[HN Gopher] It doesn't cost much to improve someone's life
___________________________________________________________________
It doesn't cost much to improve someone's life
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 204 points
Date : 2025-03-11 16:43 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org)
| JohnFen wrote:
| I've temporarily dialed back on my charitable contributions. I
| believe that the US is at the front end of an unprecedented
| economic and political disaster, so I need to use the resources
| available to me to protect myself and my loved ones as best as I
| can.
|
| Once I have that arranged, I can think about giving again.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Related, I was thinking earlier today about at what
| probabilities and timelines of regime collapse it makes sense
| to start seriously planning a move to another country under. A
| 10% chance over a 10-year timeline feels about accurate to me -
| low probability, but not so low it feels safe to gamble with.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| What formula would you even use to quantify that?
| paulcole wrote:
| The entire world has too much riding on the US not
| collapsing.
|
| I think it's a 5% chance over the next 100 years.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| 5 over 100 feels high to me but not order-of-magnitude off.
| I'm at maybe a 2 myself. I agree that's an entirely
| unreasonable amount of risk for everyone to just be waving
| off though.
| paulcole wrote:
| I think 5 in 100 is totally reasonable to wave off.
|
| I'm not giving it a second thought personally.
|
| If it happens it will be so bad that I'll almost
| certainly die as a result (due to chronic illness) so I
| should just keep on living as-is and not worry about it.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| An, to be precise I really meant _everyone_ , like
| including national banks and giant corporations and
| stuff. Ordinary folk like you and me can almost certainly
| ignore it, it's just weird I rarely hear people talk
| about how to price this kind of thing in for very long
| term assets.
| fsckboy wrote:
| the "very long term" property of assets has very little
| present value with any reasonable discount rate, and
| fewer experienced people to actually care about it.
| financypants wrote:
| I think any government has q 2% chance of collapse at any
| moment
| zmgsabst wrote:
| 5% over 100 years is historically incredibly low.
|
| On average, governments last 250 years -- which means we
| have a 0.4% chance per year. Using that figure, 100 years
| has a 33% chance of collapse -- as our background.
|
| Or roughly 4% per decade.
|
| People wave off that risk because there's not a lot that
| can be done: we don't know how to make perfect
| governments and we've never discovered a good way to, eg,
| eliminate the ratcheting tax burdens that destabilize
| society.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Yeah, part of my argument is that that 250 year number is
| heavily skewed by past civilizations where life was much
| worse and so people were much more apt to just tear
| everything apart. I don't think it holds for countries at
| current First World standards of living. As we improve
| living standards further the number of years regimes will
| last for will stretch out even more.
|
| I'm not too crazy about this as an anarchist, mind you, I
| think there are better stable equilibria we could get to.
| Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I guess.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| I used to think this, but lately I'm not so sure. Beyond
| financial services, What does "the entire world" rely on US
| for anymore?
| csa wrote:
| > Beyond financial services, What does "the entire world"
| rely on US for anymore?
|
| Our market.
| Loughla wrote:
| The fact that we buy so much of everything.
| jes5199 wrote:
| petroleum wealth
| nouripenny wrote:
| The US government has many military bases and troops
| stationed in other countries. It can project violence
| across the planet. Any entity with that power has strong
| ability to dictate what others do, and induce dependency.
| https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/us-sending-more-
| troops-...
| ambicapter wrote:
| That isn't something that people "rely on" though. If
| that power is lost, some other power will come in to fill
| the vacuum.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| they aren't, EU is keeping busy with Russia, while China
| is growing uncheck on Asia
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Those are other powers filling the vacuum.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Safety of maritime shipping. The US Navy was created
| because ship captains kept getting ransomed by Moroccan
| pirates, since America gained independence their ships
| were no longer protected by the British Navy and became
| fair game.
|
| I know it's a controversial doctrine, but power
| projection does have a hand in keeping the peace.
| blibble wrote:
| those troops will be summarily evicted if the US regime
| continues threatening its allies with annexation
| paulcole wrote:
| > Beyond financial services
|
| Beyond the hoses and water what do we need the fire
| trucks for?
| SJC_Hacker wrote:
| The aqueduct.
|
| And the sanitation.
| csomar wrote:
| Global security (lots of countries exist because of the
| US), Tech industry (ie: Operating system), Food/Energy
| and some manufacturing. I think only the first two are
| critical for the rest of the world. The rest can be
| substituted.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| China and Russia are working hard to either replace or
| invalidate the US for the first point.
| trinix912 wrote:
| > Global security (lots of countries exist because of the
| US)
|
| That's a very US-centric POV. It's not like half the
| world would suddenly cease existing if the US collapsed.
| blibble wrote:
| how would Linux be affected by the disappearance of the
| US?
|
| people would lose access to Teams and Office
|
| but who cares, there's plenty of substitutes
| Jedd wrote:
| Can you think of any long-lived ( > 100 years), empire-
| scale civilisations that have collapsed despite a _firm
| belief_ they were non-collapsible and /or essential to all
| surrounding nation states?
|
| Without consulting wikipedia, I can only think of about 17
| off the top of my head.
| paulcole wrote:
| I am impressed that you are so well versed in history.
|
| What % chance do you think there is that the US collapses
| in over the next 10, 25, 50, and 100 years?
| LoganDark wrote:
| > I am impressed that you are so well versed in history.
|
| You know, schools used to teach this type of stuff.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| This is a salient point, I don't know how other countries
| handled it but American schools as an institution were
| absolutely wrecked by covid, a significant portion of the
| youths just straight up stopped attending school, and I'm
| in a bubble but most parents I know are homeschooling at
| least part time now, when they wouldn't think of doing so
| just 5 years ago
|
| Does not bode well for the future of informed populi
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Follow this chain of events:
|
| * The US economy nearly requires a degree for economic
| success
|
| * US demographics cliff results in a heavy short fall of
| student enrollments
|
| * US Federal government deeply cuts funding for
| universities
|
| * US higher education offers remote learning to attract
| students and reduce costs, much of which deeply lowers
| the standard of education
|
| * LLMs are deeply integrated into social products
| including snapchat and twitter
|
| * LLMs are capable of completing a significant amount of
| curriculum
|
| * The US Department of Education is removed, including
| teams responsible for tracking academic success on a
| national and state level
|
| Words like collapse are I think not the right word. But
| the long term institutional harm of this sequence of
| events may hit the country very hard. Bringing back
| factory jobs ain't gonna fix it, if tariffs are even
| capable of doing that.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I'm autistic and a significant percentage of my schooling
| was ignored by me because it held none of my interest. I
| practically made it a point to intentionally ignore
| certain information because I didn't see myself having
| any use for it in the future because I just didn't care
| about those things.
|
| As it turns out, the part of me that cared about those
| things just had a stunted development and was behind.
| Certain subjects like language and history have an
| emotional and cultural significance that cannot be
| appreciated through only math. I highly doubt anyone
| could have explained this to me because I had thought
| that I was the sole decider of everything ever in my
| brain. I honestly probably still do think that way.
| paulcole wrote:
| Schools also used to teach sarcasm detection.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| What do you think of a worldwide collapse?
|
| The lazy argument is that China will take over everything,
| that they think in 100 year increments. However they have
| terrible demographics, have serious risks like food
| security, and have mucked up their economy through their
| real estate collapse.
|
| We all know of the US's issues and there is no other
| country that is really challenging these two....so how
| about everyone fails and we are all poor and destitute
| together?
| amrocha wrote:
| China had no intention to take over anywhere. They're
| happy where they are.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| No intention to take over? So they'll walk away from Hong
| Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan?
|
| Also, leading countries in Asia and Africa into debt
| traps and dependence on them through the BRI is not very
| different from taking over.
| paulcole wrote:
| I think it's in the 0-2% over the next 100 years range. I
| think there are situations where the US collapses but the
| world doesn't so that's why it's lower.
|
| If the world collapse happens, it'll be a result of
| pandemic, meteor, solar storm, nuclear war, or something
| like that and not some country "taking over everything."
| csomar wrote:
| That is true and a big part of the reason why the world let
| the US get away with lots of stuff. But I think if the
| nature of the economical relation changes too much (ie: the
| US demand more juice to flow back to it), I can see how
| these countries might seriously consider (and maybe go for
| it) to break from the system. Will be a very wild ride.
| mpreda wrote:
| But the US is efficiently disentangling itself from the
| entire rest of the world as we speak; so that argument may
| not hold anymore in the near future.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| You should write down your predictions and take a look at
| them 5 years from now.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I can't speak for the original commenter, but I predicted 4
| years ago that Trump was done in politics because the
| American people wouldn't stand for a riot in the halls of
| Congress. Now that he's back and the rioters are pardoned,
| I'm listening more closely to the people who predicted that
| would happen, and they uniformly say there's a small but
| significant chance of a collapse.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Any people in particular you listen to? There is so much
| noise and everyone has a 'prediction'. Post election both
| sides have gotten really good at using sophisticated
| talking to sound like they know what they are talking
| about(Especially the right). I go on Reddit(main subs)
| its one universe, go to small less known subs, its a
| second universe and then Twitter is a third universe, all
| three are different alternative realities.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I guess I would point to prominent politicians as the
| best examples, although there's also smaller voices I see
| on Twitter and such. Schumer, Pelosi, Bernie, AOC, et
| cetera. I don't necessarily agree with all of their
| policy proposals but it seems like they understand Trump
| and what his goals are pretty well.
| financypants wrote:
| too bad there's not a prediction market on this on a
| platform like Kalshi so we could see more clearly the
| odds
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Yeah, no, that was my bet as well, and I was unbelievably
| wrong. It turns out it's really hard to bet against 50-50
| odds in a mature democracy with two dominant parties.
| Each group has infinite dimensions to slide along if the
| other group begins crawling upwards.
|
| I've been appropriately humbled by the experience. Worst
| bet of my career
| HPsquared wrote:
| So much of politics these days boils down to ontology.
| elzbardico wrote:
| One think that I always keep in mind is that I am not the
| average person. I live a confortable life with financial
| security. My incentives and the way I see the world is
| necessarely informed by my standpoint. For me, the
| continuity of the current institutions and the status-quo
| is a value.
|
| But think about someone who has been foreclosed in the
| last financial crisis, people who have no perspective of
| ever retiring, who a are a paycheck away from becoming
| homeless. Do you think those people will see our
| institutions in the same sacred light as we do?
| whatshisface wrote:
| You mean the institutions like social security?
| elzbardico wrote:
| You probably know very well what I am speaking about, and
| your attitude is a example of how we are losing the vast
| masses for non-democratic projects that will end up being
| worse for them than for us.
|
| We should get rid of our condescending attitudes and
| really try to see things from other's perspective. And on
| the other side, unless I am talking to an anonymous Peter
| Thiel, Musk ou Zuckerberg, it is not like we are truly
| part of the same elite the downtroden see with some much
| contempt.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Nobody is offering to transfer funding from NASA to
| Medicare. I just don't think this hypothesis matches up
| with the things we're observing.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I genuinely don't know what you're speaking about. I
| agree that trying to see things from another's
| perspective is important, but when I listen to Trump
| supporters explain their views they don't say the things
| you're saying. You describe Musk as part of an elite the
| downtrodden see with much contempt, but Trump campaigned
| on an explicit promise to empower Musk, and he's now one
| of the many billionaires with influential roles in the US
| government. The most common explanation I hear from Trump
| supporters is that they wanted an immigration crackdown
| and he's by far the most anti-immigration candidate
| available.
|
| If it were a matter of people with nothing to lose not
| caring about American institutions, wouldn't we expect to
| see lower income voters heavily leaning one way?
