Kind of hilarious to frame it as China relying on the US occupation of the region and then in the next sentence admit that it’s actually the US that’s the cause of the problems in the region.

The war also illustrates the limits of Chinese power. For decades, Beijing relied on U.S.-provided security architecture in the Middle East as it powered its economy on Gulf energy imports. Now it can do little to check U.S. military action in the region, and Xi’s call to open the Strait of Hormuz went unheeded.

and I’m here for it

the best possible outcome for the world

No, software is not a one piece puzzle lmfao. It’s pretty clear you have no idea the difficulty involved in integrating different software stacks. Try figure out how to run iPhone apps on Android and see how that one piece puzzle works out for you. If majority of the world is using a particular standard, then it’s very difficult for companies that don’t adhere to it to operate in most countries. Countries are picking Chinese standards because Chinese EVs dominate world sales. They’re the de facto standard. And yes, American companies would have to duplicate the work if they ever wanted to sell cars on the global market. That’s, of course, assuming that Americans can even build an EV that anybody would buy.

What the article says is that the US is becoming a hermit kingdom with its own technological standards while the rest of the world continues to adopt Chinese ones. The article supports the headline just fine, the problem happens to be between the chair and the keyboard.

Same, it seems like they really thought that Americans would come to their senses at some point.

you really upset some lib with this post

Exactly, Chinese scientists fleeing the US just have an easier time because China has massive science budget now. The scale of brain drain the US is experiencing is going to be disastrous. These are skills that will not be easy to rebuild in the future, assuming the US even survives as a state.

The question anarchists never seem to ask themselves is why hierarchies form in the first place, and what problem they solve. There’s a reason why in over a century of anarchist theory, no large scale or long lived applications of these ideas exist in the real world.

Hierarchies play a structural purpose facilitating scaling of organization. These are cognitive and organizational tools that enable large groups to coordinate effectively. It’s a form of abstraction, providing mental shortcuts that enable us to engage with complex systems at a meaningful level of detail, without being overwhelmed by their inner workings. Our ability to abstract is what allows us to manage the near infinite complexity of the world.

We don’t perceive people as trillions of individual molecules. Instead, we view them as individuals with intentions, ideas, and actions. Doing so allows us to focus our attention on relevant interactions rather than microscopic details. In fact, focusing on a manageable level of detail also governs our self-perception as well. Our minds don’t concern themselves with the granular operation of our organs, digestion, blood flow, or muscle contractions within our bodies. The decision to pick up a cup is processed at the level of intent, not the orchestration of muscular movements required to accomplish the task.

Similarly, using a phone app for internet browsing involves operating at an abstract level, interacting with website addresses and content, rather than the complexities of phone hardware, software execution, or network protocols. This abstraction allows us to utilize sophisticated tools effectively by focusing on the relevant layer of interaction.

The same principle applies to groups of people trying to accomplish a shared task. A team working on a shared goal can be viewed as a single unit. Outsiders don’t need to know every internal decision or workflow. They only need to understand the group’s inputs and outputs in order to engage with it effectively. This abstraction is enabled through delegation where groups nominate representatives to interface with other groups, and these representatives can then form higher-level teams of their own. These nested layers allow organizations to scale without requiring everyone to grasp every detail of every project.

Hierarchies naturally arise in systems that necessitate both specialized labor and complex coordination. We can see an example of this when we examine the multifaceted operations within a manufacturing plant. Instead of each worker individually constructing an entire product, the workflow is partitioned into distinct sets of responsibilities.

The production of any product involves a series of key roles. Design engineers initiate the process by conceptualizing and blueprinting the product, detailing specifications for each component. Material handlers then take over, procuring and transporting the necessary raw materials to various workstations. On the assembly line, teams of workers are responsible for producing individual parts and their assembly into the final product. Simultaneously, specialized technicians maintain the machinery for continuous operation. Quality control inspectors ensure standards are met by examining finished goods at various stages. Supervisors play a crucial role in overseeing specific sections of the production line, ensuring adherence to schedules and acting as communication nodes for their teams, addressing immediate issues. Ultimately, production managers coordinate the entire flow of work across departments, optimizing resource allocation and ensuring that all production stages align with overall targets.

