I was surprised to learn Taiwan has dabbled in nuclear weapons in the past. They actually got caught developing them and had to swear they'd stop.
Given that the US is doing a professional wrestling 'heel turn' and is now The Bad Guys, I wouldn't be surprised if, like NK, they just come out and announce that they have nukes. Honestly, and this is bad for the world but smart in a game theory sense, I think a lot of countries that depended on the US being a force for stability either go the Israel route ("We won't say if we have nukes or not" wink) or just announce that they have them and do public tests to prove it.
Nuclear proliferation is the only logical response to this administration. Tripling the number of nuclear armed countries will greatly increase the odds of a hot conflict breaking out which risks the safety of everyone in the world. Of course this fairly straightforward calculus seems beyond what trump/musk are capable of and they are actively working to make Americans safer and less prosperous is countless ways.
He and Trump share an enormous amount of plainly evident narcissistic traits, which are effective in business but fatal combined with toxic, quixotic ideology. Impulsivity is among those features.
Narcissists embrace and promote tribalism, which shores their power and volatilises their circles and communities. As conflicts arise, individuals are forced to take side. It is better for the narcissist to lead a battle to disaster than to be the benign civilian in a country at peace.
Pretty much all these conflicts are pretty limited and there's very few states focused on war (whereas before Nukes in the 20th century essentially all of Europe and Asia was focused on war, constantly)
So yes, I find the idea that the nuclear weapons threat is preventing a LOT of wider wars and is responsible for the most peaceful period ever in human history pretty convincing.
When it comes to relations between states, arguments go between capitalism and war (ie. just taking what you want vs trade)
I get that capitalism (selling/exporting their oil) brought Soviets enormous success and taking what they want in war brought the USSR down. And yet, despite that, here we are with Russia and Ukraine. You'd think recent Russian history would convince anyone the Ukraine conflict is not worth it, obviously not for Ukraine, but also not for Russia. It's an easy argument to make that for Russia abandoning the war today, just going home right now, will provide more rewards for Russia and Russians than a complete victory would bring, even if that victory ALSO came today ... and yet nobody thinks Russia will abandon the fight. As for their ability to wage war, the sad truth is, Putin has conquered more people than he lost, and Russia has conquered more minerals' than they lost in equipment. If Putin wants to use both resources to create more war, he will be able to do so.
Something very similar can be said about China and Taiwan. Not having a conflict is obviously the best option ... and yet, there's very little doubt that conflict will erupt in a few years, not decades.
That's the current "international order", represented by the UN security council. Borders stay where they are, except for: nuclear powers get to invade whoever they want, WITHOUT using nuclear weapons (and other nuclear powers get to support the invaded country with non-nuclear weapons). Exceptions can be granted by the UN security council, taking the veto system into account (so not for Ukraine)
It doesn't matter what I propose or not, this is the only international order we have, and the best one that has ever existed. And yes, I will agree with what Einstein said, namely that he's extremely disappointed in it.
At some point having nukes might not make a difference though. To quote the mean, when everyone is special nobody is anymore, and having proxy access to nukes could be enough as a deterrent (e.g. being in an alliance that triggers a nuclear response in case of nuclear attack should be enough ?)
The problem is that wars inevitably break out between countries. They are bad enough with conventional means, but wars with nuclear arsenals can quickly scale to unimagineable catastrophies.
This the reason no nukes were dropped since WW2, and why I also think the next mass massacre won't be from nukes but any other mean that won't have the same international framework.
Vietnam wasn't nukes, and it wasn't just a fluke. Gaza wasn't nuked, yet the whole area is now flat.
> When it came to the vote, Ukraine’s version passed by 93 votes to 18. The US voted against, alongside Russia, marking a major shift of its position on the conflict and previous votes.
> The US version was also adopted (93 in favour, eight against and 73 abstentions), but Member States also voted to add the European Union amendments with 60 in favour, 18 against and 81 abstentions.
What is the endgame in that world, keep sending weapons? At some point there won't be anyone left to fight. At some point a concession will need to be made, and those concessions can lead to better times.
There is no world where NATO/US invade Russia. That is literally the end of the world.
