The end of the world is just beginning for shipping • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by bombcar » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #214

myself248 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, after the one-time pain, assuming they survive the pain, the sanctioned nation arguably ends up stronger because they're forced to develop in-house versions of things. I'm just waiting for China to decide they're strong enough to cut the US off. Assuming we survive the pain, that'll be an interesting day.

The industry developed during sanctions is a lot like those created during times of highly protectionist policies though. Once those walls come down, they have to compete with the rest of the world that has been innovating a lot faster. They’ll need a lot of supplemental income or all these bubble-spawned companies will die off. I think it’d be smarter to NOT try to develop everything in-house if you’re a smaller cou…

Some of the most important "industries" for a country to survive are not very exciting or competitive - farming and energy being the two main ones.

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

#262

Post by notahacker » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #194

kapp_in_life wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here’s one for you: He predicted the invasion of Ukraine back in this video from 2017 (actually earlier, but this was the easiest source for me to cite): https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo The whole video is pretty short, but he mentions Ukraine about 2 1/2 minutes in.

To be fair to Zeihan, he apparently got the year for the Ukraine invasion everyone knew Putin ideally wanted but didn't think he'd dare.

But he also predicted the economic collapse of China in the last decade, and Japan being involved in a major crisis or possibly a regional conflict due to its [already established] ageing population issues, and those predictions which definitely didn't happen are arguably much more important to his core ideas about demographic trends.

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

#263

Post by KennyBlanken » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

ROTMetro wrote: post #215

nicodjimenez wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the opinion you share is unpopular, it's because it's correct, and the truth is the enemy of the oligarchs that are scamming citizens in the US and the West in general. US is now a scam that exports inflation and crap 2nd rate weaponry. Scam economy, scam military industrial complex, scam military, scam president, scam everything. If you have a feeling the US is in decline, it's because it is. The situation is muc…

And who is ascendant? China, who, oops, was overcounting their population by 100 million and now realize they have reached/passed the peak working population? Europe, who is completely dependant on the USA to maintain a unipolar world that they then take advantage of? Are you an 80s kid like me, and Japan and Russia are going to eat our lunch any day now? Maybe Dubai with their wanna be Vegas financial center in the…

> Europe, who is completely dependant on the USA to maintain a unipolar world that they then take advantage of?

....that's not how NATO works. God, I wish Trump's lies didn't have so much staying power.

https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+nato+funding+fact+chec...

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

#264

Post by mooreds » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #151

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.

Here's a skeptical look at some of his claims: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/peter-zeihan-makes-bad...

Thanks! I appreciated this. Some of the links are especially good, where the author goes back to Zeihan's STRATFOR days and talks about how they've been predicting the end of China for years.

Note that this is from 2018. I looked at the site briefly and didn't see any more recent predictions.

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

#265

Post by anotherman554 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

BorgHunter wrote: post #136

anotherman554 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Snowcrash is intentionally campy and satirical? At any rate I don't think what science fiction writers do is "exploring possible futures" so much as "telling lies for fun and profit" as one author entitled his fiction writing craft book.

"Intentionally campy and satirical" and "chillingly predictive" are not mutually exclusive. The movie Idiocracy has probably become the canonical example in that space. In any case, speculative fiction is usually more about the present than it is about the future. The original Star Trek, for instance, dealt quite a bit with the racial politics of the 1960s, even though it was set in the 2260s. The hypercapitalism in…

It's "telling lies" in the sense that I wouldn't expect the author to think that the plot of the book, or anything like it, is a logical extrapolation of existing trends.

Could hyper corporatization of America continue? Sure. Might the author be commenting on present trends? Absolutely.

Does the book's author actually believe the mafia might hire street samurai to do pizza deliveries? Probably not.

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

#266

Post by BeetleB » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

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…

You didn't address anything in the comment you responded to.

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

#267

Post by manuelabeledo » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

542458 wrote: post #245

manuelabeledo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. I suspect that this would just help keep the same returns for the shareholders and executives. Shoes may be more expensive, but not $200 more expensive (if we take that on average they cost $100 now) if made in the US. Even for a single worker spen…

Shoes that retail for $120-$150 don’t cost $100 to make. Normal shoes cost like $20 to make. The rest of the costs are transportation, warehousing, marketing, etc. Also remember that retail takes a 25-35% cut. I would expect a shoe that costs $200 to make to retail for at least $400.

My point is that the hypothetical $200 difference between a pair of shoes made in the US, and somewhere else, is not going to go to the folks making them.

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

#268

Post by dukeofdoom » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:41 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #176

hintymad wrote: post #167

This is probably an unpopular opinion: it pains me to see the manufacturing industry decline in the US. I don't really mind paying $300 for a pair of shoes. Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs. In return, more people get decent jobs, or so I hope. And no, I'm not talking about just the so-called "low-end" manufacturing, but also the high end. Indeed, how can we even grow "high-end" talent if…

I've recently been surprised much better EU manufacturing is doing than US manufacturing. I don't think cost of labor is the only factor at play.

Europe still kind of has regional currencies, so that makes manufacturing cheaper in certain countries, while the lower wages still can pay for an acceptable standard of living inside those countries.

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

#269

Post by mlindner » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #199

CalChris wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient There's the famous UN population projections where they show Europe and Asia declining for a while, then leveling out around 2050. Why? Well, they published their reasoning: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig... >Evidence from surveys of childbearing preferences indicate that even in populations with low…

THANK YOU! I've been looking for the rationalization of that rediculous curve for months now and haven't been able to find it. It makes zero sense that the curve would suddenly start leveling out. We're headed right for a population collapse in a century or two.

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

#270

Post by tacker2000 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #2

Interesting to combine this line of thinking with the transition from nation-states to market-states: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1744057060106386... The power vacuum that's arisen from populism & isolationism is about to create a gigantic untapped market for firms that provide the services of a state - defense, dispute resolution, and currency - for a fee, to gigantic multinational corporations. At t…

Interesting idea, but where might the physical boundaries of such a entity be? Since we are physical beings… would the corporations buy land to live on? Would we be all just living this in a virtual world? Would we be on a gigantic spaceship?