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Notes -
Ironic, exactly what an authoritarian would say.
True emergencies exist and probably warrant more authoritarian leadership (it’s in many constitutions, e.g. the US president is also military leader). But to succeed in a true emergency the leader must be trusted by most subjects, and defer or resolve less urgent conflicts, e.g. offering large concessions on non-emergency issues (which should be most of them), and convincing that the emergency is real.
Neither party has done either. I’ll accept we’re in some sort of emergency (crazy politicians, Gen Z apathy, climate change and TFR collapse). I’m not remotely convinced a leader of any major party can lead us out.
And of course, this guy (attacking Arday criticism)’s fear is acting against himself. How will supporting Arday do anything against Trump authoritarianism? It seems like he has too much fear, blocking rationality. Although I think it really seems like he’s doing it for ingroup brownie points (maybe a raise or promotion).
You just brushed with a specific concept that emerged from Davos crowd in 2016, the specific term is polycrisis and they are in love with it since then. Like you mentioned, we have demographic crisis, climate crisis, mental health crisis and everything in between and more. It is a feature, not a bug - some of these like climate crisis or demographic crisis are just new fact of life that will stay with us for our lifetimes.
Moreover there are micro panics, this week it is the wife that strangled her three kids, and it seems that 10% of the world knows about it. Next week it will be something else. It is just a constant barrage of various issues, sense of endless anxiety that triggers basic psychological programming.
Everything is relative. How much of a state of emergency are we in? Is the doomsday clock ten seconds to midnight? Five milliseconds? And what does that mean in real time?
Real emergency powers, like involuntary confinement for suicide, make the situation better in the short term but worse in the medium to long term, point being there will be no long term if not enacted. If the “emergency” is long, the solution better work as long, or you just wasted time, in an emergency no less.
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