Now, if your hypothesis is that a full scale blockade, and thus state of war, between the US and China may occur essentially by accident or miscalculation and then things would get messy from there and the eventual resolution would not be clear and who would ultimately benefit, we agree.

Where I am in a position of criticism is if your hypothesis is that such an act pursues some rational plan with likely net-benefit outcomes for the United States. — boethius

Keep in mind this is not just my personal hypothesis. Military academic circles have been openly discussing maritime blockades on China for over a decade, and the Chinese on their part have been actively seeking pre-emptive solutions to this strategy for almost as long.

Now, if you don't want to war-game our your own hypothesis, [...] — boethius

I've been asking you for ideas from the Chinese side, because I simply don't see a feasible strategy that wouldn't amount to total disaster for China and at best marginal losses for the US.

Without feasible strategies there's nothing to wargame.

So, is your hypothesis that the US could just flip a switch and not only stop trading with China but potentially the whole of East-Asia? — boethius

I doubt they'd have to stop trading with all of East-Asia, since the US controls most countries there either directly or indirectly, and the sea lanes.

But the short answer is: yes, they can. The damages would be marginal compared to what's at stake (global domination), and compared to the damage it would do to China.

There exists no strategy that is without cost. Yes, a war with China would obviously hurt the US economically, but it would hurt virtually the entire world and the more apt question to ask is who suffers most and who suffers least.


Compare it with the US dollar's reserve currency status and the giant US debt.

We all know that bubble is going to burst at some point, but the US doesn't have to care because the entire world owns dollars and it will hurt everyone when it does. Same for US inflation - everybody suffers under US moneyprinting, because everyone owns dollars.

Thus, while damaging on paper, in relative terms it hardly harms the US.


Global domination is not about absolute power, but about relative power. So make no mistake, the US would happily accept heavy damage to itself if it meant getting a leg up on its geopolitical competitors.

As we have establised earlier, this is where our views differ the most.

US global dominance was established as a result of WW2, and my sense is that the battle to end it will be fought with the same stakes in what in essence will be WW3.

Under such conditions a full, indefinite blockade of China would be child's play. The endgame/end state/victory conditions that would lead to America's success I have already laid out (isolation of China and implosion of its economy) so I won't repeat them again unless you have very specific questions.

You lean more towards the idea that the battle over ending US dominance will remain limited. A perfectly defensible idea also.

As long as we're taking fundamentally different starting points (limited war vs. full-scale war), we will be talking past each other, though.

You're absolutely right, but it's unfortunately what I've come to expect from this forum.

I think that is best left up to countries themselves. What we have with the EU is a typical 'one size fits none'.

Besides, I think by now it is corrupt and porous beyond redemption. Reform is a pipe-dream, especially with these clownish leaders who jump on every opportunity to declare crises, so they can seize even more power.

And those that are doing fine, have other supra-national organisation or agreements, like say ASEAN. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, lets then opt for those 'other' types of agreements, rather than the abomination that is the EU.

I don't see how you stay competitive for instance if you simply fall back to the nation state of old. — ChatteringMonkey

The other 150+ countries seem to be getting by just fine.

What Europe needs is a NATO without the US, and subsequently to dissolve the European Union.

That way countries can run their own affairs as they have successfully done for centuries, while still enjoying collective security.

Europe does not need the US in ANY capacity, and to have a distant great power meddling in security affairs on the European mainland is a recipe for disaster - as disaster which is already starting to unfold before our eyes and which will have a singular destination: war with Russia and the destruction of Europe, the beneficiary of which will be the US (as it was during WW2).

Just as it is "wise and effective" for lions to hunt antelopes. — baker

Then you may as well classify any societal human endeavor as "lions hunting antelope".

Well, no one is perfect, and neither are religions. I'm just wondering what behavior particularly by Christians should put into question the idea that Christianity puts forward some wise and effective ideas on how to structure society.

I don't know if we can call them effective, given the conduct of most professed Christians. — Ciceronianus

What conduct? As far as human misconduct goes, I'm not certain that Christians were responsible for the worst of it - far from.

Christianity laid forth rules of life that were wise and effective.

