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Mike Brock
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Unfashionable.

An except from Tim Urban’s amazing book, What’s Our Problem:

It gets you hated though. I've learned this the hard way.

I didn't say they wouldn't. I said the nation state isn't going to fail as a concept. At least in any living person's lifetime. And I largely reject the notion that America is a "late state empire" a-la Rome.

I know it's a very popular form of historical analogy, and yes, I've read Dalio's book. But I think it's not instructive about what's happening right now. For reasons I've already laid out. Not just in this post. But it others.

At least historical examples are something! Not just some set of a priori axioms dreamt up in the head of Hitler-sympathezer (Rothbard) and his insane contemporary, Hoppe.

Look, I get it. It feels simple, neat, and self-consistent. A perfect set of rules for humans to live by, maximize freedom and cooperation, and thrive in peace.

The problem is it's no more compatible with human nature than communism. But you all can go on predicting a Book of Revelations-like moment for the nation state and the emergence of sovereign individuals walking around, interacting through pure capitalism. It's a fun story, at least!

At least 45 million people died in the GLF. While I'm not defending the US invasion of Iraq -- which I think was immoral, illegal and a boondoggle -- you're just speaking out of your ass when you say that. I get it. You're biased. You want to confirm that bias. It's totally a human thing.

I would dismiss it. I use to be part of this movement. It's a hopelessly depoliticized ideology that believes it's going to inherit the world, because they reckon based on their a priori axiomatic reasoning that the nation state's contradictions will lead to a certain collapse.

Complex adaptive systems exist and persist and thrive in spite of contradictions. Even your body is filled with contradictions. The simple act of digesting food introduces poisons into your blood stream, as byproducts of metabolic processes. Your body has to maintain negative feedback loops, to compensate for these shocks and filter them out. Contradictions are NOT fatal to the stability of complex systems. They actually can't exist without contradiction because of thermodynamics.

It's all utopian nonsense.

Anarcho-capitalism is a utopian fantasy. Period. It only works if you rely on narrow a priori reasoning about human nature, and actually ignore all the evidence for how human nature actually is. Which is exactly what praxeologists do.

One thing I find really bizarre about the argument that America is a dead letter state, because it's moral sins have condemned it, in terms of its foreign policy sins, is these people then gleefully suggest a Sino-Russo-led world order will replace America's dominant role in the world, as if these countries have clean hands.

Why isn't China appearing before this moral court, for committing genocide in Xianjiang? Or illegally claiming the entire South China Sea as it's sovereign waters, in direct violation of the rights to international waters and freedom of navigation under international law of Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines? Why is China's debt trap diplomacy, and it's bankrupting of states like Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan with its failing BRI not resulting in moral charges? Why is threatening to invade and conquer Taiwan (which has never been controlled by the Mainland since Mao's revolution), not a moral sin?

America is going to fail because it's committed moral sins? But China and Russia are going to succeed merely because they're alternatives? This is just not a coherent view of anything. It's really just unsophisticated anti-Americanism at the end of the day.

If you want to see what US re-industrialization and China decoupling looks like, behold! The US is currently building factories like gangbusters. And not just finished goods manufacturing — things like semiconductors is definitely a big part of it — but we’re also seeing massive expansion in primary industries. Such as in ore and mineral processing.

The right side of this chart might be cut off, but it’s worth seeing.

I'm actually pretty excited for good VR.

A lot of people think depoliticization is a morally pure position because it means their hands are clean. The reality is that depoliticization is just fuel for authoritarianism.