Very interesting, well laid out. Lists the actual stakes. On a tangent from Easton's chapter, he writes:

A PLA drone flies over the Penghu Islands near Taiwan’s main island and is shot down by a ROC Air
Force F-16. Beijing declares a “selective, temporary maritime and air exclusion zone” around Taiwan and floods the Taiwan Strait with thousands of fishing vessels, some of which turn out to be unmanned, and remotely piloted aircraft. Clashes begin and quickly.

I think it will be something very much like that, though can you even shoot down a drone with an F-16? They're small & they zip around.

Interesting to note that the Taiwan TV show Zero Day speculates on similar scenarios:

A Chinese war plane goes missing near Taiwan. China sends swarms of military boats and planes for a blockade as Taiwan goes on a war footing. Panic ensues on the streets of Taipei....

The drama focuses on several scenarios Taiwan might face in the days leading up to a Chinese attack, including a global financial collapse, the activation of Chinese sleeper agents and panicked residents trying to flee the nation.

“Without freedom, Taiwan is not Taiwan,” a fictional Taiwanese president says in a televised speech in the show’s trailer, urging unity after declaring war on China.

The live broadcast then gets abruptly cut off, replaced by a feed of a Chinese state television anchor calling for Taiwanese to surrender and to report “hidden pro-independence activists” to Chinese soldiers after their landing in Taiwan.

A PLA drone flies over the Penghu Islands near Taiwan’s main island and is shot down by a ROC Air
Force F-16. Beijing declares a “selective, temporary maritime and air exclusion zone” around Taiwan and floods the Taiwan Strait with thousands of fishing vessels, some of which turn out to be unmanned, and remotely piloted aircraft. Clashes begin and quickly.

I think it will be something very much like that, though can you even shoot down a drone with an F-16? They're small & they zip around.

Ok, searched that, of all the technologies developed, raptors were the best, but that got banned due to understandable animal rights concerns. Supposedly you can shoot them down with missiles, but it's bloody expensive compared to a drone. Which leaves:

jamming: seems the most logical, but in the not-to-distant-future there will be autonomous drones with no communications links to the operator or a satellite

zapping: a burst of high-powered microwaves to stun a swarm of commercial drones while frying their electrical components

Which enters the murky electromagnetic sphere of technology. Wouldn't it be good to research the consequences of doing that before launching it as a military weapon?

The World After Taiwan’s Fall

Download the PDF here.

I'm almost halfway through it. Chapter One (Ian Easton) is downright apocalyptic!

This was published in Feb. of 23 and already feels dated in some of the scenarios. I'll finish it tomorrow while I'm pretending to be grading videos.

I had a vision last night while I couldn't sleep, and I normally wouldn't describe something like this on a public forum, but it's relevant to your comment and Terence McKenna once said, I can't remember the clip I heard it in but maybe this is it, that he'll never keep a secret. He'll tell everything, and so I'll spill the beans in his memory.

Admire the thought-exploration sentiment. Makes me curious ...

I was basically experiencing humanity, all of us, on the earth, going about our days, feeling the hardship and heartbreak and misery. I couldn't sleep and felt weird and uncomfortable so maybe my misery wanted company. Who knows.

Thanks for putting that out there coz sometimes i get that too. Everything i feel, everyone else feels, to some extent, & vice versa. I'm kinda aware but not aware - i sense that there's something blocking full-awareness. Maybe as a protective fail-safe to stop me doing my head in. But i'm still suspicious as to whether that protective/blocking mechanism is actually in my best interests or not.

The Power doesn't evaporate - it goes somewhere concept applies to a lot of things - maybe all things - including suffering. There's a capped amount of suffering in this world that is fluidly distributed at any given time amongst the population of entities able to feel it. We've all experienced suffering in some form, we're all capable of empathizing when others feel it - or dialing it down. Somewhere on the spectrum. But sum of the individual experiences of suffering (or power) add up to the total amount contained in the spectrum.

I felt us, all of us, times 7 billion or whatever we are, going about our day. Desert, jungle, city, countryside, even went to the north pole. I sort of wandered the earth experiencing life as others, many others. Not individually, but individually. It's very hard to describe.