Europe is thinking strategically. — Punshhh

:lol:

I don't know a single statement that could more blatantly reveal one's complete geopolitical ignorance.

So it’s ok for Russia and the US for that matter, to carry out illegal actions, but not Europe? — Punshhh

I would be more open to it if it didn't so obviously undermine European interests.

I think Putin may have a bit of the blame for that. — Punshhh

Sure, I agree. So why should European "leaders" insist on making things worse at every opportunity?

Putin did something we did not like, so lets rush straight for WW3?

And no it is not likely to result in a war with Russia in the long term, but rather an iron curtain. — Punshhh

With the US decoupling from Europe, it is almost a guarantee that it will result in a war, because the US benefits from chaos on the continent as it did during WW2 - that's how it attained hegemony and that's how it seeks to re-establish it today.

The 2+2 a lot of people fail to make is that the US fears Europe becoming a great power, and will do everything it can to prevent that from happening. As US influence in Europe wanes and we are already in the process of decoupling, its instruments to wing-clip Europe become fewer and fewer, until eventually the only option is to embroil Europe in a war, the rotten seeds for which it has diligently started sowing from 2008 onwards.

Your anti-European bias is showing again. — Punshhh

I am a European, but cute try.

European "leaders" take another step in their determined bid for Europe's self-destruction.

This time tanking their international credibility through their blatantly illegal actions vis-á-vis Russia's assets.

The point of the coming seizure is of course not economic, because this money will evaporate in the financial black hole that is Ukraine, and cause the EU legal trouble as far as the eye can see.

The point is to make long-term normalization between the EU and Russia impossible, that is to say, the point is to bring war with Russia closer.

I predict that within five to ten years, Europe will be in a direct conflict with Russia, and the Americans by that time will have decoupled, and the current European "leadership" will have jumped ship and ran.

Just like with Ukraine, time will tell who is right.

Our views are too far apart to have this broad of a discussion, but I've got the following offer: if you have a small, bite-sized subject where you believe our views differ in interesting ways, point it out and we can go into it in detail.

The Trans-Atlantic partnership and NATO should have died in 1991, and replaced with something that did not give Washington the amount of leverage over European affairs as it ended up having.

A way forward for Europe would have anyway involved this decoupling from the US in favor of a more horizontal relationship.


But that's the end of the good news.

Brussels is one giant Trans-Atlanticist lobby, and the European Union will likely suffer a severe crisis of legitimacy when the Americans stop greasing pockets.

Instead, it appears Washington will start fueling the ensuing political chaos by finally blowing the lid of the grand reservoir of justified criticism of the EU and its leaders which has been bubbling beneath the surface for decades.

The EU is an undemocratic, untransparant abomination (the document is completely right about that) that is then unlikely to be capable of the far-reaching reforms that it requires to become a viable independent European super state.


The more gloomy question to ask however, is 'why' and 'why now'?

It's clear the geopolitical situation in the world is coming to a head, and we must assume this decoupling from Europe is a piece to Washington's puzzle vis-á-vis how it intends to sow chaos in Eurasia, which is its only feasible strategy in maintaining hegemony.

Not only must it seek to defeat China, but it must also stop other Eurasian nations from rising up as 'laughing thirds' - nations like Russia and Europe, for example.

This is of course why the decoupling is taking place - Washington's intention is to embroil Russia and Europe in a war with each other, the rotten seed for which it has diligently started sowing since 2008.


Europe and Europeans on their part are geopolitically completely and utterly ignorant, as evidenced by the war-fueling rhetoric of European leaders (who are just towing the Washington line), and the stark lack of pushback from the European people themselves. This lack of understanding of the risks makes Europe infinitely more vulnerable.


A geopolitical storm is coming, and it will be insitgated by the US as it senses it is losing global control to BRICS. (The idea in the document that US is 'pulling back' is an obvious lie that shouldn't be taken seriously) Europe is not ready for it, but staying under Washington's yoke was no option either, and would have just given the Americans even more freedom to sacrifice Europe in whichever way it saw fit.

If Europe had instead started kowtowing to Washington even harder (I suppose it still might), the price for it will be militarization and fueling nationalism - two obvious ingredients for conflict down the line.

