.

Applying a realist view to this, smart on the part of England because a divided America would have reduced the overall power balance by shifting it two nations instead of one. Thus increasing or safeguarding its status as the leading world power at the time ala Pax Brittanaca.

Also we are not an empire.

IMHO.


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[Biff_T]

9 hours ago, Skitzo said:

Also we are not an empire.

This