Sorry but that seems like an insane system where whole classes of actions effectively are illegal but probably okay if you're likeable. In your scenario the obvious solution is to amend the law and pardon people convinced under it. B/c what really happens is that if you have a pretty face and big tits you get out of speeding tickets b/c "gosh well the law wasn't intended for nice people like you"
Ever watched Psycho-Pass? Great anime. Setting is a sort of an AI coordinated Panopticon in which the Psycho-Pass system equips it's enforcers with firearms capable of either paralyzing a "reformable" latent criminal, (namely someone with a psycho-pass measured to be >100, but <300, or eradicate the irredeemable (score >300). The series focuses around the dilemmas created by instilling in this system the sole monopoly on violence, and this magical firearm and Psycho-pass computing device. There is a poignant point made of the weapons design. In spite of the Psycho-Pass systems assumed infallibility, each weapon is equipped with a trigger, that must be pulled to fire it. The system itself is not given final say on whether to do so. It is left as a matter of the Enforcer's discretion.
Much the same dynamic can be inferred to be taking place with the U.S. legal system. The weapon and it's wielder is analogous to the judges; the Psycho-pass system to juries. The interesting consequence here with this analogy is that the wielders of these weapons for the Psycho-pass system are almost entirely latent criminals according to the judgement of the Psycho-Pass system itself.
Point being, the U.S. addresses things through common law with an adversarial criminal law system. The judge has a great deal of discretion to bring to bear on the cases they decide. There is as much, if not more controversy to be found when statutory punishment overrides any possibility of a judge applying discretion, leaving only executive clemency as a safety hatch.
Legal systems are not intended to be suicide pacts. Rather a collective effort of trying to seek the thing most resembling justice; a thing that is only measurable through the collective action of humanity, and which when responsibility for this measurement is delegated to fewer and fewer people, tends to morph away from what the entirety of us would probably converge upon being just. The arguments you're having with others highlights this very dynamic very strongly to me. Since it is difficult for a single party to manifest a full 360 perspective on the aspects of moral injury as endemic to the practice of justice, and the condition of injustice. Pragmatism, alas, is a bit of a bitch like that.
"In his decision, Judge Cajacob asserts that the purpose and intent of Minnesota’s child pornography statute does not support punishing Jane Doe for explicit images of herself and doing so “produces an absurd, unreasonable, and unjust result that utterly confounds the statue’s stated purpose.”"
Nothing in there about "likeability" or "we let her off because she had nice tits" (which would be particularly weird in this case). Judges have a degree of discretion to interpret laws, they still have to justify their decisions. If you think the judge is wrong then you can appeal. This is how the law has always worked, and if you've thought otherwise then consider you've been living under this "insane system" for your entire life, and every generation of ancestors has too, assuming you're/they've been in the US.
maybe English isnt your native language, but "scenario" doesnt require the situation to be not real
> Nothing in there about "likeability" or "we let her off because she had nice tits"
We have no way to know if likeability played in to it. When rules are bendable then they are bent to the likeable and attractive. My example of a traffic stop is analogous and more directly relatable
> This is how the law has always worked, and if you've thought otherwise then consider you've been living under this "insane system" for your entire life
You seem to have some reading comprehension issues.. I never suggested its not currently working that way and i never suggested the current situation is not insane. If you think the current system is sane and great then thats your opinion
Everyone i know whos had to deal with the US legal system has only related horror stories
Are you even responding to the right comment? I read your comment and the parent comment you've responded to and this response doesn't make sense - it reads like a non-sequitur.
The parent comment present a scenario where the law is ignored b/c the judge decides for himself it shouldn't apply. I'm pointing out that this kind of approach is fundamentally unjust and wrong.
"And sure you can say the laws should be written better, but so long as the laws are written by humans that will simply not be the case"
British canals are smaller than you imagine, and were even when they were commercial waterways. The standard lock widths are only 7ft or 14ft (2.1m/4.3m) so the boats are narrow, proportionally long, and very small compared to a Rhine barge or something.
As with the railways, we built early, to a small gauge, and lived with the consequences of that later.