I think you're describing the essence of existence. We're individual - but we're not - we're part of a whole lot bigger thing. How much bigger (or smaller)? is the open question. It's one of those symbiotic dynamics - that's indisputable - you can't have one without the other.

I've done this before. It's a not quite asleep and not quite awake state, and the sense of reality and, call it hallucination if you wish, are as strong as any drug I've ingested can produce. When this happens, it is quite literally a trip.

Well described. A lot strange-shit goes down in that transition zone. Occasionally you'll get nights where that's your whole sleep, which sounds like what you had/have had from time to time.

I'm suspicious of sleep as a game-sumulationist. Why do we need to sleep? I see it as a potential trash cleaning/update downloading exercise from the other side. I did try testing this theory. Went 3 nights in that half-awake/half-aleep - it's very weird territory. The tricky bit is rendering that back in the so called real world where others can relate to it. You've contemporaneously recorded that experience - in my book, that's very valuable information.

And then something really weird happened.

The earth on which we exist, on its skin, the skin flipped inward. It's like if you had a tennis ball or any sphere and could flip the skin inside out. That's what happened. So we were all living on the inside of this sphere.

This is realthinking inside the box/circle.

And that had a profound effect on my perception of our situation. It is, I think, a more accurate visualization of what we are and what our world is. It is an enclosed system to a large degree, particularly in a sociological sense.

Very much so (which is good circumstantial evidence for game-simulation). It's an enclosed system sociologically & physically. We do live on the underside of a tiny dome - that's simple physics. The boundary of the earth is not the dirt/concrete bit we're glued to by gravity, it's the atmosphere limit above us. We live trapped within that tennis ball universe.

Maybe if we thought of oursevles as coexising on the inside of a sphere, in an enclosed space, rather than on the outside, we would more easily find ways to get along.

Theoretically, we could. I think that's the great thing about the jury system - people come from all walks of life, with various prejudices, but in a group-dynamic, when they're given the information, they will mostly park those petty thoughts, tend towards doing the right thing. We all want to be seen as basically moral, sensible people in a group-gaze situation. We have a true-north sense of what's right.

Though i worry the jury system is not what controls events in our current dome. Feels more like a Plato's Cave/Truman Show style reality. Doesn't that confined space enable it to be manipulated by established puppet-masters? What do you think humans could do to break that shackle?

Plato/Truman both ended up escaping - but are you saying that it's possible that there may be no escape to the outside? Or the escape is in terms of perception/awarenes? Even we're stuck inside a closed-system we can still find the answers within? Guess you won't find em any other place if it is an enclosed system.

Right, let's Make Greece Great Again. I'm wondering if countries are even where it's at anymore. We're living in a globalized world - in some ways the UN is now a super-power - or at least a vessel to be inhabited by historical power. Even when empires decline, the power doesn't evaporate - it goes somewhere.

Interesting insight.

a vessel to be inhabited by historical power

I had a vision last night while I couldn't sleep, and I normally wouldn't describe something like this on a public forum, but it's relevant to your comment and Terence McKenna once said, I can't remember the clip I heard it in but maybe this is it, that he'll never keep a secret. He'll tell everything, and so I'll spill the beans in his memory.

But now that I've over sold it --

I was basically experiencing humanity, all of us, on the earth, going about our days, feeling the hardship and heartbreak and misery. I couldn't sleep and felt weird and uncomfortable so maybe my misery wanted company. Who knows.

And so I felt us, all of us, times 7 billion or whatever we are, going about our day. Desert, jungle, city, countryside, even went to the north pole. I sort of wandered the earth experiencing life as others, many others. Not individually, but individually. It's very hard to describe. I've done this before. It's a not quite asleep and not quite awake state, and the sense of reality and, call it hallucination if you wish, are as strong as any drug I've ingested can produce. When this happens, it is quite literally a trip.

And then something really weird happened.

The earth on which we exist, on its skin, the skin flipped inward. It's like if you had a tennis ball or any sphere and could flip the skin inside out. That's what happened. So we were all living on the inside of this sphere.

