10 ms·

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

by Daho0n 5y ago

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 failure in all this is that the opposition to PRC's rise is the same old as we have seen before and it's very clear that it will fail. As an outsider to both the US and PRC it looks to me like the US does all it can to shoot itself in the foot continually for whatever reason while PRC is playing on a totally different level. Maybe because US policy are mostly only until next election?

vkou 5y ago
Unless Russia gets another revolution, it's likely to remain its own pole. It has a sphere of influence, exports that its neighbours are dependant on, and an ossified political structure.
subpixel 5y ago
> 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.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  I would disagree wholeheartedly with you on that point. 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.
- TearsInTheRain 5y ago
  The US is more than just its government. It is easy to argue that we are in a cultural decline as well. We all have agency in that regard.
paulmd 5y ago
The US's antiquated and ossified political system with its focus on minoritarianism and gridlock-as-a-design-objective are a major cause. As long as it's possible for ~30% of the country to drag everything to a halt, not a lot is going to get done. The push to restrict voting rights only amplifies that, but the real problem is that the US system is not built to produce a "mandate to lead", it is designed with an excessive focus on "checks and balances" that require supermajority control of all branches of government to accomplish the most basic of functions. Checks and balances and minority representation are good concepts in general but taken to too much of an extreme you end up with a government that cannot react to obviously changing circumstances, which is where we are now. That's the thing that's functionally going to put the US into decline, our government is simply so gridlocked that it cannot accomplish even its most basic functions, and it's a result of how the government is structured that allows and encourages this. If China and Russia don't do it alone, climate change and other problems certainly will. It's analogous to the liberum veto in the Polism sejm - the system "promoted bipartisanship" by allowing the current legislation under debate and all previous legislation passed in that session to be vetoed at any time by a single member. That's good, right? You have to pass things that only everyone agrees with! But it was exploited by bad actors both internally and foreign powers who wanted to weaken and disrupt the government, to the point the polish state collapsed into a state of anarchy and provincial rule. Sound familiar? Ultimately it is better to have a system of government that produces an administration that is capable of accomplishing its policy objectives, even if that means that your political opponents can also do things that you don't like. You can then structure the rest of the government around making sure that the administration remains representative of the population. But having a government that is routinely unable to do anything at all is a design flaw with the system, not something to be cheered, and that's the primary reason the US is in decline. It's better for somebody to be at the helm, than everybody arguing over which way to go and nobody driving. On top of that the US tends to conceptualize "unlimited rights" to a much greater degree than virtually any country. That makes it far more susceptible to misinformation campaigns. The internet is the Atom Bomb of the information age - it makes misinformation far more deadly than it ever was before, because now you can take misinformation straight to the idiots themselves on a micro-targeted level. Certainly misinformation was a problem before, particularly with radio (eg Father Coughlin) but that was eventually curbed with broadcast regulations. As those regulations have eroded the problem got worse again, and now that we have private infrastructure that is totally unregulated it is becoming vastly worse again. Even worse than before in fact, because now you can micro-target the lies each person is most susceptible too. It's just a completely different ballgame than it was 30 years ago, and the regulatory scheme hasn't adapted to the idea that pretty much anybody can wield this potent weapon. The whole western world with its liberal (in the rights-based sense) philosophies are struggling with this but the US takes the most extremist positions in this area and is impacted the worst. The lack of regulatory response to the rise of weaponized, micro-targeted misinformation campaigns is certainly amplified by the gridlock caused by minoritarian control at the government level, of course, these are all inter-related problems.
dgudkov 5y ago
The West is on the rise technologically and in decline socially. But I wouldn't be too quick to call the decline irreversible. The democracy is still in a good shape despite some challenges. The West went through many crises. This is not the first one, and not the last one. So far, nothing indicates that the social crisis is irreversible and the West won't be able to bounce back.
- TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
  > The democracy is still in a good shape despite some challenges. What political pathways do you see for correcting both our two-party system and increased gerrymandering? It seems to me like those two factors are large contributors to our increasing political polarization, and fixing them would require the political parties to behave irrationally from a game theory perspective.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    Easy: give the individual states more responsibility. This has already begun. There is really no reason why California and Alabama need to have 100% of the same laws on highly contentious issues. It's not called the United States for nothing.
    - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
      I'm sorry, I don't understand. How would increased state rights reverse gerrymandering within those states?
      - ceilingcorner 5y ago
        I think polarization across the country is mostly a consequence of too much centralization. The federal government has too much power, so the political parties organize themselves in that way. Everything becomes zero sum. If states had more variation, I think you'd see less polarization, because the threat of a federal decision applying to everyone is far less of a worry.
gokhan 5y ago
This will continue until the people of the West feel threatened by China. And then, I think it will be a new playing field for Chine where they need to lay low and do fancy PR, which is not something they're capable of. During the height of the pandemic, Chinese ambassadors all over the world handled public relations terribly. We'll see worst when they need to speak directly to the people of other nations when things get tense.
- blaser-waffle 5y ago
  This is them doing fancy PR: paying for hit pieces in the Economist. They are aggressively making moves in the South China Sea and going full-tilt on the propaganda.
Black101 5y ago
> US policy are mostly only until next election And they often lie about what they will accomplish.
starfallg 5y ago
>IMO the biggest failure in all this is that the opposition to PRC's rise is the same old as we have seen before and it's very clear that it will fail. As an outsider to both the US and PRC it looks to me like the US does all it can to shoot itself in the foot continually for whatever reason while PRC is playing on a totally different level. Maybe because US policy are mostly only until next election? I would say it's mainly because there is a sizeable number of people in the US that are benefiting from favourable trade relations with China to lobby for not rocking the boat (not to mention purposely scuttling long-term strategic programmes to isolate China like the TPP). So the issue really is that there are bad actors that are putting their own private interests before that of the nation. Historically in China, this is also how many dynasties fell.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Not sticking with the TPP was such a dumb move by Trump (but I believe Hillary was going to dump it as well, so it's days were numbered either way). We need to step back into that agreement and put more weight behind it and working with democratic countries for manufacturing rather than with dictatorships.
tim333 5y ago
I wouldn't say the west is in decline in absolute terms though maybe in relative power as the likes of China get richer. Against that the culture of 'the west' is I think spreading to more counties. Places like Japan have long been western allies and I think a lot of countries wouldn't be very taken with the Chinese system.

