1032 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 6 Mar \ on: Chinese maglev hyperloop train hits 387 mph and could someday outpace a plane science
I think you are describing pre-WW2 America when elites openly complemented the fascists in Europe for their efficiency and order. In the U.S. FDR enacted many fascist policies and was extremely popular for it. Even if today we know that his policies prolonged the great depression and imprisoned many Japanese American's in prison camps.
All that to say I share your concern as we have been in this situation before. I have even heard seemingly intelligent people openly say we should copy China(they mean the CCP) in different ways. I have to say my confidence in the average American valuing liberty and freedom above order and control is low. Its based on many years of conversation and underlined by the Covid pandemic. Sure, plenty of people don't want someone else forcing them to do something they don't want to do but very few seem to be concerned with enforcing their will through force on others through the proxy of the state. We could go down a dark path. I believe we will. Just not sure how many more years of relative freedom we have left.
My hopefulness is not in the US though geopolitically speaking. I believe that other smaller nations that have longer memories and pain from living under socialism/communism/fascism will become beacons of liberty. We just do not appreciate our wealth and liberty in the U.S. We do not understand where it came from. We have been slowly killing it for decades.
I so often hear good people talk about the government doing this or that. Regulating this or that without even a thought of the default state of man. It is poverty and nakedness. Free trade and markets have allowed us to become extremely wealthy. We are slowly killing the golden goose. Wealth these days is just a given. It is just assumed there will always be some fat cat to tax. I can't help but imagine how much discovery and knowledge has been missed because many parts of the world have been under the thumbs of dictators and oppressive governments backed by "democracies". A young man from a poor nation could have come up with a cure for cancer had his nation had the infrastructure to provide education. Instead he has to think about where his next meal will come from. We have no idea what humanity is missing out on. Its why I'm so annoyed by the environmental movements obsession with taking away the tools that were used to build the industry in Europe and North America from the rest of the world. They are being cursed to live in the past while we live in the future. Seemly no thought goes into the tradeoffs of anything.
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