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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31654 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Can geopolitics also be culture war? I'd argue yes.

PM Modi: Global South must create new world order

“We, the Global South, have the largest stakes in the future. Three-fourth of humanity lives in our countries. We should also have equivalent voice. Hence, as the eight-decade old model of global governance slowly changes, we should try to shape the emerging order,’’ he said, while underscoring the need to escape the cycle of dependency on systems and circumstances which are not of developing world’s making.

My question is, what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count? Nigeria has a much bigger population than France. Which country matters more in international affairs? Why is Taiwan so important? The country has a huge footprint in semiconductors despite having only 24 million people. Had it been a primitive basket-case, its potential capture by China would still be opposed but there wouldn't be fears of far-reaching economic ramifications.

I worry that a narrative of "our time is due" has set in, giving birth to unreasonable expectations of international influence that may in fact never materialise for most Third World countries. Once this finally dawns on them, rage and jealousy may set in, a feeling of being betrayed of "our rightful influence". Influence is earned, not given. I'm reasonably optimistic about India but not so optimistic on most other poor large countries (Egypt, Pakistan, Ethiopia etc). Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

There's a concept in international relations where you can mortgage your not-yet-realized future power and wield some of it in the present. For example, Indonesia has 275 million inhabitants, it's the 4th most populous country in the world. In theory, as countries are supposed to converge in prosperity, Indonesia should become quite powerful. So they get more influence on the basis they'll soon be stronger than they are, it would be foolish to anger them now while they're weak and then have to deal with them when they're strong.

Of course, this ignores geography, resources, political stability, organization and HBD. I think Australia is the more useful ally, Australia has gas, iron, coal, uranium, surplus agricultural production for export... Even though Australia has a smaller economy and low prospects for growth, Australia will retain greater power and influence IMO.

In addition to the size of one's economy it's important to consider how much wealth one can mobilize. 19th century Russia was a large and populous economy but couldn't mobilize most of its wealth since a lot of it was locked down in subsistence agriculture. Much of modern India's wealth is similarly locked or tied up in basic state-maintenance tasks, it can't be wielded so easily. There's a vast gulf in organization-skills between Indian military procurement and Chinese procurement. China is pumping out modern frigates and destroyers, fielding hundreds of 5th gen aircraft, India has managed 40 small 4.5 gen aircraft and has no stealth aircraft at all.

Pakistan at least has a superpower sponsor in China and nuclear weapons but I am similarly skeptical as to how the other poor countries will perform. Iran is also pretty capable, they're able to contest the West in the Middle East.

Isn't the "Global South" project a rebranding of Third Worldism, which had obvious ties to the Communist International and Maoist Movement?

Anyway. The developed nations have had a couple of centuries of capitalism. As a result, they have become forever-rich, irrevocably prosperous; they can even drop capitalism if they feel that way, the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name ("stakeholder capitalism" and "advance market commitments" and "carbon credits" it's called now). As is the established practice, they kneecap other nations with the extremist vomit of their intellectuals, inciting premature and unsustainable transitions with unreasonable theories and promises of fixing consequences of the previous step. Before, it was mainly Communism, where the free lunch of a new social order was dangled in front of backwards peoples; then it was Neoliberalism, when they were allowed to poison their ecosystems, capture lowest-margin markets like raw materials and textiles, and inflate the valuation of a bunch of oligarchs with poor taste. Now it's the ecological and social-progressive stuff – the worst offer of all, for it's all stick and no carrot. That is how the gap is maintained; and to narrow that gap, to gain the ability to meaningfully resist Western goading and stand as its equal, a common identity and antagonistic posture are needed.

Or so the thinking goes, I guess. Realistically, integrating with the West is the best they could do.

Isn't the "Global South" project a rebranding of Third Worldism, which had obvious ties to the Communist International and Maoist Movement?

It probably has more to do with the non-aligned movement, in terms of family resemblance. This is the Indian prime minister, after all.

That is how the gap is maintained; and to narrow that gap, to gain the ability to meaningfully resist Western goading and stand as its equal, a common identity and antagonistic posture are needed.

That and an average IQ of at least 95.

