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The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

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Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#121

Post by fragmede »

nostrademons wrote: post #47
walleeee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Might we see the nation-state get replaced by a web of competing mercenaries, each of which effectively serves as a protection racket for their customers? How do you envision the deprecation of the nuclear-armed nation state unfolding? The USSR had a unipolar world outside to stabilize and manage its disintegration. How is this accomplished in a multipolar context, with tensions inflamed by intensifying scarcity, c…

I'm not too worried about loose nukes or nuclear terrorism. Every major nuclear power other than China incorporates PALs [1] into the design of their nuclear weapons. Without a centrally generated & authenticated code, they don't function. The PAL is designed such that disabling it requires dismantling the nuclear weapon, which means you need to have the know-how to build nukes in the first place to re-enable it. Thi…

Given that Chernobyl is located inside the Ukrainian border, “its nuclear waste” doesn’t seem like that good of an argument as to why they should have gotten rid of them, given recent events.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#122

Post by puranjay »

kapp_in_life wrote: post #106
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

Also some of these seem like almost vacuous statements. Predicting food insecurity(or any other type of insecurity) in the developing world is not a groundbreaking prediction.

He didn’t just say there will be food insecurity in the developing world; he said there will be food insecurity in the developing world because of competition between nation states far, far away. A much more specific prediction.

And that’s precisely what’s happening right now - countries like India and Indonesia stopping exports to safeguard their own interests.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#123

Post by colechristensen »

puranjay wrote: post #107
next_xibalba wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you ha…

People like to point at Japan and its lack of growth pointing out to various degrees how awful that is, but if you’re actually Japanese, you’re pretty much fine for these decades of zeroish growth. Not to say Japan is an idyllic place free from problems, but the economics of a zero growth society has at least that example of a distinct lack of doom. If the rest of us experience it like that, it’s not really anything to worry about unless your worries revolve around earning money from capital.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#124

Post by agf »

asah wrote: post #87

awesome. I'm confused about two things: 1. "Not a single ship captain works in the Pentagon or any of the major national security think tanks." - I doubt there are satellite operators, travel industry execs, farmers or construction workers either. US military leaders are tasked with zero substantial threats to US peace, security and order, and mostly succeeds, with the exceptions rare enough to be newsworthy (JFK/etc…

Large, slow ships are easily found and caught. If that's a problem, then you build smaller, faster ships, which are less energy efficient.

Losses of ships are only a financial matter because losses are very rare, so insurance is cheap. If losses become common, insurance costs skyrocket and the cost of doing business goes way up, reducing the amount of trade. That's what the article is saying will happen.

I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying in the second sentence of #1. But primarily, none of the examples you cite were on the military to stop, they were the responsibility of civilian agencies.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#125

Post by CalChris »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

18 years and 9 months. Zeihan is very funny.

I don't think he is particularly 'smart' (wait for me a second here). I think he instead makes obvious conclusions from undeniable evidence like demographics and geography. The 'smarter' more institutional types from Brookings and Hoover tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#126

Post by themadturk »

shadowgovt wrote: post #81
ticklemyelmo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost worth it to be able to see a Rat Thing in action. Very briefly.

People always complain about how inhumane it is to create those things. Nobody ever asks the Rat Things how they feel about it.

Apparently the rat things are down with it. It's all puppy dog heaven until they have to go into action, and they like that as well.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#127

Post by ip26 »

asah wrote: post #87

awesome. I'm confused about two things: 1. "Not a single ship captain works in the Pentagon or any of the major national security think tanks." - I doubt there are satellite operators, travel industry execs, farmers or construction workers either. US military leaders are tasked with zero substantial threats to US peace, security and order, and mostly succeeds, with the exceptions rare enough to be newsworthy (JFK/etc…

individual losses are a financial matter and not existential threat

That's entirely a function of the loss rate. If 50% of voyages are seized by pirates, that's not just a financial matter.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#128

Post by selimthegrim »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

Zeihan is not any better than Perun about the war, and arguably much less right.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#129

Post by danuker »

timmytokyo wrote: post #68
mooreds wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Might we see the nation-state get replaced by a web of competing mercenaries, each of which effectively serves as a protection racket for their customers? Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, explores this possible future. Great book.

The takeover of government functions by multinational corporations is a cyberpunk trope. See any of William Gibson's fiction from the early 80s.

Does that make it any less likely?

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/12/industry-...

> For the 81 states for which estimates were available, private security workers appear to outnumber police forces in 44 countries – with a combined population of roughly 4 billion people – or more than half of the world’s total of 7.5 billion.

Re: The end of the world is just beginning for shipping

#130

Post by harpersealtako »

arcturus17 wrote: post #114
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #75

I’ve been following Zeihan since his first book. I’m yet to find a credible counter argument to his theses. And he’s being proven right at an alarming pace this year. So far this year we’ve had: - A land war in Europe - Food insecurity in the developing world - Breakdown of supply chains and shipping routes - Nation states resorting to seizing each other’s ships (see Greece-Iran issue recently). Everything that he ha…

You can’t argue with demographics, so you wouldn’t have argued with Malthus? He was completely wrong, at the very least in timescale.

You can't argue with demographics because, outside of immigration, it is physically impossible to change them in the short term.

Even if e.g. Korea somehow managed to get a fertility rate of 10 tomorrow, it would takes many decades for that generation to begin to contribute to the economy as a class of high-skilled laborers. No matter what Korea does, absent implausible levels of immigration, they are still set for future economic hardship due to their demographics.

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