|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On October 22 2016 06:42 Howie_Dewitt wrote:
What would happen if the Americans were to kill Kim-Jong-Un? My dad says that it would just make things worse, and the regime would just move on with even more anger.
It would be a lot better if they did it themselves.
|
On October 22 2016 06:48 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 06:43 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:06 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:58 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 05:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:42 oBlade wrote:On October 22 2016 05:30 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:18 oBlade wrote:
So you wouldn't be saying you want the Third Reich to have nuclear weapons, but you understand they're right and somewhat justified by pursuing the bomb when foreign countries are working to undermine them and liberate the concentration camps, and also America is pursuing the bomb too which is just as bad. The Japanese Empire was saying the same things a few years ago even before someone like Truman was so close to power. I'd say the Third Reich would be solid on their reasoning in that respect, yes. I wouldn't say they're "right" (more like far-right, huk huk huk), but the reasoning is pretty much valid. I get the feeling people are horribly incapable of viewing this kind of situation from the other side, the side where you feel threatened by the existence of vast military power on your borders or feel that your existence and way of life is being undermined. You know, the kind of thing that drives Drumpf supporters. You get that the point of non-proliferation is it's in everyone's best interest not to have more nuclear powers? I get that. And I don't want more nuclear powers, believe me. I just also have this thing where I can see the validity in reasoning that may not match my own beliefs, and that just happens to be the kind of reasoning that India and North Korea apply to the situation regarding nuclear weapons. Do you get that? Actually im not sure what reasoning you think India has for getting Nuclear powers, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning North Korea is trying to get them. I mean its nice being contrarian and all but its very clear you arent armed with enough knowledge about this subject to defend these positions at this point. 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal." From that alone, it appears obvious to me that they built nuclear weapons because of what I said (others have them, and they want equal power). I may say "defense" or whatever, but its all the same thing. You want a defense that matches the offense in strength, etc. I can't quickly find the quote from North Korea, but they've said similar things. You might put them in a different context, or you might not believe what NK says, but that is what was said. Edit: "political leverage" is very much in line with having power and being able to defend yourself (except on a political level). You can't expect me to lay out the whole concept of these things in its entirety. I'm assuming that people have a basic understanding of this. And whether or not NK supports or fears Drumpf is irrelevant, I was using him as an example of potential instability. If you are a Drumpf supporter then you will obviously not understand the argument I am trying to make in that case. I am sorry for that (on both accounts). Uhmm for starters in 1946 there was no India, Do you mean 1947? Also Nehru had no security to worry about, that was bullshit, he envisioned India as a super power and most of his reforms were centered around his idea that they just need to do the same things super powers do so they can think they are one aswell. To his credit alot of that has borne fruit but Nehru's push for Nuclear technology was his idea of progress and India getting to sit at the big boys table. None of that has to do with why North Korea wants nukes. So no the personal security argument is bullshit and everyone knows it. Thats just the line everyone takes to justify proliferation because its an easy argument to sit behind. Just like a few gun nuts will tell you they need their hut loaded full of assault rifles and shit for protection. Its lazy logic, but its easy to sit behind and more importantly easy to sell to the public. He said it before he became the first prime minister of India. And while the argument I am presenting wouldn't convince me to make nuclear weapons or even have any kind of firearm in my house, I can see how it may be convincing for some. Saying that is invalid because you disagree with doesn't make it less valid. Especially not for the people who do agree with it (people, again, who are not me).
Again, you dont know your shit, Nehru was a pacifist in the mold of Ghandi, he would have betrayed everything he had stood for if building the bomb was because he was afraid of getting attacked.
Where did the fear for their own safety go then for so long?
Theres a reason it took them 50 years to actually create a fucking missile system with nuclear delivery, and it wasnt because Nehru said that shit in 1946 or whenever. Nor was it because they were to stupid to figure out how to do it for 50 years.
Jesus...
|
On October 22 2016 06:51 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 06:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 06:43 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:06 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:58 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 05:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:42 oBlade wrote:On October 22 2016 05:30 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:18 oBlade wrote:
So you wouldn't be saying you want the Third Reich to have nuclear weapons, but you understand they're right and somewhat justified by pursuing the bomb when foreign countries are working to undermine them and liberate the concentration camps, and also America is pursuing the bomb too which is just as bad. The Japanese Empire was saying the same things a few years ago even before someone like Truman was so close to power. I'd say the Third Reich would be solid on their reasoning in that respect, yes. I wouldn't say they're "right" (more like far-right, huk huk huk), but the reasoning is pretty much valid. I get the feeling people are horribly incapable of viewing this kind of situation from the other side, the side where you feel threatened by the existence of vast military power on your borders or feel that your existence and way of life is being undermined. You know, the kind of thing that drives Drumpf supporters. You get that the point of non-proliferation is it's in everyone's best interest not to have more nuclear powers? I get that. And I don't want more nuclear powers, believe me. I just also have this thing where I can see the validity in reasoning that may not match my own beliefs, and that just happens to be the kind of reasoning that India and North Korea apply to the situation regarding nuclear weapons. Do you get that? Actually im not sure what reasoning you think India has for getting Nuclear powers, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning North Korea is trying to get them. I mean its nice being contrarian and all but its very clear you arent armed with enough knowledge about this subject to defend these positions at this point. 