alt Hacker NewsI say this as an American... I can't help but feel that the US will be judged to have been on the wrong side of history in virtually every topic for which there are sides in the last decade if not longer. For reasons I don't understand, we seem to be actively and aggressively working to destroy our country and as many global institutions as we can.
Replies
Here's an hypothesis: A fundamental model of politics is similar to the model of innovation in markets: The status quo power and the challenger or disrupter power.
The status quo's power rests on its institutions, stability, and the fact that it is the social norm - generally humans are tied to social norms and attack anything that violates them. The challenger, to succeed, needs to disrupt the institutions, stability, and norms, and one tactic is to just constantly attack them, regardless of the consequences, as a means to the end of taking down the status quo and gaining power.
> For reasons I don't understand
History is full of examples, but maybe not explanations, of the type of behavior coming out of the current administration in the US. They’re not particularly special, or extraordinary, by any measure. They’ve simply made the decision to hit the “defect” button over and over again like a teenage boy discovering porn for the first time.
And since the adults that preceded them were reasonable and responsible, they built up plenty of rules and norms, creating many opportunities to now hit “defect”.