Generational Dynamics World View News

[Zoomer go Brr]

This makes the most sense to me. Do you think Xi will do the same or similar in Taiwan?

IF (and at this point it is still a pretty big if) the CCP were to take control of Taiwan, they would not just leave everyone that is Taiwan there. They would do things similar to what they have done in Tibet and now out in Xinjiang (the Uygher region).

As someone else pointed out, they would flood the island with loyal mainland Chinese, while moving as many people with Taiwanese roots off of the island and into areas where they can be marginallized (as a minority), or worse, as in re-education/concentration camps.

They would also do mass executions and that whole bit of people who are politicians, opposing military, educators and so on.

This would obviously be difficult to do, and take decades, but it would probably be the route they would go.

FORTUNATELY, while I think they may be able to take the island, and even hold it for a couple of years, they will ultimately fail, and China itself will end up being dismembered into smaller regional based countries.

A question for you or anyone else, what would a regional China broken up look like? What would the new countries be (e.g., Tibet?, Uighurstan?, etc.)?

[Xeraphim1]

Does anyone think it's bizarre that Neil Young is supporting censorship and Bette Midler is propagating hate speech? I do realize they are both Trump hating democrats, but still a 180 turn from who they used to be.

I have come up with a few possibilities as to why:

They both have dementia, in sympathy and symphony with their beloved Dictator President.
They have been abducted by aliens and replaced with duplicates.
They were brainwashed by Chinese spies.
George Soros is paying them megabucks.
Neil Young is still mad at southern men and wants them to shut up. Bette Midler is mad that John Denver, who sold more music than her,
sang Country Roads about West Virginia and she didn't.
Hunter has another laptop and ooh la la.

What say ye?

Always keep in mind that fascism comes from the Left, not the Right. These are two big time lefties and only support the things they like. Censorship is only bad if they are the ones being censored. Hate speech is only bad if it's being said about some group that they like.

[Xeraphim1]

Putin is now going to have separate NON-NATO talks with the Germans and French (and Ukrainians). This is all part of his bid to split NATO, which could well happen at this point.

Ever since Belarus stopped being independent of Putin (which happened when Lukashenko needed Russian support to crush rigged election chaos), Ukraine's defense has been compromised. Since Russian troops are moving in mass into Belarus for "training exercises), Ukraine's defenses are mortally compromised. The Ukrainians do not have enough troops to cover the previous areas of Russian incursions, PLUS the border with Belarus. At this point, they are probably hoping that they can come up with ANY kind of deal that prevents Russian invasion and leaves them with some semblance of independence and self-determination. The last bit is really what the Russians want to quash.

I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that an invasion of Ukraine would be disastrous to Russia and that Putin and his cronies know this. Taking Crimea gained Russia some internal prestige (that bump has dissipated) but has has been extremely expensive. It's thought that sanctions have cost Russia about 2% GDP growth. Average income has fallen. FDI is almost non existent. The ruble lost about half its value against the dollar. Imports of high tech products and especially production equipment has been severely curtailed. You can still buy stuff made in Russia, but Russian products aren't all that attractive.

Just in direct costs, stealing Crimea has cost Russia around $20 billion in the first 5 years, though yearly costs are down to more like $1.5 billion now. The Kerch bridge cost around $4 billion. Not to mention that Ukraine cut the canal that carried most of Crimea's water. Arable land has shrunk from 130,000 hectares to 14,000. Again, by economic standards taking Crimea was a horrible choice and the internal political benefits have already faded. Invading Ukraine again will double down on all the costs and penalties Russia has faced since 2014. If nothing else, it will spur most of Europe to find a way of replacing Russian oil and gas and that's really the only thing Russia has going for it. If Europe doubles down on nuclear or accepts the short term pain to go for solar and windmills, much of Russia's economic future goes with it. Yes, in the long term that business is going away, but this would speed it up and cost Russia billions.

I won't say war won't happen because people make really bad decisions all the time, but I'm thinking more and more that this is a massive bluff.

[Cool Breeze]

Does anyone think it's bizarre that Neil Young is supporting censorship and Bette Midler is propagating hate speech? I do realize they are both Trump hating democrats, but still a 180 turn from who they used to be.

I have come up with a few possibilities as to why:

They both have dementia, in sympathy and symphony with their beloved Dictator President.
They have been abducted by aliens and replaced with duplicates.
They were brainwashed by Chinese spies.
George Soros is paying them megabucks.
Neil Young is still mad at southern men and wants them to shut up. Bette Midler is mad that John Denver, who sold more music than her,
sang Country Roads about West Virginia and she didn't.
Hunter has another laptop and ooh la la.

What say ye?