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal." From that alone, it appears obvious to me that they built nuclear weapons because of what I said (others have them, and they want equal power). I may say "defense" or whatever, but its all the same thing. You want a defense that matches the offense in strength, etc. I can't quickly find the quote from North Korea, but they've said similar things. You might put them in a different context, or you might not believe what NK says, but that is what was said. Edit: "political leverage" is very much in line with having power and being able to defend yourself (except on a political level). You can't expect me to lay out the whole concept of these things in its entirety. I'm assuming that people have a basic understanding of this. And whether or not NK supports or fears Drumpf is irrelevant, I was using him as an example of potential instability. If you are a Drumpf supporter then you will obviously not understand the argument I am trying to make in that case. I am sorry for that (on both accounts). Uhmm for starters in 1946 there was no India, Do you mean 1947? Also Nehru had no security to worry about, that was bullshit, he envisioned India as a super power and most of his reforms were centered around his idea that they just need to do the same things super powers do so they can think they are one aswell. To his credit alot of that has borne fruit but Nehru's push for Nuclear technology was his idea of progress and India getting to sit at the big boys table. None of that has to do with why North Korea wants nukes. So no the personal security argument is bullshit and everyone knows it. Thats just the line everyone takes to justify proliferation because its an easy argument to sit behind. Just like a few gun nuts will tell you they need their hut loaded full of assault rifles and shit for protection. Its lazy logic, but its easy to sit behind and more importantly easy to sell to the public. He said it before he became the first prime minister of India. And while the argument I am presenting wouldn't convince me to make nuclear weapons or even have any kind of firearm in my house, I can see how it may be convincing for some. Saying that is invalid because you disagree with doesn't make it less valid. Especially not for the people who do agree with it (people, again, who are not me). Again, you dont know your shit, Nehru was a pacifist in the mold of Ghandi, he would have betrayed everything he had stood for if building the bomb was because he was afraid of getting attacked. Theres a reason it took them 50 years to actually create a fucking missile system with nuclear delivery, and it wasnt because Nehru said that shit in 1946 or whenever. Nor was it because they were to stupid to figure out how to do it for 50 years. Jesus...
Enlighten me why they wanted nuclear weapons then. Did they just want to glow in the dark? What possible reason other than the whole political leverage & deterrence situation could they have for wanting nuclear weapons? And why did Pakistan want nuclear weapons if not for that exact same thing?
Deterrence, leverage, power, its all the same thing when it comes to nuclear weapons.
|
This thread is really boring now that Trump is getting thrashed.
|
On October 22 2016 06:13 On_Slaught wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 05:02 KwarK wrote:
flayer, WMDs stop wars, not start them. I agree but in going to play some devils advocate. While WMDs may stop conventional wars, they allow for nuclear wars to happen. One could easily argue that a single nuclear war is worse for humanity than ever war that has ever happened, combined. The same could be said for the wars the presence of WMDs are preventing now.
I agree completely non-ironically with this.
The world nearly ended several times during the cold war, if the protocols in place in both the US and the USSR had actually been followed it WOULD have ended. We got extremely lucky.
There is no fucking way that "developing nukes" was +EV in human lives.
|
On October 22 2016 06:56 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 06:51 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 06:43 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:06 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:58 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 05:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:42 oBlade wrote:On October 22 2016 05:30 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:18 oBlade wrote:
So you wouldn't be saying you want the Third Reich to have nuclear weapons, but you understand they're right and somewhat justified by pursuing the bomb when foreign countries are working to undermine them and liberate the concentration camps, and also America is pursuing the bomb too which is just as bad. The Japanese Empire was saying the same things a few years ago even before someone like Truman was so close to power. I'd say the Third Reich would be solid on their reasoning in that respect, yes. I wouldn't say they're "right" (more like far-right, huk huk huk), but the reasoning is pretty much valid. I get the feeling people are horribly incapable of viewing this kind of situation from the other side, the side where you feel threatened by the existence of vast military power on your borders or feel that your existence and way of life is being undermined. You know, the kind of thing that drives Drumpf supporters. You get that the point of non-proliferation is it's in everyone's best interest not to have more nuclear powers? I get that. And I don't want more nuclear powers, believe me. I just also have this thing where I can see the validity in reasoning that may not match my own beliefs, and that just happens to be the kind of reasoning that India and North Korea apply to the situation regarding nuclear weapons. Do you get that? Actually im not sure what reasoning you think India has for getting Nuclear powers, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning North Korea is trying to get them. I mean its nice being contrarian and all but its very clear you arent armed with enough knowledge about this subject to defend these positions at this point. 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal." From that alone, it appears obvious to me that they built nuclear weapons because of what I said (others have them, and they want equal power). I may say "defense" or whatever, but its all the same thing. You want a defense that matches the offense in strength, etc. I can't quickly find the quote from North Korea, but they've said similar things. You might put them in a different context, or you might not believe what NK says, but that is what was said. Edit: "political leverage" is very much in line with having power and being able to defend yourself (except on a political level). You can't expect me to lay out the whole concept of these things in its entirety. I'm assuming that people have a basic understanding of this. And whether or not NK supports or fears Drumpf is irrelevant, I was using him as an example of potential instability. If you are a Drumpf supporter then you will obviously not understand the argument I am trying to make in that case. I am sorry for that (on both accounts). Uhmm for starters in 1946 there was no India, Do you mean 1947? Also Nehru had no security to worry about, that was bullshit, he envisioned India as a super power and most of his reforms were centered around his idea that they just need to do the same things super powers do so they can think they are one aswell. To his credit alot of that has borne fruit but Nehru's push for Nuclear technology was his idea of progress and India getting to sit at the big boys table. None of that has to do with why North Korea wants nukes. So no the personal security argument is bullshit and everyone knows it. Thats just the line everyone takes to justify proliferation because its an easy argument to sit behind. Just like a few gun nuts will tell you they need their hut loaded full of assault rifles and shit for protection. Its lazy logic, but its easy to sit behind and more importantly easy to sell to the public. He said it before he became the first prime minister of India. And while the argument I am presenting wouldn't convince me to make nuclear weapons or even have any kind of firearm in my house, I can see how it may be convincing for some. Saying that is invalid because you disagree with doesn't make it less valid. Especially not for the people who do agree with it (people, again, who are not me). Again, you dont know your shit, Nehru was a pacifist in the mold of Ghandi, he would have betrayed everything he had stood for if building the bomb was because he was afraid of getting attacked. Theres a reason it took them 50 years to actually create a fucking missile system with nuclear delivery, and it wasnt because Nehru said that shit in 1946 or whenever. Nor was it because they were to stupid to figure out how to do it for 50 years. Jesus... Enlighten me why they wanted nuclear weapons then. Did they just want to glow in the dark? What possible reason other than the whole political leverage & deterrence situation could they have for wanting nuclear weapons? And why did Pakistan want nuclear weapons if not for that exact same thing? Deterrence, leverage, power, its all the same thing when it comes to nuclear weapons.
