NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Scandinavian Nations]

in fact, in their native countries, they strongly dislike working.

Possibly because their native countries are shitholes lacking in foreign economic development and general industrialization?

And that's primarily because... so here's your usual chicken and egg problem.

[Gallia-]

Possibly because their native countries are shitholes lacking in foreign economic development and general industrialization?

And that's primarily because... so here's your usual chicken and egg problem.

Because Western meddling in their affairs precluded the development of proper or adequate institutions due to Eisenhower/Kennedy/general failure of Trust Territories/Mandates/Ottoman Empire collapse.

History is basically causally deterministic. It's just a long line of unintended or unanticipated consequences. For it to be otherwise, you would need a model or theory of the human condition. Not an impossible goal, we've been able to predict similar things for particle physics for a reasonably long time, given a sufficiently long amount of time

[Scandinavian Nations]

History is basically causally deterministic.

It may be in reality - but historians don't deal with reality, they deal with a simplified model that explains events through the actions of royals and to a lesser extent other major figures.

Even in that model, there is always more causes and factors in play that can be considered in going through any more than a couple steps. And to every explanation and inference, there is always enough alternative example that supports the exact opposite effect - war can speed up or slow down development, a policy can have the intended effect or cause a rebound - that the whole thing is thoroughly unfalsifiable.

It's just a long line of unintended or unanticipated consequences.

You'll have to trace it all the way to Mohammed then.

[Allanea]

It may be in reality - but historians don't deal with reality, they deal with a simplified model that explains events through the actions of royals and to a lesser extent other major figures.

...what. No we don't.

[Gallia-]

Even in that model,

History doesn't have a "model". That's the point. It's why it can't predict the future, or anything really. It can only make analogies and point at patterns without actually explaining why they occur, what is occurring, what made them happen, or is happening until after the fact.

History essentially deals with written record and these obvious patterns, followed by wild speculation amongst academics, after examining all available evidence. Since most people involved tend to be dead or tend to misremember their past actions, and there is no easy method of identifying human thoughts at a single point in time, history is naturally very convoluted and involved. Just not in the sense that science is.

Just look at how little we know about Rome and silly people who claim that Rome collapsed because of lead mines, or significantly less silly people who claim stirrups were the foundation of Western Civilization, etc. These people will never be proven right until you're able to build a model that explains how it occurred, which is a pretty tall order (at the moment) because you're asking to compute human minds or an accurate simulacra.

Without a model of human minds, which all social science looks to psychology to solve (and if we consider psychology to be the physics of social science, then philosophy is the mathematics, and all things come around there as both mathematics and philosophy rely on the same logic [and the greatest philosophers tend to be mathematicians]), then there really can't be a "model of history". All skeptics of modeling human minds should be pointed at quantum mechanics for inspiration.

Depending on how well psychology does its job in the future, it may become possible eventually to find out why Rome fell or what the future holds should we continue our then-present course, but don't hold your breath on Humanity sticking around long enough to see it.

[Scandinavian Nations]

It's why it can't predict the future, or anything really. It can only make analogies and point at patterns without actually explaining why they occur...

...Which you just tried to, a couple posts back.


But yes, there isn't really a model, I didn't put it right. It's more of a selection bias, where only the actions of a few men get sufficiently recorded at any time, and the historians then are limited to dealing with what gets recorded, plus some input from other fields. So what I should have said is that any attempt to build a model or explain things through a world model based on history is doomed to unfalsifiability.

[Gallia-]

It's why it can't predict the future, or anything really. It can only make analogies and point at patterns without actually explaining why they occur...

...Which you just tried to, a couple posts back.

I never posited a model based on arbitrary distinctions like "hard work", or indeed making such quaint assumptions as "agency" and "free will" having any meaning outside an ethics seminar. Still more accurate than History for Dummies that RandC posted.

Unless he agrees that Westerners have somehow become less willing to work despite increased hours and fewer vacations of most workers in the West in a generation, while all the factories flee to NICs, which kind of puts a damper on his theory. I'm more inclined to trust obvious patterns like demographic transition theory than RandC's rambling.

It's more of a selection bias, where only the actions of a few men get sufficiently recorded at any time, and the historians then are limited to dealing with what gets recorded, plus some input from other fields. So what I should have said is that any attempt to build a model or explain things through a world model based on history is doomed to unfalsifiability.

Someone's been reading the popular history books.

History is no more "doomed to unfalsifiability" than psychology is doomed to repeat Pavlov and Freud eternally. The bottleneck for social science is psychology's inability to create a working model for the human mind. Once that is done, everything else will fall into place. At the moment it's in a weird halfway house. It may stay that way forever if science keeps slowing down, which might put a Unified Mind Theory in the same realm as a GUT, driverless cars, and nuclear fusion.