Always keep in mind that fascism comes from the Left, not the Right. These are two big time lefties and only support the things they like. Censorship is only bad if they are the ones being censored. Hate speech is only bad if it's being said about some group that they like.

Bingo.

[Navigator]

I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that an invasion of Ukraine would be disastrous to Russia and that Putin and his cronies know this. Taking Crimea gained Russia some internal prestige (that bump has dissipated) but has has been extremely expensive. It's thought that sanctions have cost Russia about 2% GDP growth. Average income has fallen. FDI is almost non existent. The ruble lost about half its value against the dollar. Imports of high tech products and especially production equipment has been severely curtailed. You can still buy stuff made in Russia, but Russian products aren't all that attractive.

Just in direct costs, stealing Crimea has cost Russia around $20 billion in the first 5 years, though yearly costs are down to more like $1.5 billion now. The Kerch bridge cost around $4 billion. Not to mention that Ukraine cut the canal that carried most of Crimea's water. Arable land has shrunk from 130,000 hectares to 14,000. Again, by economic standards taking Crimea was a horrible choice and the internal political benefits have already faded. Invading Ukraine again will double down on all the costs and penalties Russia has faced since 2014. If nothing else, it will spur most of Europe to find a way of replacing Russian oil and gas and that's really the only thing Russia has going for it. If Europe doubles down on nuclear or accepts the short term pain to go for solar and windmills, much of Russia's economic future goes with it. Yes, in the long term that business is going away, but this would speed it up and cost Russia billions.

I won't say war won't happen because people make really bad decisions all the time, but I'm thinking more and more that this is a massive bluff.

I, personally, would love it if world leaders would make logic and rational decisions, especially regarding the use of military force. War is unbelievably bad. It would be great if there was no war.

But, as you point out, people make bad decisions all the time. And, unfortunately, the do so on a regular and recurring basis.

I for one am here because John points out what I had seen in my own studies. Every 80 years or so, there is for each society, a major military conflict. It is not rational and logical. Quite to the contrary. And these decisions are whole-heartedly supported by the populations of the aggressors!

The best you can hope for in a war situation (this was actually according to Herman Goering, who tried to dissuade Hitler from going to war) is that you don't get hurt/killed. For 99.99% of people involved, that is the BEST case. Anything else results in a worse outcome than not going to war in the first place.

War will be bad for Russia, it will be bad for Ukraine, it will be bad for Taiwan and for China and for anybody else involved. But then that was the case each and every time in the past as well.

[Cool Breeze]

Is it not part of the probability that all of these world governments decide not to go to war and rather enslave their subjects in a technocrat surveillance society? Could that happen without war? I'm not saying I believe there will be no war, I don't know, but I don't think anyone knows. Is it possible? Do you not think, Navi, that fiat systems lead to a one world government? That's clearly desired right now, and central banks will own everything, or much of it, very soon in the upcoming years.

[guest]

I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that an invasion of Ukraine would be disastrous to Russia and that Putin and his cronies know this. Taking Crimea gained Russia some internal prestige (that bump has dissipated) but has has been extremely expensive. It's thought that sanctions have cost Russia about 2% GDP growth. Average income has fallen. FDI is almost non existent. The ruble lost about half its value against the dollar. Imports of high tech products and especially production equipment has been severely curtailed. You can still buy stuff made in Russia, but Russian products aren't all that attractive.

Just in direct costs, stealing Crimea has cost Russia around $20 billion in the first 5 years, though yearly costs are down to more like $1.5 billion now. The Kerch bridge cost around $4 billion. Not to mention that Ukraine cut the canal that carried most of Crimea's water. Arable land has shrunk from 130,000 hectares to 14,000. Again, by economic standards taking Crimea was a horrible choice and the internal political benefits have already faded. Invading Ukraine again will double down on all the costs and penalties Russia has faced since 2014. If nothing else, it will spur most of Europe to find a way of replacing Russian oil and gas and that's really the only thing Russia has going for it. If Europe doubles down on nuclear or accepts the short term pain to go for solar and windmills, much of Russia's economic future goes with it. Yes, in the long term that business is going away, but this would speed it up and cost Russia billions.

I won't say war won't happen because people make really bad decisions all the time, but I'm thinking more and more that this is a massive bluff.

I, personally, would love it if world leaders would make logic and rational decisions, especially regarding the use of military force. War is unbelievably bad. It would be great if there was no war.

But, as you point out, people make bad decisions all the time. And, unfortunately, the do so on a regular and recurring basis.

I for one am here because John points out what I had seen in my own studies. Every 80 years or so, there is for each society, a major military conflict. It is not rational and logical. Quite to the contrary. And these decisions are whole-heartedly supported by the populations of the aggressors!

