BahRamYou
3mo ago
If Canada loses the West to the US, it’ll be the end of Canada, and it might be the end of the US as you know it as well.
Why would it be the end of either country? Let alone both.
BahRamYou
3mo ago
My opinion as an American: it would make more sense to break Canada up into 3 pieces. Let Quebec go free or be a territory of France if it wants. Let Vancouver and the surrounding area be an autonomous city state. The rest should become part of the US, because "the rest" (so the prairie provinces and the maritimes) really has a lot in common with the US, and it's just an unnecessary hassle having a border.
BahRamYou
3mo ago
Listened to about half of it and it just annoyed me. It's a classic Gish gallop, jumping from topic to topic with no time to actually consider each one. Some of them are well known- like, I remember reading about the shady hijinks of United Fruit Co in my highschool history textbook. It's not exactly shocking underground stuff. But then jumps from that to "so of course Ukraine was a coup by the deep state link to mob and shady corporations" or something like that and it's just infuraitingly specious reasoning.
BahRamYou
3mo ago
That's true for shells, but bear in mind that "more shellls than the US" is a pretty low benchmark. Until this war broke out in Ukraine, the US had almost stopped making shells completely. It thought that mass artillery bombardments were a relic of the cold war and wouldn't be needed anymore. But recently the US has been increasing shell production much faster than Europe: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2023/11/race-make-artillery-shells-us-eu-see-different-results/392288/
BahRamYou
3mo ago
You're right, they do use bows occasionally. But so what, everyone else has bows too.
BahRamYou
3mo ago
Who is "they?" Most of the soldiers fighting in Ukraine weren't old enough to vote for the security agreements in the 90s. And Ukraine was famously corrupt so it's not like their vote would have counted anyway. They also don't have much choice about whether to fight since they're conscripted.
I've heard too many anecdotes of Ukrainian soldiers saying they no longer want to fight this war, they just want it to end even if they have to give up some territory. Of course anecodotes are not data, but that's all we have to go on. And realistically, the fastest way for this to end is for the US to endorse such a deal. Zelensky can't make that deal because he's built his image as this hardcore fight-to-the-end no-matter-what guy.
Well sure, I do get that Dothraki are based on the Mongols while Braavos is based on Venice. But the way its portrayed in the books and especially the show is... not great. ACOUP has a whole series about the Dothraki: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ saying that "The complex patterns of a war-shirt becomes a simple vest (which then becomes a collection of crude leather belly-straps that have more in common with bondage gear than with clothing." I can't recall a single scene from the shows of them using a bow. They certainly never use gunpowder or siege engines like the mongols did. mostly they use whips which just... LOL.
Venice seems cool but, like you said they were limited in their power. Braavos seems to have unlimited weath and mercenary manpower in addition to technology and actual magic.
BahRamYou
3mo ago
I have a silly rant that's 10 years out of date...
You know how, in Game of Thrones, everyone is so scared of the Dothraki? Why? The Dothraki have no ships, no armor, no siege weapons, no ranged weapons except small bows, no heavy infantry... nothing. They can't stay organized, and they're economy consists entirely of horses. They live only in the dry empty plains where noone else wants to live. When they tried to attack one of the cities, they got wrecked by just a small group of Unsullied. They're basically just bandits who sprung up after the collapse of the Valyrians. Posers.
On the hand there's Braavos. Now there's something to be scared of! Supposedly just a city, but they were strong enough to defy the Valyrians at the peak of their power. They've got a bank with more money than all the seven kingdoms of Westeros, and enough manpower to send mercenaries that will easily (supposedly) overpower all of the seven kingdoms' armies. They cannot be attacked, because their island is protected by an invincible fleet of high technology. Man-for-man, they're also the best fighters, with Arya's Braavos"dancing teacher" easily taking down a large group of attackers with just a wooden sword. And their economy is so advanced that, unlike apparently everyone else in the world, they eschew slavery and won't touch it no matter how profitable it is.
Then of course there's the faceless men. This crazy magical death-cult who can kill anyone, anywhere. The only catch is that the fee is so high that noone in Westeros can afford it. But that won't stop the Braavosi, because they're so rich! Don't you dare get on the wrong side of a Braavosi, they have at least 5 different ways they can kill you.
