[ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year

[William Flynn Wallace]

The US president can certainly be PERSUASIVE with people like Saudi Arabia.
He can't tell them what to do, but he can suggest strongly.   Kelly.

Since the USA provides military security for the Saudis we have some pull,
but if we pull out others will gladly take over.  The Saudis dislike us
intensely but smile in public.  Can you think of a country that is more
different from us in every way that is a 'sort of' ally?

bill w

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 7:23 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 15/1/2015 4:32 AM:
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015  Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > it is also POSSIBLE that they are doing so because the Obama
> administration wishes to put extreme pressure on Russia.
>
>
> The collapse of oil prices is certainly terrible news for Vladimir Putin
> (Boo Hoo), but when did Obama get the power to tell OPEC what to do?
>
>
> It is more a case of shared aims. If you read the commentary in The
> Economist, Foreign Policy and similar places, analysts point out that the
> Saudis are keen to undermine Iran, and the low price is hurting IS, Russia
> and fracking too. Obama might be happy about all of them except the last.
>
> It is the usual case of partially overlapping aims. Just consider the
> contradictory past and present US policy visavi the Kurds.
>
> Of course, the Saudis also have a succession problem that is deeply
> worrying. There might be a need to fill the coffers with money to buy off
> fractions, hence the high production.
>
>
> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford
> University
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20150115/7862ccf2/attachment.html>