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Certainly the world is full of actions and reactions, nothing is happening in a vacuum. You don't have to be from a country to take sides, but presumably you h

by CMay 3mo ago

Certainly the world is full of actions and reactions, nothing is happening in a vacuum. You don't have to be from a country to take sides, but presumably you have some kind of moral compass, some kind of values around personal freedom or the worth of a human life. There can be a very real cost, because one side comes from an ideology with a history that wants to conquer the entire Earth which caused World War 2 while the other side is trying to prune the planet like a bonsai to prevent it from descending into total chaos to preserve some sense of international order. Europe was constantly at war, and we helped stabilize it. Middle East as been constantly at war, and if Iran can be sorted then it will be the closest to some sense of peace it's been in a long time. We used to be in Japan, Philippines, Germany, Vietnam, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on. How many are US territories? None. We aren't out there to conquer the globe and take land. We're usually fighting other people's wars for them, because they're up against better resourced opponents. Meanwhile China is over there building artificial islands, ramming other country's ships, creating ideological police stations in countries around the world to harass people and engaging in the most widespread international interference campaigns in human history. They do not treat their people well and they do not have free speech. The internet is flooded with their propaganda now, because they have a human numbers advantage. It's true that given time most advantages are temporary, but there's always that slim chance we could slow them down until the CCP collapses and they could become a more normal country.

esarbe 3mo ago
You sound like you've swallowed pro-US-propaganda hook, line and sinker. The reason the middle-east is at constant war is because colonialist machinations. Same goes for south-Saharan Africa. And the US is a big colonialist player, just ask Vietnam, South-America, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. They all have been attacked by the US because of US colonial interests. If anything, one could make the argument that the PRC is treading much more lightly than the US. That said - I'm not defending the PRC by any way; it's a state-capitalist hell hole that's suppressing workers by denying them any ability to organize and whose political class is purely focused on furthering their own interests and that of the moneyed elite, the common person be damned. The thing is - so is the US.
- CMay 3mo ago
  If you think those were about colonization, you would be well served to examine history closer.
frognumber 3mo ago
Ah yes. The exceptionalism argument. There's the good "us" and the bad "them."
- CMay 3mo ago
  I didn't make an exceptionalist argument, but if any country's behavior and values can be measured compared to others, you will always be able to make some kind of decision about where those fall in terms of goodness or badness. Do you not believe in good and bad?
  - frognumber 3mo ago
    I believe in good and bad. I don't believe in US good, non-US bad. I also don't believe the same about my religion or my political party, for that matter. How you measure depends on weights you assign (cultural system of values) and what information you use (media bias). You can rank in the extremes (e.g. North Korea as worse than Belgium), since they come out that way by almost any set of information and values. Comparing the US to most other countries, there isn't a clear ordering. If you believe the things you wrote, I think the other comment summed it up well: "You sound like you've swallowed pro-US-propaganda hook, line and sinker." Most countries have similar propaganda, by the way.
    - CMay 3mo ago
      Most countries have some kind of story they tell about themselves. New Zealand doesn't have any illusions that it is a superpower. It doesn't have the resources, the talent pool or any of that to even begin to dream of it. That is natural. If New Zealand was powerful, then it would find itself in a position of greater responsibility. You cannot compare countries that barely have the option of ambition with something like the US and even begin to imagine that it is meaningful. You have the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China and the US. You can rewind history to name other civilizations. These kinds of countries are the only ones that matter, because they're the ones that have to answer about what people were thinking when they chose to make use of their power in a way that is relevant on a larger scale. They have to answer about what the reasons were when things went wrong and whether they agree things went wrong. If people are even allowed to talk about it. It's very cheap to label anything as propaganda without taking the time to appreciate whether it has any merit in terms of the overall behavior of a country or its people. You can always find counter-examples, but how influential are they in the larger picture?

by CMay 3mo ago

esarbe 3mo ago

You sound like you've swallowed pro-US-propaganda hook, line and sinker. The reason the middle-east is at constant war is because colonialist machinations. Same goes for south-Saharan Africa. And the US is a big colonialist player, just ask Vietnam, South-America, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. They all have been attacked by the US because of US colonial interests. If anything, one could make the argument that the PRC is treading much more lightly than the US. That said - I'm not defending the PRC by any way; it's a state-capitalist hell hole that's suppressing workers by denying them any ability to organize and whose political class is purely focused on furthering their own interests and that of the moneyed elite, the common person be damned. The thing is - so is the US.

CMay 3mo ago
If you think those were about colonization, you would be well served to examine history closer.

frognumber 3mo ago

Ah yes. The exceptionalism argument. There's the good "us" and the bad "them."

CMay 3mo ago
I didn't make an exceptionalist argument, but if any country's behavior and values can be measured compared to others, you will always be able to make some kind of decision about where those fall in terms of goodness or badness. Do you not believe in good and bad?
- frognumber 3mo ago
  I believe in good and bad. I don't believe in US good, non-US bad. I also don't believe the same about my religion or my political party, for that matter. How you measure depends on weights you assign (cultural system of values) and what information you use (media bias). You can rank in the extremes (e.g. North Korea as worse than Belgium), since they come out that way by almost any set of information and values. Comparing the US to most other countries, there isn't a clear ordering. If you believe the things you wrote, I think the other comment summed it up well: "You sound like you've swallowed pro-US-propaganda hook, line and sinker." Most countries have similar propaganda, by the way.
  - CMay 3mo ago
    Most countries have some kind of story they tell about themselves. New Zealand doesn't have any illusions that it is a superpower. It doesn't have the resources, the talent pool or any of that to even begin to dream of it. That is natural. If New Zealand was powerful, then it would find itself in a position of greater responsibility. You cannot compare countries that barely have the option of ambition with something like the US and even begin to imagine that it is meaningful. You have the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China and the US. You can rewind history to name other civilizations. These kinds of countries are the only ones that matter, because they're the ones that have to answer about what people were thinking when they chose to make use of their power in a way that is relevant on a larger scale. They have to answer about what the reasons were when things went wrong and whether they agree things went wrong. If people are even allowed to talk about it. It's very cheap to label anything as propaganda without taking the time to appreciate whether it has any merit in terms of the overall behavior of a country or its people. You can always find counter-examples, but how influential are they in the larger picture?