How far are we away from Armageddon?

[Downunder Dolphan]

This is a heavy topic to drop on a sports board of Americans.. but then a few of you may actually use a brain cell to think about it.

I was born very late 1960s, I grew up in the cold war through my teens (I missed the bay of pigs incident, but was there on the next edge of WW3 in the early Reagan '80s)

There has been a lull since the fall of the Berlin Wall & Communism in the late 80s, a time of relative global stability - apart from 9/11 there hasn't been a lot to brown your shorts about. But in that space, a building tsunami of corruption, manipulation and inequity (fueling the former two) have grown.   

This is a really concerning time right now. War in Eastern Europe. War in the Middle East. Dictators to the left, Dictators to the right... a wanna be Dictator on your doorstep there in the USA, and the only thing stopping it is a senile old fart. Not ideal.

As per the title, how close are we to a global war and everything being totally fucked? As a hypothetical, China sees the USA over stretched to the middle east and decides to take Taiwan. Trump gets elected and pulls the funding to defend Ukraine (and presumably Poland, and anywhere else in Europe his mate Vlad decides to invade to reclaim the old Soviet Union)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism, I never thought I would ever bring this up to anyone. The situations in Ukraine, Gaza and the middle east, the USA election... how can you not think about any of this unless you are (or choose to be) an absolute idiot? Or just don't care... in which case if your world collapses, you have it coming to you.

 

[Dave Gray]

When I think about World Destruction type of stuff, it seems that we wouldn't get there from war, but from a zealot or someone mentally ill or a martyr in a dictator position.

If Biden goes totally off his rocker crazy and woke up tomorrow and wanted to nuke the whole world, I don't think he could do it.  There are too many checks in place, both in his own circle, but in other parts of government, that theoretically would be able and willing to stop that.  And we, as a society, wouldn't be putting people in jail or executing them that stopped him from doing it.

I fear fully dictatorial governments, specifically those where there is some thinking by either the dictator or their people, that they are somehow agents of God and are in their position through divine means.  I think it's much more easy for that person to hit the red button without pushback.

But yeah -- death cult.  Like if David Koresh had the power of Kim Jong Un.  Anytime there aren't checks on power, that person could have a psychotic break and launch all the nukes.

Religion is also a problem -- by and large, I think that people like power and they use religion as a tool to gain support, but they themselves are not ABSOLUTE true believers.  This is true in the USA, but also in these Middle Eastern countries run by Muslim extremists.  I don't think that many of them practice or truly believe what they preach.  But not always.  You start to get the absolute true believers who think they are God's messengers and would be happy to kill themselves and the rest of you to send the right people to heaven or hell, respectively.  That shit is scary.

[masterfins]

When I think about World Destruction type of stuff, it seems that we wouldn't get there from war, but from a zealot or someone mentally ill or a martyr in a dictator position.

I was born in 1966, so went through the end cold war stuff also, but never thought anything would lead to an Armageddon; of course I was young then.  Like Dave said I think there would have to be a really crazy zealot or mentally ill person for it to happen.  Iran has some nuts but they know better.  Putin is a bit of a zealot but He knows better, and hopefully people around him would stop him if he went to launch nuclear weapons.  N. Korea has had some crazy leaders, and they keep their citizens so isolated from the outside world, and feed them misinformation about the world; so they are the most worrisome to me.  China is the most powerful country, besides the US, but they seem content to just occupy their part of the world; other than they want total control of Taiwan.

I think for it to happen it would be some small issue that would snowball from retaliations, and then other countries would think they could take advantage of the situation.

[CF DolFan]

The US could be destroyed from the inside out. Currently 43.4 million acres of the US are foreign owned. China has 400,000 acres with some right next to some of our military institutes. I don't think we do enough to protect our own interests.

Secondly, 3 companies basically own everything and control what we see and hear.  BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. Whenever they decide to screw us they will and there is nothing we can do about it. The US gives billions to Ukraine and who does the Ukraine give it to? Yep, Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. They also control our media so we will do it again and again.

[Spider-Dan]

The US could be destroyed from the inside out. Currently 43.4 million acres of the US are foreign owned. China has 400,000 acres with some right next to some of our military institutes. I don't think we do enough to protect our own interests.

For context, the total acreage of the United States is approximately 2.26 billion.  If your 43.4 million stat is accurate, this would put the foreign-owned area of the US at 1.92%, with the China-owned area weighing in at 0.017%.