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I'm already on Manifold! I got destroyed when I bet
| incorrectly on the US election results but my track record
| is only mildly awful otherwise ;)
| jancsika wrote:
| Never heard of Manifold. Judging only from your posts on
| this thread I'm going to guess it's something like
| astrology but for data scientists.
|
| Am I close?
| ttyprintk wrote:
| Just another prediction market. Still requires Google or
| Apple authentication
|
| https://manifold.markets/ianminds/will-manifold-
| implement-lo...
| zol wrote:
| What do you think constitutes a collapse? Can you give a
| modern times example of a country collapsing in a way you're
| imagining the US might?
| BrenBarn wrote:
| Not exactly a country, but Hong Kong comes to mind. . .
| csomar wrote:
| Hong Kong did not collapse. eh, it is doing okay. Sure
| you have a reduction in liberties but that's not what
| collapse means.
| Retric wrote:
| The people who lived in Hong Kong are worse off today
| even outside of political freedoms.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's more "regression" or something. "Collapse" implies a
| dramatic event and something completely broken.
| Retric wrote:
| The collapse of the Roman Empire took decades and British
| Empire had a similarly long decline, but I understand
| your sentiment.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yes, Gibbon makes for interesting reading. Decline can
| indeed be prolonged. I suppose it's like how some things
| get very slowly better over the decades, other things get
| very slowly worse over the decades.
| danielbln wrote:
| Centuries, not decades.
| Retric wrote:
| I originally wrote centuries, but there's reasonable
| criticism calling something a collapse when there's
| periods of renewal and expansion in that timeframe.
| csomar wrote:
| I think the closest and most recent example we have is the
| Soviet Union. The US has a more homogeneous culture and
| language though. However, I can see states "caring" about
| themselves more than the union. This might actually turn
| out good for some states though probably catastrophic for
| some others.
| mpreda wrote:
| Indeed, federations splitting apart -- that's what
| happens in tough times.
| londons_explore wrote:
| US schools really ram home the 'we are american' message.
| 'Land of the free' and all that.
|
| Those cultural ties will take tens, perhaps over 100
| years, to weaken enough to cause a civil war.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| I just don't think that's true at all. This country is
| ridiculously diverse and most people don't share much
| culture.
| roenxi wrote:
| The USSR was in a far worse position than the US is in.
| They had to build a wall to keep people from walking out.
| The US on the other hand is financially irresponsible. It
| can't afford a global Not-An-Empire any more because its
| economy is no longer the world's unchallenged largest but
| it isn't in a bad state in absolute terms. The scale of
| the challenges just aren't in the same league.
|
| Unless it decides to go down fighting and gets something
| important blown up it could easily remain a nice place to
| live for centuries. Nobody threatens the US, it is hard
| to see how it'll ever be in anyone's interest to threaten
| them, they can re-learn how to be an industrial
| powerhouse if they have to. Almost all its real problems
| are ill-advised domestic policies that can be changed
| pretty quickly if people decide the situation is hairy
| enough to be honest in politics.
|
| It might be in everyone's interests for the US to
| dissolve but it won't be as bad as the USSR dissolution
| was. It'd probably be a good outcome if they went back to
| the constitution as intended, depowered the federal
| government and became a collection of powerful states. A
| lot of the political tension is because whoever wins the
| fight over controlling the central government ends up
| with far too much power.
| elzbardico wrote:
| When I look at the Gerontocracy that rules american
| politics today, I can't help but remember myself of the
| Soviet Gerontocracy that ruled the USSR in its last
| decade or so.
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| I don't think the US has much of a homogenous culture
| outside of cities.
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| I think the collapse might take place in the shape of
| something like china: self interested elites, self
| sabotaging economic policy, a hollowing out economically by
| outside powers, numerous failed rebellions and devolution
| of central power due to lack of governability, etc. Aka, a
| period of somewhat rapid decay.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Not an expert on China, but I thought standard of living
| for Chinese people greatly improved in past 1-2 decades?
| can we call that a collapse?
| bognition wrote:
| The collapse is already happening it's just happening
| slowly.
|
| We've offshored manufacturing, cut funding for education,
| have failed to invest in infrastructure.
| derektank wrote:
| We literally just invested $500B in infrastructure less
| than 4 years ago
| nradov wrote:
| US manufacturing output is higher than ever. Although it
| makes up a declining share of GDP since other sectors
| have grown faster.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/global-
| metrics/countries/USA/uni...
|
| Education funding per pupil has steadily increased year
| after year. Maybe we should spend even more, but our
| problems with bad educational outcomes are mostly due to
| other factors rather than a lack of money.
|
| https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-
| statisti...
| sethammons wrote:
| Automation has done more to remove manufacturing jobs
| than offshore by a significant margin. 50-70% of job loss
| and wage reduction can be attributed to automation.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2021/06/17/automation-ai-income-
| inequa...
|
| Even if we bring back all the manufacturing jobs we've
| lost, they represent fewer positions and automation will
| continue to be a downward force on wages.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Plan how to become the new regime, if you think it's likely.
|
| This period looks wild, in no small part because 90% of even
| the fringe-y media don't like Trump, but I doubt much of his
| shenanigans will hold up once court cases happen. People will
| get bench-slapped (the only lawyering pun I know, but it's a
| good one).
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The risk that at least some people are worried about is
| that they will just start ignoring court cases. I don't
| have any idea how likely that is.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Possible but... _very_ unlikely.
| davidcbc wrote:
| They've already been ignoring court orders
| breppp wrote:
| Where would you move that won't be affected by a United
| States collapse, or alternatively you can't predict a bleak
| scenario over a 10-year timeline?
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Well, presumably you'll have a much easier time living
| through the fall of a country in another country.
|
| As to "which countries don't seem like they'll collapse
| with over 1 in 10 odds within 10 years"... Most of them? I
| guess if you thought this risk was exceptionally high the
| EU's visa free travel would be the best hedge you could get
| right now.
| almostnormal wrote:
| Even if the EU doesn't collapse there's a non-zero risk
| of war though, after Russia is done with Ukraine.
| timeattack wrote:
| I highly doubt that Russia is capable or willing to get
| into a fullscale war with EU. It's more than 3 years into
| war with Ukraine without any meaningful result, but
| repercussions for Russia, while not fatal, still
| significant. There was very limited military aid for
| Ukraine, yet Ukranian UAVs explode in Moscow and regions
| almost every day. Also there's a gas pipe from Russia to
| EU amidst the conflict which both sides afraid to even
| touch. Also EU has nuclear.
| almostnormal wrote:
| Full scale is unlikely. Russia could not, but they might
| send 250k/year to die in Estonia. EU and Nato (with or
| without US) would defend. But I doubt they would go all
| the way through Russia to force them to stop.
|
| Nuclear option is not likely to be used for some "minor"
| conflict like that, because it would go both ways
| quickly.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Since the cold war, it was always understood that it
| would be OTAN that would have to resort to nuclear
| weapons to halt a mythical soviet attack on western
| europe. There's no conceivable scenario the United States
| could sustain the logistic chains to engage in a
| sustained land war in Europe against the soviets in the
| cold war, and now even less so.
|
| Given the preponderance of artillery of the Russians, I
| really doubt the current numbers from the delusional
| british about their losses in Ukrain, but supposing
| Russia would incur 250 deaths year to subdue Estonia is
| beyond the realms of the most fantastic political
| sciences major military fantasy.
|
| The United States fought for 20 years in Afghanistan to
| replace the Taliban regime with the Taliban at the cost
| of more than 2 trillion dollars. Even nominal success
| like Desert Storm were not the military triumph it seems
| as besides Saddam's army being a poor excuse of a
| military force, widespread bribing was used to guarantee
| several Iraq's military units would not fight.
|
| Hitler employed 111 divisions on the Barbarossa plan,
| with the known results. The US has currently 5 divisions
| equivalent in state of readiness plus some other ten that
| would take take time. Any serious american operation
| against Russia in Eastern Europe would thus necessitate a
| draft in far bigger proportions than the Vietnam's era
| Draft, in a population that is way less jingoistic than
| the boomers eager to prove they were up to the heroic
| acts of the silent generation that overcome the Axis in
| the battlefield. A lot of american industrial production
| has been downsized and sizable parts of it depend on
| global supply chains.
|
| While american weaponry are technologically impressive,
| most of it was designed by the most byzantine and
| politicized proccess you could imagine with the goal of
| guaranteeing politicians votes in their turfs and to
| maximize returns for the Military Industry shareholders.
| American weaponry is maintainance intensive, have low
| availability and depend on optimal conditions to be
| operated and mantained. They also depend on robust ISR.
| All things that a smart enemy with hypersonic weapons and
| space capabilities would make sure to deny on the first
| day.
|
| The idea that the United States could prevail in a direct
| lan war against Russia or a naval conflict against China
| is a fantasy.
| nradov wrote:
| There is a straightforward way to win a naval conflict
| against China, which is basically a repeat of the
| strategy used with great success against Japan in WWII.
| Use mines and submarines to cut off their fossil fuel,
| food, and fertilizer imports. Starve them to death.
| Chinese leaders are aware of this vulnerability, and are
| working hard to reduce dependence on foreign energy as
| well as building a blue water navy that can protect their
| sea lines of communication. But progress has been slow.
|
| As for Russia, their internal economy is very weak and
| they have far less industrial capacity than the old USSR.
| The only way they are able to financially sustain the
| invasion of Ukraine is through huge fossil fuel exports.
| Those exports pass through a limited set of choke points
| including pipelines, refineries, tank farms, and ports
| which are impossible to defend and can be wrecked with
| stand-off weapons. Some of your criticisms of overly
| complex US weapons systems are valid, but our cruise
| missiles are proven to work reliably.
| NoOn3 wrote:
| It doesn't make much sense to be measured by classical
| armies if all these countries unfortunately have nuclear
| weapons and can use them in case of a critical situation.
| And that's the scariest part. :( It's better to find a
| middle ground in negotiations somehow.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Yes, actually, that's my point. Escalation is inevitable
| should a real war start. And it will be the United States
| that will have to resort to nuclear weapons to avoid a
| defeat. It will work, and you could probably even say
| thereafter that the US won the war. But, it will be a
| pyrric victory.
| nradov wrote:
| Sounds good. Everyone loves negotiations when they get
| what they want. Do you think those negotiations will
| result in China and Russia ceasing their attempts to
| seize territory from our allies? If not then we might
| have to take other measures. Regardless of which side is
| right or wrong, we seem to be on a long-term collision
| course for fundamental geopolitical reasons that will
| extend beyond the current US presidential administration.
| NoOn3 wrote:
| Maybe I'm biased because I'm Russian. But I'm sure that
| Russia has no intention of seizing territories of Western
| countries, Russia already has a very large territory.
| Ukraine is a different story, there really are a lot of
| people there who used to live in the same country with
| Russia(USSR) and speak only Russian language and really
| sympathize Russia. I'm not saying it's good to seize
| territory even in that case, but all other countries that
| has little only Russian language speaking population have
| no significant reason to be afraid. As I wrote earlier
| NATO currently has more troops and equipment than Russia.
| nradov wrote:
| The current Russian leader sees the collapse of the USSR
| as a "tragedy". And since 1990 they they have invaded
| Georgia, Moldova, and now Ukraine (after repeatedly
| promising that they wouldn't). That looks like a pattern.
| I understand why Russia is doing it to create defensible
| strategic depth due to lack of natural geographic
| barriers around their population centers. But that
| doesn't make it right, and regardless of moral issues
| Russian expansionism is certainly contrary to the
| interests of the USA and its allies. Who will be the next
| victim, perhaps Estonia?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-
| colla...
