Comment Reasons, Theories and Critiques (Score 1) 540
Thanks for your intelligent reply however I have some comments on your opinion.
1. The limitations on resources are why we're going to see more terrorism (as well as civil unrest) as the marginalized countries (as segments of society) see what they describe as 'decadence' among those countries who waste more in a month than they see in years. Thing is, if we shared some of what we've got, if we managed our resources better, there would be enough to go around for a lot longer.
Re: other planets, I don't expect to see extra-solar space travel or Star Trekkian demi-utopias. I expect a terran dystopia with an ever increasing gap between a slave-like middle class, an untouchable unemployed class and the industrial baron-princes.
2. Nice assumption, how'd you get to that one? I'm speaking from (admittedly limited) experience. In fact I've been through Hong Kong, Guangxi province and Guangdong province. Through. Not to one city. Through. As in travelling through. Stopping in villages, Seeing stuff, visiting family, buying chickens on the road, killing and plucking them myself, not assinine shutterbug toursim. No, I haven't been in the farthest 'outback' regions where the Party is colonizing Mandarin-speaking ethnics to overwhelm the natives. No, I haven't seen anyone carted off by the police. I have had to bribe my way through some situations with various gov't officials. In other cases I've been helped by genuinely nice and civic minded people. I have seen a lot of the reality of what's driving Chinese industrial and commercial "advancement". And a lot of it amounts to "we know labour is cheap here, lets use our own people and sell the rich Americans cheap crap." And my point is, to make myself clear, China is going to take advantage of its situation, and its own people, to move itself into a greater position of world power. Just like the current 1WNs did a century ago.
I never made the claim everyone in China has equal opportunity. I'm simply stating that its significantly less draconian than a generation ago or a generation before that. See what I said "smarts, cunning and connections". A statement that applies a lot to TROTW anyway.
3. You're making the assumption that I've not taken the limitations of the ecosphere into account. Most of the devastation your describing was supposed to happen by now according to a lot of doomsayers I remember quite well from the '70s. I expect it will be along shortly (perhaps 50 or 100 years).
However, kudos to you, you're correct, I'm not over the age of 60 and do not remember any of the Chinese civil wars. Nor am I unfortunate to have been on site for the various uprisings that were crushed during my lifetime. I am quite familiar with how my wife and her parents remember their horrific expeiences since the 1930s and I do know how to read western and Chinese propaganda. However, that said, I'd be more concerned about American leadership succession right now anyway and try to figure out whether the military, intelligence or some other internal power will be the first declare the current regime illegal, stage a coup or begin arresting people. Oh, that's right, they've been doing it for three years now. Silly me.
4. The UN is a polite lie. It always has been. It's called diplomacy. When the polite lie isn't useful, like any treaty the USA enters into, its discarded like a lit cigarette butt into dry leaves. You're absolutely right about the condition of the UN. The world powers have been destroying lesser powers and governments for decades either through assassination, economic manipulation, instigating coups, supporting gov'ts then pulling out, turning a blind eye to genocide then arming another group. The invasion of Iraq was only the most overt example of this. The USA could do this because, like Dennis Leary's song, "we have the bomb". I don't mean literally nuclear WMDs, but just the figurative Big Stick. The story about WMDs was another polite lie that some idiot thought TROTW would buy. Except some believe in the Big Lie of the UN and some have vested interests that are not in-line with the American regime. And I'm certain the world is going to see more of this (USA's Big Stick) real soon now. And this leads us all back to more terrorism. Can anyone really blame North Korea's paranoid dictatorship for wanting nuclear capabilities? Kim looks outside his borders and he sees China at America's teat. Russia begging in the streets. His former fellow Axis of Evil brother squashed under an iron heal. Hell, I'd want the bomb if I was watching any country say to the rest of the world, "If you're not with us you're against us." But who in any government wants to become Chamberlain to Bush's Hitler? Who is going to take the path of appeasement and let the USA just walk in and take over? Certainly no tinplated dictator. You see what treatment Canada's "friendly dictator" PM Chretian's attitude got that nation. New economic penalties against it every week since Chretian said Canada wouldn't support the USA's invasion of Iraq.
The trouble is, the USA is going to get involved in too many theatres and then discover it can't sustain so many fronts It will discover it can't wage a war then maintain occupation forces. It can project power but it can't maintain peace. That's why American ambassadors are now courting other nations to supply occupation forces. The USA will need a forum for the polite lie. In the end it might have to deal.
Korea, Pakistan and India having nuclear weapons and the will to use them? They'd have to have sufficient motivations. What would using a nuclear weapon gain any of them except the immediate polarization of the world against them? All those nations need friends. NK? Doubt they'd use one except that they engineered plausible self defense. Kim might be insane but he's not stupid in that way. Pakistan? Who are they going to bomb? India? They know India will respond in kind. The world is presently involved in a lot of hot and cold running wars. Some economic. Some nuclear. Some intelligence. It's been this way since the end of WW2. It's not like 9/11 changed the world. It just acted as the lynchpin for the current American regime to implement its long sought after plan for an American Century. The Republican patriotic think tank that came up with the Plan got the Pearl Harbour they were waiting for.
