W.H.O. (are you), WHO WHO

[C-Mag]

I do ignore you except to use you as an example of TDS.

p.s. Non-TDS stuff I read.

That's as helpful as some ANTIFA goon calling all Trump supporters racists.

I’m serious, dude. You are beyond rationality on Trump; it’s TDS.

In my campaign, I debate a lot of Trump-haters; some have TDS, some don’t; it’s easy to tell the difference.

[heydaralon]

Hanarchy:

There is a book on this that looks good called Governing the World by Mark Mazower. It starts at 1815 and ends in the present. I'm adding this to my amazon wishlist.


https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book ... k-mazower/


Have you read this?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Well, I think in certain instances, the UN actually does more harm than good. I used the Somalia example earlier, if 2 guys are fighting, and you are giving them food between rounds, won't that make the fight last longer? Is it more moral to just let them slug it out as quickly as possible and get it over with or to prolong it? I honestly don't have the answer, but a case could be made that a quick conflict is more humane than a drawn out one.

Sanctions also rarely stop the offending regime from continuing its course of action, they just starve and deprive the population. In Iran for instance, some of the sanctions on stuff actually strengthens the regime, because a black market for getting goods in forms, and Sepah a group in the Iranian army controls this blackmarket, thus generating a revenue stream for the people we are trying to punish.

So in a lot of cases the cure has worse or equally bad side effects as the disease imo

I don't know the answer to the first question either, but you will get prolonged conflict from independent nations supporting their allies with or without the UN.

As for sanctions, I agree, they probably don't stop offending regimes. However, the threat of sanctions may stop a country from becoming a bad actor. Sort of like how threat of jail time doesn't stop someone dedicated to pursuing a life of crime.

Its kind of weird to me that they even decided to make a UN tbh. I'm not super well versed on the league of nations, but it seems like it didn't really prevent wars either. When the USSR invaded Finland, they kicked it out. I'm not even sure they kicked out Mussolini for invading Abyssinia. It didn't prevent WW2 from happening. Its crazy that they even went back to that model...

I think nuclear weapons have done more for world peace than the UN has. Which is really just another way of saying that for the most part, the Great powers fight proxy wars instead of direct ones. They ingeniously figured out how to export their conflicts to the third world (with a few notable exceptions like Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan '79 but even those were proxy wars).

Slightly off topic but didn't Metternich try to set up some kind of League of Nations proto type in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars?

I am out of my depth here, but as I understand it, the failure of the League of Nations is tied to the failure of the Treaty of Versailles. They were too inextricably tied together, and so punitive that they all but ensured more conflict. I don't believe this invalidates the concept of a multi-lateral diplomatic organization.

I agree that the existence of nuclear weapons has been a major deterrent, but I don't know if you can exorcise international bodies like NATO or the UN that used sanction and diplomacy to halt nuclear proliferation. Perhaps everything would have proceeded exactly the same without them, but I doubt it.

Knowing basically nothing about post Napoleonic Wars European diplomacy, I can't say much. I will say that, as with everything, past failures inform future successes.

The saying isn't "if at first you don't succeed, meh, fuck it, it is too hard, and probably gay anyway."

[Montegriffo]

Monte and I probably disagree on Trumps culpability in the current crises.

Out of interest, how do you explain Trump continuing to downplay it long after most people recognised the seriousness of the bug?
I don't hold Trump exclusively responsible for mishandling this outbreak. Boris made mistakes early on with his herd immunity theories but at least he recognised his mistake fairly quickly and has since done everything in his power to mitigate it. To me, Trump appears to have just done his usual deriding of experts and scapegoating others in order to deflect from his own shortcomings.

[C-Mag]

I've got Monte arguing Trump didn't do enough early and Hanarchy arguing the Experts couldn't have known the veracity of COVID19.

If Trump knew how serious it was on the 31st January and somehow knew it could be passed from person to person then why did he wait until the middle of March before he would do anything to recommend social distancing or shutting down businesses?

If, there's no evidence that the experts in disease and pandemics warned Trump. In fact a month later the WHO was still saying no travel restrictions are warranted. The CDC was saying don't use masks as late as March 30th.

Our intelligent peers, and they are smart guys. Bjorn and Hanarchy are saying the Experts in diseases could not have known any of this. And the Experts at the WHO and CDC have one fucking job.

So how is it Trump knew how bad it was going to be by the end of January ?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Hanarchy:

There is a book on this that looks good called Governing the World by Mark Mazower. It starts at 1815 and ends in the present. I'm adding this to my amazon wishlist.


https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book ... k-mazower/


Have you read this?

No, but I should. It does look interesting.

[Montegriffo]

I do ignore you except to use you as an example of TDS.

p.s. Non-TDS stuff I read.

That's as helpful as some ANTIFA goon calling all Trump supporters racists.

I’m serious, dude. You are beyond rationality on Trump; it’s TDS.

In my campaign, I debate a lot of Trump-haters; some have TDS, some don’t; it’s easy to tell the difference.

Then use your vast wisdom to convince me of my errors or ignore me.
Name calling is just juvenile and not very likely to make me rethink my position.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Monte and I probably disagree on Trumps culpability in the current crises.

Out of interest, how do you explain Trump continuing to downplay it long after most people recognised the seriousness of the bug?
I don't hold Trump exclusively responsible for mishandling this outbreak. Boris made mistakes early on with his herd immunity theories but at least he recognised his mistake fairly quickly and has since done everything in his power to mitigate it. To me, Trump appears to have just done his usual deriding of experts and scapegoating others in order to deflect from his own shortcomings.

Well, I can't totally explain it, but if I were responsible for the stability of the global economy, I would probably have been very cautious about over reacting. I can't say I would have done any different when balancing the two disasters, public health and economic, against each other.

I do wish he would stop firing broadsides against everyone in order to deflect responsibility, and just be open about his decision making processes, where the info was bad, and mistakes were made. But, the fact that he is petty, narcissistic, and short sighted doesn't mean he was wrong to be cautious about shutting down the economy, or responsible for any of the deaths.

[Montegriffo]

So how is it Trump knew how bad it was going to be by the end of January ?

If he didn't know then what was his motivation for shutting down flights to and from China?

[C-Mag]

The US has done quite well compared to other nations
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Check out deaths per million population.

Spain 402
Belgium 383
Italy 358
France 263
UK 190
Netherlands 183
Switzerland 143
Sweden 119
Lux 110
Ireland 90
USA 86

Granted the relatively low death rate in the USA may have more to do with the US private healthcare system over European public health systems. But it could have been the early actions of Trump to limit travel when the WHO and political opponents were saying it was racist.