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My take may have come across a bit too doomer: I wouldn't say humanity itself unavoidably fucked, and our current choices do matter for what generations may come after. My working theory is that the gravity of sedentary civilization is unavoidable due to clear benefits but it's also inevitably self terminating. Our choice is in how we navigate it.
We can't grow our way out of our universe's material limits but we also can't voluntarily exit the Nash equilibrium of our established civilization. At some point the treadmill of progress ends and we can't avoid that no matter how slowly and carefully we approach it. After the dust settles we return to a primitivist state, except this time it is physically impossible to reach the same destructive heights. Accessible surface metals are expended, radioactive fuel is spent, mineral deposits have been tapped and diffused, etc...
Our main job is to ensure that the earth remains livable when that time comes. There's nothing inevitable about a global nuclear apocalypse or total climate collapse. If we avoid those we can achieve something like a soft landing, but we have to accept that our global population and quality of life will plummet no matter what because it's not sustainable in any other system. Notice that this isn't quite the same as Anarcho-primitivism even if the end goal is similar, we can't change the broad strokes of history but we can choose how hard we crash the plane.
Old as in proven? Diffuse, stable and peaceful power is infinitesimally unlikely because violence (or the threat of) is the only tool you can have in a sedentary civilization. Resources are not evenly and equitably distributed in the world, e.g. the people who can only grow wheat can't stop the people with access to iron weapons from taking it. There's no way to pack up their fields and run away. There is nothing to maintain an equilibrium of peace among polities except for a hierarchy of violence above or a balance of violence among them.
Let me know when you find a plausible alternative. There's nothing special about our information age civilizations except for our vastly increased productivity and the efficiency of our violence. Somebody will always control the water/rare minerals/oil/food and that will create a power imbalance against their peers. When push comes to shove (e.g. a Carrington Event), whoever can project violence better will come out on top.
I suppose the best we could hope for is a global federation but I have no faith that something of that size + complexity could remain stable. Even if it could, it would still be subject to resource constraints and earth's carrying capacity. Our modern infrastructure and technology all are based on the unlimited availability of non renewable resources. Once we inevitably run out of sand for concrete or petrochemicals for plastic or minerals for solar panels or arable topsoil the game is over.
China's long game strategy is working
Is it though? Lets project a bit into the future:
Their focus on hyper productivity is based on access to a stable and open global market. When that market collapses their economy grinds to a halt and they suffer domestically. Idle factories and an unemployed populace can't be put back to use without strong arm diplomacy to enforce geopolitical stability.
There's no possibility for newly impoverished states to pay for your wonderful solar panels and batteries unless you loan them on credit, and you can't collect that due without a mechanism to project your strength.
Those factories start to make tanks and drones and surveillance hardware because raw force is the only true way to preserve your power. This becomes a club to police problems both foreign and domestic which grows into a hegemony and starts the imperial cycle all over again.
It's a smart strategy if your goal is to get your five minutes on the global throne. Then you suffer the same decay as the Assyrians, Rome, Persia, the Qing Dynasty, Spain, Great Britain, the USA, etc... The key issue is that time is running out on this game; no great power will ever be able to overcome the reality of the dwindling resources on our pale blue dot. In that sense it's just another depressing and inevitable step on humanity's march to self-extermination.
There's nothing particularly shocking about this. It will probably eventually happen in China, Russia, USA and most major countries as their economies collapse from a century of unsustainable hyper-growth + climate catastrophes. They'll cry foul but a foreign adversary can't spark a fire without dry tinder, and all of these governments have leveraged their populist legitimacy against a quick buck for decades.
Some people are so blinded by ideology and political theory that this basic cause and effect has to be tinted to their chosen world view. Go ahead and call whatever you like a color revolution or illegitimate or reactionary, but if half a country can be mobilized in resistance to their government then that government deserves to be toppled. People have a right to reorganize their society however they want and whenever they want. A social contract is drafted by the people for the people and prior consent to governance can't be eternal.
The economy of power is all that matters. Once we leave the currency economy we'll be well into neofeudalism. "No money for food? Just sign on the dotted line and the company will cover your meals..."
People overlook an obvious factor: having a kid physically changes your brain, and therefore how you perceive parenting. I know of lots of instances of this change happening anecdotally, someone radically changes their stance after an unplanned pregnancy.
