04-16-2020, 11:55 AM
The Roman Empire for the former; Great Britain for the latter.
COVID-19 is the climax to this 4T
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04-16-2020, 11:55 AM
The Roman Empire for the former; Great Britain for the latter.
04-16-2020, 12:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-16-2020, 12:45 PM by Tim Randal Walker.)
Beechnut, that is a good way of summarizing the results of the two different options.
04-16-2020, 02:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-16-2020, 03:00 PM by Tim Randal Walker.)
With the tariffs against China, we have begun to see retrenchment in terms of international trade.
Peter Zeihan has watched declining troop deployments to the middle east. Start watching for the closure of overseas bases. BTW, Peter Zeihan often includes links in his tweets. One link today led to an article about U.S. Navy aircraft carriers-it looks like the navy may procure only four of the new Ford class super carriers. One of these is a $13 billion dollar ship. And it looks like aircraft carriers are becoming too vulnerable to much cheaper (relatively speaking) weapons.
04-16-2020, 04:47 PM
2378 the day before yesterday, 2436 yesterday (tax day). New highs after seeming declines... 31628 according to Johns Hopkins University; 27012 confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.
Just short or a bit half past the total for military casualties of the Vietnam War or a bit short, depending upon the statistics that you choose, in 47 days.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
04-17-2020, 02:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-17-2020, 03:54 AM by Blazkovitz.)
(04-16-2020, 11:00 AM)Isoko Wrote: But to be honest, this whole march towards unity seems to be an American thing if I'm honest. Americans have always been obsessed with trying to build their own version of some kind of kingdom of heaven on Earth. Kind of like a manifest destiny. It is evident in you people.In the 1920s Russia also had utopian dreamers like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and before him Vladimir Solovyov. If you want a Chinese, there was Kang Youwei. Democritus and the Pythagoreans stood for cosmopolitanism long before America was discovered. The Assyrian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Chinese Empire etc. were all embryonic world states since they aspired to rule "everything under heaven". If I wanted to be cynical, I'd say the nation state was invented by the Israelites. It wouldn't be so prominent without the Bible. Aristotelianism is another source. So it's not a natural human instinct, but an ideology. Quote:Putin's government functions better then the U.S government right now due to the fact that it is pretty much under one man. If Putin makes a decision, it gets done quickly. No need for courts to get involved, no need for panicking about votes, it just gets done. Take the Corona crisis, Putin pretty much shut the country early and that is why the cases have been minimises alot here. More than 3000 new cases every day, now you have higher growth than Italy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healt...SKCN21Y0WD
04-22-2020, 10:30 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-22-2020, 10:32 AM by Tim Randal Walker.)
For this 4T, in the USA, other possibilities include:
1. Other infectious diseases. 2. Terrorist attacks. These might be of domestic origin, or jihadist. 3. Economic distress. 4. Riots. (Perhaps related to number 3). 5. Environmental debacle. The Dust Bowl was an example of such. 6. Computer virus. Number 7 is my greatest fear-that we may stumble into a war.
04-22-2020, 10:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-22-2020, 10:55 AM by Eric the Green.)
