alt Hacker NewsI will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
This is all turning worse and worse.
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I agree that the outcomes were largely how Americans wanted them, but in the 80's and 90's we had plenty of big and little problems as a world:
- USSR vs. Afghanistan.
- The chaos after the collapse of the USSR
- Russia vs. Chechnya
- US interventions South America
- US in Somalia
- The Gulf War
How much of our upbringing was our limited media exposure?
It seems like a cycle. Peace --> war --> new world order --> peace.
Also, there's probably correlation between wealth inequality and war. Wealth inequality leads to radical leaders which can lead to wars.
"But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages." For a different perspective you should read Better Angels by Pinker.
>I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire#Histo...
Nothing happened in the 50s.
isn't it the case by pretty much every quantifiable metric the world is better than ever?
> a brighter age of peace and respect
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
We didn't have the internet back in the 80's and 90's to doom scroll all day. We read the events in the newspaper and watched it on on the news at 6pm and that was it. This might be partially why things seem darker.
Yeah as someone being born in the early 90s to Eastern European parents who experienced generational joy when Causescu and his wife were shot dead, the globalization that followed hasn’t exactly delivered for people - mostly so in the West.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
That's because the WWII generation who created these institutions and laid the groundwork for many of these change were still around for all that time. Around 2016 the last remaining members passed away. Now we have the boomers in charge and they are at long last able to enact all their fantasies without restraint in their final few years before they too pass.
I agree with your condemnation of this and other conflicts, but disagree that this is in any way new or worse than any purported golden age.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...