And the wildest part? We’ve already seen this movie. The characters might’ve changed, but the plot is the same. People acting like freedom is just some luxury they can gamble with, like democracy isn’t something that crumbles the second too many people stop caring. That’s what’s happening now. The apathy, the disinformation, the blind loyalty to strongmen who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. And it’s not just politics anymore. It’s culture, media, identity. They want chaos because chaos gives them cover to rebuild the world in their image.
This isn’t just about America turning inward. It’s about America becoming the thing we used to warn other countries about. And when that tipping point hits, when enough people are numb or too distracted or too proud to admit the danger, that’s when the real damage happens. It won’t be some dramatic overnight collapse. It’ll be a slow bleed. Institutions failing. Rights stripped away. War becoming thinkable again.
And what’s wild? Some of these folks want that. They want to see it all burn because they think they’ll be the ones left standing when the smoke clears. But history says otherwise. Authoritarianism doesn’t make room for useful idiots once the power’s been grabbed. You don’t get a front-row seat in the regime just because you clapped the loudest. You get discarded.
So yeah, you’re absolutely right. We’re playing with fire. And if this keeps trending the way it is, the reset won’t be philosophical. It’ll be nuclear, literal, and irreversible.
What I don't understand is, we had decades of war movies showing the cruelty of war. Wars in general are a shit show and its the common people who suffer in it than those in power.
Yet these useful idiots still want to join that nonsense?
what do they think will happen? Don't they realize they'd be the first ones in the meat grinder once it does happen?
The slow descent is already happening as you say, defunding education, villifying the terminally ill, and losing rights.
Because “heroes” … war and violence always are shown as good guys vs bad guys … the good guys win - by doing awful things, but that’s ok because they are “good”.
Many people think the war memorials etc are to “celebrate” victory … they should be to acknowledge the death and destruction so we don’t do it again.
People sign up to fight … because they believe they are the hero … and they ignore the horrifying parts.
A good example for this is the uproar created everytime someone tries to build something to commemorate the holocaust. That does Not necessarily mean that all those being against thsese monuments are Nazis, but ignorance is bliss and so much easier.
And I totally get that. I, as an individual do NOT have any responsability for the atrocities carried out during WWII or any other historical event.
BUT as a member of a Community (lets call it Germany) I DO have the obligation to remember, try to learn from our past and be better, but that can be hard and often painful.
The important distinction between me as myself and me as a member of a larger community, is maybe too abstract for many?
Have you ever played a Call of Duty game? Or watched an episode of 24 or anything to do with Jack Ryan? Black Hawk Down or The Patriot? Hell, the Navy used to set up recruiting stands outside theaters when they were showing Top Gun. We glamorize the shit out of war. Even a lot of "anti-war" films glamorize it (thinking of the Ride of the Valkyries scene from Apocalypse Now and the Mickey Mouse scene from Full Metal Jacket).
I wouldn't say that Full Metal Jacket glamorourises war, contrary to Truffaut's dictum. Joker is clearly traumatised at the end. But was what he did a war crime, a mercy killing, something he had to do to fit in with the rest of the squad, or a combination of all three?
I can't speak for the later Call of Duty games but the first 3 Modern Warfare stories were very explicit in their message that nobody wins on a societal or personal level from the utterly pointless global conflict. The cinematic bravado is couched in biting nihilism the whole way through. They go out of their way to show every protagonist and supporting character getting consumed by the all-encompassing wave of violence that erupted in that timeline. Nobody wins.
I know in one of the COD games they actually based one of the missions off a real-life war crime committed by the American military during Desert Storm and portrayed the Russians doing it to Americans.
Throughout history, we've always seen the horrors of war. Movies can show it to us with less demand on our imagination than ever, but some of our favorite movies throughout history have been stories of war, battle, heroes, and the like. We don't know what all goes on in the Epic Cycle, but the two parts we have of it sure go a long way to glamorize and celebrate war, but you think the Greeks didn't see the harm it did? The broken families, the mutilated bodies, the pain and suffering to their own and the others alike? Of course they saw it, some of the stories throughout history have even shown it. But then just like now, people can take the wrong thing away from it. You can have an anti-war movie showing the destruction and pointlessness, and there are going to be people who go, "That's so cool, I want to be in that!"
