Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

So some say. Of course, Chinese strategy is based on deception, to hide how strong they really are. On a PPP basis, China's military budget is around 170 billion and I would wager that their real budget is considerably larger than that.

There are always surprises, sometimes to keep an "empire/country/society" together you need an enemy.

I think it unlikely that China will attack the United States or its allies, since the U.S possesses massive air and naval superiority not to mention thousands of active nuclear warheads which can be delivered to China within minutes' notice.

Yes, China is building up its military forces. But the U.S military budget is about 5 times bigger than the Chinese budget. There is simply no possibility that China can pose a serious military challenge to the U.S in the forseeable future.

and that's what worries me. If we're as unprepared against China as we were against Japan 70 years ago, we have a strong possibility of losing this war. I do not want to see my country in ruins because of our short-sightedness. I even know someone who used to be in the Air Force that said something similar, telling me that China would have no hope of victory against us and dismissing any threat they pose.

One thing I have noticed is that many of the people who warn of the possibility and are trying to prepare for it are the few silents and even a couple G.I.s that are still in positions of influence.

[quote="John"][quote="OLD1953"]
> Goes back to something I've said here before, though perhaps not
> this explicitly, it's neither the problem nor the solution that's
> the issue, it's the fear. People are scared to death of global
> warming and radiation and impacts on the environment and it drives
> them crazy. If you examine these issues you find they are ginned
> up to the point of insanity, there is not nearly the risk that's
> commonly believed to exist. That's not saying things are risk
> free, just that there are problems and solutions, and it doesn't
> help to turn a fair sized problem into an immense mountain that
> cannot be overcome in the public mind.[/quote]

Here's what always astonishes me:[list]

[*] People on the left are scared to death of global warming.

[*] People on the right are scared to death that the Muslims
are going to impose Sharia law in Washington.

[*] Nobody gives a second thought to China's military buildup,
preparing for war with the U.S.[/list]

John[/quote]

John, this perplexes me too! I have many well educated/travelled friends and ANY time I mention China, they say things like, "China could never invade the US and we would beat them easily". To which I reply, China doesn't need to invade the US to cause us hell. They will also say things, like, "well, we owe China too much money. They won't go to war with us because they need our money and our economy to survive". Or they have a myriad of other very ignorant and short-sighted views. I try telling them that throughout history countries have waged wars against foes they never really had an ability to conquer, but that didn't stop them. I am surprised by how ignorant our society has become.

I believe they call it "climate change" now. That's pretty misleading, due to the fact that climate changes all the time. Here's a question I frequently have for them: if we have a difficult time predicting what the weather will be in 3-4 days, how can we tell what it's going to be in 100 years?

I've also repeatedly mentioned the danger that China poses to us. Some actually are willing to listen, realizing that they're a threat or at least were willing to keep enough of an open mind to listen to me. All too often, however, I hear one of two responses. On the right, they say: "We can beat China with one hand behind our back; the real danger is Sharia Law and Muslims." The left (along with Ron Paul supporters) state: "China's no threat; that's just a lie of the Military-Industrial Complex to justify their war profiteering."

[quote="OLD1953"]
> Goes back to something I've said here before, though perhaps not
> this explicitly, it's neither the problem nor the solution that's
> the issue, it's the fear. People are scared to death of global
> warming and radiation and impacts on the environment and it drives
> them crazy. If you examine these issues you find they are ginned
> up to the point of insanity, there is not nearly the risk that's
> commonly believed to exist. That's not saying things are risk
> free, just that there are problems and solutions, and it doesn't
> help to turn a fair sized problem into an immense mountain that
> cannot be overcome in the public mind.[/quote]

Here's what always astonishes me:[list]

[*] People on the left are scared to death of global warming.

[*] People on the right are scared to death that the Muslims
are going to impose Sharia law in Washington.

[*] Nobody gives a second thought to China's military buildup,
preparing for war with the U.S.[/list]

John

The true number is so small that the actual figure is unknown, outside of people present on the site when the reactor underwent a steam and hydrogen explosion and broke open the core elements and scattered them to the wind. Again, read the report carefully, disregarding people on the property during and immediately after the explosion and people who went in to help correct matters, the number who are supposed to die from the off site radiation exposure is measured to be below minimum statistical measures, that 4000 is simply the largest it can possibly be and fit the actual arcturial numbers for Europe. The true number could actually be negative 4000, 4000 lives that were extended because that fits the numbers exactly as well as the WHO report. In other words, they actually found zero offsite that weren't due to fear. I make no claims either way, but the correct way to express those numbers is a range from -4000 to +4000.

Goes back to something I've said here before, though perhaps not this explicitly, it's neither the problem nor the solution that's the issue, it's the fear. People are scared to death of global warming and radiation and impacts on the environment and it drives them crazy. If you examine these issues you find they are ginned up to the point of insanity, there is not nearly the risk that's commonly believed to exist. That's not saying things are risk free, just that there are problems and solutions, and it doesn't help to turn a fair sized problem into an immense mountain that cannot be overcome in the public mind.

Take sea level rise. Average person would tell you it'll be up to the mountain tops by 2100 if we don't all go live in communes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/sea-level-rises-climate-change-copenhagen

Now, I'ma gonna tell you, ten percent of the worlds population does not live that close to the ocean without a sea wall, because they'd all be dead after the first storm. How about adding a meter to the sea wall? Is that so incredibly hard with an 80 year time frame? And, of course, that 10 percent figure is about 99% too high. And in a century we'll be on the other side of the singularity and who the hell knows what they'll do!

Global warming exists yes, it's a problem, yes, it's absolutely not THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT! There is just too much irresponsible crap being produced, and for some reason people just lap it up.

I actually read that some of the people in the Chernobyl disaster were quite literally frightened to death. They were told that all these real horrible, horrible things were going to happen to them when they weren't. Many estimated that up to a million people were going to die because of it; the true number was roughly 4,000 in the long term.

Anyone crying "dirty bomb" is simply using scare words to generate signal reactions in his audience. Given a choice between any other ABC type weapon and being near the explosion point, I'll take the dirty bomb every time. Chernobyl is the biggest dirty bomb imaginable, and the 2005 WHO report admits they overstated the danger by thousands of percent. Though you have to read it carefully, admitting that came hard to them, keep in mind the size of the population WHO said was affected and sift the data from the obfuscation. But the statement "the largest public health problem created by Chernoybl was mental issues created by misinformation" is utterly classic, given WHO's role in dissemination of that misinformation.

This appears to me to be someone trying to gin up support for an immediate attack by causing fear in his audience.

The report on North Korea and their faux weapons is no surprise, NK is flat broke and weapons development is expensive, especially if you also have to support multimillionaire lifestyles of the party elite. They just do not have the money for both.