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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • With almost a million people migrating out of Greece and tourism bouncing back hard after covid, of course unemployment will be lower in Greece. But outside of tourism, Greece is a zombie country.

    Most of the people migrating out of Greece are young and educated. This will significantly affect the future of the country, both from a demographic point of view and policy.

    For the first time ever, right wing parties got over 50% of the votes. Greece is a historically leftist country. The governing conservative party has like 3 right parties, further on its right in the parliament. Neonazis, christian talibans, you name it.

    And while the governing party is trying to appeal to centists(in order to keep the left busy with in fighting), they also pander to the far right. And the worst part? The government has demolished freedom of press, increased spying on citizens and opposition, etc.

    The stage is set for a greek Orban, but the current prime minister lacks the charisma and appeal. The infrastructure is there. Hopefully this will also reignite the leftist reaction instincts. Which is why the current prime minister is keeping a relatively low profile in regards to social issues(antiwokeness).

    In fact, he made gay marriage legal in Greece and all the European leaders rejoiced. Except the only reason it wasnt already legal was because of his party. All other parties(except the neonazis and the communists) supported gay marriage. Many members of his party voted against it, but the law passed because the opposition supported it.







  • I dont think Turkey will do anything bad with Cyprus(ie third invasion), any time soon, that would draw too much attention and reaction. The kurds in Syria seem to be close to a deal with the Syrian government.

    However Turkey had a non 0% chance* of getting ready to cause an incident by invading or disputing greek islands(basically what Russia did in Ukraine) but after the Russian invasion, the strong and meaningful reaction by the West(instead of the usual stern letters of disapproval) and the whole F-35 fiasco, Turkey atm seems to have cooled off atm. The Russian invasion was one of the best things to have happened to Greece.

    • Check Erdogan’s comments about how Turkey might come one night(to Greece) and how their new missiles could reach Athens. Yup, thats the big ally of Europe, protector of liberal values and democracy, the wall that will stop foreign Imperial ambitions.


  • You dont need the F-35 just for the russian planes, you need it for the russian ground to air missiles and radars(and targets that those things might protect). While you can suppress enemy air defences with non stealthy aircraft, that is much riskier and much more limited in scope. Which is why Russia isnt using its massive airforce in a way that is expected(by western standards). Even Ukraine’s very limited anti-air capability has shut down the ukranian airspace to russian aircraft.

    A stealth aircraft allows you to penetrate much deeper into enemy airspace and/or in a safer manner. It unlocks a completely different mission capability.

    This is also useful against airplanes. Imagine if european planes have a radar with 120km range and a missile with 60km range. The equivalent russian planes have a 100km range radar and a 50km range missile. So while the european planes have the advantage, this advantage is anything mindblowing.

    Now imagine a european stealth aircraft, with the same missile and radar but because it is stealth, it can only be detected within 20km of a russian aircraft. That means that the stealth plane can go in, shoot a missile and get out before the russian plane even detects it. The advantage is immense and allows the stealth aircraft to be orders of magnitude more effective.

    There is a reason why everyone, including China, is spending billions to make stealth airplanes. The only reason people think stealth is irrelevant is because of russian propaganda, because Russia is too poor to produce stealth airplanes. The thing is, designing AND producing a stealth airplane is very expensive. There are a few european designs but those things wont be coming out for another 10+ years at the earliest(or in 20 years if we want to be realistic). In the meantime, Europe decided to use the f-35, which is a very capable and cheap aircraft(actually cheaper than rafale, etc).

    It doesnt help that we have 2 different 6th generation airplane designs in Europe. It’s a clusterfuck. Maybe Trump will help Europe get its shit together.


  • Partially but the big advantage of being in a big alliance, is sharing stuff. That is the most effective way of progressing.

    Take microchips for example. Taiwan is making them, with european machines and the european machines use american technology. Taiwan is able to create cutting edge microchips because they are allied and dependent on their allies. Similarly, a lot of russian technology has its roots in the soviet era, when russians had access to scientists/technology from all over eastern Europe.

    Apes together strong. Thats the strength of alliances. But if you have a bad faith ape, that ape can destroy the effort of all other apes. Thats the weakness of alliances. For strategically important things(jet planes), you might be willing to take an efficiency hit, by creating things independently for security reasons. Which is why the french have rafale.

    But keep making cutting edge things in order to maintain and improve your defence industry capabilities is very expensive. Thats why Canada doesnt have a jet plane industry, even though they used to have a very capable fighter jet industry. Or you could be like Russia, where you can design new planes but dont have the money to produce them, so you are basically spending a lot of money, creating one off planes.




  • First, what the fuck, but second, how ready is NATO to turn on supposedly one of their own?

    Turkey has been threatening to invade Greece since forever. Thats why both countries joined NATO together, at the same time(in 1952). And while there is some confidence regarding article 5, you cant have your country existence depend on “hope”. Thats why recently Greece signed a separate defence agreement with France.

    And generally Greece is one of the few NATO countries that consistently spends more than the required NATO 2%. It generally tries to maintain a 1:3 ratio when it comes to Turkey military spending which might not be enough to beat Turkey 1:1 but it is enough to make Turkey think twice about doing anything weird. The issue is that Turkey is 8x bigger and not that poor anymore(while Greece is smaller and poorer than in the past).

    I keep getting told that the “magic Article 5 argument isn’t a guarantee of support. There are no requirements to go to war for an ally, just pre-emptive permission to join in. It’s still voluntary, and few are so stupid as to stand against the [Empire!] USA!” (Brackets mine).

    All agreements between nations are “voluntary”. You cant force a country to do anything, they are a sovereign state, ie they can do whatever they want. The article 5 has very strongly written language and it is one of the most “mandated” agreements you can have. But ultimately, it is about trust and belief in it.

    Thats why Russia’s plan is to erode the belief in article 5 though hybrid warfare(and trump, if you think trump is compromised). Let’s say Russia goes and occupies 500sq meters of a baltic state. Would the US send 10 aircraft carriers and declare war on Russia? Maybe they will and then Russia would go “oups, my bad, didnt notice the map line”. Or maybe they wont. But even the discussion over whether NATO allies would strongly react to such a development, would corrode belief in article 5.



  • There is nothing to get. It is even more basic than philosophy 101, yet it thinks it is some sort of insightful writing. It is cringe and embarrassing, kinda like a 15yo who just read a reddit post on /r/philosophy and then got high and wrote a movie script.

    I do think it is a “so bad, it is actually good” kind of movie. It is almost like a sarcastic movie, making fun of pretentious movies. Maybe this will become the narrative in the future, especially once Coppola is dead.

    It will become a cult classic, but not for the reasons Coppola wants.