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China also had a couple of twists. At least parts of the West have general counterparts to these problems.

Some cities had infrastructure built out ahead of demand. Many of the cities did start filling up with people, which is great. However, the infrastructure aged well ahead of when it was used. So some of the infrastructure is coming due for expensive maintenance, often without a solid tax structure to pay for it. Readers of Strong Towns will recognize this general pattern of overbuilding without building a solid foundation, but it just has a Chinese character to it.

Linked to that is a growing debt crisis at the local government level. The most current estimate I could find is 94 trillion yen (US$13 trillion). Many infrastructure investments were made that are projected to never be paid off in their lifespan. Again, Strong Town readers will recognize this general pattern.

Going from pure speculation, I wonder whether they might have been able to avoid some of the problems with aging unused infrastructure by setting aside land and right-of-way. Here in Portland, when they were planning the I-205 freeway, one concession to transit and bike advocates was to set aside a right-of-way for a transit way and a bike path. That particular concession was made around 1975. The bike path was built immediately. The northern end was used to extend the preexisting light rail to the airport on September 10, 2001 (great timing) as part of the Red Line. The southern end became part of the Green Line later.

Those problems would absolutely apply. And moving equipment has never been a problem in Ukraine, it has been getting permission from a fickle Congress and training Ukrainian with gear they are not familiar with.

The simulated conflicts are run against an adversary that is perfect. No logistic errors, no maintenance issues, no communication issues, no human error. They are a teaching tool, not a crystal ball. In reality, in the event of a conflict there are plenty of areas where China would struggle.

My sincerest apologies, comrade. You see, I indeed do have a sinus infection and the therapy has involved huffing Flonase.

Every single person on the planet is aware of climate change

I'm still trying to get my husband's uncle to get off his easy out of "well I guess it's happening, but humans didn't cause it." He, along with a lot of other people, are in an echo chamber. Obviously plopping pigment on monuments isn't going to do shit to convince them, but I don't know what will.

In my previous job, I was asked to break focus every 15 minutes to check my email and see if one of my coworkers was falling behind on dealing with a queue of tasks, then pitch in if he was. I hated the job in general, but that in particular just ruined any possibility of productivity. Hard for anyone, near impossible for someone with ADHD. Then I got blamed for falling behind on my work. And for being disorganized (we didn't have a ticket tracker, hmmm).

I have heard accounts from people who were in the presence of Saddam Hussein. He was a special type of psychopathic. You could feel you were in the presence of someone dangerous.

No, I am arguing against nuclear proliferation. Especially a total psychopath like Saddam Hussein.

Putin, as part of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said that if any countries tried to stop Russia, they would face "such consequences that you have never encountered in your history". It's hard to take that two ways.

Also, much of the point isn't who has threatened to use them. The more nuclear weapons material floating around, the more chance that it lands in the hands of someone with no compunctions about actually using it. The Doomsday Clock gets closer to midnight every time another country gets nukes.

Every country that has nukes means more risk that some loose cannon sets off a nuke. That is why nuclear non-proliferation agreements are so important.

To demonstrate, what if Saddam and Iran had had nukes during the Iran-Iraq War? Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds. Would he use nukes? I genuinely don't know, the man was apparently a psychopath. Would you actually want someone like that to have nukes?

And China and Russia.