This entire quote line is confusing me. It seems completely obvious to me that every country who developed, or tried to develop nuclear weapons after ww2 did so because they wanted to ensure their own territorial integrity.
|
On October 22 2016 01:02 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 00:54 LegalLord wrote:On October 22 2016 00:49 Dan HH wrote:On October 22 2016 00:41 LegalLord wrote:
This topic involved into an impressive attempt at a dick-measuring contest by the usual suspects. The important thing is you found a way to feel superior to all Copying quotes to try to use as zingers certainly helps in that regard. On October 22 2016 00:51 Adreme wrote:
To help with Kwarks point the Russian economy is REALLY bad with a bad long term outlook. Any help Russia can get with these they NEED to take. Russia's economic problems are structural for the most part. As with many things, the 1990s played a large part in this. I'm curious what you mean by this. Russia's problems are varied, from demographic and health crises to an unaffordable military (3.1t rubles out of 13.7t ruble budget) to inefficient state run businesses receiving subsidies from the public purse to an overreliance on oil revenues to high wealth inequality and the emergence of a new aristocracy to vanity projects and countless others. I would not wish to have the job of fixing Russia.
There's going to be some cross-posting from my response to Lord Tolkien earlier because there were a lot of good sources there, and I talked a fair bit about Russian domestic issues in that post. I'll just address everything you brought up in order. I'll also provide this interview with Putin in Vladivostok describing some of the economic issues Russia has been working with.
First, demographics. It's true: Russia does have issues with demographics. So do many other countries, but Russia specifically has indeed had a lot of issues there, and while some studies do suggest that demographics might play a smaller role than before (automation, since the Industrial Revolution, has had that effect), and the factors that lead to poor demographics are often the same ones that lead to more mature economies, demographics are still important and good to have. There has been a lot of progress on that front though - the UN revised Russia's population growth estimate for 2050 upward from 2004 to 2015 from -32 million to -14 million, i.e. +18 million difference. Still not great, but certainly workable, and that's not the full story yet.
Now there are a few issues related to the demographics problem. Low fertility, high mortality, and immigration/emigration balance are the major ones.
Low fertility is the age-old problem that people in more developed countries don't want to have kids because it's tough to raise children while both parents work. I don't have any studies to prove this, but from what I've seen the upper bound on the number of children that two working parents can raise is two. Between improving economic conditions and incentives for having children, Russia has solidly moved into the 1-2 children per family range, from the 0-1 it was in the 1990s. Beyond incentives, the Russian government has sought to be quite close to the church (specifically, the Russian Orthodox church) because religion is correlated with more children (bloggy, but valid). It does sort of work, though it's not without its faults, as you could probably see just by looking at American religious fundamentalism.
Immigration and emigration. This one is actually one that is pretty much just a factor of the economy. Most of the immigration and emigration as related to Russia is just people pursuing their economic self-interest; Russia has a lot of undocumented immigrants from poorer nations working in Russia, and some of the more skilled Russian workers move to the US for work. The numbers are hard to come by for this (one of those issues with imprecise statistics) but all indicators show that it's mostly just economic migration to and from Russia. I couldn't find any sources I really liked on this issue simply because of the statistics being fuzzy (leading to fuzzy analysis) so I'll not provide any, but nevertheless this issue is mostly just a matter of economics. Somewhat related to this is the Eurasian Economic Union, which does do a lot to help resolve some of the undocumented immigrant issues (the countries that send illegals profit a lot off of remittances), but once again, whose strength does depend very strongly on the economy.
The high mortality issue ties into the issue of healthcare, and I'll address both of those points simultaneously. I linked this blog post before about health issues, and health reform. The basic issue is that healthcare is still considered to be a fundamentally government-led responsibility (which it should be), but the government has had terrible money troubles from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Now, things are somewhat better, but reforms still need to be implemented. It's one of those boring issues that simply have to do with implementing the proper healthcare system to address the needs of the population. Overall, there has definitely been a lot of improvement over the past decade, and this issue is likely to stabilize. Life expectancy, for example, went up by a little over 5 years since 2003.
