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Comment by disdegeneration | Hacker News Reader

Until you find a more thrustworthy stewart of the international order. Everyone yells loudly about how bad the us is, but then you realize that the whole world voted with there feet that every other alternative is worse. The russians tried for years to write some replacement fiction into reality (BRICS) even though they would be the first to get shanked if the old great game returned. Its a absurd situation where empire cosplayers long for the times of "greatness" while struggling on even small "to real" acts ..

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China is "trustworthy" in the sense that they have obvious, rational, consistent motivations and very stable government.

China's government is "very stable" until it's not. As a society, China has a long history but the central government has essentially collapsed or experienced violent revolution in 1976, 1969, 1949, 1927, 1911, 1850, 1796, 1644, etc. Perhaps we have reached "the end of history" and the Chinese Communist Party will now maintain stable control forever. Or maybe it will all fall apart again in a few decades due to resource shortages or factional power struggles or a foreign war.

The loss of a succession strategy with an elderly leader at the helm seems like a major issue.

... for everyone, Chinese or not, except the elderly leader in question.

Same for Russia.

That seems to be a recurring theme regardless of the country's economic system. We're two months away from seeing if the US still has a working succession strategy.

> Everyone yells loudly about how bad the us is, but then you realize that the whole world voted with there feet that every other alternative is worse.

The main problem right now is that the US are not the US for which we voted with our feet. They are a worse alternative to the US that created the status quo (to their advantage obviously, but much of the world also benefitted from free trade and the lack of other world wars).

Are we talking about Russia or the US in that last sentence, or is the ambiguity the point?

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