The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice • Hacker News Board

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#151

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #143

maxerickson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for example, Venezuelan oil is worth very little to China. It's literally stupid to use violence to prevent them from accessing it. Meanwhile it's sort of becoming very clear that Venezuela is about Cuba.

It's worth little at its current flows, but this ignores the temporal dimension which is where stock is more important because the flows can be built up over time. Only 20%-30% of China's oil is secure, the rest suffers from the Malacca dilemma which is why the US focuses on naval power projection as part of its Pacific containment policy, a lesson they learned with the oil blockade against Japan in WW2. Oil is also…

The specifics do matter if your argument is that some actions are a complex response to something and then the specifics are that the actions are stupid and nearly random.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#152

Post by throwaway132448 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #144

throwaway132448 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that free markets lead to monopolies: I qualified that with the need for economies of scale. Those may not exist - but look at most of the markets you interact with in your daily life and try and find the ones that don't. I'm not aware of how regulation of competitive markets would lead to monopoly. Are you referring to "regulation" in the form of state-endorsed/controlled monopolies? Those usually exist…

> I'm not aware of how regulation of competitive markets would lead to monopoly Competitive markets will always tend toward monopoly because that is the state at which the highest profits can be extracted. Regulation can, in some cases, help push it a bit faster in that direction by making barriers to enter the market even more onerous and expensive thus limiting or even eliminating new competitors. This allows the e…

Agreed! That sort of technical regulation needs corresponding market regulation to go with it to prevent monopoly (something we see very little of now).

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#153

Post by TrackerFF » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:26 PM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #136

TrackerFF wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US stock market is being carried by tech companies. Any large-scale sanctions against Europe would hit said tech firms hard, for no other reason than that they need all the customers they can get. Crashing the stock market could in turn induce panic, which in the end will reflect poorly on the president. The whole goal of such a (economic) war would be to make US senators and congressmen take a stand, and decide…

I point out that any European attempt at economic warfare against the US would inevitably affect both sides, and that the US is much less dependent on foreign trade than Europe ... and yet you again speak as if any impact would be solely on the US. "Panic", "Politically devastating", etc., as if only the US has upsettable investors and distressed electorate. >Now imagine full-blown sanctions. This would surely result…

No, I didn't say that US invading Greenland would destroy NATO. It would cause a crisis, yes, but it's complex - members can only withdraw, no members can be expelled from NATO. And for withdrawals, it takes one year from notification to official withdrawal.

To complicate things further, there have been put up safeguards in the US to "Trump-proof" a withdrawal. Would Trump ignore these? Likely. But it would be challenged in court.

What likely would happen, is that NATO just lies dormant. And if the US successfully withdraws, it would set in motion things that are not resolved overnight. The US have bases, servicemen, caches of equipment, etc. spread across allied countries. And while most of these are covered by deals made with the host-countries, there's a pretty good likelihood those deals would have to be re-negotiated in the even US becomes hostile to allies. US pulling out of NATO because they don't see the value is one thing, US pulling out of NATO because they've become enemies of another NATO-ally is a completely different mater, as far as future deals go.

But then again, US taking Greenland by force is the absolute worst outcome - as far as the Greenland scenario goes. I truly do not think Trump will try that, anytime soon.

It's extremely, profoundly unprofessional to threaten a country with force. But that's how Trump operates. He makes big no-so veiled threats ("Would be a shame if...", "We have options...") to force the other party to negotiation, and then tries to low-ball. He's treating international relations the same way he treats business/real-estate deals. That's how he's always done business.

And as a bonus for him, it is taking up the news headlines.

My guess is that US and Denmark will meet, US will push on with offering to buy Greenland, Denmark will say no, but maybe they will buy some extra US equipment (they're already buying P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft to patrol the maritime area surround Greenland) or similar. Trump will announce this deal, and we won't hear anything about Greenland in another 6-12 months.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#154

Post by ponector » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #3

Hold on. In a few days we are going to find some narco-terrorists there as well.

Have you seen how much white powder there is in Greenland?

Make Greenland green again!

