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Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#471

Post by maxglute »

ceejayoz wrote: post #435
maxglute wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty common takeaway from martime analysts. 90% of US transport command missions are run by commercial operators. Maersk contracted DoD vessels refused to transit red sea pre Prosperity Guardian when they already had USN escorts is pretty big red flag on US ability to rely on civilian shipping (and air) for protracted conflict. And right now a lot of rear logistics has been outsourced to civilian sector, fr…

> Maersk contracted DoD vessels refused to transit red sea pre Prosperity Guardian when they already had USN escorts is pretty big red flag on US ability to rely on civilian shipping (and air) for protracted conflict. A protracted conflict would involve significantly more pressure from the US government to comply. There's nothing so critical right now they need to make a big fuss with Maersk. If we go to war with som…

US has dramatically less ability to pressure NON-US crew on NON-US vessels to go on even more suicidal mission in peer war. That's what large segments of the outsourced 90% sealift is coming from. Non-Americans whom US gov have little pressure and can't draft to do military logistics missions during a war. Defense Production Act doesn't apply to them - and with respect to purely DoD/domestic sealift, the issue is US currently lacks significant amount of American hulls and American sailors to fulfill DoD logistics. Both of which has multi year lead time.

The other 10% that's firmly under US control is military sealift command, which is around 130 ships. The concern isn't shipping not going through red sea in protracted PRC scenario - it's if 90% of US DoD logistics capacity won't go to Japan, Korea, Philippines, even Guam etc. Like how DoD contracted Maersk ships initially weren't going up the red sea to presumably supply US interests in region. And now that another Maersk ship got hit, they're doing another 48 hour pause to reevaluate. US needs all the logistics to operate smoothly in a peer war. Not be uncertain whether 90% of military sealift will evaporate because private interest doesn't align with US foreign policy. Even worse considering alterantive is waiting a few years for Defense Production Act to buy/build new ships and train new sailors.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#472

Post by dang »

mrtksn wrote: post #469
dang wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread—e.g. here and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38826719 . Please don't do that on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Instead, please make your substantive points thoughtfully. This topic raises a lot of strong feelings in everyone. If your feelings prevent you from commenting within the site guidelines, please wait to comment until that's…

It's a fair point and I don't object with this comment being flagged but please notice that the parent one is calling me unreasonable when I try to be polite and provide thorough reasoning about my position on the issue. Is that O.K. really? They don't even address me when talking about me, that's why I felt the need to reply with a bit of a sarcasm and emotional tone. I also provided a document by the United Nations…

Do you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38827758? "Isn't going to be reasoned with" is maybe not the best wording; "isn't likely to be persuaded" might be a better way to put that. But I don't think it was really a personal attack. I can see how it could feel that way in the context of an intense conflict like this one, but from an outside perspective I think it's a stretch to say that the comment "is calling me unreasonable". Moreover the intention was clearly trying to dampen the flamewar, which is a good thing.

Here's a point I've often tried to communicate in situations like this, which I'll repeat here in case it's helpful—but please understand that I'm not talking about you personally; as far as I can tell we all have this bias...

There's a common pattern where people underestimate the provocation in their own comments by (say) 10x and overestimate the provocation in the other person's comments by another 10x. Put those together and you get a 100x distortion in self/other perception. That's a lot of distortion. It's basically "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear". In my experience it's helpful to remember this and try to consciously correct for the distortion. Even if you bend over backwards to do that, you probably won't compensate for the entire 100x but you'll at least be less likely to misgauge the impact of your posts and thereby produce unintentional negative effects. Not that any of this is easy, but it's something we should all be aware of and working on.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#473

Post by johnnyworker »

dang wrote: post #467
johnnyworker wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel has the means to kill far more people, if it wanted to - it just doesn't. That you say this and still come on to me with that "I share your values" stuff is just gold.

You've been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread—e.g. in the parent comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38829675 , and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38824306 . Please don't do that on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Instead, please make your substantive points thoughtfully. This topic raises a lot of strong feelings in everyone. If your feelings prevent you from commenti…

For you it seems to be all about having a nice site. For me it's about having a nice world in which people can enjoy intellectual curiosity without being monstrously guilty for it.

> Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.

This is right now. And this is HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833350

Given how dedicated large sectors of the US tech industry are to silencing discussion, I can only say, I'll think about it. I might prefer to take my leave from this site than participating in it, to preserve something more valuable, more fundamental, while you explore this local optimum of discussion within a framework of normalizing genocide and sophistry with generous helpings of plausible deniability.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#474

Post by adolph »

r00fus wrote: post #466
adolph wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the ships they target are either own fully or partially by Israeli companies, or are headed to Israeli ports As I understand it, this is not true. If you have a citation listing strikes with manifests, I’d appreciate being able to update my priors. Wikipedia lists 17 strikes. I see that 3 have some Israeli ownership or port of call: Galaxy Leader, Symi, and Strinda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_invo…

It doesn’t matter that some ships weren’t nominally owned by Israel but in reality owned by shell corporations in turn owned by Israel-supporting billionaires.

Do you have a fact source or just vague associations? The statement at question is "Most of the ships they target are either own fully or partially by Israeli companies, or are headed to Israeli ports"

From source Wikipedia, this is not true. Only 3 of 17 have Israeli ownership or ports of call. Do you have a source for Israeli ownership or ports of call for 6 more ships?

