Comment on Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College
PizzaMan@lemmy.world 1 year agoThe Brits are just ahead of the curve
On destroying their economy? On making it harder for their citizens to travel (and therefore their freedom)?
If that’s being ahead of the curve then nobody in their right mind will want to be “ahead”.
Stuff like peace was caused by the hegemony of the American empire
The U.S. has definitely played a part. But it’s downright ridiculous to assign credit for the relative stability of international politics (a famously not so sinple/straightforward thing) on a single country/thing.
The E.U., NATO, and the countless trade agreements that are flying around have played a huge part.
world war 1 started in a other era when everyone thought all the entangling alliances would prevent another war.
Alliances were the only thing they used. Nowadays international trade does far more to prevent war than it ever has. Nobody ever wants to go to war with a big trade partner, as it would destroy your economy.
What you’re saying is downright bizarre. Somehow you hold the view that international war is right around the corner because of a weakened U.S., and at the same time you think countries ought to be dividing themselves and cutting off ties. It makes no sense at all.
sj_zero 1 year ago
In an era of deglobalization as it appears we're entering, it's going to increase the cost of things and increase the pain of making and buying things. If that's an inevitability (and I'd accept that perhaps it isn't), then getting ahead of the curve will mean that when the effects of deglobalization are just starting to hurt others, the brits will be further along in the process, potentially giving them a competitive advantage. Globalization and deglobalization are both situations that had positive and negative elements. Globalization has definitely increased global wealth and helped us buy cheap stuff, but it's also helped create more inequality and made global labour a race to the bottom. This isn't the first or last cycle of globalization or deglobalization, so even if you'd prefer it not happen, if it's going to happen anyway I suspect it might be better to have the pain sooner so you can have the benefits sooner too.
I suppose deglobalization doesn't necessarily mean a total end of trade. For example, even during eras of deglobalization, countries tended to continue to trade with their immediate neighbors. One benefit of getting in on deglobalization earlier than others would be fostering those relationships with trading partners outside of the context of globalization early with commensurate benefits of being an early mover.
The European Union isn't a very old organization, only being about 50 years old. It's entirely possible for such an organization to collapse under the strain of future issues such as an expanded and more militaristic Russia, and multiple impending sovereign debt crises resulting in part from a long-term cyclic increase in the cost of debt. Greece had just one such crisis and it resulted in much conflict as a relatively healthy Germany took the lead in helping to deal with that. If multiple such crises occurred and perhaps if the core economies in Europe such as Germany were not as healthy. In such a situation, countries already established with other countries individually would definitely benefit compared to countries suddenly fighting to figure out how to deal with multiple major issues at once.
There have been a number of different eras where hegemony of a certain empire makes wars largely uneconomical for other players. The Roman Empire's biggest rival was itself, for example. While there are other factors at play, those could come and go but the world superpower putting its thumb on the scale has an outsized impact.
If trade were necessarily a panacaea that ended all war, then there wouldn't be a war in Ukraine right now. Instead, we're seeing the western world tearing itself apart trying to use tools that aren't as powerful as they act and it seems they're in the process they're creating a more multipolar world since other countries go "Ok, I'll buy if they don't".
It seems to me that there are interconnected but separate issues related to unifying countries for the purpose of mutual aid and dividing countries for the purpose of giving different ethnic, religious, or political groups autonomy to prevent civil conflict, and that's why my viewpoints seem to be contradictory. While in an era of increased global conflict you might want to maintain a larger union to have more resources to defend against attack, you also need to ensure that the global conflict isn't internal civil war or other conflicts so your unified country can properly deal with internal and external crises. We have historical examples like Yugoslavia which point to a dangers of maintaining large unions when there isn't the civic harmony to support such unions. Both are occurring right now, because the same holistic factors that lead to one also lead to the other.
