@Babygravy9 Seeing as many modern day homo-sapiens have a relatively small percentage of Neanderthal dna, that would imply that the Grug cave man raids weren’t one sided, and my ancestor(s) went out of his way to bed one of those. Seems that they were pretty down bad
@cody_1917@AviFax94589@_britmonkey North Korea uses an intranet outside of a few controlled locations. If they did have an android that connected with the outside world, they would have to be parts of Kim’s inner circle. As even Chinese tourists and the like don’t have cell phone connection there
@itispsychomath Personally from what I’ve come across is the word being used to describe or insult someone with the age old trope of being smart but abrasive/socially inept. Having worked in IT it’s a fairly common phenomenon.
@robnikada@Prototype27F They were leaving after the deadline had passed, with all the loot they stole. The invasion had already started and they decided to retreat to more defensive positions and got blasted for doing so
The typical understanding of any Imperial system is that it is self-serving for the core nation at the heart of the Empire, and extractive from the other nations it incorporates.
This precise sentiment is the exact basis for innumerable grievances which now justify the abuse of the West by the rest of the world. "The West is only rich because it stole the wealth of the Third World, so we are owed your tax dollars, access to your nations, reparations, political power, etc."
But the current incarnation of the American Empire is actually more like an Anti-Empire. Far from serving the Imperial Core, that being the American Nation, the American Empire is not extractive from the rest of the world, but rather is extractive of the American Nation in an attempt to achieve a kind of unified global institutional homogeneity. It is motivated by a radically universalist sentiment, so much so that it is actively dissolving the American Nation in pursuit of its universalist ambition.
The United States is a Soft Managerial Regime (as defined by Samuel T. Francis in Leviathan and its Enemies), meaning that it prefers manipulation to hard power. Thus the American Empire from its inception did not operate like most historical empires, which followed something akin to the Mongol model of "ultimately we are the dominant power and taxes flow to us."
Instead, the American Empire imposed systemic standardization while largely leaving the incorporated nations autonomous. The American Empire, for the most part, did not plant a flag on your soil and decree you part of its power structure. Rather, you got an invite to the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, etc. You had to participate in the International Rules Based System and sign onto various treaties (which the US often excepts itself from, clarifying its position as the Sovereign of this system).
The vision for this approach is rooted in the reality of nuclear weapons. Armed with nuclear weapons, high stakes hot warfare now carries effectively existential risk for the human species, let alone the national meta-organism. Therefore these systems were erected with the aim of global homogeneity under a universalist system that could ultimately secure humanity by eliminating warfare. Why fight a war when all conflicts can be mediated legalistically through a fair procedural system?
In this regard the system was seen as advantageous in multiple dimensions:
1. Such a system could prevent war by mediating conflict legalistically.
2. A universal, standardized, peaceful system would improve the lives of everyone on Earth by standardizing the global economy under a singular interoperable system. Think "USB" for all economic production globally.
3. Such a system would secure Liberal Democracy from Autocracy because there would be no threat of Autocracy from a world that adopted the Universalist System.
The emergence of the Neo-Conservative faction which @ThomBrady5 criticizes in the quoted thread (which I recommend) then represents the hard power wing of this Soft Managerial System. The Neo-Cons wanted to use kinetic military force to accelerate the spread of this Internationalist System and use it to combat rival systems.
During the Cold War that meant the use of hard power to contain the spread of Communism, a rival globally-ambitious imperial system. After the collapse of the USSR however, they pivoted their attention to smaller, "rogue states" that were not compliant with this system. Individual autocracies that refused to adopt the Liberal system (Saddam's Iraq, Khomeini's Iran, Kim's Korea, Gadaffi's Libya, etc.).
But make no mistake, the Neo-Cons ultimately work towards this Universalist International System. The only meaningful difference between the Neo-Con wing of the GOP and the Democrats is the Neo-Con's willingness to use kinetic force to manifest the Universalist vision. They are very much so agents of this precise manifestation of Empire.
However, the Post-Liberal critique of the Empire in its current incarnation is that its Universalism is sacrificing the nation, the ultimate dissolution of which will also necessarily dissolve the Universalist System.
Far from being a resource-extractive endeavor, the global imposition of this system is massively resource draining from the American heartland. American manufacturing was offshored to incentivize integration into this system. If you could build factories, manufacture goods, and ship them to the wealthy imperial heartland, you could rapidly develop your economy. You just had to structure yourself in a way that could interface with the system. The expectation that this economic collaboration would Liberalize societies ideologically, and lead to their full integration was the basis for offshoring manufacturing to China in particular.
But this has real costs to the American Nation. People lost their jobs, their livelihoods, their ability to provide for their families, etc. Entire regions of the United States are functionally post-civilizational as the erosion of our manufacturing base completely evaporated the American communities built around them.
Wars were fought to "spread Democracy" in countries that had absolutely no appetite for Liberalism or Democratic ideals. Thousands of Americans died for this, the full human cost of which echoes out throughout the nation, but further we spent an estimated $8 trillion on these ventures with absolutely nothing to show for it. We could not build a lasting Liberal Democracy in these countries to neatly socket into the wider international system.
That's not even mentioning the extensive NGO network operating in places like Africa, largely funded by US taxes, which are likewise efforts to establish some kind of functional Liberal system which can interface with the wider system. We are paying to try to build the various African nations up into something that can meaningfully participate in the system, estimated at around $250 billion of US taxpayer money since 1990.
Even our rapidly inflating currency is tied to this. Being the world's reserve currency is a massive double-edged sword which does grant us unique powers no other nation has, but it also necessitates that we maintain a permanent trade deficit so that dollars can be exported to the international market, which contributes to the further immiseration and hollowing out of the American national core.
