151–160 of 452 posts
Since it's extracted from the air, it shouldn't be too hard to start doing it here. I assume we do this for other gases already, so ramping it up for Neon may not be that difficult.
This is exactly why this is a non-issue. It's not like the air over the Ukraine is magically richer in neon.
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I doubt they care about TSMC. The CCP understands (or at least was predicting back with Jiang and Hu) that eventually China will democratize. Taiwan is a democracy right now. Democratic countries almost never re-unite into a single country. I can only name one instance of this happening in the last 70 years, and in some ways East Germany wasn't really a democracy yet. The CCP knows that Taiwanese reunification will n…
The CCP won't democratize. It was heading in that direction under Hu, now under Xi Jinping things are consolidating back towards a centralist power. I do agree that to China, Taiwan isn't about TSMC. TSMC is the reason why the US cares about Taiwan but not the reason why China cares about it. If it was the main reasoning why doesn't China go after the Dutch? The dutch have ASML, which manufactures the more critical c…
I agree completely. But if you're in the CCP, and a Chinese patriot, you understand that that makes peaceful Taiwanese reunification even less likely. Also, as long as Taiwan is defacto-independent, there's a terrible risk that they will declare themselves officially-independent. That would be a humiliating loss of face for the CCP and at the very least would probably precipitate a power struggle within the party.
There is deep history between Taiwan and China, and it is this history that is the main reason why China eyes Taiwan. Think of it like if California rebelled and became a separate country from the US 50 years ago. How would the rest of the US think about California?
Again, I completely agree.
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Has China ever sent their army into another country post their independence ?
Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_Peo... North Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
Russia's actions make me nervous that China will be emboldened to do the same for Taiwan
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Are we in favor of economics/capitalism here or are we not? Because the economics literature is quite clear that international trade is beneficial to all involved. It's what we insist that developing countries focus on exports when loaning them money. For many years, Taiwan has been the poster child that we point to when trying to change the ways of Cuba or Venezuela. Are these principles so weak that we would allow…
Economics is clear on nothing. The curve maximizing behaviors for international trade have a few assumptions built in, e.g. that Taiwan does not get annexed by China and suddenly the trade incentives change horribly.
Because if they don't, and the system collapses, then what?
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Ironically, I think the above statement is irrational. Why does being a dictator automatically make you more irrational? Absolute power has no direct causal bearing on human intelligence. It does not make you more irrational or more rational. There are plenty of examples of good kings, bad kings, good emperors and bad emperors throughout history both for ancient china and plenty of other civilizations. Modern China,…
dictators are blind. a single person does not have the mental nor technological capacity to run everything. they must delegate. the way dictarships work is the dictator's subordinates, friends, whatever, must live in constant fear of each other, so they are incentivized to lie (or at least omit truths) to the dictator. a benevolent dictatorship doesn't exist, because no benevolent person would survive the process of…
Singapore is the first one that comes to mind.
See: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Benevolent_dictatorship
Additionally monarchies are essentially old forms of dictatorship with slightly different customs and titles. It's one and the same and plenty of good kingdoms exist. I have PLENTY of examples:
The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt;
The Byzantine Emperors;
The Habsburg Monarchy in its various incarnations;
The Capetian Kings of France;
The Tsars;
The Tang, Ming and Qing - my three favorite Chinese dynasties;
The Incas.
Tibet it also an example. A little iffy this one, it's actually not benevolent but the West has definitely painted them as such to use as propaganda against China. Chinas actions against Tibet were quite horrific and wrong but even still... Tibet was not an example of a benevolent dictatorship... more of an example how a dictatorship can be PERCIEVED as benevolent and how your perceptions can be easily influenced. Tibet and China is an example of evil acting on evil to simplify the situation, but again I want to emphasize that the actual reality is not so black and white.
You may also want to look into the term enlightened absolutism.
Also China is an example of a benevolent dictatorship despite all the bad things they've done (TBH China is more of a mixed bag, and by mixed bag I mean both benevolent and self interested at the same time... but then again so is the US).
You cannot deny that the rise of China has been unprecedented. The amount of people lifted out of poverty at such a velocity has never been seen before in the history of human civilization. That is benevolence. While of course what is happening in Xinjiang is not benevolence; blinding yourself to the good because of the bad is irrational. You must acknowledge both.
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Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.
The United States has all kinds of tariff and other subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and shipping companies are literally blocked from providing domestic US services. (That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey). Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily protected. These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
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> I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business. How do you blame government for businesses running around with planning models that miss wars and pandemics, the two most common causes of ruin and disruption for the entire duration of human history?
...Because making sure businesses in economies plan for that sort of thing is generally something that you have to be a non-transient actor to ensure. Businesses/corps come and go ... the Nation of $nation only tends to do so on the next timescale up. When their actually looking out for systemic blindspots no one else is, and not pandering to the elite.
Governments often assume (wrongly) that businesses have incentives to handle long-term risks, since they want to exist for a long time and remain profitable. The reality though is most are more focused on their share price and dividend than handling strategic risks.
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Yes this is scary. Chinese defense budget is considerable at 1/3 of US budget.
Interesting. I wonder if China has the same amount of waste and overspending in their military industrial complex.
Pure and simply Russia needs people, its dying.
Low birth rate, high death rate, little immigration to make up the short fall (who wants to move to Russia :)), and to top off a weak economy that will struggle to support a small less active workforce. Interestingly Ukraine has pretty much the same population problem.
This will be increasingly common problem for countries as population growth slows.