Is Western Civilisation on its Last Legs?

FunLover18 · 22-03-2023 7:36pm

Western civilization can't have been up to much if it can be taken down by a few pronouns. Wealth inequality is a huge problem but has it got a mention in this thread outside the OP? Refugees and trans people aren't taking homes from people, homes are being taken by the vulture funds but there's isn't a single thread on here asking for a zero policy on them. God help anyone who suggests billionaires shouldn't exist, why should we care about them hoarding billions of wealth when there are people sponging on welfare and trans people trying to use a **** bathroom 🙄

22-03-2023 8:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388884#Comment_120388884

Would agree with allot of what you say but disagree at the end.

We have to change the way we make policy’s & our thinking.

over two third’s of the worlds lands are turning to desert. Caused by humans.

so we are in unchartered territory.

humans beings only have a few tools to manage. We use technology, fire & conservation. We use small living organisms to make cheese wine etc

we have to include livestock as a new tool in our tool bag.

Nothing else is going to save humans.

dxhound2005 · 22-03-2023 8:27pm

That could be good news for the desert dwelling species.

How many species live in deserts?

Many birds, reptiles, mammals and insects live in the desert. In the Sonoran Desert (Arizona, US) alone, there are over 500 bird species, 130 mammal species, 100 reptiles species and more than 2,500 plant species!

Wibbs · 22-03-2023 9:22pm

Western civilisation? It basically "won" the world. Go to China say and look at their cityscapes, the clothes they wear, the houses they live in, the cars and tech they use, even the financial and business systems. Almost all Western in origin. Even their popular media is "Western" through a local filter. To any alien watching for the last few centuries they'd say almost the entire globe has been "Westernised". Though conquest and colonisation certainly, but also culturally.

There's certainly been cultural exchange going the other way and lots of it, but like the English language Western culture tends to localise the bits it wants and often improves it. Printing being an obvious example. Invented in Asia, Korea to be precise for metal movable type and it didn't really do much or have an impact. Gutenburg improves the tech and it changed everything within a human lifetime. It had also passed through the Ottoman empire and again feck all happened.

This was nada to do with any "innate" skillset in Europe or Europeans, but far more to do with geography, history and especially geopolitics of Europe. Rome was a gamechanger that(with the help of the older Greek culture) drove "Europe" ahead, just like the Chinese empire did in the east. However the bigger gamechanger was that Rome fell, but it left behind a lingua franca, a common faith and continuing background empire of faith and the near constant need of wanting to go back to "Rome" and a long list of people trying to do that among all the growing little nations within the whole.

This drove intense competition in the continent and decentralised that competition, while again having that empire of faith as a check and balance for much of the time. This never happened in China. It never "fell". It stayed centralised and the only avenue open for real change was for somebody new to come in and take out the previous empire and voila you're running China. The Khans couldn't have done that in Europe. They might have taken the Poles, then they'd have to deal with the Germans, then the Italians(each one of their states), while the Poles came back and sooner or later they'd have to deal with the French. So something like printing or gunpowder comes along, the second one nation got it, the others wanted a piece of the action and then were pressed to improve it. Rinse and repeat.

Then tired and broke from bating the shíte out of each other, Europeans thought feck this, we can't build "Rome" here at home, so we'll build our empires overseas. We outsourced "Rome". Hell, look at the US and the US capitol building. It's feckin' Roman. They even have an oul obelisk around the place and Lincoln's memorial looks like a Greek temple to a god(only an actual Greek would wonder did they runout of cash before they painted it). The Chinese before Europe had sent out huge junks to explore and map their oceans and likely even made it to the Americas and Australia, but then went home and promptly burned their ships. Why not? We already have an empire you muppet. Whereas the "West"...

Even the "never" parts are dubious. Liberia was literally a Western concern and Japan was effectively under US control after WW2 for a while and heavily influenced by same. That map is kinda crazy really and it doesn't take into account the influence of the European colonies on the rest of the world. America being the obvious example. So yeah, the West "won".

