tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post907368694060812333..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: China's rationalizations for hostility and "clash of civilizations"David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85007118079847823592019-06-23T13:32:22.128-07:002019-06-23T13:32:22.128-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39193348430892470532019-06-23T03:13:45.598-07:002019-06-23T03:13:45.598-07:00India has been suffering 125 deg F temperatures (5...India has been suffering 125 deg F temperatures (50 deg C) and it's sixth largest city Chennai has run out of water (equivalent to Philadelphia running out of water in the US).<br /><br />Why is this not headline news?<br /><br />Climate change = drought = crop failures = violence = mass migration. The same cycle triggered the Syrian mass migration into Europe a few years ago (and gave us Brexit because British voters were afraid of being swamped by "brown skinned hordes" - Trump and Brexit are all about race and very little about economics). Today's trickle is tomorrow's flood.<br /><br />Imagine a billion Indian refugees fleeing a country that has become uninhabitable for much of the year. How about a super-Syria where the region from North Africa to Southeast Asia becomes too hot to work or live in. By comparison, Guatemala is a drop in the bucket.<br /><br /><br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74431018173399406572019-06-22T15:37:21.867-07:002019-06-22T15:37:21.867-07:00Methane spike detected on Mars.
https://www.linked...Methane spike detected on Mars.<br />https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-news-from-mars-methane-spike-detected-curiosity-rover-rice/scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-65830691005085043652019-06-22T07:42:45.311-07:002019-06-22T07:42:45.311-07:00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_RdnVtfZPY
A goo...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_RdnVtfZPY<br /><br />A good video overview of the current protests in Hong Kong against their government's actions to allow extradition to China... it's complicated.David Aihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05482824432857110152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39139828532625668462019-06-22T05:09:18.208-07:002019-06-22T05:09:18.208-07:00@larry, fwiw: my source was "Enigma" by ...@larry, fwiw: my source was "Enigma" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. Interesting to see how often the Allies nearly gave the game away. Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18626922170112051232019-06-22T04:57:25.545-07:002019-06-22T04:57:25.545-07:00A speculative but amusing take on the war room con...A speculative but amusing take on the war room conversation:<br />"Sir, casualties are estimated to be 150 plus..."<br />"Yeah? Well let's get this operation st..."<br />"... one."<br />"... opped this instant."<br /><br />A *slightly* more likely possibility, given what ICE have planned on Sunday: the folly of opening two fronts simultaneously was raised. Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53278539691268206792019-06-21T17:42:18.084-07:002019-06-21T17:42:18.084-07:00What channel are the Simp-sons on. That's the ...What channel are the Simp-sons on. That's the key question.scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15556915995512054062019-06-21T17:34:15.099-07:002019-06-21T17:34:15.099-07:00Trump changing his mind on the Iran attack? Maybe ...Trump changing his mind on the Iran attack? Maybe Tucker Carlson won out over Sean Hannity? Carlson has been cautioning restraint at 8pm while Hannity has been calling for bombing at 9 pm...matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79260430037642262022019-06-21T13:52:32.956-07:002019-06-21T13:52:32.956-07:00Maybe he couldn't read the memo? :)
He likes...Maybe he couldn't read the memo? :)<br /><br />He likes to threaten conflict in order to intimidate others into concessions, but he doesn't like <b>actual</b> conflict.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4232891693146722952019-06-21T13:48:26.531-07:002019-06-21T13:48:26.531-07:00So what's up with Trump first authorizing an a...So what's up with Trump first authorizing an attack on Iran, then cancelling it at the last minute? It doesn't sound like he's completely on board with the plan to start a little war with Iran so that Russia can move in to help them.<br /><br />Maybe he didn't get the memo?A.F. Reyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08102355714883828348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24262651310594498482019-06-21T12:30:25.750-07:002019-06-21T12:30:25.750-07:00I've never met Cameron, but if I ever do, thes...I've never met Cameron, but if I ever do, these keywords might get his attention:<br />Fantastic Voyage (I think he owns the movie rights - not sure)<br />Titanic, Mariana Trench (I once programmed a marine ROV)<br />Kapuskasing (Northern Ontario was once my stomping grounds)<br /><br />And Nolan is the biggest Foundation nut out there.<br />scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52028391793972565582019-06-21T12:07:07.899-07:002019-06-21T12:07:07.899-07:00I've met Cameron a couple times and I suppose ...I've met Cameron a couple times and I suppose I "know" him. But I doubt I could get through, Alas. That and 4$ will get me a Starbucks.