There would be immense industrial and political blowback to implementing a blockade. — boethius

There could be continuous industrial and political crisis after crisis to maintain such a policy. — boethius

For me, these things are not part of the consideration. Sure, there will be rumblings, but who is going to stick their neck out when the world is headed for World War 3?

As we speak the Europeans are tanking their economy for a lost cause in Ukraine. Where is the industrial and political blowback?

Countries will prefer to remain neutral, or join the winning side, which is almost certainly going to be the US if a blockade is achieved.

So my central question to the proposal is can the US just keep this up for a decade or even more? What exactly is the end game? — boethius

So what's the long term strategy. Do you consider the US et. al. more industrially self sufficient than Russia + China and co. ? — boethius

The costs mentioned in my previous post of running the blockade and optimizing a strategy to inflict costs on the US (causing casualties) is over this 10 year period of consideration. Is your premise that the US would have no casualties in such an intense conflict with China over the long term? Or then the casualties are acceptable and supported domestically? — boethius

An isolated Russia and China would definitely be weaker than the US and allies with full access to global markets. And it would get progressively worse for the former if such a situation is allowed to persist.

Further, the cost of an effective blockade is not high for the US. A single submarine can lock down a sea strait, and it would be unfeasible for the Chinese to attempt anti-submarine operations away from their own shores.

As I mentioned before, cutting Russia and China off from the rest of the world is already a victory condition, since it will almost certainly scrap their status as great powers.

China's only hope is to come up with effective strategies to strike back, assuming those exist. I have yet to hear anything concrete and convincing in this regard.

I don't think sex is dirty, but instead is (or ought to be) an intimate act - just like taking a dump, or sobbing hysterically, etc. - it doesn't belong in the public space.

I'm not sure we disagree on capabilities.

The difference in comparing to WWI and WWII is that in those conflicts the situation was such that the losing side could be entirely conquered or forcing a capitulation.

The US has no means of actually conquering china and forcing a capitulation would require nuclear weapons. So the situation is similar to that of the cold war where the tensions were quite high and possibility of direct confrontation always present, but neither side was willing to risk nuclear war.

So this is the dynamic that I think is the best reference frame, in that proxy wars can be fought all over the place but pushing too directly and too forcefully may solicit nuclear escalation and so there's is extreme reticence.

For example, that is a central hypothesis to my analysis of the Ukraine conflict, that US / NATO could have supplied far more damaging systems and equipment far earlier that could have had a far greater chance of actually pushing the Russians back to their borders, but wargaming that out super duper probably results in the use of nuclear weapons. For, US / NATO could have provided all the cruise missiles, longer range air defences to strike aircraft, even F-35 and F-22's and diesel submarines and so on, if they "really, really, wanted", and most importantly a massive scale up of drone production and supply using that larger economic power even only of the US, Ukraine to win.

So my basic contention is that it would be a similar "not too much" stable point for US-Chinese relations. — boethius

This is mostly tying back to subjects of "limited war vs. full-scale war" which I think enough has been said about.

I instead wish to focus my reply on the more concrete aspects of a US-China conflict, as per the other portion of your post:

Implode is a strong term.

Obviously China would still be there with enormous production capacity and problem solving capacity, so China would then work on getting around the blockade. — boethius

Other neighbouring countries can be traded with by train [...] — boethius

The Chinese may be able to produce food, power and manufacture enough goods to maintain a non-critical standard of living, but modern economies cannot run on their own, not to mention the fact that China has a huge overseas trade network which would be severed overnight, together with all its foreign and domestic dependencies.

What I'm missing in your post is the fact that China's land access to foreign markets is very limited under the conditions we have discussed.

Trade with Russia is in all likelihood safe through Kazakhstan, Mongolia and (if all else fails) a corridor near Vladivostok.

Then it could probably maintain trade with some South-East Asian countries, though this region will likely be in chaos if this scenario were to come to pass.

But this is small fry - a fraction of what China has access to now, and a fraction of what China needs to stay a geopolitical contender.

