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"Britain seems trapped in a doom loop of superannuated governments which, after a term or two of charismatic leadership and reformist vim, wind up bereft of tal
by alvah 4y ago
"Britain seems trapped in a doom loop of superannuated governments which, after a term or two of charismatic leadership and reformist vim, wind up bereft of talent, sinking in their own mistakes and wracked by backbench rebellions; in office but barely in power"
That's not just Britain, the entire West has this problem. IMO the rise of professional politicians who've never worked outside of politics is a major cause of this problem. Modern politics does not select for the best of the best, it selects for those with a lust for power and control & the ability to camouflage this with a professed desire to serve the public.
- nxmnxm99 4y agoThis is why the West is stagnating and the power center of the world has shifted East once more after half a millennia.
- uejfiweun 4y agoIs the West really stagnating? If anything, I'd say it's at the peak and continuing to climb. The bulk of the West's power is united under a single language, on a continent that's practically invincible, and it has constructed a system in which the brightest minds from around the world come to the US to work for Western companies and study in Western universities. Sure, China is catching up quickly, but that's because it is heading down a path that was already first cleared by the West - I'd expect diminishing returns to its strategy. I think it's really quite different from what you describe. In my eyes, the game is over, the West already won, and the best that other powers can hope for is to join the West in victory - it's a fool's errand to try and supplant it entirely.
- nxmnxm99 4y agoI mean - you’re wrong. 20 years ago America and Europe dominated the world - today the US is growing increasingly perilous politically and Europe is little more than a museum, irrelevant by the day. The collective economies of Canada, Europe and Australia haven’t grown since 2008. 15 years. The US is the only “western” economy which has actually shown real GDP growth. A staggering number of academics and researchers are now opting to either stay or return home - because home is a better place to live than the West, unlike 20 years ago. By the year 2040, there is only going to be a single “western” country among the worlds 10 largest economies. It’s basic math. China is just the start - there are 4-5 new chinas emerging over the next 2-3 decades What you are saying is respectfully a highly incorrect and somewhat sheltered perspective.
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- alvah 4y agoIf it's basic math, how come China and India haven't ruled the world forever, since they have the largest populations? There's a lot more to it than what you say.
- nxmnxm99 4y agoUm, they did - China was the global superpower for most of human history. Western (read: caucasian) dominance is a relatively recent phenomenon. And even that dominance is thanks almost entirely to the Islamic golden age that preceded it. And just like the ignorant muslim empires in 1200 who assumed they would rule the world forever, Westerners haven't realized the rest of the world has caught up to them and the European age is over.
- alvah 4y agoSo your basic math has no explanation for Western domination over the last ~250 years. Got it.
- int_19h 4y agoWhen was it ever different?
- alvah 4y agoAllegedly, long before my time, politics was seen as a calling, a way of giving back after a successful career. Not sure how much of that is based in reality, but from what I’ve read the option of politics as an entire career, without doing something productive first, has only existed for the last ~40 years
- int_19h 4y agoI would argue that politics has been primarily a "professional" occupation for most of human history. And there were certainly plenty of generational political families in Western countries before the past 40 years. I suspect that the only thing that changed is the PR. When mass media is mostly centralized, dominated by a few large radio/TV channels and newspapers, it's not hard to manufacture a public image.