Is it now?
I’m sure I can find the spot you’re talking about!
I’m not sure my translation skills are very good. But, you want to visit Tacos of the Little Town.
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@startingagain another video related to what we were talking about that came out yesterday.
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That’s why The Sopranos is the greatest show ever.
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We’re already seeing this in India. Guys don’t get engaged/married young like before and women are finally free to have careers. Jobs are also hard to find in India (which is why so many emigrate). As a result, you have more and more gangs of poor, unemployed males aged 12 - 30 who’ll rape women in the most violent ways imaginable. I’m betting many Americans heard about the bus rape incident in India from a couple of years ago.
The stories I’ve heard + things I’ve seen with my own eyes regarding this in India are insane.
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Yes, I did.
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I was reminded of this post when I read this new article.
I didn’t want to derail the thread about clothing for tennis.
Imagine going to your PCP and asking for therapy…
You get a referral
“Phew! That was a close call. I’ve really been struggling!”
You make a call
“alrighty… we have an appointment for you available on April 14th… 2027. Does that sound good?”
Mentioned the work of Peter Turchin in this context before. His new book is due out soon. There’s a preview of sorts in the recent Atlantic magazine.
Subscription required. But here’s the point I appreciate most from his work. Few things better define politics since the mid-1990s than this.
This is part of a broader trend. Compared with 50 years ago, far more Americans today have either the financial means or the academic credentials to pursue positions of power, especially in politics. But the number of those positions hasn’t increased, which has led to fierce competition.
Competition is healthy for society, in moderation. But the competition we are witnessing among America’s elites has been anything but moderate. It has created very few winners and masses of resentful losers. It has brought out the dark side of meritocracy, encouraging rule-breaking instead of hard work.
All of this has left us with a large and growing class of frustrated elite aspirants, and a large and growing class of workers who can’t make better lives for themselves.
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Thanks for this. I’m likely going to get his book. @burien_top_team
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I predict things will get worse and the US will trudge along for some time until a crisis hits and there’s a reshuffling of its people into different countries, like what happened to the USSR and Ottoman Empire.
What do you think?
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Tale as old as time man
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To be blunt, I thought the pandemic would be the crisis - largely because I was hoping for something “natural” rather than man-made. I used to think that maybe a climate event could do it, but it would have to be catastrophic.
Historically, war has been the answer. Sorry to say. I’m watching events in Ukraine (and to a lesser degree, Taiwan).
What did you mean by reshuffling into other countries? People leaving the U.S.?
Balkanization, making new countries here. Hence the thread title. @burien_top_team
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You predict the same?
Honesty… all it’d take is one really bad hurricane season
Aside from Louisiana, Mississippi and portions of florida (not Miami)… most of the US is woefully ill equipped to deal with cat 3+ hurricanes.
The East Coast would be absolutely fucked if a cat 3+ storm hit
New York and Long Island would likely go underwater from storm surge. Downtown Miami would go under water
2-3 bad storms in the timespan of a year is all it’d take. Mass displacement, long term power outages, entire communities flooded/closed off for weeks if not months. It’d be a catastrophe. Hurricanes also cause tornadoes!
The crazy thing is… it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. The 1938 New England Hurricane caused extensive damage, caused almost 1000 direct fatalities.
Every year there is a 1 in 100 change a category FIVE storm will hit downtown miami.
It is said if a cat 5 storm hits Miami before going on to hit the gulf coast you’d be looking at up to half a trillion dollars in damage.
You can board up your windows… but storm surge will wipe your property off the map. If you are still in that house when the time comes then GOD help you. I can’t imagine anyone could survive that.
Aside from hurricanes… a bad earthquake in California isn’t out of the question
Hurricane Sandy was category 1 (extra tropical upon landfall). Sure… area of tropical storm force suface winds was far and wide
But that was a strong tropical storm/low end category 1 strength storm and it really fucked up PA/NY/NJ. Imagine a storm 2-3x stronger… and the damage incurred is exponential, not linear growth as wind speed increases.
115mph + winds vs 40mph+ winds…
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Ah, I see what you mean.
I tend to think of Balkanization as requiring some previous sense of peoplehood that becomes suppressed for a period of time due to some outside force (colonization, conquest) and is then given license (liberation movement/revolution, imperial collapse).
I’m not sure if the U.S. has the “requisite material.” I’m inclined to believe that nations that are vulnerable to Balkanization maybe didn’t have a very good reason for being nations in the first place …
It’s more the reaction to the cataclysm rather than the cataclysm itself that I’m thinking about.
We’re still at a point in which politicians feel it is worthwhile to underfund rescue efforts in other states in the name of fiscal responsibility - before turning around and begging for money when the disaster strikes their constituents.
If we’re looking for a “Oh no, it’s so bad we all need to come together” event, I’m not sure Mother Nature is likely to deliver it. Again, I hate to say it, but there’s been a historical solution to this problem …
Definitely nothing like that in the U.S. The United States created the States that took their places among the nations of the world, and there was definitely no war, in which over half-a-million died, to prevent some States from separating from others…
But the solution sometimes winds up being worse than the problem itself
Some talk of civil war. If the US destabilises within, even if ‘your side wins’… wouldn’t other emerging global superpowers potentially cash? In which case, the ‘winning side’ would wind up becoming subservient to a new world order that may very well not align with American style conservative or progressive values.
