[gogota]

Here is some of the country that I believe will have a hard crash and reasons :

1. Malaysia
- Citizen sensitive with gas prices (5% increase of petrol already a problem)
- ridiculously over petrol subsidy ( 40% of gas price subsidied by government )
- local car industry owned by government people ( price of petrol cannot go up)
- corruption
- over dependent on petroleum and natural gas for export

2. China
- over population

3. Singapore
- no land for plantation
- 80 % food from Malaysia.

4. India
- over population

5. Indonesia
- over population + corruption

6. Any suggestion ??


Tan, Malaysia

[Jack]

What about South Korea? Lots of industry, no sources of energy.

And Indonesia is heavily populated.

[backstop]

How about America ?

-over armed ?

-over neurotic ?

-over indulgent ?

-over-mechanised agriculture ?

-over weight ?

-over ready to externalize blame ?

-over endebted ?

-over willing to elect fascists ? (See fasces on the wall of the Senate !)

regards,

Backstop

[Jack]

I'm not so sure the U.S. will be on the hard crash list. The U.S. has quite a lot of wealth...foreign debts can be defaulted upon. So can domestic ones, for that matter.

And that wealth will tend to soften the blow.

Also, we have lots of coal. We're close to Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela.

The U.S. has an extensive military, and that can be used to soften the blow as well.

That last item may not be popular, but the facts remain.

[lowem]

This was posted on energyresources some time back :

http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/rep ... anking.htm

Singapore ranks as the most unsustainable country in the world, yay! with an available NEGATIVE 7.1 ha/capita!

We are currently undergoing a severe shortage of EGGS believe it or not, with bird flu affecting the supply chain, 2/3 of the egg supply coming from Malaysia. In just a couple of weeks, prices have TRIPLED, and even then they're hard to find.

And it's just EGGS. Imagine if it were something else.

As for other stuff :

Oil? Zero production, zilch, though there're lots of refineries. Odd, eh.
Water? Mostly from Malaysia's southern state of Johor.
Milk and other dairy products? From Australia and New Zealand.

As for population density? Over 6,000 people per square km. Crowded, huh. I'm fed up, I try not to go out anywhere on weekends. The crush in the malls is unbelievable.

If any of the multiple supply chains develops any bit of a problem, Singapore is going to crash pretty hard, and pretty quickly.

There's no farmland to speak of. The planners are mostly interested in converting available land to residential / commercial / industrial use. They reclaimed land to extend the AIRPORT, for crying out loud. And more tons of sand to reclaim more land to extend the CITY area. And to create an artificial island for REFINERIES.

Great for "GDP growth"? Yes! Sustainable? Hardly!

[cyotha]

All the net food importing countries. Unfortunately, most of them are the poorest countries in the world: sub-Saharan Africa, for example. There's a list of them on the WTO website.

World grain production has been falling for the last 4 years anyway, due to warmer temperatures and depletion of aquifers that supply irrigation water. Add an oil shortage to the mix and food supply could get very tight.

Peak oil will be painful for Americans because we're used to the good life, but we're fortunate enough to have enough agricultural land and resources to keep ourselves fed for a while, even if we have to stop exporting food.

[jato]

Did someone say "hard crash"? This is my type of thread!

I would put the USA on the hard crash list. We are a fragile economy based on oil and natural gas. We like to start resource wars. I can't help but think there are many enemies old and new who would like to see us go down in flames.

[lowem]

I'm not so sure the U.S. will be on the hard crash list. The U.S. has quite a lot of wealth...foreign debts can be defaulted upon. So can domestic ones, for that matter.

Try defaulting on those trillions, and the Chinese and Japanese won't be exactly too happy. China has nukes, and Japan can become nuke-capable pretty quickly (search around for "japan virtual nuclear power").

The U.S. has an extensive military, and that can be used to soften the blow as well.

The Pentagon's doctrine to "fight and win two simultaneous wars" hasn't been too much of a roaring success, no way it can now "fight and win ten simultaneous wars". Try adding Iran, Syria, Sudan, China, Japan, Russia, North Korea and the rest of Western Africa to the list of places your gungho neocons would like to "engage".

Just let them try ...

Draft all the men, women and children and you're still outnumbered. Think you have nukes? Other people have nukes, too. You have aircraft carriers? They have Exocets. And nuke-capable cruise missiles.

There's this invisible line that's just waiting to be crossed. Once that happens, it's no longer going to be exactly very amusing, even watching from over here.

[Viper]

Draft all the men, women and children and you're still outnumbered. Think you have nukes? Other people have nukes, too. You have aircraft carriers? They have Exocets. And nuke-capable cruise missiles.

