magic9mushroom
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User ID: 1103
magic9mushroom
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1d ago
To be clear, by "systematic" I mean like nearly 100% endogamy (I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect 85% still wouldn't be enough) in a moderately-sized clan, like the actual Habsburgs, so that you get a pile of allele-fixing and increased consanguinity. Are there a lot of families that do that in the Muslim world?
magic9mushroom
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2d ago
While you might be 'strongly-Zionist', this seems orthogonal to your argument, which is mainly about Jewish minorities in gentile countries being net-positive.
@FireRises I'd go further and say "opposed"; if you want to keep Jews in the West, you don't want them to "go home" to Eretz Yisrael.
magic9mushroom
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2d ago
Funny thing about inbreeding is that unlike protracted heavy inbreeding (where a family has no new blood for an extended period), protracted mild inbreeding (lots of cousin marriages but not systematic) will eventually tend to weed out most of the alleles responsible for inbreeding problems (as it exposes them to much-stronger natural selection).
Do also remember that if someone heavily inbred marries someone else heavily inbred - but unrelated - the offspring are not inbred at all.
magic9mushroom
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2d ago
China doesn't seem to be too keen on military domination of the eight dash line, you have both okinawan and phillipino islands a stone toss away - you can contain them just as good there.
The PRC has been building military bases all over the nine-dash line. And Taiwan actually is strategically critical; if the PLAN can base out of its east coast, they can more credibly threaten a blockade of Japan or South Korea (they can't do that now because the narrow, shallow straits might as well be labelled "insert sea mines here"). Would also allow them to put their ballistic missile subs into deeper water and hide them better.
magic9mushroom
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4d ago
I think the word you're looking for is "invasion" rather than "occupation", then. The USA invaded and occupied Germany, but only occupied Japan.
@Dean's usually fairly precise with his terminology; I believe he was specifically raising concerns over the USA's ability to occupy China - concerns which I share to at least some extent. Invading China is a completely-different kettle of fish, and one I dismissed out of hand in my first reply in this chain ("Rule 2 of war": "do not go fighting with your land armies in China"); I don't think Dean was even entertaining that idea.
magic9mushroom
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4d ago
If a nuclear exchange has happened, there are no longer 1.3 million Chinese.
I think you meant "billion" here; I would expect high Chinese casualties, likely over half a billion if they don't surrender immediately, but not >99.9%.
if they launched even one of theirs at us then we would have launched most of ours in response.
Nah, it wouldn't take that many.
magic9mushroom
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4d ago
Going full countervalue in response to a single nuke? No. Going full counterforce in response to a single nuke? Yes, at least on the US side. The question isn't so much of retaliation as prevention; you want to destroy as much as possible on the ground.
(Also, a single nuke pointed at a city probably won't do much due to ABM.)
I predicted the USA going countervalue against China in a big way if the PLA had nuked cities, the counterforce response ran China out of nukes, and the PRC still refused anything but a white peace. At that point, there's just straight-up no alternative; the Western public would not stand for a white peace (not to mention that it'd let them try again in a few years), and invading China wouldn't work (rule 2 of war). Hence, "after I destroy Washington DC Shanghai I will destroy another major city every hour on the hour, that is unless of course you pay me 100 billion dollars unconditionally surrender". Same trick as was used on Japan in WWII.
magic9mushroom
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5d ago
My point exactly.
magic9mushroom
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5d ago
Possible, I suppose (though occupying China to that degree wouldn't be trivial). Largely ends in the same place, though, of "PRC refuses, China burns in countervalue strike".
magic9mushroom
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6d ago
· Edited 6d ago
Worst case, nukes get exchanged (maybe half a dozen).
Half a dozen nukes is not the worst case or a likely case. If the USA detects Chinese launches, it will go full counterforce in an attempt to destroy as much as possible of their arsenal before it's airborne. That in turn means the PRC is in a "use it or lose it" scenario and will likely launch as much as it can (excepting, possibly, the sea leg).
Of course, then there's the issue of the peace terms. If PLA nukes have hit cities, the West's peace demand would be along the lines of "denuclearise/demilitarise China, free Tibet/Xinjiang, formally cede Taiwan" with little room to budge (particularly given the need to prevent the PRC trying again later). The PRC is aware that, as you note, this means no more Mandate of Heaven, so it plausibly refuses. Plausibly, Trump/Vance then order countervalue in order to force a capitulation (or state failure), because Rule 2 of war and they aren't the sorts to just back down. End result is that China is a basket-case again, like the early 20th century. Russia, if it stays out, does well in some ways (with the West significantly weakened), but doesn't become outright hegemon. Probably no more culture war, as SJ would suffer base existence failure to a fair extent and would be blamed for weakening the West and thus causing WWIII.
China winning a lightning strike? Honestly I view this as somewhat status quo, believe it or not.
No. The immediate problem is that the PLAN would have un-interdictable access to the Pacific proper via Taiwan's east coast, which means Japan and South Korea would have Beijing's hand around their throats via the threat of blockade (neither is even remotely close to being able to feed itself). They probably both withdraw from the NPT, Beijing in its overconfidence (and with popular support due to the long-standing cultural antipathy) plausibly attacks, and you're back to WWIII. There's a reason that Japanese PM Takaichi Sanae made those comments about a Taiwan invasion posing an existential threat to Japan and justifying the use of the Japanese military, and there's a reason (though not a good one) that one of China's diplomats to Japan publically threatened to cut off her head in response.
magic9mushroom
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6d ago
@EverythingIsFine may be referring to the idea of the Mandate of Heaven - that the Chinese tend to violently chuck out governments that are seen to have failed. If the CPC were forced to relinquish its claim to Taiwan as part of a peace deal, it would have a hard time holding on to power. This potentially means loose nukes.
magic9mushroom
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6d ago
School shooters are spree killers; what Corvos is talking about would arguably be serial killing. Profiles are pretty different.
magic9mushroom
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6d ago
And "let's free these oppressed people".
magic9mushroom
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6d ago
Geopolitical alliances crack when one party is seen as the partisan partner of one's own domestic political opponents.
TBF, this kinda goes both ways.
From the US point of view, the EU supports the Democrats against the Republicans (in a lot of ways), and thus the Republicans see the EU as backing their domestic enemies.
From the EU point of view, the US is supporting the European far-right (by providing communications that circumvent the various EU censorship laws), and thus the EU establishment see the US as backing their domestic enemies.
I happen to be extremely unsympathetic to the EU establishment's position, but that's because I see their suppression of the far-right as an oligarchical attempt to revoke democracy and thus not a legitimate state interest.
Trumpism, and Musk becoming pissed off enough to buy Twitter, seem the obvious examples. Well, no, the more relevant examples; the most obvious example, in context, is this board.
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