161–170 of 349 posts
I'd like to think that extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe. A lot of the advantages China has in their government is beneficial for competing with other nations but will eventually eat itself from within.
>extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe Have you read the news about the "west" lately? US politics and Brexit are two biggies that seem to fall in line with this.
The west is in decline because progressive values don't promote strength. They focus on class and are inherently divisive. Ironically, they only blossom in strong societies. The decline will allow other societies with a more conservative philosophy to take over and it will be their turn in a few centuries to succumb to the same tragedy. The baizuo tragedy.
Progressives and 'woke politics' are the reason the US let its infrastructure crumble? I don't follow your logic. You are saying progressive weakness is the reason America has let its infrastructure crumble, and why America doesn't have universal healthcare, why its education system isn't as good as it should be? That sounds wrong. I see a lot of claims lately that 'woke politics' are the reason the US has let itself…
It's very hard to disagree IMO. The west is in decline and unless something catastrophic happens in PRC or war breaks out (also pretty catastrophic) I can't see any future where the PRC isn't going to at least become on par with the US soon but most likely it will succeed it as top dog. The only question in my mind is where do the EU end up in all this and if Russia will become closer with PRC or EU. IMO the biggest…
> because US policy are mostly only until next election elections in the US are like earnings calls for public companies and drive the same short-term thinking.
Consider thefact that US external policies are always the same, Bush was the 'opposite' of Obama and yet US is still in Afghanistan and they still commit war crimes across the globe despite the fact since Bush Jr there was Lib/Rep/Lib presidents.
US - which still shapes worlds events by far - can start wars and fly drones in foreign countries that kill people there.
Russia can only send 'green men' to Ukraine or provoke a short term strike with Georgia.
This is not a result of a short term thinking nation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I'd like to think that extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe It worked just fine in/for the US though. Look back at the US's rise to where it is today and it was pretty bad. Another example is that it is still pretty bad in the US today and it is top dog anyways. I doubt it will make any difference in PRC either.
In the last thirty years: + The US has decriminalized homosexuality and was one of the first countries to have same sex marriage + Has had robust hate crime laws and strong equal rights protections + Is slowly but consistently rolling back low level drug offenses We always have to compare to our peers, not some unicorn standard. The US had continually been an extremely liberal and accepting society even with it's fau…
In the long term, the West (Europe at first) went from at best a not particularly interesting place compared to, say, China to the global hegemon because 1. it became much better at war than the others [0] 2. it became much richer than the others [1] Much has been written about how Western values and/or institutions and/or any other causes led to 1 and/or 2 and the interplay between 1 and 2. The warfare advantage is…
I wonder about this quite a lot. This is obviously mainly due to the boom in developed world esp China, but do you have any opinions about 'fixing' the fertility rate in the West? Is it futile when the developing world incl China will always have higher rates?
It's because we stopped focusing on creating things, and instead started laser focusing on making sure that everybody gets exactly the same amount of everything all the time. It's ridiculous. We are trust fund children who don't understand where the money came from, and it will be our undoing. Twitter, NYT, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the like have monetized dividing us, and they have a multi-billion dollar a year budge…
But the bit about schooling hit home for me. I'm supposedly in one of the most successful school districts of my city, but the stories I hear from parents ahead of me are disturbing. There is some real wackadoo stuff being exported directly from the university into young teachers and transferred into young minds.
I just heard one about a teacher refusing to mention how civil rights leaders prayed before their marching--literally skipping those pages of the book. I was creeped out when the TX schools were trying to downplay Jefferson's racism, but this secular, CRT re-narrativizing of history is just as bad.
The west is in decline because progressive values don't promote strength. They focus on class and are inherently divisive. Ironically, they only blossom in strong societies. The decline will allow other societies with a more conservative philosophy to take over and it will be their turn in a few centuries to succumb to the same tragedy. The baizuo tragedy.
> because progressive values don't promote strength. Venice in the 1400s, London in the 1685-1700 Paris 1875-1914 vienna 1890-1914 London in the 1960s All of these cities flourished because they were progressive.
That's ridiculous.China is the one in irreversible decline. Most people in the West get to enjoy freedom and access to utilities money cant buy in China. 1) For once most people in the west have access to safe and good tap water.Chinese urban dwellers dont. 2) Most people in the west live in places with significantly better air quality than chinese. 3) Most people in the west get to enjoy freedoms chinese cant even t…
This is cope. We've had numerous examples of third world style infrastructure failures (Flint water, Texas power outages) within the US that will likely continue. We have under invested in infrastructure for decades, while China has done quite the opposite. Freedoms are increasingly becoming an illusion in the West. Saying something unpopular or taboo on the internet (even if it were years ago) is likely to cut you o…
Like look, I'll give you that there exist an incredibly small fraction of people that actually embody the spectre you are trying to conjure here. We have so so many more pressing issues in this country than fear of wokeness--like the rise of domestic white-supremacist terrorism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, you’re suggesting that the USA is in decline because marginalized groups are demanding equal treatment? I’ll agree that police violence is a symptom of much larger systemic issues, but you seem to be implying that the larger systemic issue is... people are unhappy with the USA and they should stop being unhappy and support the USA. Have you considered why they might be unhappy, why they may very well have legitim…
> So, you’re suggesting that the USA is in decline because marginalized groups are demanding equal treatment? Some demand equal treatment, some demand better treatment and other not only accept their life-style, but to consider their niche life-style as something more desirable than an average life style.
I don't see how this follows as a rebuttal of the gp comment, if anything it says (to me) that the US is _not_ in decline because we're willing and able to have conversations and make progress on what should be accepted in modern society. This comment feels like a soapbox to me rather than contributing to any sort of discussion, because nobody can comment on _what_ groups you're referring to, and there are no sources to be had. Very disappointing.