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Good episode. I am also getting more used to your measured way of speaking, which is actually somewhat calming. Close to "mantra-like" :-)

This episode also explains a lot about politics today that I really did not want to admit or consider. Plus it coincides with all the cynics out there who exclaim that today our politics is all about the money, not the values of our founding nor what is good/ better for most or all folks today. Also it indicates our way out of this is going to be even more complicated and less assured than we might have otherwise hoped, whichever side of the party divide we might be on.

This video convinced me to buy The Politics Industry (used). Presumably I will end up buying your 3rd book eventually, too. But I have enough books stacked up to read if/when I can ever tear myself away from the computer and the internet. :-(

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Good luck, Michael! Alas, I strongly doubt America is going to recover, because A) where we are now is a natural consequence of the values and history of the last 250 years, and B) the landscape has now changed in such a way that a return to the starting conditions is not possible, even if it were desirable.

I definitely don't mind that people maintain an optimistic mindset, but at this point I do think the best strategies will be diversifying one's investments, finding ways to educate children overseas, and planning ahead for difficult times to come, because America will not recover: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/america-will-not-recover

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Trust me, if the USA goes downhill, then every other nation will get much worse as well.

https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-united-states-is-indispensable

In such a situation, we will be pushed back to basic geography, which gives the USA enormous advantage.

https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-geography-of-american-progress

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> Trust me, if the USA goes downhill, then every other nation will get much worse as well.

I think that's a pretty likely outcome, yes.

> In such a situation, we will be pushed back to basic geography, which gives the USA enormous advantage.

I appreciate your giving those links! Here I agree more tentatively. It looks like you weight various factors differently from the way that I would. At the very least, national unity is important, and unity is declining in the US, with no signs of a turnaround that I can detect.

If there were other some other large nation such as China, India, or Russia capable of slipping into first place, our global civilization might simply have shifted towards those locations. That's actually what I was expecting around 5 years ago. However, despite signs of possible change (e.g. China's recent industrialization) current trends in those countries suggest a continuation of previous patterns, and an inability to provide global leadership. Predicting the future is extremely hard, but so far as I can tell, growth seems likely to stall, and tilt slightly back towards Europe. Perhaps ironically, the fragmentation of Europe may give it a leg up against a declining United States - so long as the US remains intact, its social problems will spread more rapidly across the entire 50 states.

Unless the ceiling on LLMs is higher than it seems, in which case who knows; artificial intelligence may yet turn out to be an absolute game-changer. Do you have an opinion about this?

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I generally do not try to predict the future. Understanding the past and the present is hard enough for me.

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PS: "Read the text transcript by clicking the tab above" I think this tab is only visible on, or applies at, the web site view, not the emailed view. Perhaps that could/ should be clarified?

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Good point. Thanks for the tip.

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