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The narrative sucks but nations being competitive with each other is a pretty powerful driving force for people.

I'm not sure about the U.S., but from my personal experience working in a multi-national industry, and also being East Asian myself, patriotism is a huge motivational factor, especially when it comes to beating "rival" countries. (Prime example: Korea vs Japan).

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Yeah but it seems so artificial tho. What about doing things just for the sake of doing them and because they're intrinsically cool and interesting? All the nationalistic stuff is just made up and we've gotta let go of it eventually. Why not now?

Given the current state of politics everywhere, right now might be the least possible time for the decline of nationalism.

> What about doing things just for the sake of doing them and because they're intrinsically cool and interesting?

This is how you get your budget cut. Competition forces tough decisions and turns long-term strategic aims into near-term threats.

I’m pretty sure that if nations wouldn’t compete we would be at peace and we would put all that useless military money into much more useful things. So no, I think this is not a powerful drive.

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