So, there are people telling you how to ship packages to a hotel, which is fine. The issue is going to be if eBay will let you. Having packages sent to a hotel is likely going to trigger a lot of fraud warnings, especially as your account is from another country.

The Korean and Vietnam Wars were constrained by not trying to turn the Cold War hot. Also, Vietnam was as much about nation-building as it was fighting an enemy.

The invasion of Grenada met all military objectives.

The Gulf War was such a success that it changed war doctrine for those choosing to fight the USA after.

The USA intervention into Somalia fell apart as the government the USA supported collapsed.

The USA intervention into Yugoslavia got Serbia to withdrawal troops from Kosovo.

The Afghanistan War successfully toppled the previous Taliban government, the USA just couldn’t build a new government to replace the existing one.

The USA toppled Saddam Hussein rather quickly after the Iraq War; the current government is wildly different in form from the old one.

The USA successfully kidnapped the Venezuelan President.

Most of the USA’s war losses were due to attempts to nation-build. If the USA chooses not to nation-build, it can launch major military attacks to disable opponents. In those fights, the USA dominates.

Beep beep beep beep

Even during the halcyon days of CD sales in the late 90’s, there was a decent amount of filler on a lot of albums. It didn’t help that albums were the product while singles were what were advertised.

Yeah, that’s a lot worse than OP implied.

Yeah. My previously covered medication now has a $10 copay.

I think there are some natural monopolies where it makes sense to let them be run as monopolies with some form of government control. The energy grid is a good example, you can different suppliers providing electricity but the transmission of it should be within one company/system.

And the first part is why a lot of content creators are on it.

At a certain point, a blog becomes more than a hobby. When that happens, a platform like Substack helps people transition the hobby to a job

It doesn’t. I’m commenting more on supporters like you’ve read online saying the current government is great.

China is returning to its manufacturing capacity that it had before the century of humiliation, which is that it is mostly self sufficient for manufactured goods and only relied on international trade to supply raw materials.

It was incredibly hard for Europe to trade with China during this time. Part of the reason for Spanish colonization of the Americas was to supply gold and silver to buy Chinese goods. The UK had to settle on opium to trade with China because China wouldn’t accept any other form of trade goods besides gold and silver; this was causing major issues with China due to the trade imbalance.

A lot of communists here are like Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Their existing living condition is shit and they think that going to a different place will magically fix all their problems because everything just has to be better there.

It seems like a descendent of the Shah is currently involved, but I imagine that the replacement government would likely be a constitutional monarchy or a revised republic.

In either case, I expect transfer of several executive powers to elected bodies including control of the military and police.

EU countries did underinvest, but the US is able to invest in multiple weapon platforms and logistics capabilities that wealthy but small countries can’t possibly afford on their own.

The Libyan War was a good example. The EU nations that wanted to intervene in the war needed the US to provide ATC duties and provide supplies after the countries’ missile reserves ran out.

There has historically been a correlation. However, this bubble doesn’t require a lot of labor so wages have been stuck.

Hell, if it weren’t for the AI bubble, it is likely that the US economy would be in recession.

Part of the problem of creating a non-American NATO is that the USA provides a ton of capabilities and logistics that other countries can’t possibly afford.

It is the reason why there has been a push to create an EU military instead.

Public performance in general can be stressful; people get stage fright all the time.

White college educated males were considered the default in a lot of early and mid 20th century experimental psychology due to the availability of test subjects and biases of people running the experiments. The definition of neurotypical behavior came from a subset of the population.

ADD and ADHD are known to hinder progression through the education system. So, the cohort of people on that part of the spectrum were underrepresented. The bounds for being normal were skewed.

Also, medical intervention is typically only looked at when the mental condition causes a reduction of quality of life. Over the past generation, the need for a formal collegiate education has become greater in developed countries due to shifts in economics. A kid which would be considered energetic and absent minded a few generations ago would have a far greater chance in being economically successful compared to now.

It feels less like “one big problem” and more like death by a thousand cuts.

A lot of sci-fi was generally written to play with a few ideas. I think it would be difficult to create a narrative around several problems with different causes and solutions.

China has sanctions on several US companies.

Iceland would be better for data centers because it also has a steady supply of geothermal energy.

As for ramifications, I can see a lot of changes to American buildings as they have to survive more extreme weather events.