mint
18hr ago
I appreciate you taking the time to engage seriously. That said, I think there’s a key distinction you’re missing.
First, it’s natural that I focus more on China’s actions. I’m Chinese. If a war breaks out across the strait, it could directly disrupt my life, my plans, my family’s future. Of course that weighs more heavily on my mind than the tragedy of Ukraine, which, while terrible, doesn’t immediately threaten me.
Second, I think you’re conflating very different dynamics under the umbrella of the “security dilemma.”
• Ukraine reaching out to NATO was a small country trying to secure its survival against a regional hegemon.
• U.S. deployment in Taiwan would be a global superpower extending military infrastructure directly into another major state’s core security zone.
These aren’t symmetrical. The actors, scale, and power dynamics are fundamentally different. Equating them as the same type of rational move erases the imbalance of power involved.
Lastly, when you frame Western support for Ukraine in terms of “the tangible security benefits of thousands of dead Russians,” it exposes a very narrow view of security—focused on enemy casualties rather than long-term strategic stability.
Real security gains aren’t about counting corpses. They’re about shaping the regional balance, undermining adversaries’ capacity for future aggression, and stabilizing your own influence network.
If we can’t differentiate between those layers, any discussion about security dilemmas risks collapsing into just “whose kill count is higher,” which I think we can both agree is an inadequate model for understanding international relations.
Last week’s issues: I delayed sending a birthday gift due to anxiety and emotional avoidance. No point in self-blame now—just need to act.
This week’s goals:
Must complete:
1Send the delayed birthday package.
2Systematically think through (and possibly write about) the Western romanticization of Japanese and Korean culture, and my personal discomfort with it.
3Book a dentist appointment regarding my wisdom tooth issue (growth spotted, no pain yet, but CT scan shows problematic angle).
Optional tasks:
1Watch Adolescence.
2Avoid burgers and fried chicken for the week.
3Buy a new t-shirt.
4Apply for a Korean 5-year visa
Notes: Small tasks, but after weeks of spirals and hesitation, any forward motion is valuable.
mint
23hr ago
It seems like there’s a misunderstanding of what a security dilemma actually is. It’s not limited to last-resort existential threats or nuclear contexts.
The term refers to a recurring structural problem in international relations, where one state’s defensive measures are perceived as offensive by another, leading to escalation—even if both sides claim defensive intent.
This applies to all levels of military posturing, not just existential brinkmanship. Arms shipments, base placements, even rhetoric can trigger this.
Just so we’re on the same page, here’s a straightforward summary from the Wikipedia entry:
A security dilemma occurs when the actions taken by a state to increase its own security cause reactions from other states, which in turn lead to a decrease rather than an increase in the original state’s security.
If you think this only kicks in at the nuclear threshold, I’d seriously recommend rereading the foundational IR literature, or even just that page.
It’s funny you bring up robots. Personally, I’d rather consult a logic-checking tool than rely entirely on one worldview expressed in one language formed by one country’s political myths.
Some of us are navigating ideas across six languages, including dialects that evolved in parallel to Western nation-state concepts.
I’m not offended that you think that’s less legitimate than cowboy-tier geopolitics— just mildly amused that you thought “Texas is freedom land” was a mic drop.<3
I do use GPT-chan to help polish my grammar and phrasing, yes. But the core of what I post—my arguments, references, and even the scattered little complaints I can’t seem to edit out (like “Does ChatGPT remind itself not to binge and purge?”)—are all mine.
There are two main reasons I rely on it:
1.My English level isn’t quite strong enough to support long, technical, terminologically dense replies.
2.Even if my native language were English—or if, say, we were all in a parallel universe where this forum ran in Chinese—I would still use GPT for polishing. Why? Because TheMotte has a very specific house style: cool, articulate, often high-context. My natural voice is more like Natsuki from DDLC—filled with interjections, emotional fragments, and too many emojis. In this environment, that just looks immature.
As for the idea that I’m “a Chinese person critical of the West”—that’s… funny. I looked back over my old posts and realized I’ve barely said anything explicit about my views on the CCP. I hint, I sidestep, I use passive framing. Why?
Because being ambiguous on sensitive political topics is… a habit.
If I were the kind of idealist who loudly denounced the system and believed I could change society, I imagine my neighborhood police station would’ve flagged me as a “person of interest” by now, waiting for the next National Congress to invite me in for tea. (That’s a joke. I think.I hope.)
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