I'll say this recipe for success has been working great for China despite a non-ideal government situation with the PRC.

One thing that many people don't realize is that, despite how far China has come, they still have a lot further to go. When they are fully "mature", aka at Japan levels of income, China will far eclipse the U.S. as a world power due to having 4x the population, and probably 10x the population of +3 std IQ people.

This isn't some crazy moon shot goal either. This is just the natural development of things which are already in progress and only an extreme setback could arrest.

The growth in China's economy in 2023-2024 alone will shock many.

When they are fully "mature", aka at Japan levels of income, China will far eclipse the U.S. as a world power due to having 4x the population, and probably 10x the population of +3 std IQ people.

Which is why we may see the US kneecap them by embroiling Taiwan into a conflict with PRC by pushing Taipei to declare independence etc. It's certainly the smart thing to do if you're the top dog and what I'd have done if I were in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Why wait for your rival to get stronger?

One should also add that China may only have 500 million people at the end of this century due to their TFR only being ~1 per woman now and will likely fall even lower as they get richer. Meanwhile, the US could potentially even pass them by the 2090s. If America is still a richer country (big if) then the so-called 'Chinese century' may in fact never materialise. I think America's superpower is that it is better than anyone else at drawing in skilled migrants, something China can never copy.

In addition, America has a very large friendship network. So just comparing China and America on their own is probably a mistake. In my view, while China is unlikely to be subdued it is also unlikely to replace the US as the global hegemon.

One should also add that China may only have 500 million people at the end of this century due to their TFR only being ~1 per woman now and will likely fall even lower as they get richer.

I wonder if China will be able to mandate higher fertility. It's certainly possible. Other regimes have tried and failed, but China I think could do it. Here's how:

"City residency permits are reserved for those with children. Want to stay unmarried? That's fine, go live as a rural peasant".

"Children with siblings are given first choice admission to universities".

Of course, with so many single young men and a massive gender imbalance this could prove a bit tricky.

But even if they don't fix fertility, China will still have 20-30 years of great economic growth before the real declines start. And in any case, according to UN medium fertility variants, China will still have 777 million people by 2100 compared to 395 million in the United States. And of course I don't have to tell you that the U.S. demographics are highly dysgenic. In terms of demographics, the U.S. in 2100 will be closer to today's Brazil than to our current state. No one is projecting Brazil as a future world power.

Other regimes have tried and failed, but China I think could do it. Here's how:

Silly question, but has any regime tried banning contraceptives?

Good question. I don't know. But I do know that people were already worried about birth rates in ancient Rome so presumably it's not enough.

Communist Romania in 1966.

Well, that's underwhelming. Anything in particular happen in 1963?

On the other hand, the shear weight of their population pyramid, brain drain, and general mismanagement in the name of petty tyranny is a massive limiting factor. Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

Israel is indeed one of the wealthiest countries in the world (by nominal GDP per capita). They surpassed Germany last year.

Israel, for example, probably has one of the largest per-capita populations of +2 std IQ persons, and while they're certainly prosperous, they're hardly one of the wealthiest countries in the world

I've thought about why this is. The simplest explanation would be Israel's paucity of natural resources. Other explanations include the high level of civil strife, necessary defense spending, sanctions, and of course the wastage due to religious study.

I think these explanations contribute but are not the main factor to Israel's underperformance relative to U.S. Jews.

My preferred explanation is that, for high IQ people, scale matters. Take a person with an IQ of 160, put them on a tiny isolated island, and there is very little advantage to their high IQ. Put them in New York City and they can leverage networks of influence that will greatly amplify their talents. This, to my mind, explains why U.S. Jews have an income far in excess of Israeli Jews.

