[Sabinus]

The world wasn't exactly a kind place before Pax Americana. If you check the stats, the American era does pretty well for peace and prosperity, and it's not realistic to expect the Americans would oversee a conflict-free utopia.

[tdeck]

So in other words, while America is starting the most wars, it somehow gets credit for the hypothetical wars that weren't started? The assumption being that the natural state of the world is to have a world war every few years?

[spwa4]

The norm of human history is constant wars, extreme repression, and genocide, yes.

Oh, and levels of taxation even Karl Marx would immediately agree are theft. In fact, ending the pre-pax-Americana period is what the manifesto is about. (the period stupidly referred to as "modern times", where the rich aren't fighting over who gets to mars first, but massacring poor people to gain a few square kilometers of land, which ironically Soviets know all about)

I get that that's hard to see for anyone born far enough away from the beginning of the pax Americana, ie. let's say 5-10 years after world war 2 but that's really how things work.

And that means that you just won't believe the consequences of any real victory against the US either: a return to the norm. If Iran wins, immediately, 50 genocides will start. Not just in Iran. Global trade will freeze 90%, not just oil. Inequality will explode worldwide. And that's just the start. In a way, that's what Iran is fighting for.

[tdeck]

It's interesting to see the kind of nonsensical, evidence-free ideological statements that some people use to hand wave away decades of horrifying US perpetrated atrocities.

Ignore the genocide the US is engaged in right now, if it loses the war it started with Iran there will be 50 hypothetical genocides that I made up! Why stop at 50? Maybe there will be 500 or 5,000 genocides! If not for the benevolence of the US, we'd be having another world war every 2-3 years. It just stands to reason I suppose.

[spwa4]

Since you've successfully moved into the blatantly absurd, how about I just let Captain Darling and General Melchett explain how the period before the Pax Americana worked. First, WHAT the rich were fighting over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZT-wVnFn60

And how it affected normal people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgyB6lwE8E0

My grandfather explained this in much harsher terms to me (he's dead now, even though he got past 100 years), with explicit mention of which of 2 options is the better one: killing 100 people in your own city or returning to this situation again. He was a baby at the end of WW1 and lived through (with kids of his own) WW2.

(but even that beats how Iran's islamic government treats it's own citizens. Did you know primary school children make excellent demining equipment, and on top of that make very cheap poison gas detectors? The islamic mullahs sure do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_key_to_paradise )

[queenkjuul]

Ah yeah the US would never demand young volunteers to be fed to the meat grinder

They would compel them, by law, to be fed to the meat grinder. And not to defend their homeland, but to murder civilians in another hemisphere, and apparently i must remind you, TO THE TUNE OF 4,500,000 DEAD CIVILIANS IN KOREA AND VIETNAM ALONE.

[defrost]

I've a friend up the coast, nearly 100 now, a ham operator who used to relay space shuttle calls, former operator in PNG, British soldier during the Mau-Mau uprising.

Back in the day, during WWII, he was defusing bombs and mines while a young boy scout.

So, you know, not just Iran - the UK also.

[queenkjuul]

> you check the stats, the American era does pretty well for peace and prosperity,

Well having just checked the stats i think you're very much wrong, and taking a lot of credit for the US where it isn't due.

[ebbi]

> oversee a conflict-free utopia

Oversee is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.