|
| I bear no ill will towards Russian people but while the
| current malign leadership remains in power we should use
| all means short of war to contain, undermine, impoverish,
| and generally humiliate the country. Grind them into the
| dust until they can no longer present a credible threat.
| But that's just my opinion.
| NoOn3 wrote:
| I think the collapse of the USSR was more bad than good,
| not because of the loss of territory, but because of the
| collapse of socialist and communist ideals. I believe
| that better than people are more equal, and there are no
| billionaires or multi-billionaires. Individuals do not
| need wealth of this size.
|
| But Russia is not taking people off the streets to war by
| force currently. Most of those who fight for Russia
| really believe that they are right. And almost everyone
| who wanted to could leave Russia. Currently it's not like
| in WW2 and Hitler. Russian soldiers do not kill civilians
| on purpose(maybe with the exception of single crimes that
| are being investigated), it has no point, (although it is
| possible that by mistakes, this is a war, unfortunately)
| and in Russia there is not even the death penalty,
| although in the US there is.
|
| Russia always proposes some kind of settlement so that
| there is no war. Sometimes they are not so terrible, for
| example, simply not to make Russian-speaking citizens
| second-class citizens, not to forbid them anything.
| Sometimes the demands are of course not entirely
| adequate, but this is not always the case. And other side
| can offer some middle ground.
|
| I believe that an invasion in any Baltic country is
| possible only in one case, if they completely cut off the
| food supplies of Kaliningrad, and if the sea route is
| completely blocked, and the people in Kaliningrad will
| suffer without food.
|
| I didn't support Putin in the last elections, for
| example, especially because of the change in the
| constitution. And I don't really understand why he didn't
| find an adequate successor, for example. I'm saying this
| just so you don't think that I think Russia is always
| right. Yes, you may think differently. And I may be
| wrong.
| mopsi wrote:
| > But I'm sure that Russia has no intention of seizing
| territories of Western countries /---/ I'm not saying
| it's good to seize territory even in that case, but all
| other countries that has little only Russian language
| speaking population have no significant reason to be
| afraid.
|
| Well, that's exactly the problem. Several countries in
| Europe have more Russians in their population than the
| Kherson oblast (<14%), which Russia officially annexed.
| NoOn3 wrote:
| You right. At the beginning, this territory was not
| included in Russia's demands; the war led to this
| situation. :(
| atsaloli wrote:
| Former Soviet person here. I grew up in Kyiv, than we
| moved to Tallinn after Chernobyl.
|
| Estonia has over a quarter of its population as Russian
| speakers.[1]
|
| They don't want to have Russians take back over.
|
| 1. https://migrant-integration.ec.europa.eu/library-
| document/fe...
| elzbardico wrote:
| This is delusional. There's no real way the United States
| military and NATO can effect a long sustained blockade on
| China. American Industry will slow to a halt before the
| chinese will feel the pain. The Chinese may like our
| dollars. But we rely on their manufacturing.
|
| People sometimes fail to understand the real world
| meaning of having a trade deficit of more than one
| trillion dollars.
| nradov wrote:
| Not at all. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention but
| the process of decoupling the USA from China is well
| underway. A lot of manufacturing is moving to other
| countries like Vietnam and Mexico. Losing access to cheap
| Chinese imports would be painful but mainly just for
| consumers. We don't rely on them for strategically
| important stuff, especially not for military equipment.
|
| If there is a conflict with China then I doubt that other
| NATO members will play much of a role since they have no
| critical national interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
| It will mainly just be the USA with perhaps some
| assistance from a loose coalition of Taiwan, Japan, South
| Korea, Australia, Vietnam, Philippines, and/or India.
| hollerith wrote:
| Beijing's main concern is an uprising by the population.
| They are right to be concerned: there have been dozens of
| uprising and civil wars in Chinese history each of which
| has killed millions of people. Beijing has successfully
| used export industries to give 100s of millions of
| citizens manufacturing jobs which provide a good-enough
| living to keep their population from revolting. In other
| words, Beijing has been _dependent_ on exports just to
| avoid social chaos. In contrast, the US has not been and
| is not dependent on exports to anything like the same
| extent.
|
| Beijing did not _want_ the trillions of US dollars it
| owns: it does not have some master plan the
| implementation of which requires $trillions. These
| trillions are an _unwanted_ side-effect of Beijing 's
| policy over the decades of keeping the dollar strong
| relative to the yuan to makes Chinese good cheap in
| dollars to encourage owners of dollars to buy Chinese
| goods (which, again, it does to try to avoid social
| chaos).
|
| And also, like other commenters have mentioned, China
| needs to import food, fertilizer and liquid fossil fuels
| to prevent its people from starving whereas the US is
| self-sufficient in liquid fossil fuels and food (though I
| don't know about fertilizer).
|
| The reason it is prioritizing electric vehicles is
| because right now, if China stops being able to import
| enough liquid fossil fuels on tanker ships (e.g., from
| the Gulf and from Russia's _European_ ports), it loses
| the ability to deliver food to its people. If they manage
| to make their electric-vehicle infrastructure robust
| enough, then in some future year, they 'll be able to run
| their delivery trucks on electricity generated from coal,
| which it has enough of without having it import it.
|
| Beijing is currently in a weaker position than Washington
| economically and militarily and the difference is quite
| significant. If Beijing ever launches an attack on
| Taiwan, that is a strong sign that the leaders in Beijing
| think the gulf between China and the US is widening
| (i.e., China is falling ever further behind) because if
| they thought that the gulf were narrowing, they would
| conclude that they can afford to wait and snap up Taiwan
| in the future.
| nradov wrote:
| The USA imports a significant fraction of fertilizer
| (including from China and Russia). But longer term we're
| in pretty good shape as long as we can get past these
| ridiculous trade disputes with Canada and Mexico. In
| particular a lot of fertilizer uses natural gas as a key
| input, and we're fortunate to have a lot of that.
|
| https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2025/02/tariff-threats-
| and...
| breppp wrote:
| The EU is facing severe demographic and economic
| challenges through the aging of its own population, rise
| of the radical right, issues integrating its immigrant
| population and Russian threat. While your savings will
| probably disappear due to the fall of the dollar.
|
| However, in my opinion the United States is not going to
| collapse, worst case it will be replaced like the British
| Empire, leaving an advanced Western country (i.e. UK)
| behind it, minus the entire managing the world part
|
| Also you should read about The Decline of the West, and
| its influence on Nazi ideology, not every prophecy is
| correct, and not every prophecy is beneficial to follow
| t-writescode wrote:
| > worst case it will be replaced like the British Empire,
|
| Didn't something similar happen to the Roman Empire? It
| just kinda ... slowly broke apart?
| breppp wrote:
| My impression was that it took time but it was also
| violent (e.g. sack of rome)
| t-writescode wrote:
| The fall of any empire has bursts of violence. In 100
| years, we may see Jan 6th and probably many future events
| as quite violent.
| watwut wrote:
| I would point out that having raising radical right is
| still waaaay better then having them ruling the country
| ... and have zero checks and balances applied to them.
| Which is the case of US.
| breppp wrote:
| Dislike the current Trump administration as you might,
| this is a very far cry than the european brand of radical
| right from the thirties, which was preoccupied with human
| sacrifice
| watwut wrote:
| It is not thirties. These people Sieg Heil and literally
| fund radical right in Europe. Also they already attempted
| violent couples once. And have zero respect for law while
| having unchecked power.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Is it the radical right or the radical left that doesn't
| respect law and uses violence for political reasons? BLM,
| antisemitic occupations of campuses, and now terrorism
| against Tesla owners, are all from the left. Even if
| there were comparable examples from the right, surely in
| the least you can admit that violence isn't exclusive to
| the right.
| watwut wrote:
| I did not said it is exclusive to the right. I said right
| attempted violent coup. Also, in USA, right wing
| terrorism/violence is the most common one.
|
| Protests itself are legal and fine. As much as you hate
| pushing for rights of non-whites or palestinians or
| women, none of it counts as "violent coup". Likewise,
| calling vandalism against Teslas "terrorism" is a
| stretch.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| While you're certainly right that the US isn't like
| Germany in 1941, I don't think there's any reason to
| believe it can't very quickly get to that point. Just ask
| the asylum seekers and other immigrants and
| tourists[1][2] (illegal or otherwise) that have been
| separated from their children[3], detained in
| extrajudicial facilities[4], kept in solitary
| confinement[1], or legal immigrants stripped of their
| permanent residency and deported for exercising their
| first amendment rights[5]. This is very equivalent to how
| it started in Germany as early as 1933[6]. I see no
| reason the US can't VERY quickly slide down this path
| with immigrants (of any sort), trans people, and then
| after that, much more. Especially when so much has been
| done to destroy any oversight that the checks and
| balances of the government would have provided, i.e. two
| failed impeachments, (and congress now being filled with
| Trump bootlickers, unlikely to impeach again), entirely
| too broad presidential immunity rulings[7], and
| completely unpunished coup attempts[8].
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/world/europe/german-
| touri... [2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/british-
| tourist-detained-ice_... [3]
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44303556 [4]
| https://apnews.com/article/us-immigration-detention-
| guantana... [5]
| https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/11/us/mahmoud-khalil-
| columbi... [6]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Germany
| [7] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_State
| s_(2024... [8] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_
| January_6_United_S...
| breppp wrote:
| I understand the feeling of alarmism as US politics right
| now look like a zero sum game with no possibility of
| compromise from either side
|
| But as a descendent of Nazi slaves whose entire families
| were murdered, I fail to see the similarities between a
| movement that had established concentration camps and
| declared its intention of genocide from day one, and the
| present day rule of idiots that is the United States
|
| I think the fact that comparisons are thrown too easily
| to the point of cliche only make up for this sense of
| historical determinism that often makes things worse
| LadyCailin wrote:
| They're not declaring it out loud, sure. But in private
| they are. I'm from Mississippi. I was privy to those
| private conversations. Blacks, Mexicans, LGBT people,
| atheists, feminists.. they would rather all these groups
| be dead, than have civil rights. So long as the group
| allows themselves to be oppressed, fine, but they aren't,
| and that's what has started to cause so much anger from
| the right wing. The telling thing about the stories below
| isn't that individuals are violent, that has always been
| and always will be the case, but rather the reaction of
| the state. Gay panic defenses, pardon of Jan 6 rioters,
| calls for abortion to get the death penalty that are
| getting traction, etc.
|
| Trump is an idiot, yes. But he's a useful idiot. Vance
| isn't a moron, nor are the Project 2025 think tanks. I
| think the fact that people are willing to dismiss all
| this as things not actually getting worse, is what allows
| it to get this bad in the first place. Again, I'm not
| saying it's as bad as 1941 _yet_. But the optimism that
| it simply can't happen in 2025 in America is entirely
| misguided.
|
| > With regard to general populations, the overall
| consensus amongst historians appears to be that many were
| aware of a hatred towards the Jewry, but not insofar that
| a significant comprehension of the Nazis' genocidal
| policies was reached. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kno
| wledge_of_the_Holocaust_i...
|
| The same is happening in America today.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/17/us/lynchings-racism-
| new-e... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_viole
| nce_against_... https://msmagazine.com/2024/07/02/anti-
| abortion-pro-life-cam... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-
| news/rise-abortion-abolition...
| breppp wrote:
| > With regard to general populations, the overall
| consensus amongst historians appears to be that many were
| aware of a hatred towards the Jewry, but not insofar that
| a significant comprehension of the Nazis' genocidal
| policies was reached. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kno
| wledge_of_the_Holocaust_i...