(04-15-2020, 03:58 AM)Isoko Wrote: Eric, Eric, Eric, That's exactly why we need to go blue, or better yet green. Immigrants bring in more consumers as well as workers and skilled entreprenuers. Prudent immigration reform was proposed by moderate center-right Senators and was shot down by our looney republican right-wing Tea Party fanatic congress. It needs to be proposed and passed again. Only a restored social safety net can work now, financed by the owners who have set up automation. Robots and high tech should be for the benefit of all, not just the owners as is the case now. They have no right to hog all the profits. Blue will make them pay taxes to support these programs. Reaganomics is not practical in the age of greater automation, although it was never practical at all anyway. Lower taxes and lax regulations on big companies and rich people just create a polluted banana republic and a horrible world climate. It is not workable; trickle-down does not trickle. We need social welfare programs and government investments in people and infrastructure, paid for by the wealthy and all of us. I don't like debt either. But the USA is bankrupt beyond repair already, thanks to our right-wing governments that conducted huge wars and passed huge tax cuts. The only way to lower the debt is to raise taxes hugely on the wealthier people and somewhat on everybody. But there are limits to that approach too, practically speaking. No, I'm afraid that until the USA completely collapses, we are stuck with endless debt. Meanwhile we have to conduct our economy in the way that benefits everyone, not just a few. THAT is true populism. Quote:As for Russia, actually Russia is playing the game correctly. The only reason people are protesting is down to they want more money. That's it. If Putin puts more money into the system, the people will be content with Putinism. No one per se actually is against Putinism, just they want more cash. Which is usually the case for Russia. Social agendas does not take a priority. Russia is pathetic. It's people never have anything, and it's dependent on a declining and deadly resource. It is boring as hell, and has no freedom. Its tyrannical owner Putin kills people at will. Putin is playing foreign affairs well, but his policy is genocidal murder, and he's taking advantage of a hesitant and war-weary USA. That will not work in the long run. Putin has set himself up in power for life, and I don't know when it's people will rise up again. I guess about 80-plus years after 1990 when the cycle comes around again. And this movement will probably fail, as revolution always does there. The arc of history is especially long in Russia, longer than almost anywhere else, but I expect that sometime in the distant future it will bend towards justice there too. Meanwhile, the only workable policy toward Russia is to keep it in bounds. It is up to the USA in the 2020s to get back on the right path again, if it ever hopes to prosper in the future. I predict that it will, but no-one really knows. It must dump the Republicans totally, and for good, if it has any hopes after 40 years of decline under them. It will be up to the Millennial Generation to empower the reforms needed.
04-23-2020, 05:14 AM
Eric,
P. 1 I think it is too late in the game now to pass a good immigration reform system. It should have been done as early as the 1990s. Instead you have the growing slum problem there and that is not going away. Limited immigration is good for an economy, I agree, but when you go over that, it becomes a huge problem. I can agree with you though that America does need new social safety nets and even universal health care but once again, it is too late to successfully enact it. Taxing the rich won't work as they will just flee with their wealth to offshore havens. There is no other way for America at this stage but to collapse and rebuild a new economy. I just cannot honestly see at this stage how you could reform it successfully with all the problems you have. P. 2 Regarding Russia, that is quite insulting actually. Russians DO have money, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When the new iPhone comes out, they are queuing up to buy it. Young people can afford to get apartments and I have seen Russians living better off then in the UK right now. However there is big problems in the rest of the country and this is acknowledged by the liberal faction in Russia who do want to put more money into these areas rather then just the big two cities. As for Russia being boring. Well yeah, I guess it is if you don't want to tread in Human faeces or get stabbed the first time you enter a city like what is the case in some American cities today. But at least you don't fear your kids getting shot in school here. As for Putin being genocidal. Erm, you do know the definition of genocidal, right? Putin has done dodgy things, sure, but it's not like he has established gas chambers and millions of people are dying. That is just factually wrong. I think the future of Russia after Putin is going to be economic liberalisation in terms of supporting small businesses and making sure more money is flowing into the state coffers. The young generation of Russia are not too bothered with great power politics so I think that Russia might take a back seat for a couple of decades in order to refocus it's its economy. Of course there will be another Putin, that is the nature of Russia, but I think there will be a few more democratic constraints in the future.
04-23-2020, 05:52 AM
(04-22-2020, 10:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Russia is pathetic. It's people never have anything, and it's dependent on a declining and deadly resource. It is boring as hell, and has no freedom. Its tyrannical owner Putin kills people at will. Putin is playing foreign affairs well, but his policy is genocidal murder, and he's taking advantage of a hesitant and war-weary USA. That will not work in the long run. Putin has set himself up in power for life, and I don't know when it's people will rise up again. I guess about 80-plus years after 1990 when the cycle comes around again. And this movement will probably fail, as revolution always does there. The arc of history is especially long in Russia, longer than almost anywhere else, but I expect that sometime in the distant future it will bend towards justice there too. Meanwhile, the only workable policy toward Russia is to keep it in bounds. It's strange that Russia, a part of the same Greeko-Roman-Christian civilization that created the USA, is more resistant to democracy than places like Bolivia with its majority Amerindian population, or Botswana which is 100% Black, or even Japan with its Confucian culture and heritage of deified emperors.
