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Comment by lobotryas | Hacker News Reader

You need a little more realpolitik in your life. Nations are absolutely competing with each other because we live in a world of limited resources. Recognizing this fact and wanting your nation to come out on top are very normal.

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Realpolitik means that we acknowledge that great power wars aren't an option while MAD exists - and that MAD isn't going anywhere for 100 years or more. That means that soft/economic power is far more important than hard power.

Anti-ICBM tech sucks balls and it only gets worse with new weapons like nuclear cruise missiles.

I don't understand why we are lusting for great power wars in the first place beyond the fact that they are so damaging as to be nearly (but not quite) unthinkable.

I am quite familiar with realpolitik, the American post-war perspective and how the idea of international cooperation was undercut and destroyed by our national bourgeoisie. The UN system was put in place for America to exert its post-war dominance. China is a complicated nation. It is constructing a parallel system to the IMF/World Bank that under-girds US hegemony. It also controls a huge fraction of world manufacturing due to the laziness and greed of the business community. However, because it is not a pure capitalist country, it doesn't have the same imperial market imperatives that western countries certainly have.

If we don't try to build a better future, we will realpolitik ourselves into a dystopian one.

Also, nations are fake creations of the elites. The working class is international in scope and we have no quarrel with one another.

Normal and necessary are different.

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