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United States43803 Posts
On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:
I mean if Iran is winning I'd hate to see what them losing looks like!
Iran's strategy for winning this never involved dropping more bombs on US soil than the US dropped on Iranian soil. It's like measuring the Vietnam War by which side dropped more bombs on the other. At the end of the day what matters is whose flag is flying over Saigon.
The IRGC have not only survived the worst that the US and Israel seem willing to throw at them, they've exited the war with a stronger geopolitical position than they started with.
To reuse your phrase, if this is the US winning I'd hate to see what losing looks like. What could they lose that's more important than control over the Strait of Hormuz? That has been a linchpin of US global strategy for 60 years.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1249 Posts
On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 10:31 KwarK wrote:
My final thought is that western nations as whole, not the US have become far too complacent and too rich. Too many people are unwilling to shoulder even the slightest inconvenience or take even the smallest risk. They would rather sit there and hope that things would just work out. And doesn't even count the significant number of leftists who are actively rooting against the US. I hope Cuba falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen.
Meh, you will find the "Western world" is probably ok with paying what amounts to a $1 per barrel tax to Iran, to get things back to normal. Yes, there are many ways in which people are unwilling to shoulder risk or inconvenience, but if you want to appeal to them to do so, you better have a good reason.
What exactly was the reason for shouldering risk or inconvenience here? Diminishing Iranian military capability to protect Israel? Prevent Iran from seizing the Hormuz Strat, which there were already not doing before? Disrupt am ongoing native movement of sentiment against the Iranian regime?
You don't just ask people to shoulder risk and inconvenience for the sake of risk and inconvenience; they have to be doing it in exchange for something worthwhile, not so the US MIC-weebs can get their rocks off.
As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen.
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On April 01 2026 20:42 LightSpectra wrote:
If communists should be stigmatized because of Mao, the Holodomor, Pol Pot, etc. then why shouldn't capitalists be stigmatized because of Hitler, the Atlantic slave trade, the Irish famine, etc.?
Also, can't that C. S. Lewis quote also be used to refer to capitalists who did immoral things because they genuinely believe communism must be stopped at any cost, like when the CIA supported numerous right-wing dictators solely because of their anti-Soviet stance?
The Nazis weren't for free markets at all (Authoritarian governments never are, since obviously controlling the economy is a core part of authoritarianism) they had an economic model that resembles modern China, where small capital dissolved into mega corps handled by friends of the Reich kept in tight control (like Jack Ma in China), things like salaries and worker conditions weren't decided by business but by the state through huge unions.
How are the Atlantic slave trade or Irish famine directly related to capitalism? Slavery had existed for thousands of years cross any economical model known to mankind and the Irish famine was caused by potato blight and a pseudo-feudalist economy.
The death attributions to communism are direct, caused by murders in the revolution, camps like gulags or famines linked to communist policy not external factors.
Not at all, CS Lewis quote isnt referring to right wing ideology since it isn't "altruistic" in nature, it's about protecting your own not everybody, but even the ones who thought more about system scale like Rand think individualism generates better conditions overall for everybody the point is pragmatism, what works, not what might be perfect.
The good intentioned busy bodies have always been on the left, the right tortures you for their own good, the left tortures you for the good of mankind.
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United States43803 Posts
On April 02 2026 11:33 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2026 20:42 LightSpectra wrote:
If communists should be stigmatized because of Mao, the Holodomor, Pol Pot, etc. then why shouldn't capitalists be stigmatized because of Hitler, the Atlantic slave trade, the Irish famine, etc.?
Also, can't that C. S. Lewis quote also be used to refer to capitalists who did immoral things because they genuinely believe communism must be stopped at any cost, like when the CIA supported numerous right-wing dictators solely because of their anti-Soviet stance? The Nazis weren't for free markets at all (Authoritarian governments never are, since obviously controlling the economy is a core part of authoritarianism) they had an economic model that resembles modern China, where small capital dissolved into mega corps handled by friends of the Reich kept in tight control (like Jack Ma in China), things like salaries and worker conditions weren't decided by business but by the state through huge unions. How are the Atlantic slave trade or Irish famine directly related to capitalism? Slavery had existed for thousands of years cross any economical model known to mankind and the Irish famine was caused by potato blight and a pseudo-feudalist economy. The death attributions to communism are direct, caused by murders in the revolution, camps like gulags or famines linked to communist policy not external factors. Not at all, CS Lewis quote isnt referring to right wing ideology since it isn't "altruistic" in nature, it's about protecting your own not everybody, but even the ones who thought more about system scale like Rand think individualism generates better conditions overall for everybody the point is pragmatism, what works, not what might be perfect. The good intentioned busy bodies have always been on the left, the right tortures you for their own good, the left tortures you for the good of mankind.
baal maybe read a history book about the Irish famine before you insist that it’s unrelated to capitalism.
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United States43803 Posts
On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen.
