The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: October 2022 Page 2 of 4

Avoiding Added Emotional Suffering (Buddha’s Second Arrow)

When I say in this post to imagine something stop and imagine it, or you won’t get the necessary effect.

First, imagine falling. You catch yourself on your hands, you’re not seriously injured, but your hands are abraded and you’ve wrenched a muscle in you back.

Next. Imagine that you fell unavoidably: there was a small bit of ice, but you were walking carefully and there’s nothing you could have done.

Third: imagine that you were careless. There was an obvious piece of ice, you weren’t paying attention, and you knew there could be ice. Feel this.

Fourth: imagine that you feel on a walkway that someone should have cleared (it’s usually the law in places with a lot of snow and ice.) You were careful, but still fell. Feel this.

Fifth: imagine you feel because someone deliberately tripped you. Feel this.

If you’re a normal person and you took the time to actually feel, these felt different. Either number three (carelessness) or number five (someone tripping you), feels worst: you’re angry at yourself or someone else.

But even with the first one: it just happened and no one is responsible, you may be upset: it’s not just the pain you’re feeling, but your upset.

This anger, upset, hatred, sadness, etc… is what Buddha called the second arrow.

There is pain and nauseau and itching and so on. They feel bad. But unless you’ve got drugs or advanced meditative skills, they just happen, and there’s not much you can do about them.

Everything else is added by your emotional reaction. That’s the low-hanging fruit. That’s the stuff that’s (relatively) easier to control or choose.

Different people have different ways of doing this, but the first concept is simple enough “adding a negative emotion doesn’t help the situation, and it makes me feel worse.”

As someone who spent a lot of time beating themselves up for mistakes or not living up to my ideal self, I eventually realized that not only did it make me feel bad, it didn’t drive long term changes in behaviour. It had no benefit.

As for getting angry at other people, my experience, as someone who spent years and years not just angry, but enraged (long term readers will know I speak the truth), is that it didn’t help the situation, and it made me miserable (and eventually had negative health effects.)

As Mark Twain said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

This doesn’t mean you have to forgive them, though sometimes that brings relief. It doesn’t mean you can’t take the person who didn’t clear the sidewalk to task, even to the police or court. You don’t need to be angry or to hate to act.

Which leads to a point I’ve made before: a lot of our emotions happen because we believe we ought to feel them. We ought to be sad, or angry or hate or love or be sympathetic. (Forcing yourself to feel positive emotions rarely works well, though learning to bring love or happiness or relaxation up is useful.)

If you think you should have an emotion, you probably will and if you don’t, you’ll feel bad because you aren’t being the person you think you should be. So kill the idea that you must feel certain emotions in certain circumstances.

You do this, in my experience, by carefully examining the question “does this emotion help and is it worth it?” Examine it now, and examine it next time you get upset.

If the answer to either question is “no”, stop believing you should have the emotion.

This is as true for simple things like dropping a plate on the floor. It’s done, and being upset makes the situation worse. Sometimes a display of remorse is necessary socially, but in my experience a rueful laugh and apology works fine with anyone who isn’t an asshole.

The second arrow is the low lying fruit. And remember, people who deliberately fuck with you usually want an emotional reaction from  you. They like it when you get angry or upset.

So don’t. If you need to hit them or otherwise retaliate to make a point, do. But don’t bother with the anger or upset: you’re just giving them what they want. They love your anger, especially if you don’t do anything: your powerless rage makes them feel strong and in control.

Give your enemies nothing but hell. Never let them see you sweat. And as for the internal censor who think you should be upset and miserable, dump that guy.

And when you forget or fail, that’s when you forgive–yourself. Just try and remember next time.

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Rooming House Policy Positions of Candidates For Toronto Riding University-Rosedale

I live in University-Rosedale, in something which might be considered a rooming house, though my unit is self-contained (one room plus a small bathroom with a shower, the main room has a cooking area.) I’ve lived in rooming houses on and off throughout my life.