There was a big canal bank collapse in December, and you can see in news photos the drained bits of the canal around the hole. The boats sitting on the canal bed are barely lower than they are normally when floating. Looks like 4 feet deep.
Right now is an AI goldrush. They can get crazy lucrative investments and lock in amazing deals. In a decade the Chinese tech will catch up and the AI boom will slow down and the Taiwanese will have to coast on what they have. They have to capitalize on this moment as much as they can b/c it's not going to last long. Things are going to get much tougher very soon
If there aren't significant changes in the trajectory of world politics the people in charge might just be planning their exit to the fabs they're building in Japan and the US.
You speak like the Chinese catching up with the technology is inevitable. The Chinese aren't behind in semiconductor and airplane technology for lack of trying. They are constantly trying to catch up to a moving goal post.
There is an established playbook that the Chinese have used for decades when taking over an industrial sector from other countries. They funnel vast amounts of state funding into it, sell at or below cost for decades, win the low end market, and then slowly and gradually move up the technology chain. It's worked for almost everything, but it's this last part that just isn't working for them with semiconductors and aviation. They aren't capable of catching up fast enough in these two fields. These are sectors that are both too large for any one country to do well on their own. Even for someone as large as China. It requires a global supply chain.
PRC generating as much STEM/skilled talent than OECD combined... that's enough for entire semi supply chain and 2 civil aviation companies.
Aviation is functionally caught up, as in if PRC wants to throw together a narrow or wide body on domestic components short term, they can at scale and service domestic market with less fuel efficiently. The primary reason COMAC uses western components is for faster global certification.
PRC Semi progress beating western analysts of catchup, instead of 10 years to EUV they're looking ~7/8 years. Again global semi supply chain is just a handful of countries with fraction population as PRC. And all western semi players projected to have talent shortage in the 100,000s, so that moving goal post likely going to move slower and slower vs PRC convergence.
Semi easier medium/long term problem since PRC _only_ country projected without semi talent shortage, i.e. current trends and forces point to inevitable convergence and PRC.
Ironically aviation harder problem because exporting outside of PRC market is matter of geopolitics vs pure technical/state capacity.
Looking at trend lines, west simply not capable of staying ahead.
Because it was designed to operate in the same atmosphere as we had in the 1950's, it's highly customized with unique instruments and communication gear specialized for NASA and its systems, and they have a big shop filled with tools and spare parts accumulated over half a century to adapt to whatever conceivable thing comes up. They could drop a few hundred million and replace their WB-57s, but there isn't a real need.
> Are they machining their own engine parts?
The WB-57 engines are basically downrated, high-altitude versions of the Pratt & Whitney JT3D/TF33, not the original Avons. They are still in service today in military applications, so servicing them isn't some extraordinary concept. Plus, they don't see many flight hours, as these aircraft (there are 3) spend most of their time in a shop getting reworked for future missions, so engine overhauls aren't that frequent.
> I would imagine it's incredibly expensive to maintain.
All such aircraft are incredibly expensive. However, the Canberra is as old fashioned rivet and sheet metal design, and modifying it is relatively straightforward compared to most of what is manufactured today. It was designed as a bomber and has a large fuel and payload capacity, and a handy bomb-bay with large doors, filled with racks of mission specific gear.
I suspect this one can be repaired and returned to service. That's not uncommon for controlled belly landings. It did not appear to incur excessive damage in that landing, and there are mothballed Canberra in various boneyards around the world to provide replacement parts.
When I was in the Air Force in the early 1990s, we still used KC-135 "flying gas stations" that had been built during the cold war in the 1950s. While expensive to maintain they were far less expensive to fix than buying new and starting from scratch. With regular full maintenance checks in the hangars (wash them, inspect them with dental picks and flashlights, replace broken parts, etc.) we kept those planes in service and mission ready for decades.
There was an entire supply chain of every single part ready to go, with technical manuals for every maintenance task you can imagine. If we couldn't fix something, it would go to the jet lab or machinists or whatever.
I was part of a squadron that flew KC-135s in the mid 2000's. Those 135s looked positively modern inside and out, compared to the worn-out H-53s and C-130s that I worked on a few years prior at a training base.
