@mekkaokereke We're seeing the thesis of Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers" play out in real time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers

Every great empire is the result of a country exploiting a new energy source, and building a tightly integrated military-economic system of dominance around it. As a new, cheaper, and more powerful energy source is discovered, the old empire is faced with the Innovator's Dilemma -- embracing the new means giving up on their old system of dominance, so they double down on the old until it becomes economically infeasible to maintain it. Then their empire crumbles and a new player (who exploited the new energy source) takes center stage.

First the Dutch with wind, then the English with coal, and now the US with oil ... and China with solar comes next.

@mekkaokereke 💯

@mekkaokereke that image is perfect.

The British Open setting too, since your current president likes to buy Scottish golf courses and try and encourage us not to build offshore windfarms in sight of them...

@mekkaokereke
I will add that China’s natural resources are not oil at scale but are in fact in resources for batteries that it would like the world to be dependent on… so the US and the China are both doing the same thing… but for a country looking to shepherd the planet and understands science, we need to get off oil. That is the US disappointment and China is proving it’s possible.

I add this for flavour and context only as ALL you points are good.

@mekkaokereke

Just to yellow highlight those prison populations, China's civilian population is north of 1 billion; the U.S.'s is circa 330 million.

We lock up more people, by head count, and we do it on a base population that is 1/3 of China's.

Because in the U.S., persons are profiting off locking other persons up.

@mekkaokereke Just last night, I watched a vid by Joshua Doss, in which he lists.some of the services to the US-American people that exist because Democrats made them happen:

ban on smoking in public buildings
Social Security
Medicare
Medicaid
40-hour work week
minimum wage
Veterans Assistance
Civil Rights act
Voting Rights Act

--ALL OF WHICH REPUBLICANS OPPOSED AND/OR ACTIVELY FOUGHT AGAINST.

As Doss asks: HOW. MUCH. LONGER??

How much fucking longer?!?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQR30jFDrg3/?igsh=NHVsNXp3NTV2cDJp

@mekkaokereke

"The US prison labor population is *larger* than China's prison labor population. The US prison labor population is larger than the entire workforce of Norway."

Dear sweet god, how do Americans live with this kind of thing but still call themselves "free."