6 ms·

This is the basic premise of this talk by Petar Zeihan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi_nFz1CJSI&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi_nFz1CJSI&t=2s

spywaregorilla 4y ago
Pretty much. I think he's too eager to write off certain things to paint a wholly American picture, but he's generally got it right. The China story is not as clear. But the Europe picture is pretty plain. America is gonna eat it's lunch.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  I'm not sure we want to (or intend to) eat Europe's lunch - we'd like a fairly strong Europe. But yeah, for now Europe's lunch will be eaten.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Yes I agree on both points
  - Bombthecat 4y ago
    Europe missed the train and train doesn't reverse when missing the station.. Energy and infrastructure are the venes of Europe which clocked and overstretched to the max. Something will need to give and it already begins by small bakeries closing and more to follow.. It wont end well. I don't believe we will have any growth in Europe for the next 3 years. Who is going to invest in Europe if energy is literally unpredictable and expensive?
    - UncleOxidant 4y ago
      Yeah, bakeries are energy intensive. Methane generation from sewage would be one way to (relatively quickly^) replace some of the natural gas that was coming from Russia. And as a side benefit fertilizer could be produced from the same sewage. ^ even so it would probably take a couple of years to get methane generation going at scale.
      - bilsbie 4y ago
        On the other hand we’ve managed to have bakeries for 1000s of years before most modern energy sources were discovered.
        UncleOxidant 4y ago
        Wood is an option, but it will require a lot of wood to fire Europe's bakeries.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Unless those bakeries can deliver baked goods at similar cost to bakeries using modern energy sources, the problem still stands of the populace having a downward shift in consumption and expectations of their quality of life , which typically has political ramifications.
    - mancerayder 4y ago
      Are people blaming environmentalists for attacking nuclear energy all these years? France stuck to it, but Germany seems to have bowed to pressure. The lesson is always to dismiss idealists and ideologues in politics.
      - Bombthecat 4y ago
        Half truth, the green parties wanted a replacement, solar and wind. They only wanted gas as a switch off / switch on power source, you cant do that with nuclear. Instead, people protested also against wind and solar and we switched to cheap gas from Russia. Which the green parties didn't want at all..
- nus07 4y ago
  How does India do in all this? Their software development salaries in tier 1 cities are close to 100k or more. Lots of friends going back .
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Pretty poorly on food security. Energy situation won't be great. I would expect india to supplant China as the bogeyman over the next few decades
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Wouldn't that be great? America can't seem to function without a bogeyman. The world would be so much a better place if the bogeyman was a democracy like India instead of China or Russia. Shift that Overton window!
      - spywaregorilla 4y ago
        My comment largely comes from India looking more authoritarian by the day, not to mention playing both sides of the Ukraine invasion.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        They are behaving as expected since they are beholden to Russia for military equipment.
  - xxpor 4y ago
    100K USD? That's wild. If you look at the GDP per capita ratios, that's like a dev in the US making $3.3 million
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
adamc 4y ago
He has a book out I'm reading. Good so far: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-End-of-the-World-Is-Just-the-Beginning-Audiobook/B09CS5KBV1 https://www.audible.com/pd/The-End-of-the-World-Is-Just-the-...
- JPKab 4y ago
  Great book. I used to work in the Pentagon, and while we never took Zeihan's talks without a grain of salt, directionally he tends to be very accurate. Nations like China which lack a culture of immigration have extremely predictable demographic booms and busts, and Zeihan is spot on with those. He also hits on the reality of how dependent most nations, especially China, are on imports that pass through oceanic shipping lanes they have no ability to control or secure without the US Navy.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    To be fair the us navy hasn't completely detached in the way that he expects... Yet. Shipping harassment hasn't appreciably gone up... Yet. It's also possible that cargo ships will arm themselves against pirates, which will increase the cost of shipping but maybe not as much as the most dire predictions.
    - chernevik 4y ago
      I suspect the point of "oceanic shipping lanes they have no ability to control or secure without the US Navy" is "shipping lanes they cannot secure FROM the US Navy". There is no way for a cargo ship to arm itself against submarines.
      - throwawaymaths 4y ago
        I think the outcome of the US navy torpedoing civilian ships of a national adversary is highly unlikely, unless 1) we were actually at war with them or 2) they are doing something generally accepted to be illegal -- like Chinese fishing boats turning off transponders and fishing in us territory. or 3) sanctions running The only way I see the landscape changing meaningfully in the direction you suggest (cargo ships going up against seafarers they are not able to defend themselves from) is if letters of marque were reinstated. At least one proposal has been floated -- and when we all stop laughing about it I grant that it might become a thing
stickfigure 4y ago
The narrative of "the NATO closet is bare" has been pretty thoroughly debunked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw (I highly recommend Perun's channel for analysis of the Ukraine war) Also, it's a bit hard to take seriously someone that says "so no jets, no F-35, no battleships". Sure it's a throwaway line but it seems like someone trying to communicate something serious wouldn't refer to literal battleships, which nobody in the world uses anymore. It's not something that Perun would say.
lasc4r 4y ago
The post you're replying to mentions huge youth unemployment in China, doesn't Zeihan think China will collapse because there won't be enough workers? I was considering reading Zeihan's recent book but he comes off as kind of a fraud.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Pretty much. I think he's too eager to write off certain things to paint a wholly American picture, but he's generally got it right. The China story is not as clear. But the Europe picture is pretty plain. America is gonna eat it's lunch.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
I'm not sure we want to (or intend to) eat Europe's lunch - we'd like a fairly strong Europe. But yeah, for now Europe's lunch will be eaten.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Yes I agree on both points
- Bombthecat 4y ago
  Europe missed the train and train doesn't reverse when missing the station.. Energy and infrastructure are the venes of Europe which clocked and overstretched to the max. Something will need to give and it already begins by small bakeries closing and more to follow.. It wont end well. I don't believe we will have any growth in Europe for the next 3 years. Who is going to invest in Europe if energy is literally unpredictable and expensive?
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    Yeah, bakeries are energy intensive. Methane generation from sewage would be one way to (relatively quickly^) replace some of the natural gas that was coming from Russia. And as a side benefit fertilizer could be produced from the same sewage. ^ even so it would probably take a couple of years to get methane generation going at scale.
    - bilsbie 4y ago
      On the other hand we’ve managed to have bakeries for 1000s of years before most modern energy sources were discovered.
      - UncleOxidant 4y ago
        Wood is an option, but it will require a lot of wood to fire Europe's bakeries.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Unless those bakeries can deliver baked goods at similar cost to bakeries using modern energy sources, the problem still stands of the populace having a downward shift in consumption and expectations of their quality of life , which typically has political ramifications.
  - mancerayder 4y ago
    Are people blaming environmentalists for attacking nuclear energy all these years? France stuck to it, but Germany seems to have bowed to pressure. The lesson is always to dismiss idealists and ideologues in politics.
    - Bombthecat 4y ago
      Half truth, the green parties wanted a replacement, solar and wind. They only wanted gas as a switch off / switch on power source, you cant do that with nuclear. Instead, people protested also against wind and solar and we switched to cheap gas from Russia. Which the green parties didn't want at all..
nus07 4y ago
How does India do in all this? Their software development salaries in tier 1 cities are close to 100k or more. Lots of friends going back .
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  Pretty poorly on food security. Energy situation won't be great. I would expect india to supplant China as the bogeyman over the next few decades
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Wouldn't that be great? America can't seem to function without a bogeyman. The world would be so much a better place if the bogeyman was a democracy like India instead of China or Russia. Shift that Overton window!
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      My comment largely comes from India looking more authoritarian by the day, not to mention playing both sides of the Ukraine invasion.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        They are behaving as expected since they are beholden to Russia for military equipment.
- xxpor 4y ago
  100K USD? That's wild. If you look at the GDP per capita ratios, that's like a dev in the US making $3.3 million
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