|
| Wikipedia is often hardly a good source for anything even
| slightly more controversial than the plot for a Pokemon
| episode
|
| However the paragraph you are quoting regards the
| knowledge of the general population in german occupied
| europe, not in Germany
|
| By 1939 more than half of the Jewish population had fled
| Germany, so they might have been on to something
|
| I really think you are severely underestimating what life
| in Nazi Germany looked like, and overestimating the
| current brand of populist republican politics, which has
| exact replicas in the democratic party as well
| watwut wrote:
| > By 1939 more than half of the Jewish population had
| fled Germany, so they might have been on to something
|
| That was not because of holocaust, that was because of
| general restrictions of their legal rights. And also,
| Germany had policy of trying to make those people leave.
|
| Jews in Germany were largely immigrants living mainly in
| cities. Frequently refugees from Eastern Europe and their
| descendants.
|
| > overestimating the current brand of populist republican
| politics, which has exact replicas in the democratic
| party as well
|
| You started this thread with claim that Europe has far
| right problem now. Republican and consequently America
| politics is massively closer to it that European one ...
| or democrats.
| breppp wrote:
| You are correct about the original thread, I claimed
| Europe has a far-right problem. Keep in mind, Europe has
| far-right parties that are commonly actually descendants
| of the nazi/fascist parties of the thirties, not a
| descendant of the party that abolished slavery
|
| However, I was giving it as an example of problems in
| Europe that might cause worries when choosing a country
| to live in, especially someone who is worried where Trump
| is taking the US. This worry translated to the US applies
| in my opinion to both extremities of the political system
| (Trump admin included)
|
| However, I don't think what we see from Trump right now
| or in the future is in any shape or form close to the
| thirties, and I also want to believe that the far-right
| european parties will also be preoccupied with other
| (stupid) ideological goals
| watwut wrote:
| If you remove holocaust from the WWII ... the nazi
| Germany was still supper awful. Holocaust was not the
| only thing going on nor the reason why WWII started.
|
| Nazi were idiots too in a lot of ways. Being idiot in
| some sense does not make you not dangerous.
| breppp wrote:
| Even if you remove the holocaust from nazi germany, you
| are still left with a regime that created concentration
| camps for its own population and went on a mass killing
| campaign on its disabled population, converted a failed
| democracy into a completely totalitarian society and all
| of that without considering the war and its atrocities
| such as mass killings, slavery, kidnappings and probably
| any evil imagined
|
| All of these are, a bit far from any action Trump has
| accomplished in the 4+ years he has been in office
|
| which makes these comparison in my opinion be, both in
| extremely bad taste and dangerous as they trivialize
| history
| watwut wrote:
| Republicans were not sieg heiling then, they are doing it
| now. Having all that in mind, several members of Trump
| administration and republican party sieg heil openly and
| publicly. And praise and fund far right parties. That
| being said, Trump did wanted to shoot already protesters
| during his first term.
|
| And talk about annexing foreign countries. And openly
| admire Russia while hating on democratic countries. And
| started their current rule by targeting opposition,
| removing protections from Fauci and other hated members,
| targeting law enforcement and regulators that
| investigated their crimes.
| breppp wrote:
| Time will tell, but the only ideology I see under the
| current Trump administration is shifting Internet
| trolling to real life, while the greatest political
| achievement is triggering the other side
| goosedragons wrote:
| In the thirties? The Trump admin has already begun
| targeting trans people and immigrants. No, they're not
| building death camps and using firing squads but that
| didn't happen in Nazi Germany in the thirties either.
| Remember the allies in WWII weren't really aware the
| Germans were commiting mass genocide until after the war.
| nomdep wrote:
| ILLEGAL immigrants. Using them and transgender people in
| the same talking point seems like an intentional attempt
| to conflate unrelated issues
| goosedragons wrote:
| Yeah? Just illegal immigrants? They haven't detained
| anybody on a green card lately?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/why-was-
| mahm...
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > rise of the radical right
|
| I'm not happy with the rise of populism and radical
| parties, but just to put some nuance, I'd argue the
| "radical" right in Western Europe isn't even comparable
| to Trumpism. To give an idea, Marine Le Pen in France
| voted to put the right to abortion in the constitution.
| On many social issues, they are closer to Bernie Sanders
| than Trump.
| blibble wrote:
| empires rarely fall without the motherland being directly
| conquered or imploding
|
| the UK was a rare exception here, it is certainly not the
| norm
| breppp wrote:
| The exception together with Spain, France, Portugal and
| Holland just off the top of my head
| blibble wrote:
| france was defeated in war, spain was turned into a
| puppet state by napoleon and portugal was a dictatorship
|
| the dutch story is more complicated and closer, with
| napoleon being involved (again)
| breppp wrote:
| I am talking about the 20th century where all countries
| lost their colonial empires at around the same time late
| 40s-70s, you are referring to a much earlier period
| blibble wrote:
| Britain, Spain and France still have parts of their
| empires
|
| Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands lost their
| superpower status before the start of the 20th century
|
| if you're in the year 2300, maybe the state Spain and
| Portugal ended up several hundred years after the loss of
| their superpower status is of interest
|
| but today, the question we are interested is in "what
| happens at the point the US loses dominance over the
| world?"
|
| will the US will handover the reigns to China in the way
| Britain did to the US?
| lurk2 wrote:
| The ones who can afford it have been building bunkers in
| New Zealand and Argentina, but if you sincerely believe a
| civil war is on the horizon, almost anywhere would be a
| better option.
|
| The Russian invasion of Ukraine had a negative impact on
| international markets, but if you were from either country
| you would have been better off living abroad when it
| happened.
|
| Similarly, you would be better off almost anywhere outside
| of Europe from 1933 to 1947.
| breppp wrote:
| The beauty about the future is that it is unknown. New
| Zealand might be hardly self-sufficient in a world of
| economic collapse, might be occupied by the chinese in 20
| days in another timeline, or might be the only safe haven
| where one could eat lamb until they die of a heart
| attack.
|
| When you are pessimistic any country has a dark future,
| while judging from history, historical events do not look
| inevitable before they actually happen, and are hardly
| expected.
|
| For example, recently half of the world, including many
| in the west, believed in the inevitable prophecy of
| socialist utopia, where there will be no private property
| and everyone will be free of the oppression of
| capitalism. Millions of lives later and oops
| lurk2 wrote:
| > The beauty about the future is that it is unknown
|
| There are factors at play in historical development which
| make the development predictable.
|
| The Chinese would have to go through half a dozen hostile
| countries to reach New Zealand. These countries have a
| combined population of around 300,000,000. Even if the
| Americans abandon the region, there is no feasible
| scenario in which the Chinese can afford to invade and
| occupy New Zealand.
| breppp wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_during_World_War_II#/
| med...
| lurk2 wrote:
| This is a map of Japan, they are nowhere near New
| Zealand, and they lost all of this within three years.
| herbst wrote:
| Simple, Switzerland. All the positive things when you think
| Europe, without the negative things when you think EU plus
| all the wealth, quality of life and any other metric you
| can wish for.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| One of the most expensive European countries to live in
| and one of the hardest to get a residential permit in.
| herbst wrote:
| It's never as simple as that. What it costs more to live
| here I save on taxes, products aren't generally more
| expensive, just work hours are. What's a good thing in
| the end as everyone earns more. Also I am an immigrant
| and went trough several other immigration processes and
| honestly it's not hard, pretty straight forward actually,
| if you either have skills or a little backup money.
| E_Bfx wrote:
| Switzerland has no oil and depend on its banking sector.
| If USA crashes then likely all modern supply line will be
| cut and finance will be something of the past. The
| current well being of a country does not indicate much
| how it will survive a global crisis. A farmer in rural
| Africa would be less affect by the implosion of USA than
| a trader at Geneve.
| herbst wrote:
| What do you think happens when the US goes down? You
| don't need oil to move within a small country and we self
| supply on food more or less, many areas are already power
| independent. Who cares about the banks then?
|
| You may also overestimate the relevance of banking for
| the countries finances.
| E_Bfx wrote:
| Western country are self suplient of food because we have
| engine and chemical industry, ones this goes down,
| shortage of food will be quick to come. In part of the
| world where labour is still mostly manual, it will be
| more resilient.
|
| Also without bank, a lot of people will find themself
| without any properties and will likely get more violent.
| Again, in part of the world where people own real objects
| and not number in a computer in a datacenter, this won't
| happend.
| herbst wrote:
| I honestly think you have a way to negative outlook and
| heavily overestimate the US role in the world. But who
| knows
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Realistically probably China as they are probably among the
| countries that depend the least on the US in terms of
| defense, banking, manufacturing, digital services, culture
| and the like.
|
| If you want to live there is different question for a
| number of reasons, but I do think it is probably your best
| bet avoid the impact of a US collapse (which I think is
| _very_ unlikely).
| nradov wrote:
| Regardless of what happens in the USA, a violent civil
| war in China is entirely possible within the next few
| decades. From a historical perspective those are by no
| means uncommon. The Communist Party has been able to
| suppress most internal dissent lately but when Chairman
| Xi leaves power anything could happen.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Fair enough, but I would view China's stability
| independently from the evaluation of the impact of a
| hypothetical US collapse.
| Atiscant wrote:
| A dissenting voice that might of interest here is Peter
| Zeihan. He claims that the US is one of the few places that
| _won't_ collapse in the coming decade. I do claim here is
| right, but his analysis is, if nothing else, interesting. His
| book, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, is an easy
| enough read.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| This depends greatly on the working definition of collapse.
| If your mere existence becomes illegal it doesn't really
| matter if the economy is technically still functioning.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I guess if you are are straight white make you will
| probably be ok. Most of my friends are women and/or
| LGBTQ, and almost all of them would be considered enemies
| by the current administration.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Geez. I loathe the administration, but I would really
| prefer it if people on my side quit it on the hyperbole.
|
| In no sense has the current administration expressed that
| "women" are enemies.
|
| Feminists, like myself, need to quit it on the arguing
| "anyone who is anti-feminism is anti woman".
|
| It's the exact same rhetorical flourish as "anyone who is
| anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic".
|
| In this era of Trump's statements bearing no relationship
| to truth, we can't sink to the same lows. Or the
| bullshitters have already won.
| holyra wrote:
| I am an EU citizen and I am concerned about the collapse of
| the US and more shortly about its expansionism claims. US has
| such a military dominance and violent culture that I am
| afraid it will produce a global war. I now think that the EU
| needs to rearm, not to defend against Russia, but to protect
| us against US collapse and expansionism. China is our better
| bet in this coming disaster.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I upvoted you before I read the last sentence, and then
| removed my upvote again.
|
| The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you cite,
| but unless they somehow become a democracy, China would be
| worse in every way.
| geraldhh wrote:
| not to dispute, but the fact that most of our stuff is
| 'made in china' might play into the public perception of
| this dynamic more than the political labels attached.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The parliamentary structure of the invader doesn't matter
| very much to the invaded. The assessment that the US is
| more likely to invade another country than china is not
| ridiculous anymore.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It very much matters, because it's a reason an invasion
| happens at all, especially between peer states.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-313
| 4,0...
| derektank wrote:
| The parliamentary structure does matter actually. There
| is no way for the president of the US to launch a war of
| conquest without approval of the US Congress (there are a
| limited set of military actions the president could
| authorize under the war powers act or an existing AUMF
| but they would not merit being described as an invasion).
| That would require majority support in both houses of
| Congress, which can barely hold together long enough to
| pass a spending a bill.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| We'll see I guess and I hope you're right.
