MacLean's: Why the American empire has lost control—and its failure is imminent (Chris Hedges interview)

[TD_washingtonredskins]

When I read through these types of threads, I'm always impressed at the insanely intelligent posts I am lucky enough to read. 

[Jumbo]

32 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

When I read through these types of threads, I'm always impressed at the insanely intelligent posts I am lucky enough to read. 

 

 

Thanks bud, though I know I don't post as much as I used to. 

[tshile]

3 hours ago, BenningRoadSkin said:

(I don't want any superpowers and do not want any exploitation of countries)

 

Thats a nice sentiment. It’s also not a realistic one. 

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

 

Your post is great and while much of what you posted will not change (access to two ocean, lots of natural resources, etc), but with climate change, this could change.

 

Whether climate change globally will be good for human is probably a 50/50 proposition.  For the US, there is no way it is a 50/50 population.  It is hard to imagine a shift to a climate that would benefit the US.

 

You're right that there doesn't seem to be any way that global warming benefits us.  The status quo is pretty much the ideal geographic scenario for us.  Not only are you talking about a reduction in arable land suitable for the mass production of pulse crops, as well as an increase in disease as the tropics come North, but you'd also be talking about mass migration on the heavily populated coasts and massive loss of private property that would be very socially destabilizing.

 

America loses this phenomenal geographic edge that we've got if you start breaking this country up into multiple political entities.  Our navigable rivers become far less valuable if they have to pass through tons of borders that could be closed or taxed.  Our two ocean access disappears if you put a border in the land separating the coasts.

 

Dissolution of our political union could absolutely happen.  I think it becomes more likely the less democratic our system becomes.

 

If we did have climate change to the point that Canada and Russia are suddenly the breadbaskets of the world, I'm not sure humanity gets to the point where those nations grow their populations so significantly that they're global powers.  You're talking about a scenario of horrific famine and migration in the most populated regions of the world that I can only see ending in nuclear war.  China is not going to lose hundreds of millions of people to famine and economic collapse because they can no longer feed themselves.  That is existential crisis.  They'd invade Siberia and settle the land if it were arable, and first strike Russia if necessary.  We would absorb Canada if we had to in order to feed ourselves.  There would be no international order or protection from major power aggression in the face of that kind of crisis.

 

Or maybe the more hopeful outcome is that we develop the kind of technologies to make our remaining arable land even more efficient.

 

Also thinking out loud here, I'm not sure having a population that is almost totally free from agricultural labor has been the key to our edge in technological development.  After a certain point of labor efficiency, there must be a diminishing return for social development.  China still has 300 million farmers and they seem to compete with us in most services and forms of production.  Extreme labor efficiency in agriculture would actually be socially destabilizing for them.

 

Maybe we would be better off socially if we had more small-holding agricultural workers creating food for domestic consumption?

[tshile]

4 hours ago, No Excuses said:

The ME would also be a colossally worse place without the US, as much as no one wants to admit it. 

 

Maybe not. I tend to think it would, but maybe not 

 

if we weren’t funding the saudi’s Ethnic war in Yemen and supporting Israel I honestly don’t know what our involvement over there would be. Would terrorists still target us? I don’t know. 

[PeterMP]

16 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

Maybe not. I tend to think it would, but maybe not 

 

if we weren’t funding the saudi’s Ethnic war in Yemen and supporting Israel I honestly don’t know what our involvement over there would be. Would terrorists still target us? I don’t know. 

 

Shorter term, I think it would get worse.  Longer term, I tend to think they'd be better off depending.  It took a long time for Europe to coalesce into functional nation states.

 

But there also weren't outside forces beyond that wanted to and willing to act through much of Europe at the time (beyond what we do in the ME).  I think this is where the point is made that if we leave, certainly China, Russia, and others will try to fill the void.  It seems unlikely that a ME with China and Russia trying to fill our void is actually a better place.

 

If they could actually be left alone for a century or two, it might be better.

[Going Commando]

If we leave the ME entirely, I think you can expect, as a minimum, nuclear proliferation throughout the region.  The region is also so unstable that you could expect intense regional warfare that would dwarf what we've seen in Syria and Yemen.  It would probably be hot wars between Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.  It would be chaos throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia that would spread to Europe and Pakistan and India.

[PeterMP]

7 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Or maybe the more hopeful outcome is that we develop the kind of technologies to make our remaining arable land even more efficient.

 

Also thinking out loud here, I'm not sure having a population that is almost totally free from agricultural labor has been the key to our edge in technological development.  After a certain point of labor efficiency, there must be a diminishing return for social development.  China still has 300 million farmers and they seem to compete with us in most services and forms of production.  Extreme labor efficiency in agriculture would actually be socially destabilizing for them.

 

Maybe we would be better off socially if we had more small-holding agricultural workers creating food for domestic consumption?

 

A lot of our technological advantage is historical.  Even prior to WW1, we were the largest manufacturing economy in the world.  Even at that time, we'd freed up a significant amount of the labor force from agriculture.

 

A lot of the reason why China has been able to catch up is our current efficiency in agriculture along with our attitude towards trade, not using access to our ag markets as a weapon (for the most part), and the ability to ship large quantities of food long distances (e.g. refrigerated transport).  Even 70 years ago, China in its current state would be a combination of hunger induced unrest and applying large resources to food production using inefficientnt natural resources (e.g. land not well suited for agriculture).  They've used our ability to produce and share food with our willingness to share technology and ideas (through educating their young people in our university systems) (though in some cases, they've stolen things too) to catch up.

 

It has made it possible for them to get large amounts of their food from somewhere else pretty cheaply and not have to devote those resources to ag, while easily closing the technological gap.

 

(Realistically, if we didn't worry about the ag industry making a profit and distributed food evenly, the US could pretty much feed the world alone today with modern ag.  Our ag industry intentionally throws out a lot of food to manipulate supply and demand (not to even mention the waste at grocery stores, restaurants, and by individuals), which when you consider there are people dying in part of the world is pretty sad.

 

China's technological advancements largely stand on the shoulders of their ability to support their population through our ag industry.

 

Though clearly, essentially every country is better off from this perspective today then they were hundred years ago (i.e. fewer workers can do the work to feed many more people than they could 100 years ago) and likely will be 100 years in the future.

 

I'm not sure those attitudes will reciprocate in the future if necessary (if China or Russia become the major food producers in the world due to climate change are they going to sell us large amounts of food consistently without too many issues).

 

(Though also with changes in technology, it might be less of an issue if the ag industry becomes even more efficient.)

[PeterMP]

5 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

If we leave the ME entirely, I think you can expect, as a minimum, nuclear proliferation throughout the region.  The region is also so unstable that you could expect intense regional warfare that would dwarf what we've seen in Syria and Yemen.  It would probably be hot wars between Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.  It would be chaos throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia that would spread to Europe and Pakistan and India.

 

You'd hope the nuclear proliferation would decrease the chances of a true hot war that can spread.

 

(Like it seems to have with the super powers.)

 

And give them time to work things out peacefully.