I mean I think people have been complaining about the KC-135 being too old for a very long time, and from what I heard the replacement was urgently needed. At least there I can see how there is really no good alternative - it's a very specialized plane. Here they just need a plane that can fly high and is easy to modify with new equipment. It feels like there should be plenty of other candidates. However, the other reply seems to imply it's not all that expensive to maintain
Yeah. Two crewmen, something like twice as much payload weight (originally designed to carry a nuclear bomb or two instead of a top-tier reconnaissance package), and apparently less ceremony in general than the U-2. The U-2 really wants to have a chase car (!) when landing to call out what the pilot cannot see, from the sound of things the WB-57 doesn't do that. (okay, some irony there considering recent events...)
I was thinking about what could replace WB-57. Large private jets (Gulfstream G650) can get up to 51k ft, and maybe could be modified to go higher. Global Hawk drone can go up to 60k ft, and the Air Force is retiring them.
It's MUCH more expensive to design and build an aircraft from scratch than it is to repurpose and maintain an existing design that fits the requirements. The major cost sinks are not even the design and manufacturing, it's all of the testing, certification, training, documentation, maintenance planning, and so on.
Plus, it's very likely that this plane is not an ancient as you think. New airframes are more efficient aerodynamically, weigh less, and offer more capabilities but depending on the role, those may not be huge advantages. Nearly everything ELSE on a typical airplane can be upgraded to modern standards. I haven't checked Wikipedia, but I highly doubt NASA's WB-57s are still running the original 1953 engines and avionics, for example.
Making a new plane is obviously a major effort. Updating avionics/engine also seems extremely complex. However, the alternative I was suggesting is just using a commercial passenger plane (like a private jet someone else suggested)
> I would imagine it's incredibly expensive to maintain.
Everything that flies is expensive to maintain but the costs to maintain most older aircraft tends to be much lower than new ones, sometimes even if certain unavailable parts need to be rebuilt or fabricated. Part of the difference is newer designs tend to use advanced composites and manufacturing techniques which can yield increased performance and efficiency but are expensive and often require specialized techniques to service/replace.
The second factor is that funding, designing, validating and manufacturing new military aircraft platforms has grown astronomically expensive for a huge number of reasons.
yeah, this is exactly it. all the arguments kind of boil down to
"well how about if the government does illegal or evil stuff?"
its very similar to arguments about the second ammendment. But laws and rules shouldnt be structured around expecting a future moment where the government isnt serving the people. At that moment the rules already dont matter
The Rights are not intended as preemptive. You don't have a right to free speech b/c otherwise maybe the government regulation of speech will get out of hand. You have it because it's espoused as a fundamental right. Same with separation of church and state. It's like "Well maybe a future evil government will regulate the church poorly, so lets ban it completely". It's just seen as an area the government shouldn't delve in entirely.
Collecting information about people doesn't really fit the same mold. It's not sensible to remove that function entirely. It's not a right. And it's not sensible to structure things with the expectation the future government will be evil
The rights weren’t invented out if thin air but to address real issues that happened earlier. Yes, every government has been evil. Power corrupts. That’s why constitutions exist, to address that problem.
Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging
I think the real problem is that the government is not structured in an accountable way and things like DOGE can happen. These things basically don't happen in other democracies. The Japanese don't all have assault rifles in their basement b/c they're waiting for the day the Diet is going to harvest their data to oppress them
China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"
in reality theyre just economic rivals. But then again so are the EU.
in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies
In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them
>"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."
Russia is not an active economic rival. If they weren't actively attacking neighbors and interfere with governments around the world they would be basically irrelevant. I think the situation is radically different from China. Russia seems to have intentionally positioned themselves as enemies b.c it's part of their identity and the government's attempt to retain some relevance on the international stage
I was commenting more on:
>China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"
Than the economic rival aspect.
Because that was exactly what the Democratic party narrative was in 2012, with similar views echoed in Europe.
>Romney's claim drew a memorable slam from Obama during a presidential debate: "The 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back," Obama said, seeking to paint Romney as out of touch on a key foreign policy issue.
>Albright, who similarly criticized Romney in 2012, said she'd "underestimated" Russia back then.
