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In my opinion, the four or so biggest existential and ideological threats to the U.S. are: 1. Unabashed and unhinged capitalism (growth at all costs) 2. Nearl
by bmitc 4y ago
In my opinion, the four or so biggest existential and ideological threats to the U.S. are:
1. Unabashed and unhinged capitalism (growth at all costs)
2. Nearly every social media platform
3. The mainstream media
4. Billionaires and more generally the ultrawealthy
As far as I can tell, basically no one in power cares about any of these (likely because they benefit from all of them), and they're tearing the U.S. apart from the inside.
- ralusek 4y agoThe biggest existential threat to any civilization is its own state, surprisingly absent from your list. A further and more generalized abstraction is that the biggest threat to any civilization are self-interested power centers of any kind. Those can take the form of states, corporations, unions, billionaires, etc. Any entity that begins to operate in its own interest and has vastly disproportionate power when compared to the individuals of which the civilization is made.
- bmitc 4y ago> The biggest existential threat to any civilization is its own state, surprisingly absent from your list. No it’s not absent. The state is controlled by (1)-(4).
- gfdsgfdsgfsd 4y agoThe USA is very wealthy because of 1 and 4
- dopidop 4y agoThe USA being wealthy seems like a weird idea from a lot of the USA territory. See : MS, LA, AL and consort. At some point you can’t ignore the division between the map and the territory. At best the USA is a country, with rich people in it. As opposed to say, Switzerland, a rich country.
- rcarr 4y agoAnd number 2 and 3: don’t underestimate the power of exported American culture via the media. There’s a clear trend (in English speaking countries at least) that the culture is becoming more and more Americanised, especially among youth. Non English speaking countries tend to resist it more but the influence is still there.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoI think the more realistic threat model is that people who disagree over issues vaguely related to 1 will be emboldened by filter bubbles from 2 and egged on by self interested subsets of 3 and 4 to get shooty with each other at scale.