It’d be a catastrophe. You don’t actually want that. Let’s use the example of a brutal drug cartel dominating a region. It’s still much, much better than multiple cartels trying to fight it out. Only a lunatic would look at a cartel that barely needs to torture anyone to death these days and long for their demise.
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On April 02 2026 11:33 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2026 20:42 LightSpectra wrote:
If communists should be stigmatized because of Mao, the Holodomor, Pol Pot, etc. then why shouldn't capitalists be stigmatized because of Hitler, the Atlantic slave trade, the Irish famine, etc.?
Also, can't that C. S. Lewis quote also be used to refer to capitalists who did immoral things because they genuinely believe communism must be stopped at any cost, like when the CIA supported numerous right-wing dictators solely because of their anti-Soviet stance? The Nazis weren't for free markets at all (Authoritarian governments never are, since obviously controlling the economy is a core part of authoritarianism) they had an economic model that resembles modern China, where small capital dissolved into mega corps handled by friends of the Reich kept in tight control (like Jack Ma in China),
Yep, that's still capitalism.
things like salaries and worker conditions weren't decided by business but by the state through huge unions.
Actual wtf moment here. One of the first things the Nazis did was dissolve labor unions.
How are the Atlantic slave trade or Irish famine directly related to capitalism? Slavery had existed for thousands of years cross any economical model known to mankind
For-profit companies crossing oceans to capture slaves for their shareholders is capitalism.
and the Irish famine was caused by potato blight and a pseudo-feudalist economy.
Again, actual wtf moment here. The British Empire forcing Ireland to export food while the people on the island were starving is not "pseudo-feudalist." (Tangential, but most historians nowadays avoid using the term "feudalism" entirely because it's simultaneously too vague and full of erroneous stereotypes. But that doesn't even matter because feudalism and capitalism can co-exist.)
The death attributions to communism are direct, caused by murders in the revolution, camps like gulags or famines linked to communist policy not external factors.
Sure, I'll grant this, but your argument above is there's no point in blaming capitalism for slavery when it existed in other economic-political systems. Well, there were revolutionary murders, forced labor camps, and engineered famines in non-communist regimes as well, right?
Not at all, CS Lewis quote isnt referring to right wing ideology since it isn't "altruistic" in nature, it's about protecting your own not everybody, but even the ones who thought more about system scale like Rand think individualism generates better conditions overall for everybody the point is pragmatism, what works, not what might be perfect.
The good intentioned busy bodies have always been on the left, the right tortures you for their own good, the left tortures you for the good of mankind.
I actually couldn't say anything more supportive of my initial thesis (that stigmatizing all communists for things that capitalists have also done is hypocritical) than what you just wrote.
To be more clear on what I'm saying in case I wasn't: I don't consider myself a capitalist or a communist, but I can't help but notice how ridiculous it is that people say communism is evil because of X, but when you point out that X has occurred in innumerable capitalist societies, it gets hand-waved away by some technicality. My favorite is "it wasn't true capitalism". If you roll your eyes at the "not true communism" argument, don't use that one.
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On April 01 2026 20:55 EnDeR_ wrote:
I don't really want to relitigate the COVID response by different governments, we've already had that one.
The rollout was unprecedented, we have never had any medicine (as far as I know, I could be wrong) rolled out quite that quickly from proof of concept to millions of doses prepared. Like, what would constitute a win for you?
The only reason the US gov did not capitalise on operation warp speed being the absolute win that it was is because Trump is a moron and he picked up antivaxx rethoric instead.
I don't think COVID was a particularly good example of good governance. I think it was a huge far reaching crisis that had extremely complex inter-related parts. It was so complicated that you won't get two people to agree of what would have been the optimum approach even in retrospect.
The vaccine development was pretty good and it was a big win but not for the government, they didn't develop it.
The production was lackluster, it was pretty good for private company standard, but for it to be a government win, they had years to build mega factories "China-style"ready to produce at many multiples the rate of production they had.
But my complains aren't regarding the vaccine it was about response to the pandemic.
Almost every single expert in twitter agreed on the strategy, staticists like Nassim Taleb, viologists were at unison talking about dramatic quick response, and president have access to experts at the highest level, it wasn't ignorance why they under reacted, it was incentives:
If they overreact and the virus turns out to be a dud (like others were) people obv get upset and it hurts the in elections, but overreaction is the correct respose to geometric threats, thats why virtually every government (outside of east asia) under reacted, politics are popularity contests and that is a terrible incentive when the things that must be done are unpopular.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1249 Posts
On April 02 2026 11:39 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. It’d be a catastrophe. You don’t actually want that. Let’s use the example of a brutal drug cartel dominating a region. It’s still much, much better than multiple cartels trying to fight it out. Only a lunatic would look at a cartel that no barely needs to torture anyone to death these days and long for their demise.
I find that rarely does an external application of military force actually resolve situations like these, except cosmetically, for a short period of time.