In the end, the icewalkers were just stupid zombies, and the dragons weren't so tough- you can just shoot them down with a big ranged weapon. Even the Iron Islanders with their shitty economy of "we do not sew" managed to figure it out. The Braavosi definitely would have. But how the hell do you stop the Braavosi? The rest of the world should be working together, building a big coalition against them, much more afraid of them than some stupid slow zombies from beyond the wall.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
Well, this is subjective, but i wouldn't call 2.5% "massive." Massive would be 6% like what Russia spends. Massive enough to build up huge stocks of new ammunition, instead of using up all the old stuff in Ukraine and hoping that the war ends before supplies run out.
And, i know that politicians occasionally endorse the idea of a Europian army. But it just doesn't seem that serious to me. I cant imagine Britain or france wanting to join now, anyway. Meanwhile Austria still won't even join NATO
BahRamYou
4mo ago
I read an analysis once arguing that part of Russia's reason for this war actually is the declining birth rate. They're very concerned about their shrinking population, especially from people born in the 90s when the birth rate cratered. By taking the eastern part of Ukraine, they effectively gain a big chunk of new population, even when you account for all the dead bodies.
But yes, I agree with your larger point that people should stop comparing everything to WW2. The world has changed since then.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
I think people forget that being president is a difficult job, so it takes some time to learn how to actually do things in office. There's no training program, and the executive branch has a huge number of federal workers who have to be trained or hired. Not to mention just forming connections with people. Most two-term presidents accomplish a lot more in their second term than in their first.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
However, perhaps most of all, I think many Americans just don't realise how visceral and close and frightening the Ukraine war is for many people in Europe.
Is it? My impression is that, even for most Europeans, the Ukraine war just isn't all that important. The real hot button issue seems to be immigration, or maybe just the economy in general. No one in Europe is massively raising defense spending, activating the draft, getting nuclear weapons, or calling for a pan-Europian army. I'd expect to see all of those things if they felt they were seriously on the edge of a Russian invasion. The only countries who are really acting like they're at war are the former Warsaw Pact countries like Poland and Bulgaria.
I guess we'll see if the new German government wants to massively increase military aid to Ukraine. If they do then, I'll be proven wrong. But I think they'll basically keep it to the same level it's at now.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
Well, the translation is all we've got to judge it by. But it doesn't read like someone struggling with translation, it just reads like a fanfic.
It is possible to translate Chinese to English and have it sound good. "the Art of War" got popular because many people thought it sounded cool. A British guy in the 40s won a literary prize for translating (and abridging) Journey to the West. And those are written in Classical Chinese, which is even more difficult to translate than modern Mandarin!
I didn't really like the 3 body problem either, but at least I could tell it had a professional author and editing.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
I just took a look and read the first chapter... oof. You're not wrong.
As he said this, memories of his previous life on Earth emerged before his eyes.
He was originally a Chinese scholar on Earth who chanced upon this world. He endured a hard life for 300 years and went through another 200 years; about 500 years of his life flew by in the blink of an eye.
So many memories that were buried deen inside the heart begun to relive themselves, sprouting into life before his eyes.
"I failed in the end." Fang Huan sighed in his heart emotionally, yet there were no regrets.
I'm not a literary snob, I can appreciate trashy webnovels or light novels. But this is breaking so many rules of good writing it's just impossible to enjoy. Telling instead of showing, inconsistent tense, too many adverbs, group dialogue where it's not clear who's speaking, no paragraphs, passive voice, and some parts just seem to contradict the other parts. It reads like the author was just brainstorming ideas for cool powers and fight scenes and never got around to actually writing the novel.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
I haven't seen that movie, but in general I feel the same was you about most modern Chinese media exports. It's shockingly bad. It almost seems like everything is made by an AI rather than by professional artists. And I say that as someone who likes China- I grew up loving the old Hong Kong kung fu movies, and I really respect their ability to do high-tech manufacturing. But the Hon Kong movie industry died once the PRC took over, and there just doesn't seem to be left to replace it. It's scary how the PRC just kills that kind of creative energy.