adamc 4y ago

He has a book out I'm reading. Good so far: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-End-of-the-World-Is-Just-the-Beginning-Audiobook/B09CS5KBV1 https://www.audible.com/pd/The-End-of-the-World-Is-Just-the-...

JPKab 4y ago
Great book. I used to work in the Pentagon, and while we never took Zeihan's talks without a grain of salt, directionally he tends to be very accurate. Nations like China which lack a culture of immigration have extremely predictable demographic booms and busts, and Zeihan is spot on with those. He also hits on the reality of how dependent most nations, especially China, are on imports that pass through oceanic shipping lanes they have no ability to control or secure without the US Navy.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  To be fair the us navy hasn't completely detached in the way that he expects... Yet. Shipping harassment hasn't appreciably gone up... Yet. It's also possible that cargo ships will arm themselves against pirates, which will increase the cost of shipping but maybe not as much as the most dire predictions.
  - chernevik 4y ago
    I suspect the point of "oceanic shipping lanes they have no ability to control or secure without the US Navy" is "shipping lanes they cannot secure FROM the US Navy". There is no way for a cargo ship to arm itself against submarines.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      I think the outcome of the US navy torpedoing civilian ships of a national adversary is highly unlikely, unless 1) we were actually at war with them or 2) they are doing something generally accepted to be illegal -- like Chinese fishing boats turning off transponders and fishing in us territory. or 3) sanctions running The only way I see the landscape changing meaningfully in the direction you suggest (cargo ships going up against seafarers they are not able to defend themselves from) is if letters of marque were reinstated. At least one proposal has been floated -- and when we all stop laughing about it I grant that it might become a thing

stickfigure 4y ago

The narrative of "the NATO closet is bare" has been pretty thoroughly debunked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw (I highly recommend Perun's channel for analysis of the Ukraine war) Also, it's a bit hard to take seriously someone that says "so no jets, no F-35, no battleships". Sure it's a throwaway line but it seems like someone trying to communicate something serious wouldn't refer to literal battleships, which nobody in the world uses anymore. It's not something that Perun would say.

lasc4r 4y ago

The post you're replying to mentions huge youth unemployment in China, doesn't Zeihan think China will collapse because there won't be enough workers? I was considering reading Zeihan's recent book but he comes off as kind of a fraud.