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What would happen if the USA were to shrink its military and force other countries to protect their own borders?
Sadly the US pulling back on it’s military will make the world a more dangerous place.
Currently, the world is enjoying the longest single period of General Peace ever. Since the end of World War Two, the number of people who have died in a war is now just low, it’s at an all time low.
Part of that has been because the United States military has been so large. So large that many countries don’t bother to build military forces because they know the best military they could field wouldn’t be a match for the United States. So they, in many cases have not bothered trying to match the US military.
In the case of our Allies in NATO and other parts of the Western Alliance, they have been promised that the United States would always come to their defense. So many of those counties have token military forces.
The lead up of the causes of World War I were several. But one of the major factors was over militarization of the major powers. Even countries that were’t major powers often then had military forces much larger then we see around the world today. For example, in 1914 Belgium has 350,000 men in uniform. Today Belgium has about 30,000.
There were about ten major powers in 1914. Most of them had combined Army and Navy forces currently larger than the entire US military. Bear in mind, they all had populations fractions of the current United States.
Those ten major powers went to war in 1914. The results were not a fun period in world history.
20 years later World War Two was fought again by about ten major powers. At the time Japan was a county with about 1% of the economic power of current Japan…. she was still able to build a giant Navy with eight Aircraft carriers and 12 battleships. Not to mention the Imperial Japanese Army and it’s Six million men.
Today the world has about 60 nations with the economic and technical knowledge to build sizable modern military forces. If the American Allies think the promises of defense won’t count for anything, they will build forces to protect themselves. Then their potential enemies and others will do the same.
And modern military forces will include nuclear weapons. Currently there are Nine nuclear powers. There are about 20 nations that currently are not nuclear powers by their choice. The US nuclear deterrent was good enough for them. They can become nuclear powers at will. That list of countries is long. Canada, Germany, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and South Africa (who gave them up once before). Probably at least a few other NATO/EU powers could be added to that list, as well as a few former Soviet Republics.
A world where there 60 major armed powers…. that’s not going to be a fun world. They will find a way to fight major wars again. If just by accident. Remember, the immediate cause of World War I was a giant political blunder by the German Kaiser when he promised Austria the blank cheque and promptly went on vacation without finding out how the Austrians would use his promise of backing anything they demanded from Serbia. Austria then made demands that Serbia couldn’t agree too.
Then the road to war was quick and direct. Russia Mobilized as they had promised to defend Serbia from Austrian aggression. Austria and Germany then both mobilized in response to the Russians. France mobilized to support Russia. Finally the British had to go to war because France went to war. Later, the Germans got the Ottoman Turks to join the war to help with fighting Russia. Then the Allies got Italy to attack Austria. Later the US was slowly dragged into the war to support the British and French.
BTW, that’s the war with the largest single American battle ever was found. The US put a over a million men into the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. It was a more bloody affair for the US than any single other battle in American history. Americans like to remember Civil War and World War II battles, but not the biggest single battle it ever fought. It’s largely forgotten in the US today. Which is crazy, because while not the only cause…. the American defeat of the Germans in that battle was the proximate cause (final straw as it were) of the collapse of the German Empire.
Anyway, if we end up seeing the United States retreat into itself, the 60 current modem economic powers will start building large military forces again. That’s going to be something like 45 countries with Armies and Air forces of 500,000 men, 35 counties with large Navies with four to six modern aircraft carrier groups. And probably 25 nuclear powers, if not more. And that’s also going to be a world where a country without the technical ability but with large cash reserves will be able to purchase nuclear weapons on the open market.
In such a world, the entire world is in a more dangerous position. That includes the United States.
– MrGravityPants
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What is the gist of Jordan Peterson’s views and opinions?
It’s hard to give a concise summary of his views. He has a lot of views, many of them are quite strong, and none of them is particularly revolutionary, but we don’t have a neat and tidy label that encompasses all of them.
So, first of all, he’s a traditionalist. As a psychologist, he’s followed in the vein of KarlCarl Jung, and Jung’s theories dominate pretty much everything Peterson does. He believes humans have a collective subconscious and that world religions were/are humans’ attempts at sorting out those subconscious archetypes as best they could.