And that had a profound effect on my perception of our situation. It is, I think, a more accurate visualization of what we are and what our world is. It is an enclosed system to a large degree, particularly in a sociological sense.

Maybe if we thought of oursevles as coexising on the inside of a sphere, in an enclosed space, rather than on the outside, we would more easily find ways to get along.

It's little surprise that actual actors started playing a larger role in politics after that debate. Regan was an actor. Trump was a TV celebrity. It's as though if you want to run a country, sell soap first.

That's it - also a great argument for a Plato's cave/game simulation. I watched Mr. McMahon - Trump appears in it. It gives an insight into his mindset - & the way the politico-entertaino game is trending. We've said this before - world politics is like WWE reality-projection. At the end of the day, Trump had the most viewer interest/better story-lines.

To explore all sides of the equation - this is not necessarily what i think, just spit-balling - maybe Trump is playing China, maybe Musk is playing a long game - despite his public comments that sell out Taiwan. Twitter/X was the only platform that allowed Origin questioning. You can still rag on CCP 'til your heart's content there.

Kennedy has a radical (but sensible) agenda - anti the Monsantos of the world - a stance which used to be anathema to Republicans but resonated with the public.

Immigration - you can have all the humanitarian views you like, but 2 million illegal immigrants a year is not where the electorate's thinking is at. Australia proved that 20 years ago with it's turn-back-the-boats policy.

Rubio is a wait & see on Taiwan - but his past comments on the issue are fairly solid.

I'd argue that Harris also had it. She clearly has more charisma than Biden.

I agree, but that's not a very high bar. A dying pot-plant has more charisma than Biden. He was America's version of Andropov. Dispensing with the primaries deprived Harris of a chance to shine on the performance stage, take the public with her. AOC might be the one - but they've gotta let go of the Listen to the experts mantra. The experts behaved appallingly during Coivid - you can't sweep that under the rug. Well, you can, coz that's exactly what did happen, but ultimately the public is not buying it. I see it a bit like KMT having to abandon it's overt re-unification platform - just doesn't jive with the public.

What colonial superpower has ever, in the history of the world, ever recovered from its decline? None I can think of.

Right, let's Make Greece Great Again. I'm wondering if countries are even where it's at anymore. We're living in a globalized world - in some ways the UN is now a super-power - or at least a vessel to be inhabited by historical power. Even when empires decline, the power doesn't evaporate - it goes somewhere.

A poet friend called Jesse alerted me to the concept of thinking inside the box. He's a rap guy, so his box is: it's gotta rhyme
The box for politics is that it's theatre. It's gotta engage the audience - in the age of the internet. It's Reality Internet.
The box's rules are: Don't fuck up the economy if you do get into power

That's spot on. I think this all became a reality with the Nixon Kennedy debate. It was, I believe, the first televised presidential debate, and it sunk Nixon due to his 'shifty eyes'. He was a bad actor. It's little surprise that actual actors started playing a larger role in politics after that debate. Regan was an actor. Trump was a TV celebrity. It's as though if you want to run a country, sell soap first.

Inside that game, you need your frontman to have charisma. Kennedy had it, Clinton had it, Obama had it, but the machine rose on their backs & started to strangle the very thing that made the party a success.

I'd argue that Harris also had it. She clearly has more charisma than Biden. But the economy and other realities have gotten so difficult for many that mere charisma is not enough. Voters now need promises of a complete escape from reality such that Trump delivers. He'll end war in a day, end inflation overnight, and, the one we all know, make America Great Again. He won't do any of that, but it's what people want to hear.

What colonial superpower has ever, in the history of the world, ever recovered from its decline? None I can think of.

But have at it, Trump, you fucking halfwit. But, you do have charisma. I'll give you that.

The real story in this cycle is the fucking sorry excuse for a Democratic party that has, what, tranformed into a grey, blob of indistinguishable nothingness that you step over. Here's an excellent podcast that reflects my take very well.

Somewhere along the line the progressives became the machine. They used to suck at it compared to the corporate organization of conservative politics - but they then started to beat them at their own game. Trouble is, machines are soulless.