The underlying issue is that (ok the US in this case, but didn't need to be for this example), buys shittons of drugs, and producing and selling drugs is the most profitable business available where the cartel is. Toppling a few drug cartels doesn't actually address the root issue. You stop hearing about it in the new for a while, then a few years later, new drug cartels. You killed some people (even if they were unsavory), disrupted their operations for a while, you did not solve the problem. You almost certainly made the problem last longer, because you will now need to wait for new cartels to arise, then things to get back to where they were(which was bound to happen due to the same prevailing conditions as originally) then the same problem will find its way to to conclusion, and by conclusion I'm not saying it will necessarily resolve nicely, but it will reach a steady state that fits the conditions. (eg could be a single drug cartel takes power, could be an authoritative government cracks down on the drug industry, could be some local people catch the attention of a lobby in the US to deal with their own drug problem, making the cartels unprofitable).
Military intervention in Afghanistan didn't solve any underlying problems, admittedly non-military intervention in Iran previously, lead to this current regime getting into power.
There is a world where intervention can work, where you work with local powers to find some kind of resolution, there are even times when military intervention can be called for, like when Iraq invaded Kuwait or ironically, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Because the problem is someone else applying brute military power.
But the US is always the hammer, and never the scalpel. Now it doesn't even try to do anything but attempt to bomb the problem away.
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United States43803 Posts
On April 02 2026 12:15 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 11:39 KwarK wrote:On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. It’d be a catastrophe. You don’t actually want that. Let’s use the example of a brutal drug cartel dominating a region. It’s still much, much better than multiple cartels trying to fight it out. Only a lunatic would look at a cartel that no barely needs to torture anyone to death these days and long for their demise. I find that rarely does an external application of military force actually resolve situations like these, except cosmetically, for a short period of time. The underlying issue is that (ok the US in this case, but didn't need to be for this example), buys shittons of drugs, and producing and selling drugs is the most profitable business available where the cartel is. Toppling a few drug cartels doesn't actually address the root issue. You stop hearing about it in the new for a while, then a few years later, new drug cartels. You killed some people (even if they were unsavory), disrupted their operations for a while, you did not solve the problem. You almost certainly made the problem last longer, because you will now need to wait for new cartels to arise, then things to get back to where they were(which was bound to happen due to the same prevailing conditions as originally) then the same problem will find its way to to conclusion, and by conclusion I'm not saying it will necessarily resolve nicely, but it will reach a steady state that fits the conditions. (eg could be a single drug cartel takes power, could be an authoritative government cracks down on the drug industry, could be some local people catch the attention of a lobby in the US to deal with their own drug problem, making the cartels unprofitable). Military intervention in Afghanistan didn't solve any underlying problems, admittedly non-military intervention in Iran previously, lead to this current regime getting into power. There is a world where intervention can work, where you work with local powers to find some kind of resolution, there are even times when military intervention can be called for, like when Iraq invaded Kuwait or ironically, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Because the problem is someone else applying brute military power. But the US is always the hammer, and never the scalpel. Now it doesn't even try to do anything but attempt to bomb the problem away.
There's a chasm between "the US is perfect" and "it'd be better if there was no dominant power". The last time we tried a world with an absent US superpower was the 1930s and it didn't go well. Even if the US isn't good, the existence of the role the US occupies is. We should not be happy at the US defeat here, we should be even angrier at the people who put Trump in charge and frustrated that he couldn't just once not fuck it up the way he always did. Just this once. When it really counted.
Pasting my thoughts on it from a different topic below.On March 25 2026 04:26 KwarK wrote:
A world in which the great powers do what they like and the middle powers work together to survive is one in which it is all the more important that Ukraine is protected and brought into the middle power fold.
In the long term it becomes a game theory exercise. The optimal choice for an individual nation is to benefit from rules while refusing to contribute to them. But if everyone does that then there are no rules and everyone is worse off. Therefore in theory everyone should sacrifice a little to contribute to the rules. But in practice there’s always someone saying “well I don’t want to, and as long as everyone else agrees to sacrifice a little more the rules will continue”.
Under US hegemony we didn’t need to decide what to do, collective action was the default reaction. Everyone important but China (who also agreed to suspend any sales of military equipment) agreed to make Russia a pariah, to impose sanctions, to limit trade, to send aid to Ukraine. Russia is probably the most uniquely placed country to survive that treatment due to its Soviet history (wasn’t fully integrated into the global economy, had local alternative sources for key things, has a nuclear arsenal) but it was still hugely damaging to them as we’ve seen. A consequence of their pariah status is that they’re losing in Ukraine. Under US hegemony countries were willing to pay into the system that benefited them. Germany was willing to forfeit gas etc., Spain was willing to send tanks.
