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  1. #11

    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Dick View Post
    I'm not competent to agree or otherwise but his point about birth rates seems accurate. That was my point - while most of the world may be facing a critical shortage of skilled labour in a few years time, here we are with lots of it that we can't use. I suppose my comments about that and steel are two different topics. I'm not sure why I mixed them together - probably because they are both resources that should make us a manufacturing powerhouse but we manage to screw it up. As are the British to be fair.

    Yeah, I know, the persistent 66% marxist vote is to blame in the final analysis. But it's terribly frustrating that a Checkers employee with a matric couldn't divide R45 by three and get R15 (special offer of 3 for the price of 2) without the calculator on his cell phone. He was packing shelves near my friend Sue who was looking at the product. When she did the calc in her head but out loud he asked in surprise "how did you do that?" I recently encountered another matriculant who couldn't calculate the area of a circle and was utterly perplexed at the volume of the frustum of a cone. At matric age I remember doing differential and integral calculus. What the hell is happening? How can anyone pass matric without being able to do the simplest calcs mentally? Where are our future engineers and technicians coming from?
    Have no fear. Help is on the way since the root cause of the problem was established:

    https://ipa.org.au/curriculum/appare...-can-be-racist

  2. #12
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Dick View Post
    I'm not competent to agree or otherwise but his point about birth rates seems accurate.
    And from that Russia is not immune. They have had declining population growth since before the fall of the USSR and have had serious incentives in place to address it continuously since then. Putin reintroduced 'breeder badges' for productive mothers that hadn't been seen since the great patriotic war. I love that one, it's classic russian double speak as it descibes the one they fought against the ally with whom they destroyed and divided up Poland. The problem they have with population is now severely aggravated by the fact that it disproportionately affects the portion of the population that is entering the economically productive phase of their lives due to war casualties and mass emigration. The emigration bit is particularly harmful because it is massively skewed towards qualified and already economically active people. unemployment in russia is now near zero and wage inflation is very high. Russians have an uncommon capacity for shit eating but they aren't immune from the effects of pulling on unresponsive economic levers.

  3. #13
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Hook View Post

    I think like a lot of public speakers and political journalists he weaves together some facts, factoids, convincing narratives and wild predictions in order to get attention.

    Like a lot of futurists he's interesting to listen to, but if you've followed him for long enough he starts to fall short.
    Ja, pretty much.
    The guy obviously is very knowledgeable but again it's just to keep on walking around with a selfie stick.
    And............God bless america is kind of stuck in his head where objectivity should be.

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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Let me explain in (very) simple terms how politics work:

    Poli/poly = Many, a multitude of.
    Ticks = Blood sucking parasites.

  5. #15
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Messor View Post
    Ja, pretty much.
    The guy obviously is very knowledgeable but again it's just to keep on walking around with a selfie stick.
    And............God bless america is kind of stuck in his head where objectivity should be.
    I'm interested in understanding your america and objectivity point. I've read much more of his stuff than I've watched so not sure if some of the videos differ fundamentally in approach. My perception of him is that being an American he's pro-America but one eyed. The stuff he addresses, i.e. global geopolitics, naturally touches the US all over because they are the 800 pound economic and military gorilla of the moment. I can't remember any of his views on where they may be going economically or how they may fare in state on state conflicts for example sounding like blinkered or wishful thinking. What have you heard from him that sounds like it lacks objectivity re america?

  6. #16
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by oafpatroll View Post
    I'm interested in understanding your america and objectivity point. I've read much more of his stuff than I've watched so not sure if some of the videos differ fundamentally in approach. My perception of him is that being an American he's pro-America but one eyed. The stuff he addresses, i.e. global geopolitics, naturally touches the US all over because they are the 800 pound economic and military gorilla of the moment. I can't remember any of his views on where they may be going economically or how they may fare in state on state conflicts for example sounding like blinkered or wishful thinking. What have you heard from him that sounds like it lacks objectivity re america?
    I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I have seen a lot of videos of the guy.
    As I mentioned the guy is very knowledgeable on many subjects he also does not read from a screen he speaks from memory, but that is part of the problem it’s easy for people to believe him.

