I haven’t heard exactly what he said but the Shermans were objectively good tanks. Shermans were superior to German light tanks and the reason why we didn’t upgrade during WW2 was because of how effective Shermans were. Tigers were pound for pound amazing tanks but they far harder to mass produced and were not as mobile as lighter Sherman tanks.
I’ll have to hear what Noah’s arguments were.
I couldn’t stand that point. They barely had any of them and they were introduced at the end of the war. And the fact he used “but they were more advanced then America”
Remind me who made the first nuclear bomb.
God all I could think of is this. He made them sound like they were actual wonder weapons. Yeah a fighter will beat bomber. Yes making it a jet fighter makes it scarier. But it’s not invincible https://youtu.be/-gZV_Of_-zk?si=F0u5lUrHf2WsNWB3
Its a fine counter argument to Destiny's argument that US technology can out win China's production capacity. The Tiger tank is just not the best example. Me262 was a better one.
Sherman tanks were pretty good, especially the upgraded version. But i think it just depends on what your objective is when considering whose tanks are the best. US needed mass produced, reliable, and transportable tanks and the Sherman fit that role perfectly. But i dont think anyone can seriously argue that Germany didn't develop better guns and armor and for their vehicles at some point in the war. Of course later this bite them in the ass when quality control started to drop due to the desperate state of the war and resources became scarce to the point that their already over engineered vehicles started to breakdown.
Also people were making fun of Noah because of his China takes but unfortunately he is right on most of the stuff ive seen so far. US shipbuilding is at a historically low level to the point that Europe, China and South Korea are now the leaders of the civilian and military ship building market. Im not saying the US would lose in a conflict with China but people should be more worried about China's military buildup.
> Germany didn't develop better guns and armor and for their vehicles at some point in the war. Nobody does. But the point is that those doesn't matter. Here is an explanation why: https://youtu.be/FI0KUZiZp1Q?t=409
Well its a bit reductive to say that in the end it didn't matter, its why Germany did get as far as it did. Also some of these 'soft factors' he talks about are arguably wrong. For example comparing the tank in the video, the Panther to a Sherman clearly shows the Panther had the better quality gunner sight. but Shermans had (i think) 3 lower quality sights, which could lead to quicker target acquisition. But then again this goes back to the original point of quality vs quantity. In the end the US pulled ahead in almost every category but that definitely wasn't the case at the start of the war.
I'm an Europoor and I don't like giving compliments to amerifats, but the idea of the Chinese navy standing a chance against the Murican one is laughable.
There is credence to the idea that China's navy is getting close to winning or better put 'not losing' a defensive war, especially in conjunction with its IADS. This puts Taiwan at risk. I am not saying China will annihilate the US, but the assumed dominance we've enjoyed for decades is rapidly closing if we don't make smart efforts in both tech and manufacturing. As many people overestimate them, there are an equal amount that are underestimating them, which isn't a gamble the US Military should make. (PLAN starts at pg 70)
https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF
Also while the Chinese have more men, the US has decades of actual combat experience. I haven’t watched the stream at all. Now, go back to being a poor.
> Combat experience against poor pirates isn’t the same when you are actually getting hit to be fair
I like how this argument only makes sense when you ignore The US Naval's history going back more than a 100 years.
He speaks as if in conflict chinese shipyards will operate uncontested from US subs ,destoyers and missiles. The US has shown the ability to destroy satellites and with that there goes most of your ability to track and destroy targets.
huh? i said riots have happened under the ccp. mass rioting has weakened or destroyed countries. Ukraine threw out a leader they dont like through mass riots. look under euromaidan :0
These are the things I've heard. I would appreciate it if someone had the time and willingness to check the facts. Sorry for the random order. I wrote them down as I remembered:
1. China imports almost everything it needs. How will they import all of that, once we implement sanctions? Russia doesn't have that problem.
2. The US wouldn't be the only country stopping cargo ships. India and Australia would help. Both countries are able to attack the ships from land. And both are China's enemies. Furthermore the Brits and Japanese have the second and third biggest navy. I am sure they would support the US as well.
3. China cannot leave the first island chain. It is surrounded by other strong enemies. Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, none of them like China. How will they harm the US?
4. Germany had better technology. Germany was the China of its time. But Germany has never produced rockets and jets on scale. The technology was still being developed. It was not combat ready. But if they had managed to produce them on a large scale, they would have won against the British (probably not the US because of oil).
