Comment by taraharris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by taraharris | Hacker News Reader

I bought a radiation dosimeter (GQ GMC-500Plus) as well as some iodine tablets. I also have several jugs of water, large bags of rice and beans, a few paper books and basic first aid supplies.

Last April I made a sign that says "WE ARE SLEEPWALKING INTO NUCLEAR WAR" and I spent some time holding it up on a busy intersection near my home in Chattanooga, TN. I decided to do this after seeing the way I was shadowbanned on social media for occasional posts in protest of clearly harmful media narratives. I don't think that I am likely to change the course of events at all, but it beats just sitting on your hands and sulking about it:

https://twitter.com/realTaraHarris/status/152157741487430451...

https://twitter.com/realTaraHarris/status/161793964289205862...

I am saddened that a larger anti-war movement has not materialized by this point. Something foul happened to American media after the second Iraq war.

Edit: go head and downvote me. I'm just honestly answering the OP's question. I'll protest the American empire, in real life on the street, for an additional hour for each downvote I get.

I don't share your view specifically but I'm angered that social media has taken away another viewpoint. Stop hiding people's truth and let everyone decide for themselves.

Currently, anti-war movement would be stupid in US. Anti-war movement can work if war is pointless in political best interests, like Vietnam War or Afghanistan.

If Russia is allowed to run wild in Eastern Europe and China on the Pacific, then the core of American social contract would be endangered. You cannot be advocating against wars without providing a solution to aggressive authoritarian countries that want to take over US hegemony. US needs to be ready defending it position even if there is risk of nuclear war. If anything, US was too soft in last two decades. Obama Russia reset was a mistake and Trump clumsy trade war with China was too weak and too late.

But the core premise of the "American social contract" seems to be that the US remains the global arbiter and police.

Does the US:

* Have the moral standing to do this anymore?

* Have the actual economic resources to do this forever?

* Have the actual understanding of other countries' needs and histories to do it in a constructive way?

You could make some modest case for the US hegemony in 1946. There was no other major power that was fully industrialized, not massively damaged by on-site war, and politically and economically stable. They could be the stable, mature voice in the room to help lead the newly peaceful world to progress and prosperity.

Is that necessary in 2023? We have multiple stable, strong economic powers. Indeed, there is value in moving towards a "disagreement of equals" when it comes to global challenges: there may be problems where we may need to look at a Chinese, Russian, or European model for the best solution.

As for "aggressive authoritarian countries"-- I've always wondered: if democracy is so self-evidently wonderful, why doesn't it automatically win?

From an optimistic perspective, I suspect it's a matter of democracy being a fragile system, requiring a lot of social and economic preconditions to survive, so maybe we need to be building those conditions first, even if it means "supporting authoritarian regimes" today, so when the time comes, democracy can take hold and survive. From a pessimistic one, I wonder if maybe authoritarianism is valid in and of itself-- it's efficient and capable of making the unpopular choices elected officials hide from. But the West sure loathes it because it undermines the individualist "I am the main character, my decisions and opinions matter" mentality.

Solution: a trilateral agreement between the US, China and Russia that the intelligence establishments of each major power be progressively destroyed, leaving a world without large-scale state-sponsored secrecy.

Official secrecy is the ultimate weapon in any authoritarian regime. No illegitimate government can survive without it.

To be sure, private actors can attempt to retain secrets, but they simply do not have the resources to destroy the world in the way that even a small nation (let alone a nuclear superpower) does.

If this sounds impractical, take the New START treaty as a model. Let's have fully open teams of international inspectors that monitor the number of spies employed at the CIA HQ in Langley, VA, at the Ministry of State Security in Beijing, and at FSB HQ in Moscow. These agencies, and all others like them, should be progressively dismantled in lockstep, on a timetable set by treaty. The files they all keep should be made open to the public and used to teach future generations that secrecy itself is a weapon that repeatedly brought humanity to the point of self-annihilation.

And yes, this same process needs to happen with the world's war departments as well. Call me a dreamer if you want, but at least I'm not on the side of more killing.

I hate to discourage you from your protests, but I tossed an upvote for what seems like an honest reply.

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