Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 23, 2022 Author Share Posted February 23, 2022 18 minutes ago, Babblebauble said: I consider myself something of a... Locke for the role. Y'all Wiggin out if otherwise. Boooooooooo…. Boooooooooo… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Okay, just throwing this one out there: What if the EU finally got its shit together? I'm thinking a 'hegemon' that by its core tenets has to rely on cooperation between nation states, might be able pull the free world out of the gutters. It already has the economic weight to do so, it is just lacking political will. Of course there is still the 'lots of former colonizers' stigma in there, but those would be just one voice among many... and personally I'm thinking that current day western trade treaties that focus on taking resources and buggering off are more off-putting than any historical grievances anyway. The Chinese right now are simply making better offers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Ask Greenland if they favor that. Honestly if we must have a Hegemon. must strip the permanent members if the UN Security Council of their Veto and empower the UN with its own dedicated military force. Why should any one nation be a global Hegemon. Well, if they were given a choice between the Danes and the US, I think I know what their preference would look like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said: Denmark. 2 hours ago, Ran said: Sweden is prepared, as the world's most trusted and reputable nation many years running, to take on the role of global hegemon. 1 hour ago, lacuna said: Over our very, very cold corpses... Some kind of northern superstate. They’d have barcodes on their warships so you could scan the navy in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 12 minutes ago, Toth said: Okay, just throwing this one out there: What if the EU finally got its shit together? I'm thinking a 'hegemon' that by its core tenets has to rely on cooperation between nation states, might be able pull the free world out of the gutters. It already has the economic weight to do so, it is just lacking political will. Of course there is still the 'lots of former colonizers' stigma in there, but those would be just one voice among many... and personally I'm thinking that current day western trade treaties that focus on taking resources and buggering off are more off-putting than any historical grievances anyway. The Chinese right now are simply making better offers. Depends on what you mean by get its shit together, If the EU managed to guarantee democratic freedoms in all its member states and the cutting down corruption to an acceptable minimum, then we can talk. But an EU operating under the ideals of Orban/Kaczynski? I think, I'll pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindwalker Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 1 hour ago, Larry of the Lake said: I for one welcome our robot overlords. Nah. They'd be programmed either by one of the hegemons, or, more likely and worse, by global corporations. Alien overlords would be the way to go, but these dipshits haven't gotten anything done for about 60 years, except for abducting mostly white American people for some reason. 19 minutes ago, Toth said: Okay, just throwing this one out there: What if the EU finally got its shit together? *snicker* Good one. I vote for Switzerland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 22 minutes ago, DMC said: I'm sorry I was "insidiously" asking you for evidence for an assertion I am unfamiliar with. Let the hate flow through you. Whenever we're far from my area of expertise, I automatically assume that whatever I know is known by all, and become suspicious if I have to give information that is easy to find. Sorry if my suspicion led me to being dickish. Overall, I was still trying to build on what you were saying with some slight disagreements in order to underline the relativity of perceptions... I guess my point was that China is, in fact, trying to claim the moral high ground vis-à-vis the West, and that this could work, because on some level, it already is working, because the West's moral standing is so abysmal to begin with... bla bla bla. Sooo, not contradicting your overall position, but trying to complement it. Apologies if that came out wrong, and let's bear in mind that when I write stuff here, 99% of the time I'm procrastinating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Generally any imperial hegemon is hated by those it has hegemated [ >!< ] , whether the Assyrians, the Cretans taking young people back to their metropole as sacrifices, any of the many varieties of Persian empires, the Chinese, whomever.