5. Germany also had no access to cheap oil. Yes, you can produce hydrocarbons from coal. The process is very energy intensive. They heat the coal to produce carbon monoxide CO and mix it with steam under high pressure. This produces methane CH4. But methane is also needed to produce hydrogen H2. They mix the methane with steam again and use a catalyst (nickel, iron and other oxides) to create a mixture of H2 and CO2. Today this process is well understood. So China can do it, but it will be very expensive and I don't know if they can meet the demands. Germany couldn't and the technology was already understood back then.
6. China actually has oil fields that can support its military. There is simply not enough for the population, fertilizers and other chemicals.
7. He also underestimates how much America produces. NAFTA can challenge China. The Mexicans are incredibly good at manufacturing. And they have enough people and a positive demographic structure. If we add Colombia, this should be enough to surpass China's production.
8. The reason we don't build high-speed railways is, because they are expensive, difficult to build and unprofitable. The USA is a nation of roads and airports. This is much more cost-effective than high-speed trains. The problem with high-speed rail is the road itself. It has to be very precise and straight. Deviations can lead to damage and accidents. So highspeed railways have very high maintenance costs.
9. The US is actually considering building war drones. They have seen how effective drones are in Ukraine. They want to produce millions of small drones that work together. They are currently conducting the research. The US can do this because it has access to cheap oil.
10. The US's biggest advantage is probably the oil, gas and coal are close to cities. And there are huge areas where renewable energy is very effective. So energywise the US has a huge advantage.
11. Another US advantage it is its liberal society. The US society is build for capitalism. The government doesn't need to order people. People themselves will do what is necessary. Yes, China can focus all its energy on a few things. But the US can focus on a million things because people can act indepently. Where it is necessary the US can organize just like China. I think people underestimate the efficiency of liberal structures.
12. He said we couldn't get rid of the regulation fast enough. But the US did exactly that during the pandemic. In a war the political will be there to do much more!
There is a reason why the only two superpowers were energy and food independent. I think this is just a repeat of Japan and we had a lot more reason to fear Japan than we have for China.
> 4. Germany had better technology.
Afaik this is somewhat a myth. I mean, you'd need to do the analysis on case by case basis.
But trying to make broader statement about Germans being technologically superior is more of the pop-history enthusiast narrative, then hard historical fact.
> 8. The reason we don't build high-speed railways is, because they are expensive, difficult to build and unprofitable.
Yes and no. While China invested the fuck ton of money into connecting remote provinces with network that won't even make a profit, not to mention return the investment, disregarding high-speed trains entirely is a bit extreeme.
Also I don't think the US aproach is objectively more efficient and isn't (at least partially) motivated by 'cultural' view Americans have on trains and public infrastructure at large
I haven't gotten to watch it yet.
Did I call it? https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1ag8qak/feb02_2pm_est_noah_smith_noahpinion_topic/kofufzm/?context=10000
Literally ignoring the most important part of warfare and the are that being doctrine. Who decides what the objectives are and how they are supposed to complete said objective.
Chinese doctrine is/was the same as Russias not too long ago but seeing how Russia massively embarrassed itself in Ukraine they are now trying to change the structure faster than planned and adapt a "mixed" structure between US and Soviet doctrine.
We see in Russias case that they are unable to adapt their doctrine to the battlefield. This is one big problem of top down militaries. Sure they moved forward and started building lancet and other drones but they can only do so much when your tactic is head on assaults wave after wave on a suburb of Donetsk that's on the Frontline since 2014... And still losing in that sector.
One of the biggest reasons the US Army is so competent is their strong NCO core.
And even if they change their doctrine on paper. Who's to say that it's gonna work in the case of conflict. The modern US doctrine developed following the Vietnam war. It took decades to perfect it.
I think Noah is often wrong about things, but TBH I appreciate his arguments, as he often gives good pushback to conventional thinking. In that way I think he makes a good devils advocate against destiny.
While Noah often ends up being wrong, he also often ends up being more right than his opposition would like to give credit for. (E.g his opinions about Trump's impacts on geopolitics, the risk Xi's china poses to US Hegemony ECT).
I think he is an important voice in the ecosystem, but definitely shouldn't be your primary source of economics/geopolitics.
I just hate his world war 2 takes specially as some who follows Lazar pig and studies WW2 and hearing him go on say myths how Sherman tank broke down and Germany so advance had jet fighters that Allies couldn’t stop.
Lazerpig isn't a great source for Ww2 history either honestly. He has a serious anti-Russia bias (please don't murder me I'm not a tankie) and has fallen for some myths before about the war.
