Thank you for bringing a new voice to the conversation.

What do you consider pro African content? How do you view various parts of Africa? How do you see US and Chinese actions from an African perspective? How do you tend to get information about them? How do you personally view the presence of the US or China in Africa?

That’s not what my comment says. Give it an other read and you’ll see I addressed that.

The overall technology of EV is better than ICE but that doesn’t mean every EV is better than every ICE.

Cars may be better than horses but no horse ever exploded the way a Ford Pinto would.

I think it’s more that Xi bullied him into it.

It’s likely that he made several points:
Nobody has actually suggested a scenario where the arms package would prevent or even slow down a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
All the US wargames show that the US has no chance of defending Taiwan.
Trump’s trade war failed.
His Iran war is failing.
Trump has burned most of his alliances.

He probably phrased all of that in fancy diplomat lingo but all the analysis I’ve seen says it was more of a veiled threat than a bribe.

That’s exactly my point.
The choice lies with DNC leadership.
If those choices result in disastrous voting outcomes, the blame should lie with them as well.

That’s a false choice.

We don’t have to be stuck with Harris as the only alternative to Trump. We could just as easily nominate someone who doesn’t suck.

If we have the misfortune of once again being forced to choose between Trump or harm reduction, we will all know it’s because the Democratic leadership forced that choice on us. I don’t think they would be forgiven for that betrayal.

Your understanding is correct.

Fort Knox holds about 4.6 thousand metric tons; the Federal Reserve in NY has about 6 thousand.

You can take a tour if you’re there. They put the gold in the basement, directly on the bedrock because it’s too expensive to build floors strong enough to hold it. You go down a security elevator and end up in a trap with the most intense locking mechanism you will ever encounter.

That said, the vast majority of what the Fed does, isn’t in gold. Their daily cash transactions dwarf the total amount of physical gold

This train wreck is as painful to watch as a B horror movie.

This numbnut is walking into an obvious trap. They’re baiting major assets of the USN using ratty little fast boats.

Now that they’re in striking range, their defense have to be lucky every single day, multiple times per day. If the Iranians are lucky once, they destroy billions of dollars in hardware, get major bragging rights, and thousands of GI families at home get to look up the lyrics to “Fortunate Son.”

I hear you but the hallmark of science is that we don’t stop when things are pretty fucking obvious. We check anyway and document it.

There are two potential lines of argument. One is prediction markets in general, the other is prediction markets as they’re currently implemented.

You’re talking about how they’re implemented and I agree. It’s a total mess.

My comment was on the general (and much older) idea of prediction markets. None of the current crypto bros would like those since they would be much more heavily regulated.

The idea of prediction markets is pretty old. Nobody was able to implement a functional one until recently.

The current prediction markets are all based on crypto so it’s really hard to identify inside traders but prediction markets as a general concept don’t depend on it. Theoretically, there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a prediction market that only allowed registered investors.

They’re supposed to work using Mosaic Theory. That’s exactly the same theory that allows anyone else to make stock predictions. You can take a bunch of data that doesn’t meet the insider trading definition, ie acting on material, non-public information. You can take a bunch of public information and if you’re clever enough to aggregate it the right way, you’re allowed to trade on it.

Huh? What claim did I make?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airstrike

China definitely considers the downsides of all the options in front of them.

When it comes to Taiwan, US intervention of any sort is now likely much lower on their list. They’ve been dumping funds into SMIC. Although they’re not on par with TSMC yet, they’re catching up fast. On top of that, the US would have a much harder time blowing up their factories (plural). They’ve used up most of the munitions that they could use to do it with and there’s no safe way to get a ship into firing range of Taiwan.

The biggest incentive is cost. Why fight over something that (as you pointed out) they can get through talks? It may take longer but it’s much cheaper that way.

Americans regularly make the mistake of assuming that other countries will behave like America, even when the evidence points the other way.

If China actually wanted to invade Taiwan it’s hard to imagine a better time to do it than right now. The US has used up almost all it’s supply of Patriot interceptors and JASSM long range cruise missiles. We used up all our most effective ammunition attempting to bully Iran and even pulled ordinance out of the Pacific theater to do so.
On top of that the global economy is on shaky ground. This would be the most difficult time to try to put together a coalition to sanction China. It doesn’t help that they control many of the precursor resources that we need for our advanced weapons systems.

On the other hand, they’ve demonstrated that their geography gives them an option vis a vis Taiwan that the US does not have with Iran, they can force capitulation without a ground invasion. Taiwan is so close to mainland China that they can completely blockade the island. They’ve done it several times and gotten away with it just fine. They do this ever time anyone gets near their “red lines”; that’s basically any formal declaration of independence.

So the evidence points us to two obvious conclusions:

• China will not invade Taiwan unilaterally.
• If China does decide to use force, they’ll do so with a blockade.

We have more people in prison that China does even though they have 4x our population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate.

I’d like to see every governor that still respects the constitution to activate their State Defense Force.

Send a crystal clear message that true patriots are ready to defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic.

Faster than you may realize.

Baden-Powell was inspired to start the Boy Scouts when he saw the 12-15 year old boys of the Mafeking Cadet Corp assisting the military during the Second Boer War.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally

Bloomberg has regular interviews with analysts for giant investment firms. They had one who specializes in government debt. She said she talks to the people who work the front office for politicians. The Iran war and affordability come up regularly but the number one question they get is about the Epstein files.