Not the GP commenter, but I don’t see how their comment hints at this. Could you clarify?
> No, I don't think we're living in a peaceful era at all.
This appears to respond to a different claim than that in the parent comment based on my reading, unless I’m misinterpreting the “no” here?
I think there a little hint there that the OP doesnt think American cities are in their golden era.
As to my peace comment, it must be put in context of the precious statement that, as violent as our cities are, we have have achieved some pacification by exporting violence.
If the Congo-US city link is too abstract, consider American jails. They are brutally violent to the point where it is suspected male-male rape might be more prominent than male-female. All of our would be urban violence that we have warehoused in our jails occurs multiple fold in our jails.
It appears to me that, as brutal as it is to stab a man for exposing himself and dispersing his bodily fluids (not obviously sterile if he frequents brothels), it is far more uncivilized what we do: enslave children and exploit them until they drop like flies so we have the minerals necessary to upgrade our phone and greenwash our souls.
I mean are we seriously comparing the stabbing of a man who sexually exploits women, to the slow and painful death of a child that mines cobalt for our phones and EVs?
No we're not, eg Tesla batteries don't contain cobalt anymore.
> be they 90% Ukrainian or Russian is irrelevant
This is pro-Russian "anti-imperialism" propaganda, it's Russia's fault that Russia decided to do that and not anyone else's.
Ukraine was explicitly rejected last time they tried to join NATO. Although they will get in now, and so will Finland and Sweden, so it was obviously counterproductive!
But Russia doesn't even care about that. They're just ideologically opposed to Ukraine existing and want its industrial resources back. They don't even say it themselves, you just make excuses for them.
As it stands, Mexico doesn't even bother with significant defense spending because they know that the US isn't all that interested in invading and no one else is going to try to invade a country which shares a land border with the US.
On the other hand, the various Russian neighbors who have joined or have expressed interest in joining NATO have done the same calculus and determined that Russia is cannot be relied on to not threaten their borders.
2. I didn't mention batteries. Cobalt is used in many components in EVs
3. Clearly my example was illustrative, generally, of the exploitation of children for mineral resources the country didn't use. The children in Congo is child exploitation writ large.
The kids in Congo are mining something for some application and for someone and that someone is us.
> Russia vs Ukraine
I think you misread my comment. I did not pass judgement at all on the war (on this comment at least). I was just pointing out that whether you take Kiev's numbers as true (450 000 dead Russians + 50 000 dead Ukrainians) or Moscow's (450 000 dead Ukrainians + 50 000 dead Russians) the number of dead is curiously the same.
Half a million dead souls in Donbas, no matter their nationality is a tragedy being comprehension.
Citation? The US border is a humanitarian and policy disaster, but “littered with bloodied children’s underwear”?
Nobody said we are. The claim is that we're living in a more peaceful era.
Even your statement hints that our cities are in a state of societal collapse with increased crime - implying that things could be better. And in fact I don't think we're living in good times; rather, like pollution, we've outsourced violence out of sight. Consider:
- We are electrifying our cars off the labor of kid slaves in Congo.
- The US border is an orgy of sexual exploitation, the ravines cutting through ranchers' fields littered with bloodied children's underwear.
- Half a million soldiers have died in Ukraine over the last one and half year (be they 90% Ukrainian or Russian is irrelevant)
- A war in Congo at the start of the century killed 5 million people without much of a mention in the West
- In Europe, a human tsunami of despair breaks against the shoals of human indifference.
- In the US almost 100 000 die from opioid addiction every year caused by alienation and neglect from their neighbor. Does our low murder rate really count victims among these folks? If a pusher decides to get rid of a client that's become too annoying and laces his drugs, would anyone notice?
No, I don't think we're living in an
No, I don't think we're living in a peaceful era at all.