A poet friend called Jesse alerted me to the concept of thinking inside the box. He's a rap guy, so his box is: it's gotta rhyme
The box for politics is that it's theatre. It's gotta engage the audience - in the age of the internet. It's Reality Internet.
The box's rules are: Don't fuck up the economy if you do get into power

Inside that game, you need your frontman to have charisma. Kennedy had it, Clinton had it, Obama had it, but the machine rose on their backs & started to strangle the very thing that made the party a success.

It's very hard to tell what will become of Trump's term, if anything. If you look at his last term, nothing really happened. Just like Obama, lots of expectation, but nothing really changed.

If that's the end result for Taiwan, actually i'm fine with that.

It's all smoke and mirrors in my opinion. Yes, there will be cosmetic changes. The whore that is the US congress, adiministrative and judicial branches will wear a different perfume and raise or lower their hem, but the machine will still be a whore to the corporatocracy.

That's the key point - it is smoke & mirrors projected on a Plato's cave wall - by the machine. Our perception of reality is fundamentally illusive. Either the reality we experience is a game-simulation - or it's so much like one that it's a moot point.

Trump has said he will put hawk-guys into super-power meetings as a bluff tactic to scare people - to set an outer-limit. Then make the deal somewhere in between - it's all part of the art. The question is still open on what he might be angling for in that deal, & where it lands.

And I think that's right. It's very hard to tell what will become of Trump's term, if anything. If you look at his last term, nothing really happened. Just like Obama, lots of expectation, but nothing really changed.

It's all smoke and mirrors in my opinion. Yes, there will be cosmetic changes. The whore that is the US congress, adiministrative and judicial branches will wear a different perfume and raise or lower their hem, but the machine will still be a whore to the corporatocracy.

Rubio, keep in mind, is from Florida. His strong anti-communist stance is to win voters with any connection to Cuba, of which there are many in Florida. Plus it plays well to all the Budweiser-fueled unemployed white folk who miss the good old days.

Trump, while in office, will do everything he can to enrich his family and friends, but that's nothing new in politics.

The real story in this cycle is the fucking sorry excuse for a Democratic party that has, what, tranformed into a grey, blob of indistinguishable nothingness that you step over. Here's an excellent podcast that reflects my take very well.

At first glance his cred looks good. He's actually been banned by CCP from visiting China coz of his hurtful remarks about totalitarianism. I wonder if the ban will be lifted - or will all meetings need to occur off-shore?

Rubio: Communist China is not, and will never be, a friend to democratic nations. The international community must continue to stand with Taiwan as they defend their sovereignty and freedom.

They (CCP) have leverage over our economy. They have influence over our society. They have an army of unpaid lobbyists here in Washington.

According to the article: He lamented that big businesses' greed contributed to China's rapid rise, which the CCP capitalized on by stealing trade secrets and exporting authoritarianism globally.

He has been outspoken on Hong Kong (which caused his ban), as well as Xin-Jiang.

Which is all perfectly fine, if he still holds to that - not a whichever-way-the-wind-blows customer. Or a roll-over.

Trump has said he will put hawk-guys into super-power meetings as a bluff tactic to scare people - to set an outer-limit. Then make the deal somewhere in between - it's all part of the art. The question is still open on what he might be angling for in that deal, & where it lands.

Possession is 10/10ths of the law in a war. Very hard/impossible to dislodge CCP if they get entrenched in Taiwan.

There'll then be some tepid statement condemning the invasion & expressing the wish that both sides can settle their differences peacefully.

Then it's done. For all time. Just like HK. Only thing left to do is round-up/persecute those who opposed totalitarianism, & change the school curriculum.

I think you're onto something with the off-screen big-thing (e.g. cbdc). There has gotta be some huge payoff in this somewhere for Trump/his handlers.

Or maybe the Russians do have something on him. There'll definitely be a reason.

To be fair, it's only speculation at this point, though the signs that Taiwan is being sold off are not good.

As you pointed out, it's hard to know where the military is at exactly - well known KMT stronghold, but with a decade of whittling that down by DPP. You'd think the soldiers would be fine, it's all about the generals.

