Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

The powers that be in Beijing and China must be pinching themselves; none of their predecessors had gotten this fortunate, for this long. Every day the US leadership appears committed to demolishing its outward image of a prosperous and stable democratic order. Meanwhile, they can continue running roughshod over political opposition and bullying their neighbours, totally unopposed.

Russia has used the past 15 years to take South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Crimea and cement Putin's now-lifetime grip on domestic institutions.

China, free of US pressure has refined its global logistics and supply chains, increased its military buildup and has becomes the world's go to vendor for 5G solutions. While also keeping Taiwan, HK, Xinjiang and South China Sea firmly under its thumb.

Meanwhile, the US stumbles from crisis to crisis, with a good chunk of its 99% literate population now thinking that mail-in ballots, a cornerstone of its voting system are rife with fraud, and that wearing masks is a political stance.

Oh, and Hacker News, in response to the country's chief executive's blustering about closing down social media, ponders if fact-checking is a 'solved problem'.

American dominance was pure luck after escaping from WWII unscathed and in a relatively strong financial position. The major economically prodictive technologies we rely on today came of age in the first half of last century and we used them to build an inefficient glass castle without considering the deleterious effects of rapid population growth or hyperconnectedness of human minds.

The political order the US created under those circumstances is unraveling. Americans across the US should be focused on making the communities they live in food-secure and energy-independent. It's time to plan for environmental and economic resilience. The next century will be rocky and the US is unprepared. The US will not be the largest producer in the world, but if we can revitalize local production then we can at least be the hardest to kill. The revolution we need it localism.

> The revolution we need is localism.

Agreed. All politics is local after all. The problem is that the economic incentives are pointed in the polar opposite direction. Startups can't get funding if their ambitions are limited to their city, or even within the borders of their country.

As was mentioned in an article I can't locate, a lot of the world's top technical talent is stuck working at well paid jobs, on products that simply don't matter relative to the challenges humanity is facing.

Startups are hard but if we want to escape the cult of Silicon Valley, we need to put in the effort and make progress without them. It's so strange to me as someone living thousands of miles from California and New York, I know more names of people popular in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and NYC than in my own state. How did that come to be, what can be done to fix it? I believe there is relatively low-hanging fruit that can start making a dent in these problems.

I also don't feel bad for tech talent getting fat off ad revenue. There are alternatives that contribute more to society but you have to be willing to sacrifice for them.