The weight of Israeli defense spending functions fairly similarly to the weight of demographic age in other high IQ countries(Israel is literally the only one with above replacement fertility, isn't it? I mean unless you count Argentina), so we might have a natural experiment soon.

the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name ("stakeholder capitalism" and "advance market commitments" and "carbon credits" it's called now)

Points like this are legion among the far-right (even though it's plausibly exaggerated rhetoric in this case, it's deeply believed elsewhere). But 'advance market commitments', 'carbon credits' and 'stakeholder capitalism' are each small changes of historically normal magnitudes - subsidies to specific industries bid upon by competing companies, or companies putting small amounts of effort into political and social appearances along with profit. A government guiding existing market mechanisms via the profit motive is ... not a planned economy. And these are still less than a tenth of the overall economy - openAI and deepmind didn't need central-planner permission to get billions of dollars of capital as you would in one. There's a stronger case for e.g. healthcare, welfare, defense spending being like planned economies, but it's still very free-market there compared to actual planned economies.

"Carbon credits" are not a small change; they're rationing in the same way as wartime rationing. "Stakeholder capitalism" is a rebranding of a command economy.

War rationing implies 'extreme deprival' of some sort, like government-issued canned beans and rags, but carbon credits are just an ... environmental regulation. Potentially a very bad one, but that has be justified aside from allusion - fisheries management is also rationing, and that's fine. Stakeholder capitalism seems to refer to things like 'not donating to anti-climate change political groups' or 'auditing supply chains for human rights' or general philanthropy, which isn't a command economy, even where those are useless / bad. Both of those seem like significant exaggerations?

As a result, they have become forever-rich, irrevocably prosperous; they can even drop capitalism if they feel that way, the accumulated resource and technological base allows for implementing planned economy in all but name

Please, people unfortunate enough to live in the fucking EU would beg to differ. It's shambolic and getting worse, and there's seemingly no hope of it stopping. The idiots will ruin the economy and the power grid and honestly, I feel like if I want to keep living in a normal country of similar climate type, I'm doomed to learn Japanese and move there. Shouldn't be that hard, it's not tonal, and discord gaming allows for endless free practice.

It's over, really. If we only fall back to 1950s living standards, we will be able to count ourselves fortunate, but most likely we'll be getting omnipresent technological snooping, police state and tone policing too.

Japan wouldn't take you, unless you have a highly skilled blue collar occupation. You'd have to hope for an economic miracle in Argentina, which does not seem realistic.

I'd be only considering emigration there, to some rural area, in case I had a record of stable, reasonably paid remote work. Are they declining to take people who have a source of income ?

It'd not be the comfiest lifestyle, as it's an expensive place, but Japanese are still capable of building nice stuff and even their declining areas have a sort of charm, that's much easier to appreciate than decaying modernism or commie architecture.

They don't seem to be getting taken over by wokies, probably innate psychological differences.

I have no such hopes for e.g. Poland or even Russia. Woke western stuff is mostly seen as cool among Poland's careerists and normies.

Japan is indeed a better bet than Eastern Europe in terms of resistance to wokeness but how comfortable would you really feel to be an alien in the most basic, racial sense on a perpetual basis? The Japanese, even in supposedly cosmopolitan areas, will always treat you as an outsider. Maybe you're fine by that, but for me, being around my own kin will always be preferable. Wokeness is a small price to pay and it has likely peaked anyway, certainly there's much more skepticism today than even 3-4 years ago.

I've always felt like an outsider in my own native land, fwiw. I lack the instinct for tribal affinity entirely. To feel I fit in with some group, I have to be engaged in some cooperative enterprise with them.

But if I mastered the language, which shouldn't be that hard as it's not tonal, and I probably have some talent for language, and respected their culture and didn't try to fuck with them, they'd probably respect me, or at least many of them enough to make it bearable. And given my gracile [1] build and look and coloration (brown and brown, respectively), and children I'd have would probably fit in well.

[ 1]: Actual question I was once asked: "hey, do you have a sister? I saw a tall girl who looked exactly like you?" .. (sigh).

[ 1 ]: Also, clean shaven with a certain hairstyle I kept getting mis-sexed by Faceapp which would insist I'm a woman.

It will certainly be interesting to see. The math on renewables is sobering. The amount of energy input per unit of energy output is just too damn high. And that doesn't even take into account the massive shortfalls of rare earths, copper, and other minerals which are required for the massive build out of solar, wind, and power grids. That's not a one-time investment either. The usable lifetime of solar and wind generation assets is less than 20 years. Germany has spent hundreds of billions on renewable energy and all it has brought is less reliable and more expensive power.