Some obvious potential counterpoints to what I've said would be that you might not think that a cycle of deglobalization is occurring so one country deglobalizing while everyone else further globalizes would not necessarily lead to competitive advantage (particularly for an island nation with limited local resources) since all it would do is increase local prices, and I think there's arguments to be made both ways but the conclusions I've personally come to based on the way the world is right now is that we're deglobalizing; You could remain completely unconvinced that the hegemonic power of the American empire is the driving force of the past 70 years of relative peace, and while I could give more examples where this happened, the world is complex enough that we could both have good facts and good logic and still come to different conclusions; My argument about trade not necessarily being a panacaea is certainly a bit weak because although it is true I can come up with examples where trade did not stop conflict, we also have examples of longstanding relationships where trade helped with cultural exchange and other beneficial effects so it's entirely possible to disagree with good logic and true facts; and finally my viewpoint of the contradictory nature of larger countries and civil conflicts isn't the only view on the matter and there have been examples throughout history of multicultural unions that didn't have massive existential problems as a result, such as imperial China or imperial Rome. Again, it's a matter where looking at things from different viewpoints two people could come to quite different opinions using solid logic and true facts.
PizzaMan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It has resoundingly hurt them.
It’s entirely possible for anything to collapse, so I’m not sure what your point is.
Ukraine wasn’t trading with Russia, so this statement makes no sense. The whole point of trade is that country A and country B will be deincentivized from warring if they are trading. If country C is trading with neither, then they won’t give a flying fuck about warring with either A or B.
And it is an incentive/decentive, not a guarantee.
So then as long as there is unity/harmony, there is no reason to fuck up a good thing.
sj_zero 1 year ago
I'm disappointed with the nature of your responses.
Nobody would argue I haven't laid out my positions fully, I've spent much more time and effort crafting my responses than most people would.
On your first point, you reiterate a point I've already covered fully in the case of brexit. You might disagree with me, but saying "It's hurting the UK" doesn't counter the point I've made.
You claim you're "not sure what [my] point is" after a thorough explanation of my viewpoint, at some point I feel it's on you to engage with my argument and try to understand it.
You have falsely claimed that Ukraine wasn't trading with Russia when it was trading billions of dollars per year prior to the war. Russia was Ukraine's second largest importer and third largest exporter in 2019. https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/UKR/Year/2019/TradeFlow/EXPIMP/Partner/by-country
The statement "as long as there is unity/harmony" when it's clear that the United States is facing major issues with disunity and disharmony to the point of political violence in the streets and as I've explained the EU is under stresses that can tear it apart imminently so there isn't or won't be unity/harmony so your argument is moot.
I think a key thing here is that the world won't stay the same as it is today forever. In fact, all signs seem to be pointing to the fact that it will change dramatically in the near future. And many of the ways it's going to be changing in the near term will be painful. Sometimes broader cycles aren't stuff you can avoid, so the question stops being "how do we stop it", and becomes "How do we deal with a future set in motion already now that we can't stop it?", and in many ways taking the pain quickly and dealing with reality as it is rather than as we wish it could go back to being is the way to get ahead.
PizzaMan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sorry, I only have so much time in the day to respond to these sorts of things.
When I said “I’m not sure what your point is”, I didn’t mean it as in “I don’t understand” I was essentially saying you don’t have a point, because you were highlighting an issue that applies to everything that exists.
Sure it does. You can’t correctly say that it is a good thing for the UK when all of the evidence suggests it is not.
I see that I was mistaken on that part, and I apologize for that. However I want to make it clear that I never said trade is a guarantee of peace. Russia decided that the cost/benefit analysis of the situation was worth it. They took a gamble and were luckily dead wrong, but it’s never a guarantee.
That disunity is largely between urban and rural, not state and state. So unless you plan to turn every U.S. city into a city state, and every rural region into it’s own state, then this idea of splitting up doesn’t make sense. But either way, it’s objectively harmful.
And having more allies against imminent danger is far more preferable to the alternative. Just because things won’t last forever doesn’t mean that we should abandon our allies.
This conclusion is based on the unfounded assumptions that it will be better in the long run, that the pain of the coming decades is unavoidable/unmanageable, and that allies will ultimately hurt us.
And there is plenty of evidence against these notions, such as Ukraine. Without it’s allies in the west, Ukraine would have been toast by this point. The only reason it is standing is because it is getting billions of dollars of funding from it’s allies.
SleightWryder@mastodon.social 1 year ago
@sj_zero If you don't mind, would you mind explaining your positions to this American?