In a hypothetical world without US hegemony were into a world of pure self interest. The Baltics might enter the war directly on Ukraine’s side because they know that they’re next but on the other hand Germany might continue to buy gas because it’s not their problem. Countries decide for themselves without a leader to rally behind. But all of that becomes moot because everyone has nukes now and they’re flying.
What Carney is advocating for is an alternative to nuclear annihilation in which groups of middle countries agree to work together without a hegemon. To continue to sacrifice a little for the collective good so that the nukes stay in their silos. Saving Ukraine would be a core mission of getting that off the ground, Ukraine has the potential to be a formidable industrial and military power and a key check on the ability of Russia to start shit.
But I don’t see that working long term honestly. Ukraine will be saved by the last gasps of the US led world order but down the line there’s always someone like Hungary who wants to bring nothing to the picnic and eat all the sandwiches.
If you think about it it’s really remarkable that it ever worked. You can just load a thousand luxury cars onto a boat and float it halfway around the world and be pretty certain it’ll show up unmolested. You can invest hugely in other countries and they don’t even steal it. You can source things from the most economically efficient locations and everyone can specialize. You can defend your assets and interests globally using just a piece of paper and the paper doesn't even have any guns but somehow it all works. The majority agreed to work together without engaging in petty self sabotage and the results have been incredible.
There has been an exponential acceleration in living standards globally for the last seventy years. We have all these countries that can’t even feed themselves just booming because they’re fed by all these other countries that can’t even make fertilizer. There are a lot of justifiable criticisms of the way the US has used their hegemony but I don’t think there can be any doubt that globally this has been the most significant period of growth and advancement in human history. The foundation of that is guarantees of safe trade, foreign investment, and collective action. It has been humanity for once working as a team. Not a perfect team, but far superior to how things were.
Short term Ukraine will be saved and ultimately become part of the European project. Long term our children will be poorer than we were and someone is going to eat a nuke at some point.
We are going to miss US hegemony when it is gone.
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Canada11471 Posts
On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen.
For myself, I think Pax America is generally a good thing and certainly a lot better than many alternatives. An America that was actually strong (and had this supposed moral clarity) would have continued to increase support for Ukraine rather than try to sell it down to the river. (Incidentally, someone was listing the handful of things that Trump never changes his mind but they missed one: Russia = reasonable and ready for peace. Ukraine = bad for starting the war and unreasonable warmongers.)
But I think Pax America is generally good, which is why I find it so frustrating to see Trump and his team pissing it all away and crowing about how awesome they are for doing so. I don't like seeing a rise in anti-American sentiment across Canada because I genuinely think we mutually benefit from our trade relations. But Trump is the MGTOW of geo-politics. We feel we got burned, so to hell with everyone else and ourselves. We'd rather saw our nose off to spite our face. That spitefulness is easily seen by Trump continuing to slap away Zelensky's proffered support (as they are now experts in drone warfare- this is part of the invaluable returns on supporting Ukraine with out of date weaponry that MAGA was so upset about 'spending' billions of dollars to enrich Ukrainians - see Nick Shirley's first foray into 'journalism' aka lies and propaganda.) This support could save American lives and American war material. He would rather see Americans dead than accept Zelensky's help as far as I can tell.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1249 Posts
On April 02 2026 12:27 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 12:15 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 02 2026 11:39 KwarK wrote:On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:
As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
I hope the US hegemony falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. It’d be a catastrophe. You don’t actually want that. Let’s use the example of a brutal drug cartel dominating a region. It’s still much, much better than multiple cartels trying to fight it out. Only a lunatic would look at a cartel that no barely needs to torture anyone to death these days and long for their demise. I find that rarely does an external application of military force actually resolve situations like these, except cosmetically, for a short period of time. The underlying issue is that (ok the US in this case, but didn't need to be for this example), buys shittons of drugs, and producing and selling drugs is the most profitable business available where the cartel is. Toppling a few drug cartels doesn't actually address the root issue. You stop hearing about it in the new for a while, then a few years later, new drug cartels. You killed some people (even if they were unsavory), disrupted their operations for a while, you did not solve the problem. You almost certainly made the problem last longer, because you will now need to wait for new cartels to arise, then things to get back to where they were(which was bound to happen due to the same prevailing conditions as originally) then the same problem will find its way to to conclusion, and by conclusion I'm not saying it will necessarily resolve nicely, but it will reach a steady state that fits the conditions. (eg could be a single drug cartel takes power, could be an authoritative government cracks down on the drug industry, could be some local people catch the attention of a lobby in the US to deal with their own drug problem, making the cartels unprofitable). Military intervention in Afghanistan didn't solve any underlying problems, admittedly non-military intervention in Iran previously, lead to this current regime getting into power. There is a world where intervention can work, where you work with local powers to find some kind of resolution, there are even times when military intervention can be called for, like when Iraq invaded Kuwait or ironically, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Because the problem is someone else applying brute military power. But the US is always the hammer, and never the scalpel. Now it doesn't even try to do anything but attempt to bomb the problem away. There's a chasm between "the US is perfect" and "it'd be better if there was no dominant power". The last time we tried a world with an absent US superpower was the 1930s and it didn't go well. Even if the US isn't good, the existence of the role the US occupies is. We should not be happy at the US defeat here, we should be even angrier at the people who put Trump in charge and frustrated that he couldn't just once not fuck it up the way he always did. Just this once. When it really counted. Pasting my thoughts on it from a different topic below. Show nested quote +On March 25 2026 04:26 KwarK wrote:
A world in which the great powers do what they like and the middle powers work together to survive is one in which it is all the more important that Ukraine is protected and brought into the middle power fold.
