peter Zeihan 2020

Megadeath

Well-known member
El Salvador fought its own battles, the only people who can truly change mexico are mexicans.
Not true, for a certain value of "solving" the issue. It's always an option to make a desert and call it peace. Not a great option, I don't think. I do believe though that somewhere between "Occasionally blast some low level runners." and "Turn the neighbouring country into a parking lot." a viable military solution does exist. It's just a matter of knowing which people need to be dead, and making it happen in the right way.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
Me 10 years ago: There's no such thing as a fair trade, conflict mineral free smartphone. All the niobium and tantalum comes from little kids in the Congo digging through the mud with their bare hands for slave wages while they're watched over by AK-wielding militiamen.

My liberal friends: *GROBBLE GROBBLE* YOU'RE WRONG, MY SMARTPHONE IS FINE, YOU'RE SUCH A DOWNER ABOUT EVERYTHING, SHUT UP

The Media 10 years later: There's no such thing as a fair trade, conflict mineral free Tesla. All the niobium and tantalum comes from little kids in the Congo digging through the mud with their bare hands for slave wages while they're watched over by AK-wielding militiamen.

My liberal frenemies: ELON MUSK IS THE DEVIL

Me: 🥱

 

Cherico

Well-known member
Basically its hard to get data on how fucked we all are and the system as a whole is going to have problems.



I wouldn't trust him on covid stuff because its outside his wheelhouse.
 

f1onagher

Well-known member
I wouldn't trust him on covid stuff because its outside his wheelhouse.
It's not that it's outside of his wheelhouse so much that he trusts his fellow technocrats to be professional and honest. A bias he never shares with foreign apparatuses I do notice. Zeihan has a problem in that he understands that politicians can fall for and perpetuate narratives en mass, but he seems to assume that western, institution-based bureaucrats don't because they're just too professional.

Unrelated to Zeihan, it's a bias that has become increasingly evident across the political and commentary space as the Russian war has given liberals permission to be Western chauvinists again.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
It's not that it's outside of his wheelhouse so much that he trusts his fellow technocrats to be professional and honest. A bias he never shares with foreign apparatuses I do notice. Zeihan has a problem in that he understands that politicians can fall for and perpetuate narratives en mass, but he seems to assume that western, institution-based bureaucrats don't because they're just too professional.

Unrelated to Zeihan, it's a bias that has become increasingly evident across the political and commentary space as the Russian war has given liberals permission to be Western chauvinists again.

Garbage in garbage out is a saying amongst programers for a reason.

You really cant have good policy unless you have good information.
 

Cherico

Well-known member



So basically China has successfully knifed Russia in the back and they can't do jack shit about it other then smile and wave.
And now their surrounded on all sides by potential enemies, hated dispised, and essentially a resource colony for china and they did it to themselves.
 

UberIguana

Well-known member
They already have the Epsilon rocket, which can place 590kg in sun-synchronous orbit and weighs around 91 tons. Knock a stage off the bottom and you've got a decent IRBM. Might be able to make it road mobile too, though you'd want to ruggedise it first. The guidance system would be the only issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have a rough prototype tucked away somewhere already.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder


TL;DR: Turks are Ferengi, and well positioned into the future with very young demographics compared to the rest of the West.

They know how to play the game, they know their geographic position and membership to NATO means they can do and get away with a lot, and they have many, many trading partners to get critical supplies from.

So Turkey is set to spend the next 50 years or so on easy-mode compared to most of the world.

Edit: Only real issue for Turkey are earthquakes.
 

gral

Well-known member


TL;DR: Turks are Ferengi, and well positioned into the future with very young demographics compared to the rest of the West.

They know how to play the game, they know their geographic position and membership to NATO means they can do and get away with a lot, and they have many, many trading partners to get critical supplies from.

So Turkey is set to spend the next 50 years or so on easy-mode compared to most of the world.

Edit: Only real issue for Turkey are earthquakes.

Biggest problem I see with Turkey right now is their economy, there's shades of 1970's Brazil in Turkey's current situation.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Biggest problem I see with Turkey right now is their economy, there's shades of 1970's Brazil in Turkey's current situation.
That was before Bayatar happened; Turkish defense industry is not small or unskilled, and has customers already, including Ukraine.

Also, they have dreams of a new Ottoman Empire and controlling their own 'sphere' with their neighbors like Hungary, Bulgaria, Syria, Iraq, and the Caucasus's , and frankly, they might get that wish.

I despise Erdogan, but I cannot help but admire how he has managed to position Turkey in the long term.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
Biggest problem I see with Turkey right now is their economy, there's shades of 1970's Brazil in Turkey's current situation.

Brazils problem is they have a fucking mountain range between the international ocean and their productive zones. Thats what fucks them over as a country.

Turkey's position was actually great for being fantastically wealthy before the age of sail, they can trade with the middle east, the levant, europe and directly control all trade that goes in and out of the black sea. This is the position that allowed Byzantium to just survive all the bullshit after all.

The problem was the europeans developed deep sea oceanic travel thus by passing the silk road and discovered two massive continents with a lot of resources. This and mismanagement religated the turks from great power to a relative backwater. But their geographic hand was still a good one and they still have the singular massive advantage of being surrounded by idiots.

Because Greece doesn't have their shit together and is demographically collapsing, the post soviet worlds mostly a shit show and the middle east is a fucking disaster and the Turks are pretty much the most competent people in their region and will thus likely dominate it.
 

UberIguana

Well-known member
That was before Bayatar happened; Turkish defense industry is not small or unskilled, and has customers already, including Ukraine.
The defence industry alone won't be enough to fuel the entire Turkish economy. Especially not while Erdogan insists on pursuing Islamic finance, ignoring the tools offered by a sane monetary policy. Turkey's high inflation means companies readily available cash isn't enough to buy all the needed resources. As a result they have less product to export, further crippling their cashflow. This will be a problem until someone less retarded takes over.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
The defence industry alone won't be enough to fuel the entire Turkish economy. Especially not while Erdogan insists on pursuing Islamic finance, ignoring the tools offered by a sane monetary policy. Turkey's high inflation means companies readily available cash isn't enough to buy all the needed resources. As a result they have less product to export, further crippling their cashflow. This will be a problem until someone less retarded takes over.
Eh, they have enough trading partners that they can keep their internal economy going, and their control over access to the Black Sea isn't going to suddenly not be a factor. And Turkey does have enough domestic heavy industry, agriculture, fisheries, and resources to remain stable and afloat, and NATO membership means they have security guarantees in many areas.

As I said, I don't like Erdogan, and frankly think that Greece should control Constantinople, but if Turkey isn't going to collapse and in fact is likely to get stronger, then I'm not going to fall for the hype about how screw their economy seems.

The only real concerns Turkey has that they don't have a good way to handle is earthquakes, and that's just because they keep skimping on earthquake coding their buildings as they should.
 

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