True. Although there is nothing inherent to electricity, or digital logic for that matter, that requires centralization to the degree that Western nations have been centralized. It is just so convenient due to economies of scale. And globalization allows externalizing the butt end of technological production. It does means that when push comes to shove, there will be a hard time adapting.

Not that it would now matter to the Europeans milling around the cathedral. They’re modern and progressive. They’ve overcome the bigotry and narrow-mindedness of the past. They will all live among one another, in peace and harmony as brothers among nations.

Everyone who is not insane in Europe has noticed that while Germans are not Frenchmen, nor are they Poles, they all have vastly more in common with their fellow Europeans than with anyone else.

How does the saying goes? Me against my brother, my brother and me against my cousins?

In WWI, there were no cousins to speak of. Now there are. Europe is far less important than it used to be.

And yet, that’s what the Yugoslavs said in 1989. And would you just look at those cathedral doors?

You can’t equate Europeans with Serbs. Way different mentality. Haven’t they spend most of the last millenium living under the Turks? Blood feuds, when did they stop that practice? Europe largely abolished it half a millenium ago.

The West operates under the false belief that no selection will ever have to be countenanced again — equality shall rule, and no one shall ever have to judge anyone else for any reason.

Running out of money for welfare is going to teach them. Besides, people in more competitive trades now that that is false. Selection is the key to the success of free market, capitalism and science.

Everyone who is engaged in that knows that good ideas are useful reliably, while bad ones only by accident.

Also – wouldn’t some amount of privation and suffering be character forming?

In practical terms, this means that if (for example) one is a little bitch, witnessing one’s childhood home turn into vapor will instill a good dose of stoicism into one’s psychology. The shocking, immediate, undeniably-real disproving of the childish pretensions that the world is fair, or that one is entitled to good things, or that the future is always bright and sunny — gone like smoke in a wind.

Don’t believe that’s a common attitude among EU youth. Especially considering the unemployment being what it is, real estate prices being what they are and so on.

Maybe it’s different in the West, but hereabouts, young people either don’t care about the bigger picture or are not optimistic. Just world isn’t a popular hypothesis either. How could it be if you grew up watching one asshole after another get away with legal theft courtesy of democratic politics..

Its always amazing trying to observe people objectively. “Normal” behavior is underlined by countless assumptions and prejudices. Our subconscious is much more active than we realize, but it’s still hardwired to operate as if we were still tribal hunter-gatherers.

You’re absolutely right. Comfortable people simply cannot “get” a world bigger than their immediate surrounding. Without explicit external stimulus, the subconcious will always convince itself that their situation is ideal.

Got food? Good temperature? Something to fuck? Yes? Ok, you’re good.

Everything else is projection. The rational mind interprets the world so it makes sense to the conclusions of the subconcious. No empathy, just defiant projection.

Undermine the assumed security and this all comes crashing down. The subconcious activates the dorment. This is truely amazing and terrifying to see in person.

It’s been said, modern civilization is one unanswered phone call away from collapse. I personally find this reassuring.

I am reminded of the double edged sword that is electricity.

On the one hand, with the invention of electricity and all that has followed, Western nations have ended up top of the pack over impoverished countries like Botswana and Cambodia.

But on the other hand, when in all of human history has the destruction of an entire world power been as simple as it is today, due to our reliance on this resource? A well-executed hack, an electromagnetic pulse, and the nation would be brought to its knees overnight.

Our own self-engineered killswitch.