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Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

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Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#111

Post by oneshtein »

chii wrote: post #84
mcny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. > If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech? My reading is they are trying to make us useless but we are not there yet? I assume it takes time, right? In any case, not like the west can comp…

> not like the west can complain after what we did in the opium wars? the west isn't one entity. Plus two wrongs don't make a right. Just because in the past, there has been atrocities committed, doesn't mean there's justification to do so now.

Transportation is much faster now, thus peoples are much closer to each other, so they are united at much larger scale. Few hundreds years ago, two town with few thousands were separate countries. Today European Union acts almost like single 0.5B country. In few hundred years, whole Globe will be united. In transition to Global State, whole continents, or hemispheres will be united first by geographic location, race, or religion.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#112

Post by cscurmudgeon »

mcny wrote: post #75
andsoitis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech?

>> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. > If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech? My reading is they are trying to make us useless but we are not there yet? I assume it takes time, right? In any case, not like the west can comp…

Is “West” a country?

Can US blame China for another two hundred years for Pearl Harbor because both China and Japan are the East?

The duration between the last US-UK war and Opium wars is much shorter than the Opium wars and the present. During this time, US helped China by opening up its market asymmetrically and being on its side during WW2 and even gave China aid.

> President Roosevelt approved $25 million in military aid to China on 19 December 1940, permitting the Chinese to purchase one hundred P 40 pursuit aircraft. By late spring 1941, the United States had also earmarked over $145 million in lend-lease funds for China to acquire both ground and air equipment.

https://www.history.army.mil/brochures/72-38/72-38.htm#:~:te....

The aid continues even now: https://www.usaid.gov/china

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#113

Post by TeMPOraL »

sublinear wrote: post #87
anoy8888 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just app…

> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that.

Not only this is counterproductive, it would be definitely something those hypothetical Chinese agents would say! This sentiment is what you call "the dumbest part of America" - one of personal responsibility when facing dangers that are by design above most people's threshold of self-control. If there is one thing that's likely to destabilize and destroy the western society, it's marketing and advertising industry - it's your own companies that rely on and encourage people blaming failures on themselves, because it lets them use psychological tricks to move wares.

Also:

> Who is being forced to (...) listen to extremist propaganda?

These days, everyone consuming the Internet and western mass media? There are (at least) two extremes in the US politics and culture, and while listening to one may be a choice, it's partly because the other extreme won the meme spreading battle.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#114

Post by bruce511 »

deanCommie wrote: post #95
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

systemic discrimination perpetuated by cultish religiosity? can you expound on that?

So, other than the Westernmost parts of Eastern Europe (which we can start including, since the EU has kickstarted their economic development dramatically), the US is by far the most religious country of any in what we might consider "The developed West". But it hasn't experienced a lot of the same cultural changes that it's most significant allies have gone through. Why not? There's a number of other reasons: The St…

I would respectfully suggest you are mixing cause and effect here.

Given that the religion of the US is individualism, of might-makes-right, of look-out-for-number-one, I'm not sure you can blame this on the belief of existence of God.

Indeed the -actions- of many religious Americans seems completely at odds with the tenants of their pronounced beliefs. They elected a thrice-married, self-confessed sexual-predator as president, and would like to do so again. They are anti welfare, pro gun, pro white,and so on.

By contrast, those "heathen" European states have care for the sick, care for the poor, respect for society as central pillars. They are countries (very imperfectly) following religious ideals while not having particularly religious people.

Personally I think American Christianity is an embarrassment to Christians elsewhere. Their disconect between professed beliefs, and actions is the very hypocrisy Christians are often accused of.

In the US religion and politics are tied together, which is unfortunate. There are plenty of religious Democrats, and plenty of non-hypocritical Republicans, but their voices are drowned by those with political intentions.

