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Lest we not forget that not that long ago, Japan was the eastern empire that invaded and occupied much of coastal China. Japan has one of the best navies in the world and a geography that is not favorable to invasion. The same cannot be said of China. Japan also has very friendly relations with India and many of the countries within SEA, where China hasn't done much to build good relations but provoke bitterness. If the US continues to become more isolationist, good relations will matter in a low energy world as Japan will still need to get resources from the Middle East. Having a strong navy and good relations with the countries along much of the route helps that. Not having that (China) could pose some big problems. Positives aside, Japan has its own issues of an aging population and is one of the most resource poor major nations.

Yes indeed, not to mention humiliating Russia in the war of 1905 and almost inadvertently causing a Soviet defeat at Moscow in 1941. Although the widespread idea in the 1980s that Japan would emerge as a rival to the US were exaggerated, it will likely remain a major regional power at least. Just needs to more immigrants to shore up its ageing population.

theanimal wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:59 pm

Japan also has very friendly relations with India and many of the countries within SEA, where China hasn't done much to build good relations but provoke bitterness.

Japan occupied quite a lot of SEA before the US took it from them in WW2. I doubt the negative feelings related with the occupation completely went away, plus now China is fanning that flame (as noted by a guest in Jordan Peterson podcast, there are now basically anti-Japanese nationalistic museums popping up across all SEA, in an effort which is greatly supported by China).

The Japanese have never fully faced up to their wartime atrocities. A trail of evil from Manchuria to Australia.

chenda wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:10 am

The Japanese have never fully faced up to their wartime atrocities. A trail of evil from Manchuria to Australia.

True, but I'd also argue that most countries never face up to wartime atrocities. This a feature of military history.

@white belt yes thats probably true.

Japan has disputed territory with Russia, four strategic islands which the soviets stole at the end of ww2 (and ethnically cleansed and settled with white Russians) Maybe Japan will help out Ukraine by getting a bit more assertive in the neighbourhood, it seems tensions have already risen since March.

WFJ wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 01, 2022 2:53 pm

But the large size and increasingly centralized government set up the US for a more likely self-induced failure in some kind of post-shock environment.

I do sometimes wonder if the US is becoming too big to govern effectively. We can see that big businesses become harder to manage as they grow, they ossify to such an extent that they become unresponsive and vulnerable to disruption. Why wouldn't a country have the same issues?

ducknald_don wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 02, 2022 2:49 pm

Why wouldn't a country have the same issues?

Customers can change suppliers much easier than citizens can change countries. That said, there is a big push to "go where you're treated best," which is the tagline for one popular citizenship relocation specialist. And digital nomadism is certainly taking off, so much so that they are changing the character of some places where they set up shop.

These might be the droids you're looking for: https://fragilestatesindex.org/ ... attempting to answer how well a given state is able to respond when under pressure.

It's a quantitative+qualitative approach that looks at 6 groups of indicators such as military/enforcement, economic strength/trend, cultural fracturing, political representation, ... and influence/pressure from neighboring nations (e.g. refuge streams). See 16 page PDF file on the site for details.

Also came upon this: https://www.nationalityindex.com/

Might be of interest to OP, Germany is #2. Haven't read all the details, but doesn't seem to take into account any consideration of climate change. But peace and stability is a big factor.

This thread reminds me of this. Save your bars boys and girls.

https://youtu.be/oGo96xzNSEs

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 01, 2022 4:00 pm

Au contraire. It's easy because good governance is contingent on the trust of the governed and that is slow to change. Since it's a collaborative effort destroying mutual trust requires both the government behaving unreliably AND the governed getting disinformed and this is harder to arrange.

If the government behaves unreliable, why the public need to be "disinformed"?

or does it just mean "anti-government speech" wheteher true or false

prudentelo wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 09, 2022 9:22 am

If the government behaves unreliable, why the public need to be "disinformed"?

The keyword above is mutual.

If the people are disinformed, the government can not trust the people.
If the government is unrealiable, the people can not trust the government.

An informed people can deal with an unreliable government, simply work around it. Similarly a reliable government can deal with cranks and kooks. Of course both situations have a cost but it's a predictable one with systems in place. The ability to predict/maintain these systems descend into the chaotic regime when the failure is mutual. An unrealiable/unstable government and a population of cranks. It's a long road to get out of that because there's now nothing to rebuild the trust on. Compare to national debt defaults which haunt a nation's finances for decades.

jacob wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 09, 2022 9:42 am

An informed people can deal with an unreliable government, simply work around it. Similarly a reliable government can deal with cranks and kooks. Of course both situations have a cost but it's a predictable one with systems in place. The ability to predict/maintain these systems descend into the chaotic regime when the failure is mutual. An unrealiable/unstable government and a population of cranks.

I've akways worked on the assumption the masses are for the most part always ignorant cranks. The only variable is the quality of their overlords.

Though thinking about it South Africa may be an example of the reverse. A highly educated middle class ruled by corrupt imbeciles.

Examples abound of unreliable governments with disinformed citizens where apathy, fear and confusion on the part of the citizens allows the government to be effective in doing the bidding for a select few.

Convincing citizens of the unreliability of government and barely hiding the extent of the disinformation is a good way to manufacture apathy, fear and confusion.

Hypernormalisation

According to some Wall Street banks, the EIU, and others, some members of BRICS and emerging markets will be growing readily because of young populations and lots of natural resources, while industrialized nations will be depending on them for workers and even consumers as the effects of population aging set in.

Some scientists who spoke around two decades back argued that regions closer to the equator won't be affected that as much by extreme weather conditions as those some distance away.

Some financiers refer to places like Thailand and other parts of Indochina due to combinations of less extreme weather, population densities that are in the middle, and lots of resources like arable land.

Some preppers and survivalists plus scientists argue that large land masses, like those of Australia, the U.S., China, parts of Europe, Africa, etc., will experience problems due to combinations of long distances logistically plus desertification, etc. Several rank New Zealand high but it is at the end of supply chain routes and can be exploited due to lack of defense.

Finally, some preppers argue that it is difficult to live in places outside one's own birth culture, like North Americans attempting to adjust in South America, or Western expats in Asia, etc. Given that, one should consider the ff. strategy:

Stick to the place nearest yours that has arable land, access to water, is fairly close to one or more depots or supply hubs, and has a population density and demographic mix that's just right, and maintained infra and industry for necessities (food, utilities such as water and electricity, any road networks to deliver necessities, supply areas or things related to ports that have medicine, etc.). Get ready for issues like rising population densities when others reach the same conclusions.

Get ready to select other places still within the same region that has similar and that can act as alternatives, and then consider those that are outside and with other cultures as third options. In all cases, get read to move given issues like wars, natural disasters, etc.

What is the reason behind the drought in western europe? So far, problems in the uk/germany have been with flooding. Why the flip?

From my understanding, hoter air contains more water, so if the air stay hot, the water in it won't fall.
But then when it fall, more water falls.

https://riskfactor.com/ - US risks for fire, flood, and heat by maps down to address level between now at 2050. Note: It DOES NOT contain an entry of additional range (e.g. number of 110F days). Many maps unfortunately neglect this. This can lead to the presumption that while it's bothersome that the number of 100F days go from 9 to 21 it's probably alright. However, what matters are the 110F cases that go from 0 to 5 because the current infrastructure may not be set up to handle 110F. Case in point: The Portland, OR heatwave was deadly because it was unprecendented, not because was particularly hot.

That's a cool map. Is there something similar for Europe ?