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The US is not there yet. But if there is no reversal within the next couple of years, then it will kick in. And that is hard.

stego-tech 2y ago
I live my life constantly preparing for the worst case scenario; it's what serves me well in my career in IT (if the building isn't on fire from a nuclear strike with zombies at the gates, it's a good day!), but it does mean I'm always interpreting smoke on the horizon as a wildfire and calling it in - even though it's often just campers roasting marshmallows. I say this so my words and position have more context for readers like yourself, in that I'm preparing for things that aren't likely to happen, but you're grateful someone prepared for it when they do. So when I say we're done, it's because I genuinely see so much smoke on the horizon that I know there's a wildfire there. Companies and governments don't start openly talking about changing vendors or building out infrastructure for funsies - they do it after they've made the decision internally to NOPE out elsewhere. The amount of harm and damage done already simply cannot be overstated, because we're only seeing the damage they haven't hidden. While everyone focuses on one Signal chat a journalist was invited into, people like me are worrying about how many more have already disappeared forever, and how widespread its use internally is for avoiding records and accountability laws. The snowballs have already started down the hill, and it takes years to stop them. By the time we get into a position to stop these, they'll already have grown into avalanches of knock-on effects and repercussions - nevermind the hundreds of other snowballs having been sent downhill since we started responding to this initial volley. Institutions take decades to build, and minutes to destroy; it's why they're entrusted with so much power, after all. All of this is to say that I really think people need to stop thinking we have time to reverse or stop these harms, and accept the harms have already happened, so what do we do now?
- jemmyw 2y ago
  I would agree. Republicans and then Americans voted for T a second time, after Jan 6. They knew what he stood for. So this change is baked in. The US is abandoning the world order they set and maintained since WWII. Looking back, I think this started well before Trump anyway, probably with Obama. The promise is that Americans will be better off, and it's not a terribly hard sell: why should you pay to defend the world, why shouldn't you take more when you're the strongest. I doubt it'll work out that way, the problems that have been building up for so long are the result of inequality, corporatism and internal social factors. Maybe your snowballs were rolling long before you noticed.
  - stego-tech 2y ago
    > Looking back, I think this started well before Trump anyway, probably with Obama. In said essay, I make the argument that the original inflection point was the rejection of Jimmy Carter's policies of self-sacrifice today for a brighter future tomorrow, in favor of Reagan and that hot new girl at the party, Neoliberalism. From there it was a cancer that just ate away at institutions, traditions, policies, decorum, and every level of government as voters time, after time, after time, adopted a position of "F*k you, got mine". Everything after - Bill Clinton's welfare reform and Lewinsky scandal, the Bush-Iraq double-features, Obama's and the Dem's non-punishment of the finance sector post-'08, and the failure to properly hold accountable Trump et al after Jan 6, all contributed to the decline in their own ways. That's why I'm so confident that it's over: it's been in progress for decades.

stego-tech 2y ago

I live my life constantly preparing for the worst case scenario; it's what serves me well in my career in IT (if the building isn't on fire from a nuclear strike with zombies at the gates, it's a good day!), but it does mean I'm always interpreting smoke on the horizon as a wildfire and calling it in - even though it's often just campers roasting marshmallows. I say this so my words and position have more context for readers like yourself, in that I'm preparing for things that aren't likely to happen, but you're grateful someone prepared for it when they do. So when I say we're done, it's because I genuinely see so much smoke on the horizon that I know there's a wildfire there. Companies and governments don't start openly talking about changing vendors or building out infrastructure for funsies - they do it after they've made the decision internally to NOPE out elsewhere. The amount of harm and damage done already simply cannot be overstated, because we're only seeing the damage they haven't hidden. While everyone focuses on one Signal chat a journalist was invited into, people like me are worrying about how many more have already disappeared forever, and how widespread its use internally is for avoiding records and accountability laws. The snowballs have already started down the hill, and it takes years to stop them. By the time we get into a position to stop these, they'll already have grown into avalanches of knock-on effects and repercussions - nevermind the hundreds of other snowballs having been sent downhill since we started responding to this initial volley. Institutions take decades to build, and minutes to destroy; it's why they're entrusted with so much power, after all. All of this is to say that I really think people need to stop thinking we have time to reverse or stop these harms, and accept the harms have already happened, so what do we do now?

jemmyw 2y ago
I would agree. Republicans and then Americans voted for T a second time, after Jan 6. They knew what he stood for. So this change is baked in. The US is abandoning the world order they set and maintained since WWII. Looking back, I think this started well before Trump anyway, probably with Obama. The promise is that Americans will be better off, and it's not a terribly hard sell: why should you pay to defend the world, why shouldn't you take more when you're the strongest. I doubt it'll work out that way, the problems that have been building up for so long are the result of inequality, corporatism and internal social factors. Maybe your snowballs were rolling long before you noticed.
- stego-tech 2y ago
  > Looking back, I think this started well before Trump anyway, probably with Obama. In said essay, I make the argument that the original inflection point was the rejection of Jimmy Carter's policies of self-sacrifice today for a brighter future tomorrow, in favor of Reagan and that hot new girl at the party, Neoliberalism. From there it was a cancer that just ate away at institutions, traditions, policies, decorum, and every level of government as voters time, after time, after time, adopted a position of "F*k you, got mine". Everything after - Bill Clinton's welfare reform and Lewinsky scandal, the Bush-Iraq double-features, Obama's and the Dem's non-punishment of the finance sector post-'08, and the failure to properly hold accountable Trump et al after Jan 6, all contributed to the decline in their own ways. That's why I'm so confident that it's over: it's been in progress for decades.