Next, the military. I don't know if I like this dataset, but here is some data on military spending as a percentage of government expenditure. Russia ranks pretty highly on spending as a percentage of federal budget, but it's mostly in line with countries that spend a lot of money on their military - including the US, India, and Israel. So in terms of money spent, it's a lot, but not ridiculously so. Usually the percentage of money spent on the military rises sharply when the government budget falls, which mostly just suggests that the military isn't first in line to be cut when there are money troubles. Although a lot of those expenses are government benefits for ex-military personnel, and of course high-tech projects.
But perhaps what's important to note is that Russia does have a lot to show for its budget. Russia ranks fourth by military expenditures, but is generally acknowledged to have the second strongest military in the world. That's really a matter of efficient spending - Russia can produce a lot of things for cheaper (simplified logistics resulting from large quantities of natural resources from within the country), and in general Russian technology is more cost-effective than Western military tech (Western tech is generally a bit more advanced, but substantially more expensive, and only the US has the money for that). So Russia spends a lot, but also gets a strong military for its expenses.
The other benefit of military spending is that if it goes into building new technology, that is very good for both R&D and for infrastructure. For a US example, Silicon Valley, which is widely associated with consumer products now, was initially created by military investment. Russian military spending has some of the same effect. Some of the big pushes involve a high-tech business district, plans to build new aircraft carriers, and other related works such as those in the IT and aerospace industries. For the case of carriers specifically, that will lead to the construction of new shipyards (since carriers in the USSR were built in Ukraine) and acquiring the technological skill to build them (part of the motivation for the Mistral project with France). Basically, the military provides a lot of opportunities for tech projects, in the US, Russia, and elsewhere, if the money is spent on the right projects.
Next, oil revenues. After the 1990s, much of the heavy industry was in a pretty sorry state due to a poorly planned privatization, and either had to be bailed out by the state or just fell into disrepair and had to be discarded (factories go obsolete really quick if you don't constantly upgrade them). There was a point at which oil was the last major source of revenue for the government, and it capitalized on that to stabilize its finances (and establish a rather healthy savings account when the price of oil went way up). That's no longer the case, and a few important industries have seen some substantial growth in the past few years, even under sanctions. The shift away from oil should have been more substantial a fair bit earlier, but the mix of factors (sanctions, oil prices, various other issues) did lead to a situation where it became quite clear that it was time to put more effort into other industries.
Agriculture specifically is an interesting one - it's been a problem in Russia since the Stalin years, and only now is it starting to be resolved (selective protectionism does give industries a chance to reach a bigger industry and improve their tech accordingly). The previously mentioned military ventures are other high-growth areas. An issue that remains to be addressed properly is cash shortages - while it's not a catastrophic issue, the difficulty of finding good financing opportunities due to sanctions does cause the government and individual companies to have to make some tough decisions on budgets. Russia would definitely benefit from more access to European investment - although really, that goes both ways.
With vanity projects, I know you're talking about Sochi. I linked this study before about Sochi, which noted that $38 billion of the $50 billion spent was on infrastructure improvements to the city and to its surroundings. There was a fair bit of waste for a wide range of reasons, but it wasn't really a vanity project. More like an infrastructure improvement project that went significantly over budget. Nevertheless, those infrastructure improvements did lead to Sochi being used more often, including for economic and sporting events. Overall, it was a sort-of successful project; certainly could have gone better, could have gone worse.
The rest of the issues you mentioned - the aristocracy, wealth inequality, "other stuff," etc. - have a lot to do with one major issue: corruption. This one is actually quite deeply rooted, and was a significant problem in the USSR as well, but did lead to the 1990s being very problematic. Bribery of public officials - policemen, judges, various administrative officials - has always been quite commonplace. Only recently (since around 2010) has there been a particularly effective effort to get rid of all that. Courts are still fairly problematic, but there has been progress there as well. Kind of a slow issue to address (it takes years to remove entrenched corruption), and there aren't too many great indicators (the Corruption Perceptions Index is the obvious one, but I looked into their methodology and it kind of isn't very useful). Perhaps a useful measure is the Ease of Doing Business Index which does show a rather substantial improvement over the past few years, which is well in line with recent economic reforms.
One last point is the aristocracy and how it developed. So the privatization turned into a game where the people who were in-the-know (e.g. the powerful) managed to take a disproportionate amount of the valuable government assets for themselves. A lot of that involved criminal activities. Putin's government gave those individuals a form of compromise: they would be allowed to keep their wealth, as long as they would fall in line with the law, pay taxes, etc. The problem with putting them all in prison (besides the political problem of doing that) is that they were the people who actually knew how to run their businesses. So it was one of those dirty compromises that you just sometimes have to make for the good of everyone.
So, long story short, the major issues in Russia are systemic issues that arose from corruption, a terrible privatization in the 1990s, and related budget issues. A lot of progress has been made in addressing those issues, especially very recently, and Russia has gone from "Terrible" to "Kinda Bad" and instead of looking at the trajectory, it's easier just to see that things are "Kinda Bad" and to draw conclusions from there. But that misses the bigger picture of how things have gone, and what the current work within Russia suggest will happen in the years to come.
|
On October 22 2016 07:09 Nevuk wrote:
This thread is really boring now that Trump is getting thrashed.
Everyone who was convinced Trump would beat Clinton just kinda faded away
|
On October 22 2016 07:09 Nevuk wrote:
This thread is really boring now that Trump is getting thrashed.