So Europe does seem to be headed down the road of rationing. "Sorry, you can't charge your electric car today". "Planned blackout for Tuesday". "Smart thermostat set to 17 degrees by central ministry", etc..

On the other hand, Germany is burning a shit ton of coal this year, so maybe they are willing to pivot if the misery level gets high enough.

what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

(Some small amount of influence/money/power) * (a lot of people) = a lot of money/influence/power.

Above is just the GDP/Capita equation rearranged and rephrased. China and India's GDP is more than most 'powerful' countries, and that is weight to throw around. Nigeria and Egypt however should not think they are India or China.

Also account for Nationalistic posturing, especially when dealing with Third World leaders. They are tasked with the (un)enviable job of leading and controlling 10s of millions of functionally retarded IQ people (Or just extracting their [almost nonexistant] wealth). Point being abstract or logical or lofty ideals won't land.

what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

Because per-capital numbers matter less than net market size. A market that negotiates as a block, represents its buying power and influence as a block. The EU exists for a reason. Global consumerism means that powerful developed countries rely on access to big market blocks like India to keep their profits high. You're right that just being numerous doesn't mean much. But a 2x poorer per-capita country, can make up for the smaller per-capita market by having 2x as many people.

The real negotiation here is : India closing itself off and accepting a QOL hit, while lost sales hurt the exporting 1st world's industries.

Now, this is no different from an employee trying to negotiate a higher wage with its employer. Here, collective bargaining gives you more leverage. India is effectively asking the global-south to present as a more unified negotiating block, that allows for more favorable terms due to collective bargaining.

We should also have equivalent voice

Here, Modi does not just mean negotiations and importance. He means the humiliation, unilaterally pushed on (non-binding as they may be) initiatives, the talking down to and general apathy that these poor-big nations face. There is effectively this bit which goes : "If you're going to chide me every time I visit you club, then I don't want to be part of your club."

'Being spoken down to' feels especially rich coming from the 1st world because they are often to blame for or have taken advantage of similar setups already. Low-emissions nations being asked to be sustainable so western-gas-guzzlers can live a happy life. Or complaints about de-forestration, when the 1st world chopped its own trees with reckless abandon during its industrialization. Or the judgement passed towards the pollution of the rivers that is partially tied to 1st world clothing companies having terrible waste disposal practices in their 3rd world plants. It is irritating to see the imposition of western social ideas (Wokeism) or being given ranks based on scales that prioritize western sensibilities.

None of these are about influence. It is about not optics, and optics are far easier to control with numbers if you so wish to leverage them.

escape the cycle of dependency

Modi correctly points out that post-WW2 institutions are primarily concerned with maintaining peace and status quo. IE. maintaining western hegemony. Modi's suggestion is to demand inclusion or push for the formation of parallel institutions that prioritize the interests of these nations in the global south.

Now 1st world countries have a lot to lose here. A lot of their economies are based on maintaining a perception of superiority. If European cuisine, culture, architecture & luxury goods stop being seen as high class, then they suddenly cannot demand the kind of absurd margins and prices that they demand.

If countries of the global south can provide each other with economic guarantees, then that allows them to strike out more favorable deals with the 1st world.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

That is part of the negotiation too. The soft threat that so many refugees will flood your beautiful 1st world countries that you won't know what to do.

Influence is earned, not given

I would rephrase it a little bit : "Influence is seized, and then held on to tightly". The global south isn't asking for influence, they are trying to test the waters on what will allow them to seize it. Germany and Japan should have more power by their economic sizes too, but the post-ww2 suppression and papa-USA means that they are reluctant to do so.

You might complain about economic per-capita differences, but the UK sits as a permanent member of the UNSC not because it has earned power. But, it is because it seized it post-ww2 and is now holding onto it tightly until another country chooses to seize it.

Here, Modi does not just mean negotiations and importance. He means the humiliation, unilaterally pushed on (non-binding as they may be) initiatives, the talking down to and general apathy that these poor-big nations face. There is effectively this bit which goes : "If you're going to chide me every time I visit you club, then I don't want to be part of your club."

