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Comment by pembrook | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the world is a chaotic reflexive system and trying to manipulate it always creates unintended consequences. The US absolutely does dumb stuff all the time, and power always gets abused.

But for a contrarian view on the “US Bad” narrative, check out a book called The Accidental Superpower

Here’s a good summary of the book: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-a...

It presents an interesting case that the relative peace of modern society is entirely due to US military over-investment brought on by the Cold War—which allows for uninterrupted global supply chains, safe global trade, and enforces the intertwining of economic interests through global markets.

Absent the US existing, the world doesn’t suddenly become a utopia of people living happily ever after. Humans don’t have a great track record of being nice to each other. Unfortunately the alternative options to US power don’t look all that great.

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I agree with you that a “US Bad” view which paints everything America as evil is misguided. But also the other extreme which portraits US as a savior and protector is also not true.

From the book:

> American disinterest in the world means that American security guarantees are unlikely to be honored. Competitions held in check for the better part of a century will return. Wars of opportunism will come back into fashion.

It sounds like a narrative where a powerful monopolistic entity backed by military power bullies everyone else and claims to provide “protection” for them.

When was the last time consolidated power in one place ended up to be good for people?

I believe a world with US as a powerful country along with other equally powerful nations (an equilibrium) is a much better place for everyone to live in (also for people of US). Maybe it’s naive, at least for now, but one can only dream.

Didn't we have that equilibrium (sorta) with USSR? I don't think it was a good kind of equilibrium - mutually assured destruction and all.

Nope. Pick any point in history and there was a huge imbalance between the sides. Often such "gaps" were unrecognized at the time, but each side would later learn that their perception of the other was incorrect. The "missile gap" and "bomber gap" were illusory. The public picture, the one on which budgets were based, was disconnected from the intelligence picture which was in turn often disconnected from the on-the-ground reality. Those involved at each stage of abstraction turned the information to suit their own needs. People who sold airplanes in the US counted extra bombers in the USSR. The people who drafted budgets counted more troops in the opposing army. In the end they all got what they wanted: massive spending on material.

An interesting example is the number of ICBMs programs on both sides. The engineering culture within the USSR meant that it had many different missile designs, some only ever resulting in a handful of missiles. Missiles would have short service lives and then be replaced by a new model. The Americans were different. They stuck to a smaller number of designs but mass produced and maintained them for decades. Both sides perceived that the other "had more missiles" because they were effectively counting them differently. The USSR saw American missile factories churning out missiles. The US saw a flood of new designs on parade and assumed they were being mass produced. Such cultural splits continue to inflate budgets today.

I also agree an equilibrium would be the ideal state.

But I just don’t think humans do equilibrium well. We seem to have a constant need to seek control or to be controlled.

I would say the US is a hegemony like any other...with the benefit of structural hedges of the Madisonian system to avoid the most egregious abuses of power. Not perfect but better than tyrants of the past...

> Absent the US existing, the world doesn’t suddenly become a utopia of people living happily ever after.

And importantly we can't know the counterfactual, so we can't claim that the US is responsible for all those good outcomes with any real certainty, and it's entirely possible that the incentives were there no matter which nation had the resources to control global affairs.

The amount of goodwill the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out. US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing. But did not actually manage to replicate to what they did in WWII.

Backup these results with data is not the way to go. You have to proof the same results could have not been achieved without force. Which is impossible to proof IMO

> goodwill the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out.

Sadly? It's about time. Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, most of Latin America, many places in Africa. They all have a US hangover.

> US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing.

Serious? What propaganda outlet do you read? They try to help their big biz make max profits. That's all. That's not "the right thing". Yeah sure they sell it as "the right thing". Who does not...

Yet the US is still the premier nation that everyone tries to immigrate to, because as a nation it actually works. The same can’t be said of many of the nations you mentioned, and that was before U.S involvement. The cool narrative of today is to point a finger at the west, but most people I think who espouse this view haven’t had the misery of living under the absolutely nuts regimes that exist in this world.

> Yet the US is still the premier nation that everyone tries to immigrate to, because as a nation it actually works.

Not really - the US looks really attractive from the outside - Hollywood propaganda probably does the heavy lifting. The reality is disappointing. Before I immigrated, I told an American expat friend my plans and he asked me a bewildered "Why?!" and that surprised me a little because "The greatest country on earth" and all that. After my first month in the US, I was legitimately depressed, and I finally understood why he had asked. The reality of living in the US is not close to being as good as it appears from the outside (or as a visitor). Fortunately, I got better at coping but I'm still very much aware of how abnormal and batshit crazy some things are in the US that most Americans are inured to.

