The Chinese state seems to frequently chase vacuous milestones to boast to the world about while the actual problems China and its people face go unaddressed. Sure that describes a lot of states, but China in particular stands out to me in how dogged they are to gain face.
Probably the State Department on both accounts? But that's assuming this deal is being made by a respectable administration and not an organised crime syndicate pretending to be one.
He acts to get more for himself constantly, sure, but that's not the end goal for him. He doesn't truly appreciate money, because he's always had it and he's always squandered it.
The prime motivator for Trump is ego. Money is simply a vehicle to that goal. Once he takes office, "Trump" and the political entity of "the United States" will be one and the same to him. He wants the world to see him as powerful and uncompromising, and he wants to be treated with that mix of adoration and fear that every violent despot in history has strived for. He sees the US's powerful military, and wonders why we aren't crushing the world underfoot, enemies and allies alike. He does not understand the value of mutual relationships where Trump has to make any compromise. He does not understand the value of global stability when there are gains to be made and none of the blowback will likely ever affect him personally. He is legitimately a psychopath, constrained only by the objective reality that he cannot bloviate away.
And the Trump Party (formerly the Republican Party) has decided that the path to ultimate power is to plow away every roadblock to Trump doing whatever he wants, and then they can manipulate and control him from there. The National Socialists thought the same of Hitler.
There's a lot of weirdness to go around in this conflict. One of the weird aspects I noticed is that a lot of the combat footage that is made public nowadays is of these relatively close-range, small-scale brawls out in the sticks. Never more than a dozen people on either side, never more than 1-2 armored vehicles. It kind of flies in the face of modern combined arms doctrine that the US enjoys.
Released combat footage is a very small lens into this admittedly, but it seems like that's how the war is being fought now. Handfuls of troops operating almost independently, bounding between wooded thickets, gaining and losing meters, and slugging it out with the other side doing the same thing along the way.
Footage came out of a Ukr Stryker trying to literally run down Rus infantry in an open field because they ran out of ammo, presumably for the RWS. Supposedly there was a crewman hanging out one of the hatches shooting at them too.
What sort of work you do in those boots, out of curiosity? I wouldn't have made that bet when I was a machine operator, those shits were soaked in coolant with stainless steel chips embedded everywhere.
I'm going to get really tired of hearing "electoral mandate" from these bunch of traitors. It's clear that this phrase is baked into their messaging strategy at the molecular level. They're going to use it to justify every crooked and evil thing they do regardless of reality. It's as stupid as it is insidious, they might as well be saying "mission from God."
"Fifth columnist says top of the line weapons system that is already paid for and being fielded is actually fucking stupid and you should totally divest from it and pursue some vague futuretech solution."
I know this is damning to admit here, but back when I was willing to watch Joe Rogan I distinctly remember during Elon's episode (the one where he hit a joint and tanked Tesla stock, not the latest one), the topic went to electric airplanes. Elon was talking technical about it and Joe was sitting there wide-eyed like he was revealing the secrets of the weave of the universe, sure that aerospace was going to be revolutionized by this man.
Maybe I'm the stupid one here, but I'm pretty sure he was just talking about how airfoils generate lift. You know, the stuff the Wright brothers figured out in the 19-aughts. Its in high school physics textbooks.
Gut feeling is modern ground force, as that's what takes and holds territory at the end of the day, and Ukraine shows that modern AA makes things quite dangerous for modern air units to operate.
Mugshots rarely look good because they want a centered and level profile of your face with a neutral expression in order to capture as much detail as possible. It also might have been a minute since he's seen a shower or a razor. I wouldn't call that a conspiracy, there are much more important details at play here than his looks.
“Also they said that he had a Faraday bag,” which blocks cell signals, a move that prosecutors alleged marked “an indication of criminal sophistication and reason they should hold him on bail,” Freeman continued.
Prosecutors, man. Acting like he had a fucking radio jammer or something.
It's framed as "vaccine bad" even if it wasn't outright stated. Or at the very least that Da Gubment is inherently reckless, irresponsible, and clueless in handling vaccines...just like they believe with every other government function.
When one of the points on an official report is
but what about muh natural immunity, I dun need no damn shot!
You know where they're coming from. And when they've chosen "there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine" RFK Jr. to lead our public health, you know where they're going.
Bartering also assumes, for your example, that the apple farmer wants oranges and the orange farmer wants apples. Consider that either one may not. And then consider how many other goods exist even in primitive agrarian society that people may or may not want at any given time.
Currency is whatever the agreed vehicle is for value exchange that solves this. The apple farmer can now sell apples for silver nuggets and use the silver to buy tools from someone else later, which the orange farmer either doesn't have or is unwilling to part with. It allows for more complex transactions that then helped grow more complex societies.
The Chinese state seems to frequently chase vacuous milestones to boast to the world about while the actual problems China and its people face go unaddressed. Sure that describes a lot of states, but China in particular stands out to me in how dogged they are to gain face.