@skells I would love it, if it were at all possible. But the problem with autarky isn’t that it’s a bad word – it’s that it doesn’t work. BRICS certainly gives Russia a place to start, for example, but there’s just as much an embedded growth obligation in states as there are in corporations, and that obligation only gets more costly with time.

@skells Slap 7 years ago-me with this statement, but autarky is a terrible solution to already-existing economic problems, regardless of who does it.

@7 how do you define autarky? I'm might be throwing that word around too loosely

@7 I'm thinking the geopolitical equivalent of fuck you money, not a stated position of being self sufficient and not trading on principle

@skells I’m probably being really pedantic, referring to autarky as it’s been implemented prior to expected wartimes – wherein self-sufficiency is often seen on the ground as meeting ration-level needs for the people and innovation-level and resupply needs for the military. But I do agree with you that, if there was a means for any major trade-dependent nation to withdraw into its shell for a couple decades and focus on its own population, that could not only be possible but preferable even to the elites who need to resecure their foundations (both figuratively and literally)

@7 your last describes a lot of countries today

@skells There’s a reason I don’t complain about Argentina as much as people think I should. At least they’re making their corruption work.

@7 it feels like civilisation is overextended and needs a hibernation period to consolidate

@skells My issue really isn’t with national self-sufficiency; I would just like to see it not always include some form of “temporary” expansionism. Russia has the Nine Gates, NATO has the stolen buffer, US has military-base diplomacy, and China will find a way to make a nine-dotted line encircle the entire pacific.

I appreciate this conversation though, I do focus on the biggest players a lot and can show a lot of limited knowledge for other players on the international stage.

@7 likewise, where do you get your info from, is it self directed research or...?

@skells Aye; I kinda follow a process where I’ll watch a video, get frustrated that I feel stupid, dig into their resources, get frustrated that I feel stupid, dig into related resources and the bibliography of those books, get frustrated that I feel stupid, then ramble on fedi about shit that no one has the context for and then get frustrated that I feel stupid that I’m doing a terrible job talking through stuff I recently read.

@7 it's always hard to know where to start in geopol, it's not like biology where you can grab a text book and give it 80% credence

bothers me that I bounce around a lot of blogs and don't get into the nitty gritty but it feels like a huge time sink unless you're systematic about it

@skells You can’t always get your hands on everything, and not having a highly-literate understanding of the sources when they deviate from your language, and many many other things can throw walls in your face. Unfortunately, there’s no dewey decimal system for the unconstrained wealth of information on the internet, and you have to rely on a bit of luck.

@7 look are we invading Norway or what

@skells Well we’ll try, but we’re gonna underestimate the supply costs the further north we go and continue pushing north anyway because navally, there isn’t a better choice.

@7 the wisdom fedi needs right now