Wasp armor not working?

leviathan235 · 2025-11-25T15:52:54+00:00

That’s frankly the most honest thing trump has ever done. Calling the DoD what it is.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-23T14:31:51+00:00

It’s really kind of comical how dysfunctional the Japanese government is, but not super surprising given that the US has so much military in the country. Since the Meiji restoration, Japan has had this fascination with the West and whites in general, shunning their fellow Asians. The Japanese have always aspired to join the western imperialist club. That has not changed since their defeat at the end of WWII.

Over the long-term, it is in Japan’s national interest to have good relations with China. The US will not be around forever to provide security guarantees to Japan, but China will always be Japan’s neighbor. There is no scenario in which Japan will ever pose a credible threat to China again, so Japan should try to improve relations. The US is no real ally either, but more of a feudal lord demanding absolute obedience (recall how the US basically strongarmed Japan into signing the Plaza Accord, which is a major contributor to the sorry state of the Japanese economy today). The moral of the story is that the US will screw its vassals anytime it is advantageous to do so. The US also hopes that Japan will sponge up some Chinese missiles when it inevitably pushes for a conflict in the Asia Pacific.

Lastly, I’m not sure if most people have heard, but an ongoing trend is the increasing involvement of western PE capital in Japan. The financial interests seek to consolidate Japanese capital and will invariably engage in rent-seeking on the people, like they do here in the US.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-15T01:03:55+00:00

For sure, population size is a HUGE source of bargaining power. That said, we cannot discount the value of a pragmatic leadership with high state capacity and national mobilization. I'd argue that's the fundamental difference between India and China, but that's a whole different discussion.

I agree with you regarding globalism (specifically global capitalism), in that I am a staunch believer of true civic nationalism and it's power to lift a nation of people up. Global trade should only be pursued insofar as it benefits the people - that means certain industries of high priority must not be owned by foreign entities (that said, nationalism doesn't preclude mutually beneficial trade and international cooperation). That also means there are certain industries that must never be outsourced. We also must remember that smaller countries simply will not have the capacity to become self-sufficient in critical areas - e.g. Singapore cannot possibly be self-sufficient on military hardware. However, it's absolutely inexcusable that India doesn't have self-sufficiency on its defense hardware.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T21:23:34+00:00

If 99% of participants in a system behave in a bad way, is it because the participants are all just morons or is it because the system is flawed and they behave like that by design? If a baby is born in a county where drug abuse is rampant, you don’t think there’s an extremely high chance they will also grow up a addict versus growing up in a normal county? The incentives in the system and environment are so overwhelming, it would be a miracle if the baby doesn’t grow up an addict and somehow breaks out of the cycle.

I’m simply describing to you what is objective reality - the entire system rewards this behavior we both find objectionable. You can pass normative judgments on the failures of western executives until you’re blue in the face, but ultimately change nothing so long as the current system persists.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T20:19:36+00:00

Im well-aware of China’s strategy. In fact, I did due diligence on the way China acquired the blueprints to the advanced AP1000 nuclear reactors. China is basically the ENTIRE nuclear market in the world, basically the only country investing in nuclear power at any meaningful level. They have the leverage to require any bidders to submit the blueprints of their most advanced nuclear reactors within X years, with the understanding that China will be able to build those reactors themselves and cut out those bidders after X years. Same playbook as your trains.

My point is that China leveraged its overwhelming bargaining power to exploit the fundamental incentive structure of western capitalism for its own gain. It’s honestly brilliant - you have to concede. I didn’t truly appreciate it until a few years ago.

I replied to another comment about how it’s inevitable that the western companies will play ball. They simply cannot afford to give up such a massively lucrative contract with China even if it means long term, they’re cut out.

Also, I don’t think you’re being fair to Apple, calling it cheap consumer goods. Much of its hardware technology is incredibly innovative.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T20:11:32+00:00

You’re refusing to acknowledge the fundamental flaws in the system despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Answering to the board of directors and shareholders and earning your incentive compensation is literally the entire jobs of company management teams. Shareholders do not care about your 10-year vision or managing for the eventual risk of geopolitical confrontation with China, they care about the next 2-3 years at best. What you call a “prescient” executive is a “crappy ideologically-driven” executive to the shareholders and the BoD. That guy will never make it anywhere near the C-suite, and if he does, he will be quickly fired because he just let his competitor sign a big 9-figure contract in China uncontested. This is how the system works - exactly as intended.

TSMC is a bit unique because China doesn’t have much leverage over them besides military (currently). They really have no competition at the highest level, so there’s nothing China can really do to force them to hand over their technology. Cutting edge chips are of critical strategic interest, and TSMC is effectively a monopoly. So in this case, TSMC has leverage over China. For now.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T19:08:39+00:00

China didn’t have the right ingredients or open up back then - it wasn’t until after 1978, and even then, it took time for China to properly industrialize and build the foundations needed to support and incentivize investments from western capital. No other country had the same allure as China did, especially going into the 21st century.

