The more that I read of (US) history the less extremely worried I am. Maybe I should be more worried about climate change. But other than that, we've been doing crazy stupid stuff, some evil stuff, some good stuff for a long time. Yet the general trend has been to become more democratic, more socialist, more multi-ethnic/multi-cultural, more scientific, etc. I'm not defending any of the bad parts historically or that still exist today, just trying to understand better what the US is and was. I think that this is a good article reminding everyone of all of this.
Reading history to comprehend the present is like watching videos of other people driving, while you are driving. The past is not like the present. Things have changed. There were no nuclear bombs when the constitution was written, nor chemical weapons, bio labs, genetic engineering, the internet, etc. We live in unprecedented times--if we can believe the mainstream view of history.
Some like to think that history repeats itself. That human history is just a demonstration of invariable principles of human nature in different guises. This is an antiquated view, given man's newfound ability to change himself and his environment.
Some people have also said that we're reaching the end of history. That the systems of the world will become so stable, owing to the apocalyptic prospect of war with modern technology, that everyone will basically become a moronic beurocrat in it and there will be no more wars. Humanity will be benevolently managed a la brave new world. Social stability will become the only goal of the human race because every other aim leads to war, and war will become suicide for humanity.
I'm also skeptical of this idea as well. The will to power that breeds war will adapt. We won't fight wars with guns and nukes, but with words and culture. The new wars are psychological. And these wars are constant and just as destructive as real wars.
More Americans die from complications associated with being overweight than from fighting in foreign wars. French fries are the new bullets in modern wars. If you look at Mexico and see the alarming rise of diabetes, this can be traced back to U.S. corporations pushing unhealthy sugar drinks on their population. Pepsi is just as dangerous to these people as the cartels.
I believe we're in the midst of a war we can't recognize because it isn't fought with conventional weapons. Birth rates crashing, social blight everywhere, insane wealth inequality, families unable to stay together, cultural chaos, etc. Lives are being destoroyed, casualties are mounting, but they aren't seen as such. It's "just the way things are."
My friend, I hate to rain on your parade but my ultimate prediction is this: the psychological warfare will get so bad that people will believe things are the best they've ever been as they are being destroyed. People will be conditioned to yearn for their own destruction and will see all healthy things, all things that could save them, as bad things. Death will become the ultimate good. And when everyone is dying, the world will be seen as a paradise.
> Reading history to comprehend the present is like watching videos of other people driving, while you are driving
Completely off-topic but watching car accidents video on Youtube clearly made me way more prudent. As long as you have not seen accidents, you feel that you have a way better control of your vehicle that you actually have.
Watching accident video should be a mandatory part of driving training.
/r/IdiotsInCars made me a better driver. There is still some new failure mode I haven't seen that I don't know how to prepare for. That's the kind of thing studying the mistakes of others can't prepare you for. Not recognizing that can lead people to discover those new failure modes.
Example: Russia expected a quick victory because it did well the last few times it tried to run over a smaller country. They didn't anticipate Ukraine taking those years Russia waited after the last one to prepare while training people up in the ongoing fights in the east.
The citizens of Rome, at the height of its power, must have thought it could never possibly fall. But that world of Roman domination did eventually come to an end.
In America, there have already been mini-apocolypses all over the country. Great cities like Detroit rose and fell. Where there was once prosperity, there is now poverty, misery, and crime.
The world, as people knew it, has already ended many times before. Empires rise and fall. Peoples conquer and perish. All things in this world are transitory.
I'm not prophesying that it will be the end of time for everyone, but for many people it will be. And this complacent attitude, which lulls us to sleep with happy thoughts and a magical reading of history that seems to predict a bright future, can surely be counted as one of the contributing factors to the immanent end of the world as we know it.
Yeah, this was a really big edge for the USA, not having to rebuild a second time in 40 years after massive wars that killed a majority of your working men. And you got to keep all the scientists (operation paperclip), and take reparations in technology transfers (250K ton break presses used in aircraft manufacturing).
