And I think social democracy (which we need to fix) is the answer to that.
I think a lot of people like to LARP they’re the rebel alliance that’re going to defeat the evil empire and the ewoks will celebrate, not remembering the last few times the ewoks ended up first on the trains (purges, holodomor, GLP/CR, Khmer Rouge).
At the end of the day, in power structures, without a firm mechanism to counter, the most evil people generally rise to the top. Very familiar with this in my actual life experience which I’m going to guess most MLs don’t have.
For instance, after the McD merger, marketing and finance execs slowly displaced engineers at the top and steered the companies away from doing their jobs and towards what you could call “ideological purity”, ie short-term cash at any cost. Intel was similar, as was the USSR and PRC.
In the west, those companies are a smaller part of a whole, and if things go properly, they fail, an example is made, hopefully new management is brought in to replace them and recover the company.
In an authoritarian regime the whole country sinks or swims, hence NK is screwed. Russia actually had a great renaissance under Khrushchev, who helped recover most of the worst damage wrought by Stalin, until the idiot Brezhnev struck for ideological purity again and destroyed all that work. Gorbachev looked to be trying to fix that, but it was far too late.
Communists fail because they demand all eggs be under one basket, and as Rome showed us, you can have good Emperors, you can’t have unlimited good emperors, sooner or later you’ll get a political moron like Brezhnev or Xi and everything will fall to pieces.
It’s why capitalists go on and on and on about “diversifying your portfolio” so no one bet ever kills you.
And I think social democracy (which we need to fix) is the answer to that.
Most of Europe has a social democracy. Let’s just say: it’s not going too well. Especially when considering the rise of far right talking points (Looks at France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, …).
The far right keeps trying to take over, and keeps collapsing into its own incompetence immediately after.
They know longer know how to rule and modern parliamentary systems make them much less able to govern.
Germany will be a disaster, their economy is finished for at least a decade, but that’s … not terribly serious, they’ll re-form after a while, hopefully after we’ve fixed the EU.
Yeah that latter one is a bit fantastic, but considering how much room there is for change right now we actually could have some things get better.
Austria has been flirting with the far-right my whole life, the strain runs REALLY deep.
If America goes Trump then things could get very dark, but otherwise I’m pretty sure we’ll manage to figure things out over the next decade, things are still vastly better in both Europe and America than anywhere else and while people don’t like it, they’ll be less happy with the alternatives.
I’m sorry, but you’re deluding yourself if you don’t think that the gurrent system won’t collapse under climate change if we don’t have fundamental changes.
I think most other systems would be worse, and the system itself is entirely irrelevant.
The only thing that will save us is science, climate change probably doesn’t work the way you think it does, it’s complex and we have room to work if the assholes get off our backs.
Anyone who tells you that thinks they’d profit from that new system.
Maybe, but “profit” can mean “just lead a basic live with basic dignities instead of being in abject poverty”
And I think social democracy (which we need to fix) is the answer to that.
I think a lot of people like to LARP they’re the rebel alliance that’re going to defeat the evil empire and the ewoks will celebrate, not remembering the last few times the ewoks ended up first on the trains (purges, holodomor, GLP/CR, Khmer Rouge).
At the end of the day, in power structures, without a firm mechanism to counter, the most evil people generally rise to the top. Very familiar with this in my actual life experience which I’m going to guess most MLs don’t have.
For instance, after the McD merger, marketing and finance execs slowly displaced engineers at the top and steered the companies away from doing their jobs and towards what you could call “ideological purity”, ie short-term cash at any cost. Intel was similar, as was the USSR and PRC.
In the west, those companies are a smaller part of a whole, and if things go properly, they fail, an example is made, hopefully new management is brought in to replace them and recover the company.
In an authoritarian regime the whole country sinks or swims, hence NK is screwed. Russia actually had a great renaissance under Khrushchev, who helped recover most of the worst damage wrought by Stalin, until the idiot Brezhnev struck for ideological purity again and destroyed all that work. Gorbachev looked to be trying to fix that, but it was far too late.
Communists fail because they demand all eggs be under one basket, and as Rome showed us, you can have good Emperors, you can’t have unlimited good emperors, sooner or later you’ll get a political moron like Brezhnev or Xi and everything will fall to pieces.
It’s why capitalists go on and on and on about “diversifying your portfolio” so no one bet ever kills you.
Most of Europe has a social democracy. Let’s just say: it’s not going too well. Especially when considering the rise of far right talking points (Looks at France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, …).
I’m brown and live in Europe and America, it’s going fine, a hell of a lot better than anywhere else, particularly the shithole that is CCP’s China.
Taiwan is doing pretty well though.
Austria is on the brink of going Hungary and the “progressive” coalition in Germany is gladly copying the far right’s homework.
I also don’t like China’s governmet. Not sure why you bring it up.
The far right keeps trying to take over, and keeps collapsing into its own incompetence immediately after.
They know longer know how to rule and modern parliamentary systems make them much less able to govern.
Germany will be a disaster, their economy is finished for at least a decade, but that’s … not terribly serious, they’ll re-form after a while, hopefully after we’ve fixed the EU.
Yeah that latter one is a bit fantastic, but considering how much room there is for change right now we actually could have some things get better.
Austria has been flirting with the far-right my whole life, the strain runs REALLY deep.
If America goes Trump then things could get very dark, but otherwise I’m pretty sure we’ll manage to figure things out over the next decade, things are still vastly better in both Europe and America than anywhere else and while people don’t like it, they’ll be less happy with the alternatives.
I’m sorry, but you’re deluding yourself if you don’t think that the gurrent system won’t collapse under climate change if we don’t have fundamental changes.
Meh, I think we can adjust.
I think most other systems would be worse, and the system itself is entirely irrelevant.
The only thing that will save us is science, climate change probably doesn’t work the way you think it does, it’s complex and we have room to work if the assholes get off our backs.