MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
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User ID: 1678
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
The Israelis are a paper tiger without daddy America. As this conflict showed (8 billion dollars needed from Uncle Sam within the first day of rocket attacks). If the Israelis had the capability to attack Iran, then they'd have done it years ago. They don't and ultimately depend on the US to do it. Successive American administrations have turned down every request from Jerusalem.
Iran today is much more capable than it was 10 years ago. If Iran is attacked, they would almost certainly conduct a a massive attack on Saudi Arabia and other US-aligned countries. That would send the world economy into a gigantic depression if oil output suddenly crashed by 10-15 mb/d. Many Western strategic oil stocks are already depleted after the UA war so there wouldn't be much buffer space to absorb the shock.
TL;DR near zero.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
7mo ago
Why did support for Ukraine split along the left/right the way it did
I am not someone who likes excessive racialisation of politics, but I think some on the left may be correct in speculating that Russia being a conservative, white Christian country has a lot to do with it. Ukraine is very similar, but there is simply more respect to Russia since it resembles the USA in many ways (frontier culture, etc).
I also think a lot of right-wingers have this obsession against China for the same reason. It's an alien race, on top of actually being a real threat in a way that Russia is not. And to counter China, it'd be remarkably foolish if you were to push Russia and China together instead (which is what the US has done). I think Beinart wrote about these dynamics well a few weeks ago.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
9mo ago
Does your theory predict collapse in immigration once AI-powered automation makes this (already net budget negative over lifetime, in many cases) addition clearly counterproductive?
I've been hearing about the automation makes work superflous for well over a decade now. It reached a crescendo in 2016-17 with Erik Brynjolfsson's book and subsequent forecasts by various institutions of a rapid job less. Never happened. Can AI be different? It could, but people are vastly overestimating AI progress. The key to productivity displacing jobs is when programmers themselves are no longer as needed and AI can self-improve. We're still a long away from that.
the people supporting mass immigration are driven by basically moral considerations (though their morality may be different from what we believe), and would rather slow down productivity growth than allow their clients to be made patenly uneconomical for "capitalism".
Alternatively, some capitalists prefer high immigration as a way to cheap out, reduce bargaining power for workers and saving on productivity-enhancing investments while pocketing the change in terms of dividends. To be clear, I think some on the left are driven by moralistic arguments but they aren't the ones driving policy. Capitalists are, but they are opportunistic enough to use the shield of leftist morality to bludgeon their political opponents. It has the added benefit of raising one's social status in the domestic arena and people care deeply about status, too.
Not really. Lots of well-to-do people do projects-based work with fluid locations and enjoy it. You probably just have bad work experiences.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
You ironically need the Roman model, where the peoples subsumed by Rome came to view themselves as Roman.
This has been the standard policy for the past 50 years and I don't think it has worked well. It may be different in the US since most immigrants either come from a Westernised background (Latinx America) or are from the upper elites of Third World countries, which tend also to be fairly Westernised. Europe gets neither.
I agree that a two-tiered system is probably untenable in the long run, but this goes to my point about some problems not being able to be solved but merely managed. Besides, it also depends on the willingness of natives to enforce it. Gulf Arabs do it just fine, but I suspect Europeans are too soft. OTOH, the current status quo is a massive failure too. No easy answer here.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
7mo ago
Interesting, thanks. I didn't think about it that way but you're probably onto something.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
9mo ago
The median age of Western countries was much lower in previous eras. Had the demographic structure been similar as now, there's no reason why things would have been different. Besides, most migration was intra-European in previous eras. Plus travel was more expensive. All those structural factors are different, precisely because of much greater wealth (in turn a consequence of capitalism).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Sunak himself commented on it, saying how political correctness shouldn't prevent people from identifying these grooming gangs. In some ways, getting an Indian PM to say these things is a "cultural victory" of sorts. Having other races stan for you is the ultimate soft power. The media is also talking about it openly. That wasn't the case years ago.
More importantly, police have actually begun to prosecute and sentencing these vile rapists. So your characterisation that they "refuse to act" is simply wrong. Perhaps you could argue that they should do more, but saying they refuse to act is incorrect. There have been many trials by now and they are still continuing:
20 years ago, it was all swept under the carpet. As the UK has gotten more diverse, these things have gotten easier to talk about, not harder. And coverage is pretty balanced even in left-wing papers like the Guardian, meanwhile many of these vile scum are getting hauled off to court. Not exactly what you'd expect if you believed that whites were losing power. You'd see cover-ups or even celebrations. That's not what we see.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Erdogan is pretty loopy but he isn't that bad. I follow their economy fairly closely. They will see more devaluations but no Lebanon-style collapse.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Interesting, thanks!
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
I know about Cole's turnaround but Irving is news to me. Mind sharing source?
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Top people are the ones who need the most loyalty, instead the WASP-elites are surrounded by foreigners while much of the elite are actual foreigners. This puts the elite and the people in different universes, while dismantling any sense of noblesse oblige.
This is an important argument but it would be difficult to combine it with recruiting the best from the world. You'd have to essentially put in practice an officially-sanctioned discriminatory system that tells the best and the brightest from abroad that they will always operate under a glass ceiling despite their abilities. That in of itself would act as a great repellent for any prospective talent. Why work hard in a society where there are limited avenues for personal growth?
So in my view, you'd essentially have to make a choice: either you welcome the best from the world over but with differing loyalties or you aim to consolidate a very homogenous elite but accept that their capabilities will be less. You can't have both. The US elite apparently chose the former and so far, at least, it isn't obvious to me that the US has suffered from it. That may change, then again, it may not.
Importing tens of thousands of Chinese people into the university system, getting China up to speed, and then trying to keep them making plastic toys won't work. They were obviously going to bring a lot of that know how home.
