content: The US could win a war between it and Russia. Where "win" means "still mostly kind of exist as a nation after Russia stops existing as a nation". But only a fool would want that war. Neither Putin nor US strategists think that war is actually going to happen. This is all a game of brinksmanship. Russia wants to re-make the USSR, the US wants to avoid another Afghanistan and control the economy of Asia, and the politics is to see how far either can go. If it weren't for China the US and Russia could each get what they're aiming for. But China wants to prove it's ready to play with the big boys. And China indeed can. Which means the US no longer has the power for pax Americana. Between the Russian old fucks who want their old power back, the Chinese old fucks who dream of thousand year strategies, the American old fucks who grew up in the Red Scare and secretly fap to Team America, and the Middle Eastern old fucks who argue about wars hundreds of years old... between all the old fucks who run this world it will be a miracle if a disaster doesn't happen somewhere. And not one of them is properly planning for a future with geometric technological progress. Decades into Moore's law not one person actually in power recognizes that AI is going to pick up the game board and melt it into a pretty swan whilst making Congress sing the banana boat song. The US and each other major power needs to take a step back, stop angling for petty advantage, and prepare for the most unknown unknowns that can happen. That means focusing on building governments that can be stable with non-traditional game changers in play. It means writing whole new kinds of laws. It means rapid, evidence-based decision making that can bypass political bickering without trampling on rights. It means designing markets that can take massive fluctuations without risking serious damage to the humans on the demand side.