Will it keep "winning"? That's the question. I suspect yes, or for quite a while yet. Even the devices we use to have this conversation and the very platform it's on is "Western". Oh the devices may be made elsewhere, but in many cases by Western companies and/or using Western licenced tech and the innovations that drove all that are in the vast majority of cases Western in origin. Of the top ten most used languages on the interwebs five of them are European/Western languages, English being top of the tree. Chinese comes second yes, but like their language it's far more "local" and Chinese. There are a multitude more people who speak English than are actually English, French that are actually French, Spanish than are actual Spanish etc. The majority of Chinese speakers are actually Chinese.

Local Western powers may rise and fall, but overall I don't think the West itself is going anywhere soon. If anything I can see some digging in of heels, now that IMHO we're in Cold War 2. Lines are already being drawn.

M.T. Cranium · 23-03-2023 5:09am

Did you see that meme, a bear sits at a picnic table and says, "don't take offence, but our version of Goldilocks ends much, much differently from yours."

Wibbs · 23-03-2023 8:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390271#Comment_120390271

Indeed, narratives are massively subjectively skewed. To get a clearer picture you have to look at the overall picture and the results.

Modulok · 24-03-2023 8:34am

I don't think it has anything to do with wealth inequality. When the west was at its zenith, wealth inequality was much worse than it is now.

I think it's due to post-nationalism, multiculturalism, and white guilt.

mariaalice · 24-03-2023 11:03am

I agree with the theory that rise if the computer age has for the moment solidifies the dominance of the west, the first machine code was in 'english' the computer ages is suffused with Western culture and values and there is no escape from it, whether you live in Bhutan, central Africa.

saabsaab · 24-03-2023 12:22pm

As the World's population continues to explode it will put extreme pressure on the planet to provide the resources needed by humanity. Notwithstanding science and invention there are limits that we can ask of the planet to support ourswelves. The Western capitalist system(s) of greater growth and resource consumption only will bring about collapse eventually. The question is when?

Francis McM · 24-03-2023 12:37pm

The world population increased from 1 billion in the year 1800 to around 8 billion today. And it has not stopped yet. In Africa, over the next 30 years, the number of people on the continent is expected to double from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion.

It is unfortunate that Family planning, an issue that calls for discussion in countries with booming populations, is considered a taboo in many.

As so many people come to western countries, it is not sustainable.

Blind As A Bat · 24-03-2023 12:58pm

At least in Ireland we have the workings of ancient civilisation's from our ancestors to visit and look upon.

Do we though? I'm seriously depressed. Look at the scale of vandalism going on. Look at what they did to the standing stone at the Hill of Tara just recently. There are already Irish people who have no respect at all for our history and culture. And in a couple of generations, if we carry on as we are, half the population of Dublin at any rate won't even be Irish - don't know about the rest of the country. In tough times we won't have that cohesive society to pull together and draw on our ancient culture. I'd love to share your romantic vision but I'm very much afraid that 'romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave'.

dxhound2005 · 24-03-2023 1:05pm

That culture on the island all belongs to foreigners. There were no people in Ireland during the Ice Age, and for thousands of years after. Various foreigners have arrived since, to make up our culture.

mariaalice · 24-03-2023 2:38pm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline#:~:text=Although%20still%20growing%2C%20the%20UN,1963%20to%202.4%20in%202019.

Wibbs · 24-03-2023 6:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120395439#Comment_120395439

That's pretty much a complete non argument, though I have heard it more than once as a Hail Mary attempt at argument for modern multiculturalism. On that basis Native Americans are "foreigners" too. Never mind that when people did arrive, they most often came as conquerers and colonists and we're still dealing with that even today.

dxhound2005 · 24-03-2023 6:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396877#Comment_120396877

It's a big subject, the end of human civilization. No harm in pointing out the long view, when recent arrivals in Dublin is supposed to be what is going to cause it.

saabsaab · 24-03-2023 6:19pm

The 'black' Irish genes, still around especially in parts of the West. painting of an Irish Fisherman from circa 1900..

silliussoddius · 24-03-2023 6:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396909#Comment_120396909

With the what now.