Overland trade to India must pass through Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Trade to the Middle-East and Africa must pass through several unstable Central Asian countries and then pass through Iran, which will likely be at war with the US and Israel.

Trade to Europe must pass through Russia.

[...] China can send ships into neighbouring territorial waters and the US would need to then commit acts of war on those countries also. — boethius

These are not wartime considerations, in my opinion. What power does Vietnam have that it's going to enforce its territorial waters against a US coalition?

The US is already bombing neutral shipping for carrying Russian oil, and I believe the most recent attacks took place in Turkish waters.

Assuming it does not go nuclear but China sort of "take it" they could anyways inflict costs on the US due to the lethality of missiles, China can keep US ships fairly far from the Chinese coast, certainly outside Chinese territorial waters, and then continuously run the blockade with a civilian ship and an escort. Chinese would be then within it's right both morally (for most people in the world) and also in international law to run the blockade with escort and then return fire. These ships could be unmanned.

So even if China cannot entirely break the blockade and defeat the US navy it can in this iterative process inflict costs with continuous improvement to the strategy.

So it becomes a case of how long can US maintain the blockade, to what extent it could contain blowback in the rest of the world for a clearly illegal blockade. Other countries may send their merchant ships to China, daring the US to sink them.

All of these factors would make things very messy and very quickly so my main issue is not so much that such a blockade could not be started but what is the endgame?

Navy ships are expensive and if the US is blockading China and China is regularly running the blockade and manages to sink ships, even a really nice ship ... the response can't just be nuclear (otherwise the correct strategy is just to nuke China to begin with), and once the US starts losing ships it's very difficult to engage in a war of attrition at sea (you sort of need either overwhelming control or then to leave, as we saw recently in the Red Sea even moderate costs inflicted by the Houthis caused the "Coalition of the whatever" to leave).

Now, without nuclear weapons then it would certainly be within the realm of possibility, if not super likely at this point, for the US et. al. to galvanize their populations into total war and go on a world conquest campaign and truly physically contain China. I'm not entirely confident what would actually happen in such a hypothetical but certainly conceivable.

However, with nuclear weapons, push too much on a nuclear armed state and at some point their going to resort to nuclear weapons use. — boethius

Apologies for being blunt, but I think your idea of what a naval war in the Pacific would look like is not very realistic, and I understand now why you believe China is less vulnerable than it actually is.

To illustrate my point, I'm going to describe to you the path a Chinese merchant (or naval) vessel would have to take, in order to do anything.

1. A ship must leave port, which under a blockade will be mined and surveilled by submarines.

2. If a ship manages to leave port, it will then be subjected to submarine interdiction and long-range US fires from naval bases all over the area.

3. If the Chinese use their missile arsenal to keep US fleets at bay, and a large naval escort to counter submarine threats and intercept missiles, they can try to make a dash for the open ocean.

(Note that chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca, other Indonesian straits or the Sea of Japan will be essentially insurpassable due to mines, submarines and naval sea and air assets, in addition to land-based installations.)

4. To get to the open ocean, the Chinese fleet must then pass through TWO island chains which will provide similar obstacles as the previously mentioned sea straits. The fleet will also have to leave the Chinese missile umbrella as it travels further from the Chinese mainland.

5. In the unlikely event that the Chinese fleet survives the gauntlet, it has now reached the open Pacific, where it will be no match for the US navy.

6. But where would they even go from there? Would they cross the Pacific to do trade in South America? Would they sail around Cape Horn towards Europe and Africa? Would they sail around Australia? Hopefully you start to see the problem.


And this strategy is not overly costly for the US at all. All of the capabilities and assets have been in the region for decades, neatly stashed away in US bases waiting for a job. The US also has several allies in the region, and they are strategically very well situated.


I don't see a concrete plan for how the Chinese can counteract these massive threats.

It can use its missile arsenal to impose costs on the US when it sails close to Chinese shores, but there is no onus on the US to do so.

At best, the Chinese can try to achieve something on the Korean Peninsula or Taiwan, but at that point we're probably already talking several years of full-scale war, the primary cost of which would not be borne by the United States.


Meanwhile, this base-line scenario already seems to me catastrophic for China as a great power, and in my view would already suffice to achieve US strategic goals of re-establishing global primacy by knocking down China.