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#155

Post by throwaway132448 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #59

hliyan wrote: post #13

The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…

I've arrived at the opposite conclusion. The root cause of conflict is decentralized power, which is the prediction of realism. Conflict occurs because of security competition, but security competition is only possible when powers are equally matched and trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma dynamic. You can sense check this by running through various historic eras. Consider the eras before any nation states, when power wa…

The basis of this is flawed because the "peace" started several decades before the 90s, and completely neglects the role of Mutually Assured Destruction in creating that peace. If anything, America's position was detrimental to that peace because it allowed it to wage its own unilateral wars.

This continues to be the case now. The main difference is that in the 90s, the opposition to Vietnam was still fresh enough in the average American mind. I suspect what we're seeing now is the effect of that memory fading.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#156

Post by card_zero » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

simgt wrote: post #69

hliyan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether this is a side effect of the self esteem movement, and the whole "don't care about what others think of you" ethos.

Individualism is the word. Adam Curtis' "The Century Of Self" is nice to watch on that topic, it's always available on Youtube somehow.

Conformity sucks though. The trend of attacking individualism is creepy.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#157

Post by ponector » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #97

madspindel wrote: post #19

As a Swede I must confess I don't know much about Greenland. But if Denmark goes all-in on Greenland, you can bet the other Nordic countries will be involved too. Not sure how this will play out. Really strange situation and as I said I don't even know how much Denmark cares about Greenland. Any Danes here that can tell us more?

"other Nordic countries will be involved" I can't help wondering if that's really what all of this is about - the Nordics can't really fight the US and Russia at the same time (though given their history I suspect they'd try).

But they are not fighting russia. Also putin can't really fight anywhere else but Ukraine. Special operation in Baltic state is maximum of russian ability unless there is a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#158

Post by card_zero » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

blackbear_ wrote: post #49

hliyan wrote: post #13

The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…

I had similar thoughts, and my conclusion is that competition is an inherently unstable state of affairs: at some point somebody wins, and they will try very hard to prevent any further competitors from arising. Indeed, competition is undesirable for all participants involved: everybody wants to win and exploit the rest for their own gain. Note that this is the only way to make competition work and result in its temp…

Monopolies are unstable (too). They just last for an annoyingly long time.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#159

Post by fumblebee » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

verzali wrote: post #129

benrutter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless of course the US also plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty. It's probably not helpful for me to speculate, but surely this? If the US is truly prepared to invade another ally's territory for material gain, I'd assume the idea that they'd honor other existing laws is unlikely.

I don't see how it would actually work in practice. Can Trump really destroy Greenland's democracy via executive order? Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it? And even if not, how are you going to deal with all the people there? If Trump is ruling Greenland via executive order, then he is just a dictator, what happens to the people? It would end up as a long running sore and a terrible bl…

> Surely Congress or the courts would have something to say about it?

my sense is that Trump feels to be above the law right now, having ordered the operation to seize Maduro without Congressional approval (illegal under U.S. constitutional law). Trump's reasoning was that "Congress has a tendency to leak", and so to him congress seems little more than background noise.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#160

Post by ndsipa_pomu » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

Rainbooow wrote: post #53

throwaway132448 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All "free market" ideals require no/low barriers to entry in order for the market to be "self regulating". Said absence of barriers to entry almost never exists, hence the idea of completely free markets is completely naive - you need regulation. Markets also cannot account for externalities. If those externalities are something you care about (e.g. the environment you live in) - you need regulation. Economies of sca…

Is it really basic economics that free market leads to monopolies? I thought this is not something where there is a strong consensus about ; free market advocates will actually argue that this is regulation that leads to monopolies.

Depends on what you call a "free market". The usual understanding is that a free market relies on the participants having sufficient information and being able to trade freely. However, the necessary information is usually hidden by sellers so that buyers can't make a "rational" decision in what to purchase (see The Market for Lemons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons).

Trading freely is compromised as well as markets will almost always favour the larger purchaser and so there's an incentive for companies to become every larger in order to consolidate power and profits.

So, it's not so much that free markets lead to monopolies, but our bastardised version of free markets that lead to monopolies.

Also, free market advocates are rarely advocates of actually free markets, but instead advocates of asymmetric markets that favour the large incumbents.