Black irish is an American term which should really be called; look an Irish person that doesn't have red hair and freckles.

riclad · 25-03-2023 1:09am

Ireland relys on people coming here to work from other EU country's

One other problem is the USA has given up on being a global superpower. China has a large navy and has the capacity to match the us in terms of military spending .it's extending its political power by investing in other country's and it's providing support to Russia in the war against Ukraine

The rising global population is making it more difficult to tackle climate change

If Iran gains the capacity to make nuclear weapons it could become a serious threat to Western country's

Ozymandius2011 · 26-03-2023 3:09am

I do think the West is in decline, but so is Russia. I think China is the rising power, but unlike the West and Russia its military hasn't really been tested on the battlefield other than some border-skirmishes with India. However I don't think Western civilisation is on its "last legs".

I think the West is also polarised in a way we haven't seen since the 1920s and 1930s. The Far Right are propping up the Swedish government. The Spanish Popular Party are in coalition with the Far Right Vox party in the Castille-Leon region. As in the 1920s (Italy) and 1930s (Germany), the Centre-Right are going into coalitions with fascist parties again, forgetting the lessons of history. In those times, the traditional conservatives saw Communism as the biggest threat rather than fascism, and so formed coalitions with fascist parties. Hitler of course had some of these old-style conservatives as well as the Left murdered in the Night of the Long Knives (1933) and created a dictatorship.

I am concerned that in the USA, most of the Republican party base is no longer committed to democracy and constitutionalism. They have become a personality-cult centered around Donald Trump. I think if a war comes with China or Russia, the West may be too divided to offer a united response. At present the West seems fairly united against the Russian aggression in Ukraine, but if Trump comes to power that is likely to change.

Hearing Trump's recent remarks where he said the problems in the US are not Russia but 'we ourselves' struck me. Is this part of the rejection of democratic western values? It probably indicates a retreat into isolationism in a potential second term, and maybe even withdrawal from NATO. Certainly I doubt he would continue to support Ukraine (which he doesn't anyway). Imagine the response during the Cold War in a US presidential election if a Democrat had said the Soviet Union was not a problem but that "we" were. Joe McCarthy would have had a field-day with that in his Committee for Un-American Activities in the 1950s.

seanrambo87 · 26-03-2023 4:28am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120396909#Comment_120396909

Im sorry but that painting looks like a white man to me. A fisherman in the 1900s had no sunscreen and was on the water from sun up to sun down, blasted by the suns rays from above and blasted from a the suns reflection below. I work construction and in the summer you could mistake me for a sicilian, never mind black haired lads who are nearly black (figuratively)

saabsaab · 26-03-2023 1:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401622#Comment_120401622

He is a 'white man' as you say but with a Summer tan and the rays and wind burn off the Atlantic. At the same time he kinda looks like a North African or a Spaniard.

Strumms · 26-03-2023 10:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120398452#Comment_120398452

A problem to US has had is that it’s elected some presidents recently that were not very good at aspects of that job and didn’t command respect on the world stage like Obama, Bush and Clinton did.

a megalomaniac old nut job in Trump was replaced by a doddery old reactive, slurring, gaffe ridden Joe Biden…. An 80 year old.

it’s been proven beyond any tangible doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 US general election.

I wonder what others did they try to have a go a steering in a certain direction ? US and further afield.

what is happening to the EU, growing EU skepticism, Ukranians flooding every city and town on the continent and looking for handouts, housing and dig outs.. it’s unprecedented and ALL Russia’s doing… in an attempt to undermine the EU, its unity and successfulness.

and they know what they are doing, why they are doing it and so on….

dxhound2005 · 26-03-2023 11:08pm

People in a survey were generally favourably disposed to the EU. Maybe a bit surprising that Poland was the most in favour, seeing that their government, along with the Hungarian government, are seen as the most anti EU. Any polls I looked at for the UK, suggest that a new EU referendum would produce a result in favour of going back in. I haven't detected a growing skepticism to the EU, but rather the opposite, since people have seen the outcome of Brexit.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/10/13/positive-views-of-european-union-reach-new-highs-in-many-countries/

The poll was done in Spring 2022 and the link was published in October. I'm sure other people can find research to prove the opposite. But the EU and the Euro have survived many predictions of their demise, and there has always been some crisis or other going on.