I read like 6 pages and thought the same shit. It's like the circus is over and we all have to leave the tent and go home.
|
We have been actually talking about policy and political philosophy though--actual interesting shit.
|
On October 22 2016 06:42 Howie_Dewitt wrote:
What would happen if the Americans were to kill Kim-Jong-Un? My dad says that it would just make things worse, and the regime would just move on with even more anger.
chaos for awhile, unless you've prepped for that and can support a coup.
possibly war.
it's also really hard to do in a covert way; even overt it'd be really hard to do.
|
On October 22 2016 06:56 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 06:51 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 06:43 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:06 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:58 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 05:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:42 oBlade wrote:On October 22 2016 05:30 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:18 oBlade wrote:
So you wouldn't be saying you want the Third Reich to have nuclear weapons, but you understand they're right and somewhat justified by pursuing the bomb when foreign countries are working to undermine them and liberate the concentration camps, and also America is pursuing the bomb too which is just as bad. The Japanese Empire was saying the same things a few years ago even before someone like Truman was so close to power. I'd say the Third Reich would be solid on their reasoning in that respect, yes. I wouldn't say they're "right" (more like far-right, huk huk huk), but the reasoning is pretty much valid. I get the feeling people are horribly incapable of viewing this kind of situation from the other side, the side where you feel threatened by the existence of vast military power on your borders or feel that your existence and way of life is being undermined. You know, the kind of thing that drives Drumpf supporters. You get that the point of non-proliferation is it's in everyone's best interest not to have more nuclear powers? I get that. And I don't want more nuclear powers, believe me. I just also have this thing where I can see the validity in reasoning that may not match my own beliefs, and that just happens to be the kind of reasoning that India and North Korea apply to the situation regarding nuclear weapons. Do you get that? Actually im not sure what reasoning you think India has for getting Nuclear powers, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning North Korea is trying to get them. I mean its nice being contrarian and all but its very clear you arent armed with enough knowledge about this subject to defend these positions at this point. 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal." From that alone, it appears obvious to me that they built nuclear weapons because of what I said (others have them, and they want equal power). I may say "defense" or whatever, but its all the same thing. You want a defense that matches the offense in strength, etc. I can't quickly find the quote from North Korea, but they've said similar things. You might put them in a different context, or you might not believe what NK says, but that is what was said. Edit: "political leverage" is very much in line with having power and being able to defend yourself (except on a political level). You can't expect me to lay out the whole concept of these things in its entirety. I'm assuming that people have a basic understanding of this. And whether or not NK supports or fears Drumpf is irrelevant, I was using him as an example of potential instability. If you are a Drumpf supporter then you will obviously not understand the argument I am trying to make in that case. I am sorry for that (on both accounts). Uhmm for starters in 1946 there was no India, Do you mean 1947? Also Nehru had no security to worry about, that was bullshit, he envisioned India as a super power and most of his reforms were centered around his idea that they just need to do the same things super powers do so they can think they are one aswell. To his credit alot of that has borne fruit but Nehru's push for Nuclear technology was his idea of progress and India getting to sit at the big boys table. None of that has to do with why North Korea wants nukes. So no the personal security argument is bullshit and everyone knows it. Thats just the line everyone takes to justify proliferation because its an easy argument to sit behind. Just like a few gun nuts will tell you they need their hut loaded full of assault rifles and shit for protection. Its lazy logic, but its easy to sit behind and more importantly easy to sell to the public. He said it before he became the first prime minister of India. And while the argument I am presenting wouldn't convince me to make nuclear weapons or even have any kind of firearm in my house, I can see how it may be convincing for some. Saying that is invalid because you disagree with doesn't make it less valid. Especially not for the people who do agree with it (people, again, who are not me). Again, you dont know your shit, Nehru was a pacifist in the mold of Ghandi, he would have betrayed everything he had stood for if building the bomb was because he was afraid of getting attacked. Theres a reason it took them 50 years to actually create a fucking missile system with nuclear delivery, and it wasnt because Nehru said that shit in 1946 or whenever. Nor was it because they were to stupid to figure out how to do it for 50 years. Jesus... Enlighten me why they wanted nuclear weapons then. Did they just want to glow in the dark? What possible reason other than the whole political leverage & deterrence situation could they have for wanting nuclear weapons? And why did Pakistan want nuclear weapons if not for that exact same thing? Deterrence, leverage, power, its all the same thing when it comes to nuclear weapons.
I just did told you to them nuclear tech was the future and box to check off on the way to being considered a super power.
What territorial integrity does India have to fear from not having a nuke ? The contested areas are still contested nuke or no nuke. Another country having a nuke and them not having one would not change that.
They went straight into developing nuclear technology because they deemed it to be the future, they're civilian plants are way more advanced than they're nuclear arsenal. The nukes until this recent rather extreme Modi regime were more of an afterthought at best. They knew they wanted them, they were just in never any hurry because it was more of a luxury.
There is a difference between wanting nukes to assert territorial authority and deterrence, and wanting because that is their idea of what being a super power is. Hence the "no first use policy" they kept talking about when they actually decided they wanted to build one and the world started freaking out that they nor Pakistan would sign the CTBT.
Its all bullshit chest thumping, they both know they are never going to use them. But since you mentioned Pakistan, yes Pakistan wanted one because they are the little guy and it helps to have a big stick or a rock you can throw at the juggernaut next door that you keep thinking is encroaching on your lawn and pissing in your flower bed so you do the same but no one really wants to burn the others house down.
If India were really worried about protecting themselves they would have gotten it asap. They didnt, they got it when they felt they were in a position to start telling the world to take them seriously as a power player.