There's this invisible line that's just waiting to be crossed. Once that happens, it's no longer going to be exactly very amusing, even watching from over here.

Crossing that invisible line will mean that the US will have admitted to either:

A - Our super advanced bioweapons program.

or

B - The fact that we've been loading nukes onto our satellites for years and can drop one from outerspace in 30 seconds anywhere anytime.

The Russians are no longer even freaking out about our new developments because they've basically given up the game. We are working on a Mach 11 cruise missile which is basically a cruise equivalent of a ballistic missile but without the launch signature. We are working on a fully robotic bomber/fighter which does not even require an on the ground pilot. Israel and the US have made the old battle field totally obsolete with a laser that makes artillery and rocketry useless. If the gloves were really to come off, and we stopped caring who we killed, a world war at this point would look more like a man with a machinegun in the middle of a bunch of sheep that a brawl.

No combination of countries on the face of this planet could hope to take on the US + Israel + UK. And I can't see that team ever breaking up.

-Viper

[Jack]

There are many forms of default - inflation being one of the more elegant. The U.S. is debasing its currency rather rapidly today. Please recall that the old U.S.S.R. defaulted on a lot of debt, and the world has lined up to offer them more credit! So, I suspect the U.S. can do it too.

As for a war with China...the U.S. has some really stupid politicians. But I can't believe even they would start a land war with a country that has 1.3 billion rather determined people.

I wonder if you could provide your thoughts on a question I have about China. I'm under the impression that there are about 20% more young men than young women, and that this creates a possibility of social disorder. Extending this, I wonder if China might consider invading Iran both to focus the population on an external war and to gain a needed resource. If I'm wrong on this, please tell me where my error is.

No, I think that the more likely targets would be Venezuela and perhaps Mexico. And the best way to take them would be with covert action supported by subsequent military aid. They have a great deal more oil, they're closer, and they don't have nearly as many soldiers as the countries you mentioned.

[jato]

I wonder if China might consider invading Iran both to focus the population on an external war and to gain a needed resource. If I'm wrong on this, please tell me where my error is.

Our SSNs (for starters) could blow any tanker out of the water! Assuming Chinese bound tankers are protected from being boarded.

At this point, the west has reasonable control over the sea lanes.

[Viper]

I wonder if you could provide your thoughts on a question I have about China. I'm under the impression that there are about 20% more young men than young women, and that this creates a possibility of social disorder. Extending this, I wonder if China might consider invading Iran both to focus the population on an external war and to gain a needed resource. If I'm wrong on this, please tell me where my error is.

Actually, since India has almost the exact same problem, I have been hedging my bets towards a war between India + (US? Japan? Israel?) and China + Pakistan.

Both India and China will need to find an expedient method to reduce the male population in their societies in the next 10-20 years. I figure a war over Pakistan would be as good a reason as any.

-Viper

[trespam]

Crossing that invisible line will mean that the US will have admitted to either:

A - Our super advanced bioweapons program.

or

B - The fact that we've been loading nukes onto our satellites for years and can drop one from outerspace in 30 seconds anywhere anytime.

The Russians are no longer even freaking out about our new developments because they've basically given up the game. We are working on a Mach 11 cruise missile which is basically a cruise equivalent of a ballistic missile but without the launch signature. We are working on a fully robotic bomber/fighter which does not even require an on the ground pilot. Israel and the US have made the old battle field totally obsolete with a laser that makes artillery and rocketry useless. If the gloves were really to come off, and we stopped caring who we killed, a world war at this point would look more like a man with a machinegun in the middle of a bunch of sheep that a brawl.

Unless you have good sources to provide on much of the above, I consider it imaginary. Others should as well. Given your previous comments regarding AI--which were also over the top--the information in this post should also be disregarded. Nuclear weapons in satellies my ass.

[backstop]

Devil,

you seem to regard the UK as a permanent attachment to US adventurism. In this you are mistaken. Over one million six hundred thousand people came out on the day to march against Blair's appeasment of Bush's circus in Iraq.

As for military prowess, I thought the plan was for the US to be able to fight two wars at once ? That is what people have paid their taxes for. Yet it turns out that it can't even control militia uprisings in Afghanistan and Iraq.

You may have heard that the puppet government in Iraq's capital city, Bagdad, was persistently mortared today ? The best Uncle Sam could manage was to go and slaughter a crowd of civilians.

As I said, I think you're mistaken.

regards,

Backstop

[Viper]

OK, first of all, A and B were tongue in cheek comments not meant to be taken too seriously. Although : http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994318

Should keep you awake at night.