I don't think Modi actually means to do anything he's saying here. He doesn't give a shit about other third world countries he just wants to tap into anti-colonialist sentiment that is still strong in India. For one thing a lot of those other third world countries are Muslims and the Muslims and Modis Hindutva party hate each other. India and China also hate each other. In lots of other third world countries Indians are market dominated minorities despised by the natives. There isn't any real plan here to unite the third world against the first and if anything India is best served by demanding a seat at the table in the first world.

I have a feeling India and Islamic 3rd world countries would butt heads with or without Hindu Nationalist politics in India. I mean, didn't they fight 3/4 wars with Pakistan during the INC era including the largest one (1971)? And of course, it's not like the Islamic countries themselves are united in any way, most recently demonstrated by the uptick in hostilities between Pakistan and the Taliban.

A market that negotiates as a block, represents its buying power and influence as a block. The EU exists for a reason. Global consumerism means that powerful developed countries rely on access to big market blocks like India to keep their profits high.

That doesn't really ring true. India is a net importer, but not from western countries, and many western countries are also net importers.

India is effectively asking the global-south to present as a more unified negotiating block, that allows for more favorable terms due to collective bargaining.

Which is not realistic because they don't share common economic interests. The Western world contains both importers (the US and UK) and exporters (Germany, the Netherlands), while the 'global South' does the same.

The real negotiation here is : India closing itself off and accepting a QOL hit, while lost sales hurt the exporting 1st world's industries.

Indians are not splurging on American movies and European wine. India mostly imports important economic inputs - machinery, energy, raw materials and fertilizer. Protecting domestic markets from foreign competition can be advantageous in some cases, but it's not really clear what the goal would be. There's no point in cutting off oil imports if your country can't produce it's own oil.

Ethiopia seems to be getting better. Pakistan clearly has the potential to, even if it’s not exactly improving right now. Of course Egypt and Nigeria are trainwrecks, though.

If you broaden to include middle income countries, Mexico and South Africa are the only two big ones that seem to be notably getting worse, although Russia and Brazil sized caveats are glaring.

mexico

I'm out of the loop, what's going on there?

Cartel violence.

Open cartel warfare is starting to spill over into locations where tourists notice it.

Ethiopia seems to be getting better.

Relative to when? I agree that they're doing better than during their most recent civil war, but that ended just 2 months ago.

What do you think Modi should have said? ’We suck and will never amount to anything’? Of course Modi the (Hindu) Indian nationalist is going to chart out a path to power and glory for the country he leads.

I am not so sure about that.

Eastern Africa & SEA have strong Indian influenced cultural roots (esp. SEA). The food, the importance of the family unit, the pagan roots, all have very clear similarities.

Then you have secondary similarities, such as a history with colonization & general similarities that come with living in tropical climates.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest. We have lived in a world order in which a liberal elite class in a few major cities have wanted a world consisting of atomized consumers in a global market managed by a few large institutions in the west such as NATO, the world bank and the IMF. The ideas to really turn the world into americanized urban sprawl in which we are all free to choose what Hollywood sequel we want to watch and what Nestlé product to consume.

This worked when the rest of the world was entirely dependent on the west. Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

In the 50s militaries either faught with western weapons, Sovjet weapons or laughably obsolete weapons. This isn't true anymore as the west has had real difficulty even against the taliban and countries like Iran, China, Pakistan, India etc have improved their arms industries and militaries by leaps and bounds.

What Modi is saying is that the world no longer is Goldman Sachs, the state department and people in the City of London. Their power levels aren't dwarfing China's. The rural Americans that the US sent to Iraq to ensure that Iraq was inline with American interests would be much less friendly to the coastal elites and less willing to fight today. If anything the elites in the west are having an increasingly difficult managing their own countries let alone an empire which maintenance costs are shooting through the roof. Empires tend not to be defeated by getting steamrolled by an enemy army as much as declining due to rising costs of maintaining the empire. Taiwan has gone from being a cash cow to a major liability for the US. Defending American influence over Ukraine is causing all sorts of economic mayhem and is draining western stockpiles of military hardware.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

This isn't so much the west vs south as global financial elite vs the rest.

