Comment by panarky
9 hours ago
The international "rules-based order" is a good idea when most nations play by the rules most of the time, and when the most powerful at least pretend to follow the same rules as everyone else.
A world order based on rules makes it possible to live at a much higher level of abstraction.
Abstractions like rule of law, democracy, government currencies and stock exchanges are intangible and imaginary. They're mostly just figments of collective belief. But these wispy and unreal ideas that everyone believes in make it possible for most people to live longer, healthier and less difficult lives.
The "rules-based order" was always partly mythical, but as long as everyone kept pretending, it mostly continued to function.
But when we devolve from the rules-based order to the old order of pure power and might-makes-right, kings and dictators, when there's no more collective belief that the rules apply to the rich and powerful, then the tower of abstractions collapses, and we're back to the cold, hard, brutal and difficult real world.
People will find out that life in the real world is a lot poorer and more miserable than life at the top of the tower of abstractions, even if your brokerage account appears to double.
I generally agree with your comment except the 'back to the real world' part. This is just the difference between a world with the gains that cooperation give verses a world with just the maximized minimum return that distrust leads to. A trusting world is the real world we have seen for decades. It is a real world we can choose to keep pushing for.
Neither is 'real'. The power of might depends on belief just as much as the power of rules. You need a whole lot of compliance, even when forced by fear and terror, to just keep up a police state. The belief consists of where people think other people assign authority to, at large. But that can be just as brittle as a meme stock if the time is right.
Social reality is always constructed. No single construction is more real than any other.
The US has played by different rules, might makes right, in the western hemisphere for a long time.
Screwing around with Greenland shit, on the other hand, seems riskier.
In practice the US could already do whatever it wanted in Greenland/Canada etc. The options for the motivation behind the theatrics I see. 1. Instill fear in the vassals->support for militarization rises there->they become more useable as proxies against RF/China 2. Just another Trump silliness
> Abstractions like rule of law, democracy, government currencies and stock exchanges are intangible and imaginary. They're mostly just figments of collective belief.
> But when we devolve from the rules-based order to the old order of pure power and might-makes-right, kings and dictators, when there's no more collective belief that the rules apply to the rich and powerful, then the tower of abstractions collapses, and we're back to the cold, hard, brutal and difficult real world.
Many have absorbed and believe the argument of the might-makes-right crowd that their vision is 'real' and their enemies' vision is 'imaginary'. Unless people believe in what they seek, they are lost.
There's nothing imaginary about it; that theory is paper thin and doesn't survive simple examination. Obviously, humans are social animals that live in groups, have powerful intellects, and therefore have tremendous ability to cooperate and work together toward greater good; we've done it many, many times. Freedom and democracy have appealed powerfully to people worldwide, in a tremendously wide variety of cultures. That model was created by people who had experienced WWI and WWII; they knew more of your 'reality' than probably you or I ever will, and with that knowledge and experience they created this order.
And the greater good long predates that; religions and similar ethical codes based on the greater good long predate modern democracy and the rules-based order. Rules-based orders predate it. The Gospels in the New Testament are an easy, very familiar example, from 2,000 years ago (and a significant basis of modern freedom and democracy). Similar is true for abstractions like law, government, justice, etc.
We all are biologically the same, essentially, as the best of humanity and the worst - both are in all of us. It's our choice, our moral choice, what we do. That is also a fundamental that long predates the post-war order, democracy, the Englightenment, etc. Inevitability is a cheap tactic long used by those whose ideas are undesireable and don't withstand scrutiny.
Our choice is easier than those who survived WWII, and their predecessors. Our ancestors gave us the tools, the institutions, etc. They had to build them from nothing for a skeptical world.
The source of truth in fascism is not popular support or inquiry, thus they always need to channel some privileged connection to reality, or claim to voice the true will of the people and authentically represents the pure will of the nation.
Its a farce, of course, but one that can sometimes muster enough support to keep the signs in the shop with just a bit of intimidation and violence to back it up.
