At this point, Palestine has the right to nuke Israel if they could. Equivalent retaliation for the bombs.

China’s rail actually makes money and is paying off their debts! What will all the Westoid collapse narratives say this time?

US physicians like the for-profit insurance system because they are paid 2x or more than in single payer systems. For example, I know Canadian physicians who doubled their pay upon moving to the USA. It is a bribe by insurance companies for doctors to be apathetic towards capitalist suffering.

Here is the context video on his main channel for why he’s frustrated at Hasanabi for not being more hardline on Palestine: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WSd-blcw6YI

I don’t think this is that big of a deal. Some of y’all are reacting way too strongly at this.

Just so we’re clear, he is very much not an ultra. His takes towards Global South states are much too well-rounded for that to be true.

BadEmpanada is just pissed that Hasanabi isn’t even more of an advocate for Palestinians, which is a fine point of view. If it makes some people advocate more strongly for Palestine, that’s always a plus.

His main channel does pretty great work. For example, he has really good videos on Israel, Kurzgesagt’s pro-capitalist climate change propaganda, and how Wikipedia lies about the Holodomor ‘genocide’.

This is a huge misconception lots of peope have with nuclear bombs. All modern nukes around 0.5 megatons, so no modern nukes are Tsar Bombas. That means each nuke cannot wipe out more than a ~5 mile radius max.

Humans have already tested more than 2000 nukes and we’re still here.

Here’s the video from Brian Berletic you mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCCh8-nE7Z0

The key source they both are referencing is the NYT bragging about CIA bases in Ukraine: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html

The Global South cannot get nukes fast enough. The only way to deter the US is to show that it will get glassed by everyone if it tries any shit.

Luckily the US’s non-existent industry can’t really sustain a prolonged nuclear arms race (e.g. how slow even conventional US munitions are being built). Back in the Cold War, the USA used the nuclear arms race to waste Soviet industrial resources. Now, the Global South can flip the same strategy on the US.

Agree. As parents get richer, their methods always seem to be ‘better’ simply because they have more time and money to invest in their kids. People always talk about how parents should give their kids ‘enriching childhoods’, but completely ignore that enrichment costs shittons of money.

This is a great article. Cross comparisons like these are excellent tools for revealing blatant media bias.

So what if the USA loses 20%? All it does it change the calculus for US capitalists a little bit. It is still a great deal for deleting China.

You are confusing the rather ambiguous definition of a “city” in the USA with the actual distribution of people in said “city”. US city populations aren’t distributed like Hiroshima/Nagasaki, they’re much more spread out (Even then, the US’s bombs weren’t enough to kill everyone in the municipal city area). Because of US sprawl, it doesn’t take just one 0.6 megaton warhead to eliminate a city’s inhabitants, it takes 4+. For example, New York City technically has ~8 million residents, but it takes ~5 0.6 megaton nukes to cover the entire city. As cities get smaller populations in the USA, they get much more spread out, making this problem worse. As another example, take Virginia Beach, a “city” that is 100% suburbs. Just to kill all residents, it also takes another 4 nukes. At this rate, China will very quickly run out of nukes in a casualty v. casualty exchange with the USA. If we approximate that each city takes ~5 nukes, China can currently only eliminate 20% of the US population at maximum as you estimate.

The problem is that we can apply the same density-maximization to the US nuking China, in which case everything looks much worse. China’s cities are much larger, much denser, and there are way more of them. Because China is denser, the US simply gets more bang-for-the-buck per nuke. In that sense, the US could cripple China much faster than the other way around by killing many more people with way fewer nukes.

In my calculations, I assume that both nations seek full elimination of the other. As I explained in my other post, over time there are diminishing returns per nuke as nations run out of dense population targets and trend toward sparser targets. That is why I calculated using average population density.

I have already addressed the environmental destruction / nuclear winter talking point below. In short, new research, experiences from the Kuwaiti oil well fires and various wildfires, and the switch from flammable wood to nonflammable concrete and steel in city buildings combine to show that nuclear winter simply would be nowhere as severe as initially predicted in the 1980s. Fallout from nuclear bombs only lasts around a week due to short half-lives. Assuming decent amounts of prior preparation of necessary supplies and tech in hardened bunkers (which major Cold War countries did kinda do before), it is survivable, especially if China only kills 20% of the US population in certain centralized cities. At current, there are plenty of Wyoming farmers who would survive unscathed, put up some greenhouses, and weather out the storm.