* Korea, Japan and Vietnam, and a whole lot of African nations do not want China running the show. Because for Koreans, etc., their history with China is ancient, though with Africa, it's recent, but for all the obvious reasons the rank-and-file come to hate the imperial power. The Chinese have done so much in Africa to bolster the local poobah jerkwaddies with massive bribery, etc., at the expense of the 'people.' If there must be hegemon, let there be competing ones. * The pax mongolian was very much appreciated, particularly in Central Asia to China (though not by the Chinese) however, by the traders and trading cities that survived the initial invasion, conquest and occupation. In the first eras of the Ottoman Empire, the Jews, and many Christians, preferred living under their hegemony. For one thing they were protected from each other; for another, as they outnumbered the the Muslims until around the time of Sulieman the Magnificent, and produced so much taxable revenue, they were left alone with their own courts, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 I will say that I was a bit surprised that you said more people died in Latin America than Soviet Europe, because unless the timescale includes the initial colonisation and genocide of the native people, which is quite a lot longer than the Soviet Union was around, you're comparing it against things like the Holodomor and for all that the US has definitely perpetrated or funded atrocity in that part of the world, I don't think even they could repress a genocide to the tune of millions and I feel we'd all immediately knew what you meant. But in the other direction there was one thing that I wanted to address in DMC's counter-post (which I feel was partly aimed at my initial post): you brought up Obama/Biden's America vs Trump/Dubya's America, and why those differences are something the world should consider. Well, they probably do, and it's partly that very uncertainty that leads some to look... not fondly, but with some measure of intent in China's direction. They think they know where they stand with China, and that even if Xi departs that the broad direction and approach of China will be the same for a long time in the future. Like we both said, that might not stay true if China ever achieves its aims of being 'the' superpower, but it's a stability that's percieved. Meanwhile with the US first, those harmed aren't thinking about whether it was Dubya or Obama that did it, the harm doesn't go away when the president changes (also, it's not as if no harm was done under Obama or Biden). The regime change is a secondary consideration, the harm is done. But second, if you're making long-term considerations for your nation about which superpower you want to work with, the fact that in three or seven years the US could once again be in the grip of absolute lunatics- and potentially, irrational actors- is gonna be part of the thinking. I feel I should also repeat since it might get lost in the shuffle that I do not think China as the power is a good idea. I'm putting forward the view that assuming that the world agrees that the US would be better is dangerous. It's fine to express all the reasons why China would be worse or at least not better but why should someone from the affected nations believe you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Having rival hegemonic powers is probably not a good thing. The rival powers will then sponsor all kinds of shitbags across the world, as the USA and USSR did during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War led to the downfall of at least some of those shitbags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 59 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said: Depends on what you mean by get its shit together, If the EU managed to guarantee democratic freedoms in all its member states and the cutting down corruption to an acceptable minimum, then we can talk. But an EU operating under the ideals of Orban/Kaczynski? I think, I'll pass. The first thing is obviously what I meant, setting up a proper constitution with checks and balances for its members, tight restrictions on lobbying and an executive branch that can actually decide stuff without ringing up the state heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Wales. You'd all get a cool flag, a First Minister that likes cheese and sensible sweaters, and the chance to live in the empire of Utopia...at least, according to the founding principle of this board vis-à-vis Wales's existence or lack of it. Plus, Wales as a unit of measurement would be given extensive scientific and legal recognition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 27 minutes ago, polishgenius said: I will say that I was a bit surprised that you said more people died in Latin America than Soviet Europe, because unless the timescale includes the initial colonisation and genocide of the native people, which is quite a lot longer than the Soviet Union was around, you're comparing it against things like the Holodomor and for all that the US has definitely perpetrated or funded atrocity in that part of the world, I don't think even they could repress a genocide to the tune of millions and I feel we'd all immediately knew what you meant. After a bit of thought, I think my source was one of the latest books by Noam Chosmky, in a passage where he was comparing the consequences of the respective US and Soviet policies during the Cold War (thus, in the second part of the 20th century). And IIRC, Chomsky was clear that he was not minimizing Soviet oppression, but pointing out that US domination had actually not been better for much of the world. I think the passage also included rather conservative figures (death tolls) for the various dictatorships propped by the US in Latin America, compared to the figures for Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe. I believe the reason my brain brought the factoid up is because Chomsky was