General > General Technical Chat

I have the feeling that the whole trade war starts from a pile of nonsense.

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soldar:

--- Quote from: Marco on May 29, 2019, 01:38:44 pm --- Taiwan militarily controls its land and pays no one for its use, that is independent in my book.
--- End quote ---


One of the prime conditions to being considered a sovereign, independent country is recognition by the international community and Taiwan does not have this. The UN and pretty much all countries in the world of any significance go with the "one China policy".

Taiwan has a certain level of independence but it depends on China and America for it. Taiwan knows full well they cannot declare formal independence without repercussions.

Taiwan does a lot of business with China and it is in no one's interest to upset the situation. I think China and Taiwan are on paths that converge and it is just a matter of time. I think keeping the status quo is a wise policy on both sides. America's influence there is waning and China's is growing. If things continue in this direction it will be in the interest of Taiwan to join China. 

apis:

--- Quote from: technix on May 29, 2019, 02:32:55 pm ---I would say that should there be no lobbying or other backdoor process going on, and should the general populace be well informed, the concept of using a democratic process to implement people's sovereignty is a sound idea, but IRL we have lobbyists, backdoor transactions, and forces intentionally misinforming people. Now people think they have a choice and a voice, but more often than not the choice is made for them by some forces with their ulterior agenda, and the people is just following the script.

--- End quote ---
Democracy is not easy to implement, and there are still lots of problems in the places that do it best. But compared to the old system where the powerful lobbyists were the ones directly in power (the king and his family) supported by the aristocracy. Now at least the people have a little bit of control, even if it is skewed by lobbying and unequal wealth distribution, etc.
In the old days, the King wasn't as independent as they liked to pretend either. If the King started doing things the aristocracy didn't like they would depose him, and other states and special interests schemed and bribed as much as they do now.




--- Quote from: soldar on May 29, 2019, 02:07:45 pm ---Of those who do say it we would have to see to what extent it is true because I would not be surprised to see something like that in North Korea.

--- End quote ---
North Korea? maybe you are thinking of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea?  :-DD

Marco:

--- Quote from: soldar on May 29, 2019, 02:33:55 pm ---One of the prime conditions to being considered a sovereign

--- End quote ---

Nah, international law is a joke where weaklings pretend to be able to lay claim to the owners of power based on arbitrary rules which are only ever as relevant as those with power choose to make them. True sovereignty is about having the power to control your land, literally. Homegrown power and the power of allies. Taiwan's own power and alliances grant it sovereignty for now, while China is granted symbolic claim because it's the road of least resistance ... as long as it doesn't overplay it's hand.

The independence is 100% defacto, China's control 100% symbolic.


--- Quote ---Taiwan has a certain level of independence but it depends on China and America for it.
--- End quote ---

They have a defence project for hypersonic cruise missiles specifically designed to be able to reach any where in China ... China's level of control stops exactly where the status quo says it stops, the status quo being none except pretending to have it.

technix:

--- Quote from: Marco on May 29, 2019, 04:25:42 pm ---The independence is 100% defacto, China's control 100% symbolic.

--- End quote ---
Taipei knows very well that mainland has nukes, and since the no first use doctrine is rescinded they understand that should they misbehave they will be nuked. Also the distance from mainland China is much shorter than that from Japan they know even better that should China want to nuke them there is little time for US to react. To them they would prefer anything over scorched nuclear wasteland.

Economically, mainland is the largest trade partner of Taiwan and HK the the second largest, totaling 40%. Angering mainland China is also financially the last thing they want to do.

Also if words from citizens is to be trusted, a good portion of Taiwan citizens claims that 1) they do enjoy this relative independence balancing between China and US, allowing them access to both Chinese and US resources, 2) they will not fight back as soon as mainland PLA takes shore since whatever military forces Taiwan have is no match for mainland forces, and 3) they don't actually expect US to react, at least react in time, should mainland initiate military action; and by the time US ships arrive the island would be long taken, making the whole US military reaction moot. And for US I believe no general or admiral want to risk losing an aircraft carrier to a Chinese DF21D missile, a weapon designed specifically to strike the aircraft carriers bypassing all possible anti-missile defense.


--- Quote from: Marco on May 29, 2019, 04:25:42 pm ---They have a defence project for hypersonic cruise missiles specifically designed to be able to reach any where in China ... China's level of control stops exactly where the status quo says it stops, the status quo being none except pretending to have it.

--- End quote ---
China has as much control on the Earth as EU or Russia has, since those countries, along with US, build their control on top of nukes, not just cruise missiles. You don't even have a level playing field to begin with.

soldar:

--- Quote from: apis on May 29, 2019, 03:34:24 pm --- Democracy is not easy to implement, and there are still lots of problems in the places that do it best.
--- End quote ---


Democracy is not even easy to define, never mind implement. Most people, in their simplistic and ignorant minds, believe there is some ideal "democracy" which perfectly represents the will of the people. This is simply not so and in reality everybody believes true democracy is the system that gives the result they want. It is futile to want to reduce good government to a mathematical process. It is impossible and you immediately run into contradictions.

You tell me what result you want and I will give you a system that will yield that result.

Voting systems are full of contradictions. Voters preferences are not transitive. They may prefer A to B and B to C but that does not mean they prefer A to C and they may prefer C to A. Now what do you do?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox

Depending on how you organize the voting and the districts you can radically affect the outcome of the election. The UK system of first past the post is completely different and yields different results than a system like in Spain where each province elects several representatives.

You can have the paradox where if you do smaller districts one party wins and if you have larger districts the other party wins.

Then you have different systems on how to allocate representation and usually they are not proportional to the number of votes.

Pretending that "democracy" is the answer to good government is foolish. A culture of respect, cooperation, morality will work well with any bad system while a culture of greed stealing and abuse of minorities will not work well no matter how democratic.

The notion that we elect politicians to do what we want is totally false even though they sell us that falsehood. The politicians elected know they owe their livelihood and loyalty to the party, not to the voter. Poor schmucks in Europe or America might like to think their vote has some influence in world affairs but in truth a butterfly flying in Africa can have the same effect.

There are so many levels of power between the voter and the government that all possible influence is lost along the way.

Other countries have different systems. In Afghanistan if you have a problem or concern you talk to your family's elder who will talk to the local leader and may be, if the issue deserves it, the matter will go further up. No voting needed. Each one trusts his family, his clan, his tribe and things get worked out that way. For them voting in western-style elections is meaningless.

Kind of like in the 1950s in New York if you had a store and you had a problem with criminals you did not go to the police because you knew it was a waste of time. No, you went to your local Cosa Nostra boss and told him about the problem you were having and he would take care of it.

Our governments like to sell us the notion that we elect them and they serve us but the reality is that we have close to no influence on what they do and, no matter whether they win or lose elections, they always win big in that they are always sucking at the teat of the state while we the people pay pay to keep them in good standard of living.

Finally, an anecdote which I always liked was the formula used in the middle ages in Aragon to swear fealty to the new king. The king at that time was "primus inter pares", first among equals, sometimes elected, sometimes hereditary. The nobles would say to the new king something like

--- Quote ---
We, who are worth as much as you,
and joined together more than you,
swear fealty to you as our king
as long as you respect our freedoms, privileges, laws and customs.
And if not not.
--- End quote ---
The formula is totally conditional on the king respecting the laws of the land and if not, then he is no longer accepted as king.

Today we can think that was a bad system but each noble lord was governing in his territory and his people looked to him for protection, not to the king.

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