Well, sure. The essential tradeoff is always figuring out how much to economically kneecap yourself in the short term to maintain economic independence in the long term.

And, of course, if you overshoot and the other guys outgrow you as a result, that limits your ability to be secure as well.

Not all economic growth contributes to national security the same way. In particular, outsourcing a large share of your manufacturing to your primary geopolitical adversary is a poor strategy.

Well maybe your quality of life but for the common man in the US? There only seems to be hopelessness on the horizon. It makes you think, who are we really fighting for?

As someone who also feels like the future is trending downward, I hope we can at least get some crumbs from the top.

> There only seems to be hopelessness on the horizon. [...] As someone who also feels like the future is trending downward, [...]

What are you talking about? We are living in an age of unprecedented global peace and prosperity. Most people never had as good as today, and things are set to improve further.

There are clear trends even acknowledged among the most pro-American analysts that the coming world will see a reversal of good fortunes by many in the world. We are living in a environment propped up by many things that are going away. There are many risks that can contribute to that. Of course if I knew exactly what would happen down to the day, i'd be betting in the stock market so these are more general trends which is what I was referring to.

Poor leaning trends include:

1. The collapse of governments that were pushed to the end by the US and its partners: Pakistan(deposed leader), Iran(sanctions, deposed leader), Venezuela(sanction, attempted to depose leader in 22), and I guess you can now throw Ukraine and possibly Russia there as well(collapsed economy, massive population casualties + collapse level birth rates)

2. The US has essentially acted as a bully towards many countries in the global south and while many of them have had to just take it, they now have another bully (China) that they can play off of each other.

In the short term it will be painful as the US tries to keep people on their side through backhanded efforts (Pakistan, Bolivia) but in the end the countries know that the China is a unreliable ally that only wants to dump their manufacturing overflow and take resources back while the US is an unreliable ally that bullies everyone into positions that favor itself(4 years loudly and then the next 4 years quietly) so with no other hope, the best move to play is trying to extract as much as they can from both sides (Djibouti for example). Not sure if you can make the argument that "unprecedented global peace and prosperity" is coming to these countries, they are just trying to get by with what they can.

3. Lets not forget climate change: Overwhelming % of historical emissions caused mainly by the west and with the consequences to be dealt mainly to the third world. Where is the justice in that?

Why are you so focused on the US? The world is a big place, and everyone has agency.

> Where is the justice in that?

I did not want to make any statement about 'justice'. That's multiple separate topics.

>Why are you so focused on the US? The world is a big place, and everyone has agency.

The post is about the US, the thread is about the US and the message I originally replied to was about the US....

If you are talking more generally, I am baffled as to why you would ask that. The US's actions are reducing/removing free agency for a significant percentage of people on the planet. I am pro-humanity. Those people are no less deserving of all the possibilities that life has to offer but just as importantly, they deserve every chance to improve their lot. Since we have concrete proof that the US has acted to cause problems in other countries, they will be criticized.

And you would imagine that quality of life would be better if the U.S. found itself on the losing side of a major war? Your premise that there seems to be hopelessness is more of a media driven phenomenon than reality. There is just no evidence that "the future is trending downward" - at least in the U.S. Every measure you look at shows that for Americans life has improved and continues to - especially in comparison with our global contemporaries.

I'd go as far to say that even a credible threat of war against the USA would have a substantial negative impact on our economy and by extension our quality of life; practically all of us would be impacted. People who don't see that are missing how much the OVERWHELMING majority of Americans have benefitted from USA hegemony over the past several decades.

Think of it another way, the US is only 5% of the global population. That means that 5% is benefiting at the expense of the other 95% due to this hegemon and the other 95% is trying to chip away at this and seems to be failing (as far as we can see but there is so much BS on both sides who really knows)

But wait, of that 5% we can clearly see many negative indicators among at least half (if not more) of the population.

If you are not in tech or part of the asset owning class then your wages have been flat or in decline. With the ever increasing amount of inflation in most goods, your lifestyle has been in decline.

So really only a subset of that 5% has been the beneficiary of the hegemon. Does that look like a thing to be proud of? A small in-group of people have got it going while everyone else is trending negative either now or going in that direction in the future.

It begs asking the same question I mentioned in my original post: Who are we really fighting for? The answer to this question really depends on if you have empathy for others or if you just care about yourself or your "tribe".