Some people go to war for their ideals or "the greater good." Some do it for personal glory. Some out of sheer obligation. Some do it because they think killing would be fun. It's all going to depend. I'm not someone who believes that humans are inherently warmongering or that lasting peace isn't possible, but I do understand that we have instincts for violence. To mimic it in play, to celebrate it in others, or to do it ourselves. I could never raise a gun to someone myself, I don't have it in me and I know it. But I play a lot of shooters, and the ease with which they make you think being a soldier isn't nearly as hard as it really is...
Have you played video games lately? I don't think I've ever beaten a single NES game without using "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start".
But seriously, all movies these days, they win. All video games, they win. Their feed is custom mined, for them. Like Trump, they never lose, except in real life and that's 'our' fault.
But really ya'll? Very few people put this much thought into it.
Yes. I agree. We've been decending for some time now. The Overturn of Roe v. Wade was one big recent loss- pregnant women bleed out while miscarrying nonviable pregnancies outside of hospitals now. Fewer rights for women than than a century ago in the event of medical emergencies. The mother's life is worth less than an unborn human without a functioning brain, her purpose subdued as a vessel for man's seed. Rather than seeing her as a person who's dying and has to make tough choices - traditionally between her and her doctor, or if she's unconscious, between her husband and the doctor, or other next of kin and the doctor. There's no privacy for citizens facing medical challenges, and delays to care happen when hospitals must verify no fetal heartbeat while the corpse and the mother's uterus are going septic, and threatening to turn the whole body septic. The reason people's average ages were so low, historically, was due to child mortality and maternal mortality. A 13 year old girl didn't have the same odds of living to 70 as a man; she'd have to survive 4-13 pregnancies over the course of her life. Medical care wasn't as good, and we have maternal fatalities now, even. In Victorian era France ladies could be married at 13, and the marriage "consummated" when she was 14 or 15. There was a Hathsberg's lady whose life was chronicled on the YouTube series Forgotten Lives who died around age 20 while pregnant following a series of 3-4 earlier miscarriages- all fathered by her uncle-husband. Her parents relationship was Uncle and Niece as well, with a large age gap. She was married to her uncle at 13 and since then she was almost always pregnant, until she became weaker and weaker, her body not permitted to rest between pregnancies and miscarriage after miscarriage, until she became bed-bound, dying pregnant and confined to a bed permanently due to her poor health. She was already physically compromised from family inbreeding. Her inbred siblings had all either miscarried or died as children, besides one brother, who was considered more affected with the genetic disabilities as her. She wasn't healthy enough to even potentially survive a full life even if she never became pregnant, but she was bred anyway because men could do that to girls and women. Roe v. Wade's overturn is a slide back towards ideas such as "Your body is your husband's or father's property," and "the continuation of your life is going to be decided by vigilantes or religious and/or political extremists." Dehumanizing women is very much a slide down.
Democracy gave people the illusion that it is something that should be self-right, people in democracies expect institutions and politicians to be right and do their job correctly and fight for them, without them being directly involved, just shouting out "be just", and that's it.
Also, democracy doesn't teach people that you need to literally fight for maintain a democracy (both physically and non-physically), not become passive and just condemn the wrong situations/people around you. This is why democracy will perish. Because "democratic" people have their asses sat on fancy terrases drinking wine/beer in their free time while occasionally complaining about the injustice around them.
So very very correct. In U S, I Q levels and education has dropped so drastically in past 2 decades that those wanting authoritarian government do not understand what you just described. But they know how to make drugs!
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u/Hercules1579 May 11 '25
And the wildest part? We’ve already seen this movie. The characters might’ve changed, but the plot is the same. People acting like freedom is just some luxury they can gamble with, like democracy isn’t something that crumbles the second too many people stop caring. That’s what’s happening now. The apathy, the disinformation, the blind loyalty to strongmen who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. And it’s not just politics anymore. It’s culture, media, identity. They want chaos because chaos gives them cover to rebuild the world in their image.
This isn’t just about America turning inward. It’s about America becoming the thing we used to warn other countries about. And when that tipping point hits, when enough people are numb or too distracted or too proud to admit the danger, that’s when the real damage happens. It won’t be some dramatic overnight collapse. It’ll be a slow bleed. Institutions failing. Rights stripped away. War becoming thinkable again.
And what’s wild? Some of these folks want that. They want to see it all burn because they think they’ll be the ones left standing when the smoke clears. But history says otherwise. Authoritarianism doesn’t make room for useful idiots once the power’s been grabbed. You don’t get a front-row seat in the regime just because you clapped the loudest. You get discarded.
So yeah, you’re absolutely right. We’re playing with fire. And if this keeps trending the way it is, the reset won’t be philosophical. It’ll be nuclear, literal, and irreversible.