[low_tech_love]

I’m pretty sure the author is right that, in some kind of game-theoretical way, the ”artificial boundaries” and a healthy nationalist attitude is for sure beneficial. The problem is that I think social media turned us all into extremists. You can’t say the word ”nationalist” without being labeled a nazi, because the person labeling you a nazi is getting points with his/her crowd. On the other hand, you can’t say ”let’s not screw other countries over” without being labeled a communist or some such, because again, points are being won. Most of the discussion completely fails to capture the complex nuances of real politics, and passion, hate, and distress end up being used as an instrument for other, completely different means. So yeah... a bit of healthy me-first is not bad at all (as long as you’re not using it to disguise the fact that you are, indeed, a nazi).

[jessfyi]

I mean the substack author is far from someone who ejects nuance into any topic, they have a very clear right-wing bias (some of which I'd clearly note as actually extremist) by looking at their other articles. Some if I named or posted here I'd clearly be banned.

Not sure why you think this flimsy evidence holds when the author's actual intent is "nationalism is good actually." Vaccine distribution/contracting is significantly more complicated that this binary analysis.