    But then you watch the video’s people make as mentioned earlier in the thread where they debunk him completely, it’s easy to see why people would believe him, he has a way of speaking very convincingly which only means he truly believes the stuff he said.

    The USA narrative which I touched on is merely and observation I got through his videos, kind of part of his thinking. Where I started to take everything he says with a pinch of salt was over the China issue, he just said what he believed and was just as wrong as a person CAN get, which muddies the water for everything else he says in what he could actually be right about.

    I still watch his video’s, from wherever he is walking about that day, because I don’t believe to get info from one source I watch all the sources I can get, I always try and watch both sides of the story most people just choose a narrative and is willing to die on that hill for f@ck knows reason.

    I saw a funny quote about him somewhere and won’t get the number rights, but the meme said he successfully predicted at least 23 of the last 3 real world problem events, which I found kind of fitting for summing him up. All of us will predict at least one correct time on a clock each day even if it’s broken.

  7. #17
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Messor View Post
    I haven’t read any of his books yet, but I have seen a lot of videos of the guy.
    As I mentioned the guy is very knowledgeable on many subjects he also does not read from a screen he speaks from memory, but that is part of the problem it’s easy for people to believe him.

    But then you watch the video’s people make as mentioned earlier in the thread where they debunk him completely, it’s easy to see why people would believe him, he has a way of speaking very convincingly which only means he truly believes the stuff he said.

    The USA narrative which I touched on is merely and observation I got through his videos, kind of part of his thinking. Where I started to take everything he says with a pinch of salt was over the China issue, he just said what he believed and was just as wrong as a person CAN get, which muddies the water for everything else he says in what he could actually be right about.

    I still watch his video’s, from wherever he is walking about that day, because I don’t believe to get info from one source I watch all the sources I can get, I always try and watch both sides of the story most people just choose a narrative and is willing to die on that hill for f@ck knows reason.

    I saw a funny quote about him somewhere and won’t get the number rights, but the meme said he successfully predicted at least 23 of the last 3 real world problem events, which I found kind of fitting for summing him up. All of us will predict at least one correct time on a clock each day even if it’s broken.
    Thanks for the reply. I'm still not sure specifically what you take issue with. Can you call out some examples? I like to do a dispstick on my biases and blind spots from time to time and this will be helpful.

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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by oafpatroll View Post
    Thanks for the reply. I'm still not sure specifically what you take issue with. Can you call out some examples? I like to do a dispstick on my biases and blind spots from time to time and this will be helpful.
    It’s hard to articulate but his perception, not his knowledge is kind of stuck in the previous century.
    The modern world was built by die Americans and their dollar after the great wars and we can all thank them for a whole century of economic upliftment.
    But the world is changing and it needs real insight into subjects not just superficial knowledge.
    You hear him speak about this or that about the middle east and it’s clear he is up to speed about current events, but he does not understand the people fueding there for a few centuries.
    He talks about the downfall of China yet he does not understand the Chinese, it's the last nation on earth you want to write off, so is his prediction based on facts as he understand them or the lack of in-depth social knowledge or merely the fact that he wants America to stay on top?
    Same with the shipping stuff, same with other stuff.

    It’s his job to tell other people what HE thinks, pure and simple a job, I wonder if I ever had to sit with him in a long conversation will be listening to anything I have to say or will he tell me how things are?
    So thought experiment, if this guy with all his knowledge was born and raised in China, or Russia, or in Benoni, would he reason and think the same, I think not, we are all products of something or in this case somewhere.

    Like I said hard to articulate, but sure you get my reasoning.

  9. #19
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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics

    Quote Originally Posted by Messor View Post
    Like I said hard to articulate, but sure you get my reasoning.
    Thanks. He's neither a sociologist nor a social historian so I'm happy to accept that he doesn't have a handle on the weeds of global cultures. I'm also more than happy to stick to the military and economic elements of the analysis as they are less fuzzy and easier to interrogate. "Predictions" aren't things I look for as no one is ever consistently any good at those. Geopolitics is like weather in that there are more moving parts and variables than you can count. A well informed and reasoned sketching of potential scenarios is what I'm after and he ticks that box for me.

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    Default Re: Please help me out with politics



    If you're looking for more grounded and boring analysis Sarah Paine is good.

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