VerifiedSource
@VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 day ago:
A point of no return won’t be hit for a while. The buildings still exist and people with domain knowledge are still around.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Countries in East and Southeast Asia are Westerners now? The Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Pinoy, Vietnamese, Malays will be surprised to hear that. All of these countries are afraid of Chinese ambitions.
Maybe ask the Tibetans if they think the Chinese annexation of their homeland is just Western hypocrisy.
remotely comparable to what the USA does
You are aware that China invaded Vietnam after the USA left?
You are ignorant of the regional policies. Not everything is as Western centric as your limited understanding of geopolitics.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
who cares?
Literally all other countries in the region.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
The US playbook usually means having the support of allies. They lost the trust of all of them.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
a private company innovated aerospace technology despite the US government’s reluctance to invest in aerospace technology.
Huh? The US government paying SpaceX made it possible to succeed in the first place. That’s literally the US investing in aerospace tech.
US dod officials have been very clearly saying for Over a decade that the US might already be behind China in key areas of defense
China is catching up, but still behind in defense and aerospace technology. The one area they are ahead is industrial capacity to build, especially ships. China builds a huge number of civilian and military ships.
despite spending 4 to 10 times as much on their defense budget
Wages, manufacturing, etc. are all far more expensive in the US. It’s also much easier and cheaper to copy someone else’s design than to discover and build for the first time.
they cannot even compete with a free operating system
Microsoft has good support for Linux nowadays with Windows services for Linux and Azure Linux for example. On the desktop Microsoft Windows is still leading in market share and Microsoft Office is dominating as well.
Where are the biggest Linux companies located?
Apple? they haven’t been innovative in 15 years, depend on slave labor
Apple’s AR/VR is innovative, if not particularly successful in the market. Their M-series chips are among the best chip available. Very fast with low power use.
Apple makes their products in same factories (Foxconn etc) as other companies. So the labor conditions aren’t unique to Apple at all.
it’s not leading in manufacturing, it’s not leading in most sciences, and it has one of the most awful education systems in the world, not to mention the living affordability crisis going on.
I mostly agree. The quality of the US education system is similar to the health care system. The US has some of the best education and health care in the world. However, it’s neither cheap nor affordable for the majority of the population.
you can’t do science without funding and support, and dumps has taken that funding away, and importantly does not believe in science or the benefits of research and development.
I agree mostly. Regarding funding under Trump, we will see. Elon Musk certainly know about R&D costs and benefits and is influential.
meanwhile, other countries are investing record amounts and setting technological records in innovative technologies like solar that the US has no hope of catching up to in the near future.
Yes, other countries are catching up steadily overall and are ahead in some areas, especially China.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
The US is still leading in aerospace and defense. Boeing is in a slump, but military planes are top notch. SpaceX is a decade ahead of the global competition at least.
computer science
All the biggest and leading companies in that area are still based in the US. American companies dominate the market for software and internet services. The possibly most disruptive technology AI is also firmly in the hands of the USA.
You’re also missing biotechnology as another key sector, where the US is doing very well.
the US does not have the technological edge it once did;
That much is clear. It’s still doing very good though.
The amount of money spent on R&D is still huge in the USA and it attracts top minds from across the globe.
- Comment on 2 days ago:
Play Solitaire
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Upvoted for the optimism. Let’s hope you’re right.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
technology (…) being suppressed
What technology or technology development is being suppressed?
The USA are still leading in most technological fields and have a dominant position.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Term limits have a huge downside. The politician will need a job afterwards and is thus more motivated to give political favors for job security afterwards. Your goal would also be achieved via an age limit like 70.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
I wouldn’t be so sure. Copy Russia’s playbook.
Let’s say, it’s just a short special military operation to clear Vancouver of fentanyl imports from China. You don’t need the whole military on board for that. A few battalions is enough. A preceding crisis could be created that then provides a reason. The city doesn’t even need to be taken in a battle. Occupying Canada’s highway 1, railway, and blockading the port could lead to a peaceful handover of the city.
The next step is then the US needs a strategic land bridge to protect Alaska against Russia, so BC and Yukon will be temporarily under US administration.
With Mexico it’s even easier. Say cartel and drugs, special military operation, and that’s that.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
The Soviet Union as a credible major adversary meant the US couldn’t drop the ball too much. China is only now becoming a serious rival. Russia is totally changed player that sneaked up on the west. In the decades in between the US could fumble, drop, and lose the ball without much immediate consequence.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Right wingers have organized militias for decades. These might be made up of stupid fat fucks, but they have trained how to organize, communicate, and do logistics.
The number and quality of weapons is one factor. Wars are won by logistics, communication, and coordination. If you have an existing social political network, you can arm it pretty quickly. A group that knows how to set up a music festival in the middle of nowhere, can learn how to run a military camp.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
is seriously organize to support a more left candidate
Americans need to start organizing the network for a general strike and start writing a new constitution.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
if Trump tried to make an Executive Order that only Republicans could vote
The way authoritarians have done this before is arrest enough of opposition party members. Other ways of blocking members of Congress to show up for a vote could be travel restrictions due to a state of emergency because of a terror attack for example. You can combine this with other methods.
You might have 5 arrested on made up charges, 4 can’t leave their home because of protestors blocking them, 3 are blackmailed, 2 are bribed to stay away, 1 is murdered. This could even start with one or two members of congress getting murdered. Then a state of emergency is called including. Tragically not all members can make it in time to vote in the emergency session.
if federal agents showed up trying to enforce an Executive Order from Trump it is highly likely they would be arrested by the state or city police for interfering in voting.
