What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe Dr. Ronnie did Kim's evaluation too.

He is the absolute ruler of a regime which he has inherited. He has, rationally, killed off potential challengers to that position and maintained his control.

with him, strikes me as a bit much. But maybe he is justified if the whole family are lunatics.
Also his grandiose self-descriptive hyperbole does not sound rational to me.

But I guess the CIA knows him better than I do.
Maybe they were comparing Kim to Trump, in which case, yes I agree Kim looks sane.

I've never heard "grandiose self-descriptive hyperbole" come from him. But, certainly, promoting the various myths about him among North Koreans is, again, a perfectly rational thing to do.

Do you consider the grandiose self-descriptive hyperbole of, say, ordinary television commercials to be irrational?

How about this one:

"People who switched to Geico saved 15% or more on their car insurance."

Well, duh, people who checked Geico insurance premiums and found out they'd pay more, didn't switch to Geico. Quite obviously, one would expect 100% of people who switched to Geico to have saved money. Otherwise, they wouldn't switch.

It's advertising. It works. It helps him to maintain his grip on power, and is utterly rational.

Not really a reflection of his mental status?

I don't really know.

I guess I would change my statement to say that if you are the leader of a country
where you have to murder your family to stay in power, then it is a crazy environment.
But yes if you live in a crazy society, then some crazy looking behaviors are rational.

Let's be specific.

Are you talking about "nutty grandiose statements about Kim" or are you talking about nutty grandiose statements which he has made about himself?

For example, he has said _________________.

That's a different exercise than "The state propaganda machine designed to keep him in power has said _____________."

Is it rational to maintain an apparatus for developing a godlike status among a population in order to be the absolute ruler over them? Heck yeah. It's pretty much necessary to do that, if that is your objective.

But yes if you live in a crazy society, then some crazy looking behaviors are rational.

Maybe we don't have the same reference definition of "rational."

Is it rational to, say, rob an armored car if you think you can get away with it? Sure. Why not. If your objective is "have a lot of money real quick" and you have a plan to do that which you have worked out in order to have a good chance of getting away with it, then you are going to balance, say, the potential reward of a million dollars versus ten years in prison, and you balance the probabilities.

Rational decisions are ones made on the basis of facts and analysis to accomplish an objective. Whatever your objective happens to be defines rational courses of accomplishing it.

Take these guys:



They are applying engineering principles, geology and appropriate technology in a rational manner for the purpose of carving a big rock into the shape of a person.

Are they behaving rationally? Sure.

The objective which they are endeavoring to accomplish is purely one of inspiring people, and honoring a person who is long dead and thus will not know and does not care.

Now, let's say that Kim wakes up one morning and says, "You know, this whole dictator thing sucks. I think I'll just call it quits." It's not as if the rest of the world is going to say, "Hey, good idea" and give him a pat on the back and a group hug. He is a criminal by any definition, and there is no "out" for him. Incidentally, he is in all likelihood perfectly well aware of that, so you don't see him on too many visits abroad.

So you are out robbing the armored car, having decided that selling crotcheted ear warmers on Etsy is not going to get you that million dollars you wanted. Everything goes fine, until someone who knows you happens to see you in the act. Waddya do? Well, obviously, your objective was to gain a million dollars and not get caught. Now there is a witness who can positively identify you. I think you have two primary choices there - (a) you cut him in on the proceeds, which still increases your risk, or (b) you kill the witness.

You might be confusing "rational" with some definition of "good".

But the statements are ludicrous, that he is was a world class sailer at age 8 and won many competitions. A world class mountain hiker. Famous musician. Could drive at age 3.
The list goes on and on. None of these seem rational.

I agree, what is a rational decision may not be a moral one.
But that is my point, if you live in a society that compels a person to make rational decisions that are immoral, then the societal norms are not healthy, they are abnormal or crazy.

For example, lower level soldiers in the Nazi army may have had to commit atrocities to survive. So by your definition, yes it would be rational. But I question a society where
it is rational to commit horrific acts of immorality.

We can also flip the situation where people have been irrational but moral.
Ghandi starving himself and putting himself in harm's way was not rational by your definition. But it was highly moral.

But the statements are ludicrous, that he is was a world class sailer at age 8 and won many competitions. A world class mountain hiker. Famous musician. Could drive at age 3.

Does he believe those things?

But, yeah, rational and moral don't have much to do with each other.

We don't know much about the reality of Kim.
Would be interesting to have dinner with him and get the measure of the man.

Yes, interesting discussion about rationality and morality.

when applied to leaders of different nations?

.


Midget subs cannot be detected by the USN or even trip the SOSUS nets if drifting. Heck, we can't find full-sized subs, ships and aircraft in the water. They can be towed by friendly nation cargo vessles to near their destination and then have a range of 2-3,000 miles. One of these subs can contain a suicide nuke, that the crew might or might not know about. Whatever harbor or city they pull near would be incinerated. And the US can't detect most nukes, as we lost at least 6 nukes that we cannot find. One is in the delta of Savannah, GA. Another is in North Carolina somewhere.


Here's an interesting article on what an underwater nuclear explosion would do. A single 1946 era nuke would destroy an entire US Aircraft Carrier Task Force.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/70-years-ago-the-us-military-set-off-a-nuke-underwater-and-it-went-very-badly

.

So all of NK's air strike tests could be a red herring to cover up their very strong naval nuclear bomb delivery system? And these midget subs can be towed by civilian cargo ships?
I don't know if NK cargo ships are limited legally from traveling in certain waters or if they could sail as far as Hawaii.

But it would not be hard for NK to use a decoy cargo ship, have it fly another country's flag and registered to a benign country. And yes the US Pacific fleet right now seems to have trouble identifying ships sailing right next to them.

So Kim could get the subs to Japan, or Okinawa, Taiwan, etc.
And wipe out a chunk of the USN Pacific Fleet, we also have airbases throughout the Far East, usually near a coast, so planes could be hit as well. But then what?
US retaliates with its own subs, ships and planes. We don't want a ground war with NK.
They have a huge Army.

We probably don't want to know how many nukes the US has lost.
Between that and the nuke tests, it is no wonder we have so much cancer.

Terrifying

he is one of t-rump's lackey. He could care less about the security of the USA.

gotta be TOUGH FUCKING GUYS!!!!!!!

MIC getting hungry for more war profits?

(Pompeo is a Koch man.)

by singing My Way???? what a sick fuck he is.

being interviewed by Mueller. Coincidence I am sure.

that make me want to retreat into my cocoon of Netflix for a while.

You will see it is bordered on the north by China and
on the northeast by Russia. Is it wise to start a war with a country with such neighbors?

Hit the link below, save you some time (little green spot in NE corner is Russia. also, after the map appears, click on the map itself, and you will see the entire area.)please give it time to load


https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=map+of+north+korea&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS494US495&q=map+of+north+korea&gs_l=hp..0.0l5.0.0.3.169487...........0.bFZ1e30VMm8

us and they are going to do that.

Because trump will preemptively strike regardless.

Trump is a lunatic, a lunatic with nuclear weapons.