Go two generations down and all bets are off. But that first generation born in Taiwan most likely grew up in a very pro-China household, and the pro-China values of the KMT certainly were inherited by the military and preserved well into the 21st century, even to this day.

If something like this were to happen, resulting in civil war, that would be why Musk wants production moved off island. Not because he's afraid of Chinese disrupting production, but Taiwanese.

One wild card I've considered is to what extent is the Taiwan military really committed to defending Taiwan. Historically, the Taiwan military has been anti-independence, and no doubt some, maybe a significant number, of high level military officials in Taiwan are still vehemently anti-independence and maybe even increasingly pro-China. (Well, they've always been pro-China, and we're talking here about the legacy of the KMT, just not pro CCP. As the KMT loses influence in Taiwan, this segment of the military, and wider populace, may be softening on the CCP.)

The wild card here is how this element of the Taiwan military will act, or are acting, with regards to defending Taiwan, because if a shooting war breaks out, then it would be the end of the status quo. It would be the beginning of an independent Taiwan. Do the pro-China military members, most of whom are in the higher ranks, want that? Would they do something to thwart it?

And this begs the question of, are such efforts current in segments of the Taiwan military? Could there be a coup? There are many ways that could happen, possibly even keeping the Taiwan players hidden. Or it could be explicit. Regardless, that could be in the works. That's the wild card.

And if such an event came to pass, it would result in massive internal civil conflict, a civil war.

There are 1001 scenarios that could lead up to this. Whatever is is, it would likely be a false flag op of some sort.

But there is a logic to why it might happen. China and the US avoid confrontation. The KMT gets power back, albeit maybe under another name. Trump and Musk get whatever they're negotiating for. And, if there's indeed something bigger in the works, this gets the Taiwan 'problem' out of the way in a reasonably agreeable manner for everyone except the Taiwanese.

What do you think they are planning to gain out of the deal? They will sell the abandonment of Taiwan's democracy to totalitarianism with some crap about America getting out of the forever war business, but Trump/Musk would know that Taiwan is a hugely valuable bargaining chip that you could get a lot for by not defending it.

Money/power, one would assume. Musk has his cars made in China, so he'd be looking for long-term stability, market access, but what is Trump's motivation?

That's a tough call, unless Trump would also be scoring points with Russia in the deal. There's long been speculation that Putin has some deep dark secret he's holding over Trump. It could also be Trump setting up his family. it's clear what Musk gets out of it, agreed.

But why would they trust China? Didn't they learn anything from Hong Kong? China will keep its word until they have control, then any deal is history.

He's all talk about tariffs on China products (presumably not including Tesla), but that's purely business related, nothing to do with any moral stance on Taiwan. Is it the chip industry he's after? How would handing China control of Taiwan help that? America would like to develop its own, be self-sufficient, but that's a ways off, right?

It's years off, but not decades. My guess is that they could change the supply landscape relatively quickly. The US has already started building up chip production.

Trump would be thinking reward in his term. There must be some interim pay-off involved.

It could also be that there's an unspoken, seemingly unrelated side deal, possibly of much bigger consequence, going on. In fact I would guess there must be, something in addition to personal gain for Trump and Musk. It could have something to with, for example, a new currency (CBDC type) or something otherwise very big, and getting the Taiwan issue out of the way helps make this other thing happen, whatever it is. That's kind of a scary thought.

On another point, it's always eyebrow-raising when you hear about Vietnam being touted as the new manufacturing hub. Vietnam is another country run by a ruthless totalitarian regime. It's hard to escape the conclusion that if you're a Globo-player from the west, you like doing business with totalitarian regimes - there are less moving parts. The fact that it's idiotic to keep handing over your supply chain to totalitarian orgs, never seems to get addressed. I guess the thing is that it makes financial/power sense to the Musk-types, but it's a disaster for the poor old normal person.

Good point, and this ties into my previous comment about new alignments happening. There may be some big changes planned that we have not learned of yet.

So, he has repeatedly said that Taiwan is part of China, has called for reunification, has (now) gained a spot on the cabinet of the president elect, and he's asking his suppliers in Taiwan to get out of the country for geopolitical reasons.