>The EU and Russia are not only neighbours but strategic partners who cooperate on a wide range of bilateral and global challenges, based on joint commitments and shared interests.
>In 2014, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in eastern Ukraine following Ukraine’s intention to sign an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union caught the EU by surprise.
Are you trying to say there is a parallel in that the right voices read the tea leaves correctly and knew that Russia was going to be a crazy rogue state? And that similarly, there are signs China is going to get super belligerent in the future?
I would first say that what happened with Russia, at least to me, did not seem inevitable even with hindsight. I don't think Romney had some keen foresight - more like a lucky guess.
I also don't really see the same happening with China, though it's of course possible. A sudden economic downturn could trigger a need for an external enemy and a conflict.
But a military conflict between the US and China just seems like an absurd fantasy. It'd how you end up with a nuclear war and the death of millions. I don't think the Chinese secretly want this in the long run. They want peace and more business and more wealth
I don't think Romney had some keen foresight either, he just saw the tension that existed between Russia and their neighbors and didn't take the rose tinted one world, everything is going to work out view.
What you term 'crazy rogue state' is just countries looking at their own self interests.
India and Pakistan have been fighting. Thailand and Cambodia have been fighting. Which of those are rogue?
China has made large territory claims in the ocean and is in conflict with it's neighbors over that.
Maybe they are closer to being a rogue state than you think.
>> "The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said.
Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.
I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
5 years ago is not that long ago and we were at the start of the Biden administration then. With Trump back in office are relationships better or more inflamed?
>I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
Unelected leadership in top positions are generally not just pushing their own agenda, especially in autocratic governments. Any speech or statement is highly considered and controlled, that statement should be taken as policy unless it is retracted.
Just that Express link already contradicts the quote from Coffman:
> General Xu Qiliang, China’s second in command of the armed forces after President Xi Jinping, said an increase in military spending is need[ed] to counter the ‘Thucydides Trap’.
> Maj. Gen. Richard Coffman, director of the US Army's Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, saw the remarks as a clear admission war was “inevitable”.
> He said: “The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable.
Allow me to suggest that "this a way to counter the Thucydides trap" cannot actually be paraphrased as "war is inevitable".
Here is the Google Translate rendition of the response. I'll reply to myself with the original Chinese LLM response.
There are pointers here toward finding an official transcript, but the LLM summary tends to suggest it wouldn't be worth the effort, barring some indication that Richard Coffman knew what he was talking about.
Anyway:
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Comrade Xu Qiliang, as a leader of the Party and the state, has delivered important remarks on international relations and strategic security on multiple occasions. Regarding the "Thucydides Trap" you mentioned, our verification confirms that in 2021, he did address his views on the United States and great power competition in relevant meetings or speeches. The following are the core points compiled from publicly available reports (the specific wording should be based on official releases):
Key points of Comrade Xu Qiliang's remarks on the United States and the "Thucydides Trap" in 2021:
He pointed out that the current international strategic landscape is undergoing profound changes. The United States and other Western countries are clinging to Cold War thinking, pursuing unilateralism and hegemonism, deliberately creating ideological confrontation and geopolitical competition, and attempting to contain and suppress China's development through means such as the "Indo-Pacific Strategy." Essentially, this is imposing the outdated logic of the "Thucydides Trap" on great power relations, which is a misinterpretation of historical laws and a reversal of the trend of the times.
He emphasized that China has always adhered to the path of peaceful development and firmly pursued a defensive national defense policy. China has no intention of engaging in a zero-sum game of "a rising power inevitably challenges the established power" with the United States. As the world's two largest economies and permanent members of the UN Security Council, cooperation between China and the US benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both. They should abandon confrontational thinking, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, manage differences and promote cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefit, and jointly safeguard world peace, stability, and prosperity.
He also pointed out that the "Thucydides Trap" is not historically inevitable. The key lies in whether great powers can transcend the logic of "a rising power inevitably challenges the established power," establish correct perceptions, and build a new type of international relations. China is willing to work with the United States to promote the building of a China-US relationship that is non-confrontational, mutually respectful, and mutually beneficial, providing new ideas for resolving the "Thucydides Trap."