If you take the common thread out of the world’s most popular and influential religions, you would end up with something relatively socially conservative, which is probably why Peterson is often considered a social conservative (though he doesn’t use that label for himself). He believes the nuclear family of husband+wife+kids is the smallest viable unit for society. He believes men and women have different roles and strengths. He believes women should be venerated as mothers. He believes women are not attracted to sensitive, harmless men, but rather are attracted to tamed “monsters” (men who have the power to do great harm, but restrain themselves).
He became famous for opposing legislation which he thought would force people to use a person’s preferred (even made-up) pronouns. (Personally I believe he is wrong in his interpretation of that law, but that’s not the point). In spite of that, he’s never said anything directly opposed to LGBT people. He’s weakly endorsed same-sex couples getting married and having children (with the caveat that they should be aware that the children should have a role model of the opposite sex).
Lately he’s become most vocal when talking against what he describes as “post-modernists” and “neo-Marxists”. He seems to very strongly believe that human society is inherently hierarchical, and trying to build a society contrary to that (e.g., where we aim for equality of outcome) would require a tremendous amount of violence to achieve. He doesn’t like identity politics (broadly speaking, he doesn’t think people should be striving for more power for “women” or “persons of colour”), but rather thinks we should be treated as individuals. Because of this, he’s attracted a lot of hate from the left, and those invested in social justice in particular.
In spite of all that, he doesn’t perceive himself as being terribly right-wing. I believe he considers himself a classical liberal, supporting the primacy of the individual. He is strongly in favour of personal rights as well as personal responsibilities, and he credits his popularity among young men to him being one of the only prominent speakers who talks about responsibility. He believes personal responsibilities are equally important to personal rights. (For example, he believes at least a little bit in property rights, but also that those who own property have a responsibility to make use of the property responsibly and not neglect it. Because of that, he also seems to support squatters’ rights)
He has, for many years, provided a “future self-authoring program”, which is supposed to help people “sort themselves out” and have a direction, with accountability, in their lives. The book he’s now promoting is a collection of 12 rules (with discussion) about what he feels are important things to do to have a meaningful life. Here’s a list of the rules, so you can see what to expect
One thing I’ve noticed about Peterson’s views is that he often talks about what societies and individuals should do in terms of what works, which again is a traditionalist point of view. E.g., on the point of about how mothers should be venerated, he preaches it on the grounds that societies that do not venerate motherhood fail. I.e., they decline, collapse, or are otherwise subsumed by other societies. It’s not clear to what degree these sorts of wise lessons about the past will continue to hold true about the future. In modern society, we seem less interested in whether our society will survive and more interested in whether it is fair. Fairness is not something that Peterson talks a lot about.
I can’t say whether his views and his writing will suit you well. I find him sometimes difficult to untangle, sometimes a bit loony, but always interesting and honest.
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How does one acquire a tolerance for Fentanyl even though it’s 100X stronger than morphine?
Months 0-12: Party with an occasional 5-10mg oxycodone (Percocet) pill, maybe once a week.
Months 12-18: Run out of that prescription; seek out some oxycontin (oxycodone continuous release) or MS contin (morphine continuous release) at higher doses. Now they’ve got a whole Saturday of euphoria – play some video games, take a walk, cook and eat a nice dinner, all while feeling better than they ever have, even when they received their first kiss from their very first crush (literally – opioids do the LITERAL exact same thing to the brain that happens to the brain in those circumstances, except moreso – so it creates feelings that feel better to the user than anything they’ve ever felt). Except buying pharms off the street is expensive! Eh, won’t break the bank at once a week or twice a month.
Months 18-24: Tolerance begins to rear its ugly head. Now it take 1.5x – 2x the dose to do the same thing, even though they’re only dosing once a week. And if they have a particularly bad day at work, might throw in a smaller dose that evening too, because “I don’t have a problem.”
[Time passes depending on finance and tolerance until Month n]
Month n: Gets a little too expensive. They decide to stop.
Month n + two days: Holy god, this is the worst feeling they’ve ever experienced. It’s like the flu, but they can’t take advil or tylenol because it doesn’t do anything for the aches or pains. They can’t take nyquil or benadryl because it doesn’t help them fall asleep. Their brain has become accustomed to the very chemicals they’ve been supplementing it with, which happen to have a great deal to do with pain sensitivity, nervousness, mood, sleep cycle, the ability to sleep, etc. Imagine a flu worst than any you’ve ever had, except you can’t take any OTC meds to make any of it better, and you can’t sleep for periods of 48-72 hours straight. And you know that taking a small pill will fix it all immediately.