The elephant curve implies that the objective interests of the various social classes don't line up this way. During the neoliberal era (roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present), the big picture in global inequality is:

  • The "tail" of the elephant consisting of poor people in poor countries which are not developing due to civil wars or such like: 5-15% of the world's population depending on how you count.

  • The "body" of the elephant consisting of the respectable working and middle class in rapidly growing economies including China, who are experiencing rapid income growth: c.60% of the world's population

  • The "neck" of the elephant - around the 80th-90th percentile of the world's population we see very low income growth, driven by the bottom 80% in rich countries who have been the main losers of globalisation.

  • The "trunk" of the elephant - the top few percent (including most of the top 20% in rich countries) who are doing well, with the top 1% doing better still and the super-rich making out like bandits.

The idea of an alliance between the "body" and the "neck" against the "trunk" to repeal neoliberal globalisation doesn't make sense. And if you look at what Modi is saying, he isn't saying that. The demand isn't "reverse neoliberal globalisation" it is "give me money". The anti-globalisation faction in Indian politics is peasant advocates, because Indian peasants are part of the "tail".

Banana republics either had to accept the trade deals they were offered or go back to the 1700s. They sold bananas to the west that were delivered on GM trucks using Exxon's oil and that were paid for with US dollars using american financial institutions. The profits were used to buy goods made in the US. Today Huawei telecom products are used to sell bananas shipped on Chinese ships using Saudi oil and profits are used to buy clothes from Cambodia and software from India.

The problem with Banana republics isn't that they could only trade with one partner, it's that their elites are able to extract all the natural resource wealth and are anti-incentivized to educate their populace. Being able to trade with different countries that give even less of a shit what they do to their slaves doesn't really spell their ascension.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

Modi isn't envisioning India and Nigeria running the world together in a revanchist alliance, he is telling the people who live on a skyscraper on Manhattan that the world doesn't revolve around them.

The response of the global south to the world no longer revolving around safe manhatten board rooms should properly be terror and trembling, not triumphalist speeches.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets and the price of energy rises for developing countries multiplying their problems.

In other words a world in which countries aren't dependent on the US for oil It is essentially like not being on a bus where one person has a gun and everyone else is unarmed. It is a world in which countries have their own ability to protect their oil shipments, write their own laws and aren't controlled by an american elite who rig global trade in their favour. It is a world in which millions of Iraqis won't be bombed to death, a world in which European countried don't have to ask the US for permission to sell things in the middle east, and a world in which companies don't have to dance to the tune of wall streets ESG-ratings.

It is a fundamental prerequisite for sovereignty in this world and for the survival of what makes our countries unique so that we don't all become a giant wallmart.

A world without western hegemony isn't a many polar world where poor countries take an equal place at the top, it's one where the US no longer protects oil shipments from the middle east along the somali coast if they aren't bound for US controlled markets

I have never understood if Zeihan seriously thinks this is a hard problem or merely uses it as a way to gesture at an entire class of unclear novel threats.

Poor countries could hire Wagner or something to hunt pirates. In a world without Western hegemony these challenges would be possible to solve on a functional safety market.

I think this is ignoring the obvious, opposite incentive- Saudi wants to be able to ship their oil safely, so they're incentivized to suppress piracy. They will probably choose far less humane means to do so than the USA would, partly because the Saudi military is built around terror to incentivize accepting Saudi bribes, but a bunch of Somali camel herders being ruled under a brutal islamic theocracy that bans sea travel is not terribly relevant to goings on in the capitals of the world.

When you have a hegemon above the conflict you really do prevent a lot of incentive patterns from forming. If there is no world police committed to totally free trade to appeal to what actually stops state level piracy or looting? Sure, you can hire some mercs to stop some small time Somalis on fishing boats but what happens when Japan notices that their idle navy can keep themselves sharp by doing a little state supported piracy? What if china decides to do this? Who is going to stop them?