|
| IMO the simplest and most realistic way to reconcile
| "democracies don't invade each other" and "the US might
| do invasions now" is that the US is not a democracy
| within this model.
|
| It certainly still is in a technical sense that is
| sometimes useful. But by other metrics, like "can the
| president start an unpopular war with a steadfast former
| ally" uhhhhh. If the military refuses an elected
| president's order to invade is it still a democracy?
| derektank wrote:
| >If the military refuses an elected president's order to
| invade is it still a democracy?
|
| Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order,
| which is what a declaration of war without the approval
| of Congress would be. The military also can't spend money
| Congress hasn't authorized, even if the president tells
| them to.
| krapp wrote:
| >Yes, because the military can't follow an illegal order,
| which is what a declaration of war without the approval
| of Congress would be.
|
| Congress hasn't actually declared a war since World War
| 2. The President sends troops wherever he likes, whenever
| he likes, for whatever purpose he likes and Congress
| rubber-stamps their approval after the fact, and they
| call it something other than a war.
|
| You're correct that the military can't follow illegal
| orders, but what you're describing as an example of an
| illegal order is just the way the US military industrial
| complex works.
| derektank wrote:
| In every major conflict since the creation of the war
| powers act became law, an authorization for the use of
| military force was passed by Congress prior to major
| combat operations. This was true in the Gulf War, the War
| in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq. There were cases
| where the president invoked the war powers act for short
| term deployments of forces, which did later result in
| Congress authorizing additional use of force (e.g.
| Lebanon), but nothing even close to the scale of invading
| a stable, sovereign state.
| apwell23 wrote:
| Chinese want revenge on the west for colonizing them. You
| think they just forgot about 'century of humiliation' and
| just moved on? naive
| ailef wrote:
| > The assessment that the US is more likely to invade
| another country than china is not ridiculous anymore
|
| When was it ever?
| holyra wrote:
| > The US is a terrible ally, for all the reasons you
| cite, but unless they somehow become a democracy, China
| would be worse in every way.
|
| I am no longer considering the US as a democracy. From a
| west perspective, China doesn't want to annex Canada or
| Greenland.
| kiney wrote:
| The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and many
| of it's member states. And I am an EU citizen myself
| immibis wrote:
| Explain.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _The US is arguably more democratic than the EU and
| many of it 's member states._
|
| By what metric?
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_I
| ndex
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_In
| dex
| immibis wrote:
| Or if the US somehow becomes a dictatorship.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Which country has China invaded lately exactly?
| nradov wrote:
| In the modern post-WWII era that would be Tibet, Korea,
| India, USSR, and Vietnam. Maybe also Philippines,
| depending on what you consider to be an "invasion".
| Depending on your perspective, China might have had valid
| reasons for some of those conflicts but regardless of the
| reasons the fact remains that they at least temporarily
| invaded territories claimed by numerous other countries.
| Who's next?
|
| https://pca-cpa.org/ar/cases/7/
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Right, an exceptionally short list of relatively minor
| instances when compared to the US.
|
| Tibet doesn't count either, it's been a part of China for
| centuries and it was the serfs and slaves that sought
| reunification to escape the monks' brutal rule.
| nradov wrote:
| It's so weird for an EU citizen to claim that the US has a
| violent culture. Since 1776, Europeans have killed each
| other at a much higher rate than Americans. The US is far
| from perfect but let's have a sense of proportion.
|
| Supposedly Hiram Maxim was prompted to invent the machine
| gun when an acquaintance told him:
|
| "Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a
| pile of money, invent something that will enable these
| Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater
| facility."
| blibble wrote:
| that's because the US wiped out the previous inhabitants
| of North America
|
| if that hadn't happened you'd likely be facing the same
| situation, i.e. having 30 neighbours instead of 2
| nradov wrote:
| The US? I'm pretty sure it was the British, Spanish, and
| other European colonizers who killed off most indigenous
| New World inhabitants long before the USA even existed.
| And although that genocide involved a significant amount
| of violence (some perpetrated by the US government in the
| later stages), most of the deaths were caused by the
| inadvertent spread of infectious diseases.
| blibble wrote:
| I suggest you look at a map of the US in 1776 and compare
| it to today
|
| it's quite significantly larger
|
| now, imagine if today that 80% wasn't part of the US, and
| was instead controlled by the indigenous population
| (likely tens of sovereign states)
|
| would there have been large scale wars in the 19th and
| 20th century? it's quite obvious the answer would have
| been "yes"
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Even in the US, we cover this _very explicitly_ in our
| history courses. Europeans did displace and kill a lot of
| natives, but it was the US that almost genocided them
| long after colonization was over.
|
| See: the Trail of Tears, the actual, literal death march
| of natives out of their ancestrial lands because
| "manifest destiny"
| apwell23 wrote:
| euros genocided all of south america.
| dc396 wrote:
| I suspect you may have an overly sanitized view of the US
| impact on indigenous populations, at least in North
| America. You might want to read about the "Indian Wars"
| post US revolution and efforts by the US government such
| as those to eradicate bison as a means to wipe out the
| Plains Indian tribes, the Trail of Tears, the California
| Genocide, etc., etc.
| nradov wrote:
| Not at all. I am fully aware of the terrible, genocidal
| crimes that the US government (or private US citizens
| under government protection) committed against indigenous
| populations. And I make no excuses for those. But if you
| look at the numbers, Europeans caused a lot more total
| deaths in the Americas.
| immibis wrote:
| Is there actually a difference? The people you call
| Americans and the people you call Europeans are the same
| people (in this time period). It doesn't matter if they
| changed the design on their flags before they charged
| into certain battles.
| nradov wrote:
| Assign the labels or draw the lines however you like. It
| doesn't change the main point. I was responding to
| @holyra above who claimed that the USA has a "violent
| culture", but there is no historical evidence to support
| such a claim. Over any lengthy period you look at the USA
| has on average been no more violent (and generally less
| so) than most European countries. I just find it funny
| when Europeans who are ignorant of their own history and
| traditional proclivities try to claim some sort of
| cultural superiority.
| immibis wrote:
| But we are not since 1776. We are in 2025.
| nradov wrote:
| Feel free to start the comparison at a more recent year
| if you prefer. Let's say 1939.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Point taken, but if we nudge that to 1946... what have we
| got? Kosovo?
| nradov wrote:
| There were wars in most parts of former Yugoslavia, not
| just Kosovo. If the US pulls out of NATO (and I don't
| think we should), how long do you think it will take
| until the other European powers fall back on their old
| habits of killing each other? And don't presume to tell
| us some nonsense about how Europeans have changed and
| become more peaceful.
| immibis wrote:
| We're not in 1939, either. We're in 2025.
| holyra wrote:
| From my perspective, US culture is more violent in the
| current era because of several factors:
|
| - A large portion of the population is incarcerated
|
| - The population is weaponized
|
| - Many people are dying because they don't have proper
| access to health care
|
| - The economy leave a lot of people on the side of the
| road producing highly anxious people
|
| - School shoot / police violence
|
| - ...
| some_random wrote:
| You are completely delusional if you think China is a
| better bet than the US.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > China is our better bet in this coming disaster.
|
| The US values democracy and free speech more than any other
| country. The EU only somewhat shares these values, which we
| can see from the normalization of censorship in its
| regulations, frequent calls to ban political parties, and
| the cancellation of election results in Romania. Europe has
| a vast history of expansionism, which we saw in brutal
| colonization across Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
| Greenland itself is a result of expansionism.
|
| China is also a country that is pro censorship and doesn't
| value democracy. It annexed Tibet and Xinjiang and will do
| the same to Taiwan. The CCP has caused tens of millions in
| deaths, not just in the annexed areas but even among its
| own people.
|
| I can see Europeans practicing some of those same
| authoritarian tactics China does. So maybe I shouldn't be
| surprised at this statement of viewing China as a better
| partner. But it still seems odd to see people here
| admitting that they prefer an authoritarian dictatorship as
| their friend. In my opinion it says more about Europe than
| America.
| holyra wrote:
| > The US values democracy and free speech more than any
| other country.
|
| Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably
| press freedom).
|
| Regarding freedom, I don't buy the US vision. The US
| culture values individual freedom at the expense of the
| many. From my point of view, freedom is not possible
| without equality between people. Otherwise, some people
| impose their will (their freedom) on others. In this
| sense, regulation is an instrument of freedom.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > Trump is destroying democracy and free speech (notably
| press freedom).
|
| Can you name specifics? What freedom does the press not
| have that they had a few months ago? How is there any
| less democracy now than before? Nothing has changed about
| the rights of people to vote or publish - if anything
| these things are getting better by removing wasteful
| spending propping up one side of the press, stopping
| illegal immigration, etc.
|
| > The US culture values individual freedom at the expense
| of the many. From my point of view, freedom is not
| possible without equality between people.
|
| It's an interesting point that I need to think more
| about. Personally, I still think individual freedom is
| the only real freedom. The US law is well thought out in
| limiting individual "rights" in minor ways (like not
| being able to harm others) while preserving most of it.
| Those choices let everyone live freely and more equally
| than any other system.
| immibis wrote:
| How about those Palestine protestors having their
| citizenship revoked for expressing their opinion?
| Supporting Palestine is illegal in Europe too, of course,
| but they haven't revoked citizenships over it (yet).
| nradov wrote:
| No one has had their US citizenship revoked. Some legal
| permanent residents (not citizens) who have supported
| terrorist organizations such as Hamas might be deported
| depending on the outcomes of their court cases. I don't
| support those actions but let's be clear about what's
| actually happening.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5323166/arrest-
| green-ca...
|
| Generally citizenship can only be revoked from a
| naturalized US citizen if the government proves some sort
| of fraud on their application.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Expressing their opinion? The protestors literally
| assaulted Jewish students. They illegally took over
| property. They prevented people from accessing the
| classes they pay for. This was an illegal riot and
| terroristic to any observer.
|
| Also no one has their citizenship revoked. People who are
| immigrants but not yet citizens are getting booted for
| breaking the law in numerous ways, including supporting
| sanctioned terrorist groups. It goes well beyond legally
| protected speech, even for America.
| holyra wrote:
| > Can you name specifics? What freedom does the press not
| have that they had a few months ago?
|
| Every week, Trump is threatening the free press that
| criticizes him. He suspended the Associated Press from
| acceding to the Oval Office just because they speak about
| "Gulf of Mexico". He said that that negative cover of his
| actions should be illegal.
|
| > How is there any less democracy now than before?
|
| A free press is an important pillar of democracy. By
| repeatedly threatening or even attacking it, you are
| attacking the very fabric of democracy. Democracy is not
| just voting, you have to be informed otherwise you are
| blind. You must also be educated to make decisions in
| your own best interest. A true democracy requires that
| anyone has access to education.
|
| Democracy also needs time to make decisions, and to make
| decisions collectively (at least in a parliamentary way).
| Trump decides unilaterally by issuing decrees. This is
| closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. Moreover, he
| decides so quickly that the DOJ cannot ensure that the
| Constitution and Human rights are respected. Some of
| Trump's allies even claim that the USA will need him in
| 2029: they are ambiguously threatening the very existence
| of an election.
|
| Trump is attacking free speech by banning the use of some
| terms in emails, attacking schools (e.g. Columbia) and
| threatening companies with DEI programs.
|
| I could go on.
|
| > if anything these things are getting better by removing
| wasteful spending
|
| Even if it was true, you need time to change something.
| Otherwise you break lives and companies.
| TrueDuality wrote:
| I'm a US citizen but I'd be a lot more concerned about the
| EU if the US falls but not because of the expansionist
| talk. I do not want to see expansionism rise at all, but
| the leader we have right now is also a coward and a bully.
