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prase comments on How likely is Peter Thiel's investment into seasteading to pay off? - Less Wrong Discussion

14 [deleted] 30 August 2011 04:54PM

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Comment author: prase 31 August 2011 06:45:30PM 1 point [-]

But more importantly, the anti-American sentiments held by the elites of these (and various other) countries are not based on rejecting the U.S.-led transnational ideological consensus (as, for example, the anti-Americanism of some radical nationalists or religious traditionalists would be). These sentiments are based on the perception that the U.S. itself fails to live up to the ideals of this ideological consensus.

This seems not entirely true. The French and German governments opposed the Iraq war although there was no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a human-right-violating bloody tyrant. The public opinion was even more anti-American. The anti-American sentiments are verbally justified by assertions that the U.S. fails to live up to the consensual ideals, but the real reason of these sentiments has to do more with power balancing than with ideologies.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 01 September 2011 08:49:51PM *  4 points [-]

The anti-American sentiments are verbally justified by assertions that the U.S. fails to live up to the consensual ideals, but the real reason of these sentiments has to do more with power balancing than with ideologies

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about this. As far as I can tell, the 19th century-style thinking about balances of power in international politics is completely absent among today's intellectual elites in Western countries. There is still of course a lot of such thinking among the common folk and in lower-class journalism and publishing, but practically none among the people whose opinion and influence really matters, and it really doesn't describe the reality of what's going on.

Comment author: sam0345 02 September 2011 06:18:19PM 3 points [-]

This seems not entirely true. The French and German governments opposed the Iraq war

The state department opposed the Iraq war, thus this is consistent with them being state department proxies or puppets - Mencius calls them muppets.

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