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I can’t think of an era in history with so little global geopolitical ambition. There’s usually been a bunch of hungry wannabe imperialists messing ariund.
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China’s ambitions are a joke compared even to third rate colonial powers like Italy or Denmark a century or two ago. They want one island, some borderlands, and minerals from Africa. The BRI doesn’t even rise to East India Company level ambition. Mostly a bunch of bad loans.
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There’s good things about lowered aggression levels, but also a dark side — sign of general exhaustion of all ambition. What if we’re a geopolitically retired planet?
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You don’t have to be a collapsnik or general pessimist to note that history features long, global, decline periods that last between decades and centuries even if the overall pattern is progress in some reasonable sense.
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I think the 22nd and 23rd centuries will be fine and fun. There will be quantum computing, positronic robots, Mars bases, 150-year lifespans, and a terraformed climate-controlled earth. It’s the rest of this century that seem likely gloomy.
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In a way the presence of world-conquering assholery on the stage of world history is a sign that the world is worth conquering. A sign of a healthy global psyche. Like the presence of apex predators signals a healthy ecosystem with the abundance to sustain them.
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For all its horrors now coming home to roost, I miss neoliberalism. History had a definite gripping plot to it. Now it’s mostly sitting around twiddling its thumbs waiting for someone to come up with an idea for where to go next.
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