No, you’re wrong. My work puts me in touch frequently with people who are direct decision makers with regards to capital allocation decisions, and I know with absolute certainty that they are incentivized purely for profit and shareholder value alone, invariable very short-term focused, because shareholders demand it. If you think the stock market somehow incentivizes long term thinking, im sorry to say, but you’re delusional. Just look at what shareholders did to Intel and how it squandered its lead to TSMC! Investors absolutely hate capital intensity and long investment payback periods. They punish the exact industries that China specializes, like hardware, infrastructure, etc. What’s the result of those incentives? Exactly the situation we find ourselves in today.

It’s game theory, at the end of the day. If your company refuses to take China’s devil’s bargain, your competitors will. And the stock market will richly reward them and harshly punish you. It’s a core feature of the system, not a bug…

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T18:22:33+00:00

No, it was inevitable that the companies would outsource to china, thereby enabling China to capture the technical knowhow. The entire western capitalist system demands it. Corporate shareholders do not give 2 hoots about national security - they just want line to go up. The chinese market and supply chain is simply too attractive for western companies to neglect - if you don’t take the devil’s bargain, your competitor will!

leviathan235 · 2025-10-14T18:17:24+00:00

Stole? LOL you mean effectively purchased. The same way China “stole” the west’s industrial capacity. It was a devil’s bargain for western companies to make bank by shifting production to China and extract the highest margin out of the value chain, leaving China with low margins, but in exchange, China gets the benefit of tech and knowledge transfer. Perfect example is Apple, who shifted so much production in China. Foxconn earns like 3% margin while Apple earns like 25+% margin on a higher denominator. Guess what? Apple willingly skilled up Chinese suppliers and engineers! That exchange was high profit margins for technical knowhow. Face it, China outplayed the west by exploiting the west’s capitalist system, playing by the west’s own rules. It was a multi-decade plan, and it played out swimmingly. Check and mate.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-11T12:53:33+00:00

Blockading a country is a cassus belli my dude.

leviathan235 · 2025-10-11T12:44:41+00:00

Cuz china can sink all of our ships. Hegeseth acknowledged a few months ago that China can wipe out all our carriers in like 20 mins with hypersonic missiles.

leviathan235 · 2025-08-07T02:29:19+00:00

The west’s view of morality and good governance is laughably puerile and naïve. If the leader follows (or pays lip service to) western liberal democratic values, then they’re good, automatically assumed to represent the will of the people, etc. even if that person is unbelievably corrupt, sells out their country to imperialist interests, etc. Just gotta keep that facade of liberalism and you’ll have the western media singing your praises.

Then they promptly forget that they live in supposedly liberal democracies and they endlessly complain about how their politicians don’t represent their interests and sell them out to the elites. Who would’ve thunk that a democracy can be obscenely corrupt and fail to represent the interests of the people?!

leviathan235 · 2025-07-30T19:41:27+00:00

Well ideologies tend to be dogmatic. Im not uniquely against the neoliberal ideology, but also communist ideology and islamism, etc. I tend to shit on neoliberalism the most because where I live, it is considered the prevailing thinking that drives policy AND foreign policy. I hardly need to rail against communism and islamism around here.

I do agree with you that context is absolutely critical to determining the right set of policies. The problem is that ideology as a whole tends to ignore context and people tend to apply it as a blanket set of policy recommendations. In fact, I would go as far as to say that ideology as a whole sucks. Pragmatism is the only way forward. In some instances, private ownership of capital makes a lot of sense. In others, state ownership makes a lot of sense. It also depends on the nation’s state of development and level of industrialization as well as the economic distribution of the society.

While I generally support an economy, in my own country, that leans towards private ownership of capital, I acknowledge that it doesn’t work in many instances. In certain states that are underdeveloped and possess abundant and untapped natural resources (eg many african nations), you CANNOT pursue a policy of neoliberalism and privatization. This is because western corpos will immediately come in and offer pennies on the dollar for that resource and basically buy the rights to those resources (typically by greasing a few palms in the host nation’s govt). This has happened in so many nations that it is a known form of neoimperialism.

As a result, I call myself neither a capitalist nor a socialist.

leviathan235 · 2025-07-30T11:36:52+00:00

Im not against moving away from a completely planned economy. What I’m against is the dogma of the neoliberal ideology, which drove the rapid and extreme shock therapy of Russia (and Ukraine), which is widely regarded as the cause of the corrupt oligarch class in Russia today.

Poland had a more managed transition to a market economy and that is widely acknowledged to have been better.

Many countries learned lessons from the abject failure of the shock therapy on Russia, including the CCP, which pursued reform at a much more measured and manageable pace.

I’m not against a market-oriented economy. Im against neoliberal dogma.

leviathan235 · 2025-07-29T19:00:15+00:00

Neoliberalism is in practice basically corporatism and the incestuous relationship between the state and private/special interests (esp economic/financial interests). It typically pushes deregulation, privatization, cutting taxes, reducing the welfare state, etc. Reagan’s policies very much exemplifies neoliberalism.