In the long term it becomes a game theory exercise. The optimal choice for an individual nation is to benefit from rules while refusing to contribute to them. But if everyone does that then there are no rules and everyone is worse off. Therefore in theory everyone should sacrifice a little to contribute to the rules. But in practice there’s always someone saying “well I don’t want to, and as long as everyone else agrees to sacrifice a little more the rules will continue”.
Under US hegemony we didn’t need to decide what to do, collective action was the default reaction. Everyone important but China (who also agreed to suspend any sales of military equipment) agreed to make Russia a pariah, to impose sanctions, to limit trade, to send aid to Ukraine. Russia is probably the most uniquely placed country to survive that treatment due to its Soviet history (wasn’t fully integrated into the global economy, had local alternative sources for key things, has a nuclear arsenal) but it was still hugely damaging to them as we’ve seen. A consequence of their pariah status is that they’re losing in Ukraine. Under US hegemony countries were willing to pay into the system that benefited them. Germany was willing to forfeit gas etc., Spain was willing to send tanks.
In a hypothetical world without US hegemony were into a world of pure self interest. The Baltics might enter the war directly on Ukraine’s side because they know that they’re next but on the other hand Germany might continue to buy gas because it’s not their problem. Countries decide for themselves without a leader to rally behind. But all of that becomes moot because everyone has nukes now and they’re flying.
What Carney is advocating for is an alternative to nuclear annihilation in which groups of middle countries agree to work together without a hegemon. To continue to sacrifice a little for the collective good so that the nukes stay in their silos. Saving Ukraine would be a core mission of getting that off the ground, Ukraine has the potential to be a formidable industrial and military power and a key check on the ability of Russia to start shit.
But I don’t see that working long term honestly. Ukraine will be saved by the last gasps of the US led world order but down the line there’s always someone like Hungary who wants to bring nothing to the picnic and eat all the sandwiches.
If you think about it it’s really remarkable that it ever worked. You can just load a thousand luxury cars onto a boat and float it halfway around the world and be pretty certain it’ll show up unmolested. You can invest hugely in other countries and they don’t even steal it. You can source things from the most economically efficient locations and everyone can specialize. You can defend your assets and interests globally using just a piece of paper and the paper doesn't even have any guns but somehow it all works. The majority agreed to work together without engaging in petty self sabotage and the results have been incredible.
There has been an exponential acceleration in living standards globally for the last seventy years. We have all these countries that can’t even feed themselves just booming because they’re fed by all these other countries that can’t even make fertilizer. There are a lot of justifiable criticisms of the way the US has used their hegemony but I don’t think there can be any doubt that globally this has been the most significant period of growth and advancement in human history. The foundation of that is guarantees of safe trade, foreign investment, and collective action. It has been humanity for once working as a team. Not a perfect team, but far superior to how things were.
Short term Ukraine will be saved and ultimately become part of the European project. Long term our children will be poorer than we were and someone is going to eat a nuke at some point. We are going to miss US hegemony when it is gone.
Meh, US hegemony has to go at some stage, every superpower declines at some stage.
It's just my opinion that the US hegemony is old and set in its ways by this point and doesn't have much left to offer.
To the overall period of US power, I agree it's been pretty good. I just don't think this is a function of anything special (exceptional if you will) about the US. This is just a function of it being the newest superpower.
As I see it, with few exceptions, global (at least in terms of the known world to them) hegemons have generally improved over time. People change, civilizations learn, there is a greater body of philosophy, written history etc to draw on. The needs/wants/opinions of the average person has taken on greater importance in the goings on of their states, and their expectations (and therefore expectations of nations/states) to how other nations/states must act have also increased.
While the improvement between one hegemon and the next is very slight, I like the odds that the next one will turn out to be even better. If we don't nuke ourselves to extinction/civilizational collapse between hegemons.
In the transition, there is chaos, I'm sure during that chaos we might well miss the US Hegemony. Ok if we don't survive this chaos, then I'm wrong. But otherwise, I don't think the tail end of the US hegemony has much to offer, we may as well move onto the next. Of course global hegemons don't just stop, there will be a long transition period of them still being the global hegemon for a while, (before there is even no hegemon). I don't see this period improving from where we are now, I see it getting worse. You can all see the 'screw you, got mine' attitude taking over as the superpower holds onto any power it can, this is only going to get worse.