Grayson · 27-03-2023 8:42am

Every civilization is always on it's last legs. In the last century we saw two world wars and after each there was massive social upheaval. Were each of those the last breaths of a dying civilization? Yes and no. Parts died, other parts stayed. Societies are constantly in flux but by and large they carry on. In the past we've seen collapses but they just look that way. Cities and kingdoms died. But the people moved on. They brought their cultures to other places. They integrated and some things changed, some things stayed the same. So when we look at the ruins of a place like babylon we think a civilization died but it didn't, just that one place did.

Run Forest Run · 27-03-2023 9:40am

George Galloway certainly seems to think so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zq4v0lgKwo

I don't agree with everything he says here, but there is certainly a fair bit of truth in much of it. (harsh and uncomfortable truths)

The west has become drunk on it's sense of superiority compared with what would have been less advanced parts of the world. We are severely lacking when it comes to the skill of introspection or self-reflection...

Put simply, we cannot recognise our own faults/weaknesses. But we are very good at pointing out what we see as faults in other cultures. Our weaknesses are eating us alive from within, but we're too blind or arrogant to recognise it. Perhaps this is a very natural process, when you have been on top for such a long time... the inevitable rot sets in. The west will fall off it's lofty perch, and then the world will re-calibrate and move on with this "new normal".

Unfortunately, there will probably be some significant pain to endure as we adjust to this new reality. Particularly with regard to the Americans, who look very unlikely to accept this gracefully. They will almost certainly "rage against the dying of the light" as the famous quote goes. Fading super power they may be, but just like a mortally wounded Lion they can still inflict serious damage as they go out.

dxhound2005 · 27-03-2023 11:07am

There were "civilizations" in other parts of the world, before Europeans "discovered" them. None of them were very civilized, no more than the savagery that went on in Roman times and before that and afterwards in Europe. Genghis Khan put parts of Europe to the sword, but in general Europe has been secure from outside domination. We confined our own savagery to fallings out among neighbours, until the other places were "discovered"

Then there was an astonishingly swift conquest of large parts of other Continents by Europeans. And a major European influence still pervades in the Americas, Africa and Australasia. These are European people, only a few hundred years removed. Western (as in European) power has never been as mighty in that sense, and the notion that it is on the way out now, does not chime with reality. It requires a longer view to see the overall picture, not parochial stuff like vandalism in Ireland. Or even the latest economic or immigration/emigration calamity in Europe or America. They pale when compared to the famines and other disasters of the past. The even longer view, would identify that the Europeans came from elsewhere, if we go back far enough.

Wibbs · 27-03-2023 12:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120405141#Comment_120405141

Calloway has long emigrated to and gained full citizenship of Lalaland, but you must be living in an entirely different "West" than the rest of us yourself. We rarely bloody well shut up about our apparent "faults/weaknesses".

Western culture barely goes a day without someone somewhere within it throwing on the sackcloth and ashes and quite publicly going on about how terrible the West was and is to everyone. Well anyone who isn't Straight, White and male apparently, who apparently have no value other than as the big baddies in the never ending victimhood stageplay. The very script itself written in the West. At best falling over backwards to atone for their mountain of sins. And this isn't fringe either, it's front and centre across much of Western media.

Currently Western culture is absolutely steeped in "introspection and self-reflection" and insecurity. At times and all too damned regularly to the point of farce. It's hard enough to avoid. Christ try defining something so basic a man or a woman without some chinless twit with third hand half baked opinions bouncing around their empty skulls baying for blood about the phobics among us.

Try finding "introspection or self-reflection" beyond said "West" in areas and cultures like China, or Russia, or the ME, or Africa. Even talking of possible "faults/weaknesses" is culturally and politically verboten. If anything it can be far more easily argued it's this "introspection or self-reflection" that is more likely to make the West "fall".