I’m putting the candidates policies up mostly so it can be found by people in my riding, which means it’ll be of little interest to most of my readers. I promised no editorializing when soliciting these positions and I’m going to leave comments closed. An open thread comment would be appropriate if you have something you want to say.

In alphabetical order:

Robin Buxton Potts

My position is that we need to pass the original proposed city wide legalization by-law as a matter of priority in the new term.

I am deeply invested in ensuring the new enforcement and compliance strategy is implemented. We know that despite being “in licensed or illegal) people operate and living in rooming/ boarding houses across the city, often in very unsafe conditions.

Giving our property standards enforcement officers more resources and more ability to enter units and homes to inspect the safety of these homes is critical for the well being of all residents. Not doing so puts lives at risk.

Approving this harmonized, City wide policy, and the enhanced enforcement abilities and resources is one of the fastest things the city can do to increase affordability, and protect residents – many of whom are our most vulnerable, including new Canadians, students, Black, Indigenous and queer communities.

 

Norm Di Pasquale

The fact Council still has not approved a policy legalizing and regulating rooming houses is problematic, and extremely dangerous.

In our current housing environment, affordability being the chief concern of many, and wages not keeping up with the cost of living, there are residents who are living in these spaces and it is incumbent on Council to ensure they are extended the same rights and protections as other people who rent in Toronto.

We need to immediately approve licensing and regulations for these spaces across the entirety of the City, and then work to ensure quality and affordability is kept front and centre as we strive to support residents through the housing crisis.

 

Diane Saxe

I support City-licensed and well-regulated rooming houses / boarding houses as a quick way to create deeply affordable accommodation close to transit, jobs and services, especially for those living alone. Such houses have been part of the historical fabric of Toronto for at least a hundred years. With an unhoused population close to 10,000, Toronto needs more of them.

Earlier this year, City Council unwisely turned down a motion to legalize and regulate rooming houses across Toronto. As a result, we have both an unnecessary shortage of such housing and a serious problem with illegal SROs.

With the rising cost of living, and especially of housing, I have heard from some university students that they are living in shelters and other temporary housing because of a lack of affordable housing near campus. This shortage could be reduced with more rooming houses. I recently visited one on St. George that was well-maintained, housed sixteen students and was a good neighbour to the surrounding homes. We need more like that. They are a valuable part of the “missing middle” housing that should be permitted in all residential areas.

On the other hand, unregulated, poorly run and illegal rooming houses can put both their residents and their neighbours at risk. Some constituents have experienced long-standing difficult impacts as a result of violent and disruptive behaviour at such houses, and feel that the City is ignoring their legitimate rights and concerns.

It is the City’s responsibility to set appropriate rules and to enforce them, for the comfort and safety of all those affected. In addition, the licensing guidelines enforced by the City Licensing Commissioner should be amended to make adverse impacts on neighbours material when granting or renewing a  rooming house licence.

 

How To Make Peace In Ukraine

The Ukraine war is steadily escalating. Strikes on infrastructure, the Russian mobilization of reserves (Ukraine has already mobilized multiple times) and increase NATO aid as well as economies stuttering around the world. Tac-nukes have been put on the table, though not used.

Peace is better than war, but there seems to be no route towards peace. The Ukrainians have passed a law stating they won’t negotiate while Putin is leader, both sides think they can win on the battlefield and so more refugees flood out of Ukraine, more people die, are raped or tortured or maimed for life.

It is in no one’s interest for this war to continue to spiral up the escalation chain, not even America’s. Europe is already locked in US satrapies, and America is shuddering under the effect of the sanctions plus Covid. For America the real enemy is China, not Russia; and for China the real enemy is America, but both nations need the other for now and neither of them wants a war, even as the US puts on further semiconductor sanctions and widens sanctions to aircraft.

