WoodScientist @ WoodScientist @lemmy.world

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In this era, what seems to be an era of might makes right, if the US wanted to annex Greenland militarily, who exactly is going to do what to stop them? With what military?

Somehow I don't think the Danish military is going to be a substantial barrier to the US military. How many carrier groups does Denmark maintain? Danish military expenditure is about $8 billion USD per year. The US is more like $900 billion. The Danish military has 25,000 soldiers. The State of Texas alone, just in the minor military forces under the direct control of the Governor of Texas, has 23,000 troops. Texas alone, even without any federal support, could probably win a war against Denmark. That is how comical the difference in power here is.

And NATO? Well look at how good of a job NATO is doing at preventing the US from supporting Israel, or how effective NATO was at preventing the US from invading Iraq. In this scenario, Trump would effectively be walking away from NATO anyway. Without the US, NATO is pretty toothless. The US is the only NATO power that maintains a substantial expeditionary pressure, with some exceptions in the French and British. Almost every NATO power has a purely defensive military - their job is to defend against Russian aggression, not extend NATO power around the globe.

But moreover, even by the letter of the NATO treaty, NATO is powerless to intervene in intra-NATO conflicts. When a NATO country is invaded, the rest of NATO isn't automatically at war with the country that invaded. Rather, that country can quickly bring a resolution in front of NATO to invoke Article V of the charter. And adopting that resolution requires unanimous approval of all NATO members. So the US invades Greenland, Denmark tries to invoke Article V, and the US just vetoes the resolution. The NATO treaty is not meant to address intra-NATO conflict. Greece and Turkey have fought numerous territorial spats while both being members of NATO.

The law is a piece of paper. In reality, if the US wanted to invade Greenland, the only powers that could even theoretically do anything about it would be Russia and China. And in this scenario, they would agree to the plan, as they get their own annexation prizes in return.

The US just elected a fascist into power. Making agreements like this is par for the course for fascists.

Oh, I'm not seeing a world war. I'm more envisioning a corrupt bargain:

Russia grabs Ukraine

China grabs Taiwan

US grabs Greenland, Panama, and maybe even Cuba

And they all agree to just let it happen.

It will be released. But it will be 200 pages long, with approximately ten total pages worth of sentences not redacted. The only parts not redacted will be things already part of the public record.

This is still Merrick Garland's DoJ. It doesn't seek to actively do evil; it's not Trump's DoJ. But it does put defense of the powerful above any kind of justice. For Garland, protecting the powerful comes first; justice comes second.

I didn't come up with the succession loophole. That's certainly been discussed before.

Wait, is the big "Why," with a capital W, just us personifying nature? We're such social animals that we need to personify everything. People looking for a WHY are ultimately just expecting nature to act like a human being! We've evolved as social animals. We need to be used to thinking of actions having causes. Nothing just happens in a social community. If your food stores are suddenly and unexpectedly low, someone stole them. Oh, that nice tool/weapon? You got it from your brother-in-law. You owe him. We have evolved in environments where we need to keep social scores and disperse responsibilities. It's in our literal, social, and cultural DNA to attribute actions in our environment to people.

But then we also end up applying that to nature. It's pareidolia at a cultural level. And so we ask Why, with a capital W. Some might make fun of the ancients for personifying forces of nature and raisin them up as Gods. But we're no different. We do the same damn thing. We've just replaced the Gods with "Why."

Ultimately, it is extremely rare in nature for there to be just one of anything. Phenomena rarely occur alone. Why should this not extend to the very existence of Universes, independent Big Bangs? Maybe the Big Bang is some incredibly rare quantum fluctuation in the vacuum that occurs by odd chance once every "ten to the ten to the ten to the ten...." years. Some freakishly long length of time. But who cares? There's no one around to count the empty years. But once in a very blue moon, in some random patch of the vast infinite, infinitely expanding space time, a Big Bang occurs. It has its course and eventually decays down to nothing, returning to the quantum foam from which it sprung. In time, everything decays down to photons, those photons are stretched beyond the cosmic horizon. A Big Bang happens, a Universe thrives, and it decays to nothing. Awhile later, another Big Bang, etc.

So while a Universe is a rare thing, it is not unique. But in turn, it does give a sense of meaning. Suddenly we are now a part of a grand infinity of time and space. The concept of the Wheel of Time is made literal! And that is the thing that whole religions are built on. There are ways to find meaning in an infinite circle.

Specifically, the program would have to have a name that only a tech bro could love. So it will be called Universal Basic Ketamine (UBK.)

Here age is a big factor. If Musk is planning to try and seize real political power, he doesn't have to ever challenge Trump. Implicit in their Devil's bargain is the understanding that, in almost any universe, Musk is going to outlive Trump by a very long time. Elon need never challenge Trump directly, as he can simply let the reaper do that work for him. If Elon is MAGA's heir apparent, then he can take over the movement after Trump is term limited, incapacitated, or dies.