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On April 02 2026 11:44 LightSpectra wrote:
Yep, that's still capitalism.
So China is capitalists to you?
When I talk about capitalism I talk about free markets, not a state controlled economy.
Yeah they destroyed independent unions to create one mega-union, the DAF, (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), their trustees set the wages of workers, not employers.
source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front
For-profit companies crossing oceans to capture slaves for their shareholders is capitalism.
Slavery isn't a phenomenom caused by capitalistic policy, as I already said slavery is as old as mankind itself, and it was also abolished under a capitalist economic model which means it's not inherent to it.
The cause of the famine was potato blight.
It was a fragile system because all the owners of the lands were British living in London that acquired the land not through purchase but through confiscation and war so they had little incentive to manage their land properly which lead to monoagriculture in tiny unproductive parcels of land, that is what I mean with "pseudo feudalistic" model.
Allowing exports while Ireland starved while scandalous it wasn't the cause (nor even a meaningful relief) of the issue, they also had a tariff on grains, so policy on both ways fucked them, the issue was a fragile structure due to a lack of economic incentives, feudalism and capitalism seem the same to lefties but they aren't the same.
The death attributions to communism are direct, caused by murders in the revolution, camps like gulags or famines linked to communist policy not external factors.
Sure, I'll grant this, but your argument above is there's no point in blaming capitalism for slavery when it existed in other economic-political systems. Well, there were revolutionary murders, forced labor camps, and engineered famines in non-communist regimes as well, right?
They were not random unrelated labor camps, they were camps for kulaks, lumperproletariats and anti-communists.
If capitalists sent communist and ideological opponents to camps to death then absolutely count them in killed by capitalism
I actually couldn't say anything more supportive of my initial thesis (that stigmatizing all communists for things that capitalists have also done is hypocritical) than what you just wrote.
To be more clear on what I'm saying in case I wasn't: I don't consider myself a capitalist or a communist, but I can't help but notice how ridiculous it is that people say communism is evil because of X, but when you point out that X has occurred in innumerable capitalist societies, it gets hand-waved away by some technicality. My favorite is "it wasn't true capitalism". If you roll your eyes at the "not true communism" argument, don't use that one.
Because the deaths are directly attributed to communist policy, the Ukranian starvation wasn't a plague or a thing that occurred normally, it was direct change in economic policy.
If there is tomorrow starvation in Sudan due to droughts, it would be stupid to attribute it to "capitalism" since its a common occurrence and not caused directly by economic policy.
When I say the national socialist party wasn't capitalist I'm not playing "no true scottsman" they simply weren't remotely capitalists. However there are many things I dislike about the US economy and I could go on and on on how it isn't a free market, but to say "they aren't true capitalists" while true would fall on the same bullshit commies pull, so i'll eat it, the US is capitalist with all its ugliness.
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I'm not even going to bother correcting you again on the Irish famine, you're simply wrong about that and any reputable source that will tell you as much. You can see the import/export rates in the link I provided.
The Nazis were so capitalist that the phrase "re-privatization" was literally coined to refer to how they diced up public industries and rewarded them to their allies. Private, share-holding companies not only existed, they were the largest segment of the economy until the total war phase of WWII. Again, really not disputable on a factual level.
So let's just move on to this point:
However there are many things I dislike about the US economy and I could go on and on on how it isn't a free market, but to say "they aren't true capitalists" while true would fall on the same bullshit commies pull, so i'll eat it, the US is capitalist with all its ugliness.
See, that's the exact issue I'm pointing out. It's not capitalism per se you're defending, it's constitutional-liberal (in the sense of rule of law/due process/etc.)-capitalism. Or in other words, it's a specific type of capitalism.
And if you recognize that many forms of capitalism can be bad, then you have to be fair and admit that communists are allowed to say that many forms of communism (especially Stalinism) can be bad without it being inherently bad. There could be a constitutional-liberal-communism that doesn't have gulags and personality cults.
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On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The IRGC not only survived, they have not been forced to a nuclear deal, no restrictions on missiles, no inspections, no nothing.
