Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sayYayToLife 58 days ago
Do you live in the US? Because there is a military reason for chasing success for success sake. The US doesnt really have a choice here. We live in a unipolar(or bipolar world) and the US must be number 1, or the international system breaks down and we can expect incredible amounts of war. (Its generally agreed that historically multipolar worlds are the worst to live in).

If you don't live in the US and you are taking advantage of the US security umbrella, sure, you can deny AI and enjoy a curated lifestyle.

But living in the US means we must deal with this.

2 comments

I guess I appreciate the explicit realpolitik of it all, but I'm not sure I buy your argument. The US is the world's current dominant global empire, and unlike other leftists, I don't believe this is inherently a bad thing. But I don't think it's necessarily a good thing either. It's just the reality.

I also think your whole unipolar vs. multipolar framework is ahistorical. It's always been more secure living within the cosmopolitan center of an empire, but there's never just been one empire.

I just think your view of history is too simplistic to be accurate or interesting. If/when the US declined as a global power, the results would be entirely unpredictable. They wouldn't adhere to the kind of formula you're describing.

This is an interesting perspective I haven't heard before. Do you have links to anyone who has articulated this further?