I hope to have learned Chinese by then, I haven't even learned English completely yet. :)
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
25 points (100.0% liked)
Economics
1735 readers
1 users here now
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm in the process of learning Mandarin now, and it's definitely a lot more challenging than English.
I'm learning it little by little too, but I'm still at the very beginning. I agree It is known for its complexity. And It's quite different at least from European languages. But it's more interesting to study something unusual for you. :)
For sure, it's an enjoyable kind of challenge. I also find some aspects of the language are actually easier than other languages I've learned. Not having conjugation is really nice since you just learn the word once, and the grammar is generally pretty straight forward. I got flustered about the tones at the start, but then just learned not to worry about it. People will understand you from the context even if you screw the tones up. Writing is the hardest part, but it's just a matter of repetition in the end.
i'm 100% sure that we're going to fight dirty to prevent something like this from happening and some small perverse part of me hopes they succeed because my government is clearly conditioning everyone around me to accept war and that will happen if fighting dirty doesn't succeed.
I really don't see what the US can do to stop this. China is already the biggest trade partner for most countries, it cannot be isolated. China has industry that absolutely dwarfs the US, and a huge well educated population. Now that the war pushed China and Russia close together, China has access to critical resources like food and energy that can't be cut off. I'm also worried that the US would rather end the world in a nuclear holocaust than lose primacy. I guess we'll see if the oligarchs want to spend the rest of their lives in bunkers.
... I guess we’ll see if the oligarchs want to spend the rest of their lives in bunkers.
i bet that's why they stopped bothering with hawaii and have switched to new zealand; the southern hemisphere will recover from a nuclear winter more quickly than everywhere else and they're using it as "proof" that it's possible to maintain their control after everyone exchanges their ICBM's.
some other perverse part of me hopes that the russians or chinese very publicly points an ICBM or 2 at their bunkers to help push them away from this kind of thinking.
We saw how people handled the pandemic lockdowns, and living in a bunker would be far worse than that. Imagine the most narcissistic people in the world who are used to their every whim being catered to having to live in a box like a rat. They will go mad in weeks even if it's a gilded box. I do think a lot of them realize this and would rather rule over a diminished empire than suffer that. My expectation is what we'll see happening is that the US will cannibalize Europe and Canada to prop itself up.
I do think a lot of them realize this and would rather rule over a diminished empire than suffer that.
the clueless ones among them never got to experience nor learn about the affects of the lockdowns because they fled to places like texas that didn't enforce ANY covid related precautions; i lived there during that time and, if it weren't for the news, i would not have known that covid was a thing since absolutely nothing changed if you weren't afflicted by it and even then there were plenty of posts of social media of people who nearly died; recovered; and still didn't believe that covid was dangerous.
Hence why the current moment is so dangerous. We have clueless people in charge and their hubris could end us all.