Russia and Ukraine cannot make peace. The normal method would be to find a neutral third party, but there is none who is trusted and powerful enough to take on the task.

There are two nations who can force a peace, however. The US, as the lead nation in NATO and China, which is keeping the Russian economy going. China needs Russia for its future, since Russia makes it immune to a naval blockade choke-out by America and its allies. The US needs Ukraine a lot less, but Ukraine simply cannot fight the war without US/NATO support.

Both Ukraine and Russia need a victory. Any peace will have to give them something they can call a victory. In particular, Zelensky and Putin must be able to sell any peace deal as a win.

It is also important to recognize that some parts of Ukraine really do prefer to be in Russia. What the borders were drawn as generations ago does not change that fact and that Musk made it does not mean it is false. These regions will never truly be loyal to Kiev.

Since there is no neutral third party, the way to peace is to have China and the US negotiate the deal. Let them draw their lines, and then draw the final line in the middle. China is negotiating for Russia; the US for Ukraine.

An approximate deal which will work is:

  • At least Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea go to Russia. Perhaps somewhat more, in regions that are more Russian than Ukrainian.
  • Russia gets international acknowledgement of these areas as a permanent part of Russia, including from the Ukraine, US and the EU.
  • The land bridge to Crimea may go to the Russia. If it does not, then a joint Chinese/US force administers it, with no missiles, long range artillery, or military aviation beyond transport and a choppers allowed.
  • Ukraine gets guaranteed accession to the EU in 5 years if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs. Ironclad.
  • Ukraine gets to join NATO in 10 years, again if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs.
  • A large fund for rebuilding Ukraine. Perhaps matching from the money frozen from Russia and from the West. China might throw in some money as well, if they get to do some of the rebuilding. (China is arguably the best at the world at infrastructure right now.)

Russia might be able to take more land than it will get in such a deal, but it will not get international acknowledgment of what is taken and it will have to lose a lot more men. Given Russia’s demographics, further mobilization is not in its medium and long-term interests.

What Ukraine really wants is full integration with Europe and the West. It gets that, which it won’t get otherwise, since after a war it will be discarded, and it no longer has to fight over areas that really don’t want to be part of Ukraine.

The West gets an end to the war, which will help its economies, and will help the politicians in charge stay in charge. (Remember that Biden was begging the Sauds for enough oil to get him thru the mid-terms.)

China keeps its Russian satrapy and thus its strategic depth. If they negotiate a reasonable deal, the Russians are grateful, which will be helpful down the line.

The world ends an escalation cycle which could end in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which is in everyone’s interest, including Russia’s.

And a hell of a lot less people die, are maimed, raped and tortured or lose their homes and livelihoods.

With this deal everyone gets something which can be considered a win, but no one gets everything they wanted.

It’s a lot better than the alternatives, likely even for the belligerents. Ukraine is NOT getting everything back by fighting a war, and the costs of a war are painful for Russia (that Europe is hurting more does not mean this is good for Russia) and won’t get it official acknowledgment of its gains.

Peace is better than war. Let’s make it happen.

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 16, 2022

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

“How We Create–Then Blame–A Viral Underclass” (interview)

Steven Thrasher [MedScape, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-14-2022]

[TW: Viruses, diseases, public health — are all reality based and have no respect for the ideologies of neoliberals, conservatives, or libertarians.]

…viruses give us this map of understanding that there is no distinct me and distinct you. There’s always this organic material that potentially can be transmitting between us, and our fates are linked to one another. … Viruses are continually telling us that the fates of people on the globe are connected to each other. The risk we always have is not the same, but our fates are connected to one another. As we think about climate change and the changes that are going to happen in the world, there are lots of lessons that we’ve had in the past few years. The most powerful to me is that we’re always going to have a connection to one another, whether we like it or not. And the borders that we imagine to be very strong around gender, race, or nationality are fictions. The viruses can cross between them, and they give us a map for learning how to work with one another in an interconnected way.”

