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The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

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Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#191

Post by omnimus »

jorl17 wrote: post #62
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 am in the exact same camp. My belief in free markets has been completely shattered and my political stance on several subjects has changed dramatically over the last years. I no longer believe in the free market at all. Of course this isn't the result of a single isolated event. Our lives are poems that constantly re-write and scrutinize themselves after all, like living ink that breathes new pages anew. But if I h…

If anything it is crisis of elites in US. Since the second world war US has held dominant hand over its subjects (most of the world). But the elites were always smart enough to hide the amount of power, they marketed US well and understand to negotiate somewhat fairly and give some scraps to the rest (allow creating some elites in other countries). It was a straightforward deal.

But now the elites in US are just not very smart or savvy. Introduction of the tech class that are people who simply won a lottery (or scammed their way up) and are otherwise absolutely arrogant and clueless about the world. The deal just can't work anymore. It can't work because there is no deal with someone who thinks they deserve everything. The balance is off and you are now dealing with children with golden toilets OR self mythologizing guys whos deepest political analysis come from few scifi books they've read 20 years ago.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#192

Post by benrutter »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #117
ajoseps wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The No Kings protests are large and have been occurring over the last year. It’s disingenuous to imply the population is doing nothing but comment online. The US is a large country with the third largest population in the world. It’s not homogenous. Despite all that, it’s probably still prudent to decouple from the US.

Only 1.2–1.8% of the U.S. population attended a No Kings Day event.

I share your anger at the US' decent into authoritarianism, but 1.8% is nearly 1 in 50. That's pretty huge for a protest by most counts.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#193

Post by cmurf »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #188
cmurf wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate charters require companies follow the law and make profit. Beyond following the law, what are citizen duties? Public benefit corporations seem to go nowhere far enough. And I wonder if the language is intentionally vague at the outset. For example: https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/business/FAQs/pbc.html

> Beyond following the law, what are citizen duties? Simple example: let’s say there’s an environmental law preventing corporation to make more profits. The good citizen should not try lobbying to repeal this law, even if this would be perfectly legal and lead to better outcome for shareholders. If CEO acts as good citizen and refuses to follow advice of the board and take this route, this should be legally defensibl…

OK but that would conflict with the charters of most companies. The charter instructs directors/officers to make profit for shareholders. It would be a significant undertaking to compel every company to somehow become a public benefit corporation.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#194

Post by Quothling »

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?

I'm Danish, we don't really care about whether or not Greenland is a part of our Kingdom (I'm sure some people do but it's certainly not the majority in my opinion). That being said it's not like it's ours to sell or give away, so it would be more relevant to ask someone from Greenland. I think the most likely outcome is that Greenland decides to leave our Kingdom and become something like the Marshall Isles.

The whole national security part is a lie though. The US can already do whatever they want up there. Well except for having nuclear weapons, but they'd probably be allowed if they asked.

I think some of our politicians care that they'd lose any form of geopolitical relevance without Greenland, but it's not like our population in general supports that.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#195

Post by fifilura »

Ok, so there are hardly any mines on Greenland today. Why would that change? There are easier places to put a mine and make it profitable.

Look at Svalbard. There used to be mines but they closed down.

And those rare earth metals. They are called that because they are heavily diluted. Not because they are rare to find.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#196

Post by tsoukase »

Greenland is extremely and much more than to any other country important to the US . Close geographical proximity, similarity with and existent experience from Alaska, bridge to sensitive regions of Russia and in the end of the tunnel a rich underground that hardly any other can extract. Ongoing climate improvement play a role, may be definitive. The potential take over is relatively easy (not like Canada): 50000 indigenous people that can be bribed, terrorised, forced or persuaded. Denmark is more like a distant relative than a mother nation. It will be a fascinating scene.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#197

Post by lossolo »

esseph wrote: post #183
Jensson wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that isn't happening though, you have local specialists everywhere that global giants still can't outcompete. Amazon is only dominant in USA and so on, they mostly just dominate a regulatory environment and can't compete well outside of it.

Amazon does a lot these days, are you talking about their ground satellite terminal service? Grocery Service? What about Online Pharmacy? Do you need to buy a car? Would you like some satellite internet? Do you need a k8s cluster, they'll even handle lifecycle management for you. They also seem well on their way toward seriously hurting the USPS, FedEx, and UPS, and will be outpacing the entire US Postal Service in t…

I'm not aware of any country besides the US in which Amazon dominates in anything.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#198

Post by SanjayMehta »

madspindel wrote: post #124
SanjayMehta wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by all-in? Military action?

Yes. Something like moving parts of the Nordic Air Force closer to Greenland (maybe Iceland, or even Greenland itself?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpGhd90y-BE That would deter even the United States, I believe. The problem I see if it's worth it. As I said, as a Swede I don't really care about Greenland, but Denmark is part of the Nordic Family.

Interesting. This is the first I've heard of this combined airforce.

(Aside: it might deter the rational elements in the US military but they're led by this chap Trump.)

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#199

Post by thrance »

card_zero wrote: post #158
blackbear_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, not really? They don't decay naturally, all the ones I can think of had to be manually dismantled through State interventions.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#200

Post by thrance »

logicchains wrote: post #106
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…

>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. What have markets got to do with it? For as long as humans have been recording history, states have been annexing weaker states, regardless of economic system. It's absurd to blame…

They led to the rise of powerful oligarchs who now very obviously steer the country (and the world) in a violent direction that I don't believe benefits many, except themselves of course.
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