The best you can hope for in a war situation (this was actually according to Herman Goering, who tried to dissuade Hitler from going to war) is that you don't get hurt/killed. For 99.99% of people involved, that is the BEST case. Anything else results in a worse outcome than not going to war in the first place.

War will be bad for Russia, it will be bad for Ukraine, it will be bad for Taiwan and for China and for anybody else involved. But then that was the case each and every time in the past as well.

Blame it NATO not Russia

[Navigator]

Da, Priyatel.

[Trevor]

Putin doesn't have to take the entire Ukraine to achieve his goals. He can start by officially seizing the areas where insurgents and Russian contractors are already fighting: Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk. They'd likely fall in a couple weeks, given that Ukraine has Soviet-era equipment while Russia itself has modernized.

A good place to stop would be the Dnieper River, controlling the eastern portion of Ukraine. While they could probably take the whole country, the initial fighting would cost them heavily, not taking into account years of insurgency. Plus, west of the Dnieper, there isn't much of a pro-Russian population. In the border provinces, having a Russian minority and a portion of the population that's pro-Russian makes taking Eastern Ukraine simpler.

With Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine taken, Putin will have accomplished his goals, setting up a puppet government in the economically valuable region of Ukraine. Belarus and the Baltic States aren't going to want to try anything, facing the possibility of Russian invasion.

And what would Europe do about it? In theory, heavy sanctions could crush the Russian government, but in practice, they have no willingness to do this. Germany's always refused to do anything and Europe as a whole doesn't wish to get involved, with the possibility of losing natural gas shipments. Most likely, it would be limited sanctions that might sting Russia a bit, but won't amount to much in the end.

As for not gaining anything from a war. . . what did we gain from Iraq and Afghanistan, apart from several thousand killed, tens of thousands wounded, and a few trillion more in debt? It didn't stop us from fighting for twenty years. Russia's death toll would be much higher than that, but they generally consider Ukraine to be part of their territory.

[guest]

Putin doesn't have to take the entire Ukraine to achieve his goals. He can start by officially seizing the areas where insurgents and Russian contractors are already fighting: Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk. They'd likely fall in a couple weeks, given that Ukraine has Soviet-era equipment while Russia itself has modernized.

A good place to stop would be the Dnieper River, controlling the eastern portion of Ukraine. While they could probably take the whole country, the initial fighting would cost them heavily, not taking into account years of insurgency. Plus, west of the Dnieper, there isn't much of a pro-Russian population. In the border provinces, having a Russian minority and a portion of the population that's pro-Russian makes taking Eastern Ukraine simpler.

With Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine taken, Putin will have accomplished his goals, setting up a puppet government in the economically valuable region of Ukraine. Belarus and the Baltic States aren't going to want to try anything, facing the possibility of Russian invasion.

And what would Europe do about it? In theory, heavy sanctions could crush the Russian government, but in practice, they have no willingness to do this. Germany's always refused to do anything and Europe as a whole doesn't wish to get involved, with the possibility of losing natural gas shipments. Most likely, it would be limited sanctions that might sting Russia a bit, but won't amount to much in the end.

As for not gaining anything from a war. . . what did we gain from Iraq and Afghanistan, apart from several thousand killed, tens of thousands wounded, and a few trillion more in debt? It didn't stop us from fighting for twenty years. Russia's death toll would be much higher than that, but they generally consider Ukraine to be part of their territory.

In many ways, the damage to Russia has probably already done. The biggest thorn for the Russian elites (if carried out), would be being banned from the UK. They send their children to elite British boarding schools and live in London. Moscow sucks, it's provincial. The oligarchs spend most of their time in the west. They hate living in Russia. They want to spend their time in Monaco or Nice, not the Crimea. They crave acceptance into British clubs and want to hobnob with the nobility, buy English country houses,the English football clubs, and generally be their normal vulgar selves and feeling accepted by the British nobility (which they never are, but are lied to to get their money).

The Russian elite are a weird bunch, mostly from Soviet apparatchik families that lack any sense of style or common decency. If the British and Americans start banning them and their children from the West, it will hurt bad. What's the point of being rich if you can only show off in front of half baked Russian peasants?

As for Putin, he is a nasty old fish. The alt right political spectrum looks to this guy as some kind of messianic savior, which is dumb. Everyone in the East sees him clearly for what he is: a thief and a liar. Now some alt right characters are abandoning him because he keeps engaging in "brother wars" against other white people. If he does invade the Ukraine, and millions of refugees flood into the West, the illusion will come to an end completely. You see how the alt right characters on this message board are now backing away from him. People are good at rewriting their own history. I see that every day everywhere.