 

Iran

Khamenei’s Dilemma 

Christopher de Bellaigue, October 13, 2022 [The New York Review]

How far will Iran’s supreme leader go to suppress the protests that have rocked the Islamic Republic since mid-September?

The official response to the unrest bears the signature of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, who more than anyone will determine how this will end. His approach to the most serious threat to the Islamic Republic since the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s is heavily informed by what happened the last time an Iranian regime tottered and fell. As a young cleric, Khamenei was a militant opponent of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, spent time in his jails, and was tortured by his police. The hatred he exudes for the Shah is indivisible from his contempt for the tactical errors that the monarchy committed in its final phase and his determination to avoid them.

….What’s particularly hard to ascertain is the porosity of the line that divides the loyalist diehards—the men who have been taught that the protesters are evil-doers on a commission from Satan—and their adversaries. What would it take for the ideologue to give back his privileges and concessions, his monthly dole and fabricated university degree, his license to beat and rape and revile? In the late 1990s and early 2000s the country had a reformist government that offered to be a bridge between the loyalists and their adversaries. With the suppression of the reformists that bridge was burned….

Not that brutality is something the regime wants to be associated with. Over the past few weeks the authorities have constructed elaborate alibis, through coroners, prosecutors, and the official media, to shield themselves from charges of thuggery. In this parallel world Mahsa Amini died from a heart attack, Nika Shakarami fell to her death, and Sarina Esmailzadeh—another sixteen-year-old who didn’t come back from a protest—committed suicide. Where possible the families are dragged before the cameras to corroborate the state’s version, and if no one’s taken in, that’s not the point: the waters are muddied, seeds of doubt sown. That Shakarami’s body was buried in secret and without her family’s knowledge is a lesson from 1978. Much of the revolution’s momentum came from the funerals of people who had been killed in demonstrations, each funeral an excuse for another demonstration, leading to more deaths and more funerals and on and on.

 

Russia / Ukraine

How Russia Views America 

Philip Pilkington, American Affairs, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2022]

[Review by former NCer Pilkington of Andrei Martyanov’s Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse. ]

 

Does the United States Have a Plan in Ukraine? 

Matt Taibbi [TK News, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2022]

Like the Times, the Post moved back and forth between reporting information in its own voice and attributing information to anonymous sources. It seemed odd when they noted “recent events have only added to the sense that the war will be a long slog,” and “all of this adds up to a war that looks increasingly open-ended.” However, much of the rest described White House efforts to keep other nations backing Ukraine, which seemed uncontroversial enough. Then the paper dropped a stunner:

Privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, but they have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table. They say they do not know what the end of the war looks like, or how it might end or when, insisting that is up to Kyiv.

What??? If the White House doesn’t think the war can be won, but also refuses to negotiate itself, or “nudge” others to do it for them, what exactly is its end strategy? Waiting for things to get worse and then reassessing?

 

Predatory Finance

Open Thread

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts (no Covid or Ukraine.)

Review of Wolfgang Streeck’s “How Will Capitalism End?”, by Marku52

By Marku52

Streeck’s book “How will Capitalism End” is a collection of essays he wrote for the New Left Review almost a decade ago. It seems very prescient today. Much of his points are shared in the introduction, and first few chapters, and some of the points get repeated. Later chapters involve German politics, and are less useful to us. I find his idea that without corrective dialectics, capitalism will die of its own excesses, persuasive and I will go into more details in this review.

“The fact that capitalism has, until now, managed to outlive all predictions of its impending death, need not mean that it will forever be able to do so; there is no inductive proof here, and we cannot rule out the possibility that, next time, whatever cavalry capitalism may require for its rescue may fail to show up.”

For a while now, I’ve come to believe that capitalism must end. How can a system continue with such internal faults as:

  • There being no present economic value in staving off an apocalyptic disaster if it is far in the future.