04-23-2020, 07:26 AM
Blazkovitz,
That is an easy answer. Russia, you see, has always been under threat from other tribes and nations for so long that they never actually had time to, how shall we say, relax and develop more liberal institutions. First the Mongols, then the Poles, the French, the Germans, they have always been under siege and attacked. They never have had a really long period of domestic peace hence the more hesitant attitudes to Democracy. There has always been the need for a strong king so to say to keep the country going. It is a pattern to be sure. However Democracy itself does not work in the long run and always becomes corrupt and collapses eventually. The UK never has suffered this fate because of the strong institution known as the Royal Family which always keeps things in check. But in European countries? Especially where Monarchs powers are more restricted? Or Republics? They always fall into the trap of Caesarism eventually. We are about to enter the next wave of Caesarism in Europe starting in this decade. However I don't think it'll be Hitler Caesarism this time around but more the Salazar model. As for the countries you mentioned, all I can say is Botswana is a weird case but things are peaceful there. Bolivia is going down the socialist road and I think could become a dictatorship eventually. Japanese democracy is the most weirdest form of government I have ever seen. It never left the early 20th century and instead remains committed to replacing one prime minister after another in some weird one party state system. Only two prime minister's have served for at least a decade which is a huge rarity in Japanese politics. I think that when American influence does decline there, a more formalised one party system will start to take root there. Already the signs are starting to show with the present government taking a more right wing approach. Japanese, like the Russians, don't like change.
04-23-2020, 09:40 PM
(04-22-2020, 10:53 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-15-2020, 03:58 AM)Isoko Wrote: Eric, Eric, Eric, Russia has made great achievements in science, mathematics, technology, linguistics, music, literature, architecture, and in a few windows of opportunity (when censorship wasn't too bad) art. The Stanislavsky school of acting is the source of method acting that has come to dominate in American cinema. What Russia has been bad at is commerce (it has rarely been truly capitalist) and politics. Of course the large number of achievements reflects to some extent (1) that there are so many Russians, and (2) Russia has so many Jews. Jews as a group do much well. I still tend to think that a Time of Troubles (World War I, the Russian Civil War, forced collectivization of the economy, Stalin's Great Purge, and finally the Great Patriotic War is itself an extreme Crisis protracted in length.Russia is not out of the Crisis of 2020... does anyone think Russia exempt from the COVID-19 plague?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
04-24-2020, 05:30 AM
(04-23-2020, 09:40 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I still tend to think that a Time of Troubles (World War I, the Russian Civil War, forced collectivization of the economy, Stalin's Great Purge, and finally the Great Patriotic War is itself an extreme Crisis protracted in length. Very likely. The 1960s were clearly a High with the successes of Soviet cosmonauts
04-24-2020, 11:10 AM
(04-23-2020, 05:14 AM)Isoko Wrote: Eric, I don't see the connection between "growing slums" and the need for sensible immigration policy. I don't see the "growing slum" problem in the USA anyway. There have always been slums in the USA. That's because of our capitalist and neo-liberal orientation. If we still have too many slums, it's because we have been under the neo-liberal regime so long. Perhaps you are looking at things askew at the USA from afar. I being a prophet myself see a different future than you, and I think my predictions have worked out pretty well. If the rich would flee to offshore havens in the future, they would have done it in the past. I don't think it is too late to enact a system in the USA that tends in the direction of more-advanced European countries. It seems to work fine for Europe, and the younger generations in America want it. So, it will come. What is right, eventually wins; not what is wrong, as you are inclined to believe. The problems in the USA are due to having turned away from progress and reform for 40 years. If we turn back to the directions we were in before 1980, we will advance again. It's never too late to do the right things. 1980 was a fluke election won by a charming actor. We need to wean ourselves off of his spell. If it's too late for America to reform, why do you think it's not too late for Russia to reform? Putin has stuck his country so firmly in the past now that it will take a miracle for it to revive and get on the reform path again anytime soon. And for sure, his foreign policy is genocidal. His domestic policy is just tyrannical. Making excuses for Russia's extremely-authoritarian tradition does not wash, because Russia has always been as aggressive as it has been defensive. But, people want the same things all over the world. Russians do have some great achievements in their history, as brower points out. In some ways, it's a great country. You never know; perhaps the next Awakening in Russia will bear more fruit. But it would be over-optimistic to expect it. The USA has a much richer progressive and liberal tradition; a new reform movement is more likely here, and is way overdue. The majority already favors it; it's a matter of reforming the system enough so it can have its way. Already gerrymandering has been reduced, and with more Democratic Party governors in place now, the next census will not lead to so much voter suppression.