The nuclear dimension is of course more difficult to predict, but ultimately nuclear war is something neither the Chinese nor the Americans benefit from.

I also think China is unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons if the Americans do not threaten mainland China with an invasion, which, as discussed, they really don't need to do.

I was going to type a more lengthy reply in response to some of your points, but I think in the 'limited war vs. full-scale conflict' you're defending a reasonable position, and I would like to settle that part of the discussion as follows:

I agree that the plan I am laying out for a potential US strategy to renew its hegemony would be an ambitious and risky one. Therefore, I think there's a reasonable chance for the US to take a more conservative approach in line with your limited war view.

Would you agree then that, considering hegemony is at stake, there is also a reasonable chance the US might steer towards a large escalation?


Since we seem to disagree about China's relative strength and vulnerability, and its capacity to strike back, giving us different ideas of the cost-benefit situation, I think this is the more interesting place towards which to steer our discussion.

I'd really like to know your rough ideas for a Chinese strategy in a war as described, in light of some of the thoughts I describe below:

It's unclear to me what the end game would be, as China wouldn't just "go away" in such a scenario, but whether faring better or worse would be fighting back both diplomatically and militarily. So it's unclear to me how long the US could maintain such a force posture of blockading China indefinitely, and once some agreement needs to be reached (like we see is becoming necessary with Russia) then I don't see a reason to assume the whole ordeal would be more costly to China than to the US — boethius

I think you underestimate what a sea blockade (and accompanying disruption of land-based alternatives) would do to China.

China's economy would implode, and its international trade network and ties with its overseas partners would be severed. It would essentially cease to be a great power overnight, leaving it with only its land-based military power to do what - invade a neighbor?

Meanwhile, its ability to incur costs on the US and allies would be very limited. It has the capability to create some freedom of movement close to its shores due to its missile arsenal, but that won't get its trade ships out of (mostly US-aligned) Asia.

A sea blockade would not be overly costly for the US, since it's the natural application of its oversized navy, not to mention the fact that it has various allies that would share in the costs.

South-Korea would probably be the place where China would seek to strike back, but even a total victory on the Korean peninsula would not solve China's fundamental issues.


Keep in mind, I will readily concede that much of this is speculative.

However, I am basing it on concrete actions by the US, and their parallels to geopolitical theory and the historical precedent of strategic planning during WW2.

Note also that I am not necessarily saying the US will be successful.

I think yours is a perfectly valid view to have. In spirit we agree: the Americans are playing a hidden hand using Europe and Ukraine as pawns.

To avoid this discussion from getting overly lengthy, I'll only respond to certain points where I think our views differ in interesting ways.

1. While Europe looks weak now, it is, in potential, a lot stronger than Russia. In fact, on paper Europe is to Russia what Russia is to Ukraine. When the Europeans get into a direct conflict with Russia, they will be motivated to mobilize all that of potential in ways and with a speed that defies normal peace-time expectations. It may even be able to score initial successes against the Russians, as Napoleon and Hitler did too.

Therefore, I think Europe may be successfully goaded into going to war with Russia on its own (or only with soft promises of US support), especially if some gigantic (potentially false-flag) incident takes place that swings European opinion.


2. China may look very well-established and geographically safe, but the entire question is how China will fare with its sea lanes cut off. The US may not need to land a single soldier on the Chinese mainland to starve the Chinese economy and create an asymmetrical situation not unlike the one which eventually sunk the Soviet Union.

The big question is whether the Chinese economy can stay afloat on only land-based trade and if it is able to strike back at the US in significant ways (apart from nuclear). I am very skeptical of that.

While China as a sovereign country is safe, China as an international rival to the US is not, and that is the dimension which matters in this fight over global dominance.


3. If the US is going to make a renewed bid at global domination, we can only expect them to be willing to take extraordinary risks. Barring a nuclear exchange (which benefits no one, and should thus be avoidable), the US sits high and dry on its island where the chances of fallout are minimal.

