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Huh won't this just accelerate the alternate swift and other economic systems with BRICS countries ? America and significant parts Europe are undergoing variou

Huh won't this just accelerate the alternate swift and other economic systems with BRICS countries ? America and significant parts Europe are undergoing various forms of decline like economic stagnation, cultural violence, rising ultranationalists/populists, and energy independence issues. Even China is making a move on taiwan, and the biden adminstration is trying to rush into talks with them. I have a very different take, we are watching the end on a unipolar world, and the birth of true multipolar one.

cromwellian 5y ago
I think the 'decline' has been greatly exaggerated, in part because it actually helps right-wing populism to exaggerate it. Yes, in some ways, there has been a decline in manufacturing labor required, but it's not strictly because of off shoring, but also because of automation. If you look at various industries, their output hasn't actually declined, while the labor inputs have declined greatly. When you look at Energy production (US top oil/gas producer in the world), entertainment (hollywood still dominates global soft power), tech leadership (Silicon IP from Apple, Qualcomm, NVidia, AMD, et al still #1 in the world), EVs (Tesla), Space (SpaceX, Rocket Labs, Relativity Space, Axiom, etc), Medicine (mRNA vax), online services, machine learning advancements, software, etc I don't see any trend of 'decline' in leadership from the West. Now, some will counter "but but, China! Look at all of the AI", and certainly, they have deployed a lot of AI, mostly in surveillance, just like they've deployed a lot of high speed rail, but in terms of the truly disruptive research papers that have driven some of the biggest breakthroughs? They've often been centered in Western companies and universities. (Now, there's usually a lot of Chinese co-authors on these papers, often working in Western tech firms, so I'm not bashing Chinese researchers here, I'm just pointing out, there's no real decline in the output sponsored and published in the West, especially when you weight papers by importance) What's happening is that the participants in the system are becoming more diffuse, and people all around the world can participate and contribute, and access tech centered from the West, and fork off their own regional variants, but this is happening in-addition- to, not at-the-expense-of, the US and Europe. I don't think China's rise is equal to the US decline, that line of thinking I feel is part of the political problem, and it's especially problematic under Xi's China with the excessive Wolf Warrior nationalism that has this air of 'inevitable US decline and Chinese supremacy' to it. It feels like copium to me on the part of nationalists, hoping for a collapse that isn't going to come. Let's just say the reports of the West's death have been greatly exaggerated.
imtringued 5y ago
Russia just an oil and gas tap for the west. The nukes are terrifying but other than the usual oversized military what is there to fear? Putin is in ig trouble if the west can get off fossil fuels. After all, the entire reason behind the war is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a bargaining chip against Russian oil and gas. It's just way too convenient that they annexed crimea first which has 80% of the oil and gas resources in Ukraine. When you read German comment sections you see people worrying about energy cost due to sanctions. That is exactly why Russia is untouchable.

cromwellian 5y ago

I think the 'decline' has been greatly exaggerated, in part because it actually helps right-wing populism to exaggerate it. Yes, in some ways, there has been a decline in manufacturing labor required, but it's not strictly because of off shoring, but also because of automation. If you look at various industries, their output hasn't actually declined, while the labor inputs have declined greatly. When you look at Energy production (US top oil/gas producer in the world), entertainment (hollywood still dominates global soft power), tech leadership (Silicon IP from Apple, Qualcomm, NVidia, AMD, et al still #1 in the world), EVs (Tesla), Space (SpaceX, Rocket Labs, Relativity Space, Axiom, etc), Medicine (mRNA vax), online services, machine learning advancements, software, etc I don't see any trend of 'decline' in leadership from the West. Now, some will counter "but but, China! Look at all of the AI", and certainly, they have deployed a lot of AI, mostly in surveillance, just like they've deployed a lot of high speed rail, but in terms of the truly disruptive research papers that have driven some of the biggest breakthroughs? They've often been centered in Western companies and universities. (Now, there's usually a lot of Chinese co-authors on these papers, often working in Western tech firms, so I'm not bashing Chinese researchers here, I'm just pointing out, there's no real decline in the output sponsored and published in the West, especially when you weight papers by importance) What's happening is that the participants in the system are becoming more diffuse, and people all around the world can participate and contribute, and access tech centered from the West, and fork off their own regional variants, but this is happening in-addition- to, not at-the-expense-of, the US and Europe. I don't think China's rise is equal to the US decline, that line of thinking I feel is part of the political problem, and it's especially problematic under Xi's China with the excessive Wolf Warrior nationalism that has this air of 'inevitable US decline and Chinese supremacy' to it. It feels like copium to me on the part of nationalists, hoping for a collapse that isn't going to come. Let's just say the reports of the West's death have been greatly exaggerated.

imtringued 5y ago

Russia just an oil and gas tap for the west. The nukes are terrifying but other than the usual oversized military what is there to fear? Putin is in ig trouble if the west can get off fossil fuels. After all, the entire reason behind the war is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a bargaining chip against Russian oil and gas. It's just way too convenient that they annexed crimea first which has 80% of the oil and gas resources in Ukraine. When you read German comment sections you see people worrying about energy cost due to sanctions. That is exactly why Russia is untouchable.