Trump doesn’t need to succeed in all states with this or even send in federal agents. There are enough state governments run by MAGAs, who will fall in line.
Things don’t need to be properly done. Some chaos as cover and the slightest plausible deniability is enough.
So you end up with some kind of election reform, that’s not accepted by all states. This means the president can declare a further emergency and suspend elections until further notice. Alternatively only elections run according to the new rules are accepted by the federal government. Non compliant states can hold elections, but they will be declared invalid by the supreme court.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
somehow he pisses off the base enough
Trump has to placate the billionaire class. If everybody is still making money and gaining power, they’re unlikely to break with him.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Trump ordering an invasion of Canada and the military going along with it, will be his demonstration of full powers.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
Trumpism isn’t Orwellian, it doesn’t need to be.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
This is going to require constitutional changes
I think it’s going to require a new constitution. The American constitution was pretty good for a first try at modern democracy, but it has weaknesses. Look to European constitutions for inspiration regarding balance of power, parliamentary systems, electoral systems, basic rights. A less powerful president and a voting system that doesn’t lead to two parties might be prudent for example.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
China is building military infrastructure on contested islands in the south china sea with the goal of controlling the whole area firmly including the first island chain and Taiwan.
Countries go with China’s because it is a better deal with fewer strings attached.
There’s also no historical baggage with Chinese colonialism in Africa. Fewer strings also means China doesn’t care about democracy, human rights, and such.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
The USA put a stop to the wars on the Balkans in the 1990s: Bosnia, Kosovo.
Saddam Hussein is another one. Without the USA, he might have continued his expansion after Kuwait into Syria for example.
Latin America has had no major wars, only guerrillas and such for a long time.
The USA made peace between Egypt and Israel possible, a cornerstone for stability in the region.
The USA also kept Europe together with NATO.
Pax Americana is a thing for sure.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 2 days ago:
maybe we’ll get something entirely new?
The French are on their fifth republic already. A new constitution with better guardrails and different voting system is possible. The USA has a very deeply ingrained idea of freedom and democracy and is unlikely to lose it completely. It might be a good idea to already start thinking about how that new constitution should look like.
Balkanization or a civil war before that happens is certainly in the cards.
Maybe the military
Trump will try and purge all non loyalist officers from the military. That could lead to a fracturing of the military. California for example has big navy, air force, and marines bases, as well as military industry. The states have national guards already and whole units could defect from the federal military to the guard.
If that leads to an internal cold war, balkanization, or a civil war remains to be seen. It will make the US far less able to project force internationally. Queue China taking Taiwan without much US intervention.
- Comment on Film Discussion | Star Trek: Section 31 3 weeks ago:
Totally. What where even those flame throwers everywhere?
- Comment on Film Discussion | Star Trek: Section 31 3 weeks ago:
Worst Star Trek movie so far.
- Comment on Does the US really have no instruments in case a newly elected president immediatelly and openly exposes he's a nazi? 4 weeks ago:
The US was the first large scale modern democracy. Of course it has design flaws.
Parlamentarism, as we know it now, had only been recently established in the UK in the 17rh century.
Contemporary to US early democracy were absolutist monarchies based on aristocracy. Separation of powers envisioned by Montesquieu, Rousseau‘s social contract, were still new political ideas. The federalist papers and later US constitution were cutting edge political theory at the time.
It’s very impressive that the US has lasted so long actually and was able to adapt. The French established their first democratic republic later and were unable to create a stable state.
- Comment on Does the US really have no instruments in case a newly elected president immediatelly and openly exposes he's a nazi? 4 weeks ago:
Sometimes a voting population needs to be protected from the consequences of their vote
Who should have the power to make that decision?
Do you want a benevolent king at the top that can dissolve parliament, dismiss government, call for new elections, make parties illegal, and censor the press?
Or maybe have something like an electoral college?
Or the army coups, if things get too far?
The ultimate check on power is the people. A general strike, large scale protests, and occupation of public buildings can topple a government. Institutions from military, police, local government, government agencies, and so on value their positions and won’t go down with a sinking ship.
- Comment on Does the US really have no instruments in case a newly elected president immediatelly and openly exposes he's a nazi? 4 weeks ago:
Hold your ponies. The US is very much still a democracy, if a flawed one in many ways. The US has always been a country run by the wealthy elites, as are most countries in the world.
Buying politicians works, especially in the US, regardless of party. Democrats and Republicans are both the parties of big business and capital interests.
Besides laws around spending money for political purposes, the media landscape has revolutionized over the last 20 years. The role social media has played in Trump‘s ascendancy can’t be overstated. Trump spent less than Kamala Harris in this election and still won, because of his exceptional way to use media to his advantage.
- Comment on Does the US really have no instruments in case a newly elected president immediatelly and openly exposes he's a nazi? 4 weeks ago:
There are many conservatives, who hold democratic values, freedom, and the US constitution in high regard. Those in government service have sworn an oath to protect it against enemies foreign and domestic. They have their red lines and breaking points. The ones in powerful positions draw their whole legitimacy from it.
- Comment on Does the US really have no instruments in case a newly elected president immediatelly and openly exposes he's a nazi? 4 weeks ago:
This very liberal use of Nazi and fascist as a epithet has devalued its meaning.
Hate is not enough. The Nazis did far more than spread hate. National-Socialism was much more coherent and thought through ideology than Trumpism/MAGA is today.
Nazi might be useful as an expression of anger and resentment, but it’s not conducive to serious analysis or discourse regarding the situation.