At worst, the US will lose and be demoted to secondary power status, isolated on its island in the western hemisphere. This is basically the situation we are already heading towards if several great powers (China, Europe and Russia) are allowed to consolidate in Eurasia.

I wouldn't underestimate whether the cost-benefit analysis from a US point of view can spur it towards extreme risk-taking.

Europe is already consolidated as vassal states with no independent foreign policy, locked into decades of LNG, social media, AI, and defence purchases ... having European vassals fight Russia could be killing a golden goose that's currently nice and safe in its cage delivering golden eggs on a regular basis. There may not be a need to upset that relationship. — boethius

I think the US is operating under the assumption that Europe is already at risk of leaving the US orbit, because US power is waning and Europe is in potential a great power that is being artificially kept weak by US influence. (The famous NATO slogan that ends with "... and keep the Germans down" should have been understood to mean "... all of Europe...")

The European Trans-Atlanticist elite are under heavy pressure from so-called "populists" in a political battle that is essentially between Trans-Atlanticist US puppets and European nationalists. These are the first signs that the aforementioned process is already underway.

This is something that I have been stressing for a while now: Europe is a potential rival to the US, and as Europe shakes the US yoke, the US will start to treat it as such.

What better way to hamstring Europe going forward than to leave it with war on the continent as a parting gift?

That will only increase European dependence on American weapons and goods.

Point being the alternative to WWIII is consolidate imperial power over Europe and the Americas, let Russia and China have their corner of the cake. — boethius

It's a reasonable alternative theory, but I don't see the US giving up their hegemonic empire without a fight.

I think the US has no real reason to let China develop peacefully in a process by which it will almost certainly surpass the US in power. The US is still powerful now, and it has many allies in the Pacific which can easily cut off Chinese access to sea trade (which is the staple of US policy vis-á-vis China).

When that happens, the Chinese economy will all but collapse, leaving it with only a handful of overland trade corridors which would have to run thousands of kilometers, often through unstable regions, to get to foreign markets.

Trade between China and Europe will become almost an impossibility, especially if the Europeans and the Russians are at war.

You can see how vulnerable the Chinese actually are in a hypothetical scenario where its trade cannot flow overland freely. This is of equal importance to why the US wants to see Europe and Russia at war.


If, on the other hand, the Europeans and the Russians kept relations good enough to facilitate trade, Chinese goods could find alternative land routes via Russia.

The Russians through their conservative approach to the war in Ukraine are signaling that they understand this and are trying not to burn all bridges vis-á-vis European-Russian relations, basically meaning to normalize after the conflict in Ukraine simmers down.

The question is, however, whether the Europeans cannot be successfully goaded into some extreme actions that force Russia to act (for example, Kaliningrad), especially when we consider the European Trans-Atlantic elite holds all the levers of power and is basically carrying out American foreign policy no questions asked.

Once the powder barrel is successfully lit and the gears of war start churning, it will be too late for second thoughts and there will be no going back. Like the famous "boiling frog" that doesn't realize it's being cooked before it's already too late. That's what the US is going to be banking on.

For the record, I hope I am wrong.

Why wouldn't they have the capacity? Eastern Europe is one false flag away from all-out war, and the US + Allies (Anglosphere, Japan, South Korea, etc.) are more than a match for China.

Venezuela is a small fish, and US involvement there is probably just an expression of the Monroe Doctrine, which is a cornerstone of US geopolitics. (No great powers or great power influence in the western hemisphere)

If Washington really wanted to push for peace they could, since Ukraine is running entirely on US support.

But peace is not what Washington has been after since this conflict started in 2008.

It seeks to decouple from Europe, while abolishing Ukraine's status as stabilizing neutral buffer, putting the Russians and the Europeans at daggers drawn.

The Europeans and the Russians fight each other to a bloody pulp, while the US takes care of business in the Pacific, this time with China as the big bad instead of Japan. WW2 with colors reversed - the same situation which landed world hegemony in Uncle Sam's lap.

Accusing me of getting personal when you interpret being called wrong as a rejection of all that was and ever will be of your person - is a bit rich.

What rock have you been living under that let you get away with such snowflakeism? Uni?

Anyway, have the last word if you insist. This is obviously a pointless conversation.