I'm not sure how much clearer this picture could be.

Yep, the signs are plain. Taiwan is toast so far as the incoming US administration is concerned.

What do you think they are planning to gain out of the deal? They will sell the abandonment of Taiwan's democracy to totalitarianism with some crap about America getting out of the forever war business, but Trump/Musk would know that Taiwan is a hugely valuable bargaining chip that you could get a lot for by not defending it.

Money/power, one would assume. Musk has his cars made in China, so he'd be looking for long-term stability, market access, but what is Trump's motivation?

He's all talk about tariffs on China products (presumably not including Tesla), but that's purely business related, nothing to do with any moral stance on Taiwan. Is it the chip industry he's after? How would handing China control of Taiwan help that? America would like to develop its own, be self-sufficient, but that's a ways off, right? (Read a figure saying it's currently around 12% of integrated circuit manufacturing. Don't know how accurate that is.)

Trump would be thinking reward in his term. There must be some interim pay-off involved.

On another point, it's always eyebrow-raising when you hear about Vietnam being touted as the new manufacturing hub. Vietnam is another country run by a ruthless totalitarian regime. It's hard to escape the conclusion that if you're a Globo-player from the west, you like doing business with totalitarian regimes - there are less moving parts. The fact that it's idiotic to keep handing over your supply chain to totalitarian orgs, never seems to get addressed. I guess the thing is that it makes financial/power sense to the Musk-types, but it's a disaster for the poor old normal person.

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing out of Taiwan, leading to some relocating portions of their supply chain, according to sources employed by and close to the equipment makers and corporate documents.

A source at a company that is one of the numerous subcontractors that provide components for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet products said that SpaceX asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan because of geopolitical risks, pushing at least one to move production to Vietnam.

A second source who collaborates with Taiwanese satellite component makers in the nation said that suppliers were directly asked by SpaceX to transfer manufacturing abroad.

SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year it is an “integral part” of China, drawing sharp criticism from Taipei.

So, he has repeatedly said that Taiwan is part of China, has called for reunification, has not gained a spot on the cabinet of the president elect, and he's asking his suppliers in Taiwan to get out of the country for geopolitical reasons.

I'm not sure how much clearer this picture could be.

EDIT: And Musk is on record for supporting reunification.

His appointment would have allayed a lot of fears about Trump 'making a deal' over Taiwan - his non-appointment raises fears.

There was no congratulatory phone call from the President of Taiwan this time, either. For sure Lai Ching-de would have tried.

China's so-called 'invasion date' of 2027 falls in Trump's term, so it will be interesting to see what signals are sent.

You'd think Taiwan is safe now until at least January 2025. No way Xi is gonna start anything before the handover of power.

It made the request on Oct. 7, Taiwan’s National Day reception, threatening to close the office if its demand was not met. South Africa said there is no room for negotiation on this issue.

The South African government has been pushing Taiwan to move its office since last year, citing UN Resolution 2758 and the "one China” principle.[/i]

That's interesting. South Africa hung on to recognizing Taiwan well after most countries had stopped. I think it was the late 90's when they caved to China. This must be China using it to make a point.

It's likely just another one of those incremental things - start pressuring indebted Govs to ban Taiwan's de-facto embassies, world-wide

Yes, and this has got me thinking again about these recent, unannounced games. As I pointed out in a previous post, imagine if China had pulled this on Okinawa or Guam. It would have been seen as little short of an act of war and would have had extremely serious consequences.

So why no consequences when they do it to Taiwan?

So, the world allows China to treat Taiwan in an exceptional way. Why? Because it's a tacit recognition by the world community that Taiwan is part of China.

That's hard to say, but that's exactly what it is. That's the message the world is sending to China. You can do this only because it's Taiwan.

So the world can say all it wants about maintaining the status quo, but clearly the status quo is not being maintained and the world is doing nothing. It's like that scene out of All the President's Men where the reporter asks the source to hang up before the count of ten if the story isn't true. (Start at 1:40).

China is the reporter asking if Taiwan is part of China.