4 ms·

That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or els

That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?

pfraze 5y ago
We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
  - seanw444 5y ago
    Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!
drewcoo 5y ago
After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.
socksset 5y ago
Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"

pfraze 5y ago

We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.

thehappypm 5y ago
Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
- seanw444 5y ago
  Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!

drewcoo 5y ago

After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.

socksset 5y ago

Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"