As for the items mentioned in the more serious paragraph:

Scramjets integrate air and space
http://www.tipmagazine.com/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-4/p24.html
Scramjets will allow us to build missiles that could circle the earth in about 2 hours.

The Tactical High Energy Laser
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... /thel.html
A joint US, Israel project. Recently shot down a live scud in California(I think it was off the coast of Cali.) This thing can engage 25 targets (missiles, mortars, rockets, or artillery) at the same time. Field a few of them with your ground forces, or put a few of them on a ship, and nothing we consider "normal" HE weaponry today, can touch you.

Robot X Plane Guided by Satellites
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/x45_stealth_robot_001010.html

The robot planes are projected to cost up to 65 percent less to build than future versions of fighters and up to 75 percent less to operate than today’s fighters. Advanced computers, software and space navigation satellites would take the place of extensive ground-based control facilities.

Defense planners envision cramming the UCAVs with sophisticated equipment and loading target data into their computers before launch. The robot fleet would then take off and carry out their assignments.

So, trespam, need more?

-Viper

[lowem]

I'm aware of most of the above and more. But, for every measure, there is a counter-measure.

You think you gungho Americans have a monopoly on bio-weapons? Think again. Find out what the South Africans have been up to.

Militarization of space? Don't pride yourself on the basis of a few "forward-looking statements", when, with the resources your country has, your folks can't even get the Space Shuttle fleet up and flying.

Your NASA *was* something to be proud of, in a bygone era. No longer. When China sent their "taikonaut" into orbit what was your much-vaunted shuttle fleet doing?

The first case of "orbital bombardment" may, or just as likely, may *not* be, from an American weapon.

[trespam]

There is nothing in the information you've posted that changes the current equation of the US with respect to China and/or other countries.

We already have ballistic missiles. The scramjet is experimental. Ballistic missiles are real. Cruise missiles can already be launched from submarines. They fly low, below the radar.

The "robotic" plane that delivers payload is not superior to the current planes that we have, those piloted by humans.

The US has long researched viruses. This does not make them "super."

My primary purpose in responding to your original post is that your contributions, particularly of this type, are about 90% hyping of 10% reality. It may mislead some people. I am not fooled.

Keep trying though if that's your desire. But I don't find contributions like that adding to the dialog.

[Viper]

Given your previous comments regarding AI--which were also over the top--the information in this post should also be disregarded.

Oh, yes, and as for AI, these guys are probably the top of the game at this point. Although I don't expect them to keep that title for too long.

How Webmind Works
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/howwebmindworks.html

The Self Module has nodes which continuously monitor the state of the system and record its history. The SelfNodes also predict the future state of the system, and submit queries to the system based on their studies. They give Webmind a high degree of self-awareness or consciousness. The Self Module gives Webmind a high degree of what we humans think of as true intelligence; awareness of itself.

If you like AI theory, you might find this pretty interesting. Apparently the DOD was pretty interested in their work, although its been a while since I heard anything about that.

-Viper [/quote]

[lowem]

This was posted on energyresources some time back :

http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/rep ... anking.htm

Going back on topic, here's the ranking from an ecological footprint point of view :

Code: Select all

Worst#  Country             Avail. ha/cap
    1.  Singapore           -7.1
    2.  Hong Kong           -6.1
    3.  Belgium             -3.7
    4.  Netherlands         -3.6
    5.  United States       -3.6
    6.  United Kingdom      -3.5
    7.  Germany             -3.4
    8.  Japan               -3.4
    9.  Switzerland         -3.2
   10.  Israel              -3.1
   11.  Italy               -2.9
   12.  Korea, Rep          -2.9
   13.  Greece              -2.6
   14.  Russian Federation  -2.3
   15.  Poland, Rep         -2.1
   16.  South Africa        -1.9
   17.  Jordan              -1.8
   18.  Spain               -1.6
   19.  Thailand            -1.6
   20.  Mexico              -1.2


[lowem]

[This was posted on energyresources some time back :

http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/rep ... anking.htm

And (according to the list anyway), the best countries are :

Code: Select all

Best#  Country        Avail. ha/cap
   1.  Iceland        14.3
   2.  New Zealand    12.8
   3.  Peru            6.1
   4.  Australia       5.0
   5.  Brazil          3.6
   6.  Finland         2.6
   7.  Colombia        2.1
   8.  Canada          1.9
   9.  Indonesia       1.2
  10.  Sweden          1.1
  11.  Argentina       0.7
  12.  Chile           0.7
  13.  Ireland         0.6
  14.  Malaysia        0.4
  15.  France          0.1
  16.  Norway          0.1