| He might be willing to go for a small country like Panama
| (and that would still be an _insane_ move) but NATO is
| still really strong even without the US and I don't think
| he'd be willing to risk anything but a sure thing.
|
| More likely in my book is the existing wars in the EU
| spreading, and civil war breaking out in the US. The EU
| wars are already expanding, loosing stability, and
| generally getting more politically divisive even if US
| policy had a strong impact on them. Those tensions aren't
| new, and at least from this side of the pond it seems like
| the US was keeping those expansionist actors in check more
| than encouraging them. Things are not going well in the US
| politically, and I'll leave it at that.
|
| From the economic side, if there is a US economic collapse,
| and its definitely not going up, the economies that are
| going to hurt the most are going to be those built on top
| of the US dollar as they have outsourced control over the
| fundamental tools you can use to stabilize your economy in
| rough times.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > the leader we have right now is also a coward and a
| bully
|
| These labels are being misapplied in my opinion. What
| people saw after the first assassination attempt was the
| opposite of cowardice, and I think it helped Trump win.
| As for bullying - there's certainly some. But you can
| also look at how Biden bullied private companies to
| implement the Democrat's censorship machine and find that
| bullying appears in many forms. Is the EU any better?
| Given their love of censorship and slip towards
| authoritarianism, I don't think so. What about Canada? We
| saw their authoritarian handling of protests, where they
| literally denied protesters access to financial assets,
| and I view that as extreme bullying.
|
| > He might be willing to go for a small country like
| Panama (and that would still be an _insane_ move)
|
| Would it be insane? The canal was built by the US. It is
| a key part of economic and national security. Panama is
| violating treaties around its handover
| (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/1/senators-sound-
| alarm-...). Why do you think China is so upset about the
| recent sale to Blackrock? It's because they have been
| quietly gaining control over the canal.
|
| > the economies that are going to hurt the most are going
| to be those built on top of the US dollar as they have
| outsourced control over the fundamental tools you can use
| to stabilize your economy in rough times
|
| I would say the opposite is true - they benefit from the
| world's most powerful and best managed currency. That
| stability makes them resilient as well. Countries trade
| in dollars and accept debt in dollars for basic but well
| thought out reasons. They aren't making irrational
| choices.
| gcanyon wrote:
| My wife and I are not-so-many years from retirement. Ten
| years ago, we were already planning to retire someplace with
| more reasonable healthcare. We were already confident in that
| decision, but the current situation has made it absolute, and
| possibly pushed the timeline forward.
| nradov wrote:
| Which specific countries have more reasonable healthcare,
| and also allow retirees to immigrate? Most countries are
| reluctant to take in people who seem like non-productive
| burdens. If you're wealthy you can sometimes buy your way
| in, but wealthy people in the US already have access to
| excellent healthcare.
| jltsiren wrote:
| A 10% chance of collapse every decade is a reasonable
| baseline for a stable country. At least if a civil war or a
| major invasion counts as a collapse. That gives you a century
| of stability in the expected case, which is quite
| exceptional.
| keming wrote:
| > Once I have that arranged, I can think about giving again.
|
| The cost of gutting healthcare is going to go way up. It's much
| more costly to fight 10 pandemics that are affecting 90% than
| it is to maintain vaccinations and control of 10%. That 10%
| affected becomes 90% affected quickly without assistance.
| analog31 wrote:
| I wonder how important private charity is anyway. The US leads
| the world in private charity, yet we're worse off than
| countries with less charity and more robust public
| institutions, such as the safety net, health care, and so
| forth.
| etrautmann wrote:
| There's not a direct causal link between the metrics you're
| describing. The economy is too large for private philanthropy
| to meaningfully impact things like health care delivery costs
| but it can still be crucial for the arts, community programs,
| and science funding and all sorts of other unconnected
| things.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| That doesn't tell you how important it is, because certainly
| nobody is currently planning to replace private charity
| spending with public institutions.
| etrautmann wrote:
| Interesting - I'm planning to dial up contributions since
| they're so much more needed and impactful now.
| etrautmann wrote:
| At a broader level, parochial thinking and circling the
| wagons plays into the catastrophe song political narrative
| that is a strategy of the Steve Bannons of the world. Id
| encourage generosity for those who have the means. It'll at
| least make you happier.
| csomar wrote:
| That is fair. This about governments, though. As an individual,
| you can be quite vulnerable; and you should always prioritize
| yourself first (if you are struggling, how are you going to
| help anybody else).
|
| Also remember that you can significantly contribute in non-
| financial way (ie: teaching, connecting people to jobs, etc..)
| almostgotcaught wrote:
| there are two kinds of people, as defined by how they react to
| things becoming scary: those that withdraw to protect
| themselves and those that remain and risk themselves to protect
| others.
|
| i personally believe communities composed of the former cannot
| survive. coincidentally enough, american people are
| overwhelmingly of the former type.
| keming wrote:
| > american people are overwhelmingly of the former type
|
| HMOs, later PPOs, etc. in the U.S. seemed like a good idea,
| but health insurance wasn't available or affordable for the
| minority. But there's Medicaid, Medicare, the ACA, and much
| more, so the U.S. government has subsidized care and
| assistance.
|
| Another "workaround" for unaffordable health insurance is
| going to an emergency room at a hospital, assuming you can
| get there, but many can. It's slow as hell, but being seen in
| hours can be better than being seen in months. The downside
| is that this results in crippling debt for some. Bankruptcy
| can be declared, but then your credit is shot, and if you're
| poor you may need credit.
|
| Healthcare quality overall is quite good, though, even for
| the minority. It's far from perfect, but compared to rest of
| the world, it's not the worst place to get sick.
|
| Now- why did an activist president, house representatives,
| and senators get elected that are cutting funding for global
| and U.S. healthcare? I can't imagine it's not the fault of
| foreign actors and the ease of manipulating 50% of the
| country through Fox News and social media. You wouldn't
| believe how different the belief sets are here between that
| group and the rest. It changed radically in the last ten
| years.
|
| The rest of us are far from indifferent to what's happening.
| We just don't know how to fix it. Protesting probably won't
| change it, though we protest. Boycotts probably won't change
| it, though we boycott. We don't have enough in the government
| to even impeach, and what good would that do? They own all
| three branches of government. They used Gerrymandering and
| fired election officials, replaced leaders, subordinates, and
| did mass layoffs to ensure all future victories. They kicked
| certain news media out of the W.H. and are considering
| shutting other media companies down.
|
| It all happened so quickly. Much more quickly than in the
| past in Germany or Russia.
| throwaway69123 wrote:
| as a foreigner to the us i am investing heavily in the us,
| there is a pathway where the legal and social changes could
| result in considerable economic benefit over the next two
| years. you should consider how that could occur before waving
| it off ideologically. i am coming from an investment point of
| view and am largely agnostic of the politics.
| cowhow wrote:
| I'd unironically be interested in hearing what economic
| benefit you think is coming in the next two years?
|
| The nonsense tariffs being thrown at allies and uncoordinated
| destruction of government foreign aid/social services seem
| like net negatives to me. I could see the United States
| Bitcoin reserve thing bumping up the value of crypto, but
| that whole space is so volatile I would only put in money I'm
| willing to lose.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| There is always something. Previously it was covid, etc.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| COVID and our current political predicament are basically the
| same event, and COVID was a once in a lifetime pandemic.
|
| Sure _something_ is always the most pressing threat to
| stability, but that does not imply all eras are similarly
| unstable.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It is only the 3rd month of a 4 year term. Couple that with
| Elons move fast and break sht, you got some really risky stuff
| happening.
| hasperdi wrote:
| What about improving our own lives. I live in a first world
| country, work as a dev with decent earning. But finding things
| are expensive these days
| jfengel wrote:
| Things have indeed gotten more expensive. But is it crimping
| your style? Do you eat enough $7/doz eggs and drink enough
| $11/gal milk to make a difference?
|
| There are quite a few Americans for whom it is, and I'd also
| like to see more aid given to Americans who need it.
| Unfortunately, I don't see any effort towards that. Any savings
| from canceling foreign aid appears to be directed into tax cuts
| -- sadly, not something that benefits those who can't afford
| eggs.
| tdeck wrote:
| I know it's not a key part of your point, but I'm curious if
| there's actually a place in the US where milk is $11/gallon.
| Here in Seattle it's remained around $4/gal.
| pests wrote:
| Organic can be expensive. The Aldi near me in Michigan has
| its half-gallon at around $5-$6 usually. Regular milk is
| around $2.50-$3.50 a gallon.
| yapyap wrote:
| statistically people reading articles these days are often well
| off enough that improving their own lives won't mean much in
| terms of "sleeping under a bridge vs under a roof" or "eating
| or not eating", whereas for others that might be the case.
|
| Also nobody said you can't improve your own life at the same
| time.
|
| Also you helping other people doesn't have to be necessarily
| monetarily.
| kulahan wrote:
| If you work as a dev in a first world country, it's hard to
| imagine you're truly struggling in any real sense (monetarily
| speaking I mean) unless you're in your first couple years I
| suppose.
|
| Still, if it somehow is the case, then this message isn't
| directed at you. It's just a little hard to imagine _most_
| developers can't handle giving up a thousand bucks a year or
| whatever, which could literally save lives in some cases.
| slwvx wrote:
| Though it wasn't directly mentioned in the article, the relevant
| context is that the Trump administration is in the process of
| cutting foreign aid by the US; see the link below for a few
| details.
|
| Looks to me like the OWID article is saying that the aid from the
| US is a good investment.
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/how-trump-s-
| di...
| jerlam wrote:
| The foreign aid provided by the US does not live in a void;
| China has been doing well in providing financial aid and loans
| across the world recently.
| kulahan wrote:
| This is not inherently a good thing, unless you believe that
| Chinese values are worth spreading over American ones.
|
| This is not to say that is or isn't the case, just that it's
| an effective end-result of letting them have massive
| influence globally.
|
| Additionally, many of China's deals are meant to bring
| nations into serious debt, rather than to truly lift them up.
| Again, this may also be the case with the US, so the question
| is who you would rather be your creditor.
| krapp wrote:
| China doesn't spread "Chinese values" any more than America
| spreads "American values." America is an imperialist
| capitalist hegemon that exploits and oppresses other
| nations through debt, subterfuge or violence, and as China
| (which is very capitalistic, despite it's "communist"
| veneer) expands into the power vacuum created by America
| vacating its superpower status, it will inevitably do the
| same, probably in competition with a newly revived and
| militarized EU.
|
| So in the end, it doesn't matter whether America fucks you
| or China fucks you, or Europe fucks you, either way you're
| fucked.
| kulahan wrote:
| If you think I meant to imply that America doesn't spread
| their values, despite numerous attempts throughout my
| comment to show that I didn't in ANY way mean to imply
| that, you may want to reread my comment. I don't mean
| this to be mean - I believe that you're saying pretty
| much the same thing as me in your first comment re:
| filling the power vacuum.
|
| I also completely disagree. I'd rather be fucked by
| Europe or USA than China any day of the week. At least at
| the end of the day, we share vaguely similar values.
| krapp wrote:
| _I_ am implying that America doesn 't spread its values,
| because that isn't a thing that any country does. Nations
| don't have values, they have interests, and any premise
| to the contrary is just propaganda meant to manufacture
| consent for military adventurism and imperialism.
|
| People will support the premise of going to war in the
| Middle East to "spread democracy" far more than to
| "defend the petrodollar and distract the public from
| Saudi Arabia's complicity in 9/11," for instance.
| kulahan wrote:
| Nations are comprised of people who have values and elect
| representatives based on said values, was my point. Their
| own personal convictions don't matter a WHOLE lot.