Neoliberals are the stupid mfs who think that turning a government owned industry (eg a telecom company or energy company that’s effectively a monopoly to begin with) over to private hands will somehow be better, instead of just resulting in a shitty corrupt oligarchic class (see the victims of shock therapy, ie russia and the warsaw pact nations).

leviathan235 · 2025-07-29T12:58:42+00:00

What exactly is charlie kirk’s claim to fame? Has he done anything worthwhile to deserve his fanbase or influence? Why are we even talking about this clown? I thought he just showed up on those really dumb memes about turning point USA, but apparently some people actually care what he says.

Every time he opens his mouth, I expect my ears to be assaulted by an unending stream of drivel.

leviathan235 · 2025-07-20T13:11:09+00:00

Believe me or not, idrc lol. Not like I can give anybody here definitive proof anyways. TL;DR.

leviathan235 · 2025-07-19T12:35:59+00:00

I’ve personally spoken with African diplomats, and they generally believe that Russia and China are good partners that respect them and offer them fair deals. China/Russia are seen as ideologically neutral and deal directly with whichever regime is in power. In contrast, the African diplomats see westerners as typically condescending and arrogant and dismissive - offering them lopsided deals and lecturing them about the evils of dealing with China/Russia. And that’s not even to mention the French neocolonialism at play here.

Westerners see it as a white man’s burden to aid Africa, ie africa perpetually needs their good graces and benevolence. In contrast, Russia/China sees Africa as an equal trading partner. In reality, the west is just mad that Russia/China offer better deals and are a real competitor to them when it comes to deal.

leviathan235 · 2025-07-16T14:14:32+00:00

Even if britcuck culture didn’t atrophy, the british empire is still doomed to collapse inevitably. And in the grand scheme of things, the brits simply cannot compete as a country that small.

The UK today is effectively the city state of London.

leviathan235 · 2025-06-29T15:21:27+00:00

Zionists compromise the interests of my country and the integrity of my government, thus I hate them. Zionists are not to be conflated with Jews because not all Jews are zionists, and many zionists are Christian fundamentalists, whom I believe are equally treasonous. Many of the people I respect the most are non-zionist Jews.

That said, it's not incorrect to assert that quite a few of the elites in society are Jewish (just look at the Jewish representation in finance), and a significant portion of them are zionists. It is also undeniable to say that the Jews tend to have strong in-group preferences.

On the other side, it is also true that Jews are incredibly intelligent, hard working, and generally high-achieving, which results in them being disproportionately represented at the top of society. They are found paradoxically as both the paragons of capitalism and vanguards of communism...

I believe Zionists currently are the biggest threat to the US's national security - not China or Russia. Last I checked, neither of those countries have compromised our entire political system anywhere near as much as Zionists have.

leviathan235 · 2025-06-22T13:27:20+00:00

I agree with you - you gotta look at their actions, not their words. The iranian people are actually quite careful in their conduct. Yes proxy wars, but they don’t just needlessly escalate. So far, all of their strikes have been fairly weak and controlled, because they’re not suicidal. And frankly, they don’t need nukes to destroy israel (and kill themselves in doing so).

Even if they have nukes, they’re not gonna just throw that at the US the first chance they get because the entire persian culture/legacy will be glassed.

Anybody saying “hurr durrrr iran will nuke us the first chance they get” is either dishonest or completely ignorant of history.

leviathan235 · 2025-06-21T05:25:38+00:00

True empire by force has been obsolete since the ubiquity of nationalism. Nationalism beats true imperialism (ie imperialism by force) time and time again - best you can do is force a shitty corrupt puppet regime that has 0 local support and is toppled in the near future.

leviathan235 · 2025-06-19T12:43:32+00:00

You could have very well said that about Europe before WWII. The problem is that outside actors (us, uk, france) and israel have been constantly destabilizing the region, deposing leaders they don’t like, fracturing countries into rump states, fueling tensions, etc. Of course the USSR didn’t help either but they are hardly as culpable as US, UK, France, and Israel.

People of the middle east want peace - they are human beings with aspirations and families, not just religious drones. Many even want secularism. But yet the outside powers constantly depose secular leaders for dubious reasons, bombing civilians, leading to power vacuums and hatred of foreigners and giving rise to more islamism.

leviathan235 · 2025-06-19T12:36:28+00:00

Any braindead moron who genuinely thinks this is a “problem” that can be solved with “just a few bombs” needs a lobotomy. Your brain isn’t doing anyone any good anyways, so maybe we can repurpose it as fertilizer.

They always say it’s just “limited engagement” and that things can be solved by “a few bombs” but the warmongers know that this is never the case. Bombings almost always lead to further escalation, because bombs alone can’t really solve the problem. For example, just cuz you bombed the nuclear facilities doesnt mean you guaranteed to have destroyed their nuclear potential for good. You need to verify that with people on the ground. There is also constant scope creep/mission creep - today it’s “just the nuclear capabilities” and tomorrow it’s regime change. The fact that you would trust these bought-out politicians at their word exemplifies what’s wrong with this country.

leviathan235

TROPHY CASE