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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

I think separatist movements will be the trend in an increasing number of regions. The reason many present nation-states exist is so that in the era of industrial war, outlying eras didn't get rolled by their more technologically advanced, more productive neighbors. Or alternatively, because they did get rolled by their neighbors and are now part of the conquering nation-state.

With the world being unipolar for the last 30 years and that sole superpower being seemingly incapable of winning wars for the last 20, many minority groups are thinking that's a bad bargain and they'd rather trade security for self-determination.

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> that sole superpower being seemingly incapable of winning wars for the last 20

Is it not obvious, at this point, that "winning" the wars are not the goal? That the wars are used as pretense for endless military presence to serve geopolitical goals?

In this regard, the late Jerry Pournelle had this to say about the Vietnam War. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/mail-new-technology...

I recall in a debate with Allard Lowenstein back in those days, he said “Jerry, you want to win this and get out. I just want to get out. But your friends there “—indicating the Secretary of Defense —“want to lose it and stay in.” I admit to being silenced. I didn’t have the minutes to give a lecture on how to win a war of attrition when it is part of a strategy of containment, and I am not sure I understood the situation that well in 1968 anyway.

Obvious to me, irrelevant to the groups targeted by these wars.

In the WW2-era, the stakes were literal annihilation: a number of minority groups were specifically targeted for extermination by the belligerent powers, and many others were occupied under threat of extermination. Today, the stakes are that you face random drone strikes and your weddings get blown up. But there's nothing you can do about this: instead of "if you accept our rule, we'll let you live", it's "we're not interested in ruling you, die anyway". When wars are fought to make a point rather than to win, and that point has nothing to do with you, they're not going to change your behavior. So great powers and separatist/extremist groups exist in symbiosis, with each constructing and reinforcing the other in the absence of an external reason for their existence.

> So great powers and separatist/extremist groups exist in symbiosis.

This theory reminds me of slatestarcodex’s “The Toxoplasma of Rage,” specifically section V. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...

Remember the Arab Spring? How did that turn out? How do the Kurds feel right now?

A lot of people want self determination, and they haven't exactly made much progress recently.

(Also, ask the Scots how they feel about the UK and especially brexit right now)

Arab Spring ended up with 7 civil wars, many of which are still going on.

I said that they're trading security for self-determination, not that they get security and self-determination. The endgame is a multipolar world with lots of wars, not peaceful coexistence.

Seperatist movements of oppressed minorities have always been a thing and have little to do with security.

Agreed. People love to make all sorts of economic and security arguments for why this or that split is a bad deal for the people gaining self determination but the fact of the matter is that people have shown they would rather die poor and young than be told what to do by a bunch of people who's values they do not share. You simply can't put a price on freedom.

Yup, the myth of oppression

Australian aborigins or Navajo indians could say that they feel oppressed, and they have totally original cultures and languages.

This people instead are far, really far from being oppressed and show a severe case of being chronically spoiled.

They are richer than most spaniards, enjoy the best infrastructures and an excelent health care system (paid with taxes of all spaniards), have more job opportunities than many, and tailor-made markets and industries located there for their profit

They live in a fantasy world where you can just decide to ignore the law when and as you will, or close an airport or train station (because you are a "freedom figther" aren't you?), and say later that you just were joking and is unfair.

They live in the fantasy since 1920s, sure, sure. They have distinct culture and language. They carry the whole spain on their backs, which pays their healthcare i guess. They are discriminated by spanish officials. The spanish try to erase their language by abolishing catalonian schools. Their lawful actions are met with violence. Spoiled? Go home Franco, you're drunk.

P.S. your comment very nicely applies to the US.

... And the myth of the unique, special, superior, holier than thou culture.

The truth is that youngsters in Catalonia eat the same hamburgers, drink the same german beer, wear the same Nike shirts and pasta glasses, play the same world of warcraft, drive the same brands of cars and bikes, enjoy the same pop, rock, rap and flamenco (inherited from the Andalusian inmigrants), read the same Harry Potter books, watch the same spiderman's hollywood films, use the same smartphones and operative systems, celebrate Halloween (probably dressed as Franco, or maybe Lady Gaga), study the same english, science and maths, culture the same peruvian potatoes and tomatoes, farm the same cows, sheep and chicken, and share the same religion, mythology and culture, the same... as any other occidental people.

Their grandpas are from Andalucia, Murcia, Castilla and Asturias more often that they would prefer to admit.

They eat onions entire and make castles in the air with people that climb over other people. Two nice apportations to the planet diversity, nobody denies that.

They dream that everybody, except they, are Franco (forty years after Franco death) and they behead the dragon with a flamiger sword in from of a bunch of grateful ladies. hurrah

And they have TWO languages, not one. Spanish, with 600 millions of native speakers that everybody understands and uses (even if they choose to hide this fact and feel ashamed for it), and a different language that uses the same latin alphabet (A,B,C... we are not talking of the invention of Lord of the Ring's runes here) borrows a lot from french, spanish and maybe italian; and is used as political weapon all the time.

They aren't the only european with two languages (or the only spaniards that suffered with Franco) and they do exactly the same things as any other european in the 99% of their journey.

If we talk about their culture, maybe they should be nationalised US citizens directly, as millions of other people in the planet.

in from of a -> in front of a

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