The (gross) salary and tech scene are good, but almost everything else is worse compared to other developed nations. I probably would have been better off moving to Canada, Germany or the Netherlands (I might do that yet - the 2020 elections were pivotal in my decision to stay put for now)

Sure, if we compare like for like, I suppose other rich nations, those are real alternatives, However, since I’m black I am also aware of the incredibly prevalent casual racism of the other G7. It’s not even a point of discussion it’s so common, and good luck trying to get government help in your language if it isn’t English, or trying to obtain citizenship (Japan).

Comparing racism vintages is depressing as fuck, but I'll give it a go. I'm black too - I'll take casual racism over whatever the US has going on, which appears to be casual racism and a mix of disregard of, and generalized fear of black people (black men to be specific). One is a threat to my well-being, the other is threat to well-being as well as life and limb. I've never felt uneasy or witnessed people crossing the street to avoid me while cycling through well-to-do neighbourhoods in Amsterdam.

I'll take the Gollywog and Schwartz Pete over anxiety-inducing traffic stops any day.

Agree. I decided to move to Australia instead. That was a very good choice!

All my friends are moving to Canada. I intend to go there and buy an apartment for my children next year. USA is not more the dream country to emigrate to.

>Yet the US is still the premier nation that everyone tries to immigrate to

Yes, because they are richest natiom in the world. How is that statement not a complete non sequitur to what was being discussed?

The immediate post I responded to was arguing that the US doesn’t do the right thing, but tries to extract max profits for its big businesses and a bunch of foreign policy mistakes.

My point was the US is more than that, and “good” as illustrated by its popularity with immigrants. You can, actually, in this court system receive justice, you can speak your mind at least legally without reprisal. You can leave this nation if you so choose.

Being just a “rich” nation isn’t it. There are many rich nations and many not as accommodating.

That the US (rich) rapes poor nations not something we can critique because people from the poo nations want to immigrate to the US.

This is such a bad argument I dont even know where to begin with unpacking.

Regimes being bad to their own people (US is also in this category, but not like some poorer countries), is separate from it behaving bad to other nations. Internal affairs vs foreign affairs.

So your argument is: if Finland is a nice place to live, then it has the moral right to invade any country where standards of living are lower?

Also before US involvement all countries were colonies, do you think being repeatedly invaded and bombed has any negative effects?

No, it’s not about standards of living, it’s about defending people. If you’re in a position to help then you should! South Vietnam was invaded, South Korea was invaded. Would you prefer South Korea to be a North Korea?

I agree bombings, chemical warfare and the like are some of the worst outcomes for people, but what would you suggest for the Koreans under attack? Not my problem? I don’t have the moral authority to get involved? Send aid? What about the Cambodians massacred? No help from anyone and they were absolutely brutally destroyed by the millions. Millions. We haven’t even spoken of the millions in the 20s in Eastern Europe or the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I can’t so easily write off those dead, and I don’t think inaction is the answer, but war.

Thank you for saying things so directly. I was trying to give them at least some slack, maybe it's already time.. but I'm afraid my personality wont let me. It's like giving up hope

>> the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out.

Right there is half of the animosity behind the cold war. Try telling a Russian that it was the US that "ended" WWII. Remember to duck. The US bombings of Japan were bad, but worse was the threat of a Russian invasion of the home islands. Japan decided that it would rather be occupied by Americans than Russians. And it was Russian troops on the streets of Berlin. They suffered far more losses and killed more enemies. It isn't "WWII" in Russia. It's "The Great Patriotic War". Despite what Texas highschool textbooks say, the US did not end that war solo.

True, the Americans were the better alternative for hegemon, hands down.

Sure, it’s impossible to prove what would have happened otherwise (given the chaotic reflexive system).

But an interesting thought experiment, imagine, after ending WWII the US and its people simply sunk into the ocean.

Then you’ve got a massive imbalance of power tilted towards Stalin and the Soviets with nuclear weapons and allied with China, vs a weak UK and France.

While it’s impossible to prove the USSR wouldn’t have started caring about democracy and human rights and stopped caring about expansion on their own...I don’t think it’s a leap to say the world would be a worse place.

Same what if problem.. Of course the shift in power would change how we would life now, probably for the worse. That still doesn't justify anything.

> US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing

Wait, you think that was the motivation for US actions?

Nice review! Thanks!

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