I just watched a fascinating lecture by Professor Jiang on the evolution of warfare01:57 Opens in a new window . His main point is terrifying: Modern war isn't about bullets; it's about economic strangulation to make a population so miserable they overthrow their own state31:35 Opens in a new window .
The Video's Take: The state is becoming a "surveillance machine" just to survive this internal discord49:52 Opens in a new window .
My "Contrarian" Take: We shouldn't be looking at this as a geopolitical inevitability. We should look at it as a centralization failure.
If a nation can be "strangled" by destroying its power plants and water dams33:54 Opens in a new window , it’s because our infrastructure is too centralized to survive 21st-century pressure.
The Opportunity for Builders: If the "21st Century War" is fought on the civilian plane, then the "21st Century Defense" isn't an army—it's decentralized tech. > * Energy: Moving from "Dams" to household-level solar/mesh grids.
- Finance: Moving from "Stripe/Banks" (which can be blocked14:09 Opens in a new window ) to non-custodial, peer-to-peer rails.
- Communication: Building local-first apps that don't rely on a central "cloud" that can be firewalled off.
Prof. Jiang argues the only counter-move is "fanaticism"51:40 Opens in a new window . I disagree. The counter-move is Resilience Engineering. We need to build products that make "strangulation" impossible because there is no single neck to squeeze.
The "Twilight of the Nation-State" is an Engineering Problem, Not Just a Military One.
byu/crd_battle inFuturology
11 Comments
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Can we not use AI to generate a post when we’re talking as humans?
Professor Jiang is an absolute idiot. He knows nothing about history, military science, politics, or economics. Nothing he says should be given any credence.
This guy is such a hack man, and so obviously an extended arm of the Chinese propaganda machine. I’ve never seen him criticize China even once, or even discuss a single limitation of the Chinese system.
This “professor” is an absolute quack. Make sure you do some research and look up his other lectures.
Dude you are watching a propagandist. I watched him for the lols to see what narrative he was pushing and he is a China/Russia shill
Your post reads like an LLM. Maybe English isn’t your first language but you can at least have it translate rather than write.
As for Professor Jiang, the guy is a Chinese asset. He’s just right enough to sound plausible but his logic is always flawed.
He’s not a real professor, and he’s known to have extremely undiverse, uninclusive, and anti-semitic views.
Cool idea, I’m all for decentralization of infrastructure and really everything. It protects not only against foreign entities but domestic technocratic oligarchy.
But yeah, the blatant AI script is a bit offputting.
It’s more than centralized tech. It’s locally grown food in vertical farms in every neighbourhood. Every area needs some amount of independence.
You are correct that resilience is an important element of long term survival — for people, for companies, and for countries. The tricky part, of course, is that resilience usually trades off against wealth and efficiency.