I don't know how far you live from the nearest military base, but I live a little under 4 miles from the Air Force's west coast hub at Travis AFB, and I can tell you that local government is VERY restrictive of any land use that might encroach upon the base's future ability to expand.  This is not even a national security issue; more like a "You don't mess with the hand that feeds you" issue (especially after NorCal had 3 nearby bases closed in the '90s).  So I don't think encroaching on military institutes is as much of a concern as you imply.

[Fau Teixeira]

I live a few miles from both the US Submarine base in Groton and the coast guard academy. You don't just waltz into those places, there's access controls upon access controls to get in.

[Sunstroke]

The US could be destroyed from the inside out. Currently 43.4 million acres of the US are foreign owned. China has 400,000 acres with some right next to some of our military institutes. I don't think we do enough to protect our own interests.

Secondly, 3 companies basically own everything and control what we see and hear.  BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. Whenever they decide to screw us they will and there is nothing we can do about it. The US gives billions to Ukraine and who does the Ukraine give it to? Yep, Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. They also control our media so we will do it again and again.

This sounds like some of the happy horseshit pushed by Q-anon...

[Downunder Dolphan]

When I think about World Destruction type of stuff, it seems that we wouldn't get there from war, but from a zealot or someone mentally ill or a martyr in a dictator position.

If Biden goes totally off his rocker crazy and woke up tomorrow and wanted to nuke the whole world, I don't think he could do it.  There are too many checks in place, both in his own circle, but in other parts of government, that theoretically would be able and willing to stop that.  And we, as a society, wouldn't be putting people in jail or executing them that stopped him from doing it.

I fear fully dictatorial governments, specifically those where there is some thinking by either the dictator or their people, that they are somehow agents of God and are in their position through divine means.  I think it's much more easy for that person to hit the red button without pushback.

But yeah -- death cult.  Like if David Koresh had the power of Kim Jong Un.  Anytime there aren't checks on power, that person could have a psychotic break and launch all the nukes.

Religion is also a problem -- by and large, I think that people like power and they use religion as a tool to gain support, but they themselves are not ABSOLUTE true believers.  This is true in the USA, but also in these Middle Eastern countries run by Muslim extremists.  I don't think that many of them practice or truly believe what they preach.  But not always.  You start to get the absolute true believers who think they are God's messengers and would be happy to kill themselves and the rest of you to send the right people to heaven or hell, respectively.  That shit is scary.

There is a major decay in what we call democracy - in the old Westminster system, there was a key thing about the separation of powers allowing real democracy to exist. Religion, Politics and the Judiciary/Police all have to act independently so every voice could be allowed to exist in a free society. When one is allowed to contaminate and/or control the other parts, any minority voices are silenced and effectively snuffed out. That allows tyranny to happen.

That's what's happening in one form or another right now: Politics and or religion (or specifically someone adapt at manipulating both those in their interest) with the legal/police system being compromised in the process and eroding any kind of checks and balances. Media has a massive part in this too, especially when it is not truly independent and tied into/dictated to by political and religious factions. A lack of any kind of real independent voice is a quick way to snuff out any kind of resistance to overwhelming power.

Early this week here in Australia the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull openly questioned if the USA was drifting away from a genuine democracy towards and Autocracy - and noted that Trump (while in his presence as a world leader) seemed to be in awe of the likes of Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping. Dictators, War Criminals and Butchers. Democracy via eliminating their opponents, and collecting votes via gunpoint at the doorstep of voters.

It's the sort of thing that would be thought of as insane and impossible years ago... but it's somehow plausible now.

[Dave Gray]

Democracy is like a marriage.  You have to want it and always work to justify its existence.  You can't just set it and forget it.

My biggest concern right now is that not enough people actually want a Democracy.  So much of how this country has worked for the last 200+ years is that we just sorta assumed that these things like checks and balances and the rule of law were set.  But they're not.  Laws don't matter if those who have to uphold them don't.  Checks and balances don't work if they aren't used.

So, we have some work to do in terms of solidifying these norms if we are to get this thing back and working again.

[Spider-Dan]

Demographic change is leading to the dominant group in American society losing their political clout; they don't always get what they want anymore.  The tipping point seems to have been Obama's re-election: his election could be explained by a Great Recession fluke, but when Standard Republican Mitt Romney lost to him in 2012, sirens went off.  It was a so-called "Flight 93 moment," justifying the use of any and all tactics to maintain dominance in our society.  The guardrails are long gone; they now openly cheer a candidate's direct promises to be a dictator.  Power is all that matters.

