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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You may not believe in the end of history but the end of history believes in you. Men without backs.
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Humans now know too much about the world to want to rule it.
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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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Will there be climate wars at all? Or just climate squabbles and “pass the refugee” games? Too much interdependence to have hot or even warm wars. Wars are high emissions. More likely economic maneuvering
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Replying to @vgr
Getting set for climate wars?
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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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Probably the late 5th century AD was the last time there was this little civilizational ambition in the air. Things had fallen apart and nobody cared enough to put things back together.
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A little later into the 6th century, 536 AD was apparently the worst year ever.
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I have this theory that scarcity is not what sparks ambitious world domination impulses. It is abundance that sparks it. Scarcity drives general low-energy shittiness.
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Replying to @vgr
Doesn't it seem like a real climate emergency would deliver the sort of scarcity that increases aggression?
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Replying to
Well was eg the Dutch–Portuguese War and other wars fought over spices conflicts over suddenly-abundant commodities or was it for fear of scarcity of them if the other guy took control? How about oil as an implicit motive for some ME wars post-WW2?
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The age of exploration was sparked by the new abundance of advanced sailing and navigation tech and early Renaissance ideology. The mercantile contests were more consequence than cause IMO.


