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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

#71

Post by spiderfarmer »

As a European. I'm starting to hate the US. Not dislike. Hate.

For months I thought they can't possibly allow the orange clown to ruin their country any further. But the country is clearly spiralling out of control. And I'm starting to hate the whole culture.

Now if a part of the population did anything other than comment online. If they took to the streets or did anything substantial in protest. But no. Crickets. So to me, every US citizen is at least partly complicit.

For years, I already noticed I subconsciously did not like action movies that featured CIA / FBI / US Military anymore. And I gradually moved away from all US based infrastructure in my projects because it strategically made sense.

But these past weeks it tipped over in actual disgust. For me, there's no difference between the US, China and Russia anymore. The US will probably take Greenland. China will take Taiwan. Russia will take Ukraine.

And Europe needs to unite further and prepare for war, or risk being torn apart by the new axis of evil.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#72

Post by throwaway132448 »

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.

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 in situations where barriers to entry and economies of scale are so high that the state is simply "getting ahead" of the inevitable monopoly (e.g. national infrastructure).

Of course, corruption could also be what you mean by "regulation" that leads to monopolies, but all of this is predicate on the absence of corruption or cartels. If that's not the case you can throw all your assumption out of the window anyway.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#73

Post by throwaway132448 »

hliyan wrote: post #66
Rainbooow wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, there's an entire body of work, starting with Ayn Rand, that vehemently argues that government interference in the economy is what leads to monopolies.

There are entire bodies of work that argue against the heliocentric nature of the solar system - that doesn't make them credible or relevant.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#74

Post by wartywhoa23 »

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…

So the only solution to this current manufactured political clown shitshow is a one world government, which is exactly the goal of the scenarists behind it.

We'll see much worse chapters of this shitshow before the last spectator admits the fallacy of dismissing this as a conspiracy theory.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#75

Post by ablation »

fny wrote: post #8

There are a few things that confuse me about this potential acquisition: 1. You won't govern it. Greenland has it's own Self-Government Act. [0] 2. You won't own the land. Almost all land is owned by the State. [1] 3. The Danes have no special land ownership rights. [2] 4. Land use rights, however, are granted for different activities (fishing, mining) subject to approval. [3] I'd imagine none of this changes under a…

> > It seems like that's exactly what it would have to do post acquisition--unless of course the US also plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty.

I don't want to repeat what others are saying, but how on earth could you not consider that all of the existing rules, laws and agreements just go in the trash under a new "owner"? Of course the US plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty, goodness me.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#76

Post by mothballed »

danmaz74 wrote: post #60
kombine wrote: post #18

This is Crimea 2.0. The ideological basis behind the annexation is identical in both instances.

Honestly, as someone who firmly opposes what Putin did, there were better "historical justifications" for Russia to annex Crimea than for the USA to colonize Greenland, a territory that has never been part of the USA. The idea of invading an ally's territory just to steal its resources is particularly shameful and disgusting.

Denmark would likely low key love to shitcan greenland. They are a massive money drain, welfare state. Their minerals exist but not enough to turn the place net positive to their colonizer.

If Denmark could come "steal" something like the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Dakotas, it would be an imperfect analogy. As long as we could lose it while still saving face, it would be absolutely amazing economically for the USA.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#77

Post by benrutter »

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…

This is a really interesting take, I've been thinking very similarly.

I think there's a tendency to think of 'free markets' as having a lot more scope than they do - almost no countries allow free markets to determine the flow of people and restrict who can enter the country in some way. Similarly, nobody suggests the free market is a good way to regulate child labor.[0]

Especially in the US, there's a been a rapid erosion of other power structures like democracy, law, unions, etc that might serve as checks or balances against raw material interest. I think 'capitalism' often gets misclassified as 'pure competition', but it's probably better thought of as 'pure competition through regulated trade'. Pure competition, with no regulations to define a market, sounds more to me like what predated the industrial revolution (something more along the lines of feudalism)

[0] I took both these example from Ha-Joon Chang's Economics a Users Guide.

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#79

Post by SanjayMehta »

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?

What do you mean by all-in?

Military action?

Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice

#80

Post by hliyan »

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…

This is an excellent counterargument. I was stumped for a bit until I noticed that your argument introduces a new variable that changes the equation: number of conflict deaths. Theoretically, it is possible to have a system of perfect enslavement where the number of conflict deaths are zero. But in such a system, low conflict deaths are a poor proxy to quality of life.
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