This is the first post from my 30 days writing challenge, as I am slowly reinserting myself in the Hive ecosystem.
Tariffs. Why tariffs?
I normally don't write about politics. For the simple reason that politics is volatile by definition. What stands "true" today will be obsoleted and pushed to irrelevance in 6 months. And what is a "conspiracy theory" today will prove true in roughly the same amount of time.
So, why writing about something that may be forgotten by the same time next year?
Because I believe there's something more going on here than just politics. I think we may be witnessing the biggest social shift in the last 80 - 100 years.
You see, for the last century, the United States were the unquestionable master of the planet Earth. If aliens would have landed during this time, they would have been welcomed by Americans. Obviously. Nobody even dared to think differently. Because everybody agreed that Americans can handle this.
But something very deep changed in the world. Something that re-arranged the tectonic plates of the powers in charge.
America is no longer the master. If aliens will land today, they will have more than one choice. Maybe the Chinese, maybe a group of countries, but not the American Chief only.
That guy may still be the loudest person in the room, the flashiest mobster showing off in his bling-bling car, but he's not running the game anymore.
Who does it, then?
For now, nobody, I think.
And this seemingly unrelated tariff thing is a symptom that we don't know YET who's in charge. And we may not know for a while.
Tariffs are like the solution you pour over a blank sheet of paper to reveal what was written with invisible ink. Tariffs will show what is the actual order of the world.
And that order may include interest vectors that are not even countries anymore. Or at least not countries by the old definition.
Because one of the interest groups that will be revealed by the tariffs is the "crypto" vector. It's made by people speaking different languages, with different ideologies, living in different countries. Yet, they are more synchronized than a country, as we used to know it. And they are already playing a big role in how the world is managed.
I believe that tariffs - and the following cascade of events - will obliterate some old structures, some traditional countries. They may still residually exists for a few decades, but only in name.
A new order will be made visible.
I have no idea how this order will be, but it looks very interesting.