Also, your stated class of "owned by Israel-supporting billionaires" is moving the goalposts. That is not the announced Houthi criteria.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#475

Post by telotortium »

genman wrote: post #461
telotortium wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Look to where just cowardly moving out of Afghanistan has taken us. Another humiliating retreat would be a colossal blow to US." It's not about humiliation at this point. The US actually cannot beat these countries straight up in a shooting war anymore. The combination of post-Cold War deindustrialization, the lack of morale after 2 decades of fruitless wars, and the politicization of the military reducing its appea…

Yes, you are correct, but only partially. Nothing stopped NATO countries to ramp up their military production - defense industry is awaiting for it. Where are the shells promised to Ukraine by EU countries? They are not available because companies can't make them fast enough, no, they are not available because politicians haven't made large enough orders. It is not that Western countries can't ramp up their productio…

Well, the companies can't make them fast enough because the political establishment doesn't see maintaining readiness as a priority when money could be spent on other things. Nor did much of the population - I remember it used to be very popular to compare the American military budget unfavorably to the lower budgets of European countries - shouldn't we put that money to social programs? Now though, as much as the American military has fallen, at least it is still legitimately powerful - most European armies these days are Potemkin forces. All of which is to say, I agree with your comment.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#476

Post by dang »

johnnyworker wrote: post #473
dang wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread—e.g. in the parent comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38829675 , and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38824306 . Please don't do that on HN, no matter how right you are or feel you are. Instead, please make your substantive points thoughtfully. This topic raises a lot of strong feelings in everyone. If your feelings prevent you from commenti…

For you it seems to be all about having a nice site. For me it's about having a nice world in which people can enjoy intellectual curiosity without being monstrously guilty for it. > Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food…

> For you it seems

I appreciate you saying "seems" because that's not how I feel.

I hear what you say and trust that you sincerely feel strongly about this, but it's not ok to channel that into posting abusively. Moreover, since we've had to ask you this before, in an unrelated context, this isn't just about the current topic.

Commenters often assume that feeling strongly about being right (as they see it) on an important topic means that it's ok to let loose on others—because after all, they're right (as they see it), it's an important topic, and they feel strongly. Actually the opposite is the case, and as I tried to point out, you discredit your own views by behaving this way.

I know it isn't easy but it is possible to make your substantive points without name-calling, personal attack, or flamewar.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#477

Post by quonn »

empath75 wrote: post #162
mkii wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be a necessary condition, but definitely not a sufficient one to be considered a superpower. Simple thought experiment, "completely erasing" the US as you suggest would render the Earth unpleasant to live on, for a while, for all inhabitants.

yes, that's why they remain a superpower. If you have the ability to make life on earth extremely unpleasant for all of humanity, that's super power status. Even just having nuclear weapons isn't enough for that- you need large numbers of fusion bombs -- which Russia has, and the US has, and no one else does.

No, this is just not correct. Being a superpower requires, at a minimum, being able to win a conventional war with a state lacking nuclear weapons. The reason for that is that nuclear weapons cannot actually be used in practice. They can only serve as a deterrent to not be attacked.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#478

Post by semiquaver »

verelo wrote: post #449
semiquaver wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It adds 7-10 days to a trip that would normally take 30-40 days: https://www.flexport.com/blog/global-ocean-carriers-halt-red... Air cargo rates are 10-20x ocean, so it’s unlikely an extra week of travel would justify the expense for most cases.

My point is it’s not cheaper it’s more expensive, at precisely the wrong time. Sure shipping costs might be a small fraction of the costs of goods…but…unless it’s TLDR: it’s more than 2%, the average value of a shipping container is 50k, it costs 3k to mover. This is an issue, let’s resolve it. https://porteconomicsmanagement.org/pemp/contents/part1/mari...

FYI: You misread your link, it quotes the average value of a Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit as 55K, so 109K for an FEU which costs 3K to ship.

Furthermore, these numbers are wholesale values; a reasonable rule of thumb is to double that for retail prices. That puts the cost of sea freight at about 1.3% of retail using your numbers. Even a doubling would be dwarfed by other factors driving inflation.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#479

Post by JumpCrisscross »

johnnyworker wrote: post #432
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is displaying a national group elsewhere not destroying it as a national group? Plenty of nations have migrated over history. Every inhabitant of the Middle East is part transplant and/or invader.

Yes, and? People die naturally, they always eventually do. Does that make murder a nop?

The point is displacement doesn’t necessarily destroy nations. Murder necessarily kills. Forced displacement is a war crime. It isn’t genocide.

I’ll go one step further and argue that this sort of bombastic rhetoric hurts the pro-Palestinian cause.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#480

Post by r00fus »

adolph wrote: post #474
r00fus wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter that some ships weren’t nominally owned by Israel but in reality owned by shell corporations in turn owned by Israel-supporting billionaires.

Do you have a fact source or just vague associations? The statement at question is "Most of the ships they target are either own fully or partially by Israeli companies, or are headed to Israeli ports" From source Wikipedia, this is not true. Only 3 of 17 have Israeli ownership or ports of call. Do you have a source for Israeli ownership or ports of call for 6 more ships? Also, your stated class of "owned by Israel-s…

The “goalposts” are defined by the Houthis and unless you think they’re careless or have ulterior motives compared to their stated aim of stopping the Israeli genocide of Palestine, then there must be other reasons they have. For one I’ve heard they take action if a ship doesn’t respond to their hails.
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