[echelon]

The world before WWII was chaos. It has never been peaceful to be a human for much of our species' existence.

America was the global hegemon. Under the "rules based order", where America safeguarded international trade in exchange for having the US Dollar at the center, we had the largest period of stability the world has seen.

Now that everyone wants to displace America, we're pluging back into chaos. America is abdicating its role and turning into an isolationist power.

There's going to be an increase in war as countries try to claim territory and resources.

Piracy and blockades will come back. Trading alliances and trading blocs will form.

The world will turn into a powder keg. This time with nukes.

The vacuum left behind as America shuts itself off will create lots of power struggles. There will be a lot of trade disruption to energy, goods, and food inputs. It's also going to be incredibly violent.

[kjkjadksj]

I don’t know that people have the apetite they did even 3 generations ago to rock the boat. Hearing stories from people who grew up in europe at the time is crazy. People fully prepared to die for their village engaging in guerilla war. I just don’t see the same enthusiasm in modern western generations. Completely passified into consumerism and some semblance of stability that everyone is incentivized to maintain. Completely different than the cultural upbringing of 1940s partisans. Maybe those sorts of people live today in small parts of africa where there are still warlords and a certain base level of violence. But in much of the world I don’t think so.

[IshKebab]

Yeah that sort of thing can change very quickly, especially with propaganda and strict laws. Do you think all the Russians and Ukrainians who are fighting now were somehow immune to consumerism and aversion to conflict? Of course not.

[_DeadFred_]

Sound like you've never met a western gang member. I've met plenty of people willing, even charged up to die for much more petty things.

[kjkjadksj]

A few people will always be mentally ill enough to resort to gang violence. But I mean even by Vietnam patriotism among the american youth was basically 180 from wwii peak. And it hasn’t really gotten better since. Everyone I know who enlisted did it for a free college degree and usually hated the military actually.

[Avicebron]

> America was the global hegemon. Under the "rules based order", where America safeguarded international trade in exchange for having the US Dollar at the center, we had the largest period of stability the world has seen.

> ...America is abdicating its role and turning into an isolationist power.

Good thing America is one singular entity with everyone living in it both equally benefiting from it and also responsible for it's current state.

What we are seeing is neoliberalism gone rancid and the predictable fallout.