True, but a lot of them also ended up staying. A non-trivial fraction of top AI talent comes from China. Almost 90% of Chinese postgrads choose to stay in the US. In my view, the US has benefited more than China from this exchange. Just as the US has benefited more than India from their brain drain.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Why wouldn't they return to China?
Twenty or even ten years ago they probably wouldn't because the opportunities back home would have been meager, so instead of the US they'd likely move to Western countries without such a racial system of institutionalised discrimination. That may still happen to some extent, but the difference today is that their domestic research ecosystem is already world-class. That makes all the difference, so there is not only a pull-factor but it's combined with a push-factor (China initative).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
I suppose the argument is that one shouldn't treat all ethnic Chinese as a giant blog of Borg working in perfect co-ordination. While the Chinese government and some of their VC firms do act like you describe, many ordinary Chinese people have nothing to do with it but were unfairly targeted in a broad campaign that often was remarkably crass in its target-selection - as even former administrators of the program now admit.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
11mo ago
Your latter argument is wholly correct but also misleading, since it concerns commercialisation where America's capitalist system easily beats the one-party state of China. While some go into academia to make money, preferably in start-ups, a lot of researchers don't dream of making big money but of making a big scientific impact. Having a comfortable but not wildly high salary is sufficient.
If you're a Mandarin-speaker it isn't at all clear if the US has a clear advantage over China at the elite level in fields like chemistry or physics today. In fact, it is unlikely.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
PiS made extremely good political hay from its anti-immigration stance
A major scandal during the campaign was the "cash-for-visa" affair. Moreover, PiS does a lot of posturing on illegal immigration while opening the floodgates to legal migration. In many ways, they remind me of the GOP. Pretty hardline on stuff like abortion but totally hypocritical on immigration
One of PIS's condemned policies was its functional de-Germanification of Polish media.
Instead, Soros' Open Societies foundation literally bought one of the most prestigious newspapers ("Rzeczpospolita") as part of a wider consortium under their noses, LOL. They simply scaremonger about the Germans while allowing US plutocrats to buy up domestic media instead.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
From Israel's viewpoint, the attack leading to Iran attacking Saudi Arabia would be a good thing because this would bring US air power into the war.
Yes but it would also tank the world economy. And ultimately the US cares far more about that. Already today there are news of a major meeting between the Big Three of Europe (UK/FR/DE) and the US, ostensibly to prevent a wider conflagration in the region. Ultimately, Israel is a client state of the US and has to behave as such. It's on a short leash.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
Elon has 10 kids.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
what alternatives do you recommend?
Some problems cannot be solved but only managed. I don't have any good (realistic) solutions - if we define solution as actually solving the issue once and for all. But that isn't an excuse for passivity and resigned fatalism. There are certainly things that can and should be done to manage the issue, e.g. making citizenship harder and akin to the Gulf model, rewriting asylum laws and possibly removing asylum courts. Making controversial practices such as pushbacks legal. Ban certain NGOs who engage in smuggling. And so on.
These things would make matters better but they would not fundamentally solve the underlying issue, which you alluded to (demographic disparities, who are only getting wider). People want easy solutions but I don't see any here, but at the same time it seems to me that the old very generous asylum model has to end.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
6mo ago
Thanks. I did not know that US statistics make a difference between new positions and replacements. In my country, they are all grouped together.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
7mo ago
Ah, but England has the legacy of Empire, theirs was arguably the greatest and most influential in the history of the world. Despite all the contemporary controversy, it's certainly impressive and most opinion polls show that the English are largely proud of it.
As for the invasion by the Danes and later the Normasns...they were a closely related people, unlike the Central Asians and later the Europeans for India. On top of that, there was never much of an independent Indian empire, except perhaps the Mughals but of course they were of the 'wrong' religion. So it is understandable that isn't something Hindutva types would like to advertise.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
7mo ago
The convergence of large social media platforms on similar content moderation rules is less due to shared ideological capture than a combination of legal, financial, and social pressures all pointing in a similar direction.
But these "social pressures", aren't they also a form of ideological capture among the institutions that exert said pressure on social media platforms? I don't have the data on me, but I've seen plenty of evidence that democratic voters form an absolute majority among key institutions (top university faculty, judiciary, media, big tech, federal govt employees etc).
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
8mo ago
Hard to feel sympathy for a man forcing himself on a woman who did not consent being kissed. What's shameful here is that it took FIFA externally intervening to get him suspended, as the Spanish federation clearly failed to do so before they did.
MelodicBerries
virtus junxit mors non separabit
8mo ago
God isn't real, of course, and I doubt Vivek thinks so either. Hinduism is remarkably tolerant of atheism.
As a sidenote, I've been impressed by him. I think his willingness to be ruthlessly realistic about limits to America's commitments to Taiwan is a breath of fresh air. Reminds me of 2016 Trump. I still think Ye Olde Orange Man is a clear favorite, but if he gets barred from running due to legal issues, I think Vivek is a top contender. I wouldn't call him very charismatic, but he at least isn't robotic like DeSantis and unlike DeSantis, his campaign feels less controlled by donors and GOPe activists.
I think Trump's secret was that he intuitively understood that GOP conventional wisdom isn't actually that popular among the grassroots and so breaking with it hardly carries punishment with the voters - quite the contrary, in fact. If Vivek grasps the same fundamental truth then he has a very good shot.
Yet their lives are infinitely better than if they would have remained sovereign. No offence to American Indians, but given their social problems, I find it hard to believe that their standard of living would have been better today if not for European conquest. The tall tales of mass annihilation is also mostly bunk. Many Europeans were often very sympathetic (e.g. Sam Houston).
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