This morning I achieved some clarity on the geopolitical context. While the following scenario is still below 30% confidence, it is beginning to separate itself from the many other scenarios and so is worth sharing more broadly. The primary method of this approach is empathic: assume the full frame of a given perspective (i.e., Putin, Xi) and look at the world entirely through their eyes. There are, of course, many other methods of making sense of the world and all have a role to play. But this approach yields useful results in the present context. The primary hypotheses of this scenario are as follows:
China's first step on Taiwan is probably Kinmen island (military outpost). 3mi off China's coast. Xi would consider it a good probe of what west has stomach for. Think China export will diminish when Apple and every other western consumerism machinery is fully dependent? US+west will not act because it has no leverage to.
This moment reminds me of the first week after any shock to the system when people wonder aloud if it will bring everyone to their senses...but in hindsight, everyone just doubles down.
I remember in the weeks after 9/11, Hollywood producers talked about not making the American government the corrupt enemy in so many movies that they sent overseas. In the first weeks of the COVID lockdowns, people wondered aloud if that "real crisis" would rescue us from Woke BS. We know how those moments of reflection turned out.
There's a good chance that the Western impotence we're witnessing will result in a doubling-down on the cultural rot we're seeing in our civilization. If we're in deep decline, why shouldn't we chop our kids' dicks off?
- Virtuals/Network disruption results from information-attention flowing around legacy hierarchies of curated expertise (more or less your "Blue church"?).
- Virtuals/Network disruption is a "wild west" frontier (or pirates on the high seas, 1700s-1800s) that is unregulated, free of legacy moral-institutional regulation by high-social-trust nation state institutions, which are failing, as you say, from disruption, corruption, etc.
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Physicals = nationalists, legacy Hierarchies (both mythic hierarchy and modern rationalism) / epistemic stasis
- Physicals/Hierarchies of curated expertise are Bernie Neville's (a Jean Gebser scholar) Prometheus/Apollo archetypes
Great article, Jordan! Covers the many questions we’ve all been asking ourselves (if we care about proper sense-making).
The great selling point of the Bretton Woods world, or the liberal internationalist order, is/was a stable network of trade and currency that manifests itself in arrangements like SWIFT. As per the Virtuals versus Physicals article, one realizes that this Western elite has little other option than to increasingly strain the very order it claims to promote an uphold, even if they realize what a strategic blunder it is. Our ground defense and weapons systems are in tatters (https://smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/us-not-ready-peer-peer-fight-europe), so
the Western political class is relies increasingly only on sanctions to punish enemies in an obligate manner.
Regarding collaboration between China and Russia:
If, for example, Russia is kicked off of SWIFT, causing the Ruble to collapse, it wouldn’t be absurd for Putin to approach Xi for a line of credit to help stabilize the Kremlin’s own affairs while it seeks more long-term solutions. Another possibility is for the Kremlin to invest in cryptocurrency solutions – more likely a CBDC than a decentralized flavor.
Regarding taking advantage of the ‘window of opportunity’:
Completely agree. I would add that, in addition to China pursuing Taiwan and Russia pursuing Ukraine, Iran want to aggress upon Israel. They will have a difficult time, as Israel has a more than capable defense force, including aerial patrol. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran tries some type of incursion, if only a cyber-infrastructure attack; if they do, it would be a good example of three forces moving together (independently, not explicitly jointly) but having a coordinated effect.
Really interesting observation that freedom and liberty is actually abnormal throughout human history. Current broad western adaptation likely a result of what the new world offered to the Europeans escaping from monarchies. High resources and insurmountable natural geographic protection of the new world offered US the ability to scale broadly globally. Looking at the long world history, whenever power reset occurs in region with long history, resulting dictatorship is quite common (and perhaps natural) Democracy is unnatural in power reset conflicts and probably random in the best case.
We, for example, value things like “individual rights” and “ethnic and cultural diversity”
The US has championed "individual rights" in the past, but promoted the "melting pot" immigration model. Canada, Australia and New Zealand traditionally did the same thing. Today, the US and the other three countries practice the suppression of the rights of the majority while promoting ethnic and cultural diversity of the other.
More than a probe. There is much in the open source literature that supports the position that it was a foregone conclusion, as evidenced by Biden's sanctioning of a "minor incursion" in a recent, regrettably too long ill-advised press conference.
I wish I had as low probabilities for worst case scenarios as you, Jordan.
To me, it seems that a small fire that had been burning bigger and bigger, yesterday had gasoline thrown on it and now it's too big to be put out. The whole world will now burn before it becomes a smouldering pile of embers.
I feel you know this too and that's why you've included China in the analysis. America will not give up hegemony without a fight.
The only escape I see is the people truly rising up and saying no. With force and to decentralise the centralisation that is marching us down the path we've walked before, but never with nukes on each side of us.