The rules based order is mostly a fabrication of recent history. Perhaps between the fall of the Soviet Union, China becoming more open, and the general peace and prosperity it seemed like it existed.
Politics between countries has always been around interests. Countries have no interest in giving up their sovereignty. They may pretend to respect these "rules" when it suits them and then ignore them when it doesn't. Everyone is focused on how "bad" the US is but a) the US has always more or less done whatever it wants b) Russia and China (and many others) have never even pretended to play or accept these "rules".
Canada's Carney whines about "international order" when just a few years ago China simply abducted Canadians in response to the supposed "orderly" arrest of the Huawei CFO to be extradited to the US. So Canada basically abducts the CFO of a major Chinese company and China abducts Canadians in retaliation and that's a rules based order to who exactly? And we can put together an endless list of an endless number of countries. So when exactly was there ever a rules based order except as a tool for countries to bully each other and for the poorer dictator led countries to try and get a seat at the table because they can vote in the UN general assembly.
> Russia and China (and many others) have never even pretended to play or accept these "rules".
This false. They have pretended to play by the rules, and when breaking them, to at least manufacture some pretext, or to deny it was a state activity at all.
One example I can give you is that when invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet Union convinced a few Czechoslovak politicians to write a letter inviting the forces for "brotherly help", thus manufacturing a case that it's not really an invasion. They didn't have to do it, the force differential was overwhelming, but they did it because they could point at the letter on international stage.
All this may seem a bit pointless but binding them in international structures brought interesting fruit in the wake of Helsinki conference on human rights. After that they were forced to at least somewhat follow the signed documents which lead to significantly better conditions to dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. And there are many examples like this, when pointing at international rules actually made things better. So let's not throw that away.
Incorrect. The rules based order was first attempted after the first world war and then created after the second one. These are lessen that have been bought with blood. Lots of blood. Megaliters of it. The incredible stupidity of throwing that away is absolutely disgusting.
I acknowledge that the 20th century was marked by much bloodshed, but this wasn't limited to the world wars and it continues violently into the 21st century.
If the world is governed by rules, why does the United States maintain a considerable number of military bases around the world, far exceeding the total number of military bases of all other countries combined?
Why is the American military budget so much higher than the combined military budgets of all other countries?
The "rules-based international order" was a fiction popularized by US policy makers who wanted to quietly substitute it for international law, so they could violate said laws, while still vaguely gesturing at moral authority.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_international_order
"The nature of the LIO, as well as its very existence, has been debated by scholars."
Nobody is throwing anything away and that thing you think they're throwing away didn't really exist.
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I dislike the saying "the devil's in the details". It is the inverse of where the devil actually thrives - in the clever abstractions.
The beasts who rule this world are the banksters and their vast bureaucratic thrall. Their failing is these rulers have huffed their own degenerate anti-human messages for the past 75 years, have become deranged themselves, and now they've lost their attractiveness and persuasive power.
See what's gone almost completely by the wayside in their green agenda and lgbtqia+4g message as they struggle to cope and maintain their grip. Public, centralized AI is their great hope for control, but it won't survive the lawsuits and consumer protections that are coming. The banksters are 100% parasitical and headed for ruination.
The rules-based liberal order (liberal democracy) is quite real and has replaced any meaningful investments with speculative bubbles and rugpulls, put human life itself up for sale, and waged endless wars, psychological and kinetic. That's the brutal facts rather than beautiful abstractions.
All's well that ends.
Buddy if you think financial crashes were bad today, you should see what happens when banking is not regulated (great depression). Or, if you think war is bad today, you should see what happens when the world becomes multipolar and countries start carving up the world for territory (WWII).
Like please, read a history book.
I'm sure I agree with you that there are many problems with this system but life without it can get so much worse. The green agenda? 4G? That's the worst thing you can imagine?
What do you propose instead? Why don't the things that you condemn in "liberal democracy" happen there?
Actually, what you're listing above is just another set of beautiful (to you) abstractions. No, "banksters" are not "100% parasitical". The percent is definitely less than 100. But, you know, as they say: the devil is in the details.