I agree, I think only a tiny number of additional weapons need to be given to Ukraine.
Perhaps two dozen Trident missiles equipped with nuclear warheads would be all that's really necessary. Russia is only invading because Ukraine believed it would honor its word in the Budapest Memorandum, which was why it surrendered its key strategic defense. With that agreement breached, Ukraine deserves its deterrents back.
I also agree that a concession will need to be made, and I think that's very appropriate. Reparations need to be paid for the war of aggression, and those guilty of war crimes need to be given fair trials by international tribunals.
I don't think they were equating the US to North Korea (where is China mentioned?), but saying that since the US can no longer be relies on for protection (instead of the sheriff we're at best the anti-hero that will maybe protect you if there's something in it for us). This means countries need to put up a stronger front themselves since there's no larger stabilizing force to rely on.
It's interesting, because I'm sure Trump and Musk take advantage of the benefits that the regulated market provide (even when they just ignore it to their benefit because most others don't), but I'm not sure they've really considered what it means when that stability and security is gone, in more than a "I'm the biggest so I'll be okay" type of sense. There's a lot of positive externalities from that stability that maybe they are discounting too much (such as a relatively peaceful world, since it's been a while since we had a World War).
Bear in mind that after WW2 the US didn’t want European countries arming up too much, and was quite happy to pick up the slack and set the pace. Eisenhower in particular was pretty clear he didn’t want a heavily armed Germany or Italy, for reasons that should be obvious, and was Dubious about France. It was the US that wrote the heavily pacifist Japanese constitution.
Threatening to annex Canada and start a trade war to try to compulse them. Invoking Canadian nationalism instead. Note: he arranged the previous "trade deal" he claims to hate now.
Starting a trade war with Mexico, this is actually a source of Fentanyl and I can understand.
Camerading with dictators ( Russia), voting the same as them in the UN. Claiming Russia isn't the aggressor ( wtf), even China didn't agree with it.
Threatening a country being attacked and bullying it's president. Taking advantage of the situation to bully them for resource extraction.
Threatening Europe and stability in Europe:
Threatening Germany and interfering publicly with it's elections.
Threatening the UK and interfering publicly with it's elections
Disrespecting NATO and it's citizens who have died when US invoked article 5 on 9/11
US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of Trump. A lot is changing very quickly and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone. We're 6 weeks in...
The entire world is pretty sure that Trump & Vance will take the US in a dictatorship. A lot of this is smoke and mirrors to keep everyone distracted and busy in the mean time ( personal opinion)
Pointer: just look at Tesla in Europe. Some countries are reporting a 45% drop in Tesla sales while the EV market expanded 40%...
Eg. Tesla sales dropped 70% in Canada in January. 81 % in Australia, 60% in Germany, ...
When people will stop US subscriptions ( eg. Netflix) and it's becoming noticable ( eg. Stocks). That will be a point of no return (eg. I think it's already going to be visible from Canada).
> US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of that. A lot is changing very quick and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone.
> The entire world is pretty sure that Trump will take the US in a dictatorship and is going to loosen ties.
Do you have a source for this or is it just some vibey rant? That last part seems ridiculous.
What seems ridiculous about it? Aggressive expansion of presidential power. A compliant judiciary that just handed the president immunity while in office. Constant comments about not having elections 'next time around'. Erosion of first amendment rights. Concentrated media ownership. Constant outright lies while in office.
He is giving many good reasons to be anxious or concerned. Are these normal behaviors? Is his conduct likely to weaken our institutions, rather then strengthen them?
The lack of self-awareness and celebratory exclusion of most of humanity from this assertion is deeply concerning.
Is there a reason that you consider people in vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, slovakia, mali, and dozens of other countries that are recent/ongoing victims of the rapacious and ultra-violent "good europeans" or the liberal-imperial US in recent ( < 100 years ago) history to be either:
A) Not part of the world (since you're explaining the GP statement about the world)
B) Or are somehow a self-evidently inferior subspecies for whom you assume it is impossible for people on HN to be friends with?
