EPTThe coolest guy I've ever met - Page 3
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~ava
Canada378 Posts
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radscorpion9
Canada2252 Posts
I feel like the Americans should reorient the machine around renewable, sustainable energy (and a sustainable economy) and technological progress. Planetary/asteroid mining operations would be fun! Today its boring...just get more jobs in the short term. No long-term vision besides green energy, which isn't really a focal point at all. | ||
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
On November 03 2012 22:47 Shady Sands wrote: Nope. He meant it in the sense that most of Western foreign policy was, from 1918 to 1991, an extension of ideological conflict ahhhh got it, thanks. I mixed up your answers to my questions which was what confused me. | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On November 04 2012 02:39 JieXian wrote: ahhhh got it, thanks. I mixed up your answers to my questions which was what confused me. np fyi, he's not playing senior statesman so much this year. he also just revealed he's been working with zoellick and stephen walt to draft proposals on 2012-2016 foreign policy, if romney wins the election | ||
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Skilledblob
Germany3392 Posts
On November 04 2012 01:18 ~ava wrote: All I read about was a young guy that met an old decrepit man who knew some of the most corrupt men in history. Rather than being a cool old guy, I would have considered him one of the most evil men I'd ever met. and that's why you are stupid. first of all there is no good and evil the whole concept is something for fairytales. Understanding what ideas and concept made people do the things they did allows us to form the future in a way to avoid the mistakes these people made. Labeling someone as "evil" and refusing to understand them is pure stupidity. | ||
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Glenn313
United States475 Posts
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~ava
Canada378 Posts
On November 04 2012 03:21 Skilledblob wrote: and that's why you are stupid. first of all there is no good and evil the whole concept is something for fairytales. Understanding what ideas and concept made people do the things they did allows us to form the future in a way to avoid the mistakes these people made. Labeling someone as "evil" and refusing to understand them is pure stupidity. Society does that all the time to convicted killers, what are you talking about. Equally dumb would be to consider someone 'cool' based on who he knows/has connections with. When said connections are Nixon, Reagan, Gorbachev, enough said in my book. | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
As for the idea that Nixon conceived of a master plan to implement all of this, again, not really plausible. Bits and pieces, maybe, but the idea that doing so would directly lead to the downfall of the Soviet state (as opposed to other more likely outcomes, like a Soviet state with diminished European influence) was remarkably difficult to envision in 1968-74. Edit: I'm currently in the middle of reading Nate Silver's recent book on statistical prediction called "The Signal and The Noise," and he dissects the various views of politicians and diplomats on the matter of the Soviet Union's downfall in the process of discussing what he calls the "hedgehog" and "fox" approach to prediction. "Hedgehogs" view the world through a filter of one or a few basic principles that they try to form into a grand theory of everything. When facts change, they tweak the theory to help it survive. "Foxes" question their own biases and take in a wide swath of information, looking for interrelationships, but don't distill the results into overarching principles. Your friend's description of the downfall of the Soviet Union sounds like a typical "hedgehog" argument, an approach which is often rewarded in academia and the media because it lends itself to being stated simply, but which either doesn't take into account or becomes more convoluted when facts which might stand against the speaker's preconceived worldview are introduced. | ||
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Skilledblob
Germany3392 Posts
On November 04 2012 08:10 ~ava wrote: Society does that all the time to convicted killers, what are you talking about. lol ok | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
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Kalingingsong
Canada633 Posts
On November 04 2012 08:10 ~ava wrote: Society does that all the time to convicted killers, what are you talking about. Equally dumb would be to consider someone 'cool' based on who he knows/has connections with. When said connections are Nixon, Reagan, Gorbachev, enough said in my book. as a side thought, I wonder if Gorby, Reagan, and Nixon think of each other as cool. | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On November 04 2012 11:28 Kalingingsong wrote: as a side thought, I wonder if Gorby, Reagan, and Nixon think of each other as cool. Two of the three are dead... | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On November 04 2012 08:22 Lysenko wrote: What you tell is a good story, but it boils the failure of the Soviet Union down to far too simple a picture to possibly correspond to the reality. Obviously the things you cite as the causes were major factors, but other factors were important too, such as the handing of the Soviets' political torch to the much younger Gorbachev, his interest in reform, the doors that opened for criticism of the Soviet state from its citizens, and so on. As for the idea that Nixon conceived of a master plan to implement all of this, again, not really plausible. Bits and pieces, maybe, but the idea that doing so would directly lead to the downfall of the Soviet state (as opposed to other more likely outcomes, like a Soviet state with diminished European influence) was remarkably difficult to envision in 1968-74. Edit: I'm currently in the middle of reading Nate Silver's recent book on statistical prediction called "The Signal and The Noise," and he dissects the various views of politicians and diplomats on the matter of the Soviet Union's downfall in the process of discussing what he calls the "hedgehog" and "fox" approach to prediction. "Hedgehogs" view the world through a filter of one or a few basic principles that they try to form into a grand theory of everything. When facts change, they tweak the theory to help it survive. "Foxes" question their own biases and take in a wide swath of information, looking for interrelationships, but don't distill the results into overarching principles. Your friend's description of the downfall of the Soviet Union sounds like a typical "hedgehog" argument, an approach which is often rewarded in academia and the media because it lends itself to being stated simply, but which either doesn't take into account or becomes more convoluted when facts which might stand against the speaker's preconceived worldview are introduced. That makes a bit of sense. I think the school I went to, with its heavy emphasis on theory in the liberal arts, probably meant both he and I were speaking on the same "wavelength" when it came to econ/politics. It's probably why our conversations went as well as they did. On Nixon--the bullet points I have in my notebook were that
Some more bullet points on Nixon before he became President--
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Kalingingsong
Canada633 Posts
what about when they were alive? | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
I'm fairly certain Gorbachev and Reagan had a good rapport As for Nixon, it seems (based on conversations with K, and reading various memoirs) that people thought he was smart and openminded (people could pitch any ideas to him and he'd listen/consider things objectively) but he was also possessed of too much ambition and insecurity (aka the Napoleon complex) | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On Nixon's support of civil rights legislation, you have any sources on the matter of his motivation? | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On November 04 2012 11:57 Lysenko wrote: I'd be careful about assuming too much about intentions to outspend the Soviets in that period. The information visible to US leaders was often sketchy and tended to amplify the threat, so there was a tendency to outspend just to "keep up" with too-high estimates. On Nixon's support of civil rights legislation, you have any sources on the matter of his motivation? All the above comes from notes taken during conversations with K The thing is though they had those super-high defense spending estimates, and then they also had GDP estimates based on open economic facts which the Soviets spent a lot less time keeping hidden than military knowledge. All they had to do was put 2 and 2 together and realize that all that "capital" the Soviets were investing in their military was a waste since it was never going to be used in a way that could get the USSR a decent "rate of return" Then Brzezinski came along and gave the Soviets the trojan horse of Afghanistan, a temptation for the USSR to "recoup" some of the costs of its military spending (to put all that expensive hardware to use), which quickly turned into their version of Vietnam | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
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Niten
United States598 Posts
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On November 04 2012 11:48 Shady Sands wrote:
I've never heard about Nixon having any racial prejudices. | ||
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