Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention that the US deployed strategic arms in more diverse locations (other countries), making a first strike against them that takes out most of their response capability difficult to pull off successfully.
Wtf? Why are people in this thread acting like the nuclear option is an actual option. This isn't StarCraft where you trade into the enemy forces, and as long as you cripple their economy you win. You just killed billions of innocent people. Everyone lost. Y'all need to go watch War Games again. The only winning move is not to play.
Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
231–240 of 538 posts
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Personally, I think they'd go for it. If there were sizable numbers of US troops on Taiwan, I don't think they'd attack. They don't want a major confrontation, at least not yet.
> If there were sizable numbers of US troops on Taiwan, I don't think they'd attack. They don't want a major confrontation, at least not yet. There's a decent chance at this point that all those troops would do is hold the airport for a rushed evacuation mission.
The US does care about Taiwan, because of real economic interests.
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink. Have you ever tried it? FWIW, coworkers in my org pushed for a blacklist of words we’re not allowed to check into the codebase within the last year. I raised my counter opinion. I did so respectfully. Today, there’s no blacklist, and I still have my job. Btw my presidential vote was a write-in f…
> Btw my presidential vote was a write-in for Bernie Sanders as president with Yang as running mate the comment before was probably not aimed at those who vote or support the left.
But here's a right-leaning hot take to drive the point home: 18 months into this pandemic and I've never once had any input into the policy response. I thought the agreement was "I get the vaccine, I get to live my life as normal". Now that policy changes (mostly state-level) are flipping that, I regret getting the vaccine: I'm in a low-risk demographic and I just gave up my most powerful tool in influencing policy decision. I won't make that same mistake with the booster shots Biden discussed earlier today: I won't be getting those until my policy leaders actually serve me as a constituent.
> it's well known in tech that you're putting your job/livelihood at risk by speaking contrary to the political groupthink.
Still confident that GP is wrong about that and I won't lose my job or livelihood by posting this.
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also don't understand your comment. I went so far as to quickly skim through the history of Taiwan and I don't understand why you said China belongs to Taiwan?
I expect his argument is that the former national government of mainland China fled to Taiwan during the revolution. This is true, but it doesn't make a strong argument for legitimacy. Former governments flee countries frequently, and unless there is a rapidly implemented plan to try to get them back into power they are generally ignored. Taiwan is better viewed as a breakaway state than having any legitimate stake i…
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whose voice is getting quashed in the US? Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, email, phones, a magazine, protests, their own news channels, subReddits. What group doesn't have all those things? Whose voice is being quashed - exactly? Even straight up Nazis have websites, newsletters, gatherings, organized protest marches and Facebook pages. The fucking Taliban is on Twitter. So...who is being quashed because of their b…
> Everyone has a Facebook, Twitter [...] subReddits You appear to be arguing that no-one has ever been kicked off Facebook or Twitter, and that no subreddits have ever been banned. Is that your position?
Such a privileged and weak notion of silencing. China will send people to camps and the police will break down a memorial museum - that's silencing.
Getting kicked from FB/Twitter because for being a twat doesn't mean your group is persecuted.
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USA has been losing all war games where it defends Tawain against China. https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/us-war-games-over-china-threat... It is not okay to assume USA supremacy against adversaries anymore. Why Americans still do business with China is astounding to me.
1) "Last fall, the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region" These are superfluous conditions (i.e. predicting bioweapons), and of course, and you're not going to hear about the 'real' results. And of course it ignores the after effects. 2) Defenders have considerable advantage in that situation, especially with a water gap. Th…
I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If there were a war there'd be no "Made in China" goods being exported. That would be the best thing that ever happened to the rest of the world, and to Chinese citizens as well. China has long abused its citizens to undercut global prices on manufactured goods. Their political and religious prisoners are very often put to work in factories (if not sent to work camps or tortured in prison); and wages for factory wo…
We wouldn't be trading with China if it didn't benefit us. A sanction damages the participants as much as its target. This doesn't matter if your target is a smaller country like Iran or even Russia, but China is way to big an exporter to sanction. >Their political and religious prisoners are very often put to work in factories (if not sent to work camps or tortured in prison) So you want them to shut down the factor…
The ends don't justify the means when those means are morally wrong. Morally wrong means create collateral damage that I believe will haunt us for generations to come. (I'm sure you can think of various 20th century dictators whose actions still haunt the world.)
> China's average wage more than doubled over the past 10 years.
That's good, but it's more a result of Jintao's relaxed policy than the current president's policy. Not that I approve of Jintao - he was as much an authoritarian leader as those that preceded him.
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#238Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
Well apart from over 70 years of mostly stable government (with Tiananmen square being the exception) they are broadly recognized by most countries and the UN and have been for close to 50 years. There's little evidence of support in China or even in Taiwan for the idea that the Taiwan government are the legitimate government of mainland China, and Taiwanese ambition is pretty much limited in practical terms to self…
Re: Hong Kong: Police Raid Tiananmen Square Museum
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
US has sophisticated missile defense systems and enough nukes to send the entire continent of asia back to the stone age. A nuclear war started by any other nation than the U.S. is literally suicide, and these world leaders know it which is why all there has been since WWII in terms of nuclear warfare is saber rattling.
No sane person would initiate a first strike --it's uncertain whether someone would be able to launch a full retaliatory strike. Only insane people like Castro and LeMay would give orders to launch. Today's nukes are near-civilization ending. They are not the equivalent of a month's worth of carpet bombing executed in one sortie.