I’ve been getting this bleak feeling that the reason most successful hucksters seem to be dumb as rocks is because they are, and so are a huge number of people who fall for their shit. You, me, or anyone who can read words with more than 5 letters wouldn’t even try the shit they do because we wrongly assume that no one would be stupid enough to fall for it. But they’re idiots, confident idiots who think its a great idea and then succeed because there are way more dumb people out there than is comfortable to think about.

AFAIK the ceasefire ever existing was a myth? Trump just kinda declared it without anyone else agreeing and then everyone kept shooting anyway, Trump included.

Honestly I think its China just protecting its economy, western businesses are already finding that AI now costs more than just hiring humans and gives a worse output, the chinese government is just preventing their own economy from falling into the same trap.

All we did was completely annihilate the local environment and industries they depended on to survive, why would they do this!?

Also iirc Israel just kept shooting? And then Trump got mad than iran continued shooting back because it ‘violated’ the imaginary ceasefire that apprently involved them just sitting there and being shot without retaliating?

A nuclear arsenal to prevent certain countries from just randomly invading?

Got to hand it to them though, they’ve done a fantastic job of hastening European re-armament and ultimate independance from the US.

I think the rough method of discouse is Trump rambling to himself alone in his office, occasionaly someone from whatever part of the government that still knows how to negotiate attempts to translate some of these ramblings and confer them to Iran before Trump changes his mind and just tweets something completely different.

I’d say they’re hemorrhaging hard power too, the US strategy was always to immediately establish air dominance and then win from there, but it turns out that step 1 kinda just doesn’t work against people armed with more than old toyotas and tents. I’d still bet on the US to win if they just wanted to flatten some place but I’ve got serious questions on their ability to achieve a non-phyric victory against any near-peer after this display.

Major infastructure projects (in certain countries) tend to turn into infinitely deep money pits due to rampant mismangment and corruption that can swallow the entire budgets of smaller nations and still not get done. They tend to drag down the average.

I think even with solar, wind, tidal and perfect grid storage nuclear is still worth investing in, simply because its a useful technology to have in some space travel applications, in some cases even more useful than fusion power would theoretically be.

Everyone hates getting stuck because it turns out that one tech from half the tech-tree ago was mandatory for progression.

‘To get your boy home in a box’ fits the tempo better I think.

This reminds me of the fall of multiple fictional empires that had rested on their laurels building overpriced wonder weapons that turned out to both too few in number and not all that wonderous when taken out of a white room and exposed to real battlefield conditions.

Didn’t he already partially do that? He also appears to be letting Russia (and no one else) through the blockade to sell oil to Cuba.

I think hydrogen is arguably a metal but its 2/3 for not a metal depending on which definition you use.

transactional? that implies the US has provided anything in return (to any of its allies) for the last decade.

He’s a good showman, its basically the cornerstone of his current success, he may not appeal to you or me but he has that used car salesman, carny barker style energy that really appeals to a certain kind of person.

Bad people can have good qualities just like good people can have bad qualities, failing to aknowledge this is failing to know your enemy.

And the rise in oil prices and removal of sanctions is pulling the russian economy out of the gutter while simultaniously drawing away air defence that would have otherwise been given to Ukraine (either directly or through European purchases)

I can’t tell if this is a moment from your real life or a bit of creative writing about a dystopian future.