Run Forest Run · 27-03-2023 1:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120405722#Comment_120405722

This is chatter from the masses you are referring to Wibbs. (mostly anyway)

Why have successive US administrations, for example, been obsessed with the faults they see in other regions of the world... while giving comparatively little attention to the growing problems within their own borders? And they seem to have a bottomless pit of money for wars and military spending, but yet struggle to give affordable education or healthcare etc to their own citizens. The west has a bizarre fixation on what others are doing... a distorted sort of voyeurism!

dxhound2005 · 27-03-2023 1:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406171#Comment_120406171

The clue is in their ancestry. Until the Spanish, German, Polish, English, Irish and the rest went over, there were only savages there. They come from stock which has always regarded themselves as being superior to other races.

Wibbs · 27-03-2023 3:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406171#Comment_120406171

The US ≠ the "West". An all too common mistake and perception, especially of those outside the West who dislike even hate America. Never mind those inside the West buying into the sackcloth and ashes of our sins, ironically importing that stuff from America. Most of Europe, which y'know is in the West, has free healthcare and education among a host of other social supports that many in the US would brand damned near communism.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120406210#Comment_120406210

And the Chinese don't? Or the Japanese? Or Indians, who have such a horn for superiority they developed and codified a caste system of superioriy among themselves? Ask any Black African who's lived in or visited such nations outside the West where they were more likely to experience overt racism and othering and in most cases there are no local laws to protect against that. Hell a load of Chinese scientists have been at pains to prove for years that modern human Chinese evolved locally and aren't African in origin.

As for the native populations in the Americas(and elsewhere in the "New World"), they suffered from the double edged sword of European thought. On the one hand the exoticism of the Noble savage, on the other the savage in need of civilising. The realities weren't so simple. From the Aztecs tearing the hearts out of thousands of people in blood sacrifices to their sky fairies, enslaving and raping smaller groups, while disemboweling homosexual men, lesbians were strung up. Adultery of any sort being a death sentence of course. Other societies killed kids as sacrifices to their sky fairies. The Aztecs would pick a woman for sacrifice, pass her around as a sex toy and then flay her alive so that a prriest could wear her skin and channel one of their female sky fairies. A grand day out.

And don't forget the noble Native Americans fighting near constant internecine battles among themselves. Indeed when European settlers showed up with better weapons tribes often used them as allies to subdue their local enemies. The Sioux had a good go of massacring the Pawnee among others. While colonisation was anything but good for the natives the Noble Savage peacefully praying to the Great Spirit ruined by the White Man only existed in the pages of fairy stories and only gets wheeled out now by the gullible or those from those backgrounds looking for an understandable fair shake in modern America.

dxhound2005 · 27-03-2023 3:59pm

That's what I said in the other post, none of the "civilizations" around when Europeans didn't know about them were very civilised. I had the Aztecs sort of in mind. The reason behind their savagery is wealth and power, sometimes dressed up as religion. The wealthy familes exerted their control, by making human sacrifices of the lower classes.

Here is a nice line from the American Constitution, which asserts that all men are created equal. Complaining about the King.

He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

niallpatrick · 27-03-2023 4:53pm

80 years ago using nuclear elements for weapons or power was unthinkable, too dangerous we're not God and we shouldn't tamper with the power of the sun inside a bottle. Nuclear power nuclear bombs whats next on the list? quantum computing once thats cracked I think it will be the end of us all. Not terminator rise of the robots more like a reaction is started that can't be stopped.

silliussoddius · 27-03-2023 5:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120405141#Comment_120405141

I'd sooner listen to a flat earther than Comrade Galloway.

riclad · 27-03-2023 9:45pm

i,d be more concerned about climate change or a war where atomic bombs are used, the americans left behind in afghanistan 1000s of weapons, included missiles that could be used to shoot down planes ,

FROM cnn

Aircraft worth $923.3 million remained in Afghanistan. The US left 78 aircraft procured for the government of Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul before the end of the withdrawal. These aircraft were demilitarized and rendered inoperable before the US military left, the report states. The US military conducted its non-combatant evacuation from Afghanistan in August, primarily through that airport.

A total of 9,524 air-to-ground munitions, valued at $6.54 million, remained in Afghanistan at the conclusion of the US military withdrawal. The “significant majority” of the “remaining aircraft munitions stock are non-precision munitions,” the report states.

Over 40,000 of the total 96,000 military vehicles the US gave to Afghan forces remained in Afghanistan at the time of the US withdrawal, including 12,000 military Humvees, the report states. “The operational condition of the remaining vehicles” in Afghanistan is “unknown,” the report states.