Previously, China could get away with low nuclear bomb counts because it could depend on Russia and/or court the West. Now they can’t do that. Russia has its own worries in Europe, and the USA is hellbent on destroying China. The USSR has shown the number of nukes required to go against the USA alone. China is clearly responding to these concerns by building up to at least 1000 nukes, which should increase the cost to the US to >30% of its population based on your estimates. I see no downsides with such an act.

OK done, I reposted the previously linked post in c/medicine where it belongs. I deleted the old one too.

I agree. The US and all its vassals and military bases absolutely have to be subdued in the event of nuclear war. In other words, the USSR’s 45,000 nuke stockpile should be the goal for China as well, and is even more prescient than we expected.

Russia and North Korea should be encouraged to assist as well, as it increases redundancy and is in their interests also. In the same vein, Iran still desperately needs nukes to defend itself and contribute as well.

As @MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml discussed, unlike the USSR, China actually has the industry to rapidly build up and maintain a stockpile of this size. If China can automate electric car production like no other, it should automate nuke production as well. Nuclear warheads are about the size of electric scooters, so should be able to be built on similar production lines. China’s rapid buildout of nuclear reactors should help this along, as nuclear reactors are needed to produce the plutonium for nukes.

It seems many of our considerations have been taken into account by Xi already. If western media is to be believed, China’s buildup is real. I only hope that production is scaled exponentially to reach the necessary amounts before it is too late.

As a side note, IDK why western journalists on this topic say that China is building up nukes for “ambiguous political reasoning and muddled thinking”. Clearly, Chinese thinking isn’t muddled if we here are discussing the same things. It’s so funny how westerners will warmonger about destroying China, then act surprised when China prepares by strengthening its arms.

Could I be made a mod of the c/medicine community? The mod seems dead. Here is my expertise: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5407636

Thank you for your enlightening historical viewpoint on this topic. There is no reason why socialist and anti-imperialist states should allow the West to have nuclear force supremacy. Doing so fixes nothing and instead portends the collapse of promising socialist projects.

If push comes to shove, the loss of 10% of the US population in exchange for deleting all of China is not that bad of a trade. 0.6 megaton nukes are actually kind of small compared to the size of the USA.

In the case of the DPRK, the cost of getting California nuked is not worth the relatively tiny amount of resources the DPRK has. It wouldn’t even pay for the damages. The same is not true for China.

Obviously CRINK shouldn’t first strike ever, but having the ability to wipe out the West is essential. Please see my calculations below on why China needs more nukes. Right now China is fully dependent on Russia for nuclear defense. Russia’s nukes are better spent as EU deterrence. China’s 500 warheads simply cannot kill more than 10% of the USA with its entire arsenal on a good day, while the USA can wipe China’s entire population out. That is not deterrence.

Fair. However, we must consider the overall situation and recent news. NATO really wants Ukraine to keep wearing down Russia, and causing a nuclear threat to Russia certainly would damage Russia more than Ukraine has been able to do before.

Furthermore, this is consistent with the goals of the previous Kursk offensive. The earlier Kursk offensive’s goal seemed to be to take control of the Kursk nuclear power plant to threaten a nuclear meltdown on Russian soil and/or to take control of nuclear weapons nearby.

In other words, Ukraine has already tried this shit once. Fool me once, shame on you. Ukraine is not fooling Russia twice.

Mali can testify about the global threat part. Apparently the Ukronazis have enough extra resources to help terrorists attack Mali’s army.

Almost all countries in the world are run by normal people who simply want to improve the status of their country (and also possibly personally benefit in the process).

The only countries in the world that would benefit by nuking people is the USA, Israel, and maybe NATO allies.This is because they are the current dominant global powers, so nuking anyone else cements their position.

That means giving nukes to any country who is not them is objectively a good thing, as it reduces the likelihood that USA and co. can glass others without consequences.