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88004134041457141592019-06-21T11:58:22.205-07:002019-06-21T11:58:22.205-07:00Dr. Brin, you should talk to James Cameron and Jon...Dr. Brin, you should talk to James Cameron and Jonathan Nolan. A proper job of Foundation would replace Avatar as the biggest movie ever, and move us a wee bit closer to the stars. I know one or two people myself...scidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44093772031583929182019-06-21T11:22:26.831-07:002019-06-21T11:22:26.831-07:00Sirens of Titan? Wow. Alas, that the Foundation g...Sirens of Titan? Wow. Alas, that the Foundation guys never consulted me. I'm the expert! ;-(David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70971952190217906092019-06-21T04:46:22.234-07:002019-06-21T04:46:22.234-07:00We're going to see "Sirens of Titan"...We're going to see "Sirens of Titan", "Foundation", "Consider Phlebas", and "Ringworld" TV series shortly. It will be interesting to see what effect real SF will have on pop culture. It's like swapping out the bubble gum for caviar.<br />https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/fantasy-adaptations-book-tv-development-production.htmlscidatahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07152319593457629592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82454469001212040042019-06-21T03:47:55.533-07:002019-06-21T03:47:55.533-07:00"At their nadir they'll outnumber us 5 to..."At their nadir they'll outnumber us 5 to 1"<br /><br />Doesn't matter. China has always outnumbered the West. Didn't help them in the past, won't help them in a future where Big Brother snuffs out invention and initiative.<br /><br />Also, look at the numbers. By 2035 (16 years from now) their elderly will be about 40% of their total population. Unless they let their seniors die of starvation in the streets (unlikely given an ingrained culture that reveres the elderly) they won't have any money left over after paying the Chinese equivalent of social security and Medicare to afford technological research or military adventurism. They won't have enough young males to spare from a dwindling labor force to serve in the military.<br /><br />Remember when Japan was going to take over the world back in the 1980s? Didn't happen for the same reason that China won't - the demographics of an aging population.<br />DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60177995231187337702019-06-20T23:31:18.407-07:002019-06-20T23:31:18.407-07:00Humans suffer
Human finds way to alleviate some pe...Humans suffer<br />Human finds way to alleviate some personal suffering in exchange for something less 'bad.'<br />Others observe and decide they would make a similar trade... so they copy the behaviors.<br />Others fail to copy perfectly, so variation occurs.<br />Some note the variations and chose among them instead because some are less bad.<br />Humans still suffer but it's different and they don't realize it if the improvments were slow.<br /><br />--------------<br /><br />A difficult thing about progress is it is hard to see for any single person. Another difficult thing about progress is we can't agree on what it is, but it is mostly about trading suffering now for suffering later from a different problem.<br /><br />Sometimes we get things wrong and simplify when we unwind a previous set of choices. Mostly we don't. We keep what works as partially imperfect copies and never see the evolution of our ideas as they pass from one mind to the next. <br /><br />Along the way, though, we do what only large brained, social creatures can. We abstract the complexity as one of our innovations. We tell whole stories about people who reject something good that they can't have and pretend like they didn't want it anyway. Later we just raise an eyebrow and say 'sour grapes' and the culturally literate understand. Yet abstraction is not simplification. Far from it. Recursion in complex languages is required.<br /><br />The real story of us isn't simple cycles or even my simplistic progress thread. It's complex and multi-threaded. The future can arrive too fast motivating us to revert, but we rarely do even when we try. We keep the bits with which we can cope. We make imperfect copies and adapt them to our own sufferings. We seldom notice others copying us... imperfectly... and doing the same.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85086464911390705412019-06-20T22:10:52.923-07:002019-06-20T22:10:52.923-07:00All those questions are answered the same way. The...All those questions are answered the same way. They didn't discover liberalism. Those who adopt it become unimaginably rich compared to our subsistence-living ancestors. Those who adopt it trade grinding poverty for other issues, but we get fabulously rich and do strange things like wipe out small pox and walk on the Moon.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66799871072801710402019-06-20T21:56:24.856-07:002019-06-20T21:56:24.856-07:00I guess this answers the question "Why didn&#...I guess this answers the question "Why didn't the Chinese land on the moon in 1769?" I'm pretty sure the answer to the question "Why didn't Baghdad land on the moon in 1869?" is fundamentalist Islam.Don Gisselbeckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05770961482198971383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11970108662073562322019-06-20T19:48:18.770-07:002019-06-20T19:48:18.770-07:00China needs more resources.