Calling someone naive is calling someone incorrect or ignorant of things you deem yourself as being correct or knowledgeable of or about. — Outlander

No doubt, but then you added:

You're calling them wrong, essentially, which is putting into question not just every single act or non-act they've ever engaged in or disengaged in in the entirety of their life, but their entire life worth altogether (ie. "the meaning of life" itself). — Outlander

Which is completely nonsensical.

It's a nice bit of theatre, though. I can almost hear the sad violins playing in the background while I'm reading this.

You're calling them wrong, essentially, which is putting into question not just every single act or non-act they've ever engaged in or disengaged in in the entirety of their life, but their entire life worth altogether (ie. "the meaning of life" itself). — Outlander

Complete nonsense. I'm doing nothing of the sort.

So, how will you reach those who are naturally compassionate without ostracizing yourself by attempting to demonize people who only want what's best for those around them and of course the world? — Outlander

Calling people naive isn't demonizing them.

What kind of empathy/sympathy for a tragic criminal is then not naive? And if there were justified occasions were it wasn't naive could it serve as a virtue on account of what good that empathy might help promote, the greater good? — Nils Loc

Depends on the person, I suppose.

Career criminals will see a lenient justice system as an invitation to conduct more criminal behavior, as it lowers the costs of getting caught. In such cases, it is naive.

Other people might take their second chance seriously.

Makes the community even more tight-knit to know our personal preferences such as favorite recipes, colors, and other little personal interests (or non-interests). — Outlander

If you want to be dismissive about it, no one on this forum is dealing in anything other than opinion and preference.

It leaves the question of who judges soundly and who doesn't. That's what interests me, and the only reason I'm here.

I'm not sure if one giving a factual account of dire, human circumstances the majority of people can relate to and sympathize with a title of "sob story" is supposed to remove or lessen the legitimacy or relevance of the underlying facts that constitute a given situation—or convince rational people (who don't have an unmistakably medically-deficient and reduced capability to understand empathy or human emotion)—of anything. It doesn't, by the way. — Outlander

If you think it's "dire human circumstances" that give rise to career criminals/organized crime, you are completely mistaken. These people aren't stealing loaves of bread to feed their families, they're shanking your elderly grandma so they can buy fancy cars and new shoes. It's all ego and greed.

Your naive empathy is not a virtue.

But now the subject matter has shifted. — Outlander

It has not. The main character of Breaking Bad is obviously a "hardcore criminal", and this was the subject from the very beginning.

[...] just another dumb kid who's never even been in a fight who got caught up with the wrong crowd—or perhaps racked up too much of a debt with people you don't want to owe money to or otherwise "has to" lest something very bad happen [...] — Outlander

Again, I'm not interested in sob stories.

I don't view these people as children, victims or sub-humans. I view them as adults who are fully responsible for their actions and I shall judge them as such.

The excuse that they did not know right from wrong is something I simply don't take seriously.

You presume to know things which you have no way of knowing. Why? — Outlander

Making assumptions based on knowledge and experience is a fundamental part of judging the world around us.

I'm not afraid to do so, and I would in fact argue that not expressing genuinely-held beliefs and judgements out of fear of being wrong is exactly the type of moral cowardice I mentioned earlier in this thread.

Showing understanding and leniency towards hardcore criminals on account of them being "large, violent, dangerous children" is the sympathy route.

Why choose sympathy for them over sympathy for their many victims?

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity" seems to be the words of a fool in your eyes, no? :smile: — Outlander

When dealing with ordinary people it works fine. When dealing with criminals or politicians, it does not.

While most people will state they "don't care", the reality of the individual is they simply don't understand. It's like dealing with a dog. It hungers, so it eats. It is blameless until one tries to view it as anything but what it is—an equal—which is unfortunately what you seem to be doing for reasons I cannot imagine. — Outlander

I'm not sure what you're saying, exactly.

Are you saying that criminals are essentially subhumans I ought not judge on the same basis as I would ordinary people?

I doubt it. Real death and violence is not fun to watch (for mentally healthy people, at least). Sports have a tendency of getting safer, with more emphasis on the long-term health and safety of the participants.

