261–270 of 292 posts
On Aug 2020, a US spy satellite moved close to a Chinese satellite, attempting to shadow it closely. It was caught by the Chinese and they maneuvered it to get away from the US satellite. This seems to constitute ill or malign intent. Why would you go and bother the property of another person? What is the intent behind this move? Trust goes both ways, and it takes effort from both parties to build trust. This kind of…
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No. >China is culturally an ancient agrarian society focused more on defending farmland is nonsense just like all the Chinese netizens who keep saying that "We Descendants of Yanhuang have 5000 years of history". Non-sense, PRC happened in 1949, and before that, it's a History of ethnicities from all over the land Conquer, Massacre, Annex and Integrate each other. EDIT: > China is not interested in controlling or imp…
"The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people are mostly concentrated in the People's Republic of China (Mainland China), where they make up about 92% of the total population.[2] In the Republic of China (Taiwan), they make up about 97% of the population." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese Is that incorrect?
It reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nxqDHHORqg LOL
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There will never be a Chinese hegemony. The actual decision is between US hegemony and a duopolar or multipolar world. The latter are pretty obviously preferable if you're not American or not very closely allied.
Multipolar is going to be the most likely future, with at least 4 poles: China, India, US, EU. Probably more in far future. Talking about US/China hegemony is just delusional fearmongering.
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TBF, there are no representatives of US/NATO on wechat.
It's their loss. To be fair, they had to create a pretty massive and intrusive censorship system to prevent the widespread Western propaganda from entering their borders.
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The naval analogy applies especially in space: any weapon you put on a ship you can build one 10x bigger on the shore. The shore in this case is the moon. In the case of rocket interception from the moon, you put a big laser on the moon, not complicated. Could you do that from the Earth? Atmosphere, etc. As for historical precedent for military dominance presaging development, it isn't really a good example, but it's…
Please don't argue by metaphor. Unlike the age of sail, modern warfare doesn't use simply bigger weapons. We've got all the megatons of nukes anyone would want. The USS Hornet was much less powerful than the land-based airfields of Hawai'i. Guess which one was able to bomb Japan first. Obvious complication with a Moon-based laser system: beam divergence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_divergence . What Moon-based…
[metaphor warning]It's like VCs[/metaphor warning] to use HN mindthink, who will fund the trillions to get a functional space civs? Oh and they'll just [metaphor warning]kumbaya[/metaphor warning] and write off their massive investments with no controlling interest?
As for the [metaphor warning]British Empire[/metaphor warning] or any other colonialism METAPHOR, at least there aren't [metaphor warning]indiginous tribes[/metaphor warning] that will be displaced, exploited, and exterminated.
Size does matter with gravity wells. If you don't want to concede that, then you're arguing against very basic physics. The moon allows the instant deployment of a far larger force of weapons on demand than from Earth's surface.
If you had a moon base, you could launch an army of battle satellites on short notice. It's basically drone warfare in space. Right now you have to predeploy your satellite flotilla and then the enemy just needs to deploy tracking H/K units. The moon has superior gravity well position to deploy a satellite and satellite killer army without launch windows, rocket and payload preparation, etc. Your deployments are very easily tracked, from launch to payload deployment, to orbit, with bounds on where that satellite will travel and how much delta-v it can have.
The point is there is currently no political [metaphor warning]horse [/metaphor warning] to [metaphor warning]carry the water[/metaphor warning] of putting a functional economic base in space. Military supremacy is a very tantalizing motivation to provide a trillion dollars of funding, and there basically isn't any others [metaphor warning]on the table[/metaphor warning].
As for laser focusing, you are thinking like a small satellite designer would think who is constrained by launch capability. Moon military systems could have VERY LARGE lasers. Hell you could do simple space mirrors to achieve the desired effect, light delays be damned.
I'll argue by metaphor if I want to.
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> Whose culture is right? What is right in the eyes of the law? Perhaps I’m the only one who feels this way based on the number of pro-China posts, but a Chinese hegemony would likely be a world of censorship and social credit. Compared to a flawed US democracy I’ll take the US democracy every time.
