Thread

1. roenxi · 1790756315 · focus · HN ↗

   > Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.

   Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.

   Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.

   1. graemep · 1790761164 · focus · HN ↗

      Last century saw two world wars, followed by the cold war which could have lead to the end of the world. Also a wave of communist revolutions and their aftermath (famines and purges in the Soviet Union, The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the death of a quarter of the population of the world).

      I think mismanagement is not accurate. The Soviet system was flawed and inefficient and could not compete. The European empires were made untenable by the world moving on: economic, technological and political changes.

      I think Europe and America had a golden age when they were at peace and dominated the world economically from the 80s to this century, and forgot neither of these is a given.

      1. graemep · 1790779667 · focus · HN ↗

         OOps, I meant to type death of a quarter of the population of Cambodia, not the world!

         Too late to edit now.

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