Only sanctions relief on Iranian oil and the ceding of control over the Persian Gulf to the victor, currently Iran but he invites countries who want to further destabilize the region to fight it out. I’d be surprised if in a few months if the oil is moving again, albeit through the toll booth, any other country will decide to go back to things exploding. Nobody will thank them for that. I've avoided commenting because arguing over an ongoing event is even worse around here than something thst has already finished, but your decade+ long love affair with the nuke deal is interfering with your mind. You csn say regime change is necessary (arguable) but from the beginning as laid out by Rubio the millitary objectives were the goal. Obliterate their capabilities so it doesn’t matter what they *want* to do, with the implicit threat of doing it again later if needed were always the stated aim. And those objectives are on pace to be completed. I mean if Iran is winning I'd hate to see what them losing looks like! We'll see what happens with the strait, I don't mind the US doing a "if you won't we will" but given Trump's long stated disdain for Europe his attitude is hardly a surprise and if he does back off it is more a political mistake than a millitary one. But he pur out a post today saying it better or be open or else so who knows how much of this is a game of chicken. Rubio has been much more clear but saying Iran won because the regime is there and there is no "deal" totally misunderstands the goal of the operation in the first place. My final thought is that western nations as whole, not the US have become far too complacent and too rich. Too many people are unwilling to shoulder even the slightest inconvenience or take even the smallest risk. They would rather sit there and hope that things would just work out. And doesn't even count the significant number of leftists who are actively rooting against the US. I hope Cuba falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. It would've been a little more helpful for the domestic and international audience if the admin had stated its goals at the start. Iran's given enough provocation over the decades, but the question was always why now and when do we pack our bags and go back home.
Negotiations going poorly, as in they flatly refused to abandon the enriched nuclear materials and nuclear program and allow inspections? Was Israel going to do extended airstrikes if we weren't, and their actions prompted our involvement or timing? Regime change? Diminish Iran's conventional capabilities? Stop funding anti-Israel and anti-American terror group proxies? Their repression of the anti-government protesters? Some portion of several reasons, plus the inducement of a demonstrated lack of anti-air capabilities? The explanations, at least prior to today, were shifting.
I know it's old hat to say the Trump admin is the absolute worst from a communications perspective. You can't have a coherent communications strategy so long as Trump has a microphone and a cell phone. That lack matters in use of military force. If the goal was privately to degrade their conventional military abilities, that's a win. If the goal was regime change, it's failed thus far. If the goal was to cause enough death and destruction to force them to abandon threats on civilian naval traffic, it's failed thus far.
Whatever ~3 weeks later we have the semi-coherent "we were on the verge of an Iran that had so many missiles and so many drones that nobody can do anything about their nuclear weapons program in the future. That was an intolerable risk." That's a Day 1 message to Congress, and seeking a declaration of war or AUMF or [Congress has let the President skate for decades now].
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On April 02 2026 11:09 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:
I mean if Iran is winning I'd hate to see what them losing looks like! Iran's strategy for winning this never involved dropping more bombs on US soil than the US dropped on Iranian soil. It's like measuring the Vietnam War by which side dropped more bombs on the other. At the end of the day what matters is whose flag is flying over Saigon. The IRGC have not only survived the worst that the US and Israel seem willing to throw at them, they've exited the war with a stronger geopolitical position than they started with. To reuse your phrase, if this is the US winning I'd hate to see what losing looks like. What could they lose that's more important than control over the Strait of Hormuz? That has been a linchpin of US global strategy for 60 years.
Trump asked the countries that get oil from the strait to take care of it. That's Asia. China rounds up some countries to patrol the strait. It's safe since it's China. Type 055 can get there and back but the coastal patrol craft can't. So they need to lease a port and turn it into a naval base.
They also guarantee that Iran won't get a nuke and international inspectors. Just need an airbase to handle the logistics.
Then wait for the temperature to go down, expand some more.
5 years later multiple bases with air defence, Iranian airfields renovated with infrastructure and logistics to handle JS20 stealth figthers and Iran has "bought" enough ballistic missiles and drones to to do serious damage if attacked.
Iran is safe from Israel and USA, China has equal stake and control in the middle east as the US, rest of the world happy oil is flowing and Iran isn't getting nukes.
I don't think it will happen because China is not really into force projection like that and more importantly they are ideologically very far from Iran. While they trade with everyone it seems to matter for alliances for them.
But it's a reasonable worst case scenario for USA.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1249 Posts
On April 02 2026 12:59 baal wrote:
Yeah they destroyed independent unions to create one mega-union, the DAF, (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), their trustees set the wages of workers, not employers.
source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front
from your own source:
The German Labour Front (DAF) was then created in May 1933 as the organization that was to take over the assets seized from the former trade unions. Robert Ley, who had no previous experience in labour relations, was appointed by Hitler to lead the DAF upon its creation.[5] Three weeks later, Hitler issued a decree that banned collective bargaining and stated that a group of labour trustees, appointed by him, would "regulate labour contracts" and maintain "labour peace."[6] This decree effectively outlawed strikes, since workers could not oppose the decisions of the trustees.[6] Meanwhile, Robert Ley promised "to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory—that is, the employer... Only the employer can decide."[6]
Ok, so given that collective bargaining was outlawed, and the DAF therefore did not engage in collective bargaining. This means the DAF is in no way a labour union. mega or otherwise.