by Daho0n 5y ago

vkou 5y ago

Unless Russia gets another revolution, it's likely to remain its own pole. It has a sphere of influence, exports that its neighbours are dependant on, and an ossified political structure.

subpixel 5y ago

> 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.

me_me_me 5y ago
I would disagree wholeheartedly with you on that point. 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.
TearsInTheRain 5y ago
The US is more than just its government. It is easy to argue that we are in a cultural decline as well. We all have agency in that regard.

paulmd 5y ago

The US's antiquated and ossified political system with its focus on minoritarianism and gridlock-as-a-design-objective are a major cause. As long as it's possible for ~30% of the country to drag everything to a halt, not a lot is going to get done. The push to restrict voting rights only amplifies that, but the real problem is that the US system is not built to produce a "mandate to lead", it is designed with an excessive focus on "checks and balances" that require supermajority control of all branches of government to accomplish the most basic of functions. Checks and balances and minority representation are good concepts in general but taken to too much of an extreme you end up with a government that cannot react to obviously changing circumstances, which is where we are now. That's the thing that's functionally going to put the US into decline, our government is simply so gridlocked that it cannot accomplish even its most basic functions, and it's a result of how the government is structured that allows and encourages this. If China and Russia don't do it alone, climate change and other problems certainly will. It's analogous to the liberum veto in the Polism sejm - the system "promoted bipartisanship" by allowing the current legislation under debate and all previous legislation passed in that session to be vetoed at any time by a single member. That's good, right? You have to pass things that only everyone agrees with! But it was exploited by bad actors both internally and foreign powers who wanted to weaken and disrupt the government, to the point the polish state collapsed into a state of anarchy and provincial rule. Sound familiar? Ultimately it is better to have a system of government that produces an administration that is capable of accomplishing its policy objectives, even if that means that your political opponents can also do things that you don't like. You can then structure the rest of the government around making sure that the administration remains representative of the population. But having a government that is routinely unable to do anything at all is a design flaw with the system, not something to be cheered, and that's the primary reason the US is in decline. It's better for somebody to be at the helm, than everybody arguing over which way to go and nobody driving. On top of that the US tends to conceptualize "unlimited rights" to a much greater degree than virtually any country. That makes it far more susceptible to misinformation campaigns. The internet is the Atom Bomb of the information age - it makes misinformation far more deadly than it ever was before, because now you can take misinformation straight to the idiots themselves on a micro-targeted level. Certainly misinformation was a problem before, particularly with radio (eg Father Coughlin) but that was eventually curbed with broadcast regulations. As those regulations have eroded the problem got worse again, and now that we have private infrastructure that is totally unregulated it is becoming vastly worse again. Even worse than before in fact, because now you can micro-target the lies each person is most susceptible too. It's just a completely different ballgame than it was 30 years ago, and the regulatory scheme hasn't adapted to the idea that pretty much anybody can wield this potent weapon. The whole western world with its liberal (in the rights-based sense) philosophies are struggling with this but the US takes the most extremist positions in this area and is impacted the worst. The lack of regulatory response to the rise of weaponized, micro-targeted misinformation campaigns is certainly amplified by the gridlock caused by minoritarian control at the government level, of course, these are all inter-related problems.

