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

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

#341

Post by tomp » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #314

colinmhayes wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predicted the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 after no one gave a shit about the Crimean invasion. Plenty of other people did too, it wasn't even a difficult prediction to make, Putin has been very clear about his Ukrainian ambition for a long time. Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine, all of the state department officials were bewildered because they knew abou…

If it was so clear, then tell me, why did putin wait for so long.

Because Trump threatened to strike back. Putin was afraid of Trump, but he knows that Biden has no spine.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-talks-threatening-putin-...

> “If you move against Ukraine while I’m president,” Trump is said to have told the Russian leader, “I will hit Moscow.”

> Putin reportedly scoffed, “No way,” leading Trump to say, “All those beautiful golden turrets will be blown up.”

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

#342

Post by colinmhayes » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #337

colinmhayes wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predicted the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 after no one gave a shit about the Crimean invasion. Plenty of other people did too, it wasn't even a difficult prediction to make, Putin has been very clear about his Ukrainian ambition for a long time. Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine, all of the state department officials were bewildered because they knew abou…

> Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine Don't fall for left-wing propaganda. The impeachment was all about politics, the "withholding military aid" was just a convenient excuse. The actual fact is, Trump provided way more military aid to Ukraine than e.g. Obama. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/politics/us-ukraine-aid-f... (ignore the title, focus on the text…

I'm not commenting on whether he deserved to be impeached, only that we have proof that the state department thought it was very important to provide Ukraine with military aid.

Either way though, the crimean invasion happen 6 years into Obama's term. Not surprising that Trump gave them more aid.

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

#343

Post by hintymad » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:55 PM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #326

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…

Why in the world do you think it would take $300 to buy a pair of shoes??? Like what? You can buy all the raw materials for 10 - 15 dollars (way less in bulk) and a single person can make a pair in under an hour with minimal training. Manufacturing things in the US doesn't have to be vastly more expensive. The greatest revolution right now is the ability to do small scale manufacturing. Now the issue is that most of…

I was thinking of the price of shoes in the late 80s when Canada and US had not outsourced their shoe manufacturing, and my mom told me that it would cost more than $200 to buy a pair of decent shoes. Now adding inflation and subtracting tech improvements, I came up with the $300 number. The point is that I'm willing to pay more to see US as productive as when it was in post-WWII era.

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

#344

Post by potta_coffee » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:56 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #312

worik wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a tautology that "grow at all costs" is not a sustainable economic order. It has been apparent since at least the 1970s that the limits to the growth phase of industrialisation is looming. It has been blindingly obvious for twenty years that we urgently need to change our economies to not require growth to maintain development. This is not new. It has been shouted from the roof tops for decades. Not shifting ec…

“We should content ourselves with being poorer than our parents were”. Fuck no.

Our parents and grandparents borrowed from the future in order to attain that wealth. Now we have to suck it up.

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

#345

Post by hintymad » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 8:58 PM UTC

nineplay wrote: post #236

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…

> Yes, it will be expensive, but then I'll just buy fewer pairs This is key though, it presupposes everyone can buy fewer pairs. There are probably a lot of people who get by on one pair of sneakers - particularly children, who are going to grow out of them anyway. These are the people that will suffer if $300 shoes become commonplace.

> There are probably a lot of people who get by on one pair of sneakers - particularly children,

I assume that the increase of income will compensate the increase of price. Or I certainly hope so.

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

#346

Post by TheCowboy » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

immigrantheart wrote: post #336

Anyone else excited for de-globalization and slower economies/development? I can't think of any negative consequences of these. On the other hand, these seems to be positives for me: - less diversity - less multiculturalism - less polarization (due to 2 above) - hopefully more inward progress looking/more defensive nations and less invasive nations - slower tech/innovation, people can catch up with life, lawmakers ca…

The problem is you're posting these bullets without a thoughtful explanation. You're going to need a fragmentation of the internet to truly stamp out diversity and multiculturalism. Why you would want to do that? I don't know, but good luck with embracing non-existent cultural purity.