trying to explain anti-US or anti-Western sentiment throughout the world, as well as explaining why the Soviet Union could still claim the moral high ground (not without some success in some places) in spite of the atrocities it had committed or was committing at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 53 minutes ago, polishgenius said: Well, they probably do, and it's partly that very uncertainty that leads some to look... not fondly, but with some measure of intent in China's direction. They think they know where they stand with China, and that even if Xi departs that the broad direction and approach of China will be the same for a long time in the future. Like we both said, that might not stay true if China ever achieves its aims of being 'the' superpower, but it's a stability that's percieved. Meanwhile with the US first, those harmed aren't thinking about whether it was Dubya or Obama that did it, the harm doesn't go away when the president changes (also, it's not as if no harm was done under Obama or Biden). The regime change is a secondary consideration, the harm is done. But second, if you're making long-term considerations for your nation about which superpower you want to work with, the fact that in three or seven years the US could once again be in the grip of absolute lunatics- and potentially, irrational actors- is gonna be part of the thinking. Yes, this is exactly why I brought it up. I think it's very interesting to consider the extant and obvious future potential wild shifts in the US head of state - particularly when examining Trump or Trumpists' US approach to the global south. It's, obviously, bad, but when considering the state of the GOP, the general intractability of meaningful legislation in the US, and the almost certain incompetence of Trump or someone like him, the comparison to Xi's China and its stability/certainty is something interesting to explore. Or at least I think so. But, yeah, I'm done with this for now. To be clear I'm not blaming Ripp or anybody and doing some performative "screw you guys, I"m going home." Like I said from the start I wasn't sure if I could articulate my thoughts in a coherent manner and, well, clearly I failed. Maybe I'll come back later, but honestly I was just bored late at night and decided to ramble. Didn't mean to initiate a whole thread out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 29 minutes ago, DMC said: Like I said from the start I wasn't sure if I could articulate my thoughts in a coherent manner and, well, clearly I failed. Maybe I'll come back later, but honestly I was just bored late at night and decided to ramble. Hey, I just spent almost a couple of hours and half-a-dozen posts to pedantically ramble about a minor disagreement, instead of getting shit done in front of my computer screen, so I don't feel that I articulated my point particularly well either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
House Balstroko Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 It’s been years since I last posted around here. I’ve occasionally lurked. For the sake of this discussion, I think it’s best to exclude nations that lack the ability to become hegemons and focus on the three big players (US, China and Russia) and arguably the UK and France. By that metric, I’m going to say the US by far, even though I’m not American. In an ideal situation, the US, UK and France would be the three big powers feeding off each other and hopefully evolving. In my personal opinion, it’s much more important to look at how nations and their people evolve over time as opposed to what happened yesterday, 20 or 500 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 the UN is the proper authority to exercise supranational sovereignty, for no nation can exercise authority over another insofar as they share state sovereign equality, and, as we know from the great philosopher herr marx, between equal rights, force decides. the US has definitely perpetrated or funded atrocity in that part of the world, I don't think even they could repress a genocide to the tune of millions millions is easy for the US toll, just during the cold war: bombings of vietnam, cambodia, & laos; indonesia 1965; 'tilt' toward pakistan 1971; operation condor; LIC in afghanistan, mozambique, nicaragua, & angola; the congo wars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbigski Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 11 hours ago, Corvinus85 said: I was going say to the same thing. Or Finland. I would also look at a Pacific nation, like Fiji. Finland, Finland, Finland. That's the country for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 24, 2022 Author Share Posted February 24, 2022 46 minutes ago, mcbigski said: Finland, Finland, Finland. That's the country for me. Putin doesn’t think Nations that were made out of parts of the Russian Empire as it existed before 1917 are real. That includes Finland. :| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbigski Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Putin doesn’t think Nations that were made out of parts of the Russian Empire as it existed before 1917 are real. That includes Finland. :| Hopefully Sarah Palin is well armed then. 1860's what's the difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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