Arcturus

That’s actually shrinking now, it used to be a larger share a decade, two decades ago. Being replaced by renewables.

Nice pick. I went from my dying LG V60 to the S23 Plus. It was inevitable…

Because it’s not enough.
She wasn’t enough.
She doesn’t fit the box perfectly.
And she was too popular to ignore.

She was always keeping a moderate tone, always leaning towards supporting China and the Chinese state as well. I thought she’d skip around the censors because of it.

We do business dealings in China, and let me tell you that American workers are compensated more for their efforts than the Chinese workers are. That’s why we do business in China lol. Its also why we do business in the Philippines. Mainly because we can profit, and Chinese owners can host an elaborate party for us (mainly because their margins are larger than ours). They feel compelled to because it’s a prestige thing, to be able to flaunt wealth. But it’s not exactly aristocratic, which is my background. One of the wives for example showed us their plate collection for example, which easily breaks over $100k in value, they had some interesting pieces, such as Queen Elizabeth state sets (my family has one of those somewhere), but they won’t understand the difference between all the plates, or what they are (that’s what the servants are for). It’s literally just meaningless consumption, more bourgeois capitalist than you can ever imagine. I’ve had Chinese businessmen literally call me while they’re in France, asking what kind of watch they should buy. It’s never under $5,000 at least. One of them bought an Extra-Plat Squelette 5395 in Hong Kong. And these aren’t workers lol. Chinese workers aren’t meeting with American billionaires, owners of big pharma, literal royalty. It’s a class that has been built and expanded under Xi Jinping’s reign that has. Just look at Feng Shui, and how the focus is on raking in money, and more importantly, keeping it.

But he does. Sending your kids to Harvard isn’t exactly cheap. His personal wealth is only beaten by his political power. Marxism and Leninism are political ideologies, not just economic. Xi also nods his head to Mao, but that doesn’t mean anything. Donald Trump also nods his head to Lincoln and Washington.

You don’t seem to understand the difference between the party propaganda line, and the actual reality. A lot of urban educated in China do understand this, and know how to toe the line.

The Chinese state is cracking down on billionaires and the wealthy, to some extent, mainly as they are a challenge to the states own power. Not as a result of much else. Loyal ones, particularly close to Xi, are left alone.

China continues to be highly neoliberal in business practice, supported and subsidised by the state, if you’re in a key industry, particularly as China faces economic downturn. Chinese workers are pliant, and educated. Which is why Elon Musk is there.

The proletariat do not hold the power in China, they are seen as a threat by the Chinese elite. Hence a heavy surveillance state, and large propaganda arm.

The transition from socialism to capitalism, in theory, does not include a devolution back to capitalism lol. Xi Jinping has created more wealth for the Chinese elite than any other previous Chinese President. Unless you think the Germans were also socialist during the 30’s and 40’s.

1. Apologies, I thought China would’ve taken over by now. But quite a few do relocate to the US. I do see them travel quite a bit. I travel a lot too, and they do spend a bit of time in the US, but that’s mainly just shopping.

2. I would but this would be irrelevant. Can you define what Socialism with Chinese characteristics means?

Well, it may come as a shock to them, but having wealth in China improves your life considerably more than in the US. Unless of course, you challenge the Chairman.

The US could definitely do that, their logistics capabilities are immense. On top of that you have the submarine fleet, as well as assistance from regional allies. Probably not enough to take the entire country, but enough for it to capitulate through conventional means.

Perhaps an exaggeration?

Life expectancy did increase, with a few blips in the 1930’s, but this doesn’t seem particularly out of the ordinary, it also increased during the Tsarist government if you look outside of the Sino-Japanese War and WWI era. There really isn’t much consensus here, as well as a marked increase in living standards.

Other countries during that time period also had significant life expectancy increases over that period, which I think is just attributed to better infant mortality rates.

The only metric that that could be demonstrably better than than the Tsarist regime was education levels and literacy as a whole.

It was really from mid-1930’s that Soviet Russia was actually pulling away from the Tsarist regime. But who’s to tell that, had not WWI happened that gradual development would happen under the Tsar, or even the Provisional Government?

Germany had been worried about Russia’s potential since both the German Empire and the Third Reich.

Similarly, you do see a different rate of industrialisation from post-WWII China and Japan.

Yeah, it’s quite unlikely, we’re both making too much money off each other.
It all depends on Taiwan and the SCS regional partners now.