>practically all of us would be impacted.

To be fair, I did also point out that I hope that people in this bucket at least receive some crumbs from the top. Thats all we could hope for. But if you continue on that thought process, if the hegemon dies at least there would be some justice if it took out the top with everyone else.

US's security umbrella covers more than 5% of the global population. Even those countries that try to play many sides, such as India.

1. This is going away one way or another.

2. My focus was deliberately very generalized to focus on the way the US benefits itself by pushing others down on a global level. We could drill down on a country by country basis and find ways in which the US can benefit the country and ways in which it benefits at the expense of said country. If you take the entire world population as a whole you can make the argument that it is a net negative and that maybe a stable multi-polar world might have different results. I don't follow Indian geopolitics as closely as others but sure the US Navy's efforts to patrol the oceans to benefit their main trading partners in Europe and Asia also helps to benefit countries such as India and Pakistan by helping secure trade but also secure a stable source of fuel and food (which is starting to slowly break down now) while at the same time, their clear efforts in deposing democratically elected Imran Kahn because he started to shift away from the US is a net negative to Pakistan's future.

The ideal future would be a US that is checked by other rivals that can equal its might.

This would have multiple repercussions: The idea of an evangelical christian fueled "end times" would be over, the propping up of Israel would be much more painful than it is now which would result in severe scrutinization.

The chances of other economies given a chance to emerge might be higher if the cost of the west meddling in its affairs gets more expensive.

Life would be harder for people like me, but there would be more peace when going to bed at night.

Interesting hypothesis; I would encourage you to test your hypothesis by moving to Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea, and help those countries to grow its might equal to US. And also see how hard your life becomes

Yeah this is the standard response the right wingers and the pro-corporate Dems love to give. Just really low effort as usual.

Let me propose an alternative and just try to consider it: How about we let those countries develop and if they can have a sustainable system then great, more competition is good for humanity or if it does not shake out then they will collapse or be forced to pivot and then we will know for sure.

What isn't cool is deliberately trying to cut their legs out because we want to remain unchallenged (Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China) or quietly control their government preventing any chance of democracy (This year Pakistan, a few years back Venezuela etc.)

I'm pretty sure we let Russia develop after their collapse in 1990, right up until they invaded Ukraine again in 2022. And we let China develop after they liberalized in 1979, right up until they turned dictatorship in 2017, snuffed out Hong Kong in 2019, and became close war ally with Russia in 2023. Those are pretty long time I would say.

This history is tarnished by years of propaganda on both sides. We could have a deep discussion on how this is not the case in many aspects as well as how it may be true in some cases. If I haven't made it clear already in my other responses in this thread, in geopolitics nothing is black and white. But since you gave such a typical Republican/Corporate Dem answer before I dont think you are one of those people worth wasting time on so I bid you farewell.

The last time we had a multipolar world with multiple competing rivals, millions of people were slaughtered in a world war. Have fun with that if you want but I prefer the way things have been for the past 79 years.

Nevermind losing; the goal is to deter the war from breaking out in the first place by maintaining a position of strength.

Agreed. That is the goal. The lessons of history are abundant, but many people don't seem to be able to heed them.

You also need millions of destitute people somewhere on Earth, to work on all the goods that Americans buy for cheap.

Huh, why, how?

People in mainland China have gotten massively richer over the last few decades, but America did not have to pay more for imports. If anything, the increase in productivity made Chinese imports relatively cheaper.

It's simple. If one day we run out of people willing to work on goods for us for pittance, the price of goods we consume will rise and our quality of life will drop, because we won't be able to afford as much stuff. Right now, there are still billions in people living in poverty in countries that are friendly to capitalism (so, easy to set up a factory, a sewing sweatshop etc. there), so that risk is far from us.

I’m not convinced… there’s so much room for technology to fill the gap. Companies that fail to properly invest in tech to replace this labor will be beaten by those who do, and quality of life may actually improve as the marginal cost of production marches ever downward.

That's a vision of a potential future, not the world we live in right now. Right now, there are a couple hundred million people in Asia and Africa making things for the Western consumer, mostly for pittance wages.

It’s as much a vision of a potential future as “If one day we run out of people” though, and one we will see coming and invest appropriately.

It's mostly people in China, and as they've grown richer, their exports haven't gotten more expensive in the West. Which casts doubt on the whole hypothesis.