Comment by gaelian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gaelian | Hacker News Reader

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I am generally reluctant to buy into theories about giant conspiracies, not because I think people in power aren't capable of desiring such things, but because I don't think they're capable of pulling it off. However, it doesn't have to be a conspiracy. All you need is a group of actors in a similar position/industry, each motivated by their own self-interest and following what is to them, the path of least resistance to their goal. From the outside then, it can look more or less like a big conspiracy and indeed I’d be willing to accept that there may be many minor conspiracies playing out (of the ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ kind).

I don't think anyone is wanting the next war, IMO more likely what has happened is around about the wrap up of Gulf War 2, people in relevant industries started to realise that there won't be that many more fortuitously sized 'sandboxable' (if I may coin a term) hot wars that profit can consistently be extracted from. So what do you do instead? Get on the surveillance gravy train. It certainly seems like a pretty good gig doesn't it? Huge amounts of government spending up for grabs, very little informed oversight or ability for anyone to argue that too much is being spent. It's a government contractor's (or a government offical taking the revolving door's) dream.

I wouldn't credit them with enough foresight to be thinking about depopulation. It's all just about next quarter's profits.

I often say similar things on this topic. It doesn't have to be an explicit conspiracy (though there is certainly likely to be a number of conspiracies along the way).

As a physicist by training I think of these things as the stable attractors we see in complex systems, where out of chaos certain configurations act to pull everything towards them.

A totalitarian world of surveillance and conflict which feed off each other leading to us liquidating more and more of our economy to feed the beast, creating insecurity at home and a knee jerk support of those carrying this stuff out, in the name of attacking some faceless enemy is an attractor with many individuals acting in self interest generating motion in that direction.

Complacency prevents people breaking the cycle. A belief that it's a pendulum swinging back and forth rather than a drift towards a stable attractor from which it's hard to move back again.

>I don't think anyone is wanting the next war

The US is directing significant resources towards war with China and China is responding in kind. It kind of makes sense given the amount of money the US owes China and given the "threat" of China's economic ascendence.

http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparation...

I fail to see anything new. China has an outstanding claim of sovereignty over Taiwan and the US has entered into treaty obligations to defend Taiwan. China regularly holds military exercises in which it fires shells and missiles into the sea just off Taiwan. This situation has been in place for many decades. Over the last few decades China has greatly increased it's GDP and it's military spending, escalating the level of threat to Taiwan e.g. by buying or building submarines and an aircraft carrier, experimenting with stealth aircraft technology, etc, so the US has responded to that in step. Bear in mind it's the PRC's territorial claim and standing claim of a right to violently enforce it that's the driving force here.

China's posturing isn't limited to military exercises, they're also courting Taiwan for reintegration through economic incentives. It stands to reason that Taiwan's proximity to China could also be construed as a threat, due to her Western allegiance.

If Taiwan integrates with China as a special economic zone then that would be a key Western ally lost, however Taiwanese reintegration has been a hot-button issue for a few decades (in both Chinese and Taiwanese politics) that has quietly remained dormant.

I probably should have qualified that a little better: I don't think anyone sane is wanting the next war - which I agree would most likely be US + allies vs. China + allies and would likely spell Armageddon.

My earlier post was really concerned more with those actors within relevant industries whose motive is to maximise profit, not with those actors whose motive is to win a dick measuring competition between their country/empire and someone else’s. If the latter guys win out then yeah, all bets are off I'd say.

Perhaps I'm overestimating their adherence to logic and reason, but I don't think those actors motivated primarily by greed want such a big, uncontrollable war, the outcome of which is not foregone. They want little controllable ones like Gulf War 1 and 2 (or failing this, the surveillance state).

Really? US owes China 1.3 trillion dollars. So the BIG BAD China debt is only 7-8% or less of a single year's GDP.

In the grand schemes of things it is pocket change.

Really? A pocket change? So why the US don't just, you know, pay the debt with the pocket change and regain its financial independence once again?

A good reason to not pay it off is like the fact that US is borrowing money right now below the inflation rate - people are paying US to keep their money.

Also government debt is rarely paid off - it is usually grown out of and revolved. What US lack is economic growth thanks the "serious" people that push for austerity.

Also rule of thumb - anyone that uses a country budget is like the family budget analogy is - liar, dumb or ignorant. That is very quick filter by which you could judge politicians.

Because nobody wins. Having the world dependent on US stability is a good thing.

Sometimes you do not need a conspiracy which is articulated at the intellectual level. Sometimes a conspiracy can be implicit; emergent; driven by the biology and the natural drives of the authoritarian, power-seeking mind, driven to reinforce their own authority; to proclaim and strut their status, and to demean and chasten their "inferiors". Power is sex, and the domination of an elite over a subjugated population is rape. No intellectual conspiracy here; just an accumulation of drives; an institutional lust for power and control; and a human sexual power dynamic playing itself out on a grand stage.

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