If you use "all the people in the world" and "a handful of majority-white former or current imperial-colonial powers" interchangeably, I don't see how anyone can assume in good faith that you're not carrying water for a set of very unpleasant european ideas used to rationalize dehumanization.
Look at the entire thread and notice my comment explicitly referenced the GP comment and the prior dialogue. This can be expressed as a set of logical axioms, and I hope that you are simply bad at reading comprehension.
1. "Everyone on earth hates X now"
2. "Well, not the whole world, that's not a serious claim"
3. "My evidence that it is indeed true that everyone on earth hates X is that a majority of white western europeans hate X, as will all of your non-american friends, all of them."
4. "Equating a majority of white western europeans as evidence of the feelings of all people on earth is implicitly exclusionary and illogical."
5. "I'm going to ignore the original claims being discussed and their context even though there are literally nested comments to show associated thoughts and doing so violates the basics of reading comprehension."
So that should catch you up. Again, I'd like to assume good faith but "pretending top level comments don't exist or inform subsequent comments" indicates some kind of learning disability or lack of socialization.
Canada - Ontario ( most populous province) - ends contract with Starlink and refuses to sell US alcohol ( 1 billion $/ year). I know a lot of Canadians and they are stopping US subscriptions everywhere.
Remember that white european imperial powers + NATO are not the global majority HN challenge [impossible, apparently]
At this point, basic facts no one disputes in other contexts are furiously downvoted when it inconveniences an increasingly authoritarian and racialized europe.
Hello, you seem to have been in a long coma, but welcome back from 1930.
The thing about today is that former European imperial powers have ceded their colonies to the people living there.
How did those military bases get there? And how did they remain? You are either very ignorant or you are intentionally mendacious to avoid the obvious reality that your prosperity and their poverty are deeply connected.
You’ve got it wrong there. All our prosperities around the globe are very much connected, which is why having a vindictive zero-sum mindset in the White House causes so many problems around the world as we are seeing.
Also, do you really not see how you prove yourself wrong when the only remnants of colonial times you can find are a few french military bases that are even being withdrawn from right this moment?
> US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of Trump.
This is the top level comment in the thread.
We're at the level of psychosis now where you're arguing with and furiously downvoting matters of agreed upon fact that are like... HTML elements.
If you are angrily in denial about which elements are nested, I can also well understand you might believe that western european empires and their successor states are in fact, the only human beings on earth.
I have friends who live in south-east asia and western africa and they cannot understand why I am so tepid to negative about Trump domestically, because everything he is doing is very positive for their countries.
Probably the reason you haven't heard about this is that intelligent people with options will tend to not maintain friendships with people who think of them as part of a lesser race without the right to interests or opinions.
Many don't seem to realize that removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator
And that's exactly what Trump is doing.
Eg. 6 january, it's really not that hard to see that Trump wants to cling to power and just earn an insane amount of money ( Trump coin, Melaniacoin, ... ), ignoring court orders, ... ( It's project 2025 and happening for weeks)
Claiming to have won the previous elections, with no proof
Do you have any proof that he isn't? Everything seems to support my opinion that Trump wants to be a dictator. He literally said so himself.
"I'll be a dictator for one day", we're currently 6 weeks in.
My concern about checking my own circle is that it is an inherently biased approach. I'll add that I'm not the biggest Trump fan. In fact, according to the political compass tool (take with a grain of salt, I guess) I'm quite liberal. If I go to a liberal circle, of course they're going to confirm this rhetoric that Trump is going to take the US in a dictatorship.
Al Green was being disruptive and frankly let his emotions get the best of him. There were even democrats who voted in favor of his censure.
Your point about removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is solid. Though, to say it is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator is of course an oversimplification. There's more to it than just that.
Also, keep in mind that this is happening within a democratic framework. Removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists can be done in pursuit of objectives other than obtaining dictatorial power:
- Margaret Thatcher in the UK reduced government size through privatizations and appointed conservative loyalists to implement her policies, operating within democracy and stepping down after her term.
- Nelson Mandela in South Africa transformed the bureaucracy from apartheid to a democratic system, installing officials loyal to the new democratic vision, and served two terms before stepping down.
- Ronald Reagan in the US cut regulations and appointed conservative officials to support his economic policies, also within democratic bounds.
