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You're making the "end of history" argument ala Fukuyama. 20 years ago I would have agreed with you, but I think we're starting to see the cracks in this sort of market-focused liberal democratic model. Plumeting birth rates, rising social problems, and a general sense that people are not as good as they used to be. Technology is very good at solving market problems like "how can we target people with ads," but not so good at actually enhancing human lives. And genetic engineering has yet to overcome basic human differences, eg men and women are still different despite the best efforts of feminists and trans activists to erase those differences. Ditto the racial differences.
So what? The US has also lost lots of wars. Just a few years ago we had a humiliating retreat from Afghanistan after 20 years of failing to accomplish anything there. It doesn't matter. The nice thing about being a big, powerful military empire is that you can afford to lose wars. Losing some random territory in Africa was hardly an existential threat to the British Empire- even losing their American colonies wasn't. The southern planter caste lost their slaves, but they kept their land and went right back to their traditional way of life after the war ended, just paying the former slaves a small amount. Even now they make up a disproportionate share of US military officers. And while the USSR fell apart (due to economic reasons, not from war—it's kind of amazing that they kept their empire running as long as they did when it was so ramshackle), Russia kept its nukes, its space program, and a lot of its power. Its former KGB leader became president. Its currently at war in Ukraine to regain its lost territory, and it will probably win despite the west sending significant aid to Ukraine. It's not just some minor footnote in history!
Then of course there's China, which seems to be charting its own unique path with both centralized state control and dynamic markets. I don't even know what to say there, except that it's clearly a rebuke to the idea that liberal free-market capitalistic democracy is the only model that will work from now on.
Even if/when there's problems, is there any indication that the war hungry empire wannabe nations are fixing any of these? Russia has been killing off hundreds of thousands of their young men trying to take even a small portion of nearby territory.
China is probably the only working example whatsoever and that's still because Deng Xiaoping the so called "number one capitalist roader" introduced market reform to them and allows them to actually meaningfully grow. And even then they're still fucked. Even just among the other majority chinese Nations, China is the poorest per capita. They just make up for it through sheer numbers.
Technology cooks your food, gets you from one place to another, brings you entertainment, saves your life and all sorts of other things. You have more jesters (comedians) available at the press of a single button than even the richest and most powerful kings would have had through their whole life just by turning on YouTube. You can listen to and watch the best stories by the best bards around the world with barely any effort. You can travel long distances without needing a stinky awful horse. I can cook delicious meals that some poor Victorian boy would never get to taste. Every single meal filled with spices and herbs that they've never even heard of. Thanks to restaurants, I don't even have to cook them either! And thanks to delivery, I don't even have to leave my home to have food beyond the imagination of prior centuries. Even many poorer Americans can access these wonders nowadays, I have a poorer friend from a rural county nearby I met in school whose family has a PS5 and PSVR. They are "poor" and have virtual reality technology just in their home casually. And just ask the basic question of what are the ads even for? For things people want to buy to enhance their life.
Markets are making the sci fi dreams of the yesteryear real and all anyone can do is complain, psychology is incredible.
Well, I haven't done a robust statistical analysis of this, but there does seem to be a trned where the more war-hungry nations have a higher fertility rate. Africa and the Middle East most especially. Israel also, and they might be the best example of what I'm thinking of- they seem to have accepted that they'll just be at war in Gaza forever, never going full genocide but never finding a peaceful solution either. The US isn't very warlike, but we are somewhat more warlike than Europe or East Asia, and correspondingly have a higher fertility rate. Russia is admittedly an outlier, but I think they're just slowly finding their way forward after the absolute devastation of the USSR breakup in the 90s.
China really needs to be judged on a curve. Remember they went through the century of humiliation, followed by Mao just absolutely ruining whatever was left with his retarded policies. The fact that they still exist at all is incredible, and they seem to be quickly making up lost ground.
Sure, there's obviously some good uses for technology. I just dispute that technology on its own can make people happy or give us meaning in life. As you noted, even poor people now have plenty of access to technology, so we don't need to be rich to enjoy it. This is going past what we can prove with statistics, but my impression of most poor people in the US is not that they want more technology, but a deeper meaning in their life. Put another way- they want social capital, not technological capital.
...and there's something to be said for having an actual human cook food for you or provide live entertainment, instead of a robot and a screen. Nothing I've ever watched on a screen is as memorable to me as some of the events I've seen in person from a real human.
I havent either and wouldn't know the cause if so, but your examples also match up with the "poor countries have more kids" idea as well so if there's any relation it could be that war hunger makes us poorer by being less efficient and being poorer makes us fuck more.
The east asia hypothesis falls apart pretty quick if you consider South Korea is still prepared for a war, just with a long ceasemate for peace currently. And China is ramping up against Taiwan for decades now.
Well yes that's the point, Mao along with the other commies fucked things up and it took Deng Xiaoping's market reforms to make them even close to the capitalist competition of Singapore and Taiwan, despite having a massive advantage in population.
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