dgudkov 5y ago

The West is on the rise technologically and in decline socially. But I wouldn't be too quick to call the decline irreversible. The democracy is still in a good shape despite some challenges. The West went through many crises. This is not the first one, and not the last one. So far, nothing indicates that the social crisis is irreversible and the West won't be able to bounce back.

TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
> The democracy is still in a good shape despite some challenges. What political pathways do you see for correcting both our two-party system and increased gerrymandering? It seems to me like those two factors are large contributors to our increasing political polarization, and fixing them would require the political parties to behave irrationally from a game theory perspective.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  Easy: give the individual states more responsibility. This has already begun. There is really no reason why California and Alabama need to have 100% of the same laws on highly contentious issues. It's not called the United States for nothing.
  - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't understand. How would increased state rights reverse gerrymandering within those states?
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      I think polarization across the country is mostly a consequence of too much centralization. The federal government has too much power, so the political parties organize themselves in that way. Everything becomes zero sum. If states had more variation, I think you'd see less polarization, because the threat of a federal decision applying to everyone is far less of a worry.

gokhan 5y ago

This will continue until the people of the West feel threatened by China. And then, I think it will be a new playing field for Chine where they need to lay low and do fancy PR, which is not something they're capable of. During the height of the pandemic, Chinese ambassadors all over the world handled public relations terribly. We'll see worst when they need to speak directly to the people of other nations when things get tense.

blaser-waffle 5y ago
This is them doing fancy PR: paying for hit pieces in the Economist. They are aggressively making moves in the South China Sea and going full-tilt on the propaganda.

Black101 5y ago

> US policy are mostly only until next election And they often lie about what they will accomplish.

starfallg 5y ago

>IMO the biggest failure in all this is that the opposition to PRC's rise is the same old as we have seen before and it's very clear that it will fail. As an outsider to both the US and PRC it looks to me like the US does all it can to shoot itself in the foot continually for whatever reason while PRC is playing on a totally different level. Maybe because US policy are mostly only until next election? I would say it's mainly because there is a sizeable number of people in the US that are benefiting from favourable trade relations with China to lobby for not rocking the boat (not to mention purposely scuttling long-term strategic programmes to isolate China like the TPP). So the issue really is that there are bad actors that are putting their own private interests before that of the nation. Historically in China, this is also how many dynasties fell.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Not sticking with the TPP was such a dumb move by Trump (but I believe Hillary was going to dump it as well, so it's days were numbered either way). We need to step back into that agreement and put more weight behind it and working with democratic countries for manufacturing rather than with dictatorships.

tim333 5y ago

I wouldn't say the west is in decline in absolute terms though maybe in relative power as the likes of China get richer. Against that the culture of 'the west' is I think spreading to more counties. Places like Japan have long been western allies and I think a lot of countries wouldn't be very taken with the Chinese system.