Ofcourse there is no denying the added benefit that they could shake the nuke stick at anyone (Pakistan) who pissed them off. But really the rhetoric aside, thats never been the overall goal.
|
On October 22 2016 02:06 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 01:44 IgnE wrote:On October 22 2016 01:12 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:09 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:04 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:03 WhiteDog wrote:
War is a great way to get out of any kind of economical problem actually. Just ask the Germans. They look back on 1945 with fondness. The germans are a great exemple, their economy was blooming during the 2nd WW, because they completly dedicated their production towards war, and the population was willing to accept restrictions due to the war. Yeah, this isn't true. Fortunately we actually have their war archives and we can read Speer's memos about how hard it was to do anything when they couldn't get rubber and had to manufacture all their petrochemicals from scratch with huge manpower shortages while facing a devastating bomber campaign that could obliterate entire industrial cities. You misunderstood my post : war does not increase your life condition, but it solve economical problem because A) people are employed B) people accept restrictions (to a certain extent) C) ressources are concentrated, and directed by the state, towards a few sector which makes them very productive (in terms of innovations for exemple). As Walter Bejamin says: All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. That is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system [ . . .] the aesthetics of today's war appears as follows: If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. [. . .] The horrible features of imperialistic war warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production--in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. While WhiteDog is simply ignoring the last 80 years to make his WW3 point, Benjamin didn't see them. He didn't see nuclear proliferation, he didn't see the global economy becoming anywhere near as interdependent as it is now, he didn't see the unidirectional shift in the risk vs reward of massive wars. Although he did live to see Nazi Germany start WW2 after dealing with unemployment, as opposed to that passage.
I want to adress this because it's a common misunderstanding. The economy today is not more globalized and interdependant than it was pre WWI. Sure nowadays distances between countries are smaller, we travel faster, and more it seems, and with the internet we have direct contact with the world. But in reality, when you look at actual empirical data, we are not more interdependant that we were, even from a purely financial standpoint.
One exemple : in this NBER working paper, three economists argue that, contrary to the "fashionable" idea that the 1990s is the era of global finance, the "empirical evidence" suggest that "in some respects the financial integration of the pre-1914 era remains unsurpassed, but in others today's financial markets are even more cloely integrated than those in the past".
|
As far as I am concerned, "wanting to be a super power" falls in the same category as "political leverage" which boils down to the whole balance of power thing and I'm pretty sure this is the same reason NK wants nukes. Power to help protect the integrity of their state.
|
On October 22 2016 08:06 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 02:06 Dan HH wrote:On October 22 2016 01:44 IgnE wrote:On October 22 2016 01:12 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:09 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:04 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:03 WhiteDog wrote:
War is a great way to get out of any kind of economical problem actually. Just ask the Germans. They look back on 1945 with fondness. The germans are a great exemple, their economy was blooming during the 2nd WW, because they completly dedicated their production towards war, and the population was willing to accept restrictions due to the war. Yeah, this isn't true. Fortunately we actually have their war archives and we can read Speer's memos about how hard it was to do anything when they couldn't get rubber and had to manufacture all their petrochemicals from scratch with huge manpower shortages while facing a devastating bomber campaign that could obliterate entire industrial cities. You misunderstood my post : war does not increase your life condition, but it solve economical problem because A) people are employed B) people accept restrictions (to a certain extent) C) ressources are concentrated, and directed by the state, towards a few sector which makes them very productive (in terms of innovations for exemple). As Walter Bejamin says: All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. That is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system [ . . .] the aesthetics of today's war appears as follows: If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. [. . .] The horrible features of imperialistic war warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production--in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. While WhiteDog is simply ignoring the last 80 years to make his WW3 point, Benjamin didn't see them. He didn't see nuclear proliferation, he didn't see the global economy becoming anywhere near as interdependent as it is now, he didn't see the unidirectional shift in the risk vs reward of massive wars. Although he did live to see Nazi Germany start WW2 after dealing with unemployment, as opposed to that passage. I want to adress this because it's a common misunderstanding. The economy today is not more globalized and interdependant than it was pre WWI. Sure nowadays distances between countries are smaller, we travel faster, and more it seems, and with the internet we have direct contact with the world. But in reality, when you look at actual empirical data, we are not more interdependant that we were, even from a purely financial standpoint. One exemple : in this NBER working paper, three economists argue that, contrary to the "fashionable" idea that the 1990s is the era of global finance, the "empirical evidence" suggest that "in some respects the financial integration of the pre-1914 era remains unsurpassed, but in others today's financial markets are even more cloely integrated than those in the past".
This is extremely interesting to me, thanks for the paper, ill have to read it over the weekend. Though of course it seems like this is a point of contention among current scholars.
