The case against crisis-mongering
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The case against crisis-mongering
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Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#2>Some of the most potent images produced by the political right in the 2020 cycle featured looters and rioters smashing stores and burning buildings in major American cities. Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, these ads warned, were the only thing standing between these rioters and your home.
Acting like things happening under his rule were a problem detached from his responsibility. If only every leader could get away with this.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#3>Some of the most potent images produced by the political right in the 2020 cycle featured looters and rioters smashing stores and burning buildings in major American cities. Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, these ads warned, were the only thing standing between these rioters and your home. Acting like things happening under his rule were a problem detached from his responsibility. If only every leader cou…
I am not even an American, but in a huge federal country like the US, not everything can be attributed to the presidency - negative or positive. Governors, state senators etc. have a responsibility too, and they should not be able to shirk it by screaming "look at the bad guy above me!"
It is actually similar in the EU. The EU and the Commission has a lot of power, but not enough to pin everything on them. Local politicians love to point towards Brussels, though, everytime they fsck something up.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#4>Some of the most potent images produced by the political right in the 2020 cycle featured looters and rioters smashing stores and burning buildings in major American cities. Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, these ads warned, were the only thing standing between these rioters and your home. Acting like things happening under his rule were a problem detached from his responsibility. If only every leader cou…
Every administration in my lifetime has done this. Taking credit for certain things and shifting blame for others is not unusual. The state of the economy is the most shining example.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#5>Some of the most potent images produced by the political right in the 2020 cycle featured looters and rioters smashing stores and burning buildings in major American cities. Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, these ads warned, were the only thing standing between these rioters and your home. Acting like things happening under his rule were a problem detached from his responsibility. If only every leader cou…
I am not even an American, but in a huge federal country like the US, not everything can be attributed to the presidency - negative or positive. Governors, state senators etc. have a responsibility too, and they should not be able to shirk it by screaming "look at the bad guy above me!" It is actually similar in the EU. The EU and the Commission has a lot of power, but not enough to pin everything on them. Local poli…
Most of those cities being razed over the summer have been under complete democrat control for years.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#6So a summary of this essay:
1. Donald Trumps presidency in no way justifies the claim that the United States is drifting towards fascism
2. BLM protests have stopped happening so this is probably not so much of an issue now.
3. The US and EU economies grew with a small drop in emissions so global warming will be fixed. Have these been adjusted for the fact that a lot of the activities that support a first world lifestyle have emissions outside of it ?
It’s difficult to take any of these claims seriously. The idea of social mobility is now dead for most Americans , the citizens of the richest country to ever exist. People are putting off getting married or having children as a result. Life expectancy for white men in rural areas has been decreasing for the first time ever. Half the country no longer trusts the election results or vaccines.Unless emissions drop to zero by 2050 we are looking at 4 degrees of warming by 2100. Even This relies on the invention of as yet unknown carbon capture technology.
Large parts of the earth will become uninhabitable this century barring some insane technological breakthroughs and feats of international cooperation (given we can’t even give poor countries vaccines) and even if that were fixed social mobility is declining in much of the rich world. This sounds like something written by someone ensconced in a nice little bubble of privilege.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#7What I would more like is The Case for Resilience.
We have a crisis every so often. As a society, we ought to be able to survive it. That might be a pandemic, war, climate change (whether man-made, or from a volcano/asteroid/etc.), nukes, or what-not.
Being resilient means:
* Some level of economic isolation. Each region ought to be able to produce the bare necessities for themselves, and supply chains shouldn't be brittle. This has less economic impact than one might predict, since limiting the flow of some goods doesn't limit the flow of information, and the limits can be pretty mild.
* Some level of excess capacity. Free market capitalism wants everything to be just-in-time and as close to 100% capacity as possible. Machines sitting around idle are bad. Resilience demands we can quickly reallocate resources in response to change.
* Having some amount of stuff stockpiled, be that N95 masks or food.
* Having something like FEMA or the military, only competent.
* Proactively addressing potential threats. If something has a 5% chance of wiping out mankind or sending us back to the stone age, we should deal with it. We only get an expected 20 tries.
I don't believe a lot of the climate change predictions. I don't think we have any idea as to what will happen; it's a chaotic system. Academic incentive structures don't support honest publications either. Things may turn out far better, worse, or most likely, just different than predicted, and reasonable people can disagree.
I think if we can agree to aggressively and proactively deal with potential threats, though, exact estimates on odds of all of those outcomes don't matter so much. And if we can deal with those 5%-odds threats, the need for fear-mongering goes away.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#8Honestly it seems no one really understands what fascism actually is.
What fascism used to be was ultra nationalistic, non democratic, centralised control of people's lives and the economy for the greater good of the state. And I means these to the most extreme you can possibly take these ideas, that's fascism.
The word has no meaning when you throw it around against anyone with slightly conservative view points.
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not even an American, but in a huge federal country like the US, not everything can be attributed to the presidency - negative or positive. Governors, state senators etc. have a responsibility too, and they should not be able to shirk it by screaming "look at the bad guy above me!" It is actually similar in the EU. The EU and the Commission has a lot of power, but not enough to pin everything on them. Local poli…
Most of those cities being razed over the summer have been under complete democrat control for years.
So the police departments that should be defunded according to some Democrat activists were/are under control of Democrat politicians?
It seems that the main parties in the U.S. are really big tents. In another system, they would have split up to 6-7 smaller and more coherent parties. (That would nevertheless have to compromise on their ideas when forming coalitions, so not a dramatic difference.)
Re: The case against crisis-mongering
#10Regardless of what Tyler Durden said:
> "We’re the middle children of history. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war, our Great Depression is our lives."
The 90s were a pretty fortunate decade. The threat of nuclear war had passed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the economy was chugging along fine, and terrorism hadn't yet taken centre stage. Certainly that's the way I remember it - maybe through rose-tinted glasses (?)
But nevertheless, maybe a quiet life without crises isn't such a bad thing?