Globalization is breaking down because of actions being led by the US. It is not some inevitable process that we have to pre-empt, rather it is actively precipitated by our actions.
- The US has almost everything it needs in North America to be self-sufficient. Food, energy, natural resources, manufacturing, trade.
- The US is tired of being involved in the Middle East.
- The US is tired of protecting the oceans and trade for everyone else.
- The US is tired of China stealing its tech, being protectionist, becoming an adversary, not being friendly to US companies, meddling in US trade, etc.
- The US is tired of NATO not stepping up to the plate. It won't back out, of course, but would love for Europe to care more about its own security.
There are so many reasons the US is pulling back. Both the Trump and Biden presidencies are completely on board with it. It's fully bipartisan, and it's going to accelerate.
The US is going to near-shore, friend-shore, and to every extent possible, onshore what it needs.
Globalization does not necessitate middle east involvement.
> - The US is tired of China stealing its tech, being protectionist, becoming an adversary, not being friendly to US companies, meddling in US trade, etc.
WTO already has the mechanisms to deal with this, the CHIPS act is hurting out standing with our allies because of its blatantly protectionist provisions.
> - The US is tired of NATO not stepping up to the plate. It won't back out, of course, but would love for Europe to care more about its own security.
Again, not contra globalization.
Do we really need to be stuck on a treadmill of always having to make our lives better? People don't know the word "enough," that's a real problem.
There's obvious issues with how current quality of life is distributed, but I'd propose that we don't need to increase QoL with new inventions simply to make sure that we don't ignore those worst off.
Never mind that the world is not constant - we need innovation on the climate front if we want to stay in a stable environment that doesn’t require more sophisticated adaptation.
Making those worst off better without making everyone else poorer would be much faster with globalized trade.
I am sorry you have become so skeptical of progress, but I and others will continue working so that a rising tide lifts everyone, including you.
Its an unfortunate fact of life that we can't build a utopia with no illness or suffering. We have developed many solutions for different medical conditions over my lifetime and I'm truly happy for those helped. Over the same time, though, we've discovered and named even more. We continue to develop new medications for diseases that didn't exist in text books not long ago, and there's good reason to believe that pharmaceutical companies invent new disease classifications to get fresh funding for a medication they already have on the shelves.
I'm not saying we shouldn't help those in need, only that we can't run down that path forever with a hope that if we can just solve one more condition we'll have it all licked.
> Making those worst off better without making everyone else poorer would be much faster with globalized trade.
I'm not actually sure if this is the worst answer. We frequently hear about the widening wealth gap, fixing that certainly would mean making some poorer.
> Never mind that the world is not constant - we need innovation on the climate front if we want to stay in a stable environment that doesn’t require more sophisticated adaptation.
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind this, I just start from a different point. I think our best chance of helping reverse the problems we cause to the environment is to first remove the worst offenders of what we do today rather than start from innovating and replacing them. I think a big mistake in the green energy movement had been assuming that it would be untenable to reduce total energy use and that we must instead replace all current use and match the current rate of growth in energy consumption.
> I am sorry you have become so skeptical of progress, but I and others will continue working so that a rising tide lifts everyone, including you.
I'm actually not skeptical of progress, I may need to rephrase things if it comes across that way. I just view progress differently than I think many do today. Progress is often talked about as starting with what we have today and adding to it to make tomorrow better, i.e. always intervening more and never questioning how we got here. Put another way, I view progress worth having as progressing towards specific goals whether that means innovating our way out of it or backtracking to find another path. I don't view progress as an incremental approach that must always push ahead without giving time and consideration to removing when we realize pur current path is fundamentally wrong.
That is not a fact.
Progress is accelerating, and we need to keep pushing. It's the quintessential virtue.
https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extre...
https://ourworldindata.org/cancer
https://www.vox.com/2014/12/14/7384515/extreme-poverty-decli...
https://www.reddit.com/r/OptimistsUnite/comments/1bjaog6/fil...
If you have links or explanation of how we could possibly get to a world with no illness or suffering I'd be very interested. I'm also not expecting anything as that first depends on somehow already knowing what we don't yet know, like what will kill people once we cure cancer.
Personally I am embarrassed that we were ever involved in the middle east, am willing to see our resources spent protecting natural resources if we can afford it, want a stronger NATO and only see that happening by us leaning further in, and think the only thing bipartisan about our two presidential candidates is that there is no way they are our two best candidates for the job.