The threat of nukes is real. I wouldn’t expect any major wars between nuclear states right away, but there would be a lot of consolidation of smaller countries without nukes into larger countries with nukes. In this scenario if you’re Japan, you will have the option of getting nukes ASAP or deciding if you want to learn Russian or Chinese.

I think it’s naive to think that military conflicts purely arise out of a latent cultural xenophobia

I’m not claiming that only xenophobia leads to military conflicts. It is often used to whip up support for conflicts that people in power want, though.

If you can get your objective without draining massive portions of your economy, then there’s really no reason to, and I don’t think china would have many problems taking really any soft power objective they set their eyes on

Soft power is preferable, yeah. The real measure is when someone has something you want and they say “no”.

our economic metrics are so fucked as to be almost certainly useless.

Definitely agree that they’re all fucked up. It remains to be seen how much it helps vs hurts though. Like the saying “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”, sometimes the fact that the metrics are all made up can be useful. I say that as someone that doesn’t like how little they resemble the real world.

It is not human nature in the sense that humans will always do it when the opportunity presents itself.

What would be the best historical example that you can think of? To be specific, what is a historical example of when a country would have benefited from expanding an empire, had the resources and ability to do so, and chose not to for an extended period of time?

That would be a strange form of communism.

Human greed is a base desire that has been a constant throughout our entire history. At some point, you’re arguing for a fantasy. Either Communism is a realistic political system that can be implemented with humans as we are, including all of our base animal impulses, or it’s a fantasy that requires humans to achieve a higher level of consciousness first or something.

Saying that China doesn’t have a MIC is a non-sequitur. The incentive is power. If acquiring or maintaining power in China requires military expansion, it will happen.

Sorry, if you legitimately believe that China doesn’t drop bombs on people because that’s the will of the people then I don’t think there’s any further productive conversation to be had. I admire your ability to believe, though.

First off, thanks for the substantive response. I appreciate these sorts of discussions over people just trying to dunk on each other like it’s twitter.

I don’t think China would drop bombs as soon as possible. I think they’ll start dropping bombs as soon as that is the best or easiest way of achieving some goal.

China is super xenophobic, like many Asian countries. They won’t even try to hide it behind a facade like the West does.

They don’t bother using bombs right now, because it would give the US an excuse to get involved, and the US currently outspends the next 11 countries combined. That would be a total shitshow for them no matter what happened. Nobody bothers trying to outspend the US, because you’d wreck your economy and get nothing. If the US went poof though, you’d get a game theoretic situation where everybody invests in the military because everyone else is investing in their military and you don’t want to be left out. If China then decided that they want to finish the job on making the Korean peninsula Chinese, who would realistically stop them?

The belt and road initiative is a great extension of soft power, but that says nothing about how they’d use hard power if given the opportunity.

I have depicted you in mixed case text. Your argument is over :sneer:

Do better.

Imperialism is human nature, yes. Imperialism is not otherwise known as monopoly capitalism, which is where your whole chain of thought breaks down. Are you really trying to argue that Communists can’t be imperialist?

Right now, it would be strategically unwise. They would get a lot of international blowback, sanctions, etc. As a country, it’s currently better to achieve your goals with diplomacy and hostile actions that have plausible deniability. That can easily change, though. If it does, prepare to live in interesting times.

To be blunt, have you read a history book? People have been killing the outgroup in brutal struggles for power since time began. Are you aware of the phrase “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”? It comes from the Siege of Melos in 416 B.C.

I don’t like it, but that’s the way the world works, and has worked forever. Criticizing people in power for their actions is good. Saying “if only this other country was in power, things would be different” is foolish.

To be clear, I’m not in favor of dropping bombs on people. My argument is that saying “China isn’t dropping any bombs” is silly. They would if they could and it would achieve a goal.

Human nature doesn’t change just because you go over to the other side of the globe. History shows us that the wars over there haven’t been any less bloody. Why are you proposing that human nature is fundamentally different now?

That’s not projection, that’s basic human behavior. Do you think modern China just magically poofed into existence, or were there maybe a few bloody imperalist wars involved? Why would things be different now?

My point is that the real hard-to-swallow pill for people like OP is that China is not a magical place where everyone just sings kumbaya all day. China is just like any other country comprised of humans that has existed ever, and would do the same things the US is doing now if they could. The only reason this meme is in any way accurate is that China can’t realistically drop bombs like that, otherwise they would. Tankies like OP will defend imperialism all day long, as long as the imperialists say “Death To America!”. If the US poofed out of existence today, there would be a power vacuum quickly filled by exactly the same sort of people that are dropping those bombs in the meme.

So I guess my question is “What’s the point of pretending that China is any different?”

This was recognized at least as far back as 1988:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

Do you think that dynamic wouldn’t exist for any country, including China, that had as much world influence as the US does now?

What do you mean that mechanic doesn’t exist in the same way for China? Are you talking like China has achieved a classless utopia situation?

Would China not drop bombs if they faced no consequences and it benefited them?

Browsing with JS disabled by default and expecting most sites to have basic functionality like “display this text”

Whether this guy should be forced to turn over his passwords or not:

https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/20/appeals_court_contempt_passwords/

The appeals court found that forcing the defendant to reveal passwords was not testimonial in this instance because the government already had a sense of what it would find.

It’ll be interesting to see where we go when it’s practical to generate video in realtime

Because they understand just as well as we do that the way our voting system is set up means you have two options, and anything else is throwing your vote away.

Harris offered a few progressive scraps and then proudly showed off endorsements from the fucking Cheneys. People wanted real change. They’re going to get it, for better or for worse.

Biden’s policies brought “the economy” out of it better, at the expense of your average person.