America has a lot choices ahead of it before 2050. Many of which send us into a dark, depraved hell scape. Like much of this series I will take the white-pill and write about how I would like the world to look.

Demilitarization 🔫 🚀

Our “enemies” (Russia, Iran, Korea, etc) across the world all state that they have to be armed to defend themselves from us. I think the US should call them on their bluff and start to dismantle nuclear missile silos, and then military bases across the world. A good first step would be to decrease our nuclear missile stockpiles by 5%+/-, with no expected cooperation from other countries. This would be a sign of good will, and not change our strategic position. After this deals would be struck with other countries all stockpiles in lockstep. This has precedence in the START I and START II programs. Once all nuclear warheads are decommissioned we can start the process of dismantling the US global military empire and it’s 128 military bases around the world. This dismantling would go hand in hand with decreasing military capabilities of all other countries.

Citing podcasts feels like a low IQ move, but here I go. This podcast is the best case against the military industrial complex I have ever heard ever. Nine hours in or so he states that the US had the ability to put down its arms in ’91 as the Cold War ended. The Russian threat that characterized the later part of the 20th century had been defeated. America was the only super power in the world with zero enemies. We had the opportunity to collectively demilitarize the world by taking the first step. Instead we have continued on as if we had not won. The United States is now cited as one of the world’s major destabilizing forces and threats to world peace. Even though this moment has passed we must still work towards decreasing military capabilities across the planet. The only way to do this is by starting with our own.

As long as the military/ executive branch has control over foreign policy there will be little proactive change in the militaristic, anarchic world order. Direct action will need to be taken as foreign policy is not something the citizenry can vote on. The military is large and decentralized, so there is no one place to go and stand up to them. A single group can blockade a Lockheed warehouse, but they’re distributed around the entire USA. Therefore you need a large team, or multiple factions to handle multiple locations around the states. It all just feels nonsensical since they are one little piece amongst the vast array of things making up the military. Not to mention the feeling of national pride countries have for their militaries/soldiers. Which makes this inherently a divisive issue.

At the end of this process America (and others) would have a National Guard, and local police forces. No more army, airforce, or navy. This would only work if everyone did the same thing together.

Reclaim the Moral High Ground

For a large part of the 20th century the USA was the “City upon the hill“. The place that every developing country wanted to emulate. Over the years our position seems to have slipped. There seems to be a holding pattern on American life. It feels as if we are finding the maximum amount of misery that is endurable for the population, while also maximizing how much profit can be extracted out of the system. It is the shitification of civilian life. Year over year make groceries 3% more expensive, increase healthcare costs by 4.5%, give a 10% bonus to the CEO, just dump this sludge in the river, don’t dispose of that correctly, gotta make those quarterly profits! The tools of production continue to increase productive capacity, but the fruits of the extra capacity do not get allocated fairly or well.

I would like to see attempts to remediate the issues above and create a resurgence in American exceptionalism. America has the ability to be an aspirational target (again) for developing countries, but we need some good PR. Some things I think would help our image are:

• Installing a social safety net (gasp socialism). This would include a healthcare system that does not bankrupt people for basic needs.
• Leading a worldwide environmental reckoning and leading a “green” future. This includes building nuclear reactors, and exporting the tech around the world in a safe fashion.
• Invest in global infrastructure. Helping developing countries with sewer systems, recycling, trash, clean energy etc. Because you can ban plastic straws in California but if 80% of the plastic in the Ocean comes from 10 rivers in Asia, we are missing the point.
• Stop supporting Israel in killing Palestinians and fucking up the Middle East in general.
• Public transportation. This is a larger goal that includes creating dense cities, and re-wilding urban sprawl.
• A restructuring of electoral politics and taking the money out of politics. This is a problem that is shared with the wider world. Constitutional, representational, democratic systems were an invention of the 16th century, and we need a major version upgrade (if not a whole uprooting of the system).
• Fix the highly addictive processed foods. Many other countries have our products with much less additives in them, we can do the same.
• Reign in social media and AI disinformation. It is clear that there are negative externalities like: political polarization, disinformation, and harms to social fabric. As the creators of such technology we should figure out how to mitigate the risks.
• Bring out the monopoly hammer on banks, multi nationals, tech companies, etc. However I am not sure on this one, as the tendency of big operations is to monopolize. Maybe a new classification of business that has much more over sight once it reaches a certain level. Some sort of “democratic” governance structure to these public utilities as they impact everyone.
• Creating market mechanisms (or other ways) to incentivize child and elder care.

Ways to Do This??

I don’t think we are there yet… At least not in the American, French, or Russian violent meaning of the revolution. To lay the groundwork for violent overthrow the power structure needs to fumble for years on end, refusing to help better itself. Unfortunately this current Trump term (and his previous one, Biden’s mismanagement, and Obama’s bailouts, and Bush’s wars, and …) are laying down some good groundwork for that path.

It seems to be time to embrace radical politics. Radicalism has already come to the mainstream of US politics, and there is no going back. Trade wars, ICE, proxy wars, Antifa, Charlie Kirk, both sides of the spectrum embracing UBI, anti scientific thought, and anti establishment politics are all part of the 20’s. With only crazier things coming down the pipe (I assume). Wokeism (which is essentially dead, I hope) and Trumpism (which needs to die) are ill fitting, negative, cynical ideological assessments of the world. I hope we can find other ideologies that map closer to reality AND catalyze people to change things for the better. Abundance is a positive ideology, but it does not seem as all encompassing as the others listed.

On the radical side of things… a potential way to bend the will of the fed could be mass tax strikes. Individual income tax accounts for 51% of the federal income. This can be an effective lever the populous can use against the Fed. unfortunately it is a tough one to pull, as we would need solidarity on why we are withholding taxes (disarm all the nukes possibly). A small group doing something can been framed as insurrection, where an entire nation repeating the same message has a different tone.