Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

I believe empires die when they over extend their resources and their abilities to control their conquests. In most cases there are other budding empires waiting to assume the role.

I also believe climate change will end the human experiment but not before the American Empire dies.

On reflection, you're probably right. Some aspects of climate change move much faster than we have expected, while others move at a slower, planetary, rate. But its effects are already current, not in the future, and will influence all human doings as time goes on. So yes, I think climate change will contribute, but the American Empire will die before humanity does. The exact time between those two happenings remains to be seen...

[Pattern-chaser]

Interesting title, but while capitalist greed is going as strong as ever in the US, it has been more uncontrolled in the past than at the current time.

Really? At a time when billionaires are multiplying their fortunes at 25%–50% per annum? Surely not *every* year will be like that, but...? The wealth is moving, quite rapidly, in the direction of those who already have huge amounts of it. A handful of individuals own more than 50% of the world's wealth. I don't think that was always the case in history?

[Pattern-chaser]

The AMerican "empire" is not an empire in the traditional sense.

So what do we think an Empire is ?

Maybe something like one tribe/nation ruling over multiple other tribes/nations because they have both the military superiority to do so cost-effectively and the belief in their own cultural superiority to justify that to themselves ?

Yes, empires are about conquest, and the looting (of various sorts) that follows it. Political and economic superiority are also important, as well as military, in more recent times.

Wikipedia offers this:

An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant centre and subordinate peripheries".

That looks about right to me.

Interesting that you have considered how the imperial power justifies their own actions...

[Mo_reese]

While the American Empire is not traditional in the sense of establishing colonies, they've gotten similar results by "conquering" nations' governments. Interesting that the US has been very sever against Cuba because Cuba rejected the US puppet and never took a knee. Seems the Empire holds a grudge.

I wonder if there is a chance that populism might win out over elitism in the US. The Trump mess is fake populism but it certainly looks like something to contend with. I see that Dick "The Mad Torturer" Cheney is endorsing Harris. The Elite Class may squabble but they will stand together against any populism.
On the other hand Musk is siding with Trump, I suppose hoping to be a big part of a dictator run government.

[LuckyR]

Interesting title, but while capitalist greed is going as strong as ever in the US, it has been more uncontrolled in the past than at the current time.

Really? At a time when billionaires are multiplying their fortunes at 25%–50% per annum? Surely not *every* year will be like that, but...? The wealth is moving, quite rapidly, in the direction of those who already have huge amounts of it. A handful of individuals own more than 50% of the world's wealth. I don't think that was always the case in history?

In the last 200 years the top 0.1% globally had their highest share of global wealth in about 1910 (the end of the Gilded Age).

[Good_Egg]

The "new empires" act more subtly. They intervene to "help out", but tend to leave and then move in businesses to "rebuild" because they are the good guys right?
Follow the money. US tax payers fund "AID" to those countries who are encouraged to favour American businesses or lose that Aid.

I don't doubt that such aid-with-strings-attached happens. Is that really enough to warrant labelling the countries involved as an Empire ?

If a developing country accepts aid-with-strings from the US and from China, does that make it part of 2 empires at once ?

The American people can benefit with cheap imports and energy just enough to keep paying the tax to fund the US satelitte countries and US military interventions.

I think here you're talking about a type of deal between the US government and the de facto government of another nation,. Whereby the US provides some level of aid and/or military support (? Against neighbouring countries ? Or against revolutionaries funded & supported by neighbouring countries ?) and receives in return a favourable trade deal (low prices, guarantees of supply) or legal exemptions/guarantees for US firms operating in that country.

Is that morally wrong ? Apparently not.

Is it conquest ? Apparently not.

When does it become imperialist ? Maybe only at the point where the other country wants to back out of the deal and the US says no, using the threat that its in-country military support will launch a coup and install a government that will co-operate ?

[Sculptor1]

The AMerican "empire" is not an empire in the traditional sense.

So what do we think an Empire is ?

Maybe something like one tribe/nation ruling over multiple other tribes/nations because they have both the military superiority to do so cost-effectively and the belief in their own cultural superiority to justify that to themselves ?

Yes, empires are about conquest, and the looting (of various sorts) that follows it. Political and economic superiority are also important, as well as military, in more recent times.

Wikipedia offers this:

An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant centre and subordinate peripheries".

That looks about right to me.

Interesting that you have considered how the imperial power justifies their own actions...

From Atlantic to Pacific the American Empire was founded in the blood of the native American. But in the same way you would no longer call Australia, Candada or New Zealand Empires, so too the American state is a Federal body with legitimate claims of citizen rights within the boundary. Oragon is not a subject state of the Feds, whilst it might have been founded by conquest or duplicious treaties, it is not an outpost or territory any longer.