Where to get them? Oh,...China needs more resources.<br />Where to get them? Oh, yeah. North into Russia a border neighbor. Who should Putin fear more than the West? The East and its soon to be 2 billion mouth, backs and tech craving minds.<br />When China goes to invade in the next 30 years -- it will be Russia that succumbs to the Sinowave.Anonymolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10762784291708903199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87991526417429968342019-06-20T19:35:06.256-07:002019-06-20T19:35:06.256-07:00"My point is that China is not a threat to Am..."My point is that China is not a threat to American dominance.<br />Neither is Russia<br /><br />Yipe. At their nadir they'll outnumber us 5 to 1 and have a hundred million horny-incel men without wives. What good will our relative youth and creativity do, if they pull down the walls of the house, in wrath? Likewise Russia, where they know all this, and hence must act fast to bring us down, before the mafia/kgb business model collapses.<br /><br />Siberia? I bet Putin has already secretly sold it. The whole purpose of the China gambits in the South China Sea is to draw our eyes away from there. I've said as much, in DC. So eliminating me will only draw attention to my ravings. (That last bit wasn't for you guys, but certain lurkers.)David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35124888214001713292019-06-20T19:29:23.529-07:002019-06-20T19:29:23.529-07:00"The pollution is a major problem - but IMHO ..."The pollution is a major problem - but IMHO it is "fixable" and being fixed..."<br /><br />There are varied scales. It takes at least a generation to lessen the effects of lead poisoning and some of those effects... loopy baby boomers... keep wreaking harm, as in susceptibility to Fox News.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52599266261961206512019-06-20T17:38:56.386-07:002019-06-20T17:38:56.386-07:00My point is that China is not a threat to American...My point is that China is not a threat to American dominance.<br /><br />Neither is Russia: <br /><br />http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/05/russia-is-finished/302220/<br /><br />Over the past decade Russia's population has been shrinking by almost a million a year, owing to a plummeting birth rate and a rising number of deaths from alcoholism and violence. Predictions are astonishingly grave: the country could lose a third of its population (now 146 million) by the middle of the century. This does not factor in new scourges—tuberculosis and HIV, in particular, which have been spreading exponentially since 1998. As its population shrinks, Russia will find itself less and less able to face demographic challenges from China. Overpopulation is pushing the Chinese into the Russian Far East—a trend that at present benefits Russia by bringing it trade and small-scale investment but that could someday lead to ethnically based separatism. DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60489169210884216512019-06-20T17:13:16.348-07:002019-06-20T17:13:16.348-07:00The pollution is a major problem - but IMHO it is ...The pollution is a major problem - but IMHO it is "fixable" and being fixed<br /><br />The UK used to have it's days when thousands of Londoners would die because of the smog<br /><br />The USA had a river that used to catch on fire<br /><br />The population distribution - less working age, more pensioners is not as bad as people make out as while the workers have to "support" more pensioners they have less children to support <br /><br />The one cancels out the other - and the reduction in population helps the environmental degradationduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89515619519305131102019-06-20T16:54:18.640-07:002019-06-20T16:54:18.640-07:00These are not reasons for happiness or optimism.
These are not reasons for happiness or optimism.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.com