I'll pick on the "less invasive nations" part which is wishful thinking. If you have America or any multilateral global order among democracies, you're more likely to have nations trying to get away with what they can with their neighbors. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the most recent glaring example of this, except the responsive was unexpected by many. We only have all of human history of empires and warring countries as examples. This doesn't result in a balanced less polarized global equilibrium. Less cooperation among countries would be worse for the environment even if you ignore the war aspect.

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

#347

Post by mcphage » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #314

colinmhayes wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I predicted the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 after no one gave a shit about the Crimean invasion. Plenty of other people did too, it wasn't even a difficult prediction to make, Putin has been very clear about his Ukrainian ambition for a long time. Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine, all of the state department officials were bewildered because they knew abou…

If it was so clear, then tell me, why did putin wait for so long.

Because he was waiting for Trump to pull the US out of NATO. Which Putin wanted him to do, and Trump talked endlessly about doing, but kept waiting and waiting. Trump knows it's good to have a powerful man need you to do something, it's not so good to have already done it. Of course, you can only make them wait for so long, which was why Trump made it clear he would do that at the start of his second term.

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

#348

Post by didericis » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 9:04 PM UTC

codefreeordie wrote: post #168

ajuc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's before WW2 maybe. I'm talking about 80s vs now.

Oh, for sure, having children stopped being net-economically-positive long ago -- though the degree to which it is net-economically-negative seems like it has kept increasing, as our expectations of an acceptable childhood keep growing.

It is economically positive in the real economy.

Our paper economies are not in tune with reality. They were made to serve people. If there are fewer people with fewer relationships and our economies value numbers over creating happy families, our metrics and economies are broken.

It did not take material wealth or years of checkbox regulated planning to raise a happy family in the past and it does not take it now.

The decline in birthrates is a world wide values and time allocation problem. We do not prioritize relationships and community building, we prioritize immediate gratification and status seeking.

All that an economy should do is manage the logistics of a higher purpose.

We have lost that higher purpose.

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

#349

Post by robertlagrant » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #12

prometheus76 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all government has ever been and will always be: a protection racket.

> That's all government has ever been and will always be: a protection racket. Eh, no. I think it's usually an indication of sloppy thinking when someone makes sweepingly absolute statements about vague, abstract concepts with numerous and important differences in implementation.

Let's hope it's not an indication of sloppy thinking in this case!

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

#350

Post by KaiserPro » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

Barrera wrote: post #51

KaiserPro wrote: post #34

THe problem with this prediction is that there is an astronomical amount of money tied up in global trade. To stop that would be incredibly disruptive. Thats not to say it won't happen (history has plenty of examples. WWI is a recent one). However for the "end of shipping" to happen we need those vested interests to stop being interested in literal trillions of dollars worth of trade. I can see a few scenarios where…

The point Zeihan makes is that world trade as we know it a recent invention. It exists purely as a result of the US commitment to protect trade from piracy around the world. Prior to that, the system was one of isolated empires each protecting their own routes. As the US is largely self-sufficient in energy and will likely start becoming self-sufficient in a great many things, it needs the rest of the world less and…

> world trade as we know it a recent invention

I'm going to be very bold here, and say thats almost entirely incorrect. Any empire in the last 2000 years has depended on global trade. Before empire, in the bronze age, there is evidence of international trade.

> it needs the rest of the world less and less.

If we ignore the part where its almost entirely untrue that the USA is becoming self sufficient(its not, there is a reason why the Dollar is the international trade currency), It needs the world to export to.

> Those shipping lines, which mainly benefit the rest of the world

[citation needed] ~14% of the entire economy is spent on imports: https://www.statista.com/statistics/259096/us-imports-as-a-p...

about 11% of GDP is tied to exports. (see previous link, fiddle to get exports.)

> All it takes for an end of shipping is for the US to stop protecting shipping lines

What shipping lines is it specifically protecting? Unless the ship is a US flag carrier, there is no legal obligation for the US to protect it.

The % of global trade using US based ships is three tenths of fuck all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merchant_navy_capacity...

according to the US's own stats its 0.6% of all global shipping: https://www.bts.gov/content/number-and-size-us-flag-merchant...

The US stopped all that >60 years ago.

The things that stop global trade are disasters, wars, or weird autocracy fetishes (see expelling jews(middle ages), WWI, James I & Charles I being inept, north korea.) not "the natural order".