SO with the exception of AMerican Samoa, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico it is not really an EMpire in the normal sense of the word.

[Good_Egg]

Hawaii is an imperial possession but Alaska isn't ?

[Pattern-chaser]

In the last 200 years the top 0.1% globally had their highest share of global wealth in about 1910 (the end of the Gilded Age).

Thanks, I didn't realise.

[Sy Borg]

Inequality is a major challenge for the US. The "left" is now inherently hostile towards the US and its interests. The let actively wants to dismantle the US's systems.

Why? Because inequality has reached a point where many people are locked out of "the American dream" (the same could be said for many western nations). The implied social contract was that, if a person studied, worked hard and saved diligently, they could buy a home a raise a family. With enormous student debts, forbidding housing prices and rising rents, that dream is largely gone.

As a result, those who have been effectively locked out of the system have no loyalty to the system, no reason to support it or want to see it continue. However, anarchy - which results in nations effectively being run by competing crime gangs that rule with naked violence - would be vastly worse for the average person. No matter which way things go, the middle class will continue to shrink.

AI is the Joker in the pack. It has the potential to greatly increase governmental/corporate control over people. There is an international race to develop AGI. The first nation to develop true AGI will rule the world - with ease. If it's a company, then that company will have a level of control over the globe that would dwarf that of the Rockefellers and Blackrock. Beyond that, it's hard to gauge its impacts.

Thus, determining the fate of current systems is difficult. With AI, it's akin to chimps trying to work out why H. sapiens became so dominant.

[Mo_reese]

Inequality is a major challenge for the US. The "left" is now inherently hostile towards the US and its interests. The let actively wants to dismantle the US's systems.

Why? Because inequality has reached a point where many people are locked out of "the American dream" (the same could be said for many western nations). The implied social contract was that, if a person studied, worked hard and saved diligently, they could buy a home a raise a family. With enormous student debts, forbidding housing prices and rising rents, that dream is largely gone.

As a result, those who have been effectively locked out of the system have no loyalty to the system, no reason to support it or want to see it continue. However, anarchy - which results in nations effectively being run by competing crime gangs that rule with naked violence - would be vastly worse for the average person. No matter which way things go, the middle class will continue to shrink.

I agree that inequality is a major issue for the US, not that CNN or NYT would recognize it. I also agree that anarchy will lead to a worse situation because as you say, if the anarchists bring the system down the result will be chaos with the most brutal taking control. But you mention the Left as being hostile towards the Elite Class that currently runs the government. This is true but the Left is a small minority while the Right Wing are openly and actively advocating bringing down the government.
What I think will happen is that the Elite Class will stand by as the Right Wing acts like Hitler's Brown Shirts and reek havoc on the US until the point where the Elite Class declare martial law and crack down on the Right Wing Brown Shirts and establish a “temporary” dictatorship but call it something else.
I do have an active imagination

[Mo_reese]

AI is the Joker in the pack. It has the potential to greatly increase governmental/corporate control over people. There is an international race to develop AGI. The first nation to develop true AGI will rule the world - with ease. If it's a company, then that company will have a level of control over the globe that would dwarf that of the Rockefellers and Blackrock. Beyond that, it's hard to gauge its impacts.

Thus, determining the fate of current systems is difficult. With AI, it's akin to chimps trying to work out why H. sapiens became so dominant.

I agree that AI is the mostly unmentioned elephant in the room.
Which will destroy human civilization AI or Climate Change? AI could be used to take control the worlds monetary systems. On a bigger scale AI will need endless amounts of energy sources and will have to compete with humans for such. Where AI gets the energy may be harmful for human-kind.

[Pattern-chaser]

What I think will happen is that the Elite Class will stand by as the Right Wing acts like Hitler's Brown Shirts...

Yes. After all, the Elite are not known to be left-leaning, typically. <snigger> They'll just let the proles do their dirty work!

[Sy Borg]

Inequality is a major challenge for the US. The "left" is now inherently hostile towards the US and its interests. The let actively wants to dismantle the US's systems.

Why? Because inequality has reached a point where many people are locked out of "the American dream" (the same could be said for many western nations). The implied social contract was that, if a person studied, worked hard and saved diligently, they could buy a home a raise a family. With enormous student debts, forbidding housing prices and rising rents, that dream is largely gone.

As a result, those who have been effectively locked out of the system have no loyalty to the system, no reason to support it or want to see it continue. However, anarchy - which results in nations effectively being run by competing crime gangs that rule with naked violence - would be vastly worse for the average person. No matter which way things go, the middle class will continue to shrink.