More than 300,000 of the total 427,300 weapons the US gave to Afghan forces remained in Afghanistan at the time of the US military withdrawal, according to the report. Less than 1,537,000 of the “specialty munitions” and “common small arms ammunition,” valued at a total of $48 million, are still in the country, the report states.

“Nearly all” of the communications equipment that the US gave to Afghan forces, including base-station, mobile, man-portable and hand-held commercial and military radio systems, and associated transmitters and encryption devices also remained in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal, the report states.

“Nearly all” night vision, surveillance, “biometric and positioning equipment” totaling nearly 42,000 pieces of specialized equipment remained in the country, the report adds.

the taliban could sell these weapons or ammunition to north korea or any extremist group if they need money as the economy declines .

27-03-2023 10:40pm

Our technology & inability to manage complexity, egos & greed will be our undoing.

crusd · 27-03-2023 10:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120401588#Comment_120401588

China is in a demographic hole far worse than Europe or the us. Within a generation they will have a massive older population and dwindling working population. Population has just started falling. Projected to fall 50% this century. Married couples freed from the one child policies of the past are now choosing not to have children as the have both sets of parents to mind and no money to look after children as well.

Jinglejangle69 · 27-03-2023 10:50pm

Russia, China and Iran have come together as allies against the West and have promised to produce more manufacturing, more weapons etc etc

America and the EU have come together to tackle climate change.

Where are our leaders?

dxhound2005 · 27-03-2023 10:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409013#Comment_120409013

Will it be a rapid collapse or a slow fade out, as per the question posed in the OP? Vague terms. My interpretation of a rapid collapse would be in 5,000 years time. I like to take the long view, and ignore the small current stuff which won't even be remembered in 100 years time.

27-03-2023 11:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409057#Comment_120409057

I’d be surprised if we have 100 year’s left.

We’re already seeing the results of desertification of the land.

All symptoms of biodiversity loss because of our agriculture policy’s & management.

War’s off the future will be fought harder than any war before in history for resource’s like water & agricultural land in non brittle environments (like Ireland & uk)

we need to change from the ground up, government’s & institution’s will never change it has to happen at ground level.

dxhound2005 · 27-03-2023 11:57pm

So at "ground level" do away with greed and egos. Then there would be no wars. Who is going to design this new human race?

28-03-2023 12:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409237#Comment_120409237

I don’t think we can ever get rid of greed & egos no matter what we try.

If your really interested in what I’m trying to say you need to watch Allan Savoury on YouTube. He puts it together far better than I ever could.

He has a 20 minute TED talk

But we are in deep deep trouble if we carry on doing what we’re doing.

Strumms · 28-03-2023 1:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409054#Comment_120409054

True but the EU won’t achieve that either.

by virtue of flooding more people into the EU, relying on and producing more outputs of energy… that brings more pollution in Europe, so climate change isn’t really being tackled….

our leaders ? Don’t lead, they follow the prescribed EU guidelines to help everyone and anyone, but leading and being responsible for Ireland, it’s citizens ? Forget it…

Wibbs · 28-03-2023 9:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120409054#Comment_120409054

Basically Cold War 2 has started. Autocratic command type economies can ramp up production faster than democracies, so not a shock Russia, China et al are waving their willies around early. However democracies catch up and tend to out produce them and at higher quality. The US and to a slightly lesser extent the EU's biggest Doh! over the last 30 years was watching their manufacturing industries, or rather their owners, offshore manufacturing to potential enemies in order to line the pockets of those industry owners(and to provide the rest of us with cheap crap, much of it we don't actually need). Service industries are fine and dandy, but when you can't physically make stuff you're on the wrong side of the growth curve. All empires and strong nations manufacture inhouse. The British did, then America took over and blew everyone out of the water. Germany another industrial powerhouse.