It's analogous to the situation that physics faced itself in the Renaissance and First Industrial Revolution. Without a good model of atomic structure, or indeed even the forces and mechanisms of heat transfer, it's impossible to probe deeper into life's mysteries. Physics didn't become "good" until the 1870s, after all, and that was after a few centuries of bullshit like caloric and aetheric theory. Then stuff like the Periodic Table just appear and people start plugging in things that happen to come true decades later. Like magic, these physicists and chemists began to predict the future in accordance with accurate modeling after centuries of cumulative work.

The human mind is a bit more complex than an atomic particle or subatomic structure though. Or algebra. Or calculus. It takes longer to figure out. Good thing we have all these historical documents and Ivory Tower academics writing stuff down. Unfortunately we're overdue for a civilization collapse and dinosaur killer, so we may never find out.

[Mansuriyyah Islamic State]

History is basically causally deterministic.

It may be in reality - but historians don't deal with reality, they deal with a simplified model that explains events through the actions of royals and to a lesser extent other major figures.

Dude the 'big men theory' has been in the trash bin of historiography for like a hundred years, no serious historian uses it since the 1930's.

Also historians nowadays use much more than just written sources. Archological finds, pictographic evidences, live witnesses (when available for obvious reasons) are just a few other sources.

[Allanea]

It may be in reality - but historians don't deal with reality, they deal with a simplified model that explains events through the actions of royals and to a lesser extent other major figures.

Dude the 'big men theory' has been in the trash bin of historiography for like a hundred years, no serious historian uses it since the 1930's.

Also historians nowadays use much more than just written sources. Archological finds, pictographic evidences, live witnesses (when available for obvious reasons) are just a few other sources.

Or rather, there are some historians who use an advanced and complicated variant of the Great Man Theory of History. However, there are also a bunch of other, competing metanarratives.

[Scandinavian Nations]

I never posited a model based on arbitrary distinctions like "hard work", or indeed making such quaint assumptions as "agency" and "free will" having any meaning outside an ethics seminar.

No, but you built a causal chain on the assumption that if people dislike working, it's because their native countries are shitholes, and that their countries being shitholes is due to their lack of foreign economic development. Nothing to do with their culture, apparently.

History is no more "doomed to unfalsifiability" than psychology is doomed to repeat Pavlov and Freud eternally. The bottleneck for social science is psychology's inability to create a working model for the human mind.

It won't help - even if created, there isn't enough data in the records for such a model to explain history.

[Allanea]

The main problem is institutions and not culture.

We know absolutely now - because there are populations of people of various cultures living in the West - that people coming from horribly poor countries with dysfunctional cultures begin - sometimes immediately, sometimes over a generation or two - doing vastly better than in the home country.

That's because institutions matter.

[Minroz]

The main problem is institutions and not culture.

We know absolutely now - because there are populations of people of various cultures living in the West - that people coming from horribly poor countries with dysfunctional cultures begin - sometimes immediately, sometimes over a generation or two - doing vastly better than in the home country.

That's because institutions matter.

Being from a certain country in South-East Asia with a great potential but got ruined by the institution who is supposed to make the country prosper, I concur with you.

[Allanea]

It's worth saying that faulty institutions and bad culture can be self-reinforcing in horrifying and tragic ways.

[Theodosiya]

So, in the end, Indonesia will only be a minor country? *sigh*

Alright. Well, with Phils, Malay and Cambodia align with PRC, might as well do it, or, with USA. Might be able to make lots of concessions anyway with US. After all, TNI mostly use or base itself on Western Military. Reindoctrination would be good for everyone, though.

[Minroz]

So, in the end, Indonesia will only be a minor country? *sigh*

Alright. Well, with Phils, Malay and Cambodia align with PRC, might as well do it, or, with USA. Might be able to make lots of concessions anyway with US. After all, TNI mostly use or base itself on Western Military. Reindoctrination would be good for everyone, though.

I agree, bro. Fellow Indonesian here.

I don't see much point in staying neutral for now. As much as I hate to admit, I reckoned it's now a good time to align with much bigger power.

[Theodosiya]

So, in the end, Indonesia will only be a minor country? *sigh*

Alright. Well, with Phils, Malay and Cambodia align with PRC, might as well do it, or, with USA. Might be able to make lots of concessions anyway with US. After all, TNI mostly use or base itself on Western Military. Reindoctrination would be good for everyone, though.

I agree, bro. Fellow Indonesian here.

I don't see much point in staying neutral for now. As much as I hate to admit, I reckoned it's now a good time to align with much bigger power.

To play safe, US. Bases around us, allies too. Most of hardwares and doctrine partially mimic most western world after all. And PRC are more of a threat. Ok to trade, bad for ally. And some of their hardware are downright useless *C-705 fail, right in front of president. Why would we use em anyway. Also...

