> I was in Iowa a few years ago, and the food is awful. I don’t think the food in Iowa used to be great “100 years ago before modern factory farming,” etc. I suspect it’s always been awful, and people just don’t care about it very much as long as they get the calories they need.
I've observed the same thing; But my theory is taste in food is shaped by how recently a families lineage transitioned to processed foods and industrialized agricultural practices. e.g. I've observed a deterioration in taste in South Asia over the past 20 years, which I attribute to the same effect.
The article provides a great example. Airlines are a structurally unstable industry. Yet you can hop on a plane and get anywhere. Bankruptcy law enables airlines to keep operating as they restructure their debts with minor hiccups.
More broadly, our modern world exists because of large scale organizations, the ability for strangers to transact, and efficient markets for allocating credit and capital. Bankruptcy law is a pillar that makes that possible. It enables lenders to extend credit knowing that, if the debtor can’t repay, there will be an orderly process for getting some of the money back. That backstop in turn lowers the barriers to transaction.
Contrast this with what happens in a country without modern bankruptcy law. Businesses in those countries still need to borrow money. But what happens when a debtor can’t pay? Individual creditors have an incentive to harass the debtor and be the first ones to recover their share. Debtors have incentives to pay back certain creditors before others. Creditors might seek to liquidate an otherwise viable business just to get paid. All that means that lending and borrowing is risky. So when people do it, they go through established trust networks, such as families, clans, etc. This dampens business formation and entrepreneurship.
> for year 2025" was not a qualification the grandparent poster made.
I interpreted the comment to mean that Tesla model Y is currently the most widely sold car in the world, not historically. model y is less than 10 years old.
i think it shows that tesla is actually able to ship cars at a high volume, which was the point of the thread.
no you're right sorry it's not up to your standards of selling as many cumulative units as cars that have been sold longer than most readers of this website have been alive
Well, I raised an eyebrow at the claim that "The Toyota RAV4 is a very popular vehicle in terms of units sold worldwide over the last few years" as it just does not match what I see on the roads locally on a daily basis.
(There are tons of RAVs as yellow taxis in NYC though. That's the only place that I've seen them swarm)
But it is a defensible claim, and apparently globally it's true, even if locally it is not.
> You can't be rich as a country without having the power to stay rich unless you are a little mountain region country or riding on the coat tails of a country that is.
Countries become rich because of stable, competent institutions, not because they can maintain a military empire.
Ireland, Singapore are both examples of this.
> You will need to protect your supply lines if you are an actor in a globalized world. So you have to become that country if you want to stay independent, and want to be supplied with the goods that you depend on.
Protect supply lines from whom? how are military bases in Turkey, Germany, Poland, etc protecting "supply lines"?
one of the most important supply lines for europe (hydrocarbons from russia) has been stifled for the past 4 years - why havent our bases or military been able to keep it open?
similarly, why are our numerous bases in Middle East failing to protect supply lines?
i would argue that in both those cases, our aggressive military expansion (nato, israel expansion + gulf bases) caused the closure of those critical supply lines.
> Protect supply lines from whom? how are military bases in Turkey, Germany, Poland, etc protecting "supply lines"?
Because they are on friendly territory that remains friendly on account of that. Mutual defense again, coupled with some more history. Why do you think the USA wants to use its bases in Europe for the war against Iran?
> i would argue that in both those cases, our aggressive military expansion (nato, israel expansion + gulf bases) caused the closure of those critical supply lines.
NATO is not 'aggressive military expansion' even though Trump seems to think it should be. As for Israel, that really is a US problem, Israel in part became the belligerent that it is today because it has been shielded and supported militarily well beyond defense. This is going to cause trouble for at least another century, maybe more.
> I understand you right you fail to see what a lasting peace and good relationship with allies will do for the country that brokers that peace and you require 'extraordinary evidence' because it is an extraordinary claim? Next up you're going to say that the USA should have never joined World War II or created the Marshall plan in the immediate aftermath, that's a logical extension of that argument since that's universally seen as the launch of 'Pax Americana'.
I don't agree with him a lot of the time but I think his request is reasonable and I share his skepticism about the idea that US military presence and interventions are somehow beneficial
to the American's wellbeing, both the median American and the polity as a whole.
why should i not be skeptical? the first order effects of military are inherently destructive - why should i assume that having more military makes anyones lives better? its not obvious at all and requires a better explanation IMO.
