Well to be fair, I think most wouldn't

Kill to stay in power?

Well the world was better when the US was the hegemon

so can't argue there

Well the thing is, that's basically surrendering the whole rest of the world to be China's hegemon

US needs to oppose China now or China will "peacefully rise" by gobbling up all of asia and africa and bully europe around, and ultimately start a war with US

It helps the US if the world likes the US

and if you surrender the world to China, you're just feeding a bigger monster that will eventually try to eat you too

China has initiated huge wars every single time it "rose", which is like 4 or 5 times

they started with aggression towards neighbors, gobbled everything up they could, they found the biggest target, started a war, lost, and fell apart

it's an enormous mistake to let them do that again

I think that's an exaggeration. there is a risk of China leapfrogging the US with different military tech. and china's economy is super self sufficient, way more than the US

if china and US cut ties tomorrow, china would be fine, US would have lots of major shocks as the cheap chinese crap isn't available anymore

it would adjust of course, which is good, but it would take time

only if you hadn't already sold the world down the river

they certainly wouldn't sail to help trump. they hate him with every bone in their body

even the UK I think literally couldn't help

their own defense department has warned that their own multiculturalism may prevent them from taking military action in certain parts of the world

ie: imagine the UK decided to join the US in some war. basically most of the UK would riot. left wingers, muslims, young people, pretty much all immigrants of any kind, etc, have no investment in helping the UK help the US. only the old generation would

I think we're past the point of no return with China's self sufficiency

yes continuing to feed into it is a bad idea and the US needs to foster self sufficiency again

which is why trump's tarrif strategy is a good one

The other thing I mentioned was military tech. US seems to be a bit stuck in the 20th century. China is leapfrogging straight to space weapons and hypersonic rail guns.

If china can develop effective anti-ship railguns, that pretty much counters the whole strategy of the US military. If they can railgun the aircraft carriers, what's the US gonna do?

the US also has little will to fight, though that might be changing

yes agree, US is well poised, but it would be a big effort

and even a 0.1% GDP cost would have the corporate media howling at trump's anti-market agenda blah blah

look at brexit -> hey we can have sovereignty again but it will cost us a couple percent of GDP

oh heavens tebetsy

well, there was a reason. communism

and the US successfully stopped communism from spreading around the world

that's why vietnam was continued and escelated by 5 different presidents from both republicans and democrats

they thought it was important to do, and we don't know how it would have turned out if the US didn't do that

communism is an inherently violent, expansionist and seditious ideology. the US was right to vociferously oppose it's spread

and look now how cultural marxism finally has a foothold in the US and the west

totally disagree

the key difference is marxist power dynamics (oppressed/oppressor) and identitarianism

liberalism without those 2 things is very different from what we have today

don't agree

think sargon but left of centre

influenced maybe, but it's not the same

to me, liberalism is basically the opposite of those 2 things

liberalism is there to enforce equal treatment under the law, and to compensate for being dealt a bad hand

I mean in terms of universal health care and that kind of thing

one thing that truly baffles me is how identitarianism became synonomous with liberalism. why can't people see that's a backslide?

well that's still an identitarian idea. if everybody is equal under the law, black/white/gay/etc then we don't need these grand scales-on-thumb actions like affirmative action etc

but if everybody is equally entitled to universal healthcare, free education, etc, then there's nothing to fix

I don't call myself a classic liberal

social liberal maybe? anti-identitarian liberal?

I don't think identity should play literally any role in politics

because skin color doesn't matter

or if you're gay or whatever

doesn't matter

well I've gone from literal card carrying member of the greens to voting one nation

but I'm still liberal 😄

I don't agree it's a proxy for anything

well I acknowledge racial difference in IQ ala charles murray but think it plays no role in public policy

just a fact

we should be structuring society to maximise the flourishing of intelligent creatures (sam harris style)

kids aren't a proxy for low IQ, kids are a proxy for undeveloped brains

kids aren't dumb, just not developed

you can test a kid to have a very high IQ and they're still unable to drive cars properly

I agree with halting immigration due to "social fabric" stuff

that's not identitarianism

as an Australian, man have we fucked this place with mass immigration

what do yuo mean by choose

in terms of immigration?

I think something almost completely ignored in political discourse today is culture and how different cultures are or are not suited to functioning in an advanced society like ours

culture is actually the biggest factor imo

IQ is a fairly small factor overall I think

even if it explains why jews run everything. they're just way higher on the bell curve

but a jew with a shitty culture is still hamstrung far more than having an average IQ

I think culture is too complex to explain it's origin, I don't think you can say that culture arises from IQ

the lead thing is an old explanation that's no longer relevant

yeah but where's the lead?

in like 1 city

but it's not actually common

it's rare

and yes it's a terrible pollutant etc

but it's tiny pockets

well unless you can think of another lead that's ubiquitous

but who really discriminates in the UK for example

as an Australian I've personally discriminated against black and brown bodies when making hiring decisions

becuase I don't want to have a fucking fob idiot as a coworker

but a native black or brown body? absolutely no problem

by native I mean non-fob

never met an aboriginal software engineer

yeah I really do think it goes away

I think especially now, there is virtually undetectable amounts of true racism and discrimination based on SKIN COLOR

but culture? sure

do you want a gangbanger as a coworker? no

solution is don't be a fucking gangbanger

yeah it's totally dysfunctional

and if someone subscribes to that culture they aren't going to be as successful as someone who subscribes to "white" culture

and agree it's not usually their fault

but it's not discrimination

having a completely different culture is actually a functional deficit

it's not discrimination to point that out

like when I'm hiring coworkers I don't want to struggle to communicate and relate

@Death in June I agree there is a genetic difference in IQ between races. but I think assuming culture is a result of that is not correct