So while having what is defacto a government organisation take over setting wages, while in itself, not necessarily actually capitalism. Again from the same source:
The DAF also gave employers the ability to prevent their workers from seeking different jobs. In February 1935, the "workbook" (Arbeitsbuch) system was introduced, which issued every worker with a workbook that recorded his skills and past employment. These workbooks were required for employment and they were kept by the employer; if a worker desired to quit his job, the employer could refuse to release his workbook, preventing the worker from being legally employed anywhere else.[10]
The DAF was either given a mandate from the government, or took it upon themselves to make policy extremely advantageous to capitalists, and specifically the power of capitalists over workers.... as a direct replacement for organisations who's express purpose is to leverage the power of workers in general, and collective bargaining specifically against capitalists.
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On April 02 2026 09:34 Razyda wrote:
You are partially wrong. It is not that we cannot have new laws, it is that new laws shouldnt be invitation to abuse them.
For example "posting word balloon online will get you outlawed" while rather unreasonable is somewhat precise, "Posting misinformation online will get you outlawed" is not, because it is basically carte blanche for someone to fill as they please.
That depends how you define misinformation. If we are talking about well-defined content like promoting medical advice that might get you killed or end up with disabled children, that is very well-defined.
You are arguing against writing a law badly so that it can be abused easily. I have no qualm with that, any law regulating social media needs to be written well or it's useless.
However, I will point out again, that is not an argument against regulating social media, that's an argument against writing laws badly. Which is a very valid point, but a trivial one. You will get no disagreement from me: All laws should be written in such a way as to minimise the potential for abuse while still achieving the stated objective.
Fundamentally you haven't made the case for unregulated social media as a societal good. As I said earlier, I will happily read any source you provide.
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On April 02 2026 11:50 baal wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2026 20:55 EnDeR_ wrote:
I don't really want to relitigate the COVID response by different governments, we've already had that one.
The rollout was unprecedented, we have never had any medicine (as far as I know, I could be wrong) rolled out quite that quickly from proof of concept to millions of doses prepared. Like, what would constitute a win for you?
The only reason the US gov did not capitalise on operation warp speed being the absolute win that it was is because Trump is a moron and he picked up antivaxx rethoric instead.
I don't think COVID was a particularly good example of good governance. I think it was a huge far reaching crisis that had extremely complex inter-related parts. It was so complicated that you won't get two people to agree of what would have been the optimum approach even in retrospect. The vaccine development was pretty good and it was a big win but not for the government, they didn't develop it. The production was lackluster, it was pretty good for private company standard, but for it to be a government win, they had years to build mega factories "China-style"ready to produce at many multiples the rate of production they had. But my complains aren't regarding the vaccine it was about response to the pandemic. Almost every single expert in twitter agreed on the strategy, staticists like Nassim Taleb, viologists were at unison talking about dramatic quick response, and president have access to experts at the highest level, it wasn't ignorance why they under reacted, it was incentives: If they overreact and the virus turns out to be a dud (like others were) people obv get upset and it hurts the in elections, but overreaction is the correct respose to geometric threats, thats why virtually every government (outside of east asia) under reacted, politics are popularity contests and that is a terrible incentive when the things that must be done are unpopular.
Oh, but that's a very narrow definition of what success looks like. Arguably, if the government had set up production in such a way, there would be an absolute shit storm from a certain political collective about the waste and how their tax dollars shouldn't be used to subsidise vaccines in shit hole countries.
To your second point, I hadn't realised that you were referring only to the start of the pandemic. In this case I agree with you, we knew what was going on in China, western countries should have acted sooner, and that first lockdown was delayed for no reason. The UK was a particularly bad offender, business had already locked down before the official guidance arrived, which is kind of nuts. This one was a no-brainer, agree 100%.
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On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:On April 02 2026 10:31 KwarK wrote:
My final thought is that western nations as whole, not the US have become far too complacent and too rich. Too many people are unwilling to shoulder even the slightest inconvenience or take even the smallest risk. They would rather sit there and hope that things would just work out. And doesn't even count the significant number of leftists who are actively rooting against the US. I hope Cuba falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences.
Is there anything else that is supposed to have consequences?
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1249 Posts
On April 02 2026 16:44 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2026 11:32 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On April 02 2026 10:56 Introvert wrote:On April 02 2026 10:31 KwarK wrote:
My final thought is that western nations as whole, not the US have become far too complacent and too rich. Too many people are unwilling to shoulder even the slightest inconvenience or take even the smallest risk. They would rather sit there and hope that things would just work out. And doesn't even count the significant number of leftists who are actively rooting against the US. I hope Cuba falls, it would be another good day for the world and would cause gnashing of teeth heretofore unseen. As someone vaguely leftist, actively rooting against the US. I'd be well willing to shoulder some risk and inconvenience if the rest of the world would cut off economic, diplomatic and military ties to the US. It's about damn time we have a reminder that just going around bombing other countries isn't supposed to come without consequences. Is there anything else that is supposed to have consequences?
Everything should have consequences. Some good some bad.
Unless those things pertain specifically to a military attack on the US, it's not the US's job to take it on itself to be 'consequences'.
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EPT