Yes, you are right that the first order effects of the military are inherently destructive, that's why you should use them with restraint. In that sense the military is no different than other tools: use with caution and read the manual first.
But that has nothing to do with ill advised adventures of conquest, it has everything to do with mutual defense. Not to put too fine a point on it: it has nothing to do with invading Iraq or Iran because you feel like you have been given an excuse to do that which you've been hungry for. Gulf war I was somewhat justified (it really was defense), episode II was bonkers, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and lots of others were not a good use of the military from the start, and we can debate over the effectiveness of the outcome for many reasons.
More military does not make anyone's lives better if you use them to invade. But mutual defense is a very useful thing in a multi polar world. If you can trust your partners to not suddenly go 'might makes right'.
History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Roman emperors starting with Marcus Aurelius began devaluing their currency to pay for endless
war, and to a lesser
extent, free bread; i believe that is the principle cause of the decline of Roman empire.
It is more of the endless civil wars they had. See the Crisis of the Third Century when every military regional commander revolted and marched on Rome. Even during times of peace e.g., during Augustus time, they would pass laws trying to stop people from amputating their son's thumbs to avoid conscription.
Empire is a structure that exist strangely disconnected from the country that spawned it to keep the lights at the cost of other countries.
Just imagine if the us empire and its institutions, war machine parted ways with the country and its population. It would not be as hard as one imagines, but would reveal a country that has benefitted in parts by snuggling up to the imperial maxhine, while other paets where abandoned. It would also reveal how deeply the empire structure seeped into the privat social landscape.
> Just imagine if the us empire and its institutions, war machine parted ways with the country and its population.
I suspect we may not have to imagine this for long. The DOGEing of the federal government pulled a lot of the benefits of the union away from the people, and the recent political maneuvering around voting districts and other inter-state power contests suggest that the notion of the US as one nation and one people with a shared set of values is increasingly at odds with the facts on the ground. We have the most powerful military in the world (probably?), but in terms of the domestic situation, the federalized model is under incredible stress and the bargains that held it together seem to be failing or being intentionally broken. Your description of the empire leaving the country behind - or vice versa - feels less far-fetched than it would have a generation ago.
> What civilian infrastructure was deliberately attacked?
Its clear you have only been getting your information from a certain set of sources. a lot of civilian infrastructure has been destroyed in Iran.
One of Israel's goals is to cripple the economy of Iran.
"Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, have ordered the military to carry out strikes on targets that cause economic blows to the Iranian regime."
"This included a strike on major Iranian gas infrastructure in the country’s south nearly two weeks ago, and strikes on two of Iran’s largest steel factories on Friday. "
"Missiles also struck one of Iran’s biggest state-run pharmaceutical companies, Tofigh Darou, destroying its production and research and development units, state media said on Tuesday, blaming the strike on Israel. It’s a major producer of anti-cancer drugs and anesthetic in Iran"
"A century-old medical research centre (Pasteur Institute) set up to fight infectious diseases like plague and smallpox has been heavily damaged in strikes on Tehran"
In addition, one of my friends who lives in Iran reported that a dialysis center, a refrigerator factory, a public park (that had "police" in the name),
a popular chicken restaurant, and an entire apartment building full of people were each separately targeted and destroyed (apartment building was double tapped,
killing rescue workers)
the above is just a small selection, universities, factories, bridges, oil infra has all been targeted as well.
would you consider US Steel factories, universities that do research for the military, factories or companies that make components that go into US weapons, apartment buildings where one military leader lives as military or civilian infrastructure?
> would you consider US Steel factories, universities that do research for the military, factories or companies that make components that go into US weapons, apartment buildings where one military leader lives as military or civilian infrastructure?
I would consider it military infrastructure, but if you don't then you can't really complain about the US attacking, say, a petrochemical facility while Iran is/was simultaneously attacking infrastructure in the Gulf and attacking actual civilian targets like apartment buildings.
So you have to be consistent. It's either military or not. Iran is doing the same thing the US is doing or neither are doing it. Either way there's no room for moral superiority or outrage when both countries are somewhat acting the same, of course with Iran attacking and killing more civilians and whatnot.
true, but there's some evidence that was unintentional. whereas Trump and Israel are openly saying they are targeting bridges, oil
infra, economic targets etc.
I've observed the same thing; But my theory is taste in food is shaped by how recently a families lineage transitioned to processed foods and industrialized agricultural practices. e.g. I've observed a deterioration in taste in South Asia over the past 20 years, which I attribute to the same effect.
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