  • Debt grows faster than income, which means eventually one entity owns everything. In the biblical past, debt “jubilees” reset the debt clock. But to Calvinistic capitalism, that is immoral. So capitalism has financial crises, revolutions, and periodic busts instead

  • Rewarding the search for “externalities”, which means profiting by moving a cost somewhere else-usually the ecosystem or society. An example of this would be the mine-tailings from a mine long closed, profits taken, destroying a fishery. But it also applies to party house AirBnBs that raise the rents for locals and disquiet a neighborhood. Or those Bird scooters that end up piled up all over the sidewalks.

Streeck posits that capitalism and democracy have an oil and water relationship, in that democracy favors a “moral justice” approach (“Everyone should have housing and health care”) and capitalism responds with “economic justice” (“You can have all of that you can afford”). Now that capitalism-and in particular extreme neoliberalism has vanquished all opposition. you would think that capitalism is secure. Instead Streeck proposes that this makes neoliberal capitalism’s status even more precarious.

Streeck’s hypothesis is straightforward. Capitalism requires a dialectic opposing force to save it from its own self destruction. In the past such forces existed -unions, functioning democracy, and public outcry. Now that all these forces are vanquished, it would seem that neoliberal capitalism is here to stay.

“The social world of the post-capitalist interregnum, in the wake of neoliberal capitalism having cleared away states, governments, borders, trade unions and other moderating forces, can at any time be hit by disaster; for example, bubbles imploding or violence penetrating from a collapsing periphery into the centre. With individuals deprived of collective defenses and left to their own devices, what remains of a social order hinges on the motivation of individuals to cooperate with other individuals on an ad hoc basis, driven by fear and greed and by elementary interests in individual survival.”

Streeck says that even without a competing narrative, capitalism will fall simply because its stops working.

In past times excesses of capitalism have been countered by opposing forces, leading to compromises like the New Deal. Capitalism’s destructive tendencies were reined in to some extent, and capitalism was “saved from itself”. However, Streeck points out that this was only possible in an era of high enough growth that both the owners of capital and the moral justice society could be content with their share. Once stagflation hit in the 1970s, there was not enough “pie” to go around, and capital went to war with labor.

Capital won, unquestionably. Unions crushed, regulatory agencies corrupted or co-opted, global capital strode the globe looking for arbitrage opportunities and labor took what abuse it had to.

“Socialism and trade unionism, by putting a brake on commodification, prevented capitalism from destroying its non-capitalist foundations – trust, good faith, altruism, solidarity within families and communities, and the like.”

“Capitalism without opposition is left to its own devices, which do not include self-restraint.”

Why do our “leaders” seem so incompetent and clueless?

“After a certain amount of time, it may no longer be possible to stop the rot: expectations of what politics can do may have eroded too far, and the civic skills and organizational structures needed to develop effective public demand may have atrophied beyond redemption, while the political personnel themselves may have adapted entirely to specializing in the management of appearances rather than the representation of some version, however biased, of the public interest.”

It seems governing has become performative, rather than actual. I’d describe a democratic government as one that implements policies voters have indicated they want. However, I’d argue, once neoliberalism has infested the government, that function changes. The government serves to protect the “Sacred Market” from interference by the desires of the voters. Look at FDR’s Social Security VS Obama’s Affordable Care Act (LOL, what a misnaming!)

Social Security was a simple act of a few pages, implemented by a competent civil service. The ACA was negotiated over a year of wandering farther and farther away from “Affordable” or “Care” (advocates of Single Payer were excluded) and ended up being over 300 pages. Nobody knew what it did, or how it worked. But it created yet another Market and derailed any other reform of health care for decades while insuring the profitability of the entirely parasitic health insurance industry. Responding to the needs of the voters? No. Creating yet another market? Check.

Another damning case was when Jen Psaki, Biden’s spokeshole, was asked why, if people were finding it hard to get Rapid Covid Tests, the government didn’t just give them out. She was speechless. “The government would just Give Them Away?”