Then again, Hollywood movies are also mostly crap these days, so maybe it's a worldwide problem. Could be smarthpone addiction or something else.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
It's a cute philosophical argument. But doesn't it, in practice, come down to the same thing? One person's spending is another person's income. Let's say Alices makes a sale to Bob, for $10. Two ways of taxing it. An income tax, which taxes Alice 10%, so she pays $1 to the government. Or a sales tax, which taxes Bob, so he pays $1 to the government, and he has to go sell something to someone else to earn money. Most likely in the first case, Alice would just raise prices by 10% to cover the difference, so it really ends up the same.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
In general it really doesnt matter, you can buy almost any fund from almost any broker these days. Unless you're looking for something weird and exotic? But they should all offer the same broad market funds. You can also reach out to then and ask- the customer service should help you decide which broker you like.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
IMO the US military is entering a dangerous period where it's actually less ready in the near future than it is now. 80s cold war stuff is getting used up in Ukraine faster than anything new can be produced, veterans from the Iraq war are retiring while they're struggling with new recruitment, and more ships are being decomissioned than commissioned. That's probably not something that any SecDef can actually fix in the near future.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
I dont care about lower wages or environmental rules much. But i do think it its a bad thing when global capitalism concentrates all te production for something critical into a single place. Case in point, some people are joking that we can't oppose Denmark because they control the entire world supply of ozempic.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
Are you counting Ukraine as part of Europe? Because right now the rest of Europe doesn't seem to be doing a great job of defending it. They also notably had trouble with Serbia/Bosnia in the 90s and Russia/Georgia in the 2000s. Defense is about more than just "is able to continue to exist." As always, the main problem is that those 500 million Europeans are divided into about 50 different countries that don't agree on much.
BahRamYou
4mo ago
That's true, but the situation is different. North Korea did Juche out of necessity. They were a small, backwards nation being embargoed by most of the world, and also completely lacking in oil and other key resources. Today they're... still small and backwards... but they've survived, much longer than anyone thought possible (albiet with a lot of help from the USSR and China). The USA is different. We're large, rich, and have basically every kind of natural resource within our border somewhere. There's no particular the USA should have to trade with other countries if it doesn't want to. The usual econ argument is that free trade and specialization of labor makes countries more prosperous, bu the counterargument is that it leads to income inequality, alienation, and fragility as our entire industrial base moves overseas.
BahRamYou
5mo ago
you're just nitpicking. Apple computers were always more expensive than other brands, and the Macintosh was considered expensive even by Apple's standards. There were many, many types of IBM and IBM computers at that time, which mostly cost a lot less. Going from Google... (https://www.neowin.net/news/the-ibm-pc-xt-launched-40-years-ago-today-but-it-got-competition-from-the-compaq-portable/)
The original IBM PC had a starting price of $1,565 when it launched in 1981 according to PC Mag. By contrast, the price for the first model of the IBM PC-XT was a whopping $7,545
So the Pc_XT was also an expensive high end computer. On the other end, you could get a commodore 64 for just a few hundred dollars.
Anyway my original point was that Microsoft isn't some uniquely evil company. They just sold a lot of software to anyone who wanted to buy it, unlike Apple with their little walled garden of Apple-only software.
BahRamYou
5mo ago
First, $2500 was still a heck of a lot of money for a home computer in the 1980s. Its main competition were around $1000. Second, the original Mac in its launch state was woefully underpowered (https://www.filfre.net/2014/02/macintosh/)
Those realities could be hellish. The single floppy drive combined with the inadequate memory could make the original Mac as excruciating to actually use as it was fun to wax poetic about, with the process of just copying a single disk requiring more than fifty disk swaps and twenty minutes. MacWrite, the Mac’s flagship version of that bedrock of business applications the word processor, was so starved for memory that you could only create a document of about eight pages. Determined Mac zealots swapped tips on how to chain files together to craft their Great American Novels, while the business world just shrugged and turned back to their ugly but functional WordStar screens. The Mac was a toy, at best an interesting curiosity; IBM was still the choice for real work.
Those problems were eventually solved, but they required even more expensive versions of the Mac plus expensive peripherals:
Apple’s empire would be a very exclusive place. By the time you’d bought a monitor, video card, hard drive, keyboard — yes, even the keyboard was a separate item — and other needful accessories, a Mac II system could rise uncomfortably close to the $10,000 mark.
It's only 20% Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Metro_Vancouver#Ethnic_diversity
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