Neither side is necessarily wrong, but choosing one or the other impacts who you are as a person so it's not as obvious as "I definitely [will/won't] regret it". So skip the social pressure and pro/anti natalist personal debates, but also don't hold too much blame against someone who struggles to grasp your mindset.
How free can it be if his actions don't represent the will of the people and we have no legal mechanism to remove him? Why don't you spew this "evil sheep" rhetoric about other tin pot dictatorships? If a foreign country isn't your fault then how is 200 years of entrenched political decay my fault?
What have you done to reverse the march of fascism aside from look down your nose at everyone else? Are you out in the streets calling for US sanctions? Gonna stand by your inaction by telling yourself "it can't happen here"?
He literally didn't. Is it too much to look up a basic verifiable fact before you post dumb shit?
Edit: You might mean a he won a plurality which is just as stupid a thing to say. "More people didn't want Trump than wanted him, go cry somewhere else"
I view it as a philosophical difference more than anything. Only an absolute lunatic would actually push the button without an extreme amount of pressure; it's just not a rational action of self preservation. A Solomon plan, as in the parable, is a choice that will kill you. Say what you will about the people pulling Israel's strings but they have enough sanity and power lust to not throw it all away.
All nuclear players are handling loaded guns. Any bluster or rhetoric is hot air because you don't know what they're made of until they pull the trigger. And that is the most unique decision in human history in the hands of a tiny group of people. Nobody should ever have been given the personal power to vaporize entire cities, you can't generalize that failing to a state policy level.
Complicated dead man switches don't solve the problem or absolve the decision maker, it's just a layer of abstraction. You still have to choose to enable it and accept the consequences of killing millions of people. Telling the world it's enabled is just indicating your current line in the sand (a nuclear event). That's no different than setting a line in the sand for a conventional threat to your capital city. Either may be an understandable and high pressure threat to the individual decision makers: both are reactions to the other belligerent, both end with the button pusher dead.
And both sides always have the option to renege on their promise and launch first before that line. Even if they hold to their promise, saying "I warned you" doesn't make a mass revenge holocaust or suicidal holocaust more ethical than the other. The only humane choice is total disarmament and deterrence with an empty gun, which will never happen of course.
Yes it would be damn near impossible because basically all communication would be dead as fast as it happens and any belligerents wouldn't be in any shape to give convincing evidence (assuming they survive and it doesn't trigger a worldwide exchange).
If two countries are at the brink anything can happen: a radar blip, a failed first launch, fog of war, equipment malfunction, etc... Nobody's official policy is "we'll nuke anyone for any reason", they always claim self preservation/retaliation. If a conventional war with Iran goes poorly it would be a rapid flurry of Israel maybe launches or threatens to launch => China (or whoever) retaliates => USA (or whoever) counters => comms are disrupted or locked down => troops are mobilized etc...
The same events could be true of a purported dead man switch system: can anyone prove that the switch was improperly triggered? Does it matter now that most people involved are ashes?
It would be over in about an hour or two and would take decades to properly reconstruct, if ever. Every state would jump at the chance to frame the tragedy in their favorite light and you personally will never ever know the truth.
In that light it doesn't make any sense to worry about speculation or opinion pieces or rumors. There never will be a way to prove or disprove theoretical apocalyptic policies. There are a billion reasons to criticize Israel and hate Zionists but this isn't much better than a puff piece.
They're two sides of the same coin and not functionally much different. In a world with nuclear weapons everyone must have a "last resort" strategy like this: the perception of the destruction of the state triggers nuclear annihilation (against anyone/everyone; you plan for all options). The only other theorized response is to voluntarily roll over and die so humanity can live, and nobody with nukes is going to admit to that.
In a real scenario you could never verify if the first launch was from a credible threat retaliation or not. Even if you could, first strike vs retaliatory is cold comfort when everyone is starving in a nuclear winter. It's not worth getting upset over a wikipedia article with a bunch of journalist quotes and opinion pieces. We've known about MAD since 1962.
Is this any different from dropping a ballot off at your election office, i.e. handing to a clerk or an office drop box?
Well yes it has quite a few different mechanisms, but the most prominent ones are related to blood clotting, inflammation and fever responses. Those work in different ways depending on what you're trying to treat, so you may be right there.
It's not a pain killer in the same sense as an opioid, but the minor pain relief (via targeting symptoms) is the main desired effect. That makes people misuse it and think higher doses work better and for any type of pain.
Aspirin is a blood thinner I have no idea why Americans seem to think it's a painkiller, because it isn't.