This is the old stationary vs roving bandit thing. The Japanese don’t want to pirate so much that they stop shipping activity altogether, because this would be a loss for them. Instead, they want to introduce moderate tax, extracted by threat of their state approved piracy. This is, of course, bad, but this is not much different than the status quo, it’s just the tax proceeds will go to different recipients.

Influence is earned, not given

Influence is won and lost, and even the top dogs don't always get to set terms.

If Third World countries want to demand the West make good on its humanitarian promises, promises upon which the soft power of the latter largely depends, then either the West makes good or people learn not to take their humanitarian promises seriously. A space opens up for China to step in.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

If that tension can't safely be ignored, then maybe the Third World countries are correctly assessing a growing power to make demands. In the age of mass immigration and poor integration a population disparity seems like quite the weak point.

He explicitly says why, in the portion you quote: he says that they "have the largest stakes in the future." The article also quotes him as saying, "Most of the global challenges have not been created by the Global South. But they affect us more. . . . The search for solutions also does not factor in our role or our voice." He could not be more clear what his rationale is. Your implicit argument that economic activity should be the only determinant of whether a country's citizen "matters" does not address his argument at all. It is also a silly argument to make re India in particular, given that it is 6th in the world in total GDP.

Given disparate birth rates over the world, a growing imbalance between countries who hold the actual power versus where most of humanity will increasingly be located could lead to increased international tension.

Well, the solution to that problem would seem to be obvious: Give them more actual power, starting by giving countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria seats on the Security Council and taking similar steps re other international organizations and international agreements.

It is also a silly argument to make re India in particular, given that it is 6th in the world in total GDP.

I explicitly wrote that I was pretty optimistic about India and centered my argument around countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria. Do read carefully.

Well, the solution to that problem would seem to be obvious: Give them more actual power, starting by giving countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Nigeria seats on the Security Council and taking similar steps re other international organizations and international agreements.

Right... except geopolitics isn't run on charity. You get a seat at the table if you can wrangle your way there. Thus far, most of the Third World is too weak and incapable of doing that, which contrasts with the "our time has come" rhetoric. It clearly hasn't and may in fact never. There's no reason to expect someone else to voluntarily do your heavy lifting for you, which appears to be the underlying premise of a lot of these arguments.

Right... except geopolitics isn't run on charity.

No one said it was. You seem to think that an increase in international tensions would be a bad thing, including for current "winners." So, pure self-interest is a sufficient reason to give those countries more power.

There's no reason to expect someone else to voluntarily do your heavy lifting for you

I agree. This is precisely why I refuse to help old ladies carry their shopping up the stairs of the subway.

More seriously, the source of your befuddlement at the speech in question is that you value different things. Whether the current geopolitical structure benefits actual human beings, as opposed to states, seems not to be a question that is relevant to you. Other people might think differently.

Im a little hungover and decided to open up my phone.

No of course not. A poor maga voice in the rust belt matters more than some Indian aristocrats in global affairs. That’s the way the world works. Between a combination of hbd being real (so Africa will never matter) and people respecting history that America inherited and carried western civilization.

America has an internal cultural war but it’s our war to fight internally. The rest of you just get to cheer on a side. And I don’t think it’s as one sided as it feels like some times. Elon Musks did not choose the maga side (whatever that means) because he thinks it’s a loser despite elites on the other side capturing nearly every elite institution. He’s generally not a loser.

And yes maga and pcm would reunite the second they think their dominance is under threat. Losing to the other sucks but losing to China is even worse.

A plumber in Grand Rapids Michigan cares as much as a NYT Ivy League columnist that an American matters more than a x,y,z aristocrat somewhere else and if that ever got challenged they would unite.

Musk is on team "Maga" for the same reason 1st and 2nd generation immigrants to the west tend to be anti-woke. They came to the place for the blackjack and hookers and here you have it some of the natives want to ban day drinking and titty bars.

America has an internal cultural war but it’s our war to fight internally.

It's not an internal culture war when America is the largest cultural exporter in the world, it's become a global culture war. Those fights are being exported all over the globe. There were BLM protests in places like Finland and Ireland. The rest of the world (or the West, at least) is part of the fight now whether you or they want it or not.