04-24-2020, 01:28 PM
Eric,
I'm sorry but I just cannot believe what I am reading here. You called yourself a prophet. I just...I'm laughing so hard here it could tear down the apartment. I just...your a prophet? Since when? Has God Himself come down and said "Eric the Free , you are my chosen one. Go spread the good word." Just...LOL!!! No, no, wait for it, it gets even more better folks! Did you all know Eric's name is in the Bible? LOL it says so right there! It's in the book of revelations! "And thou art sendeth my son Eric when the word is about to end to spread the gospel of hope on an internet forum." LOL!!! I'm sorry this is just too damn funny. I think once I remember an old post about you predicting that Hilary Clinton was going to win the election via "the stars"...and Trump won. Just...I'm sorry but that is the most ridiculous and dumb statement anyone has ever made to me. I mean I'm sorry man but do you know how ridiculous you sound? Declaring yourself a prophet? I mean...geez. A prophet. What next? Are you going to declare yourself Jesus reborn? I'm sorry man but this is just too funny I can't even debate. I mean look dude. Just...go see a psychiatrist, ok? Just get some help. Sorry guys but I need a breather. Still laughing my head off.
04-24-2020, 03:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-24-2020, 03:24 PM by Eric the Green.)
(04-24-2020, 01:28 PM)Isoko Wrote: Eric, I am indeed, a prophet. That is my profession now; just published my latest book. http://philosopherswheel.com/hna.html A prophet, and certainly I make warnings too like the old Jewish ones. I don't know though if they will ever put me in a new Bible. Maybe not.... My election prediction method is still the best. Even though I made a mistake about Hillary, my two main indicators still worked. So yes, I need to make sure not to let my bias show. So although I predicted Biden or Sanders would likely be the nominee in this video from 2018, and in many posts on here, and indeed they were the two left standing, I am not making a prediction yet about November 2020. No need to laugh, really. You were making predictions too, and rather poor ones. Everyone on here is making them. The authors of T4T are/were prophets too. And good ones. Remember the subtitle of their book was "An American Prophecy."
04-24-2020, 03:39 PM
Ok, look, are you being serious here or is this some form of low class trolling? Because if you are trolling, it was a good laugh and you had me there. But if you are being serious...I just don't know what to say. Get some psychiatric help? Because this here is extremely dangerous behaviour Eric.
I don't know what it is with you Americans but this usually ends up leading down the road of the Heaven Gate scenario or the Waco fiasco. I hope for your sake we're not going to see a gun in the mouth episode and a government siege anytime soon.
04-24-2020, 04:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-24-2020, 04:59 PM by Eric the Green.)
(04-24-2020, 03:39 PM)Isoko Wrote: Ok, look, are you being serious here or is this some form of low class trolling? Because if you are trolling, it was a good laugh and you had me there. But if you are being serious...I just don't know what to say. Get some psychiatric help? Because this here is extremely dangerous behaviour Eric. No. You didn't get my points in my reply. Read again. And I don't think you watched my video or read my website, so you don't know what you are talking about regarding me. And feigning your reaction to me does not let you off the hook regarding my earlier replies to your own predictions. I think the times surrounding the 2020 inauguration will be dangerous.
04-24-2020, 05:54 PM
Eric,
This is very delusional behaviour you are saying. You are here, declaring yourself to be a prophet like the Jewish prophets in the Bible. You claim to know everything that is going to happen in the future. I'm sorry but have you even considered what you are saying here? You do realise that there is a psychological condition for this type of behaviour and it is known as messanic delusions? Or even delusions of grandeur? Because you are being serious about this, I'd advise you to go and see a doctor.
04-24-2020, 06:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-25-2020, 02:20 PM by Eric the Green.)
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