(also thanks for your thoughtful response to my post weeks ago in the euro thread, i never responded)
|
On October 22 2016 07:53 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 06:56 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 06:51 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 06:43 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 06:06 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:58 Rebs wrote:On October 22 2016 05:48 a_flayer wrote:On October 22 2016 05:42 oBlade wrote:On October 22 2016 05:30 a_flayer wrote:
[quote]
I'd say the Third Reich would be solid on their reasoning in that respect, yes. I wouldn't say they're "right" (more like far-right, huk huk huk), but the reasoning is pretty much valid. I get the feeling people are horribly incapable of viewing this kind of situation from the other side, the side where you feel threatened by the existence of vast military power on your borders or feel that your existence and way of life is being undermined. You know, the kind of thing that drives Drumpf supporters. You get that the point of non-proliferation is it's in everyone's best interest not to have more nuclear powers? I get that. And I don't want more nuclear powers, believe me. I just also have this thing where I can see the validity in reasoning that may not match my own beliefs, and that just happens to be the kind of reasoning that India and North Korea apply to the situation regarding nuclear weapons. Do you get that? Actually im not sure what reasoning you think India has for getting Nuclear powers, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning North Korea is trying to get them. I mean its nice being contrarian and all but its very clear you arent armed with enough knowledge about this subject to defend these positions at this point. 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal." From that alone, it appears obvious to me that they built nuclear weapons because of what I said (others have them, and they want equal power). I may say "defense" or whatever, but its all the same thing. You want a defense that matches the offense in strength, etc. I can't quickly find the quote from North Korea, but they've said similar things. You might put them in a different context, or you might not believe what NK says, but that is what was said. Edit: "political leverage" is very much in line with having power and being able to defend yourself (except on a political level). You can't expect me to lay out the whole concept of these things in its entirety. I'm assuming that people have a basic understanding of this. And whether or not NK supports or fears Drumpf is irrelevant, I was using him as an example of potential instability. If you are a Drumpf supporter then you will obviously not understand the argument I am trying to make in that case. I am sorry for that (on both accounts). Uhmm for starters in 1946 there was no India, Do you mean 1947? Also Nehru had no security to worry about, that was bullshit, he envisioned India as a super power and most of his reforms were centered around his idea that they just need to do the same things super powers do so they can think they are one aswell. To his credit alot of that has borne fruit but Nehru's push for Nuclear technology was his idea of progress and India getting to sit at the big boys table. None of that has to do with why North Korea wants nukes. So no the personal security argument is bullshit and everyone knows it. Thats just the line everyone takes to justify proliferation because its an easy argument to sit behind. Just like a few gun nuts will tell you they need their hut loaded full of assault rifles and shit for protection. Its lazy logic, but its easy to sit behind and more importantly easy to sell to the public. He said it before he became the first prime minister of India. And while the argument I am presenting wouldn't convince me to make nuclear weapons or even have any kind of firearm in my house, I can see how it may be convincing for some. Saying that is invalid because you disagree with doesn't make it less valid. Especially not for the people who do agree with it (people, again, who are not me). Again, you dont know your shit, Nehru was a pacifist in the mold of Ghandi, he would have betrayed everything he had stood for if building the bomb was because he was afraid of getting attacked. Theres a reason it took them 50 years to actually create a fucking missile system with nuclear delivery, and it wasnt because Nehru said that shit in 1946 or whenever. Nor was it because they were to stupid to figure out how to do it for 50 years. Jesus... Enlighten me why they wanted nuclear weapons then. Did they just want to glow in the dark? What possible reason other than the whole political leverage & deterrence situation could they have for wanting nuclear weapons? And why did Pakistan want nuclear weapons if not for that exact same thing? Deterrence, leverage, power, its all the same thing when it comes to nuclear weapons. I just did told you to them nuclear tech was the future and box to check off on the way to being considered a super power. What territorial integrity does India have to fear from not having a nuke ? The contested areas are still contested nuke or no nuke. Another country having a nuke and them not having one would not change that. They went straight into developing nuclear technology because they deemed it to be the future, they're civilian plants are way more advanced than they're nuclear arsenal. The nukes until this recent rather extreme Modi regime were more of an afterthought at best. They knew they wanted them, they were just in never any hurry because it was more of a luxury. There is a difference between wanting nukes to assert territorial authority and deterrence, and wanting because that is their idea of what being a super power is. Hence the "no first use policy" they kept talking about when they actually decided they wanted to build one and the world started freaking out that they nor Pakistan would sign the CTBT. Its all bullshit chest thumping, they both know they are never going to use them. But since you mentioned Pakistan, yes Pakistan wanted one because they are the little guy and it helps to have a big stick or a rock you can throw at the juggernaut next door that you keep thinking is encroaching on your lawn and pissing in your flower bed so you do the same but no one really wants to burn the others house down. If India were really worried about protecting themselves they would have gotten it asap. They didnt, they got it when they felt they were in a position to start telling the world to take them seriously as a power player. Ofcourse there is no denying the added benefit that they could shake the nuke stick at anyone (Pakistan) who pissed them off. But really the rhetoric aside, thats never been the overall goal.
Instead of talking about nukes, ask about just general military staff.
Why does the Philippines have an army when it would be outright destroyed and annihilated by most 1st world armies anyway? Because its not about how powerful your weapons are, its about the fact that you have some amount of firepower and that you're proactively improving said firepower.
The specificity of your weapons does not matter, just that you are showing your peers that you are not slacking on it.
At some point, you reach the level where your peers have nukes, and so you join in on the race because that is how you progress.