Partial agree with the caveat that it goes both ways- Ireland has BLM protests but Africa has mega churches that wouldn’t look out of place in a sun belt suburb, country music jumped the language barrier, and rodeo is proportionately more popular in Brazil than the USA. Really there’s a fight between the NYC cultural package and the Texas cultural package and it very well could go either way.

We really would benefit from having LW-style separate upvotes for liking and agreeing.

Well you should like it too (assuming that’s your meaning) it’s not like western civ is bad and we have to carry and promote that.

Nah, I viscerally dislike the image of either maga or wokes (or their unholy union) asserting dominance over humanity. But more importantly I reject your claim to stewardship of the West – and the self-serving belief in this stewardship being beneficial for the West or for the rest. You're going to hell in a handbasket, taking us with you, and not letting anyone leave.

The latest drama is a case in point. Bostrom is part of the best that the West has to offer. He has developed his views in Sweden and in England. It takes the black-obsessed, anti-intellectual American purity spiral to drag him through the mud. You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West, you're something new and simultaneously ancient – simpler, stronger, cruder, driven by primitive taboos and collective hysterias, and unlike similar archaic resurgencies in other places, entirely invulnerable to reality checks. Carl Jung would attribute this to «spiritual negrification», and Hlynka would boast (perhaps misleadingly) of being an «inbred degenerate» and Scott would speak of Moloch, but there's little point: might as well blame Tezcatlipoca. Drag Queen Story Hour isn't a Western thing, and Megachurches are even less so, and you're right they do have more in common than they have with Western debauchery and religion, respectively. To the extent that you define the West with your gimmicky fascinations, you brutalize it. And you take pride in your dominant brutality. This, too, is ancient.

You should have had a few more centuries of isolationism to figure out some bearable attitude. It's too bad that history is ending in this generation, under your yoke.

You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West, you're something new and simultaneously ancient – simpler, stronger, cruder, driven by primitive taboos and collective hysterias, and unlike similar archaic resurgencies in other places, entirely invulnerable to reality checks.

Reminds me of that book review of The Dawn of Everything on ACX, where the author described the "sapience trap"(?) as being, in all likelihood, a sociality trap where reputation was the biggest currency of all.

You folks aren't really Western, at least not post-Enlightenment West

And we would also benefit from having a special BASED upvote.

Can geopolitics also be culture war? I'd argue yes.

Not so much that it should matter in actual policy formulation. These remarks seem to solely be pointed at a domestic audience, just like their MEA Jaishankar's remarks vis-a-vis Ukraine which seem to be increasingly pro-Russia rather than neutral. There does seem to be a populist streak to it.

But the new world order is supposedly emerging as western influence in global politics is increasingly under challenge, not by the Third World but only by China and Russia. They're well aware that the US cannot contain China's influence anymore, they're hedging one superpower against another, not themselves. It's also worth noting that much of these countries are only "united" in their hostility towards the west, but if they wish to take authority over their own fates and become power players that matter, they'll have to confront the internal strife and frustration that plague them through no fault of the west. You're responsible for all your historical achievements but your current failings have to be pinned on an external force? Not how it works. I still see the future power dynamic looking like this: the US shall remain dominant in the west, China in the east, India remaining a distant third, while the rest of the world won't even be in the race.

These remarks seem to solely be pointed at a domestic audience,

If you're a politician and you say something in public as part of politics, people are entitled to act as if you believe it.

It is true that there's a long history of politicians saying things they don't believe, but that's the politician hacking the system. They're not actually supposed to do that in an ideal system, and if the lies can be heard by other people than the intended audience and these people find them to be hostile, then tough, the politician shouldn't be lying in the first place.

Nobody is entitled to have their lies heard only by the people who would look upon them favorably. And that's what "he's only saying it for domestic consumption" means.

My question is, what makes people living in Third World countries think that just because they are numerous, that means they count?

Pro-democracy memes blared all over the world by richer countries?

"You should get what you want because you're more numerous" is the raison d'etrê of the West's whole system of government. The system of government they keep forcing on other countries through both soft and hard power

Or to put it another way - they understandably but naively listened to and believed the West.

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