But make no mistake, the primary religion in the US, as evidenced by actions (not words) is money.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#115

Post by rocqua »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #103
anoy8888 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

China is fully aware of how exports of fentanyl and its precursors are getting into the US and is joking about it right now. The US is also aware, so it doesn't match the titanium story. https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fen... Xi has said that China was a great nation until the First Opium War, which he blames for plunging China into darkness until the Party took control. Though he will never…

The opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up. The war was bad for China because a foreign nation managed to force China to change domestic policy, and then managed to set chinese trade policy to allow the British to exploit China.

It was a war about power and sovereignty. Losing those is bad. It's only related to opium because the inciting incident was British worry over an opium law.

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#116

Post by cumshitpiss »

anoy8888 wrote: post #59
nwallin wrote: post #42

Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one…

That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.

[dead]

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#117

Post by shkkmo »

philipkglass wrote: post #54
nwallin wrote: post #42

Does any know any more details about this? It's a fun tidbit that gets a link/article on social media every few weeks, but it's never anything more than a tidbit. "The US needed titanium for the SR-71. The only supplier of titanium was the Soviet Union. So the US bought it from the Soviet Union through a shell corporation." But that's it. It's those 3 facts and only those three facts expressed in anywhere between one…

There is something garbled or simply wrong about this story. The US was the first country to produce metallic titanium on an industrial scale. It has more than adequate domestic ores. Titanium is one of the most common metals in the earth's crust; only the conversion from ore to metal is difficult. Here's a good primer on industrial titanium (see chapter 3): "Titanium: Past, Present, and Future" from National Academi…

You seem to be confusing processing ore into sponge with mining that ore.

TFA says that "The US worked through Third World countries and fake companies and finally was able to ship the ore to the US"

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#118

Post by gdy »

nonethewiser wrote: post #85
mcny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. > If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech? My reading is they are trying to make us useless but we are not there yet? I assume it takes time, right? In any case, not like the west can comp…

The US did not fuel the opium wars

They did. [0]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12gw8w/what_...

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#119

Post by lern_too_spel »

rocqua wrote: post #115
lern_too_spel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is fully aware of how exports of fentanyl and its precursors are getting into the US and is joking about it right now. The US is also aware, so it doesn't match the titanium story. https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fen... Xi has said that China was a great nation until the First Opium War, which he blames for plunging China into darkness until the Party took control. Though he will never…

The opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up. The war was bad for China because a foreign nation managed to force China to change domestic policy, and then managed to set chinese trade policy to allow the British to exploit China. It was a war about power and sovereignty. Losing those is bad. It's only related to opium because the inciting incident was British worry over an opium law.

> The opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up.

Neither I nor Xi made that claim.

China told the British to stop selling opium because it was damaging China's economy (by extracting silver, which Chinese taxes were denominated in), making more Chinese turn to drugs, creating a virtuous cycle for British East India Company and other drug traders. The British refused because they wanted Chinese tea but were unwilling to pay in silver, which was the only payment China would accept because China didn't want British goods, so the British used military power to establish British-owned ports to import opium for silver (using some of it to buy all the tea the British could drink) and dictate Chinese trade policy.

Without the opium trade, none of this would have happened. China likewise doesn't care what the US thinks about fentanyl damaging the US economy, with the total damage estimated at 7% of GDP in 2020. https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-...

Re: Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens

#120

Post by ImHereToVote »

rocqua wrote: post #115
lern_too_spel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is fully aware of how exports of fentanyl and its precursors are getting into the US and is joking about it right now. The US is also aware, so it doesn't match the titanium story. https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fen... Xi has said that China was a great nation until the First Opium War, which he blames for plunging China into darkness until the Party took control. Though he will never…

The opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up. The war was bad for China because a foreign nation managed to force China to change domestic policy, and then managed to set chinese trade policy to allow the British to exploit China. It was a war about power and sovereignty. Losing those is bad. It's only related to opium because the inciting incident was British worry over an opium law.

This might be true, but it doesn't feel true. So it will be ignored.
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