I agree that inequality is a major issue for the US, not that CNN or NYT would recognize it. I also agree that anarchy will lead to a worse situation because as you say, if the anarchists bring the system down the result will be chaos with the most brutal taking control. But you mention the Left as being hostile towards the Elite Class that currently runs the government. This is true but the Left is a small minority while the Right Wing are openly and actively advocating bringing down the government.
What I think will happen is that the Elite Class will stand by as the Right Wing acts like Hitler's Brown Shirts and reek havoc on the US until the point where the Elite Class declare martial law and crack down on the Right Wing Brown Shirts and establish a “temporary” dictatorship but call it something else.
I do have an active imagination

The elite class are globalists, who seek to break down the west, especially the middle class. As Klaus Schwab said people will "own nothing and be happy". This from a person with a net worth of between $25 million and $100 million.

The aim is control. If you rely on a UBI, then you must do as you are told at all times. Resistance is futile.

I note that there is a push in the mainstream media to limit young people's access to social media in the west, ostensibly because it promotes anxiety. Yet nothing makes young people more anxious than mainstream media's sensationalism, misinformation, cover-ups and negative focus, which has been going on for years.

Ultimately, this is an attempt to control the narrative and the mainstream media is trying to hobble its competition, in a quid pro quo with certain politicians. Such a move will require the end to anonymity online, and have the same effect as a digital ID.

I am leery about claims made about Trump. He's flawed but he's not bringing in the Brown Shirts, who strike me as more aligned with cancel culture - the destruction of "offensive" material. Preventing illegal immigration and securing borders and preventing unauthorised immigration is basic governance, not racism. A failure to secure borders is a failure to protect one's own citizens, an abrogation of the responsibility of a nation's leadership. The tendency to label those who seek secure borders as "far right" is simply wrong, but that's the game being played at present.

The west should not hate itself. There is no nation with a better system than western capitalism, which is why people from socialist countries are flocking to capitalist ones and not the other way around.

Capitalism is flawed too, of course. The unchecked growing inequality - the shift in wealth from individuals to corporations and its government vassals is deeply problematic, but not as problematic as what's happening under all other political systems. I suspect that we are facing what economists call a "wicked problem", a problem with no good solutions, only least worst ones.

About forty years ago I was quite enamoured in socialism and, while at technical college, I was talking about it before class. A student who was a refugee from Vietnam became quit animated and told me I was wrong.

He drew a column chart on the whiteboard with two columns. One was labelled Capitalism and the other labelled Communism. The Capitalism column had three bands - a small upper and lower class and a large middle class between them. The Communist column had a tiny upper class and a huge lower class, with no middle class. That opened my eyes. He was speaking from experience, not theoretical ideology.

[Mo_reese]

The elite class are globalists, who seek to break down the west, especially the middle class. As Klaus Schwab said people will "own nothing and be happy". This from a person with a net worth of between $25 million and $100 million.

The aim is control. If you rely on a UBI, then you must do as you are told at all times. Resistance is futile.

You cover a lot of territory with this post.
I agree that UBI is not the answer but what does a society do when a large share of the population are starving?

I note that there is a push in the mainstream media to limit young people's access to social media in the west, ostensibly because it promotes anxiety. Yet nothing makes young people more anxious than mainstream media's sensationalism, misinformation, cover-ups and negative focus, which has been going on for years.

Ultimately, this is an attempt to control the narrative and the mainstream media is trying to hobble its competition, in a quid pro quo with certain politicians. Such a move will require the end to anonymity online, and have the same effect as a digital ID.

The mainstream media is totally controlled by the Elite Class. If you want to know the weather or which actor is which, then you probably trust the NYT. But if you want the truth about politics or the government, then shun that propaganda rag. Who blew up the Norge Stream pipeline? I think the NYT claimed it was Santa Claus or something equally unbelievable. The US is the only one with the capability to pull it off.

Social media has made a huge impact on getting out the truth. When the US illegally invaded Iraq with the Elite of both political parties totally on board, the public was insulated from the realities of the horrors happening to the innocent Iraqi people. When news leaked out about the atrocities, the leakers were severely punished and not those responsible for the atrocities. As we've seen with Gaza, social media has opened the eyes of the public to the point where the government has to threaten protesters to stifle public outcry. The Elite have or are buying control of social media and will change the messages to align with their propaganda. Twitter is currently being controlled by Musk and the US government wants to make sure the owner of Tik Tok is Elite friendly.
Freedom is not possible unless we can control the Elite Class.