Nations Rise and Fall
In recent informal conversations, there is some perception that China has already become the world's new economic superpower. I personally don't think it has dethroned the States just yet, purely on the basis that the majority of its production is geared for the American market. How can you be all-powerful if you're entirely dependent on one particular market? However, if the US wants to continue to enjoy its level of world influence, it had better watch its back. And the mighty States is falling all over itself to get the largest number of the cheapest products it can, unwisely throwing all of its wealth away. And China's doing a great job of catching.
Some have argued that the continued (and now escalated) Iraq presence is bankrupting the US (though really, it's only billions and billions, not real money yet...). Others point out that country's debt load, if spread out over each household, has crested the $90,000 mark. I've played enough Starcraft to know that military might trumps economic weakness. But when you run out of crystals on the map, things get tense.
I think the issue that's going to sink the US is the same one that build it: materialism. That's fascinating. As the US has systematically commodified its own population, carefully and scientifically scrutinised and dissected it into tasty bite-sized morsel for industrial consumption, that population has become inured to its own harsh realities. Well, judging by how much activism there is suddenly, perhaps it's not case-closed yet. But even many of the thinkers and protagonists are admitting that they've succumbed to the 'inevitable' sellout. And anyway, all activism seems much too little, far too late.
It's the phenomenon of the "rich kid" nation. Think about what a spoiled brat looks like. What do they want? Everything! When do they want it? Now! They don't know the value of money, or really how to fend for themselves. They never mature, because the hard truth is that maturity takes hardship. Right, so now map that mentality over an entire nation, culture, whatever, and you get a scary picture. Only now there's not slavery to provide it, so it always costs somebody something. Actually, quite a lot as the stakes keep getting higher. This was unsustainable decades ago. Now it's just toxic.
When you have a competing system that is going to value human life in a whole new (though not necessarily better) way, and that system has the capacity for far greater critical mass, it's going to cause a change. I hope that China holds on to some form of socialism as it ascends. I hope that it thinks slower and more strategically about the fixed resources the planet has. And I hope that it forms imaginative new solutions that live far outside of entrenched, closed-minded, arrogant economic structures (oil companies, that means you!). But from everything that history has demonstrated, I don't really hold all that much hope...
Some have argued that the continued (and now escalated) Iraq presence is bankrupting the US (though really, it's only billions and billions, not real money yet...). Others point out that country's debt load, if spread out over each household, has crested the $90,000 mark. I've played enough Starcraft to know that military might trumps economic weakness. But when you run out of crystals on the map, things get tense.
I think the issue that's going to sink the US is the same one that build it: materialism. That's fascinating. As the US has systematically commodified its own population, carefully and scientifically scrutinised and dissected it into tasty bite-sized morsel for industrial consumption, that population has become inured to its own harsh realities. Well, judging by how much activism there is suddenly, perhaps it's not case-closed yet. But even many of the thinkers and protagonists are admitting that they've succumbed to the 'inevitable' sellout. And anyway, all activism seems much too little, far too late.
It's the phenomenon of the "rich kid" nation. Think about what a spoiled brat looks like. What do they want? Everything! When do they want it? Now! They don't know the value of money, or really how to fend for themselves. They never mature, because the hard truth is that maturity takes hardship. Right, so now map that mentality over an entire nation, culture, whatever, and you get a scary picture. Only now there's not slavery to provide it, so it always costs somebody something. Actually, quite a lot as the stakes keep getting higher. This was unsustainable decades ago. Now it's just toxic.
When you have a competing system that is going to value human life in a whole new (though not necessarily better) way, and that system has the capacity for far greater critical mass, it's going to cause a change. I hope that China holds on to some form of socialism as it ascends. I hope that it thinks slower and more strategically about the fixed resources the planet has. And I hope that it forms imaginative new solutions that live far outside of entrenched, closed-minded, arrogant economic structures (oil companies, that means you!). But from everything that history has demonstrated, I don't really hold all that much hope...
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