I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, reading, and generally catastrophizing (!) and honestly, I feel like I am quietly going insane...
You see, on the surface it looks like the world is going through a pandemic, most of us have been in lockdown, gradually these lockdowns are lifting and we are returning to "normal", albeit at great cost to our economies and standard of living, the full impact of which we are yet to see. But what I am also observing is a shift or balancing of power from a uni-polar world to a bi-polar, tri-polar or multi-polar world, what economists refer to as a "new world order" (not to be confused with common conspiracy theories). Basically, since the cold-war ended, the USA has been the dominant power in the world, economically, militarily and culturally. Because of this dominance, and because of the formation of the EU trading bloc which made war between states economically undesirable, those of us growing up in the West have been very fortunate in that we have not encountered war on home soil. What we are seeing now is the weakening of the USA both internally (race riots, economic depression) and internationally....The break-up of the EU partly triggered by Brexit...
Whilst all this is happening, Communist China has been emerging as an economic superpower which has quietly been doing deals with many countries to establish its presence in the world, under the guise of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative which is being marketed as a global infrastructure investment initiative that seeks to connect China to the rest of the world by land and sea by building cross continental rail lines and shipping ports, but is nothing more than China buying itself influence and territory in those countries, possibly with a view to prepare for war and expansion of their ethnostate. The only countries which seem to be pushing against this sinister land grab are the US, UK, Australia and India, but sadly Europe has already started doing deals with China. Eg, Greece selling of a majority share of Port of Piraeus to the Chinese. If you understand anything about the Chinese Communists, you will know that they care very little for human rights and are brutal in crushing dissent. They control their population by means of CCTV cameras and advanced surveillance software, as well as a social points system. They control the internet and citizens are fed state-produced "news". People are not allowed to criticise their government. It is an Orwellian dystopia. Maybe in the West, we have something not too similar? We just like to kid ourselves we have freedom....
In my pessimistic view of the world, I am seeing battle lines being drawn domestically along lines of race, religion, political leanings. Eg, am I the only one to notice the anger and tribalism around issues like Brexit, Right-wing vs Left-wing, rich vs poor, etc?? Are we going to see civil wars and more social unrest erupt once the full effects of the recession are felt? How are people going to treat one another in times of mass unemployment or food shortages? The clear leadership and sense of community that got people through WW2 is absent in modern day Britain.
With the US losing its position as "world's policeman", and the UN being toothless dog, does this mean we can expect more wars? More invasions? More loss of freedom?
Sorry for the long post. For several years, I have been interested in geopolitics and the more I learn, the more fearful and depressed I become.
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AIBU?
To feel extremely pessimistic about humanity's future
22 replies
yogz1976 · 03/06/2020 09:22
OP posts:
Am I being unreasonable?
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