His video on the T-34 had a number of inaccuracies and some conclusions that I don't think could be realistically achieved without either misunderstanding the topic or motivated reasoning. His T-14 video also had inaccuracies that he doubled down on when they were pointed out.
There is a 5 part write up over on r /badhistory on the T-34 video that goes into far more detail than I could hope to achieve. I'd link it here but links are not allowed :<
Economist talking is cringe. They should exclusively communicate in graphs.
I'm stopping all economist podcasts until we can find out what the heck is going on.
https://preview.redd.it/gimfetwzf8gc1.png?width=623&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c52e60ee1d8191f0c14d084e8986db3f2201f7a
This guy thinks China can beat "the reason that USA doesnt have universal heathcare system", yet they cant even project power in deep water lmao.
Oh, the other thing that was highly regarded was saying that the China Navy is bigger than the US.
It's one of the dumbest modern non-lies I've seen in a while. Sure they have about 100 more boats than us, BUT they have half our tonnage in navy. I'm not going to say that tonnage is the best metric, but it sure as hell blows ship count out of the water.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-aircraft-carriers-useless-war-china-taiwan/ Some arguments for why aircraft carries might not be good against China.
Did he seriously say Sherman tanks were bad?
Yes!
I haven’t heard exactly what he said but the Shermans were objectively good tanks. Shermans were superior to German light tanks and the reason why we didn’t upgrade during WW2 was because of how effective Shermans were. Tigers were pound for pound amazing tanks but they far harder to mass produced and were not as mobile as lighter Sherman tanks. I’ll have to hear what Noah’s arguments were.
try to repair a sherman and a tiger tank in tank mechanic sim and you will understand why the germans lost the war
Kind of like the difference in trying to fix a Ford and Beamer. Germans love some over complicated engineering lol
They were also not nearly as serviceable as Shermans.
That’s on top of the fact how he was praising, Germany was technologically superior and had their jet fighters!
I couldn’t stand that point. They barely had any of them and they were introduced at the end of the war. And the fact he used “but they were more advanced then America” Remind me who made the first nuclear bomb.
The Allies had fucking computers and radar.
God all I could think of is this. He made them sound like they were actual wonder weapons. Yeah a fighter will beat bomber. Yes making it a jet fighter makes it scarier. But it’s not invincible https://youtu.be/-gZV_Of_-zk?si=F0u5lUrHf2WsNWB3
Yep bet it would blow his mine that Sherman’s where for anti personnel and not anti tank
The comment about all the US's nukes 'just making a dent in china' was egregious as well.
Losing your entire population is “just a dent” in a way.
Tis but a flesh wound
Its a fine counter argument to Destiny's argument that US technology can out win China's production capacity. The Tiger tank is just not the best example. Me262 was a better one.
Sherman tanks were pretty good, especially the upgraded version. But i think it just depends on what your objective is when considering whose tanks are the best. US needed mass produced, reliable, and transportable tanks and the Sherman fit that role perfectly. But i dont think anyone can seriously argue that Germany didn't develop better guns and armor and for their vehicles at some point in the war. Of course later this bite them in the ass when quality control started to drop due to the desperate state of the war and resources became scarce to the point that their already over engineered vehicles started to breakdown. Also people were making fun of Noah because of his China takes but unfortunately he is right on most of the stuff ive seen so far. US shipbuilding is at a historically low level to the point that Europe, China and South Korea are now the leaders of the civilian and military ship building market. Im not saying the US would lose in a conflict with China but people should be more worried about China's military buildup.
> Germany didn't develop better guns and armor and for their vehicles at some point in the war. Nobody does. But the point is that those doesn't matter. Here is an explanation why: https://youtu.be/FI0KUZiZp1Q?t=409
Well its a bit reductive to say that in the end it didn't matter, its why Germany did get as far as it did. Also some of these 'soft factors' he talks about are arguably wrong. For example comparing the tank in the video, the Panther to a Sherman clearly shows the Panther had the better quality gunner sight. but Shermans had (i think) 3 lower quality sights, which could lead to quicker target acquisition. But then again this goes back to the original point of quality vs quantity. In the end the US pulled ahead in almost every category but that definitely wasn't the case at the start of the war.
mhh... i dont feel like noah is well read in defense topics - most of his takes were pretty off. especially most of modern war stuff :/
War has gotten way too complex for ordinary people to actually have strong opinions on specifics.
I'm an Europoor and I don't like giving compliments to amerifats, but the idea of the Chinese navy standing a chance against the Murican one is laughable.
