| I was going to make a reply to OP about how most problems are moot if we don't tackle polarization and (for want of a better term) political decline. But your comment is more comprehensive than mine would have been, so I'll just add my two cents here. > I think we are going to see additional polarization in online discussion and we will continue to see this spill into the physical world as violence I wonder whether online discussion is at the source of this, but I doubt it. Perhaps this is something for sociologists to ponder over. We have have access to more information than at any point in history, but it seems like our knowledge (and empathy) haven't grown by the same amount. > Russia will continue sending every able bodied man into the nato-powered meat grinder of Ukraine until a proper overthrow of Putin occurs or they run out of people. The idea of a Russia without Putin frightens me. Not because I'm a fan, but because it seems like every likely alternative is even worse. A politically unstable (nay, volatile!) country with a huge stockpile of nukes ought to worry everyone. I hope humanity can find a way out of this shitty situation. > The EU will lose more membership Probably. And this ties in nicely with your first paragraph, polarization is a big contributor to this. By and large, Europe has never been as safe or as prosperous as it is today, yet everywhere extremism is on the rise. The EU (or at least the Commission) has a reputation of being a busybody everywhere except for where it matters. Political reform seems needed, so that people at least feel represented, but that's unlikely to happen when so many Europeans are devolving into an "us vs them" mindset. |
I agree, there it likely a lot more here that I’ve overlooked. I certainly believe that online echo chambers are part of it, but I do acknowledge it’s only part of the story.
As for a Putin-free Russia, this terrifies me because of the fact that in a dictatorship-like regime, higher level people who push back or don’t exclusively give good news and information to the ruling parties are often ousted or happen to fall out of windows at a most inconvenient time, which creates a class of yes-men/women who are either puppets or vultures that will swoop in and attempt taking control if their leader falls. Further, the brain-drain they have been experiencing over the years has now that had been accelerated by this war, leaving not a lot people left (proportionally) in the class of educated citizens. This hallowed out Russia will become a husk where the propaganda machine will continue to spew absolute garbage for years to come rotting whatever is left of its population’s minds. A developing theory I have is that Lukashenko’s diplomacy with Wagner and Russia is simply an attempt to position him to be able to take over Moscow when he senses its fractured enough but I also think he’s lacks the stones to do so.