And don't rule out the idea of Musk vying to serve as president himself. As he was not born in the US, he cannot be elected president. But in theory he could become Acting President, which in terms of powers is indistinguishable from being President. He would run two lackeys for President and Vice President. Musk would be appointed Speaker of the House. Then, once elected and sworn in, the two lackeys would immediately resign. This would immediately make Musk Acting President. The two lackeys would run their whole campaign openly announcing this as their intended action; they're not deceiving anyone.

And, as weird as it sounds, according to a strict literalist interpretation of the Constitution, the requirements of being President only apply to being elected President, not appointed by succession as the Acting President. In theory, anyone can be Acting President. If Trump goes for a third term, it would be through this mechanism. And that same loophole would allow Elon to hold the powers of the presidency. MAGA is all about finding weird legal loopholes to seize power at any cost. With a compliant Supreme Court in your pocket? Certainly achievable. The very bargain could be something like "Trump remains president until he dies, after which Elon takes the reins."

No. No. Ok. I have a brilliant plan. Forget conquering Britain militarily. We will simply revoke The Declaration of Independence. The Act passed through Congress doing this will be called The Declaration of Dependence.

We're now all just in the UK, and we Demand proportional representation in Parliament.

Obviously you're meant to read between the lines. You're reading too literally. And also, you are wrong about this needing Denmark's blessing.

As part of the self-rule law of 2009 (section §21), Greenland can declare full independence if they wish to pursue it, but it would have to be approved by a referendum among the Greenlandic people.

Greenlandic Independence

Since you want it spelled out, here is the process of what US 'buying' Greenland would look like:

1. Run a campaign announcing that the US wants to buy Greenland, and they're willing to give each Greenland citizen $10 million in order to do it. Assuming the population could be made agreeable to it, the next steps proceed.
2. The Greenland parliament announces a referendum declaring full independence from Denmark, a right they already have under existing Danish law and that they can exercise at any time.
3. The people of Greenland approve the referendum. Greenland gains independence from Denmark.
4. The new independent nation of Greenland signs a treaty of annexation with the US. One of the terms of that treaty is that every current Greenlandic resident will receive a check for $10 million USD.

If you think "aktually, you can't buy Greenland!!!!" is a valid criticism to this idea, you're just thinking way too literally. You can, in practice, actually buy Greenland if the people there were willing to go for it. You're not literally buying Greenland down at the store. You're making a huge cash payment to each citizen a term in a treaty of annexation.

If the US want to peacefully annex Greenland, they don't have to convince Denmark of anything. Denmark has already given the citizens of Greenland the full right to choose their own fate. All you need to do is to convince the 50,000 or so Greenlanders that being annexed by the US is a good idea. And their numbers are small enough that, unlike ideas of annexing Canadian territory, it would be practical just to write massive checks to every citizen of Greenland.

"Buying Greenland" sounds like an incredibly ridiculous idea. But in terms of potential territorial expansions that Trump has floated, it's actually the most practical by far.

Honestly, buying Greenland is the most feasible of Trump's territorial expansion proposals. There aren't that many Greenlanders. They number 50,000 or so, and they all have Danish and EU citizenship.

The US could cut a check for $10 million USD to every man, woman, and child in Greenland, and the cost would come to about $500 billion. That's a song for a territory that large and of such long-term significance.

And you wouldn't be actually taking anyone's land. Existing land ownership would be respected. All that would change is that Greeland would be part of the US, not Denmark. And if any Greenland citizens don't want to live in the US, they can retire to Denmark and live well off the $20 million USD a couple of two would get.

The small population of Greenland makes otherwise impractical strategies like this possible. There's so few Greenlanders that we could just cut them each enormous checks in order to buy them all out.

Interesting bit of trivia. Microwaves don't actually have "high" or "low" settings. The magnetron, the microwave's core component, only has two states - on and off. It can't power the magnetron at 10% power level.

Instead, the "power" settings just control how often the magnetron is activated. So maybe at full power it's on 100% of the time. At medium it's 10 seconds on, 10 second off. At low it's 3 seconds on, 10 seconds off. That kind of thing. The "power" setting is just a glorified timer.

Nah. Just quietly file a secret indictment and arrest warrant against Musk. Inevitably he'll forget about it and move on. Then a few years later, gallivanting about the world like billionaires do, he'll step foot in Britain on some random business. That's when you grab him. Arrest him then and put him on trial for violating various espionage and foreign interference laws.

I think King Charles should instead order Elon Musk dissolved.

That might be usable. But still, well within the range of reversible transactions and court litigation.

Burner smartphone. Buy a cheap ass used phone on Craigslist. Only ever connect it to wifi. Load it with all the garbage apps companies demand you use. Use your real smart or dumb phone for your actual personal purposes.

In the airports I fly through, TSA each has different procedures for different airports. And within each airport, their procedures randomly vary. The TSA agents at each airport are extremely grumpy and get angry at and act condescendingly towards you for not knowing today's randomly selected procedures.

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I suggest a microfiche printer.

It would be fascinating to see how the richest humans alive try to give away as much money as possible, as quickly as possible.

It's called Brewster's Millions.