That's a simplistic look at the situation. For NK, having a nuclear deterrent is the end game. You can "diplomacy" all you want, but that's what they will work towards, because that's by far the best card that they can possibly get a this point. You might slow it down, but eventually they'll make it happen. We don't have a lot of leverage here. It's not like we can hurt their economy by slapping on sanctions. NK is run by very, very selfish, cruel people who have repeated proven that they are willing to starve their own citizens if that's what it takes to keep their stranglehold on their country.

On one hand the US can keep the status quo, and let China deal with their nuclear weapons program. That avoids a costly and deadly war that will probably kickstart a global recession. On the other hand, there's no telling how stable the Kim's regime will be in the long term. A nuclear armed dictatorship with an internal power struggle could be a lot worse than dealing with the problem up front.

Ideally China would step up their game, but I think they are still in denial because they don't want to deal with refugees and they don't want a US friendly country on their boarder.

I didn't find in what you wrote an explanation of what you meant by American aggression. Except maybe, for this, which seemed only to confirm my interpretation of your view that America is the perpetual antagonist, and other countries merely take defensive postures in response to American aggression, which the US media describes to the American public as aggression.

This is an especially strange thing to cite, because the headline of the CNN article is: "US bombers fly over Korean Peninsula in response to N. Korea's ICBM test" (italics mine). That is, the US bomber fly over wasn't an unprovoked act of aggression. It was part of a reciprocal cycle of proportionate call and response engagement.

So I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that, if the US backed down and stopped carrying out actions that are its deterrent against NK changing the status quo, that the broader situation would improve, and therefore the US is somehow at fault for perpetuating the problem?

This is terribly off topic. (Someone already facing a mandatory minimum life sentence has no rational reason not to kill the police officers who are trying to capture him.)

The most optimistic estimate I've seen is that a million civilians in Seoul would die, and it'd only be that low because of bomb shelters, not because of any effective response. It also assumed the payload is conventional and delivered only from their largest bore HARTS and newer missile launchers, rather than an all-out strike including chemical and nuclear weapons.

~Um, actually~

The problem was the number of planes and the new strategic and tactical importance of the Air Force. The US was still operating planes from WW2. In terms of raw aircraft numbers, the US peaked during the Korean War, not before or after it.

What basis do you have to say that's North Korea's end game? I've found a few sources which claim North Korea is open to disarmament.

You've been reading hysterical nonsense. This article lines up with most decent military analysis I've seen: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-no-one-in-korea-wants-war-2013-4

It would be very bad obviously, but only the northern bits of Soul are even in range of most of the artillery. If they can deliver a nuke, that changes everything, and that's the whole point. Their ICBMS are getting good enough that in ten years, they could conceivably hit the west coast of the US with a weapon. That's a couple of orders of magnitude larger problem than the current (probably) threat.

Are you just trying to pull off some blatant equivocation here? The US had a huge number of obsolete planes left over from WWII. What the hell does that have to do with Cold War build up? The US was totally unprepared for a war in the Pacific, and had largely dropped the ball on military expansion at that point. Korea is what caused them the change gears and start Cold War military expansion.

And with all that being said, The KPA got steamrolled. The only thing that saved them was China's willingness to throw an utterly stupid number of troops at UN forces. The strategic bombing campaign utterly crushed northern infrastructure to the point where there simply weren't any decent targets at the end. And this is with B-29s. The new bombers were kept as a strategic deterrence for a major war with Russia.

The point is that the US wasn't really spread thin during the Korean War. They were simply unprepared for and did not expect a war in the South Pacific, as most of their forces were focused on Europe. They also weren't willing to commit too heavily to Korea, because they were concerned that it was a diversion for an attack on Europe.

No real Cold War build up had began at that point. The US military had been drastically cut back in the late forties and it took some time to spool things back up.

Do shows of strength count as American aggression? That's what I was trying to get at, because the U.S. afaik isn't doing much besides that.

Well frankly I think you're being a little pedantic about sourcing here, because I believe I was only using that source to argue that the bombing runs are indeed displays of strength; I wasn't trying to use it as a single source for every point.

