Spending on defence is expensive, but its a lot cheaper than an actual war - "if you want peace, prepare for war"

I choose to live in a richer country where I am relatively a lot poorer, but overall the advantages of a rich country outweigh the disadvantages.

The problems are security, sovereignty and economic stagnation. Being dependent on super powers and vulnerable to their whims is not good. Weak supply chains are not good. Neither are worsening standards of living.

Even those who might accept this is no longer true intellectually find it hard to internalise.

Mindfulness, contemplation, mediation, being at leisure, stillness, serenity, tranquility, repose...

How strong the connotations of laziness are with the word idle probably vary with context and culture, and I wonder how much ti has varied historically.

> The difference between European empires and Islamic/Roman ones would be what JumpCrissCross advanced + the extent to which the conquered inhabitants are incorporated into the state, no?

Is it not rather more complex than that? The Roman Empire eventually granted citizenship to conquered people's but after centuries and gradually - all free men getting citizenship was 3rd century. When initially conquered a lot of people were incorporated into the state as slaves. AFAIK the Islamic empires were similar, and the price of being treated equally was to adopt the conquerors culture and religion.

The European Empire I am most familiar with (the British) only wanted the ruling class of its colonies to adopt its culture (with consequences such as speaking fluent/native English being a class marker that last to this day). It also (at least later on) gave colonies increasing autonomy.

Roman and Islamic law were also pretty much "colonial", even though the term is used of modern European empires, Rome was also an Empire, and the Arab Empires were also aggressively imperialist and maritime traders.

China has a far bigger economy and far bigger armed forces. It has a history of aggression and has border disputes with multiple countries.

I strongly suspect that people who downplay the risk from China have not yet internalised the fact that no-white countries are powerful too now.

I think you are right that the West is complacent about its enemies because it cannot really shake the belief in its superiority that came from winning the cold war and dominating the world in the decades after, I just do not think that is the biggest threat.

AFAIK there is no exemption that says it is OK to commit war crimes if the other side does.

If attacking power plants and oil production is a war crime, then Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries are guilty of it.

It is taken out more, so you are more likely to lose it. I often see people with their phones out on a table in a cafe, or even on a flight while they are asleep.

I think it would be more effort to replace a phone than a wallet. You need to buy a new phone and restore it. With a wallet you might need to make a few phone calls but you can manage more easily until it arrives.

A lot of war is about economics and logistics.

Edit: to add, what about Iran's threats to destroy water supplies?

> If you can't even do that, you can go to the ticket window and they can look up your account information and verify your ticket.

Queues and not long to catch a train, stations with no staff present... The latter has happened to be on the Tube and I had a problem exiting (with a conventional ticket!).