We are talking China, Russia etc. Think the suicide rate in America is high? Russias suicide rate is 2-3x that of Americas per capita.
Chinas reporting is iffy, esp for rural areas, though China heavily suppresses any and all religious expression as citizens are supposed to worship the government. Organised religion is seen as a threat to the CCP.
Perhaps the side you are fighting for doesn’t win… societies founded from the ruins of past civilisations aren’t necessarily ‘better’. Rather the civilisations that rise from the ruins exist because ‘their side won the war’
Frankly, I think we lucked out in that the west became the trendsetters/global superpowers. The majority of non western, first world civilisations are small in scale, underdeveloped, run by greedy dictators or warlords, underfunded and technologically inferior. Democratic countries tend to have higher HDI indexes, less inflation, less corruption, less political instability, higher employment rates and superior levels of educational attainment and opportunity.
Although the wealth gap is a problem, you can’t compare wealth gaps in America to the wealth gaps in countries run by warlords and dictators are generally far worse.
In China the top 10% of earners (usually involved with politics or something along those lines) make 14x more than the bottom 50%.
Developed non western countries exist like Japan and South Korea… but hell, Japan and South Koreas problems are insurmountable and the cracks are finally starting to show after decades of EXTREMELY hostile attitudes towards mental healthcare, toxic work culture, unintentional anti-natal policy, enormous financial pressure and rampant alcoholism.
South Korea was a poverty ridden mess. Pre 1960s (and even during 60s) South Korea was considered one of the least developed countries in the world. The attitudes, expectations and policies that fuelled their economic boom
Their economic boom from 1961-1997 is known as the Miracle of the Han River. In only 36 years South Korea went from one of the least developed countries in the world to a healthy, developed first world country with sprawling metropolitan business districts, multinational corporations, average life expectancy, low child mortality rates (child mortality rates dropped 60% from 60s to 80s).
While south koreas economic boom began in the 60s, the largest spike in the rate at which economic development progressed was in the mid 80s when democratic reforms were imposed putting South Korea more in line with the western world.
South Korea became less authoritarian following the Korean War as Chang Myon was vehemontly anti communism. However the second republic of Korea was subject to a military coop and SK became an autocratic millitary dictatorship (number of millitaristic autocracies, two unelected leaders from 62 to 87) until 1987
In 1987, human rights violations and high profile cases involcing detention, torture and murder or violent millitary suppression e.g. Gwanju uprising in 1980, deaths of Bak John Cheol and Lee Han-yeol in 87 led to a nationwide mass pro democracy movement now known as the June Democratic Struggle.
The Undongkwon/Minjung movement was another pro democeacy activist group that was largely responsible for the Gwanju uprising. Undongkwon movement peaked during June Democracy struggles
Why am I telling you this? Because South Korea ‘won’. They were no longer under under the thumb of a harsh and oppressive millitaristic dictatorship
Pre and post dictatorship expectations of the individual hardly shifted despite SK becoming a democracy. In many, many fronts South Korea is in a better place. South Korea’s economic boom was implemented at the expense of citizens’ quality of life.
People were expected to be educated, however during SK’s dictatorship phase academic institutions suffered quite a lot… people were expected to work long hours for low wages. Large corporations were (and still are) practically allowed to get away with murder. It’s very dystopian over there in terms of the way corporate monopolies have siezed economic control over the entire country
These mega corporations are called chaebols, and they make up more than 50% of south koreas stock market.
Post economic boom, attitudes towards work and study haven’t changed. Their work culture is very toxic… you can lose your job or be demoted and outcast for taking maternity leave, taking sick days or refusing to work overtime (sometimes overtime without pay). Japan has the same issue… but in South Korea pressure has gotten even worse for teenagers, young adults and middle aged citizens alike.
Unlike other coutries, in South Korea your marks in high school make or break your future… from years 10-12 students have no social lives. They go to high school, after HS most students attend ‘cram schools’ which are for profit. Cram schools are for profit, private academies that trainbstudents to meet structured, pre-determined goalposts. The result of attending these academic institutions after school is usually a better mark on high school or college entrance exams.
After cram school a student goes home to study for four to eight hours before going to sleep. Sleep deprivation is commonplace, and there’s a saying akin to ‘if you are sleeping more than four hours per night in high school you aren’t working hard enough’.
This culture is endemic to their entire society. It continues through to college and beyond. This worked when you had a population of dirt poor farmers and agriculturalists desparate to rise out of poverty by any means necessary… and even then the degree of stress imposed upon high schoolers and adults alike wasn’t as bad as ‘3-4 hours of sleep a night while having no leusure time’.
Their work culture has gotten worse even though the causative factor that led to the requirement of this sociocultural archetype has been patched up.