However, there are also sources about unprovoked demonstrations.

As well, you can read in this:


(From North Korea and Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia)

Meh. Counter artillery fire and air strikes would silence NK batteries in about 24 hours. The northern outskirts of Soul would have a bad day, but it wouldn't be all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know what you mean by "displays of strength". Are you using that term to criticize the US? That just sounds like deterrent, to me.

Huh. I don't really see how this describes "unprovoked aggression". It seems like the Obama administration made a series of miscalculations due to domestic US politics that changed the status quo in a way that led to a temporary escalation, and North Korea misinterpreting domestic US politics as a slight against it (mostly in the first paragraph).

And there are parts of this that are misleading. It's true that US intelligence services acknowledged that North Korea "did not appear to be making preparations to attack anyone", but it wasn't because the US expected an attack on Alaska and California that it set up anti-missile weaponry. Hagel was perfectly clear that North Korea didn't yet possess ICBMs which would be capable of attacking the US. He had other strategic reasons for doing so: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/world/asia/us-to-bolster-missile-defense-against-north-korea.html

What the **** is he talking about North Korea for?

Last night I met a script supervisor. She works with directors to make sure a movie has the right continuity, and one scene fits the next. It’s a fascinating job, hobnobbing with top directors, writers, and celebrities. No two assignments are the same. How do you get that kind of career? She earned a degree in anthropology and just “fell into it” through a series of events.

I know the feeling. I majored in economics, got an MBA, worked at a bank, then a phone company, and became a cartoonist.

For every person who studies something specific, such as the law or medicine, and actually ended up in that sort of career, I think there are five who let chance pick their careers. That works out more often than you’d think, but you can’t recommend it as a career strategy. Instead, I recommend a general formula for success. Allow me to explain.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.

Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. I didn’t spend much time with the script supervisor, but it was obvious that her verbal/writing skills were in the top tier as well as her people skills. I’m guessing she also has a high attention to detail, and perhaps a few other skills in the mix. Probably none of those skills are best in the world, but together they make a strong package. Apparently she’s been in high demand for decades.

At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too.

It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.

What are your three?

The Trump Talent Stack

Posted November 28th, 2016 @ 7:55am in #Trump #kanye2020

As I explained in my book, there are two ways to make yourself valuable. The first way is to become the best at some specific skill, the way Tiger Woods dominated golf. But not many of us can be Tiger Woods. So that path is unavailable to 99% of the world.

I recommend a different approach. Most people can – with practice – develop a variety of skills that work well together. I call this idea the Talent Stack.

For example, I’m a famous syndicated cartoonist who doesn’t have much artistic talent, and I’ve never taken a college-level writing class. But few people are good at both drawing and writing. When you add in my ordinary business skills, my strong work ethic, my risk tolerance, and my reasonably good sense of humor, I’m fairly unique. And in this case that uniqueness has commercial value.

Now consider president-elect Trump. He doesn’t have one talent that is best-in-the-world, but he does have one of the best talent stacks I have ever seen. Consider all the ways in which Trump is better than average, but not best-in-the-world. I’ll list the obvious ones.

Public Speaking: Trump is an engaging speaker, and he knows how to entertain a crowd. But no one would say he’s one of the best speakers in the world.

Humor: Trump is funny. But he isn’t Seinfeld funny. He’s just funnier than most people. That’s all he needs.

Intelligence: Trump is smart. He probably wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton on a standardized IQ test, but he’s smarter than 90% of the world, and probably far more. That’s good enough for a talent stack.

Knowledge of Politics: Compared to career politicians and political pundits, Trump looks under-informed. But he probably knows more about politics than 95% of the public. And that seems to be enough. Advisors will fill in the knowledge gap.

Branding: Trump is a world-class marketer and brander. He probably isn’t the best in the world at those things. But he’s very, very good.

Hiring and Firing: One of the most important skills a president needs is the ability to hire good advisors and – equally important – fire the mistakes. Trump has plenty of experience doing both. He probably isn’t the best in the world at hiring and firing, but I’ll bet he’s in the top 10% just from practice.

