Is Rand a trustworthy organization? I feel like whenever these types of studies emerge that it’s for the express purpose of securing funding. Especially considering this was commissioned by the Pentagon.
Not doubting that the US is driving itself into a situation where they won’t be able to recover, but I don’t think a study of this nature was necessary to prove that.
RAND tends to be fairly sober all things considered. I think the interesting part of the study is the admission that there isn’t really a clear path towards arresting the decline.
I often look at submissions like these (and there are many), gloating about the fall of the us empire, which is fair enough, but the articles/studies themselves are usually lamenting this fact (at the very least implicitly), and are essentially trying to drive support for maintaining it, like brainstorming solutions. I get confused, because it seems we are looking for direct confirmation of the decline of empire… from channels of the empire? I think it’s better to link to and discuss sympathetic material showing why and how the machine is failing and what we can build in its stead, not submissions linking to the machine’s awareness of it and attempts to “correct” it from within the same narrow scope. The former will increase knowledge of theory etc, the latter is just a strange circlejerk. Seems like it might backfire. And is easily abused.
Is Rand a trustworthy organization? I feel like whenever these types of studies emerge that it’s for the express purpose of securing funding. Especially considering this was commissioned by the Pentagon.
Not doubting that the US is driving itself into a situation where they won’t be able to recover, but I don’t think a study of this nature was necessary to prove that.
RAND tends to be fairly sober all things considered. I think the interesting part of the study is the admission that there isn’t really a clear path towards arresting the decline.
I often look at submissions like these (and there are many), gloating about the fall of the us empire, which is fair enough, but the articles/studies themselves are usually lamenting this fact (at the very least implicitly), and are essentially trying to drive support for maintaining it, like brainstorming solutions. I get confused, because it seems we are looking for direct confirmation of the decline of empire… from channels of the empire? I think it’s better to link to and discuss sympathetic material showing why and how the machine is failing and what we can build in its stead, not submissions linking to the machine’s awareness of it and attempts to “correct” it from within the same narrow scope. The former will increase knowledge of theory etc, the latter is just a strange circlejerk. Seems like it might backfire. And is easily abused.