| quanto wrote:
| > oppresses other nations through debt, subterfuge or
| violence
|
| Could you provide a recent example (since 2000 if
| possible; if not, since WW2) where the US oppresses other
| nations through debt? I am genuinely curious.
| Maxatar wrote:
| There's no shortage of examples: Iraq, Egypt, Argentina,
| Pakistan, Philippines to name a few recent examples.
| is_true wrote:
| Argentina is being oppressed by corruption, not the US or
| any other nation.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| The US has veto power over the IMF https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
| dash2 wrote:
| It's a bit of a stretch to say "refusing to give a
| country loans" is exploiting someone through debt. Though
| "refusing to roll over a loan" might count, if you have
| first made a country dependent.
| vladms wrote:
| America fucks itself as much as others. Some countries do
| resist against all odds, examples: Afghanistan fought
| both Russia and USA and won; Vietnam had wars with both
| USA and China (1979) and also won. Some countries prefer
| a side because of inherent affinities.
|
| I find the idea of "superpowers" (or very specific
| values) more of a Hollywood invention to make people
| afraid and docile. Yes, some countries do have resources
| and influence, but lots of times things don't go the way
| they plan it (values or otherwise).
| netsharc wrote:
| I wonder what the situation in Iraq is like now...
| reading the book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City:
| Inside Baghdad's Green Zone" 1), I got the impression
| Rumsfeld and Cheney metaphorically drove the car of US
| power into a concrete wall at full speed in Iraq, by
| bungling about what happens after they take over the
| country. They expected a welcome with flowers (like Putin
| expected in Ukraine) and didn't have a plan for nation
| building. In the early stages there was even bickering
| about if the State Departmen or Pentagon was in charge.
|
| Needless to say, Afghanistan was a mess too. This article
| (2) sort of summarizes the entire US occupation. People
| now think George W. Bush was an OK president (thanks
| Donnie), but he really did fuck things up big time. I
| suppose Bin Laden is grinning in his grave, someone's
| said that 9/11 cost Al Qaida about 500K to stage, if the
| goal is the destruction of America, what an ROI that's
| still returning.
|
| 1) https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/book_review/imperial-
| life-eme...
|
| 2) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-
| other-afgh... / https://archive.is/VfRmL
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's amazing to think about how much hinged on 537 votes
| in Florida. W could have been merely mediocre, but he was
| presented with a crisis and proceeded to mismanage it
| horribly.
| dash2 wrote:
| This idea of moral equivalence is popular and extremely
| dangerous. It is what Trump expressed as "you think we're
| so innocent?"
|
| No countries are purely altruistic, but there is a big
| space between pure altruism and simply being
| exploitative. This ignores the role of norms in foreign
| policy. For example, think of how the US attitude to the
| Taliban was (and still is) conditioned by the differences
| in their beliefs about women in society.
|
| If you think it doesn't matter whether America or China
| is in charge, you will be in for a shock. These countries
| have deeply different values, and their foreign policy
| will express that. I note also that you didn't mention
| Russia. I think it is obvious that Ukraine is not
| indifferent between being "exploited" by Russia and by
| the US.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > Chinese values are worth spreading over American ones.
|
| Well the US seems to be allying itself with a murderous
| dictator and threatening to annex it's neighbours.
|
| China is less murderous than Russia, less warmongering and
| for those of us in Canada/EU, probably more reliable than a
| potentially fully-fascist US.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| And that's why you carry out politically motivated
| arrests of Chinese citizens on orders from the US.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_
| Wan...
| dismalaf wrote:
| I mean, this wasn't particularly popular in Canada at the
| time.
|
| And yes, we did it for who we thought was our biggest
| ally, and the fallout definitely wasn't worth it,
| considering the charges were eventually dropped.
|
| Living in Canada and having European family I can tell
| you the attitudes towards both the US and China have
| shifted a lot recently.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| The media at the time certainly disagreed: you were a
| "Chinese spy" if you doubted the wisdom of this arrest.
| Earlier, Chretien was called a traitor for not joining
| the war in Iraq (though history would show the wisdom of
| this decision later).
|
| Basically, Canada's recent history was the US saying
| "jump!" and Canada asking "how high?"
| kulahan wrote:
| China has active concen-- er, "reeducation camps" for
| specific religious minorities. Others are required to
| replace photos of their icon with photos of Xi Jinping.
|
| The man implemented social credit scores and will warn
| neighbors of your bad behavior, to include encouraging
| shunning you. Dropping the score low enough is enough to
| get you banned from trains and planes.
|
| Political dissidents, highly respected lawmakers, and
| billionaires can disappear from public at the pleasure of
| the president.
|
| I sincerely hope you were simply speaking out of
| ignorance.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Yes, and Russia, Iran and NK are all worse than this, and
| the US is still cozying up to Russia for no reason at
| all.
| lmm wrote:
| > China has active concen-- er, "reeducation camps" for
| specific religious minorities.
|
| "Religious minority" is one way of framing it. "Political
| movement that spreads notions repugnant to all decent
| people" would be another. Every developed country has
| cult deprogramming and support efforts, and that's
| usually seen as a good thing.
|
| > The man implemented social credit scores and will warn
| neighbors of your bad behavior, to include encouraging
| shunning you. Dropping the score low enough is enough to
| get you banned from trains and planes.
|
| Whereas the US keeps their no-fly list secret and
| requires you to figure out people's credit score from
| context, so that's better? Any amount of antisocial
| behaviour should be ok as long as you made enough money
| from it?
|
| > Political dissidents, highly respected lawmakers, and
| billionaires can disappear from public at the pleasure of
| the president.
|
| Whereas in the US only nobodies get black-vanned at
| protests, and the CIA torture flights are only for
| foreigners, so that's better?
| deadbabe wrote:
| What China is doing is basically usury, it's not the same.
| Stop glorifying China.
| yimby2001 wrote:
| Most cases of polio now are caught from the lav deattenuating, so
| unless you vaccinated everyone in the entire world at the same
| time or invent a better vaccine it's literally impossible to
| eradicate with current technology. you can see in the diminishing
| returns in their graph.. I'm not sure why this is their example
| of a good place to spend more money
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Inactivated polio vaccines are widely available and do not
| cause the cases of polio that the attenuated vaccine does.
| yimby2001 wrote:
| You got me man, great troll
| nitwit005 wrote:
| It's a good example because once you eradicate the disease, the
| problem is gone for good. We spend zero money on smallpox.
|
| We did successfully eradicate all but one strain of Polio, and
| I believe they've stopped vaccinating except for the remaining
| one.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| It's laudable to donate part of your own money to help those in
| need. It's much more laudable to be a well-functioning part of
| the deep capital markets that allow places like AMF to buy anti-
| malarial bednets for $2 apiece in the first place. It wasn't that
| long ago that making a single decent shirt was weeks of hard
| labor.
| hatthew wrote:
| > American citizens were asked to guess how much US federal
| spending goes to foreign aid. ... The average guess was a
| whopping 31%.
|
| What? I'm _very_ curious how people arrived at such a number. I
| wouldn 't be very surprised if people thought it was, say, 5%.
| But 31% is a wildly implausible number. 15% of people thought it
| was over half the budget, which is too far from the Lizardman's
| Constant to just be trolls, but at the same time it's such a
| wildly high guess that I can't imagine a normal person sincerely
| making such a guess.
| watersb wrote:
| Maybe some people have only a handful of numbers: none, one,
| two, and "many".
|
| Maybe there are cognitive reciprocals of these numbers: "all",
| "some", "half", and "none".
|
| So when you ask for a fraction, they say 50%.
| sethammons wrote:
| I have a friend whose fractions stop at fourths. "I'm at half
| a quarter of a tank of fuel."
| copypasterepeat wrote:
| Ceaseless, decades-long propaganda that US is being taken
| advantage of and that America should come first certainly
| played a part in inflating that number in minds of a lot of
| people. When it comes to stuff like this I think that most
| people just go off the vibes and don't really have any
| reasonable idea how the budget is divided up.
| asah wrote:
| well... in fact...
|
| - military is 2.7% GDP for US: https://www.defense.gov/Multim
| edia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941... vs 1.9% for Europe: https:/
| /www.google.com/search?q=europe+spending+on+defense+a...
|
| - US spent $62B on foreign aid, vs 0% from China and Russia,
| whose GDPs are far larger...
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't know about Russia but China spends on stuff that's
| similar to foreign aid but they categorize it differently,
| and explicitly expect a return.
| mcny wrote:
| My understanding is that China mainland (CCP) very much
| prefers loans and not grants for big ticket items.
| sam_bristow wrote:
| I can't parse what you mean by "China and Russia whose GDPs
| are far larger". Larger than what? China's GDP is about 3/4
| that of the USA and Russia is about 1/10th.
| _djo_ wrote:
| China doesn't spend '0%' on foreign aid. It's less than rhe
| US, but averaged around $7 billion a year.
|
| If you include foreign development assistance, which you
| are in your '$62B' number, then China has provided hundreds
| of billions through the BRI and other initiatives.
| https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-china-fill-the-
| void-i...
|
| Russia's foreign aid is also primarily development
| assistance, though much less than the US, UK, EU, and
| China.
|
| Moreover, the US's larger defence budget also reflects its
| self-assumed role as the global stability guarantor of the
| post-war order it built for its own benefit. It's that
| order that made the dollar the world's reserve currency,
| requiring most of the world to invest in American financial
| instruments, and which gave it and its companies an
| outsized advantage for decades.
|
| That was not an international order built for benevolence
| or which harmed the US. Americans are going to deeply
| regret how their place in the world and personal wealth
| shrinks after this administration is done.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Ironically, you are espousing a questionable world view based
| on vibes.
| ks2048 wrote:
| People are way off in their estimates of all sorts of things. I
| think many use "20-30%" as a generic "kind of small amount".
|
| See this graphic that made the rounds recently (e.g. 1% are
| transgender, people thought 21%. 6% are military veterans,
| people thought 40%, etc).
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/tky94p/ame...
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| 1% was higher than I'd have guessed for transgender people.
|
| It turns out the figures are rounded in that graphic because
| the source article [0] (posted by another commenter) has it
| at 0.6% (which is likely rounded too).
|
| Interesting when you consider how much certain topics seem to
| dominate current political discourse.
|
| [0] https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-american
| s-m...
