Quote (DizzyBusiness @ 4 Oct 2023 04:01)
Libertarian in some ways but my domestic and foreign policy opinions tend to differ. I am generally for a decentralized state with very little influence on its citizens day to day lives, with policy being directed more locally as much as possible. That said I think western civilization is dying or dead so we require radical change that libertarians would not be willing or capable of implementing. I don't think styles of governance are a one size fits all, it depends on the state of the world and the country itself.
I did used to think that the suffering caused by the west was worth the stability and prosperity it brought but since the war on terror that has been changing slowly and their involvement in Ukraine put an end to any faith I had left that what they do is for the greater good. I also think that the quality of life and opportunity for westerners has been dropping considerably for decades, not just in financial terms but there has also been a continuous erosion of communities, spirituality and morality and those are not things that can be fixed with a change in policy or a new government IMO.
Would highly recommend reading Oswald Spenglers "the decline of the west" or at least a summary of his views on why civilizations rise and fall.
It is my view that the West is actively preventing other world factions from achieving parity with them, so that moral responsibility starts to look a bit twisted through that lens. The aid sent by western countries has so many strings attached that ultimately doom the country to becoming a welfare state, indebted to the world Bank and essentially just a resource hub for the West. There is a book called Superimperialism by Michael Hudson that goes into great detail describing how this all functions, can listen to the audiobook on YouTube and there is also a video of Hudson discussing it at length on there.
Freedom is a hard thing to quantify IMO, I think westerners have amazing advantages over many parts of the world, but I think it has unique problems as well and at the end of the day, nothing lasts forever, every empire in history has fallen, the current one won't break that cycle.
I'm sure countries near Russia do hate it for a variety of reasons, many of them legitimate but these tensions have been intentionally inflamed by US propaganda to create the current conflict IMO.
There just isn't much to debate anymore, people have their opinions set by now, we might argue about details here and there but I doubt anyone in here will change their current view regarding the conflict. How I treat people is largely based on how they engage with myself or others in the thread, if I think they are being rude or arguing in bad faith/ignorance then I'm not very pleasant :P
Fair enough. Thanks for the insight and the book recommendations.
Main points I would like bring up related to your reply: 1) I do believe as well that there is a spiritual vacuum, and its being substituted with fast-paced fads and trends and identity politics. Mostly Anglophones and Nordics. I'm very secular myself, but I do feel that the lack of religiosity takes a toll on humans. It can be substituted with philosophy, but most people aren't interested in it at a level deep enough to make a difference. Religion is easier. 2) I don't think we can stop others from reaching us. The future of humans seems to be very globalized. There's no going back, and unless there will be some global cataclysm, I don't think this one will fall the same way the earlier ones did 3) what's wrong with welfare states? The Nordics are welfare states.