Comment by Retric
5 days ago
The west is the strongest it’s ever been in its entire history.
O, no someone claims things are failing. Look people have been saying that for thousands of years it doesn’t actually mean it’s true.
5 days ago
The west is the strongest it’s ever been in its entire history.
O, no someone claims things are failing. Look people have been saying that for thousands of years it doesn’t actually mean it’s true.
>The west is the strongest it’s ever been in its entire history.
I would argue the West was at its peak in the mid to late 20th century when we were so awesome we conquered the god damn Moon, made transcontinental, transoceanic and even space travel quick and mundane, invented the microprocessor, and then finally invented a communication system that connected the entire world.
Turn of the 21st century onwards has been a slow but steady and undeniable decline.
The world becomes more tumultuous every year, the East is clearly catching up and has in some aspects already surpassed the West, the Middle East is a bigger tinderbox than humanity has ever known, and liberal values like free speech and equal opportunity have become decisively unpopular.
A paradigm shift is coming, probably this century within most of our lifetimes, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to smell that.
Air travel has really only become commonplace fairly recently. Decade over decade growth has pushed the domain of the wealthiest, then well off, down to just about anyone.
> space travel quick and mundane
Space travel was rare and extremely expensive until very recently when we’ve made huge strides. And this isn’t just a singular SpaceX thing the from ion engines to basics like solar panels things have been steadily improving.
IMO the Apollo program was less impressive than many recent missions like DART. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Te...
You want to push new boundaries? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe
As to culture and militarily some of this depends on how western you view Russia.
But, the US was cautious of China all the way back in the Korean War well before Vietnam when we did the same.
> Turn of the 21st century onwards has been a slow but steady and undeniable decline.
Again we’re better off economically, militarily, and technologically in 2025 than 2000, 1980, 1960 let alone any point before then. The diseases of the rich have become commonplace and we view that as a failure rather than the underlying progress that it is.
>Air travel has really only become commonplace fairly recently.
Air travel has been mundane for at least the better part of a century now. Just to remind us all how old we are: The Boeing 747 first flew in 1969 and went into initial service with Pan Am in 1970, that's 55 years ago.
>Space travel was rare and extremely expensive
I said quick and mundane which the Space Shuttle accomplished in spades. Nobody talks about going to space anymore unless something is particularly novel.
>As to culture and militarily some of this depends on how western you view Russia.
Russia was never considered Western: Politically they have been considered east of Eastern Europe since ye olde days and "Second World" post-WW2. Religiously they were always the Russian Orthodoxy and the various Orthodox Churches all have eastern-to-Europe vibes.
>But, the US was cautious of China all the way back in the Korean War well before Vietnam when we did the same.
And arguably not cautious enough, including to this very day.
>we’re better off economically,
The stock market is having the time of its life, but that isn't entirely reflective of the real economy.
Remember that Harris lost this election ultimately because of the bad (or at least perceived as bad) economy.
>militarily
A lot of Western military still uses hardware from 50 years ago, and even the so-called latest is 20-ish years old on average.
I also question the real efficacy of Western militaries when placed in an actual peer war. We talk big, but the US has also lost practically every single war in the modern era against inferior enemies.
>technologically
Nearly all of the bleeding edge technology is manufactured in the East. Even if the West produces the ideas on paper, it's the East which actually turns them into practical and tangible reality.
Also, new isn't necessarily better. Russia and Ukraine are both demonstrating quite viciously that dumb-and-cheap might be better. Ukraine has already called out the M-1 Abrams as useless in today's battlefields without certain modifications, which the US military and industrial complex are refusing to entertain.
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That's an artifact of the prevalence of modernism at that time rather than an objective truth. The "vibe", as it were, was that things were getting better and better until the gaps of modernism sowed the seeds for its own destruction. Pointing them out led to the rise of post-modernism which felt like a fall, sure, but I'm not convinced it actually was any more than modernism was an actual rise.
The west can't even make enough artillery shells in one year to overcome Russia's monthly production. Fucking Russia for God's sake.
You really believe that?
Several reputable European media vehicles said that. On the UK, the Royal United Services Institute said the same. It is not a secret, unless someone keeps a media diet of MSNBC and CNN only.
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