peter Zeihan 2020
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Yinko
Well-known member
Nice condemnation of over-centralization of power. Kind of parallels what Janusz Korwin-Mikke said about the strength of monarchy, that one man is incapable of handling many issues and so must leave the people greater freedom. That would be the wise approach, to limit yourself when you have limits. Whereas China has taken the unwise approach, "just make it work!".
Chinese history is very much an object lesson on why you should never let buracrats take over your society.
Yinko
Well-known member
You're comment really made me think of Yes Minister. We're worse now for size of government, centralization and inability to act than they were when they were mocking it.
I honestly think that a lot of the wests core problem is that the size of government has become too large for the underlying economy to bear. I mean historically speaking you normally had 3% of the population working directly for the government now look at today.....
Yinko
Well-known member
Dan Tubb on the Lotus Eaters does a series called Brokenomics, where he mentions that the vulnerability of the economy comes from all the moves made to offset the effects of national debt (in every developed economy) which stems from government over-spending, which mostly comes from the perpetual increase in the size of government. He also compares the modern economy, which has constant inflation, with the pre-modern one in which inflation and deflation mostly canceled each-other out. It's an incredibly depressing series.
Yet for SOME inexplicable reason, we have.
Modernity is a birchYet for SOME inexplicable reason, we have.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Yeah, but antiquity was a fir. Douglas fir, IIRC.
UberIguana
Well-known member
Reject tree, return to shrub.
Yinko
Well-known member
His point about what it takes to make a nuclear base sounds a lot like BS.
9K52 Luna-M - Wikipedia
You are both right. You are talking about having any nuclear bases. He is talking about having nuclear bases with meaningful military value and effectiveness. Those are not the same thing.His point about what it takes to make a nuclear base sounds a lot like BS.
Oh wow! Look at all that infrastructure and IT. Hell, the US military got into hot water a while back because our own silos were using reel-to-reel computers.9K52 Luna-M - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
History Learner
Well-known member
Pretty crazy how in six weeks China proved Peter entirely wrong.
Yinko
Well-known member
About what? I don't follow him that closely.
History Learner
Well-known member
Basically, his whole China schtick is they are currently collapsing. Instead, in the past six weeks they've flipped the Middle East, much of Latin America, ASEAN, and now the Europeans. That's not a declining power, that's the new Superpower.
Yinko
Well-known member
From what I've seen, not reliant on the Zeihan, China is completely fucked no matter what international diplomacy they do. Their demographics, their culture, their military, their economy, everything is broken.
China also has a very good record of starting relationships but a very poor one of maintaining them. When the Belt-and-Road projects started people were doom-saying about how all these countries would flip. Especially with places like Central Asia where they did joint military activities and one of the senior officials had gone to university in China.
Reality is, all these countries are playing both sides for as much as they can get.