Strategy: Trump won the presidency in large part because his non-standard strategy worked great. He focused on free media, big rallies, and the key swing states. That was good enough to win. Trump probably isn’t the best strategist in the world, but he’s very good.

Social Media: Trump understands social media in a way that people of his generation usually don’t. Trump might not be the most Internet-savvy politician of all time, but he’s definitely in the top 10%.

Persuasion: Trump might be the most persuasive person I have ever observed in the act of persuading. But keep in mind that persuasion requires a talent stack too. Trump is persuasive because he combines a bunch of minor skills into one big persuasive toolbox. For example, Trump is good at reading people, good at being provocative to attract energy, and good at sales technique. He probably isn’t the best in the world at any of those minor skills, but when you add them together, along with lots of other subsidiary persuasion skills, and now the Office of the President – Trump might be the most persuasive person on Earth.

Risk management: Trump understands risk. We see it in his business dealings as he isolates different lines of business in their own corporate structures so they can fail without bringing down the rest. We also know that Trump enters businesses that have an unlimited upside potential with limited risk. And he prefers gambling with other people’s money. Trump probably understands risk management better than 90% of the public.

Trump’s critics have a hard time understanding Trump’s success because he lacks any best-in-the-world talents. They mock his simple speaking style, his lack of policy knowledge, his provocative Tweets and more. But as they criticize the trees they lose sight of the forest. Trump has no trees in his forest that are the best trees in the world. But his forest is one of the best forests in the world.

The takeaway here is that anyone can develop a more valuable talent stack. Just figure out which talents go well together. If in doubt, add public speaking to your stack first. Learn a second language if you can – but only a useful language. And persuasion makes you more effective at nearly everything you do. Those are just examples. You’re the best judge of which skills you need.

President-elect Trump might not be a good role model in terms of his personal life. And you might not care for his policies. But when it comes to a role model for success, you will never see better. Trump’s talent stack is outstanding.

On a related note, Kanye West is another good example of a talent stack. He isn’t the best in the world at singing, dancing, writing, or any other skill you would assume is necessary for his job. But you won’t see many people with Kanye’s combination of talents, including his business acumen, his drive, and his knack for self-promotion. Kanye has been building his talent stack for years. And now he’s adding politics. You probably think Kanye has no chance to be president because of his current mental/emotional health hospitalization. But you’d be wrong. Hillary Clinton proved that health concerns are not disqualifying.

I’m not going to predict a future Kanye West presidency. But if you think it is unlikely, you don’t understand the power of talent stacks. It is possible that Kanye is doing nothing in the hospital but recovering. But I like to think he is using that time to learn Spanish. That’s how Master Persuaders roll.

You can read more about talent stacks and the value of systems over goals in my book.

The amusing thing about this is that it implies that bull**** priests are good at bull****ing each other.

Whats a strat for?

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-north-korea-would-retaliate

Stratfor are among the people saying it wouldn't be "as bad", mostly because North Korea would be unwise to expend all of their firepower destroying South Korea instead of reserving it for defence. But, nevertheless, all of Seoul is within North Korean artillery range, and North Korea could devastate Seoul if they chose to do it. That's not even considering NBCs which North Korea is known to possess and would certainly use if they ever reached the point of shelling Seoul.

Yes, the US was spread thin:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/redacted-testimony-fully-explains-why-general-macarthur-was-fired-180960622/

The concern was that the US had too much territory to cover and not enough planes (#) to do it. The fact that those planes were obsolete is irrelevant, because some amount of air superiority is still better than having none at all.

Yes, I agree; the US quite handily levelled anything resembling a structure in North Korea. And if, while they were doing that, the Soviets tried to take the rest of Germany, history probably would have recorded the US "victory" somewhat differently.

You original point was that the US can't commit in Korea with out depleting their strength elsewhere. You used Korea as an example of that because they were stretched thin "despite the WW2 + Cold War buildup and conscription."