The neoliberal rot on full display. That program was one of the few effective Covid policies that Biden implemented.

Look at the government response to Covid in the western countries. Initially, public health measures were taken: quarantines, travel bans, shutdown pay, mandatory masking. This lasted a short while until the neoliberals regained control, and those efforts are unlikely to be seen again. (“Won’t someone think of the Economy!?”)

When neoliberals infest your government, their sole qualification is that they will look good in front of a camera and ensure that the government will never interfere with the operation of the Sacred Market. Hence a typical election will ask you to choose between two neoliberals with different color Culture War coats…..

Streeck posits that capitalism confronts five challenges that it cannot solve by itself.

The capitalist system is at present stricken with at least five worsening disorders for which no cure is at hand: declining growth, oligarchy, starvation of the public sphere, corruption and international anarchy.

Declining growth has been apparent since the first oil crisis, way back in the 70’s. Capitalism depends on growth to be able to pay back the debt that it creates. But without new fields to plunder, that growth is impossible (Heinberg calls this “Peak Everything”) Much of the alleged “growth” in the past 30 years is just counting fictitious digits in the ever more hypothecated financial economy, completely divorced from real production.

Inequality (oligarchy) is one of the basic productions of capitalism. It can’t and won’t solve this by itself, and all corrective forces, like government redistribution, have been banished.

Starvation of the public sphere is everywhere evident. Particularly in the US, where some municipalities no longer have safe drinking water. Potholes, libraries closing, public heath abandoned. There is no money to be made in the public works, so they either aren’t performed or sold off and performed poorly.

Ah, corruption……Like the entire US political electoral finance system. Or Big Pharma drug testing. But also finance itself.

“Finance is an ‘industry’ where innovation is hard to distinguish from rule-bending or rule-breaking; where the pay-offs from semi-legal and illegal activities are particularly high; where the gradient in expertise and pay between firms and regulatory authorities is extreme;”

Capitalism grows by creating markets where there never was one before. Why can’t I make a market in cocaine, human organs, or children? And since capitalism owns the government, many of these immoral “markets” do get established, or ignored where they do appear.

“Capitalism’s moral decline may have to do with its economic decline, the struggle for the last remaining profit opportunities becoming uglier by the day and turning into asset-stripping on a truly gigantic scale.”

In the US, Pirate, er, Private, Equity is now buying up veterinary offices and cosmetologists. Just proving that there is almost no interaction left that does not have Wall Street’s corrupt hand in the middle of it.

International anarchy was barely on the horizon when Streeck wrote back around 2014. International capitalism requires a hegemon to provide a stable currency for trade, to police the trade ways for safe transport, and an enforcer (like the IMF) to ensure national debts get paid. You may have noticed that this is all very much up in the air these days. The US’ poorly conceived war in Ukraine has upended all this. The US basically stole $300 billion of Russian assets, and attempted to interfere with all their trade. The world is now dividing into blocks affiliated with one side or the other, and alternative trade regimes are being put into place. The US can no longer be viewed as a safe haven for assets, when one’s asset can be confiscated at the whim of the hegemon.

“Before capitalism will go to hell, then, it will for the foreseeable future hang in limbo, dead or about to die from an overdose of itself but still very much around, as nobody will have the power to move its decaying body out of the way.”

So, to bring up Stein’s Law “If a thing can’t continue, it won’t…..”

Covid Variants Continue Immune, Vaccine and Treatment Resistance Evolution

From Salon:

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are both spreading extremely fast in parts of Europe. According to Cornelius Roemer, a viral evolution expert at the University of Basel, the number of BQ.1.1 infections has been doubling every week. That kind of exponential growth is sure to drive the variant to becoming dominant globally in short order.

