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Western civilization peaked in the aughts―Gen Xers and older millenials will agree that much.
There was a lot more freedom then. The internet was populated by high IQ geeks & nerds, sophisticated enough to learn the intricacies of getting online and creating pages and blogs―you had to know your way around computers; everybody and their aunt weren’t online yet. No social media meant not catering to the lowest common denominator.
Anonymity was the rule and commonly accepted, not frowned upon. Moving money around anonymously was easy as well: remember e-gold and anonymous debit cards?
Though 9/11 was a traumatic event, its demonic spawn the PATRIOT Act would take years to take hold; freedom still increased:
a high point for freedom occurred in 2007, which then saw a steady decline through 2019, a period during which 78.6 percent of the world’s population experienced a fall in freedom. The subsequent precipitous descent in 2020 affected every region of the world, including rich and poor countries and democracies and nondemocracies, setting global freedom to a level far below what it was in 2000, previously the lowest point in the past two decades. (cato.org)
No surprise that the apex of freedom was 2007, what with the subprime crisis the next year and governments bailing out banks and devaluing currency everywhere. Then came the Plandemic and everybody was crying uncle and demanding even more government action.
Never letting a good crisis go to waste, world elites & governments now know they can create new crises to gain morepower. The fact that there occurred perhaps the fastest wealth transfer in history — from the poor & middle class to the elites — should tell you what it was all about.
What’s to come? I’m afraid governments will go supernova. People have been brainwashed into learned helplessness and to look for the governments to miraculously solve every problem, when it’s precisely government violence what’s creating all these problems.
Governments, being no more than “monopolies on violence,” think they can solve everything with violence: “If your only tool is a hammer…”. But there’s only so much violence can “solve.”
I reckon if the Huns were invading, sure, we’d need a monopoly on violence to face such a threat.
But you can’t build prosperity with violence. It’s just not the appropriate tool; you can’t paint a watercolor by banging with a hammer, and trying will only cause damage and disappointment.
I’m afraid the trends set in motion will probably last longer than our lifetimes. Technology will surely improve, but western civilization as a whole has started its decline. It will get messy. It will get ugly. It will last centuries. Like when Rome declined.
The hegemon parvenus — China, islam — are thrilled to have their day again in the world arena. They have the “will to live” we’ve already lost.
Mass migrations will reshape entire countries. Millions can’t be contained; they won’t be stopped. Many of those who migrate hate the people and way of life of where they’re going; their true intentions are “rape and pillage”, albeit in a sublimated manner via the welfare state.
Welfare states will collapse: not directly — transfers won’t stop — but via inflation. Civil unrest by rising prices will cause more government handouts, which will cause more currency devaluation, etc.
(BTW a good part of the collapse our civilization will be caused by the collapse of the currency. The two usually go together!)
Us common men can’t aspire to be spared the suffering. It’s our lot in the grand scheme of things. But there are a few things we can do to mitigate the damage:
God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change…
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next
.
Amen.