Reactions from ranked influencers
5 posts
@AndrewCurran_ they used firearms aplenty with nukes, there was a serious discussion, and an argument can be made that not acting was a mistake I don't want there to be another discussion
The Wast it not the West anymore, you'll get no argument from me there. But the old West had modern firearms and early modern warfare exclusively for long enough to lay waste to this entire world through force of arms, and they also could have held onto that exclusivity for much longer than they did by force. They did not. They also exclusively had the capacity to create whitelisted viruses and plagues from the 1970's onwards long before anyone else did. Yet they did not even conceive of such a thing.
@AndrewCurran_ groups that have lost in the previous rounds still suffered because of their economic backwardness. Losing is losing, and they'd serve themselves better by losing less. Say, Japan did better than China, which did better than India this round, as you well understand, is different
To be clear, I'm very grateful that American leadership heard out the argument of the smartest man alive and decided against him, which is to say – not to nuke my grandparents in Moscow while MAD were not a thing. There have been good logistical and strategic objections, but probably morality played a role too, and so I get to exist. Thus in the spirit of fairness and human solidarity, I wouldn't want Americans to ever be the objects of such a deliberation by a third party. But I can't trust them to turn down the next von Neumann, or Leopold, or Dario, or Hegseth, or Claude 6, or whatever. There have been good logistical and strategic objections against bombing Iran too, and they were disregarded, on the simple account of power disparity and perceived impunity. Soon, there'll be a lot more power at American disposal, and I don't see how the morality and wisdom of men in charge can be expected to scale any faster (if at all). We have a system, the system works; it's not perfect, but it's not the worst. I stick to the devil I know and the hope that in the fullness of time we'll figure out how to live like humans or better.
@AndrewCurran_ Mind you, China had firearms for centuries longer than the West. and artillery, and landmines, and more. It did not proceed to go on and conquer the world. But this is irrelevant. Americans are culturally closer to Middle East anyway. can't be allowed to monopolize singularity