That's ridiculous. The reason they were stretched thin, is that the armed forces had seriously declined in the late forties, to an extent that US leadership didn't really appreciate. Even more significantly, the US was strategically totally unprepared for a war in South Asia. They were over extended and their supply lines were vulnerable because they were fighting right in the back yard of the two other largest military powers in the world. The US only committed a small number of it's ground forces in Korea, for that very reason. It's not so much that they couldn't win a war with Russia, it's just that they couldn't do it easily in Korea, because it was incredibly disadvantageous strategically.

Most of the US's planes were obsolete World War II surplus. I don't know where you got your stat about US air power peaking numerically during Korea, but it's almost certainly wrong. Likely, you read that the Air Force's number peaked during the Korean war, but the USAF didn't exist until 1947. If the US had been building up it's military power instead of actively hemorrhaging it, and had been at all strategically prepared for a fight in the Pacific, things might have been different, but the whole situation caught the US on it's back foot.

The other thing you have to remember is that the US hasn't seriously committed to a war since World War, and even then it was at a small fraction of the amount that Germany or Russia committed. They fielded and lost a relatively minor percentage of their troops.

President Trump reportedly once summoned former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus to kill a fly in the Oval Office during a meeting, according to a Friday report.

A source told The Washington Post that once during an Oval Office meeting, a fly began buzzing around Trump’s head, distracting him. Trump eventually summoned Priebus and told him to kill the fly. As a senior White House staffer, the chief of staff would not ordinarily be tasked with such matters.

Anthony Scaramucci seems plenty busy with his duties as communications director for President Donald Trump's White House, but apparently he's got time enough to help make an upcoming HBO movie.

The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Scaramucci, when he's not trading inappropriate barbs with hostile reporters or former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, is co-executive producing a TV movie based on disgraced football coach Joe Paterno.

The movie had been titled Happy Valley, but HBO is seeking a different name because a BBC/Netflix crime drama has already claimed that title. HBO now refers to the movie, set for airing in 2018, as the "Untitled Barry Levinson Project," since Levinson is directing.

The movie stars Al Pacino as Paterno, the former head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football team who was fired, a casualty of a sex abuse scandal involving his defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky.

Also... that facial expression Tucker has makes him look like he suffers from constipation.

K = conv(ext K ∪ extr K) ⊂ conv X ⊂ K

Dilbert is a philosophically interesting work because, in fact, the PHB is the "hero". While the PHB is playing a minimum effort, minimum accountability, highly political role, directed for his rational self interest, Dilbert and the other engineers are "losers", irrationally frustrated by their employer mainly because it keeps them from working as hard as they'd like.

The PHB-as-hero is clearly authorial intent, given that Adams is a Randian ****head who's basically said as much in the past (plus he is apparently an atrocious, abusive employer). Despite that, most people read Dilbert and the other engineers as protagonists, who are unfairly picked on by a diverse cast of sociopaths.

I mean, it's all trash. Not just Dilbert, but the management books Adams wrote under the brand (which I've also read) and also his more religious works (like God's Debris). But it's just interesting how plastic his works are, up to the readers perspective and life experiences.

What the **** is he talking about North Korea for?

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-presidents

lol

Tragically, he applied this same logic a decade later to argue that Trump (a bull**** priest if there ever was one) would be a good president, for the same reason that he is a good cartoonist:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/153775344216/the-trump-talent-stack

I mean to me this whole philosophy seems like a way to rationalize mediocrity, avoid hard questions, and confirm your survivor bias.

It's not terrible advice. Worrying about how good you are at something, instead of just working at developing the skill, can be paralyzing.

It's not terrible advice. Worrying about how good you are at something, instead of just working at developing the skill, can be paralyzing.

The hilarious part in my mind is that this seems to force him to support Donald Trump.

Is this the mentality of all financially successful Republican voters?

"He's a successful businessman. What have you done with your life?"

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/6/26/8849925/obama-obamacare-history-presidents

lol

"On domestic issues Obama is the most consequential and successful Democratic president since LBJ. It isn't close."