There will never be a Chinese hegemony. The actual decision is between US hegemony and a duopolar or multipolar world. The latter are pretty obviously preferable if you're not American or not very closely allied.
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Please don't argue by metaphor. Unlike the age of sail, modern warfare doesn't use simply bigger weapons. We've got all the megatons of nukes anyone would want. The USS Hornet was much less powerful than the land-based airfields of Hawai'i. Guess which one was able to bomb Japan first. Obvious complication with a Moon-based laser system: beam divergence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_divergence . What Moon-based…
The dream of some non-national space peace nation with everyone [metaphor warning]smoking peace pipes[/metaphor warning] is a nice fantasy. I'd like it to be the case, but if we can't do it on Earth, why would space, with far more difficult resource constraints (and therefore competition) have LESS conflict? Please. [metaphor warning]It's like VCs[/metaphor warning] to use HN mindthink, who will fund the trillions to…
Antarctica isn't militarized, and it also has "difficult resource constraints".
Guess they must have been passing around some good weed back then in the UN building.
> you could launch an army of battle satellites on short notice
You've changed the topic. I objected to your claim that a "moon base ... could effectively attack ... rockets attempting to reach orbit".
It CANNOT. Those battle satellites would take two days to reach the Earth, giving plenty of time for rockets to reach orbit.
> Moon military systems could have VERY LARGE lasers
Looks like you got some of that good weed too.
Your "could" requires magic pixie dust. If you're going to break the laws of physics, might as well have transporter beams too.
A moon based laser CANNOT prevent a rocket reaching orbit if only because the rocket can launch from the other side of the planet.
You are of course free to argue by metaphor. The metaphor of comparing modern military tactics to the age of sail, back when more powerful cannon made for a more powerful ship, is still fundamentally flawed.
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No, they can never reach hegemony. The economy and population of the US would never have allowed it to reach hegemony if it wasn't for WW2 and it's extremely privileged position in North America. Geographically China will always have a lot of trouble projecting naval power internationally because of Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Malaccas. Thus, even if it had 2x the economy of the US, the US would still be able…
> you need to have a clear advantage over everyone else. China will never have that over the US+Europe. "never" is a strong word here. Tech and military wise they're catching up really fast. They have a much fitter and controlled population. Their economy is doing real good, they're spreading their influence over Africa, &c. The US is crumbling on virtually every aspect, Europe isn't doing much better, if China and t…
On Aug 2020, a US spy satellite moved close to a Chinese satellite, attempting to shadow it closely. It was caught by the Chinese and they maneuvered it to get away from the US satellite. This seems to constitute ill or malign intent. Why would you go and bother the property of another person? What is the intent behind this move? Trust goes both ways, and it takes effort from both parties to build trust. This kind of…
AFAIK, there is only one nation on this planet that has dropped a nuke on another country, that can put the rest of the world on edge. Besides you cant rush globalisation, cultural differences take time to evolve over generations, we haven't had the internet and other forms of communication for that many years in the scheme of things and there are still many people on this planet who have not even used or regularly u…
I fear China in peace.
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When I was a kid I absolutely thought the military was cool. My kids books had fighter jets, aircraft carriers, tanks, and soldiers. And that was all awesome and badass. Now I have a toddler, and I think it's appalling that kids books include this machinery amongst the same pages as firetrucks, ambulances, passenger jets, and cruise ships. It's completely fucked up how we normalize weapons of war and indoctrinate our…
It is not completely fucked. You can only reliably retain that which you can defend. Fighting demands discipline and extremes of performance. Martial arts and dance play similar roles for children for good reason.
Did anyone in the US seriously feel that they were in danger of losing something in America to Saddam?
Does anyone actually think today that China is going to invade and occupy the US?
Not saying NOBODY in the world has to feel this way. Taiwan surely does. Ukraine surely does. South Korea. A dozen other places in the world.