Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (306140)	10/12/2024 12:29:02 PM
From: combjelly	1 Recommendation Recommended By Lane3 Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 354837

Well, certainly we could see something like that. We are either on the cusp of, or in the early stages, of another singularity. The last one saw the collapse of the monarchies and the almost universal spread of democracies. Not to mention, all of the various scientific and technological changes that reached their full expression in two world wars. We are still dealing with the repercussions of that singularity and here we are, back at the well. Unlike last time, we are dealing with the fallout from the first one. The collapse of the monarchies left a vacuum that fascist leaning movements are trying to fill. Liberal democracies have a tendency to ossify around the status quo and that is in dire need of some long overdue maintenance. And that feeds the authoritarian, anti-rational crowd with no sense of ethics. Factor in the tail of the Second Great Awakening and its innate hostility, just like the first one, to anything that smacks of The Enlightenment and a lot of things are suddenly non-deterministic in ways that would have been unimaginable not too long ago. It is what it is. My guess is worse case will be akin to what happened to Iran, post-Shah and what is now happening to Putin's Russia. Essentially a theocratic takeover with a diaspora of anyone with any smarts, training and/or wealth, leaving a rump state of grifters and desperately poor people. A great boon to the countries that can take advantage of the diaspora. Or we could have the equivalent of the Bell Riots, leading eventually to a post-scarcity world like in Star Trek's Federation. And everyone gets a pony. I mean, short of being a theocracy or other fascist-type state, the US by itself could reach a Kardashev level 1 by the end of the century. So it isn't impossible, but a theocracy is a whole lot more likely. I have always been disappointed that Heinlein never explored the rise of Nehemiah Scudder. I like to think that while a theocratic US was something he could imagine, growing up in early 1900s Kansas could do that, getting there from the America he knew was harder. Pretty easy to see how it could happen now.