[Downunder Dolphan]

Democracy is like a marriage.  You have to want it and always work to justify its existence.  You can't just set it and forget it.

My biggest concern right now is that not enough people actually want a Democracy.  

That's a huge concern globally. People want fairness, and something representing their values - and when left with a total vacuum of choice, they either give up or pick the least worst option.

It leaves a space for populists to occupy no matter their honesty or real motives. In Europe (and increasingly here in Australia) minor parties are given an increasing proportion of the vote - and that's not necessarily a bad thing, because that's the way a real democracy representing a wide range of voices fairly should work. But when one extreme position (particularly one based on religion or privilege) takes control of not only Government, but also the media, legal and police/military, then that's not democracy. It's something to be worried about.

[Downunder Dolphan]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-08/north-korea-rhetoric-change-south-russia-vladimir-putin/103558314

Another bit of global instability to throw into the pot... it may be a reaction to the (genuinely democratically elected) South Korea Govt backing away from the idea of any unification. Or it could be one of the Dictators seeing signs of global instability, and going on to a war footing while the rest of the West is stretched between Ukraine and the Middle East.

If the latter is true, look for China making plans for Taiwan... if they are not already (spoiler alert... they are).

[Downunder Dolphan]

Demographic change is leading to the dominant group in American society losing their political clout; they don't always get what they want anymore.  The tipping point seems to have been Obama's re-election: his election could be explained by a Great Recession fluke, but when Standard Republican Mitt Romney lost to him in 2012, sirens went off.  It was a so-called "Flight 93 moment," justifying the use of any and all tactics to maintain dominance in our society.  The guardrails are long gone; they now openly cheer a candidate's direct promises to be a dictator.  Power is all that matters.

The point has to be when the separation of powers are compromised. That's when democracy dies. When politicians stack/influence the legal system to their advantage and take advantage of it, then it's compromised, bordering knackered. When the media is compromised or part of the whole process, then that's another layer that's stripped away from what a real democracy should have. The USA is a lot closer to that edge than what you guys want to think.

We have compulsory voting here in Australia which I think is a good thing. Everyone has to vote and has a reason to care for how they do it... if you don't like who gets elected, at least you know everyone got off their ass to do it, so it really will be the majority vote that you have to respect.

What really pisses me off is when people who do have the chance to vote, they don't do it, and then bitch about a Govt that got in who they don't like. Guess what? You're not in a country like Russia where troops go to your apartment, literally stick a gun against a temple and tell you to vote for Putin... so get off your ass and do something about it while you have privilege to do it. Or don't bitch about it because you're too lazy, or too stupid to care.

[CF DolFan]

For context, the total acreage of the United States is approximately 2.26 billion.  If your 43.4 million stat is accurate, this would put the foreign-owned area of the US at 1.92%, with the China-owned area weighing in at 0.017%.

I don't know how far you live from the nearest military base, but I live a little under 4 miles from the Air Force's west coast hub at Travis AFB, and I can tell you that local government is VERY restrictive of any land use that might encroach upon the base's future ability to expand.  This is not even a national security issue; more like a "You don't mess with the hand that feeds you" issue (especially after NorCal had 3 nearby bases closed in the '90s).  So I don't think encroaching on military institutes is as much of a concern as you imply.

Two things wrong with this assessment. 1 is that it doesn't take quantity of land but quality of land. Being in the right place has everything to do with it. The second thing is our military is eat up with foreign agents and even "Americans" who hate America so there's always inside help available to them.

[CF DolFan]

This sounds like some of the happy horseshit pushed by Q-anon.

Congrats to sticking to the liberal script. You don't agree so you all me crazy names as if that does anything. Hell... you guys destroyed more "bad" labels than the actual racists, bigots, and misogynists, could have ever hoped for. It means absolutely nothing to be called any of them .. all thanks to you guys who have no argument. For the record my personal favorite is watching liberal whites call black republicans white supremist. I really do laugh out loud every time.  

I know you don't want to hear it but this is Biblical in what's going down. I know how you love these stories I tell so I will indulge you. As we were drinking at the Cabbage Patch during Bike Week one of my atheist friends came up to me. I've known him since Elementary school. He said buddy, yo know I'm not religious but I know you are. I just have to say that you may be right because there is no way what is going on in today's world is not influenced by demonic power. He then went on to tell me all the crazy things he's been noticing. For instance, there is no way you can seriously call a man a women except by some demonic power and so on. So it's nice to see not only us "Q-anons" are seeing it.