|
On October 22 2016 08:13 KlaCkoN wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 08:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 02:06 Dan HH wrote:On October 22 2016 01:44 IgnE wrote:On October 22 2016 01:12 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:09 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:04 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:03 WhiteDog wrote:
War is a great way to get out of any kind of economical problem actually. Just ask the Germans. They look back on 1945 with fondness. The germans are a great exemple, their economy was blooming during the 2nd WW, because they completly dedicated their production towards war, and the population was willing to accept restrictions due to the war. Yeah, this isn't true. Fortunately we actually have their war archives and we can read Speer's memos about how hard it was to do anything when they couldn't get rubber and had to manufacture all their petrochemicals from scratch with huge manpower shortages while facing a devastating bomber campaign that could obliterate entire industrial cities. You misunderstood my post : war does not increase your life condition, but it solve economical problem because A) people are employed B) people accept restrictions (to a certain extent) C) ressources are concentrated, and directed by the state, towards a few sector which makes them very productive (in terms of innovations for exemple). As Walter Bejamin says: All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. That is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system [ . . .] the aesthetics of today's war appears as follows: If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. [. . .] The horrible features of imperialistic war warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production--in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. While WhiteDog is simply ignoring the last 80 years to make his WW3 point, Benjamin didn't see them. He didn't see nuclear proliferation, he didn't see the global economy becoming anywhere near as interdependent as it is now, he didn't see the unidirectional shift in the risk vs reward of massive wars. Although he did live to see Nazi Germany start WW2 after dealing with unemployment, as opposed to that passage. I want to adress this because it's a common misunderstanding. The economy today is not more globalized and interdependant than it was pre WWI. Sure nowadays distances between countries are smaller, we travel faster, and more it seems, and with the internet we have direct contact with the world. But in reality, when you look at actual empirical data, we are not more interdependant that we were, even from a purely financial standpoint. One exemple : in this NBER working paper, three economists argue that, contrary to the "fashionable" idea that the 1990s is the era of global finance, the "empirical evidence" suggest that "in some respects the financial integration of the pre-1914 era remains unsurpassed, but in others today's financial markets are even more cloely integrated than those in the past". This is extremely interesting to me, thanks for the paper, ill have to read it over the weekend. Though of course it seems like this is a point of contention among current scholars. (also thanks for your thoughtful response to my post weeks ago in the euro thread, i never responded)
It's not really a point of contention, it's more that there are various ways to measure interdependance and globalization (for exemple, there is a distinction between integration by law, or de jure - the existence of common law to regulate an area - and de facto). Of course, depending on the way you measure financial and economical integration, the result is totally different : the only thing we can say for sure is that modern integration is way different than pre WWI integration (way more diverse in term of assets, but not necessarily bigger in % of GDP). The idea that it is surpassing pre WWI integration in every way is false, for sure.
And you're welcome.
I don't understand, people in the US believe it's Assange that is responsible for the hack on twitter ?
|
On October 22 2016 08:18 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2016 08:13 KlaCkoN wrote:On October 22 2016 08:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 02:06 Dan HH wrote:On October 22 2016 01:44 IgnE wrote:On October 22 2016 01:12 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:09 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:06 WhiteDog wrote:On October 22 2016 01:04 KwarK wrote:On October 22 2016 01:03 WhiteDog wrote:
War is a great way to get out of any kind of economical problem actually. Just ask the Germans. They look back on 1945 with fondness. The germans are a great exemple, their economy was blooming during the 2nd WW, because they completly dedicated their production towards war, and the population was willing to accept restrictions due to the war. Yeah, this isn't true. Fortunately we actually have their war archives and we can read Speer's memos about how hard it was to do anything when they couldn't get rubber and had to manufacture all their petrochemicals from scratch with huge manpower shortages while facing a devastating bomber campaign that could obliterate entire industrial cities. You misunderstood my post : war does not increase your life condition, but it solve economical problem because A) people are employed B) people accept restrictions (to a certain extent) C) ressources are concentrated, and directed by the state, towards a few sector which makes them very productive (in terms of innovations for exemple). As Walter Bejamin says: All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system. That is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today's technical resources while maintaining the property system [ . . .] the aesthetics of today's war appears as follows: If the natural utilization of productive forces is impeded by the property system, the increase in technical devices, in speed, and in the sources of energy will press for an unnatural utilization, and this is found in war. [. . .] The horrible features of imperialistic war warfare are attributable to the discrepancy between the tremendous means of production and their inadequate utilization in the process of production--in other words, to unemployment and the lack of markets. While WhiteDog is simply ignoring the last 80 years to make his WW3 point, Benjamin didn't see them. He didn't see nuclear proliferation, he didn't see the global economy becoming anywhere near as interdependent as it is now, he didn't see the unidirectional shift in the risk vs reward of massive wars. Although he did live to see Nazi Germany start WW2 after dealing with unemployment, as opposed to that passage. I want to adress this because it's a common misunderstanding. The economy today is not more globalized and interdependant than it was pre WWI. Sure nowadays distances between countries are smaller, we travel faster, and more it seems, and with the internet we have direct contact with the world. But in reality, when you look at actual empirical data, we are not more interdependant that we were, even from a purely financial standpoint. One exemple : in this NBER working paper, three economists argue that, contrary to the "fashionable" idea that the 1990s is the era of global finance, the "empirical evidence" suggest that "in some respects the financial integration of the pre-1914 era remains unsurpassed, but in others today's financial markets are even more cloely integrated than those in the past". This is extremely interesting to me, thanks for the paper, ill have to read it over the weekend. Though of course it seems like this is a point of contention among current scholars. (also thanks for your thoughtful response to my post weeks ago in the euro thread, i never responded) It's not really a point of contention, it's more that there are various ways to measure interdependance and globalization (for exemple, there is a distinction between integration by law, or de jure - the existence of common law to regulate an area - and de facto). Of course, depending on the way you measure financial and economical integration, the result is totally different : the only thing we can say for sure is that modern integration is way different than pre WWI integration (way more diverse in term of assets, but not necessarily bigger in % of GDP). The idea that it is surpassing pre WWI integration in every way is false, for sure. And you're welcome. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789493599121604609I don't understand, people in the US believe it's Assange that is responsible for the hack on twitter ?
Twitter no; working in collusion with the government of Russia to destabilize the US elections? Yes.
Wikileaks was okay when they played against everyone. Now they just play for pay.
|
armed police patrolling around an diplomatic district?
shocking
|
On October 22 2016 08:53 PassiveAce wrote:
armed police patrolling around an diplomatic district?
shocking
Next thing you know there's a political person of interest there. #conspiracy
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