China's first step on Taiwan is probably Kinmen island (military outpost). 3mi off China's coast. Xi would consider it a good probe of what west has stomach for. Think China export will diminish when Apple and every other western consumerism machinery is fully dependent? US+west will not act because it has no leverage to.
This moment reminds me of the first week after any shock to the system when people wonder aloud if it will bring everyone to their senses...but in hindsight, everyone just doubles down.
I remember in the weeks after 9/11, Hollywood producers talked about not making the American government the corrupt enemy in so many movies that they sent overseas. In the first weeks of the COVID lockdowns, people wondered aloud if that "real crisis" would rescue us from Woke BS. We know how those moments of reflection turned out.
There's a good chance that the Western impotence we're witnessing will result in a doubling-down on the cultural rot we're seeing in our civilization. If we're in deep decline, why shouldn't we chop our kids' dicks off?
Sounds about right.
I commented on the Virtuals vs Physicals article as such:
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Virtuals = internationalists, emergent Network-Electronic-postmodern disruption (Bernie Neville Hermes archetype) / epistemic indeterminacy/relativism
- Virtuals/Network disruption results from information-attention flowing around legacy hierarchies of curated expertise (more or less your "Blue church"?).
- Virtuals/Network disruption is a "wild west" frontier (or pirates on the high seas, 1700s-1800s) that is unregulated, free of legacy moral-institutional regulation by high-social-trust nation state institutions, which are failing, as you say, from disruption, corruption, etc.
-----
Physicals = nationalists, legacy Hierarchies (both mythic hierarchy and modern rationalism) / epistemic stasis
- Physicals/Hierarchies of curated expertise are Bernie Neville's (a Jean Gebser scholar) Prometheus/Apollo archetypes
Great article, Jordan! Covers the many questions we’ve all been asking ourselves (if we care about proper sense-making).
The great selling point of the Bretton Woods world, or the liberal internationalist order, is/was a stable network of trade and currency that manifests itself in arrangements like SWIFT. As per the Virtuals versus Physicals article, one realizes that this Western elite has little other option than to increasingly strain the very order it claims to promote an uphold, even if they realize what a strategic blunder it is. Our ground defense and weapons systems are in tatters (https://smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/us-not-ready-peer-peer-fight-europe), so
the Western political class is relies increasingly only on sanctions to punish enemies in an obligate manner.
Regarding collaboration between China and Russia:
If, for example, Russia is kicked off of SWIFT, causing the Ruble to collapse, it wouldn’t be absurd for Putin to approach Xi for a line of credit to help stabilize the Kremlin’s own affairs while it seeks more long-term solutions. Another possibility is for the Kremlin to invest in cryptocurrency solutions – more likely a CBDC than a decentralized flavor.
Regarding taking advantage of the ‘window of opportunity’:
Completely agree. I would add that, in addition to China pursuing Taiwan and Russia pursuing Ukraine, Iran want to aggress upon Israel. They will have a difficult time, as Israel has a more than capable defense force, including aerial patrol. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran tries some type of incursion, if only a cyber-infrastructure attack; if they do, it would be a good example of three forces moving together (independently, not explicitly jointly) but having a coordinated effect.
interesting summary?
Krystal and Saagar on Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vEbUxwX-tA
Really interesting observation that freedom and liberty is actually abnormal throughout human history. Current broad western adaptation likely a result of what the new world offered to the Europeans escaping from monarchies. High resources and insurmountable natural geographic protection of the new world offered US the ability to scale broadly globally. Looking at the long world history, whenever power reset occurs in region with long history, resulting dictatorship is quite common (and perhaps natural) Democracy is unnatural in power reset conflicts and probably random in the best case.
We, for example, value things like “individual rights” and “ethnic and cultural diversity”
The US has championed "individual rights" in the past, but promoted the "melting pot" immigration model. Canada, Australia and New Zealand traditionally did the same thing. Today, the US and the other three countries practice the suppression of the rights of the majority while promoting ethnic and cultural diversity of the other.
Great thoughts.
Another deeper view, that might help increase the confidence in your synthesis (although this lacks the awareness regarding decentralized systems)
https://www.satyoga.org/blog/a-gods-eye-view-of-current-events/
More than a probe. There is much in the open source literature that supports the position that it was a foregone conclusion, as evidenced by Biden's sanctioning of a "minor incursion" in a recent, regrettably too long ill-advised press conference.
I wish I had as low probabilities for worst case scenarios as you, Jordan.
To me, it seems that a small fire that had been burning bigger and bigger, yesterday had gasoline thrown on it and now it's too big to be put out. The whole world will now burn before it becomes a smouldering pile of embers.
I feel you know this too and that's why you've included China in the analysis. America will not give up hegemony without a fight.
The only escape I see is the people truly rising up and saying no. With force and to decentralise the centralisation that is marching us down the path we've walked before, but never with nukes on each side of us.
Read Parag Khanna: The Future is Asian for similar thinking and larger geo-political context.