Even combat sports are generally enjoyed in the knowledge that the fighters are by and large safe. Deaths or serious injuries in the ring are not celebrated, health risks (like CTE) are taken seriously, etc.

The fantasy violence that people are provided through media is nothing like actual violence, but it has people forming opinions and views on what actual violence must be like. It detaches people from reality, and on a large scale that can start to be problematic.

It doesn't make people more violent (it's hard to imagine a less violent being than a modern western person), it makes them dumber and more ignorant - easier to goad into supporting wars the reality of which they will never have to experience.

It's not a sign of intellectual rigor, broad-mindedness or virtuous humanity to empathize with career criminals; it's cowardice masquerading as such.

I can assure you none of you would be pleading for nuance if you had had a single experience of the pitiless malevolence with which such individuals operate.

These people ruin lives, communities, entire societies for petty monetary gain. They deserve no sympathy nor quarter.

That's not the point. There would be no "you", period, were it not for immorality. — Outlander

I doubt we have the same idea of what immorality entails, but even so it doesn't follow that judging the actions of others is somehow inherently hypocritical.

Hypocrisy is to chastise others for moral infringements you yourself are guilty of.

It has nothing to do with what my ancestors did or didn't do without my asking.

People end up doing things that others would consider reprehensible but when put in less comfortable position in life would consider doing bad stuff to survive or even prosper. — Malcolm Parry

Stealing a loaf of bread is something I would consider "doing something bad in order to survive".

The narcotics scene on the other hand runs purely on ego and greed, as do the majority of criminal circuits. Just like a rapist or a murderer, they know what they're doing is wrong but do it anyway, and I would rank drug dealers and traffickers among rapists and murderers in terms of how inexcusable their actions are.

You're literally the spawn of immorality, in a way, we all are. — Outlander

Speak for yourself.

I bear responsibility for my own actions, and not for those of others.


Sob stories about how drug dealers/traffickers came to be, I don't buy either. Base greed is the principal motivator - people looking to score a quick buck at the expense of someone else.

If you want to look for victims, why look beyond the often-vulnerable people who fall prey to drug addiction and are then ruthlessly exploited? Dealers and traffickers are not victims, they're utter scum.

And no, it's not the government's fault that they lack a moral compass. It's no one else's fault but their own.

It's rather odd you apparently don't believe people ought to take moral responsibility for their own actions, but instead expect the government to take action? The modern mindworm at play, I suppose.

He doesn't get them hooked on meth. He is supplying a product that there is a demand for.This could be easily seen as an amoral act. There is an awful lot of nuance between your statement and mine. (I don't necessarily endorse the statement I made.) — Malcolm Parry

Oh, one might very well apply nuance, but at that point I would start doubting their capacity for sound judgement.

He starts as a pathetic man who no one respects and has seemingly never stood up for himself, and is now faced with his own mortality, which is both terrifying and freeing. — BitconnectCarlos

That's the crazy part.

He is freed, and with this freedom he chooses to turn himself into an even more pathetic man.

But it tells us something about the modern zeitgeist that we apparently feel that it's better to be a petty criminal who ruins lives for a living, than to be a father who works an honest job to support his disabled child.

I understand that this is the way the series is deliberately framed, and most people just go along with it without ever looking at the picture critically, but it's just so hopelessly confused I can't help but wonder what gives rise to media like this.

I'm really curious if this was the creators' intention. Can you elaborate on your idea? — Astorre

Eh, I'm just riffing, really. I don't know if it's there, though it wouldn't surprise me.

Walter as a stand-in for "dissatisfied middle-aged white man", with his terminal illness being a vessel to have him act out his ultimate power fantasy (which apparently is becoming a petty criminal).

It sounds just about bad enough to come from Hollywood, doesn't it? :lol:

A man voluntarily chooses to spend his final days on earth destroying the lives of as many people as possible by getting them hooked on meth - what room for nuance is there in our judgement of such a person?

To suggest this man would be in any way an anti-hero there seems to be a missing link here.

The MC is conspicuously named Walter White, and considering this is an American series I'm sure there's a clumsy attempt at societal commentary in here somewhere that we're missing.