The Big Picture - Where's the world going?

[crazy canuck]

I bet Malthus's aunt is kicking herself, turns out she needed to have envisaged a much darker future world.

 

I was thinking the same thing.   

Turns out she was way too optimistic.

[Savonarola]

Trump makes this difficult to predict as he is so mercurial, but from an American context, I think Trump's tariffs and general unreliability on trade will create a recession.  Manufacturing will likely increase in the United States, but manufacturing jobs won't increase significantly.

The United States will relinquish its academic lead in the pure sciences and possibly medicine as well.

The United States will abandon a global cooperative philosophy for a purely transactional philosophy that focuses solely on US interest.

The United States will suffer some sort of preventable calamity due to the reduced bureaucracy and/or weakened consumer safety protections.

I'm not at all sure what this means in a global context.  I do think that there will be a broader worldwide recession and tariff wars.  Will European nations really increase military spending and take a more active role in the ROTW?  Academics will probably leave, will they all head to a new hub or be spread out to various nations? 

[crazy canuck]

Oh, one other thing to add to your list Sav - epidemics, polio, and measles return to the US as vast numbers of children go unvaccinated.  The US becomes depopulated.


The survivors (those who were vaccinated) get to start again.


There, some hope. 

[Josquius]

I'm hopeful Musk will be such a disaster for the US that this taints fascism for the rest of the world. The rise of reform in the UK for instance goes into reverse.
The issue is how much damage gets done over the next 4 years.

Hyper hopium at work... Especially considering America failed to learn it's lesson last time... But could the recoil from this shit even propel the US in a positive direction.

We are in a post truth era, so who would know that trump is disastrous.  It is all going to be a Huge win.

Could be.
But it worked with brexit. After the UK started self harming support for the EU shot up across the rest of the union. Even far right parties pivoted away from outright saying they wanted to leave.

The big potential problem I can see is in what gets communicated. If they can emphasise achievements like their glorious eradication of the trans menace and avoid anyone mentioning the boring stuff like people being able to afford food, then they might still appeal to the ignorant and nihilistic.

[Savonarola]

Oh, one other thing to add to your list Sav - epidemics, polio, and measles return to the US as vast numbers of children go unvaccinated.  The US becomes depopulated.


The survivors (those who were vaccinated) get to start again.


There, some hope. 

With cheaper housing too; just like after the Black Death.  We should send RFK Jr. to Canada, he could help solve your housing crises.   

I was thinking about adding reduced life expectancy as well; but I don't get RFK Jr. and what he's planning to do.  The largest job of Health and Human Services is to administer Medicaid and Medicare; something that RFK Jr. is not only spectacularly unqualified to do, but also spectacularly uninterested in doing.  Maybe the bureaucracy will triumph at HHS.

[Savonarola]

And also my list is only valid if Trump lives out the majority of his term.  MAGA nation won't flock to Vance the way they have to Trump, and consequently congressional Republicans won't fear crossing him.

[crazy canuck]

Oh, one other thing to add to your list Sav - epidemics, polio, and measles return to the US as vast numbers of children go unvaccinated.  The US becomes depopulated.


The survivors (those who were vaccinated) get to start again.


There, some hope. 

With cheaper housing too; just like after the Black Death.  We should send RFK Jr. to Canada, he could help solve your housing crises. 

I was thinking about adding reduced life expectancy as well; but I don't get RFK Jr. and what he's planning to do.  The largest job of Health and Human Services is to administer Medicaid and Medicare; something that RFK Jr. is not only spectacularly unqualified to do, but also spectacularly uninterested in doing.  Maybe the bureaucracy will triumph at HHS.

I thought that might happen, but now it is becoming fairly obvious there will be no bureaucracy left in the areas the Trumpists don't consider important. Also all funding for research is frozen now so good luck when the next big one hits.  Which might not be long now with the latest strain of bird flu making the cross species jump.

[Josephus]

You guys make me want to slash my wrists.

[crazy canuck]

You guys make me want to slash my wrists.

C'mon man, you are tougher than that.  We grew up believing the world was going to be blown apart at any moment.

[Josephus]

You guys make me want to slash my wrists.

C'mon man, you are tougher than that.  We grew up believing the world was going to be blown apart at any moment.

Yeah, but we were young then and idealistic.

[Josquius]

Suicide is obviously irrational and dumb.
And when you're in that place you are hardly in a situation for planning and action.
But surely there's some good blazes of glory out there.

And also my list is only valid if Trump lives out the majority of his term.  MAGA nation won't flock to Vance the way they have to Trump, and consequently congressional Republicans won't fear crossing him

I've heard the believable (conspiracy) theory put forth that the plan is to remove trump during this term. I believe there was some stuff about his obviously declining mental state.
Then vance installed as incumbent has a key advantage going into the next election that the other I can't believe it's not trump candidates lacked.

[Solmyr]

I'm hopeful Musk will be such a disaster for the US that this taints fascism for the rest of the world.

You'd think Hitler would have caused that already.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I'm hopeful Musk will be such a disaster for the US that this taints fascism for the rest of the world.

You'd think Hitler would have caused that already.

Or mao, or maduro, or Mugabe...

[Josquius]

I'm hopeful Musk will be such a disaster for the US that this taints fascism for the rest of the world.

You'd think Hitler would have caused that already.

He did for a while. Lessons seem to be forgotten as they drift out living memory though.

[Tonitrus]

Unfortunately, authoritarianism/fascism/dictatorship seems to be the human "default" for government and politics, and we too often easily gravitate towards it.  It takes a lot of work (and education) to stray far away from it.