“The degree of immune escape and evasion is amazing right now, crazy,” Yunlong Richard Cao, an immunologist at Peking University in Beijing, told Nature this week. Cao co-authored a paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, that seems to show previous infections by BA.5 and antibody drugs, including Evusheld and Bebtelovimab, aren’t enough to stop a BQ.1 infection.

“Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of multiple variants with enormous growth advantages is unprecedented,” Cao and his colleagues warned in the study. “These results suggest that current herd immunity and BA.5 vaccine boosters may not provide sufficiently broad protection against infection.”

Meanwhile, BA.2.75.2, an offshoot of the Centaurus omicron subvariant, also shows stark ability to evade antibodies.

So. Expect a bad winter. Remember that this exponential increase in new variants has always preceeded a new variant becoming dominant, and that given international travel, they always spread. If you get a vaccine, get a bi-valent one, but I’d suggest filtering enclosed areas and that wearing n95 masks is a good idea. Remember that even a mild case of Covid can lead to invisible organ damage, especially to the brain and heart, and that repeated infections have a good chance of giving you long Covid.

This isn’t a game, and it isn’t about ideological talking points or culture war bullshit. This is a disease, which because we refuse to take the steps necessary to eliminate it, that keeps mutating to avoid whatever half-assed steps we are taking, and which can seriously fuck you up.

Be well.

Ukraine Is The First Major War Of The “Age of War and Revolution”

There are periods that tend relatively peaceful, and there are eras of war and revolution.

Back in 2016 I added a new category, “The Age of War and Revolution”. It’s now 10 pages long. I added it because it was clear we were transitioning, and we’ve now hit a marker point: the first major war in the Age.

It’s the first, but it won’t be the last.

Sri Lanka was the first collapse of the Age (related “The Twilight of Neoliberalism“, a sub-category).

There will be more of those. My money is currently on England (good chance it won’t be the UK by then) being the first formerly 1st world nation to collapse.

I was talking to a friend about the “get out of the US” advice I’ve been giving for years. People have (rightly) often asked, “but where?” The obvious answer used to be somewhere in Europe, but Europe has chosen decline, and if they don’t manage it well, collapse. Many European countries are going to wind up in 2nd and 3rd world status (many are already 2nd world, and the UK, if you aren’t in the top 10% or so, is already a 3rd world nation, as is America, outside of Europe.)

I’m seeing two interesting trends:

  1. The US is losing its allure to the best and brightest technocrats;
  2. Though anecdotal, for the first time in my life, I know multiple people who want to, are, or have moved to China.

A lot of what made America “special” and led to it being a tech, science and engineering leader for so long is just that so many of the smartest people would emigrate there.

For a long time now I’ve told Americans that Canada is heading in the same direction as the US, we just started in a better place.

But that still matters. If I had gotten cancer in the US, I’d be planning my funeral and considering suicide to avoid the last months of hell. I’d be dead, even if still walking. In 10 years, I’m not sure that wouldn’t be true in Canada, in 20 years, I figure it’s likely.

Some countries will pull together and take care of their populations. Some won’t. Many won’t be able to, no matter how much they want to.

Wars will rage: there will be less resources; food and water will be scarce and per-capita food consumption is going to drop for at least 70 or so years, maybe longer. If you’re young, you’ll see the end of 1st world obesity, though that will be partially driven, at first by countries needing their citizens to be in fighting shape. (Most Americans are too wide to fit thru the hole into an Abrams tank, for example.)

Revolution will be common and so will civil unrest. The idea that non-violence is superior will fade. It will be used some places and times, but the hard ideological commitment to it among the left will die.

I’m unsure how technology will play into it. The obvious play for the rich was always autonomous robots, to overcome the “Who will watch the watchers” problem of police, military and paramilitary forces. But most countries probably won’t have the resources to create and maintain large numbers of armed robots and even the rich ones may find it’s beyond reach outside of certain protected zones.

But for now, just understand, the world has changed. This is a new historical era, we’re now solidly at its start, and Ukraine is only the first of the major wars, not the last.

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