[COFFEE] Possibility of World War 3

Yeah, and I don’t think you even need to go into civil unrest. What scares myself most: A large-scale, long blackout. Most clean water supply requires power to work, so even 24h is already long. Anyone read Blackout, tomorrow will be to late? It got too dark (and realistic) for myself to finish it. And that book only covers a 72h blackout IIRC.

To anyone saying that won’t happen:

  • In a 2018 study (citation required, didn’t find it now) the Austrian Bundesheer said that the probability for a large-scale blackout in Europe in the next 5 years (2018 - 2023) is 100%.
  • A more recent report from 2019 only says ‘a blackout is to be expected within the next 5 years.’ It includes the encouraging words “Als derzeit wahrscheinlichstes Szenario wird vom Autor eine Komplexitätsüberlastung mit einem Kollaps ohne externe Intention erwartet. Bei diesem Best-Case-Szenario ist mit einem mehrtägigen Stromausfall zu rechnen (p.216)” which roughly means “Best case: no external attack, still multiple days without power”

Fun times ahead…

Edit: just saw another encouraging thing in the report:

  • After just one week, 2/3 of the population won’t be able to support themselves with vital supplies anymore. And they consider it delusional to think that it only takes a week to rebuild the supply lines.
  • Today, the power net requires almost daily critical intervention to prevent it from collapsing.

100% is not a credible statistical probability.

That‘s a a figure you can‘t take seriously. Especially in light of the fact, by and large, the power grid and supply infrastructure hasn’t changed all that much over the last three, five or eight years. And yet we‘re three years in without having had such a blackout. We haven’t, in fact, had one in thirty years.

I‘m not saying it‘s a negligible risk - but 100% probability? Come on!

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Agreed, but I think the sentiment is clear.

I do not have all the information I’d like to have, but the power supply sure changed a lot over the last two decades. See this figure. Don’t look at the total capacity, but the share of wind and solar. The whole ‘going green’ thing does not increase short-term stability.

World-wide there’s a lot of precedent. Europe is a lot better, but not perfect: 2006 European blackout - Wikipedia. And we got close to one in Jan 2021. Switzerland is even better than Europe, but I think for blackouts we also need to consider neighbouring countries as risk factors.

Oh, come on, not everything is a big conspiracy. In this case, the push should be to decentralize the power supply, actually. But if everyone is supposed to switch to electric cars, then we’re in for a nice surprise if we don’t work on the capacity.

Cascading failures, just as in the previously linked 2006 case. Also, electricity doesn’t work like digital signals. You can’t just pause Gösgen for 20 minutes and expect everything to go back to normal. Yes, Switzerland is especially flexible with the hydro power, but has its limits also. To re-connect two cells, you have to synchronize the frequencies, and the power draw needs to be somewhat balanced or you’re just going back to square 1. Have a look at this CCC talk if you’re interested and understand German.

It’s worked perfectly until today, so why wouldn’t everything be fine and dandy? Only ‘other people’ suffered power outages, but not me. And the whole green thing just gives more votes today.

If the government is willing to kill a couple hundred or thousand people just for that then we have larger problems than that ‘pretty little contract’.

i don’t want to be the one defending Russia, but :

Also a Country with a risk of invasion can’t join NATO, so it’s enough for russia to park its army near the Ukraine to stop that.

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Sooo anyone buying $LMT Calls?

What we are looking at in Ukraine is geopolitics.

The West and NATO are pushing east, Russia is pushing back. And now they’ve met in Ukraine and, as @Patron says, both sides are rattling their sabres. A war is not in the interest of anybody, and I hope that a way to deescalate can be found.

See also the article below, which luckily is not paywalled.

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That is a good and balanced article.

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Doesn’t it remove all agency from the Ukrainian people? Also if having democracies bordering Russia is an issue for Putin, I can understand why the people living there would not be happy.

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No, not at all, it exactly what is said at the end.

The main message for me is that you cannot make a country a western type democracy just by US, NATO and EU wish. Again this patronage complex. People who are concerned must suffer, must become decisive and finally decide their own fate

But what if it’s also the population (or at least a large part of it) wish? Or you think pro democracies movements in UA are driven by western psyops? (If anything Russia is better at those than EU or US).


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Yes, they may wish it, but do they really know what does it mean?

No. But I am sure that a large part of it is a dream about sweet prosperous life. Nothing bad about it, but there is still a difference between dream and reality. Education is the key. Tell average Ukrainian people about your everyday life, it will be a revelation for them.

What I mean and what I liked about this article, is that it says that there is no universal solution. Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Turkey cannot become democratic countries overnight. It takes time and generations and it’s up to people to realize that their situation is not acceptable. And, on the other hand, US is not your sacred Valinor, it is not always right and it must not enforce other people.

You can’t buy liberty, you can’t beg for liberty, you can’t have liberty granted to you, you can only fight for it and earn it. And that what people in these countries should do. Others can help, but, for the sake of self-determination, they must not enforce their values.

Still sounds better than some authoritarian government :slight_smile: Or being a vassal state of Russia.

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That’s true, the Europeans are cowards without a sense of honor or duty. That’s why they are dying out. More than half of the population living on the tax money is just a symptom of this parasite culture. In a few generations, there will be no more Europe.

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I believe it was NZZ which once used the word wohlstandsverwahrlost.

For the non German-speakers: It means something like “deteriorated through welfare.”

There is some truth in that.

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Wasn’t aware of that, what’s the source? I’m interested to read more about it

Sweden is a good example (although other European countries are not much better):

Sweden is probably the best illustration of the predicament of the advanced churning society: bare-majority rule (and unqualified franchise) in combination with an absolute majority of the franchised voters deriving their livelihood from public funds. 36% of adults are productively employed (7% self-employed and 29% privately employed); 27% are employed in the public sector, in the tax-financed welfare complex of state education, health, social services, public transport, etc.; 34% are clients of the state (students, pensioners, the unemployed, etc.); and 3% are clients of the civil society, i.e., they cover most of their outlays with the help of husband or wife or other relatives (once a large group, they get fewer and fewer). That means that only just over two-fifths of the adult population over 17 and under 65 is gainfully employed. Never have so many had so few to thank for so much. A change of the system would presuppose a change of lifestyles—and also the slaying of a few of the sacred cows, among them the principle of unqualified franchise.

Source: Gerard Radnitzky, „Is Democracy More Peaceful than Other Forms of Government?” [in:] Hans-Hermann Hoppe (ed.), „The Myth of National Defense”, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn 2003, p. 160

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That’s quite a biased framing. So public sector employees are not productive, just a drag? I’m fairly happy to get public transportation, or healthcare, or that kids are being educated.

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Some are productive, some are not productive, some are counterproductive - they are also heavily subsidized by the government with money extracted from the private sector. In any case, even if you combine the two, you get 63% of the population actually working (but I doubt all of it is actual “work”).

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Who is actually profiting from it ? You won’t do much business without streets, hospitals, education, water infrastructure, would you ? Even if all this services are privatized, the private sector would have to pay up for this. (and actually, studies show that if these services are privatized, they become more expensive than if they are public services => see France and Argentina for water, France for Highways, US for Healthcare etc.)

Furthermore, you forget that one part of the adult population is actually retired. In Sweden, the population of 65+ is 20.5% according to Statista, and that is over the whole population, not only the adult part.

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