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| A quote I've seen going around but not verified conveys
| that outsized attention quite well: "There are more people
| with measles right now than there are transgender college
| athletes".
| plastic3169 wrote:
| Is this quote an example of making the issue seem larger
| than it is? Measles "feels" very common although at any
| one point I guess not that many people have it, but many
| see it in their family or remember experiencing it. So it
| feels like a large number. Saying that there are less
| people in some group does not make it sound that small.
| Why not say there are under 100 poeple or whatever the
| number approximately is?
| watwut wrote:
| Measles are not common nor were common for decades. There
| are simply not many people who have seen it.
|
| There were also no deaths from measles for 10 years,
| because, well, not enough people had measles.
| plastic3169 wrote:
| I mixed diseases. English is not my first language. Just
| checked from wikipedia that it has 20 million yearly
| cases and assumed it was the mostly harmless kids disease
| we all had (which is vaccinated against now also I
| learnt). Anyway why use 20 million cases against 44
| athletes (number which might not be correct, but maybe in
| the ballpark)?
| kqr wrote:
| Chickenpox? Also not to be confused with smallpox...
| plastic3169 wrote:
| That's it, sorry for the confusion everyone. I stand
| corrected.
| watwut wrote:
| There is rapidly spreading outbreak of measles which
| makes news right now - 250 cases. Measles are that rare
| now
|
| It is super contagious, so yes, prior vaccines everyone
| got it. Mortality is 1-3 in 1000 of sick. Plus some
| people get deaf and some get brain damage (dunno how many
| now).
|
| So, nowadays super rare, used to be normal and harmless
| is not a word I would use for someone that kills 1-3 in
| 1000 kids.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Americans also estimate that 30% of the population lives in New
| York City (https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-ame
| ricans-m...). I think most people just don't have a numerical
| intuition for percentages, and don't necessarily intend for a
| guess of 31% to mean "I think the foreign aid budget is equal
| to the federal budget times 0.31."
| calebio wrote:
| I kind of wonder if some of those folks equate things like the
| gulf war or the war on terror as "foreign aid".
| Jtsummers wrote:
| People were surprised that the cost of federal civil service
| employees was only around 5% in the early DOGE discussions
| here. They were expecting 20+%. SSA which pays about 70 million
| people is just over 21% of the spending so far this year, and
| there are only 2.3 million civil service employees. For civil
| servants to cost as much in salaries as social security pays
| out would require them to be paid nearly $800k/year on average.
|
| People are just bad at estimating, and apparently none of the
| ones making the absurd claims know (or their listeners/readers
| don't know) that all this data is publicly available.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| When we spend $1 trillion a year on our military, just which
| states was that protecting from invasion? Did the Air Force
| repel a Dutch beachhead on the Alaskan coast last year that I
| didn't hear about?
|
| All of that is to protect foreigners. Europe, east Asia, etc.
| When you hear about the US navy going after pirates off the
| coast of Somalia, that money wasn't spent protecting US
| citizens in most cases. When we were dropping drone bombs on
| ISIS, was ISIS any threat to the US mainland?
|
| And that's just the military. There are so many slush funds
| going on, I don't think anyone can truly know just how much
| cash gets sent to or spent on foreigners. I don't think it's
| quite to 31%, but that guess isn't an order of magnitude high
| or anything like that.
| solatic wrote:
| > When we were dropping drone bombs on ISIS, was ISIS any
| threat to the US mainland?
|
| Yes it was. The primary threat is the illegal drug trade, you
| know, the one that results in more than 100,000 overdose
| deaths per year in the US. The drug trade is a huge part of
| how groups like ISIS get financed. When you take out the
| group, you take out the people playing the drug trade to
| finance them, and you weaken the drug trade.
|
| consider e.g.
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2017/07/isis-is-so-
| desp...
|
| At the end of the day, there's the rules-based international
| order, and then there's everybody outside it. The law and the
| outlaws. Outlaws will collaborate to fuel their self-
| interest. When you weaken some outlaws, you weaken the rest;
| when you weaken some areas of the law, you weaken the rest as
| well.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Of course the only reason ISIS existed as any sort of
| threat was because the village idiots and war criminals
| Bush Cheney and Rumsfeld invaded Iraq and overthrew their
| regime.
| ljf wrote:
| The fight against Somalian pirates for example, isn't to
| protect the local people, but to protect American interests.
| rcarr wrote:
| > When you hear about the US navy going after pirates off the
| coast of Somalia, that money wasn't spent protecting US
| citizens in most cases.
|
| Not directly, but it is protecting the financial interests of
| US companies whose products are on said ships.
| oneshtein wrote:
| $750B for defense was 3% of the federal budget in 2024. USA
| plans to shrink defense budget by 40%, to less than 2%, while
| asking other NATO members to increase their budgets to 5%.
|
| China plans to spend 7.2% of their budget on defense in 2025.
|
| Russia plans to spend 32.5% of their budget on defense in
| 2025.
| momo_hn2025 wrote:
| You better read news from media carefully, especially U.S.
| news on China: 1. "China's defense budget stays under 1.5%
| of GDP for years".True. 2. "China will increase its defense
| budget 7.2% this year".True.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Quote:
|
| > Yet some analysts have recently argued that China's
| defense spending is much larger still, and their new
| numbers have gained the attention of wider audiences. The
| Economist has reported that China's defense spending has
| already reached two-thirds of U.S. spending and is
| "catching up quickly." Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
| of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress in 2021 that "the
| Russian and Chinese budgets exceed our budgets if all the
| cards are put on the table." In September 2023, U.S. Sen.
| Dan Sullivan claimed that China's defense spending is
| "probably close to about $700 billion" -- three times
| higher than Beijing's official defense budget. Apparently
| worried that China is poised to match or even surpass
| U.S. spending, Congress introduced legislation in June
| 2023 calling for the development of new methods for
| measuring, comparing, and reporting on China's defense
| spending.
|
| So, China and Russia increased their military spending a
| lot, while Trump disarms USA like Zelenskiy did just
| before fool scale invasion.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > $750B for defense was 3% of the federal budget in 2024.
|
| I think you mean of GDP, not federal budget.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Yep, I mean % of GDP. Too late to edit.
|
| Anyway, it looks like USA is #1 now, but Trump wants to
| make USA #2 by military spending (with purchasing power
| parity) by 2030, which is not a smart move in the middle
| of WWIII.
| brulard wrote:
| I believe most people don't truly understand percentages. Or
| are not good at thinking in percentages and probabilities
| sethammons wrote:
| five fourths of people have trouble with fractions and
| percentages
| mcny wrote:
| I used to be naive and covid changed that. I sincerely believe
| the US should have shared and China mainland should have accepted
| any and all knowledge we had about vaccines. Instead, we all went
| our own separate ways. It wouldn't have cost us much because it
| isn't like people in China mainland would have bought US vaccines
| and it isn't like we would import vaccines made in China
| mainland.
|
| It was just common sense to share this knowledge the best we
| could and yet...
| asah wrote:
| Conspicuously absent: China (34.4T), Russia (6T) vs US (26T)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "Small increases in foreign aid could go a long way"
|
| Unfortunately, his graph of polio results would indicate the
| opposite.
|
| It's similar, in my mind, to school spending in Chicago and
| Baltimore correlates to educational outcomes:
|
| When the problem needs both a systemic change and broad-based
| endemic change, more money is not necessarily the answer.
|
| (For Afghanistan/Pakistan, it's to counter the anti-vaxx
| narratives that caused the program to stall out. For those school
| systems, it may start with food and shelter security for
| students)
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Adding more money to government-run K-12 education can
| sometimes work against meaningful reform. Increased funding
| typically grows the existing system: hiring more staff,
| expanding departments, and creating additional layers of
| bureaucracy.
|
| More people come to rely on the status quo for their
| livelihood, which can reduce their willingness to support or
| even consider transformative changes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Funding for education in America has increased by leaps and
| bounds, but K-12 educational attainment hasn't budged.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It about doubled over half a century. For comparison
| inflation over that period was 410% or something like that.
| So idk, it's bigger than it was, it's hard to say whether
| it's bigger than it should be. I probably wouldn't describe
| it as dramatically as you have but that's often the case
| between us with public services I think.
| WalterBright wrote:
| In WA state, per student spending has way, way outpaced
| inflation.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Ok walter.
| gcanyon wrote:
| That polio graph is depressingly flat for the past quarter
| century :-(
| vunderba wrote:
| If you are looking for reasonably responsible ways to donate
| money - I highly recommend using Charity Navigator which can help
| you avoid accidentally giving money away to fiscally
| irresponsible or downright scam charities ( _cough World Vision
| cough_ ).
|
| https://www.charitynavigator.org
| timpark wrote:
| For those who might be interested, a similar site for Canadian
| charities is Charity Intelligence.
|
| https://www.charityintelligence.ca/
| jedbrooke wrote:
| I'm confused, by your link "World Vision" has a 93%/4 star
| rating, suggesting they would be a good charity. (I have no
| opinion one way or the other regarding the specific charity in
| question, however)
| Retric wrote:
| World Vision was secretly diverting aid for civilians back in
| 2016. They could be clean today, but I wouldn't depend on
| Charity Navigator to spot that kind of financial crime.
| https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/dfat-suspends-
| worl...
|
| The inherent fraud of not using funds for what donors intend
| and diverting money from a charitable organization to line
| private individual pockets can be surprisingly difficult to
| spot.
| robertritz wrote:
| This recent article[1] from the economist shows how much of the
| aid spending around the world just replaces government spending
| and never creates a system where those countries can stand on
| their own.
|
| Not always the case but definitely for a lot of aid spending.
| Where I'm located (Mongolia) aid spending just gives the
| government an excuse to free up the budget for handouts to get
| them elected. It's pretty useless.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/03/06/the-demise-
| of-f...
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| That's a good argument for voluntary individual contributions,
| but not for foreign aid.
|
| The purpose of government is advancement of the common good of
| the citizens that form the polity. The good of people _outside_
| of the polity is beyond its scope and responsibility. Any aid to
| or alliance with a foreign nation can only be justified with
| tangible benefits at home.
| e12e wrote:
| A stable productive trade partner is a benefit at home.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| This has been a long argument, eg "ordo amoris" -- 700 years
| (Aquinas) to 1600 years (Augustine) in Christian philosophy.
|
| The split is aligned with politics [1]; and the two sides can't
| even agree on which direction demonstrates a lack of empathy.
| To some people, it's moral to take from your neighbor and give
| to a stranger; to others, that's antisocial behavior.
|
| [1] - https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heatmaps-indicating-
| high...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The purpose of government is whatever people want it to be.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Solving problems abroad can improve economic outcomes locally -
| a good example with US Foreign Aid is how it was used to
| purchase American products, employ American Workers, and then
| improve the lives of folks internationally who could then (you
| guessed it!) go on to purchase American products, leading to
| American business growth and more hiring. Much of our aid
| contracts have stipulations making sure the money ends up back
| in America for example military aid contracts to Ukraine
| stipulating they would buy American weapon systems.
|
| Solving problems abroad can prevent them from landing on your
| doorstep. I'd rather fight wars overseas, protecting economies
| that buy American products, then let the problems fester,
| cripple international trade, and risk reaching the American
| continent (9/11).
|
| All I ask is you look one layer deeper into these problems
| rather then buying the news headline. You are having your
| pocket picked if you believe Elon Musk or other parts of the
| current administration are acting in the nation's interest.
| jsingleton wrote:
| The last section is worth a read.
|
| > Your personal donations can also make a difference, especially
| if you focus on where they can go the furthest
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/foreign-aid-donations-increase#yo...
|
| Good time of year to donate (in the UK at least, as the tax year
| starts in April). Various ways to donate depending on your
| jurisdiction.
|
| https://www.givewell.org/about/donate/tax-deductibility
| nivertech wrote:
| _> UN's target for developed countries to give 0.7% of their GNI
| to foreign aid_
|
| O/c, the UN (a body with a majority of non-democratic members)
| will want the taxpayers of democratic countries to finance it,
| all without any real accountability
|
| Any country that has not yet solved its own domestic problems
| should not donate money to other countries
| nivertech wrote:
| _> Any country that has not yet solved its own domestic
| problems should not donate money to other countries_
|
| Instead it should loan money, but only if it's proven that it
| will be beneficial, and there is an accountability on the
| receiving side
| kqr wrote:
| I warmly recommend setting up a recurring donation of, say, 0.5 %
| of your income. If most of us did this, in particular if we
| donate to effective charities -- it would make a difference, but
| not to our economies.
|
| (Many of you may even find it is so non-scary to donate 0. 5 %
| that you choose to scale up to a larger percentage. But I have
| yet to find anyone who is willing to donate but claims 0.5 % is
| too much for them.)
| LightBug1 wrote:
| No, no, no, wait ... we need to scale back foreign aid and spend
| it on missions to Mars.
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