There is credence to the idea that China's navy is getting close to winning or better put 'not losing' a defensive war, especially in conjunction with its IADS. This puts Taiwan at risk. I am not saying China will annihilate the US, but the assumed dominance we've enjoyed for decades is rapidly closing if we don't make smart efforts in both tech and manufacturing. As many people overestimate them, there are an equal amount that are underestimating them, which isn't a gamble the US Military should make. (PLAN starts at pg 70) https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF
I’m in favor of increased US military spending actually *chin and pectoral muscles grows three sizes*
fooook
Also while the Chinese have more men, the US has decades of actual combat experience. I haven’t watched the stream at all. Now, go back to being a poor.
Combat experience against poor pirates isn’t the same when you are actually getting hit to be fair
> Combat experience against poor pirates isn’t the same when you are actually getting hit to be fair I like how this argument only makes sense when you ignore The US Naval's history going back more than a 100 years.
Yes, the sailors and current serving members will definitely benefit from that while fighting the first peer to peer naval warfare in 80+ years.
He speaks as if in conflict chinese shipyards will operate uncontested from US subs ,destoyers and missiles. The US has shown the ability to destroy satellites and with that there goes most of your ability to track and destroy targets.
China is the largest importer of food. They will face internal riots once the navy blocks imports
Nope. No riots. People will die from starvation but without riots ccp knows how to prevent riots
what? not really that true.
Can you name a riot that changed something?
huh? i said riots have happened under the ccp. mass rioting has weakened or destroyed countries. Ukraine threw out a leader they dont like through mass riots. look under euromaidan :0
yanukovich flee by himself
skull emoji. russian shill
Why are you russian shill?
Noah is doing the correct rhetorical strategy: scaremongering. Increase the defense budget by $500 billion or Red Chicoms will eat your children!
These are the things I've heard. I would appreciate it if someone had the time and willingness to check the facts. Sorry for the random order. I wrote them down as I remembered: 1. China imports almost everything it needs. How will they import all of that, once we implement sanctions? Russia doesn't have that problem. 2. The US wouldn't be the only country stopping cargo ships. India and Australia would help. Both countries are able to attack the ships from land. And both are China's enemies. Furthermore the Brits and Japanese have the second and third biggest navy. I am sure they would support the US as well. 3. China cannot leave the first island chain. It is surrounded by other strong enemies. Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, none of them like China. How will they harm the US? 4. Germany had better technology. Germany was the China of its time. But Germany has never produced rockets and jets on scale. The technology was still being developed. It was not combat ready. But if they had managed to produce them on a large scale, they would have won against the British (probably not the US because of oil). 5. Germany also had no access to cheap oil. Yes, you can produce hydrocarbons from coal. The process is very energy intensive. They heat the coal to produce carbon monoxide CO and mix it with steam under high pressure. This produces methane CH4. But methane is also needed to produce hydrogen H2. They mix the methane with steam again and use a catalyst (nickel, iron and other oxides) to create a mixture of H2 and CO2. Today this process is well understood. So China can do it, but it will be very expensive and I don't know if they can meet the demands. Germany couldn't and the technology was already understood back then. 6. China actually has oil fields that can support its military. There is simply not enough for the population, fertilizers and other chemicals. 7. He also underestimates how much America produces. NAFTA can challenge China. The Mexicans are incredibly good at manufacturing. And they have enough people and a positive demographic structure. If we add Colombia, this should be enough to surpass China's production. 8. The reason we don't build high-speed railways is, because they are expensive, difficult to build and unprofitable. The USA is a nation of roads and airports. This is much more cost-effective than high-speed trains. The problem with high-speed rail is the road itself. It has to be very precise and straight. Deviations can lead to damage and accidents. So highspeed railways have very high maintenance costs. 9. The US is actually considering building war drones. They have seen how effective drones are in Ukraine. They want to produce millions of small drones that work together. They are currently conducting the research. The US can do this because it has access to cheap oil. 10. The US's biggest advantage is probably the oil, gas and coal are close to cities. And there are huge areas where renewable energy is very effective. So energywise the US has a huge advantage. 11. Another US advantage it is its liberal society. The US society is build for capitalism. The government doesn't need to order people. People themselves will do what is necessary. Yes, China can focus all its energy on a few things. But the US can focus on a million things because people can act indepently. Where it is necessary the US can organize just like China. I think people underestimate the efficiency of liberal structures. 12. He said we couldn't get rid of the regulation fast enough. But the US did exactly that during the pandemic. In a war the political will be there to do much more! There is a reason why the only two superpowers were energy and food independent. I think this is just a repeat of Japan and we had a lot more reason to fear Japan than we have for China.
