• Wheaties [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    12 days ago

    It's funny, US leaders are pot committed to viewing everything through a militarist, 'national security' lens. It seems they can't see anything in terms of production, of manufacture and development; it's all strategic advantage and disadvantage. Where does our strategic advantage come from? How did we get it? Doesn't matter. What matters is that we have it and they don't. Therefore, we have to safeguard our advantage from them.

    They can't even see the blindingly obvious. Like, at one point in the past, our chip manufacturing was at a level of sophistication comparable to what China currently has. And then it got better. Why shouldn't China's chip manufacturing similarly improve? Did nobody in US leadership ask this question? Across two different administrations? Jesus, we really do think we're history's great exception.

    • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
      ·
      11 days ago

      It seems they can't see anything in terms of production, of manufacture and development; it's all strategic advantage and disadvantage.

      There is zero chance of accurately perceiving the latter if one ignores the former. The people running america are the sort of people who believe food spawns on supermarket shelves

      • Boredom [none/use name]
        ·
        11 days ago

        To be fair they probably view chip making like how they view the slow strangulation of Venezuela and Cuba. Apply enough pressure and the economy caves in on itself. The only issue is that those were both peripheral countries and China is its own imperial core at this point.

      • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
        ·
        11 days ago

        The people running america are the sort of people who believe food spawns on supermarket shelves.

        Can confirm, have you heard porky speak since the turn of the 21st century? Even then there’s been this idea that employers having employees at all is a problem that needs to be solved ASAP.

    • vovchik_ilich [he/him]
      ·
      11 days ago

      The west has been pushing the lies of neoliberalism so consistently for so long, that it's started to believe them. And it will be one of the factors that lead to the fall of the empire and the start of Chinese hegemony. And I can't fucking wait for it

      • CarbonScored [any]
        ·
        11 days ago

        I'm increasingly convinced this is significant. The ruling classes are increasingly forgetting that neoliberalism only works as a facade to oppress others, and that if you actually believe it you won't get very far as a country.

        • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 days ago

          As the red sails article goes: they kind of do believe their own lies. Western chuds are not innocent dupes, but are chuds out a sense of loyalty. They go along with the lie even if they know it’s a lie, because they see themselves as simply acting on their interests as a white person.

          Even the rugged individualism Americans pride themselves in goes out the window when it’s time to demonstrate their loyalty to their white skin. Look at how enthusiastic white people are to accept a worse lot in life if it means non-whites get hurt more and white elites that secretly despise them get richer.

          • vovchik_ilich [he/him]
            ·
            11 days ago

            While I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, I also think a lot of it stems from the indoctrination that "GDP growth is the only conceivable goal of economic policy" and "welfare state is unsustainable": the neoliberal myth of "yeah we know it's not perfect but it's the best we can do"

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      11 days ago

      But have you considered that they're just primitive removed who have no hope of matching the achievements of the brilliant western mind on their own.