TNI Angkatan Darat Komando Territorial system. Any way to salvage it, or else?

[Allanea]

The only way Indonesia can be strong and prosperous like a Western country is... somehow have Western institutions, and basically be a Western country with Indonesian culture and traditions and place names.

Only a few non-Western countries have managed to get that going.

[Austrasien]

Indonesia is poor. Poor countries cannot be powers.

China's industrial policy has effectively blocked any other countries from pursuing the export-led industrialization model that benefited them and the rest of East Asia though. The growing anti-trade sentiment in wealthy countries, also largely a result of China's successful policies, will also make this path increasingly difficult in the future.

Since there is no proven alternative for closing the gap in output with advanced economies it remains an open question if convergence will continue in the 21st century.

[Allanea]

I think we are going to see a defeat of trade opponents in the intermediate term. Hell, possibly before Trump's administrationeven ends.

Anyway, Indonesia has a GDP per capita of 11,300 PPP and is growing at 5% per annum which is really not bad.

[Connori Pilgrims]

TNI Angkatan Darat Komando Territorial system. Any way to salvage it, or else?

Indonesia, like its other, more diseased and damaged neighbor the Philippines, is condemned by the fact that it is fundamentally an internally insecure entity because of the chronic poverty and big population, barely functioning institutions, ethnic squabbles, and simple geography. Under these facts the TNI will only be of use to Jakarta as a glorified internal security/repression force. The difference between the two is Indonesia is more willing to shell out money for fancier toys like Su-30s and Sigma corvettes, while the Philippines is so fucking stupid that it won't even fund its AFP's ongoing combat operations separately from the normal (underfunded) defense budget.

You wanna change into something other than glorified internal security? Fix the poverty, the ethnic problems and the institutions.

Once you understand the enormity of the problem, then you'll understand why the earlier sentiments regarding the bleakness of Indonesia's position are so justified.

[Austrasien]

I think we are going to see a defeat of trade opponents in the intermediate term. Hell, possibly before Trump's administrationeven ends.

This will not change that China will continue to block the migration of industries out of China. Subtracting population growth, Indonesia is only growing about 2% faster than the US. This is a convergence time of a very long time.

The winds have been blowing for a long time even in free trade strongholds like Germany. For reasons that have nothing to do with Trump and indeed predate his rise to political prominence. Trade is not sustainable if one side constantly blocks access to their market while receiving nearly unlimited access to all other markets. Trump was just the first person to come out and say openly what everyone knew privately to be the case.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

[mercantalism]

[Allanea]

I think we are going to see a defeat of trade opponents in the intermediate term. Hell, possibly before Trump's administrationeven ends.

This will not change that China will continue to block the migration of industries out of China. Subtracting population growth, Indonesia is only growing about 2% faster than the US. This is a convergence time of a very long time.

The winds have been blowing for a long time even in free trade strongholds like Germany. For reasons that have nothing to do with Trump and indeed predate his rise to political prominence. Trade is not sustainable if one side constantly blocks access to their market while receiving nearly unlimited access to all other markets. Trump was just the first person to come out and say openly what everyone knew privately to be the case.

It's only 'unsustainable' if you wank to 'balance of trade'.

Balances of trade were known to be nonsense for 200 years.

[Theodosiya]

TNI Angkatan Darat Komando Territorial system. Any way to salvage it, or else?

Indonesia, like its other, more diseased and damaged neighbor the Philippines, is condemned by the fact that it is fundamentally an internally insecure entity because of the chronic poverty and big population, barely functioning institutions, ethnic squabbles, and simple geography. Under these facts the TNI will only be of use to Jakarta as a glorified internal security/repression force. The difference between the two is Indonesia is more willing to shell out money for fancier toys like Su-30s and Sigma corvettes, while the Philippines is so fucking stupid that it won't even fund its AFP's ongoing combat operations separately from the normal (underfunded) defense budget.

You wanna change into something other than glorified internal security? Fix the poverty, the ethnic problems and the institutions.

Once you understand the enormity of the problem, then you'll understand why the earlier sentiments regarding the bleakness of Indonesia's position are so justified.

Institutions? Leos and Marder in front of the turtle building, ready to kill rats there. Poverty, more workplaces and education for both skilled and less skilled jobs. Ethnic? Maybe giving more power but stronger regulation for provinces?

[Questers]

Balances of trade were known to be nonsense for 200 years.

Not really - the modern argument is not the same as the mercantilist one and the conditions are totally different. In the original form (i.e. mercantilism) countries wanted to stockpile gold which is a universal currency, not subject to interest rates or inflation or other financial instruments. The modern argument is totally different - in our world a current account deficit is a major factor in accumulating massive debt. This is especially dangerous if that is external debt denominated in a foreign currency.