- Joined
- Aug 3, 2021
The explosion of populism in 2015 prettymuch all around the globe highlighted a lot of left-behinds and people who were given the raw end of the deal in a way that had never really happened before. Problem is, while it highlighted stuff that most people were completely oblivious to, it also came up with some retarded solutions.america first is awful because instead of being a world leader in emerging tech by exporting our own tech and spending loads of money on R&D we... pretend to give a shit about dying energy sources like fucking coal of all things.
America First didn't accomplish anything for the demographics it was sold to; it barely accomplished anything in terms of the US managing its own domestic affairs. Brexit was largely a discussion on high-concept ideas of sovereignty and did fuckall to assist non-london England. Bolsonaro has been disastrous for Brazil, the Italian populists turned their parliament into an ineffective laughstock, Mexico had its "hugs not drugs" debacle, the Greek and Argintinian populists got in because of onerous IMF/Eurozone financial obligations and wound up making them worse, etc. etc. All the 'solutions' turn out to be retarded, but people are so wrapped up in the -idea- that someone is actually fighting for them that they won't let it be wrested from them.
You can see a lot of this in the anti-vax shit, too. What is at its core? Fears of a changing world - people working from home, the economy structuring more around newer technologies, demographics changing, etc. In under a year, the world's whole structure and these norms that were once seen as totally irreplacable... completely shifted, and the world didn't collapse. Lots of people will be left in the cold by this migration, moreso than they already were. Refusing the vaccine somehow becomes the means to alleviate this. The act of creating reasons not to take it, of compiling 'evidence' that they can barely parse or understand... is a way to feel efficacy in a world that's increasingly becoming too arcane for them to understand. It lets you feel like you, well, understand - rather than living in the hyper-specialized kafka-nightmare that reality, in all actuality, is. It's drawn from that same lust for a simpler world, and the belief that putting the toothpaste back in the tube requires a constantly-evolving rube goldberg machine.