In all of these, removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists was framed as efforts to enhance efficiency or fight corruption, not to consolidate absolute power.
Now, Trump is no Nelson Mandela. On the flip side, he is no Adolf Hitler.
There is a lot of alarmist rhetoric going around (such as "Trump will take the US in a dictatorship") that I think will prevent people from seeing what is actually happening (be it good or bad).
That is my attempt at being rational while being bombarded with propaganda from both left and right.
He said publicly during the election that if he won “you won’t have to vote anymore” several times, including on a Fox interview.
During protests in his first presidency in 2020 he asked his security advisors “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Combined with his persistent attempts to overturn the result when he lost to Biden, and retribution against Repubican election officials that certified Biden wins, and I’m frankly confused what isn’t clear about what’s going on.
I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US. Yes the United States have more personal liberties, but China has less wealth inequality. While the US is more democratic, we have had many questionable elections in our history. Most notably in favor of the victor, Nixon committed treason by sabotaging peace talks in order to influence the ‘68 election [0]. Giving more recent examples of questionable elections would be too controversial and political for HN.
When discussing nuclear proliferation, North Korea is pretty much the worst example and should be mentioned.
Nitpick: I assume you really meant US centric and not "Eurocentric", as as you point out european countries are more in the middle of it and look at each camps from a distance while being involved with all of them.
In practical terms, we can see how Huawei is not banned in the EU, the EU isn't in a tariff war with China either, while it's also not a clear Chinese ally, also having a independant stance from the US in most geopolitical fights.
> I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US.
Apart from the genocide of the Uighur, the brutal oppression of Tibet, the complete lack of even the pretense of democratic rights, the total lack of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and on and on. Last I checked not wanting your ethnicity eliminated or brutally repressed isn’t just a European thing.
Neither of which would achieve any strategic goals. TSMC is only important because Western economies crave cutting edge silicon and causing a natural disaster by destroying the dam would not only strengthen the resolve of the Chinese public but alienate the rest of the world.
As I understand it, the military generally isn't a big fan of "move fast and break things". They prefer mature, well-designed, and reliable products because it's a matter of life and death - and development takes years.
A 2025 tank isn't going to use chips made using TSMC's cutting-edge 3nm node. Personally I'd expect the fastest chips to be using at best something like the decade-old 14nm node, with the vast majority being on even more mature nodes. Sure, TSMC can produce them, but so can pretty much everyone else. Losing TSMC would be a major blow, but I doubt it'd have a huge long-term impact logistics-wise for the military.
> They prefer mature, well-designed, and reliable products because it's a matter of life and death - and development takes years.
First, the history of chip design and manufacturing is the history of modern weapons design[0]. As long as chips have existed we've been sticking them in brand spanking new weapons systems precisely because it's a matter of life and death. Chip makers of all kinds live and die by defense contracts.
"Because it's a matter of life and death" as a roadblock only makes sense if you don't think about it at all. If I offload some of my SIGINT processing to my brand new 3nm nodes and they don't work, won't my scheduler just mark them bad and reallocate the work back to the machines I had before? If my first shipment of 3nm drone chips doesn't deliver as promised, I've still got my existing inventory of 5nm drones and plenty of suppliers. You balance the inherent riskiness of new technology via redundancy, not avoidance.
> A 2025 tank isn't going to use chips made using TSMC's cutting-edge 3nm node.
No shit. But 2025 servers can, so can 2025 drones, so can 2025 bombs, so can 2025 satellites. Do you think whoever figures out how to communicate via quantum entanglement[1] is going to just not do it because "it's a matter of life and death"? Hell no. They're going to use it to run circles around their enemies while it's working, and they'll fall back to older communication channels when it isn't working.
Given that the US is doing a professional wrestling 'heel turn' and is now The Bad Guys, I wouldn't be surprised if, like NK, they just come out and announce that they have nukes. Honestly, and this is bad for the world but smart in a game theory sense, I think a lot of countries that depended on the US being a force for stability either go the Israel route ("We won't say if we have nukes or not" wink) or just announce that they have them and do public tests to prove it.