
One hundred years after World War I, are we heading back to the abyss? - howard941
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/one-hundred-years-after-world-war-i-are-we-heading-back-abyss/
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40acres
Two macro-issues in my view, have caused the rise of what could be called
"illiberal" tenancies.

1- The gains of globalization have not been equality distributed, we see this
in rural France & England, along with the mid-west USA. Among the biggest
losers of globalization have been the rural areas of advanced economies, rural
areas are not as dynamic as cities and thus need more government support to
keep pace.

2- The world's boundaries are still messed up. There is very little
territorial dispute among advanced economies, but the developing world is
dealing with a crisis caused by the poorly drawn maps of imperial governments
(and the allies) post WWII. The Partition of India and Mandate on Palestine
are the two biggest examples, but Africa struggles mightily with this as well.
In the past 20 years 4 new countries have been born, we still have a way to go
before reaching equilibrium.

Climate change is the kindle that has arguably already started the next major
global conflict. It's only going to exacerbate the aforementioned points.

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atoav
I have another one to add: after the collapse of the Soviet Union the
capitalism of the west no longer had to make the social and humanistic
concessions like back when there was something that was preceived as a real
competing system.

The time after the Berlin wall fell is one of neo liberalism, privatizations,
destruction of civil and social rights etc. And my thesis is, that this is not
just by accident but due to a lack of competition in the systemic field.

The autocratic systems that called themselves socialist turned out to be so
elitist and corrupt in their core that people are so afraid of going anywhere
near it they will go full circle and come back on the other side.

In the US even centrist social democrats are labled socialists, people we
Europeans would call a moderate conservative..

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andrenth
Which civil and social rights have been lost since 1989?

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jefe78
From keeping up to date on the news, I always feel as if we're on the brink of
the end of the world, massive recessions, and war so I've almost normalized
the current state. However, the current political tone feels similar to the
preamble to the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.

How does one cut through all the noise or can you even?

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existencebox
Reading history helps put it in context. I've been consuming writings on the
last ~150 years voraciously over the past few years, as well as talking to any
of my relatives still alive from some of those eras.

The political tone feels similar to the preamble to Afghanistan because it's
not even been 20 years, and most of the actors are still in comparable
position. Time moves very slowly, and we're still watching the slow play-out
of a "new cold war" primarily acted out through economic interference and
proxies.

The current state has definitely gotten normalized. Think back to the
responses vs. Rodney King. But then think back further to Kent State, and the
fact that much of the nation thought the national guard was _justified_ to
kill innocent students. There's some sort of a sine-wave there, and I think it
has to do with personal exposure to Real Suffering and Loss, and the lack
thereof in recent memory has innured public perception to the cost of our
action, and as such we're willing to fight eternal wars, bluster about
destroying our enemies, and engineer the economy past realistic growth.

At the end of the Vietnam war, not even 50 years ago, a communication was sent
by the final CIA officials evacuating Saigon. "It has been a long fight and we
have lost. . . . Those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it.
Let us hope that we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have
learned our lesson. Saigon signing off."

Cutting through the noise: The world won't end, history shows we're quite good
at brinksmanship, but this is not an optimistic statement. We have not learned
our lesson. I doubt we ever will.

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DannyB2
If people as a whole aren't smart enough on average to prevent it getting this
bad, then maybe our species doesn't deserve to continue. I hate to sound
negative.

It seems that better education might be a start. But it takes at least a
generation to have an effect. Just as we didn't get to the point we are at
overnight.

In places where the bully leaders aren't voted in, then something is very
wrong with the system that lets them get into power without any kind of
checks. But if everyone were on average better educated, there might be some
kind of checks that could be created.

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mitfahrener
Comparing Trump's power to Kim's is a farce. This article opens with a
laughable comparison and the rest of the article isn't much better.

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lm28469
They both have access to weapons of mass destruction and it's realistic to
believe that any of the people in the list could start conflicts for more than
debatable reasons. It doesn't seem that the article implies anything else.

You don't need a super power to start a war, post ww1 germany was pretty weak
and still managed to kick-start ww2.

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insickness
"Trump's autocratic tendencies." Gimme a break. Meanwhile, without a hint of
irony, the left imposes censorship on every public platform to try to save us
from 'fascism.'

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malvosenior
_" Consider this list: Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Ali
Khamenei, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte and Jair
Bolsonaro. What do they all have in common? They have too much power and
display autocratic tendencies when exercising it."_

 _" Whether you are a genius scientist in the United States, a peace-loving
poet in Brazil, or a great philosopher in Iran, the truth is that your fate
is, to some degree, in the hands of a man who, in a more rational world, would
not even be allowed to care for a pet. Whatever we tell ourselves about the
elite who control politics nationally, regionally, and globally, there is one
embarrassing fact we need to face: we have surrendered our destiny, and the
well-being of the planet, to a bunch of bullies. This should be disturbing for
everyone."_

Trump just became the first US president to set foot in North Korea. He called
for an end to US war games in South Korea. He's significantly improved
relations with Russia as well. For a bunch of "bullies" they're actually doing
a pretty good job securing peace through diplomacy.

