And what do you think will take its place, and how?

That is the most disingenuous interpretation of my comment I can imagine.

You’re finding enemies in your own trenches my friend. The genocide in Gaza is absolutely horrific, and I am not making any excuses for it.

I’m just saying we live in a better world now as a whole than years past, recent years notwithstanding. Think mid-Obama as maybe the most hopeful time in recent memory as far as advancement toward the Global Goals was concerned, and yeah I know Obama was still bombing foreign countries in the name of anti-terror and killing innocents to get at Obama Bin Laden.

Do you find any optimism in the world or are you pure nihilism?

Kidnapping is an emotionally loaded term which isn’t used in journalism. Makes sense. Edit: nah I’m wrong. They’d use it for the actual crime of kidnapping.

I hate this shit. We need media to call a spoon a spoon.

Call lies, lies. “Misinformation”, “inaccuracies” “incorrectly said…” Nah fuck that. Trump lied.

Yeah, it’s shit. But if we let bad be the enemy of better, we’ll never get anywhere.

Do you think a world without the institutions o mentioned would do any better for Palestinians?

As t least there’s still widespread support and sentiment among the populations of the western world, and Israel is very much a pariah state in many nations’ eyes. It’s just not within most nations’ power to intervene.

Even then intervention is tricky. We don’t people to do what Trump did in Venezuela, because history has shown it doesn’t lead to better long term outcomes.

Of course not, you can’t see very far below the surface.

Institutions like NATO and the ICC, global trade agreements, security guarantees, economic interdependencies, multiculturalism, air travel, the infrastructure of the internet. The fact a bridge collapse or building fire might make international headlines. Movies and culture from around the world being mainstream.

What makes you not think so?

Indeed. But the general direction of world order has been moving against that sort of thing, and increasingly, many serving US politicians and citizens. Trump is undermining both US and global progress away from the worst traits of human hegemonic History and putting them back on full display.

Sure, it’s better than the alternative. But it still makes this move functionally meaningless aside from the reasons I mentioned.

It’s possible he’s just making a deal with Maduro, who he’ll send back to Venezuela as his pawn. I guess we’ll see.

Problem is, Maduro is a figurehead. He’s not a mastermind. The regime will carry on without him. Nothing has been achieved by this kidnapping except a threat to Venezuela, and a message to China and Russia that this is how the world works now.

Edit: Also a lot of innocent or mostly innocent people have been murdered. Trump is a literal murderer.

This. Especially reporters. They should all call out lies and abuse without hesitation. Access to the Whitehouse press office isn’t worth it. Don’t even cover that shit. Make Trump have to step outside if he wants an audience.

True, good points.

Interesting. Didn’t think of the military applications. I think both countries care about cutting edge technology markets in general, and not creating economic chaos by shutting down TSMC. But once TSMC in Taiwan itself is no longer essential, all bets are off. Given both US and China want to get away from relying on TSMC, it’s only a matter of time.

With the US currently only caring about money and power, all interest in Taiwan’s defence will evaporate. I hope for Taiwan’s sake politics change before that day comes.

Taiwan will scuttle their microchip fabs before letting China take over. Unless China have infiltrated and taken over the fabs and secured them from destruction, there’s far less economic value in invading Taiwan.

Chinas chip fabrication is advancing quickly. So assuming Taiwan remains strong and doesn’t get infiltrated, we won’t see an invasion until China is confident it doesn’t need Taiwanese chips for its own technology. Then, it’ll just be about politics and having more of the coast line and trade routes secured, not the fabs.

I reckon there’s at least a few more years before they will take Taiwan by force. Time for international relationships to change for the better…

Yeah, I have no idea how I misread that as “blew up on the internet”.

Explain the meme for me. I may just have a synical mind that goes to dark places.

Just a small loan of some God given bodily assets, a touch of charisma, and probably not at risk of being homeless if drops out of education and becomes an adult with no other tangible skills. Also we only see the 1% of the 1% who succeed. For all of them I expect many ended up in actual porn or at least OnlyFans.

I’m fun at parties.

Knows…

Zaphod’s just this guy you know.

How can it be good for the world if everyone is spending more money on their militaries?