Pope: Catholics should ask gay people for forgiveness

[Giancarlo]

Their economy is tied heavily to the US, and it does appear they are dependent on the US anyways.

Either way, they have plenty of their own problems to deal with and they know it. I don't think they'll be building bases throughout the world. One little talked about problem is the ongoing insurrection in their western provinces, such as Xinjiang.

[rah]

They'll just build islands.

[Giancarlo]

I wonder how the Chinese government is doing with the cloud seeding experiments.

http://qz.com/138141/china-creates-55-billion-tons-of-artificial-rain-a-year-and-it-plans-to-quintuple-that/

Maybe we should try that in California... it sounds bogus, but they do create artificial rain.

[kentonio]

Either way, they have plenty of their own problems to deal with and they know it. I don't think they'll be building bases throughout the world.

Oops, too late..

https://www.ft.com/content/59ad20d6-...c-d27c7117d132

[Ben Kenobi]

You don't necessarily have to occupy a country to beat it militarily. The world has changed since 1945.

Well, did the Americans win the Korean war despite stalemating? I can't see an Asian war or a war against Russia really giving the Americans a solid victory.

Automated pilots will kill a lot more people a lot more quickly and effectively than a human pilot.

There's also more of a chance for them to go wrong.

Sorry, you don't understand how advanced software is becoming. Pilots are the weak link in the chain, and keeping them out of the air means you can do a lot more things that would otherwise be impossible. No point having a 'backup' pilot if he's going to be passed out most of the time from suffering high speed manouvers the body can't handle. The second point you make it actually true but not in the way you mean it. Having to design a plane around a pilot does indeed make it extremely expensive. The future drone fighters should be considerably cheaper, so you'll be paying much less for something much more effective.

It's not really an either/or question. There's benefits to having both. Why put yourself at a disadvantage? As for software - yes, it's the weakest link right now. There's all sorts of things that can go wrong when the plane is in the air, and having a pilot there will allow the plane to continue to fly even if the plane has troubles. The F-35 software isn't reliable enough. Could it get there? Sure. But it's not there yet.

This makes no sense. China does not have a population where 100% of the people are efficiently working at essential roles. 5m people in a population of 1.36 billion is frankly an irrelevance, and as living standards grow they'll settle into a more stable pattern. As I said before though, it doesn't really matter when you can just buy companies in low income country or just outsource work to there.

Actually it does matter because there's not enough labor out there to fill the shortage. Those are also year over year numbers. 2010 was short 5 million, 2011, 5 million, 2012, 5 million. In a decade you're looking at a shortage of 50 million, which is 10 percent of the Chinese workforce total. The law of large numbers also mean that 40 years of this is already baked in and there's nothing China can do. I'm not worried about China - average age is already older than the US.

You haven't heard it anywhere else because its silly. There isn't some huge manual labour task that China has to have fulfilled or else it fails. They're an economy like anyone elses, they'll make things internally while its cheap to do so, and start importing from poorer countries when its not. It's worth noting the amount of Chinese investment into Africa by the way. China is being very careful not to put all its eggs into a single basket.

The problem is that other countries have labor shortages too and China is in competition with them. At this point, it's possible for China to fulfill their labor requirements with most of Asia, but that assumes that the Philippines will prefer China to the US, which is not something that we see.

Can you explain why you think either of those two sentences are true?

Because their retiree - worker ratio will be greater than 1 - you can't feed a country on that. As for India, what do they really need from the west?

Why wouldn't people sell systems to China? Unless of course you do think of them as a potential enemy, who should be technologically embargoed. That said its far too late for that anyway, they stole a lot of technology to narrow the gap but now they're more than capable of developing their own. Their anti-ship missiles are supposedly the best in the world. They still have a massive amount of catching up to do however, as America never stands still.

That's just what it's doing and the points you make here - are indications that America's on the downswing. America isn't progressing, it has been standing still for a long time now.

Your final point kind of contradicts your whole argument by the way. If you're going to rely on older cheaper planes, then what's the point in spending vast sums trying to stay technologically far ahead?

The point is to develop new versions of unstealthy planes that are better than the F-15/F-18.

[Berzerker]

If you believe that nature is the primary determinant of what is right, why do you believe in human society? The two principles are diametrically opposed.

Human society is the product of the tree, our fall from grace... Human society began with disobeying God, nature better reflects the will of the creator than a book you chose to believe

[Giancarlo]

Oops, too late..

https://www.ft.com/content/59ad20d6-...c-d27c7117d132

I didn't know about that. Well... then. Fine with me.

If the US can do it, so can they as long as its within legal perimeters and international law. Maybe the US should offer a hand and help them. Maybe they could actually be a partner in fighting the instability in the region.

Maybe I'm just being too much of an optimist lol. I should be just as negative about my views on free trade lol.

[Giancarlo]

Human society is the product of the tree, our fall from grace... Human society began with disobeying God, nature better reflects the will of the creator than a book you chose to believe

Many of us, myself included, don't believe that. Adam and Eve is a total myth. Same thing with the rest of that religion.

Besides... the bible ripped off a lot of prior texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh.

[Ben Kenobi]

Human society is the product of the tree, our fall from grace... Human society began with disobeying God, nature better reflects the will of the creator than a book you chose to believe

Interesting. Don't see why you believe in human society at all if you believe we should get back to nature.

[Berzerker]

Many of us, myself included, don't believe that. Adam and Eve is a total myth. Same thing with the rest of that religion.

Besides... the bible ripped off a lot of prior texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Its a myth that tells of our ancient past when a "primitive" being became human... And the science agrees with the myth, our ancestors are progressively more animal-like as we go back in time.

The Zulu have a total myth claiming their ancestors were called the artificial ones and they waged war on the apemen. Thats an oral tradition that has survived since the dawn of man. Many myths from around the world tell of prior ages and earlier peoples who were wiped out.

Geneticists are tracking down our Adam and Eve and they appear to be 200k+ years old. I'd like to see DNA studies on other related critters to see how far back their lines go.

[Berzerker]

Interesting. Don't see why you believe in human society at all if you believe we should get back to nature.

We cant return to nature, but people who try are a human society

[Giancarlo]

Its a myth that tells of our ancient past when a "primitive" being became human... And the science agrees with the myth, our ancestors are progressively more animal-like as we go back in time.

The Zulu have a total myth claiming their ancestors were called the artificial ones and they waged war on the apemen. Thats an oral tradition that has survived since the dawn of man. Many myths from around the world tell of prior ages and earlier peoples who were wiped out.

Geneticists are tracking down our Adam and Eve and they appear to be 200k+ years old. I'd like to see DNA studies on other related critters to see how far back their lines go.

Adam and Eve isn't even an original story. I don't believe it.

Myths are myths.

[Giancarlo]

Interesting. Don't see why you believe in human society at all if you believe we should get back to nature.

You try to think we are higher than animals, when we aren't. Your religion makes you falsely believe that you are civilized. You hate others irrationally, you discriminate against LGBT people irrationally and your behavior on this site is irrational.

You are not civilized and try to cover up your intentions through euphemisms and sugary language.

[Ben Kenobi]

Adam and Eve isn't even an original story. I don't believe it.

If it were true, we'd expect similarities between ancient stories. How do you know that the Genesis account came after Gilgamesh?

[Ben Kenobi]

You try to think we are higher than animals, when we aren't

You are not civilized

Civilization, by definition presupposes that people are not animals. This is a contradiction. How do you resolve this, Gian? If you believe our human nature makes us no better than animals, how does it make sense to turn around and say that there can be such a thing as human society?