Note:
The above content is a summary based on publicly available reports. The specific original text should be based on the full text of the speeches published by official media such as Xinhua News Agency and the People's Liberation Army Daily. To access the complete speech, it is recommended to obtain authoritative information through the following channels:
* Visit the China Military Online website (http://www.81.cn) or the Ministry of National Defense website (http://www.mod.gov.cn) and search for relevant meeting reports from 2021;
* Consult Volume 4 of "Xi Jinping on Governance of China" and news releases from the National People's Congress, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and important military meetings of that year;
* Follow special reports from central media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily.
For further verification, please provide more specific meeting context (such as the National People's Congress PLA delegation meeting, the Central Military Commission enlarged meeting, etc.) to facilitate a more precise search.
FWIW, Xu Qiliang said that war with the United States is inevitable because of the "Thucydides Trap", the theory that an incumbent power is not going to accept the rise of a competing power. In that case, the war would be started by the current ruling power, not by the rising power. I.e., by the US.
In 2014, Xi Jinping had already said "China fully understands that we need a peaceful and stable internal and external environment to develop ourselves. We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap - destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers … Our aim is to foster a new model of major country relations."
China kind of avoided the Thicydides trap already it looks like. Trump’s national security strategy document has indicated that the US is going to shore up around the Americas instead of doing the global hegemony strategy. And there have been statements made by US military people (Hegseth maybe) indicating that the US can’t militarily take on China near their coast anymore.
Okay they have a small limited amount of border disputes that are wrapped up in their nationalism. But they're not instigating coupe-detats is other countries to get favorable regimes, or significantly militarily meddling in other regions of the world to get favorable outcomes.
I'd say on the whole, given their size, military strength and economic connections, they've been remarkably restrained - borderline isolationist - when it comes to international interference. I don't see how they're a danger to democracy outside of their own borders - with the exception of maybe troll farms that are trying to shape cultural narratives
It doesn't matter what your experience with ordinary Chinese are. China is not a democracy, they are a fascist dictatorship. Only the senior party officials' opinion matters and they clearly behave as though they see the US as an adversary.
Just from reading the abstract, it feels like the authors didn't even attempt at trying to be objective. It hard to take what they're saying seriously when the language is so loaded and full of judgments. The kind of language you'd expect in an Op-Ed and not a research paper
I think you may be confused.
This is not a research paper, it's an op-ed in a law journal.
SSRN is where most draft law review/journal articles are published, which may be the source of confusion.
For most other fields, it is a source of draft/published science papers, but for law, it's pretty much any kind of article that is going to show up in a law review/journal.
Ah okay, thanks for explaining it! Just based on the name, journal and metadata it seemed like a research paper.. and I was honestly a bit surprised. But I obviously don't publish law research :))
From what you're saying it seems that for an insider this is clear. I guess that makes more sense then
It's also an submission to UC hastings law journal, as it also says right before that?
The automated tagging with a BUSL ID is just how BUSL's system for papers of any sort works.
For reference: I did my first year of law school at BUSL so i'm very familiar with how it all works there :)
This is also very common elsewhere - everything that IBM used to release got tagged with a technical report number too, for example, whether it was or not.
In any case - it is clearly a piece meant to be persuasive writing, rather than deep research.
Law journals contain a mix of essentially op-eds and deeper research papers or factual expositories/kind of thing. They are mostly not like scientific journals. Though some exist that are basically all op-ed or zero op-ed.
Which is a piece in UC law journal meant as an informative piece cataloguing how california courts adjudicate false advertising law. It does not really take a position.
Which is a piece in UC hastings law journal meant as, essentially an op ed, arguing that dog sniff tests are bullshit.
I picked both of these at random from stuff in UC hastings law journal that had been cited by the Supreme Court of California. There are things that are even more factual/take zero positions, and things that are even more persuasive writing/less researchy, than either of these, but they are reasonable representatives, i think
That's simply not true. People are compensated generously for land that is seized. I have friends that have had it happen, and you get a lot more money than if you were to sell the property - so it's a bit like winning the lottery. The amount of room for appeal is dictated by the nature of the seizure and the government "level". (ie if it's a national interest project you have little recourse, but if it's the city government then it's likely different)
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