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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   1110 thread views

Transnational Thursday for April 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Iran has just launched a massive strike against Israel. Dozens of Shahad drones are in flight, and some number of ballistic missiles have just launched. Yemen is also launching ballistic missiles. No word if Hezbollah has joined the attack yet.

Edit 1: number of Shahad drones estimated at 400-500. Iran's Defense Minister says "any country that opens its airspace or soil to Israel to attack Iran will receive our decisive response", according to Iran's state-affiliated IRNA News Agency

Iran's firing off Shaheds that cost $10,000 to $50,000 to produce. Israel's trying to shoot them down with F-15s and F-35s, plus their air defences. Can that possibly be economical? The flying cost of an F-35 is about $30,000 to $40,000 per hour. They can shoot down multiple Shaheds on each trip but I assume they're firing air to air missiles, it's a rather small target for cannon. Sidewinders apparently cost nearly $400,000. The Israelis make their own missiles and price is unclear but one imagines it's somewhat in that hundred thousand dollar zone.

At any rate it's somewhat academic, I imagine the US will be paying the bills.

"my tax dollars" vs "somehow also my tax dollars" strikes again

We’ll see how much damage it ends up causing. It all seems very telegraphed so far. They may well have told them exactly what they were going to do in advance.

That wouldn't surprise me. Neither side wants to escalate too far but the Iranian leadership has to be seen to do something and also wants to make a point that they could do the same anytime without warning if they really wanted to.

Germany.

New gender identity law has been passed. Full story: https://www.dw.com/en/gender-identity-law-passes-in-german-parliament/a-68800054

tl;dr: Minor change in last name handling: You can now have a joint name for the family, so children can be born into this world and be called Justin Müller-Westernhagen. Previously the child would've been called either Justin Müller or Justin Westernhagen.

More contentiously: Germany joins Spain when it comes to gender law. From November 2024 forward one can change their gender in their official documentation and first name, no questions asked, once a year.

Only once a year. Travesty.

I'd want it to be twice a year. If one has sympathy for detrans people, one should want to make it easy for them to detransition (as an upside to be weighed against whatever downsides the policy might have).

If you could have any country's governing style, what would you chose? No one seems happy with the one they have.

No one seems happy with the one they have.

I think “mine but 30 years ago” would actually account for a decent number.

Nostalgia and being younger are a hell of a combo for picturesque past style thinking.

Singapore. It has its flaws like an extremely low birth rate and high competitiveness, but to some extent these are features of all modern Chinese civilization. I think high asset prices for long term secular reasons mean the housing market often works against poor and working class people, the government developing land for residential use and then leasing and selling it to most of the bottom 70% of the population in terms of income works well, while a private real estate market still exists for commercial property, rural property and housing for the wealthy. Singapore is essentially the world’s only high-functioning multicultural society, it’s the only place in the world where even Little India is largely clean and nice. It understands that while some racial spoils are inevitable, they have to be combined with extremely strict law enforcement and efforts to avoid ghettoes occupied solely by one tribe. I appreciate that extremely high salaries for senior officials attract higher quality people to the civil service and politics. Healthcare is both good and affordable as a percentage of GDP. Citizenship is quite hard to obtain, borders are strictly controlled, but wealthy and highly skilled foreigners are welcome to work there. Military service is mandatory, which helps discipline young men, brings together people from different backgrounds and inculcates a sense of shared national identity. There is no more competent current government, even though Singapore is certainly flawed.

Second place is Switzerland.

https://twitter.com/kunley_drukpa/status/1781083217333788959

I personally would prefer a perfect benevolent ruler. But the problem of succession is such that it never, ever, works out and an inevitable bad egg is produced.

The Romanovs, Austrian Hapsburgs, and French bourbons all went for hundreds of years without producing any ruler worse than mediocre.

It helps that the leader of Singapore is a literal genius. He was the senior wrangler = top math student at Cambridge.

The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain".

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