Month n – n+2: Cycle repeats and intensifies. Finances begin to be a real problem.
Month n+2 – month h: The period it takes them to discover heroin. At this point, their effective dose of heroin is approximately 1/20 (if they’re snorting) to 1/50 (if they move directly to injecting) the cost of their opiate of choice to this point. “Jackpot!” They think. They can use this to taper off, and it won’t cost them but maybe a few hundred bucks!
Months h – h+?: Heroin is a much stronger opioid than they’re used to, and as such it’s raised their tolerance, which means the severity of their withdrawal symptoms. Also, it was so cheap to begin with, they relaxed their rule about using only 1-2x a week and are now using once every other day, then once a day, then several times a day (especially if they moved from a continuous release form of pharmaceutical to heroin with a four-hour bioavailable half-life). Now, when they try to quit, they can’t sleep for close to a week straight. Trying to be functional at any form of employment is impossible during withdrawal, so they are now effectively trapped. They need money to avoid the worst pain of their lives, and to get money they need to work, and to work they need to use the drug. The cycle becomes deeper and deeper. Depression sets in as they realize this could be a lifelong cycle. Overdoses may begin to occur, likely accidentally.
(It’s important to note here that tolerance has risen considerably. It’s no longer the case that the user is now spending less money on heroin than they were their original drug of choice – in fact they’re often spending many times more than they ever were. I have known people who were literally injecting ~$450 per day into their veins – that’s about four grams of heroin per day – which gives you an idea of the tolerance mechanism with opioids. This was not to get particularly “high” either; it was simply to stave off withdrawal and remain functional)
Until the street availability of fentanyl and stronger opioids occurred over the past 3-4 years, this was the point where many users either ended up killing themselves accidentally or on purpose, becoming homeless, beginning opioid maintenance treatment, etc. Most people can’t keep up a habit affecting their lifestyles to the point where they need a needle in their arm 5-6 times a day and need to pay > $3000/week – to unreliable street dealers who are often addicts themselves and as such will often steal their money or cut the product such that the addict needs to purchase even more.
HOWEVER, to finally answer your question, now we have fentanyl and carfentanyl and ohmefentanyl. Suddenly, the addict has “options” again, if you can call them options. Instead of requiring 4g of heroin each day (~12-15g morphine equivalent, depending), the addict now “only” needs ~12-15mg fentanyl (pharmacology has some complications here, since the half-life of fentanyl is much shorter than that of heroin, so the addict will likely need to re-dose). Carfentanyl? Much less. Ohmefentanyl? Well, think about the above cycle repeating, but instead of tolerance rising due to heroin, think about tolerance rising due to fentanyl. Eventually the user wouldn’t mind switching to carfentanyl, and the OD risk is FAR lower for him than for an opioid-naive individual because his tolerance is literally now tens of thousands the norm. You can imagine a similar evolution taking place for a user of carfentanyl -> ohmefentanyl.
That’s the appeal to the user. I’m not saying I support these horrendous drugs, especially because drug dealers tend to mix several of these products together to get a reputation for having “stronger stuff,” and users without testing kits or access to safe environments end up dead as a result. I’m just trying to explain the cycle and the mindset.
But treating these people in opioid maintenance programs is going to require rewriting the entire protocol. AFAIK most Methadone clinics really won’t prescribe more than ~200mg methadone per day (some states have regulations FAR lower than that), which might maintain someone using ~7-8 grams of heroin per day.
If someone walks into a methadone clinic doing a gram or two of fentanyl or carfentanyl each day, I don’t even know if they’d be treatable. Methadone has side effects that become much more dangerous the higher the daily dose, and it’s VERY easy to overdose at those higher doses. Plus its half-life is something like 36 hours, meaning if you take it once a day its effects compound over five consecutive days until you’re at your true maintenance level of effect.
If anyone out there is considering opioids for fun, just … don’t. Yes, DARE lied in school, and most drugs are considerably less harmful than they were/are portrayed to be. But there are exceptions. Opioids and methamphetamine are two biggies – just stay away as a matter of course.
– FrontColonelShirt
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