Men and women alike are under extreme pressure to succeed in school, a ‘dream goal’ for many South Koreans is to get a job working for Samsung (which sells more than just electronic devices)
Suicide stats during South Koreas dictatorship era are difficult to come by. Suicide rates dropped slightly following the democratization of South Korea… but as sustained pressure mounted over decades South Korea now has one of the lowest fertility rate in the world (0.9 kids per woman and dropping) alongside the highest suicide rate in the DEVELOPED world.
South Korea also has a housing crisis, although in the past year SK’s property market crashed and apartment prices fell 20%. In a country like Australia this will be a huge problem as our economy is shockingly uniform in nature with a LOT of adults having put savings into stocks related to real estate/property
I believe South Korea has far more economic diversity, and economic diversity is not a bad thing… put all eggs in one basket, when that basket is taken away you have nothing.
South Korea ‘won the war’… but at what cost? Health/wellbeing wise they ARE actually still better off under a democratic regieme. However the unsustainable fundamental values and expectations within this civilisation that arose through fighting tooth and nail alongside back breaking, brain busting labour and study have stuck and this led to the creation of a free society that is on the decline. Overworked, exhausted, burnt out, and chronically stressed with no time to rest; South Korea’s economic growth will regress in 30 years if something isn’t done.
A deadly global pandemic may lead to societal collapse one day, but America is arguably more likely to get through one in part due to cultural and genetic diversity present alongside an abundance of scientists and doctors being present
God forbid a really bad pandemic hits… a disease with a 30% mortality rate… America wouldn’t lock down. Covid lockdowns were unecessary, but we saw how Americans respond when they were told what to do
In the beginning when it was thought covid potentially had a 5% mortality rate for middle aged adults… “my freedoms, fuck you”. Whereas the majority of the world locked down for about a month until concrete evidence showed the mortality rate was quite low… at which point minor restrictions became the norm for 6 months or so
America will far worse in terms of the death toll with one caveat. America is a very diverse country. Genetics makeup can alter how often we get sick, how sick we get, what pathways are activated and how much said pathways are activated during illness.
Genetric ancestry has been found to alter gene expression within genes associsted with covid 19 and influenza disease severity. The same can be said for a host of other illnesses and disease states.
Say a disease with a 20% mortality rate (mean) sweeps through two countries… one is ethnically homogenous and another is extremely diverse
Lets say the genetic makeup of the ethnically homogenous country makes citizens 3x more likely to get infected, and lets say some races have a protective gene(s) and/or are less likely to get infected
Over time, a population with greater genetic diversity has a far higher chance of adapting to selective pressures. Say two parents come into contact with this deadly disease that I’ve made up… father dies, mother is exposed but viral load is small so mother remains asymptomatic. Mother has genetic makeup of someone with a strong, robust immune system and she a theoretical protective gene against this specitic virus..
Maybe virus causes heart failure or cardiomyopathy and she has great genes for cardiac health or she has a random genetic mutation associated with her ancestry/ethnicity.
An ethnically homogenous society exposed to an epidemic/plague/famine that the ethnicity is ill equipped to deal with is fucked. When genetic composition is uniform you
Perhaps the mothers offspring develops some resistance to the virus…
Genetic diversity is a positive in that it helps a population resist infectious illness while providing wiggle room for selective pressures to be applied even if a portion of that society cannot tolerate the selective pressures applied..
Ethnically homogenous societies unanimously tend to have higher rates of genetic disease and they tend to be more prone to extinction level disasters.
Lack of genetic variability = disease, maldaptive mutations, inability to adapt adequately to change.
Off topic but… authoritarian societies usually notice economic growth before stagnation and subsequent major decline. Democratic societies suffer initially from an economic standpoint before sustainbale economic growth occurs (with recessions/ebbing and flowing in the mix as always).
Every society/civilisation falls eventually. It doesn’t mean you are in the ‘dark ages’. The prediction that ‘it will happen one day’ means nothing… because all societies fall.
Goading on accelerationist narratives or hoping for civil war is ridiculous because
- you don’t know if your side will win
- if your side wins… is your new society immediately stable enough to ward off attacks and invasions? Even if it is… if the society rising out of the fire is weaker to begin with… which it almost certainly will be… what are the chances of invasion from hostile territories? That’s another war… what is the death toll?
- your family, loved ones etc might die… you might die
- if the society that forms is autocratic… authoritarian societies suit you until they don’t.
There’s a lot of gerrymandering and a lack of quick progression within democratic societies. But that is usually for the better. Humans are prone to corruption and many abuse power when put in positions of unwavering authority. Not that democracy is immune to corruotion and abuse, but it is the framework that is most scrutinised… the type of government with the most checks and balances.
In democracies abuses of power tend to be subtle, under the counter exploits. In autocracies you tend to see genocides, political prisoners, violent suppression of political rivals and activists, arbitrary arrests and derainment without due process, secret trials behind closed doors, imprisonment for no reason (perhaps you said something a politician didn’t like) or for the wrongdoings of other family members and friends etc.
Even if your side wins… at what cost?