China’s President sent his own daughter to Harvard and China has wide income inequality, as well as the greatest proportion of millionaires and billionaires in the world. The wealthy in China go on day trips to Paris to literally eat cake.

Sweden’s approach is over.

They have no targets, the industry isn’t interested, and the government’s analysis has been based on nothing.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Q70mzQ/regeringen-svanger-om-karnkraftsreaktorerna

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-01/uniper-dents-swedish-nuclear-hopes-with-firm-no-to-new-plants

So, you’re going to build a powerplant, that people don’t want to fund, that governments are reluctant to build? You’ll need to create a government agency responsible for the design and planning, another responsible for training new powerplant workers, another one for the decommissioning process, and another for insurance, and another as a safety watchdog, which might come online in a decade if you’re lucky, or closer to two decades if you’re not, only for it to not be as effective as renewables, be a constant drain on taxpayers, not be entirely reliable, and be more expensive as an energy source than renewables. Sure, good luck with that plan. I wish you well garnering political and academic support with that. In the meantime, universities, companies, and governments will generally avoid it like the plague. Unless or course, there’s a nuclear industry that already exists and needs to be subsidised, or a military nuclear requirement to keep the talent and designs ongoing.

You’re deliberately going to build nuclear, ignore studies telling you that renewables decarbonise faster. Because you want to decarbonise. Only for your personal opinions, backed by the fossils and mining industry? You’re going to give the fossil industry a lot of money over the first 10 years of absolutely nothing happening.

I will add, the election promises the conservative Swedes have made seem to have disappeared. How convenient.

Let me pose you another question. Why do you think, the British Conservatives have invested in making HPC happen (finally agreeing to the demand to allow investing companies to turn a profit even before any energy is produced)? Why have conservatives in South Korea planned to restart a new nuclear industry despite accusations of corruption? Why is it the conservatives in Australia love the idea of nuclear? Is it because they can do the good old-fashioned trope of using the state to make their private company chums some money? Or is it because it’s for the goodness of their hearts, and concern for their citizens, while they dismantle the NHS and privatise it, for example?

The point of making a profit, is so that you can re-invest and allow private industries into the market.

If I made you a loaf of bread, which took 15 mins, and you could sell it for $2 profit. You would be able to sell more pieces of bread correct?

If another person made you a loaf of bread, which took three days to complete, and you make a loss of $10 with each one sold, how many more pieces of bread are you willing to sell?

One feeds your population, the other has to be bailed out by the government, and everyone loses money and investment and time.

This is why China prioritises renewables, renewables are considered superior to nuclear when decarbonising the grid, and the best case scenario for nuclear, according to scientists in academia (as opposed to pro-nuke Youtube videos), requires nuclear to be a minor player in a majority renewables grid (and also be 25% cheaper). Unfortunately making nuclear cheaper, is not ideal.

The pro-nuke argument is literally funded by the mining lobby and the fossil fuels industry. Which is why most of their resources are from lobby groups, YouTube videos, public books, and TED talks… Because they know it’s going to be ineffective, and they only need to convince the public. Much like how the whole hydrogen-powered cars narrative is going, or environmentally friendly fuels. It’s an expensive distraction.

See the RAB that the UK has for the HPC nuke plant build. Companies are allowed to make a profit even before the powerplant is completed. The government will handle insurance, and decommissioning. Which, happens over a century, at taxpayers expense, and it produces no energy. There’s also the storage of radioactive material. All of this, uses money and resources that could otherwise be used for constructing renewables (and the fossil fuels industry loves this plan, because every moneypit nuke plant that is constructed, less renewables are built, and fossils gets to remain in the game because they then become only just one of the underperformers, rather than all), decarbonising the grid (faster, see study), and on top of that, everybody makes money.

But don’t worry, renewables are also cheaper and more profitable than fossils in most applications as well, so they’ll lose out on future energy projects, besides, like in Germany’s case, being used as a backup.

Nact will ruin this for us…

Look at the industry’s growth in France though. Renewables has been growing at the expense of nuclear. This is happening in Germany as well.

Yeah, it genuinely is. Doesn’t take too long to find the lobby groups. A lot of funding comes from mining. Also, RAB funding (from the government) allows nuclear companies to earn a profit without having the plant completed yet. So there is money to be made. Ever wonder why there’s a lot of pro-nuke videos on YouTube? Rather than academic spaces? Which time and again shows you that renewables are superior in virtually every way?