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wormlord ◴[] No.43693350[source]
I think the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires. The issues with the US being the reserve currency has been known for a while now (and was even predicted by Keynes before the Bretton-Woods summit):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma

Any discussion of "bringing back manufacturing" that doesn't mention government spending or social programs to educate and upskill the population is not genuine. The current leadership are fools and ideologs who will only hasten the decline, which might actually be better globally if it lowers emissions. Time will tell I guess.

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Herring ◴[] No.43693440[source]
Empires come and go, that's just a fact of life. The question was whether they'd fall back relatively gracefully like (Western) Europe, now with multiple countries ranking at the top of "World's Happiest Countries", or whether they'll become Russia 2.0 with the biggest guns, richest oligarchs, and the worst quality of life.

It's still far from played out, but right now they're solidly on the road to Russia 2.0, with decades-long trends pointing that way.

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potato3732842 ◴[] No.43704392[source]
The fall of the Soviet Union was arguably more graceful than the two world wars and myriad of colonial worlds it took Europe butt out. Even if you exclude the world wars it probably holds.
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1. wiseowise ◴[] No.43704598[source]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_territory...

Very graceful.

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2. potato3732842 ◴[] No.43705141[source]
The sum total of the fatalities column on that page is joke compared to even the most optimistic assessment of how the British middle east or French Indochina went, and that's before you add in all the crap in Africa.

Edit: You could probably even include the current Ukraine shindig and my statement would still hold.

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3. Herring ◴[] No.43706480[source]
Yeah in retrospect I could probably have phrased that a little better!
4. Danmctree ◴[] No.43707275[source]
The toll was far greater than just that of conflicts. If you look at increased mortality during the period you'll see excess death in the millions. Wiki says 3.4 million: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Un...

In absolute terms it's one of the harshest death tolls in the last decades. It's far from a joke. Though for completeness, AIDS was also going on there and it's hard to tell from the stats the proportion of impact