4 ms·

Unfortunately there is another possibility: a return to great power competition.

bsenftner 4mo ago
Nah, that fantasy is over, with the new Era of Moron Power. The future of humanity of absolutely Asian. Western culture is Rome on Fire.
- api 4mo ago
  The irony is that the people who screamed the most that Rome was on fire aggressively pushed for what you brilliantly call Moron Power. They thought we were crashing, rushed the cockpit, and pushed forward as hard as they could on the stick. Forward is up, right?
  - franktankbank 4mo ago
    I'm sorry but Rome certainly didn't have airplanes.
    - api 4mo ago
      I'm referring to this, which has aged quite poorly: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-election/ https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-ele...
marcyb5st 4mo ago
I don't see that happening. The US debt will hinder any big expense that could keep it in any game long term. Take AI for instance. The US grid is struggling to keep up with demand, while Chinese one has a lot of headway [1]. Usually, this could be solved by an increase in spending lasting a few years which would make the debt tick up, but that would've been an absolutely fine use of debt since it buys some shiny new infra that will pay dividends for the next 20ish years. Now? Not possible. The US is already drowning in debt and the usual buyers are not showing up to buy it because of the Iran fiasco. With oil so expensive everyone was using their USD reserves to buy oil, not debt. Which mades interest rates go up considerably, and for a country with already ~130% of debt/gdp ratio these are terrible news. So, I don't think there will be a great power race. Europe is fucked by both high debt, and lack of innovation. Russia is struggling already to finance a war of conquest they started. China is the only one that can run if it comes down to it (unless of course the numbers coming out of China are mega bogus, but for that I don't know enough to have an opinion). [1] https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/data-centers-china-grid-us-infrastructure/ https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/data-centers-china-grid-us-in...
- kranke155 4mo ago
  It is absolutely a Chinese century. Even the comment above isn’t wrong per se - great power competition is normal during the interregnum, ie as Arrighi described it - one hegemon is rising while another is declining. But eventually one of them does rise and the world conforms to that - ie America in post WW2.
  - bxk76 4mo ago
    Well China cant seem to make a single friend beyond North Korea and Russia. Everyone is a bit wary of them. I mean when the US replaced the Brits as Hegemon a large part of the world wasnt nervous about it.
    - wredcoll 4mo ago
      God, this is depressing. I think it's difficult, if you're a millenial/zoomer/whatever we're calling these things, to understand just how much of the world genuinely liked and respected and wanted america involved in their local affairs. America obviously wasn't perfect and many, many more people than trump were involved with squandering all of this goodwill, but we still had some left over before he showed up.
      - bxk76 4mo ago
        Its not a static system. Things will swing back and forth like a pendulum. And through those oscillation we move forward. Diff today is everyone is getting their heads filled 24x7 with a whole lot of info their grandparents never had to digest about how the system moves.
- inigyou 4mo ago
  The US can just hyperinflate to pay its debts.
  - marcyb5st 4mo ago
    And kill the savings of what remains of the middle class. Probably they will do it though, as it is a slow thing and is not felt by the average Joe like a tax hike or loss of benefits. So the policians won't trigger an outrage by doing so.

Nah, that fantasy is over, with the new Era of Moron Power. The future of humanity of absolutely Asian. Western culture is Rome on Fire.

api 4mo ago
The irony is that the people who screamed the most that Rome was on fire aggressively pushed for what you brilliantly call Moron Power. They thought we were crashing, rushed the cockpit, and pushed forward as hard as they could on the stick. Forward is up, right?
- franktankbank 4mo ago
  I'm sorry but Rome certainly didn't have airplanes.
  - api 4mo ago
    I'm referring to this, which has aged quite poorly: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-election/ https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-ele...

marcyb5st 4mo ago

I don't see that happening. The US debt will hinder any big expense that could keep it in any game long term. Take AI for instance. The US grid is struggling to keep up with demand, while Chinese one has a lot of headway [1]. Usually, this could be solved by an increase in spending lasting a few years which would make the debt tick up, but that would've been an absolutely fine use of debt since it buys some shiny new infra that will pay dividends for the next 20ish years. Now? Not possible. The US is already drowning in debt and the usual buyers are not showing up to buy it because of the Iran fiasco. With oil so expensive everyone was using their USD reserves to buy oil, not debt. Which mades interest rates go up considerably, and for a country with already ~130% of debt/gdp ratio these are terrible news. So, I don't think there will be a great power race. Europe is fucked by both high debt, and lack of innovation. Russia is struggling already to finance a war of conquest they started. China is the only one that can run if it comes down to it (unless of course the numbers coming out of China are mega bogus, but for that I don't know enough to have an opinion). [1] https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/data-centers-china-grid-us-infrastructure/ https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/data-centers-china-grid-us-in...

kranke155 4mo ago
It is absolutely a Chinese century. Even the comment above isn’t wrong per se - great power competition is normal during the interregnum, ie as Arrighi described it - one hegemon is rising while another is declining. But eventually one of them does rise and the world conforms to that - ie America in post WW2.
- bxk76 4mo ago
  Well China cant seem to make a single friend beyond North Korea and Russia. Everyone is a bit wary of them. I mean when the US replaced the Brits as Hegemon a large part of the world wasnt nervous about it.
  - wredcoll 4mo ago
    God, this is depressing. I think it's difficult, if you're a millenial/zoomer/whatever we're calling these things, to understand just how much of the world genuinely liked and respected and wanted america involved in their local affairs. America obviously wasn't perfect and many, many more people than trump were involved with squandering all of this goodwill, but we still had some left over before he showed up.
    - bxk76 4mo ago
      Its not a static system. Things will swing back and forth like a pendulum. And through those oscillation we move forward. Diff today is everyone is getting their heads filled 24x7 with a whole lot of info their grandparents never had to digest about how the system moves.
inigyou 4mo ago
The US can just hyperinflate to pay its debts.
- marcyb5st 4mo ago
  And kill the savings of what remains of the middle class. Probably they will do it though, as it is a slow thing and is not felt by the average Joe like a tax hike or loss of benefits. So the policians won't trigger an outrage by doing so.