In the meantime, build bomb-shelters? Pfeh! :) More likely stockpile unregistered small arms, take up kitchen chemistry, get solar panels, an off-road motorcycle and harden your house against small arms fire and shrapnel. (First getting out of urban centres of course.)
1. The limitations on resources are why we're going to see more terrorism (as well as civil unrest) as the marginalized countries (as segments of society) see what they describe as 'decadence' among those countries who waste more in a month than they see in years. Thing is, if we shared some of what we've got, if we managed our resources better, there would be enough to go around for a lot longer.
Re: other planets, I don't expect to see extra-solar space travel or Star Trekkian demi-utopias. I expect a terran dystopia with an ever increasing gap between a slave-like middle class, an untouchable unemployed class and the industrial baron-princes.
2. Nice assumption, how'd you get to that one? I'm speaking from (admittedly limited) experience. In fact I've been through Hong Kong, Guangxi province and Guangdong province. Through. Not to one city. Through. As in travelling through. Stopping in villages, Seeing stuff, visiting family, buying chickens on the road, killing and plucking them myself, not assinine shutterbug toursim. No, I haven't been in the farthest 'outback' regions where the Party is colonizing Mandarin-speaking ethnics to overwhelm the natives. No, I haven't seen anyone carted off by the police. I have had to bribe my way through some situations with various gov't officials. In other cases I've been helped by genuinely nice and civic minded people. I have seen a lot of the reality of what's driving Chinese industrial and commercial "advancement". And a lot of it amounts to "we know labour is cheap here, lets use our own people and sell the rich Americans cheap crap." And my point is, to make myself clear, China is going to take advantage of its situation, and its own people, to move itself into a greater position of world power. Just like the current 1WNs did a century ago.
I never made the claim everyone in China has equal opportunity. I'm simply stating that its significantly less draconian than a generation ago or a generation before that. See what I said "smarts, cunning and connections". A statement that applies a lot to TROTW anyway.
3. You're making the assumption that I've not taken the limitations of the ecosphere into account. Most of the devastation your describing was supposed to happen by now according to a lot of doomsayers I remember quite well from the '70s. I expect it will be along shortly (perhaps 50 or 100 years).
However, kudos to you, you're correct, I'm not over the age of 60 and do not remember any of the Chinese civil wars. Nor am I unfortunate to have been on site for the various uprisings that were crushed during my lifetime. I am quite familiar with how my wife and her parents remember their horrific expeiences since the 1930s and I do know how to read western and Chinese propaganda. However, that said, I'd be more concerned about American leadership succession right now anyway and try to figure out whether the military, intelligence or some other internal power will be the first declare the current regime illegal, stage a coup or begin arresting people. Oh, that's right, they've been doing it for three years now. Silly me.
4. The UN is a polite lie. It always has been. It's called diplomacy. When the polite lie isn't useful, like any treaty the USA enters into, its discarded like a lit cigarette butt into dry leaves. You're absolutely right about the condition of the UN. The world powers have been destroying lesser powers and governments for decades either through assassination, economic manipulation, instigating coups, supporting gov'ts then pulling out, turning a blind eye to genocide then arming another group. The invasion of Iraq was only the most overt example of this. The USA could do this because, like Dennis Leary's song, "we have the bomb". I don't mean literally nuclear WMDs, but just the figurative Big Stick. The story about WMDs was another polite lie that some idiot thought TROTW would buy. Except some believe in the Big Lie of the UN and some have vested interests that are not in-line with the American regime. And I'm certain the world is going to see more of this (USA's Big Stick) real soon now. And this leads us all back to more terrorism. Can anyone really blame North Korea's paranoid dictatorship for wanting nuclear capabilities? Kim looks outside his borders and he sees China at America's teat. Russia begging in the streets. His former fellow Axis of Evil brother squashed under an iron heal. Hell, I'd want the bomb if I was watching any country say to the rest of the world, "If you're not with us you're against us." But who in any government wants to become Chamberlain to Bush's Hitler? Who is going to take the path of appeasement and let the USA just walk in and take over? Certainly no tinplated dictator. You see what treatment Canada's "friendly dictator" PM Chretian's attitude got that nation. New economic penalties against it every week since Chretian said Canada wouldn't support the USA's invasion of Iraq.
The trouble is, the USA is going to get involved in too many theatres and then discover it can't sustain so many fronts It will discover it can't wage a war then maintain occupation forces. It can project power but it can't maintain peace. That's why American ambassadors are now courting other nations to supply occupation forces. The USA will need a forum for the polite lie. In the end it might have to deal.
Korea, Pakistan and India having nuclear weapons and the will to use them? They'd have to have sufficient motivations. What would using a nuclear weapon gain any of them except the immediate polarization of the world against them? All those nations need friends. NK? Doubt they'd use one except that they engineered plausible self defense. Kim might be insane but he's not stupid in that way. Pakistan? Who are they going to bomb? India? They know India will respond in kind. The world is presently involved in a lot of hot and cold running wars. Some economic. Some nuclear. Some intelligence. It's been this way since the end of WW2. It's not like 9/11 changed the world. It just acted as the lynchpin for the current American regime to implement its long sought after plan for an American Century. The Republican patriotic think tank that came up with the Plan got the Pearl Harbour they were waiting for.
In the meantime, build bomb-shelters? Pfeh!
