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573 points gausswho | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.429s | source
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pjmlp ◴[] No.44507998[source]
The consumer protection laws are so bad the other side of Atlantic.

Most European countries, have their own version of consumer protection agencies, usually any kind of complaint gets sorted out, even if takes a couple months.

If they fail for whatever reason, there is still the top European one.

Most of the time I read about FTC, it appears to side with the wrong guys.

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b00ty4breakfast ◴[] No.44508075[source]
neoliberal deregulation and regulatory capture, not necessarily in that order, has basically killed federal consumer protection in the US.
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scrubs ◴[] No.44508254[source]
And it can get worse. Over shooting right (left) invariably leads to overshoot left (right) which we absolutely do not need either.

The American sense (when we get off our butts and do it) is common sense, slowly changing law that always apportions control in equal parts to accountability.

It's the last part that is more galling (because increasingly we've failed) and ultimately will be the more decisive in any future inflection point.

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idiotsecant ◴[] No.44508576[source]
I think the century of American dominance is probably over. Maybe we can fight our way back to having a functional government, maybe not. I think either way our position in the world order is already diminished and will steadily diminish further. I can see a future where America is a strange backwater, reliant on resource extraction and rules over by a grubby and constantly shifting mafia state.
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DaSHacka ◴[] No.44508667[source]
And who would supersede the states by picking up the mantle?
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sneak ◴[] No.44508902[source]
The US wasn’t the dominant superpower due to cooperation or agreement or leadership, it was the result of pure technological force.

Oppenheimer, Teller, and countless nameless others at NASA and Lockheed and Boeing and DARPA.

The US built the best weapons, spy planes, launch vehicles, satellites, and communications systems, and was willing to take a no-holds-barred approach to geopolitical strategy. This led to a circumstance which it seems was unparalleled in history thus far.

Who else is able to commit such technological progress to being able to command the world order by edict?

China, perhaps, but I don’t see the next TSMC or SpaceX or OpenAI or Google starting there. Technology is the name of the game. (My own personal take is that mass scale reusable rockets is the key strategic piece to geopolitical dominance over the next 50-100 years, with perhaps the ability to effectively integrate AI as an alternate or close second.)

It may be that we never see a monolithic superpower of the same kind again for generations. The post ww2 world order was really very very kind to the USA.

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1. DaSHacka ◴[] No.44508980[source]
> It may be that we never see a monolithic superpower of the same kind again for generations. The post ww2 world order was really very very kind to the USA.

And why do you think it couldn't remain that way? Considering SpaceX, OpenAI, and Google were made far, far closer to today than to WWII, why would the assumption be that the output suddenly stops?

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2. adgjlsfhk1 ◴[] No.44509236[source]
well in the past year, we have stopped funding science in the US, arrested and deported thousands of foreign students here legally, removing the pipeline for the smartest people in the world to move to the US and start world changing companies, and started a trade war with the entire world, making American businesses much less competitive at buying/selling goods internationally.

to consider your examples specifically, Musk and Brin were both immigrants to the US, and musk specifically did exactly the type of visa shenanigans that now is landing people in El Salvador

3. sneak ◴[] No.44515199[source]
The US used to be run by people with the ability to think strategically, or by people who listened to educated people who could think strategically. The current US leadership either allows or endorses the capricious whims of an TV-educated idiot to consistently undermine national security and the most fundamental national interests. The complete and total mismanagement of the covid pandemic stands as a perfect example of the scale of the positively massive amount of preventable destruction being wrought presently. That’s just one out of many.

Hard to build high level stuff while the cities are flooding or burning, measles are spreading, the food is becoming toxic, the water is becoming undrinkable, out of control rogue agencies are kidnapping people indiscriminately off the streets, the literacy levels are falling precipitously, and a greater and greater percentage of the population struggles to buy food, much less healthcare or secondary education (or a useful primary education). You simply won’t have the talent pools required to do hard things at scale after a while. This is to say nothing of the complete unpredictability of the economics of supply chains, as incoherent economic policies are arbitrarily whipsawing tariffs around on a monthly basis. It becomes impossible to plan a year in advance.

You need some basic levels of functioning society and infrastructure and economy to build advanced institutions and structures and companies and technology. The US has been attacking its own society’s foundations for decades, and has recently accelerated the pace substantially.

I personally anticipate civil breakdown within a generation, certainly not continued technological innovation.