And this is what I mean by an "Anti-Empire." Rather than using military power to project outward and vacuum resources towards the center, the American Empire hollows out the heartland in the pursuit of establishing an overambitious global uniformity that it cannot materialize despite its best efforts, in large part because it grossly overestimates the world's collective belief in the Rationalist Liberal ideals that inspired it.
And that final blunder is the most damaging, because the Universalist vision is mirrored in the American interior. If America is the head of a globe spanning meta-system then controlling American Domestic politics becomes a vehicle for controlling or at least manipulating the global meta-system. It becomes geopolitically relevant for foreign nations to try to actively take control of our Domestic politics as a means to controlling the global system. Controlling your local governmental structures becomes a geopolitical necessity for foreign states.
This naturally leads to sending as many of your nation's people to the United States as possible. And having adopted this Universalist mindset with the Civil Rights Act, which rejected the historical ethnogenesis of the American People as they existed in favor of a Universalist conception of "anyone who upholds the Liberal System" and the trick is a fait accompli. The already existing American Nation was dissolved in favor of a mirror of the global system the American Empire was attempting to materialize.
Unlimited immigration from every distant corner of the globe became "necessary" because a globe-spanning universalist ideology necessarily includes everyone.
And this is the gravest threat to the historical American Nation both because the ideological assumption requires them to be disregarded as a legitimate category, but additionally because the implementation of that ideology has mass imported foreigners who do not uphold the legitimacy of the system, or have any respect for our nationhood, our institutions, our norms, etc., and rather are here merely to manipulate the American Domestic Political landscape for the meta-level benefits it can provide to their home nation via the global system.
In other words, when you create a global system the globe has a vested interest in gaming that system. And that is mistaken by the architects of the system for legitimate participation, while the American people are sacrificed in its pursuit.
But make no mistake, this system is killing the American People. Both through the deliberate psychic manipulations that aggressively punish recognition of the American People as the historic European Settlers that they were, but also through the mass importation of hostile foreigners who are not here to be like us, but rather are here to manipulate the international system for their home countries. Those people do not seek to uphold anything we would recognize as American, they seek to dominate a global meta-structure and the hard power that enforces it by dominating our local domestic politics and importing more of their countrymen to secure their position of prominence.
This process delegitimizes our own state as an authentic representative of our interests, which threatens the longterm continuity of the American project, and should the American Empire wane, which it will, all empires ultimately fade away eventually, the subjects of the American Empire will do what subjects of all waning empires do, which is revert to their national identities. The mass importation of foreigners therefore sets us up for a Balkan Style ethnic conflict nightmare whenever the inevitable happens and this system finally fully exhausts itself.
This is not a prediction, it is an inevitability. Every single empire will fall. Every single time empire falls this national reversion happens. Consider this an Iron Law of Empire.
Where I agree with @ThomBrady5 is that I am not strictly isolationist, and I think the American Empire can pivot to something more useful for the American people.
If we replace our leadership with people who understand the failings of this universalist concept, who understand that we have overextended and will never manifest the global scope of this vision, we still retain immense hard and economic power that can be used to actually advance the interests of real Americans.
The first and foremost necessity is using this power to reverse the deracination of the American People themselves. Mass deportations at biblical scale. Force their home countries to take these people back. Protect the American People from the inevitable Balkan Style mutual ethnocide by addressing the problem before the Empire wanes too much to remain stable.
Then, pivot to using the resources of this Empire to advance the well-being of the American people themselves. Instead of offshoring manufacturing, impose a kind of Mercantilism. Use hard power to secure the Western Hemisphere specifically and expel hostile foreign influence. Actively expel foreign lobbyists from the Imperial Core and Domestic decision making. Continue to use the Navy to uphold international trade. Trade itself not being the problem that's killing us, but rather the imposition of Systemic Uniformity.
In other words, recognize Autocracies as legitimate governments and treat them with normalized indifference. To the extent we want trade with Iraq deal with them whether they are a Democracy or Dictatorship. Only resort to hard power if they attempt to seize or nationalize American infrastructure (like Venezuela did. Trump's actions in Venezuela are an ideal model for a reformed pro-American American Empire).
Monetary policy is trickier and I'm not well versed enough to give specific recommendations. I think we're basically screwed on this point, but it's of lesser importance to securing the continuity of the American ethnos regardless.
Anyone who does not understand these dynamics should not be considered for any kind of political office. The American Anti-Empire will reform into something much more limited in scope, or it will be our ruin. And anyone who serves the Empire as it exists now, that being establishment Dems and Neo-Con GOP, is an enemy of the American people who we should completely expel from all power.
@kroketrendang4@vanhanenist Everything is “larp” now, everyone was always self aware and being ironic. No one has ever been authentic they have always knowingly pretended to be something they were not. How tiresome. We should all be “larping”, maybe then things would better.
Boomer pulls a gun on a guy minding his own business, gets aired out, has to watch his estate go through probate as a ghost like A Christmas Carol. Screams so hard seeing his kids receive some of it he wakes up in his bed a changed man
@SevenHeadsOfHBD@BaneofOhio Very medieval in a way, mindset similar to an Anglo-Saxon being told by a hooded man in the woods who’s under suspicion of witchcraft that the little bag of ground up flowers will cure his diphtheria. Afro-Saxon remains an apt term for them
@Charthoid6@ChachaJungi I remember when I was in Korea, they used their version for everything under the sun, most of the time it was someone grandma got lost. While that was a relatively high trust society, I doubt that the average person had that turned on anymore, it seems like it was one a day there