Because a blood thinner relieves some common pains like headaches and inflammation. But yes, people do think taking more = less pain which isn't really true.
Lol good job just equating two things as if it's a gotcha. Damn, America really do be doing shitty things, therefore by association... Taiwan bad? The PRC must be the evil incarnate with all these decades keeping USA as their top trade partner. 'Merica bad, you really got me.
And btw, love dodging the entire argument with a tangential tweet and NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE. Come on, give me a prolewiki link or something; tell me why every Taiwan public opinion poll is actually fake or, if they're real, why the Taiwanese public is wrong and papa CCP needs to spank them. I need a good laugh! And tell me more about denialism ☕
Nice, glad to see you admitting defeat. Fucking quotes from the CCP are agitprop? Give me a fucking break. Go ahead and translate those for me; you're clearly a bastion of free and rational thinking. Oh wait, you can't read anything but English and are arbitrarily choosing to discard sources that don't fit your bias? Anything that runs counter to your red fanfic is a lie or a conspiracy.
The sheer lack of basic logic is incredible. You think that the USA is sneaking in and forcing Taiwan to prepare for PRC military action? Like they've got a gun to these poor Taiwanese soldiers forcing them to do push ups? The people of Taiwan want them there to maintain the status quo against PRC annexation. The polls say that in no uncertain terms (as I've covered in other comments). Maybe they wouldn't be so willing to jump at the USA's aid if they didn't have fucking PRC rockets landing all around them.
Conversely, if the PRC held domain over Taiwan then they wouldn't allow this interference. But they clearly don't if Taiwan is acting independently to protect its own sovereignty. If you ignore reality by starting with "PRC owns Taiwan" then no shit your circular logic will justify any PRC action. This is insane.
"Stop training to
defend against a PRC invasioninvade mainland China [with your 150k troops 😂] or we'll invade you" is a lunatic stance when you're preaching peaceful reunification. Is this tiny island with 1% of your population a military threat? Or is the superpower with ICBM nukes the problem? Because if so,bullying[sorry "protecting"] Taiwan does literally nothing but feed plausible excuses to the USA hegemony machine. Ignore Taiwan and go run those drills off of Hawaii if you're dying to be a tough guy. But if they're not doing that then they must have a different plan in mind 🤔...Now go ahead, it's your turn to pick some minor point in this dead simple logic and try to counter it by citing an anonymous blog post or something...
Also I'm still waiting for you to tell me what I denied, I don't think eye rolling is a real answer 🙄
How do Chinese ships depart from Fujain without encircling Taiwan?
You are an absolute clown:
China's Eastern Theatre Command conducted 10 hours of live-fire exercises, launching rockets into waters to the north and south of [Taiwan] [...] naval and air force units also simulated strikes on maritime and aerial targets and carried out anti-submarine drills around the island, while state media released images touting Beijing's technological and military superiority [...] China's military said on Monday that simulating a blockade of Taiwan's deep-water Port of Keelung to the island's north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan's south, its largest port city, was central to the drills.
I can read you, verbatim, CCP press releases saying they are doing this to intimidate Taiwan ("[they will] smash their heads bloody against the iron walls of the Chinese People's Liberation Army") and you pretend they're just out for a sight seeing cruise. Absolutely incredible levels of delusion. Xi should mail you some kind of medal for this...
You want to play at denialism then scream about foreign aggression.
Lmfao what did I deny?? I didn't deny anything in any comment! I'm the one drawing the obvious parallels to US aggression! You're just pulling from your stock response bag because your argument is completely hollow.
Crazy how it's international waters when an American warship is in them.
Never said shit about it being international waters or claimed the US Navy was never there, we were talking about encircling Taiwan which the PRC literally just did. I hope you have the same decorum about US ships totally not practicing invasions of Mexico (😉). It's right over the border after all.
Come on champ, you can do better than that. We're talking about big scary warships and military bases and all you can link me is some run of the mill espionage shit? And it's on Wikipedia no less, I'm gonna need to revoke your tankie card.
You're name dropping Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam, I need a chance of a military occupation or some Hueys blaring CCR. Give me a real military threat that requires a show of force on this puny island. If flimsy proxy wars counted the USA would be the #1 most righteous belligerent in every conflict from 1945 onward with how much the KGB/GRU tickled them.
You want to ensure beyond any doubt that the people who are best positioned to overthrow the administration or become kingmakers are Trump sycophants?