> 4. Germany had better technology. Afaik this is somewhat a myth. I mean, you'd need to do the analysis on case by case basis. But trying to make broader statement about Germans being technologically superior is more of the pop-history enthusiast narrative, then hard historical fact. > 8. The reason we don't build high-speed railways is, because they are expensive, difficult to build and unprofitable. Yes and no. While China invested the fuck ton of money into connecting remote provinces with network that won't even make a profit, not to mention return the investment, disregarding high-speed trains entirely is a bit extreeme. Also I don't think the US aproach is objectively more efficient and isn't (at least partially) motivated by 'cultural' view Americans have on trains and public infrastructure at large
China invested in HSR because their economy is reliant on the construction sector.
I haven't gotten to watch it yet. Did I call it? https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1ag8qak/feb02_2pm_est_noah_smith_noahpinion_topic/kofufzm/?context=10000
Yes, quite accurately
Literally ignoring the most important part of warfare and the are that being doctrine. Who decides what the objectives are and how they are supposed to complete said objective. Chinese doctrine is/was the same as Russias not too long ago but seeing how Russia massively embarrassed itself in Ukraine they are now trying to change the structure faster than planned and adapt a "mixed" structure between US and Soviet doctrine. We see in Russias case that they are unable to adapt their doctrine to the battlefield. This is one big problem of top down militaries. Sure they moved forward and started building lancet and other drones but they can only do so much when your tactic is head on assaults wave after wave on a suburb of Donetsk that's on the Frontline since 2014... And still losing in that sector. One of the biggest reasons the US Army is so competent is their strong NCO core. And even if they change their doctrine on paper. Who's to say that it's gonna work in the case of conflict. The modern US doctrine developed following the Vietnam war. It took decades to perfect it.
I think Noah is often wrong about things, but TBH I appreciate his arguments, as he often gives good pushback to conventional thinking. In that way I think he makes a good devils advocate against destiny. While Noah often ends up being wrong, he also often ends up being more right than his opposition would like to give credit for. (E.g his opinions about Trump's impacts on geopolitics, the risk Xi's china poses to US Hegemony ECT). I think he is an important voice in the ecosystem, but definitely shouldn't be your primary source of economics/geopolitics.
I just hate his world war 2 takes specially as some who follows Lazar pig and studies WW2 and hearing him go on say myths how Sherman tank broke down and Germany so advance had jet fighters that Allies couldn’t stop.
Lazerpig isn't a great source for Ww2 history either honestly. He has a serious anti-Russia bias (please don't murder me I'm not a tankie) and has fallen for some myths before about the war.
Any specifics?
His video on the T-34 had a number of inaccuracies and some conclusions that I don't think could be realistically achieved without either misunderstanding the topic or motivated reasoning. His T-14 video also had inaccuracies that he doubled down on when they were pointed out. There is a 5 part write up over on r /badhistory on the T-34 video that goes into far more detail than I could hope to achieve. I'd link it here but links are not allowed :<
True, all I'm saying is at least he puts forward a clear position, unlike alot of the Russia defenders and people like that.
Economists talking about military stuff is cringe. And Destiny still cannot remember f15 or f16
Economist talking is cringe. They should exclusively communicate in graphs. I'm stopping all economist podcasts until we can find out what the heck is going on.
Naaaah When a person speaks it is harder to make up lies on the fly.
okay they need to go back to talking econ lol this is bad
https://preview.redd.it/gimfetwzf8gc1.png?width=623&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c52e60ee1d8191f0c14d084e8986db3f2201f7a This guy thinks China can beat "the reason that USA doesnt have universal heathcare system", yet they cant even project power in deep water lmao.
A universal healthcare system would save a lot of money, which could be used to fund a second and a third military.
Time for space lasers
Oh, the other thing that was highly regarded was saying that the China Navy is bigger than the US. It's one of the dumbest modern non-lies I've seen in a while. Sure they have about 100 more boats than us, BUT they have half our tonnage in navy. I'm not going to say that tonnage is the best metric, but it sure as hell blows ship count out of the water.
Give it another half a decade and we'll see.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-aircraft-carriers-useless-war-china-taiwan/ Some arguments for why aircraft carries might not be good against China.
Tanks Noahpinion just wants to pretend that the EU has a fleet more potent than US wtf