A hierarchical structure, with its clear division of labor and defined lines of authority, maximizes efficiency by allowing individuals to develop deep expertise in their specific roles while establishing clear channels for communication and accountability across the entire production process. The partitioning of work arises out of strategic necessity for managing the complexity inherent in large-scale manufacturing. As a direct consequence of this inherent demand for both focused expertise and effective collaboration, a selection pressure emerges that favors the hierarchical organizational model. The example of the advantages observed in structured production environments are not unique to manufacturing. Hierarchies are a common feature across diverse industries, political structures, and pretty much every type of endeavor where large numbers of people with different types of skills need to collaborate to achieve common goals.

Conversely, the limitations of horizontal structures become apparent when considering communication overhead. In a flat organization, every decision requires consensus among all members. Meetings grow unproductive as more people join, and time is inevitably wasted on debates irrelevant to most participants. Specialists spend hours explaining context to non-experts, making any meaningful progress impossible. Countless studies show that large groups of people struggle to function horizontally. Complex tasks, like coordinating a national healthcare system or a general strike, demand roles and delegation. Hierarchies streamline communication by compartmentalizing responsibilities where engineers can focus on technical problems, organizers on logistics, and representatives on inter-group coordination.

The same need for managing complexity through structured roles extends to the realm of political organization. A party acts as a hierarchical abstraction layer. It synthesizes grassroots input into actionable policies, balancing decision making with accountability through feedback from below. Centralizing expertise allows for efficient use of resources necessary for effective action. The division of labor afforded by hierarchies allows movements to manage complexity, specialize labor, and act decisively. Meanwhile, flat structures limit organizing potential to small, disconnected groups that cannot meaningfully challenge existing power structures which are themselves hierarchical.

Anarchists tend to argue that hierarchy necessarily leads to oppression, but this conflates hierarchy as a structural tool with the way this tool is applied under capitalism. The actual problem lies with lack of accountability of those at the top of the hierarchy to those at the bottom within power structures that serve private profit rather than collective needs.

I guess they realized that would be rather unpopular and would be a pretext for the west to invade. Doing it in response to the US invading and losing, completely reframes it.

Wait, the implication here is that there are good corporations?

it sure can

I don’t find anything odd about a country minding its own business and making trade relations based on mutual benefit rather than ideology.

https://archive.ph/xuEqO

It’s going to get a lot worse because oil companies are going to sell oil at global rates. There’s no chance of Trump admin putting caps on it.

I disagree that that there was anything amicable during Biden years. Biden picked up exactly where Trump left off before him and he escalated tensions with stuff like CHIPS act, ban on Chinese EVs and so on. There’s been a continuation of policy here across administration since Obama’s pivot to Asia when the US decided that China was the main adversary. Things have been steadily escalating, and now they’re entering into an openly hostile territory.

It certainly can, but there’s zero actual evidence to that’s happening. What we do see though is that turd reich is regressing along all of these metrics. Burgerlander military doctrine has been defeated by Iran. The economy of the turd reich is collapsing, and the society is tearing itself apart. It’s pretty clear that America is a failed social experiment at this point.

Whatever helps you sleep at night I suppose.

Right, the US isn’t going to go bankrupt, but there is a real consequence within the framework of the way the system is set up to work While they can issue infinite currency, the two problems they have are inflation and debt payments. Inflation devalues the currency, while higher debt payments mean that there’s less operational budget available. So, end result ends up being less money available for productive purposes as more and more of the budget ends up being allocated towards interest.

The government doesn’t just print cash and hand it out. Typically, what happens is that they issue Treasury bonds instead with the understanding that the government will pay back later with interest. These bonds are then bought up by pension funds, foreign governments, big financial institutions, etc.

When the government prints too much money or issues too many bonds, the bond holders start getting awful nervous about their investment. They wonder if the dollars they get back in ten years will be worth the paper they’re printed on. So they demand a higher yield to cover the risk. It’s not unlike a credit card company jacking up your rate when you miss a payment.

Rising bond yields, in turn, make the government’s interest payments go up. Bigger and bigger checks need to be paid to the people who lent the money, which reduces the operational budget. Today, that sum is sitting at something like a trillion dollars a year. It’s money that’s just flowing out of the treasury and straight into the accounts of bondholders.

And of course, as you note, the other problem will be that the rest of the world will start dumping dollar because holding US bonds will mean losing money as the dollar continues to depreciate in value.

I find short is actually a feature. There are very few games that can really justify the hours you need to beat them. Things just tend to get repetitive and the game turns into a chore. Keeping the game short means it doesn’t outstay its welcome.