ArkanExplorer

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Comment · 5 years ago

Its impossible to subdue a society little removed from the 7th century, unless you're willing to replicate the actions of Alexander the Great, Mohammed, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Abdur Rahman Khan:

That is, slaughter or enslave all males from any tribes who oppose you [1], take their women for your own [2], and enforce your own culture, language and religion [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa_weddings

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristan_Province

All of that is rather politically incorrect these days, so Afghanistan and nations like it will remain unconquerable except for nations like China who are still willing to carry out that level of annexation and assimilation.

Comment · 5 years ago

Even if we recreated the entire Amazon Rainforest, it would only be equivalent in embedded carbon to 4-5x our annual human emissions:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/amazo....

We would have to essentially recreate the Azolla event (a geological process that took place for 800,000 years) to undo the carbon we are putting into the atmosphere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

The only way to stop climate change is to stop digging coal and oil out of the ground and burning it.

Comment · 5 years ago

You're right, its not dropping: its rising

Egypt fertility rate 2006: 3.01

2018: 3.28

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

Contrasted against neighbours Jordan and Saudi Arabia which show much more consistent declines and are now both down to aobout 2.3.

Comment · 5 years ago

I've read the whole study.

TLDR: Correlation, not causation.

Basically, they found that Customer A spent $100 on games, and consumed 50 units worth of Piracy.

But Customer B spent only $30 on games, and consumed 10 units of piracy.

They then concluded that piracy lead to more consumption.

The obvious rebuttals are:

1. More voracious consumers of games will probably buy more and pirate more anyway

2. It sucks if you are one of the pirated games (eg. singleplayer, non-DRM), who loses out from this equation

3. Its great if you're eg. Fortnite or Steam, where pirated games serve as the enticement to join the ecosystem, and when customers do eventually spend, it comes to you given your huge size.

Comment · 5 years ago

In 2019 the American population increased from 327.2 to 328.2.

In 2019 1.03million immigrants were granted permanent resident status.

The American population increase is entirely driven by immigration. The fertility rate is 1.73.

At some point soon the American population will begin falling, without immigration, as the baby boomers die off.

Comment · 5 years ago

American population is driven solely by immigration, given that the average fertility is far below replacement.

If you don't want one billion Americans, then you need to propose and support:

- Ending refugee programs and withdrawing from the UN convention on refugees

- Sending refugees back to safe countries

- Building walls along the southern border

- Ending the H1B visa

- deporting illegal immigrants already in the country

- Disallowing citizenship by birth

- Ending chain family migration

The bigger issue here is that Americans are moving out of States with huge pension bills, into 'younger' states with lower taxes and fewer legacy costs. Its basically a death loop playing out at an inter-state migration level.