Like in Cold War 1 ideology will also drive this Cold War 2, and already is. Look at Russian spin. A nation of majority non religious, with one of the highest divorce and abortion rates in the world, with the highest number of orphans and single parent families in Europe, with one of the lowest life expectancies in the developed world, with a dictator running the show and oligarchs milking their people has already convinced a fair chunk of god fearing "independent" right wing Americans(and others) that they're the hope for a "traditional conservative future". You couldn't make it up. Well they did. They've also gathered the conspiracy theorists to their bosom. While not all supporters of Russia are conspiracy theorists, it's a near given that conspiracy theorists are supporters of Russia. Then we have those in developing nations in regions like Africa where Russia, the last White "Christian" empire left and one that has amply demonstrated its imperial ambitions and realities for the last 100 years, has convinced a goodly chunk of Black Africa that they're on their side. They pretty much all see the "West" as weak and stupid and more interested in defining 50 genders and pushing for personal victimhood. And they have a point to some degree, but they miss the fact that the vast majority of that guff is surface and doesn't actually mean much beyond the permanently angry on both sides on twitter(a western platform, runing on western software on western tech built wherever it's cheaper to build under western licence).

On the other hand the "axis" powers of Russia, China et al are more than a joke the closer one looks. North Korea. Well that's all you need to say... There is no love lost between China, Russia and India. The latter two are deeply suspicious of each other and India has long and wisely played both sides during Cold War 1 and didn't get dragged into proxy wars. Western investment has also started to pivot away from China and into India and other regions because China's too expensive now and has too much government interference. China's worker demographic is tanking, yet at the same time, last year 1 in 5 workers between the ages of 18 and 26 were unemployed and that's official figures and for urban areas(they don't tally the rural areas). Of the rest of the BRICS? Brazil is shaky but getting there and a lot closer to the US physically and in trade links. South Africa is a barely functioning basket case. Iran is a very minor player. Russia is facing demographic nightmares, made worse by this stupid war. They manufacture bugger all, even under licence(and most of that left last year). They're a resource economy and the vast majority of their export routes were to the West and Europe. Now closed off. China will grab what they can at firesale prices. They were already. Look at Chinese wood imports. Ten years back they banned logging in China to protect their environment and promptly bought up huge tracts of Russian timber. Putin and Xi met to great aplomb from their gullible, but didn't actually sign any agreements including ones that were in the pipeline(no pun). Xi is just lining up Russia for a reaming and one long coming for the Chinese.

It's going to get "interesting" anyway...

silliussoddius · 28-03-2023 4:43pm

Haven't a lot of China's investment in Africa gone a bit sideways recently? I think the issue with China is too many people that may result in a kind of resource squeeze. Then you have India which may face a similar issue, and they have massive income disparity problems.

Western civilization is like democracy and capitalism. The worse, apart from all the rest.

dxhound2005 · 28-03-2023 7:37pm

The Chinese are used to hard times, for a long time. If they can get through such trials and tribulations, the West can do the same.

"From 1960–1962, an estimated thirty million people died of starvation in China, more than any other single famine in recorded human history. Most tragically, this disaster was largely preventable. The ironically titled Great Leap Forward was supposed to be the spectacular culmination of Mao Zedong’s program for transforming China into a Communist paradise. In 1958, Chairman Mao launched a radical campaign to outproduce Great Britain, mother of the Industrial Revolution, while simultaneously achieving Communism before the Soviet Union. But the fanatical push to meet unrealistic goals led to widespread fraud and intimidation, culminating not in record-breaking output but the starvation of approximately one in twenty Chinese."

As far as too many people goes, there are vast areas of China which are unhabited. It's a bit like the Dublin rural imbalance here. They could easily take over Mongolia next door, which only has a very small population.

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres (603,909 square miles), with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation.

silliussoddius · 28-03-2023 7:47pm

Speaking of Mongolia, isn't that a potential flash point between China and Russia?

dxhound2005 · 28-03-2023 7:52pm

There was a border war of sorts between The Soviet Union and China, a few decades back. I think they settled things mostly since.

silliussoddius · 30-03-2023 6:22pm

There's an Irish fella named Patrick Boyle who has a good youtube channel that deals with finance, his recent video is on China's overseas investments.

Not trying to do one of those "do your own research" youtube dumps, but it's a good video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeDXy0bJb8

Is Western Civilisation on its Last Legs?

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