Conversation

Cinder
@Triquetrea
Replying to
@iwelsh
You know fully well that choices require more than merely the notional ability to enact change. It'd be vastly overestimating the moral fiber of European leaders to think that they'd be willing to take literally any risk whatsoever to their own careers. They are less than weak.
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
Replying to
@Triquetrea
and
@iwelsh
One of the ways in which I respect US culture more than European is that while people here are even more heavily propagandized, even worse educated, and even more stripped of free time, effective autonomy, et. al., underneath all that there is at least a nominal will to power.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@Triquetrea
that's because the daily grind of life is mean, and there's almost no social safety net. If you won't hurt other people, someone will stomp you into the mud because if it's not you, it'll be them.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@iwelsh
and
@Triquetrea
American life is a game of musical chairs, 80% of the chairs suck, there are millions less chairs than people and if you don't get a chair, you wind up homeless or in prison or die.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@iwelsh
and
@Triquetrea
this teaches people a certain "will to power", if you wish, and they use it in every sphere of life. It also teaches authoritarian subjugation, though. Americans are mostly kick down, lick up types.
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
Replying to
@iwelsh
There is certainly an increasing amount of that, yes. Structural and spiritual consequence of much of the economy existing at the whim of remote billionaires, that.
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
Replying to
@Triquetrea
and
@iwelsh
It is very similar to how the European trend has been towards increased submissiveness and "of-course-our-govt.-are-the-good-guys"-ism. Direct consequence of the extent to which society is a subject of the nanny state.
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@Triquetrea
Not quite the same thing. America's is because there is little nanny state left. The submission isn't to government, it's to various barons or sometimes to individual government departments (especially the military.)
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Ian Welsh
@iwelsh
Replying to
@iwelsh
and
@Triquetrea
anyway, nanny state submission is a self-fixing problem, because you only keep a strong welfare state if you fight for it. If you don't, it dies a death of a thousand cuts (see Britain.)
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
Replying to
@iwelsh
When governing is lackluster The people are simple and honest When governing is scrutinizing The people are shrewd and crafty Misfortune is what fortune depends upon Fortune is where misfortune hides beneath
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