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Just a note that mandated mask-wearing, stay-at-home orders and business closures happened in the 1918 Spanish flu in much the same way. The world didn't suddenly became more authoritarian in the last ten years.

The world did absolutely suddenly become more authoritarian in the past ten years (the US, China and Russia all have become more authoritarian and so have many other countries). We're not back to 1940s levels of authoritarianism yet, but if that happens it will be much worse this time around thanks to technical progress.

I can appreciate the argument. The US for example has moved to illegalise abortions and be hostile towards immigrants. And to some extent there was a global move away from authoritarianism in the late 20th C which seems to be stalling.

But you can't forget that the US even in mid/late 20th and early 21st centuries underwent a host of authoritarian changes:

* Prosecuting unjustified (and in some cases unpopular) wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq

* Aggressive support of violent coups and regime changes in South America and the Middle East, usually in favour of right-wing authoritarian strongmen

* Illegalising psychoactive substances for medical or recreational use, simultaneous with testing those drugs on unwitting US citizens

* Spying and surveillance against US journalists and activitists

* Political suppression and even persecution of left-wing ideas

* Increasing militarisation of police and use of violent means such as tear gas or rubber bullets to control protests

That was also part of an iconic period that marked the lull between 2 of the bloodiest wars in human history and the partial collapse of civilisation in Europe, if not for the benevolence of the US in helping it to repair. Presaged one of the worst periods of economic collapse too.

If authoritarianism is on par with the 1920s we are in very bad shape. That was part of the incubation period for the people who ended up shovelling Jews into ovens.

You have a very odd way of framing historical events. The US govt's own website contradicts the claim that assistance with rebuilding Europe was out of "benevolence":

> The necessities of commercial growth dictated continued government support for overseas private investment. That, in turn, drove the United States to further engage with both with Latin America and the rebuilding of Europe in the 1920s.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/foreword

Regardless, all of the policies I mentioned happened in the US, which was nowhere near as affected by the war (albeit disillusioned with it).

I'm just saying; we both seem to be pointing out that current policies look a lot like the sort of thing that might have been found in the 1920s. The 1920s turned out to be setting up the 1930s, where people thought it couldn't get worse. Then the 1940s where they were proven wrong.

I don't know why you expect me to relax when you compare the situation to 1918. 1918 was when the seeds were being planted for one of the greatest episodes of suffering that the world has seen to date. The policies set in motion around then and the philosophies in vogue around then were indefensible disasters. The upside of the 1950s->2020s was that people were so shaken by the failures of 1910->1950 that they changed tack. The ones that didn't, in China and the USSR, who doubled down on authoritarianism then turned into their own disasters but at least they focused inwards. The US can consider itself lucky that it only had to deal with the great depression and an acceptable rate of needless war casualties.

> You have a very odd way of framing historical events. The US govt's own website contradicts the claim that assistance with rebuilding Europe was out of "benevolence":

That is nitpicking. Investing huge amounts of money to rebuild a shattered continent is benevolent no matter what the motivations of the US government's website happens to say. People do things for reasons. Sometimes they do things that are benevolent because it benefits them.

I won't repeat what others have said. I'll just encourage you to question your own beliefs just a little bit. Setting aside hot button topics, currency cannot be perfectly neutral. It is either inflationary or deflationary. Inflation is much much much much much preferable to deflation.

These are big topics. You're taking a very reductive, binary approach, and it's hard to even engage with.

I'd argue that none of these things are hyper-collective, though. These things are authoritarian. I'm not going to argue with you about the Covid response. But in the case of economic management, the policies you describe aren't meant to benefit the collective. They are meant to benefit a small elite.

> All of the major problems are being caused by huge, centralised moves of organised and (in 2 of 3) frightened people not thinking clearly about where priorities ought to sit.

This is not true of all major problems, most are caused by greed (corporate and individual). Of the ones caused by fear-based centralized power, that's authoritarianism, not collectivism. I can tell because the line I quoted perfectly describes what's happening in my decidedly non-collectivist state government (and many others) to threaten my well-being and potentially my life.

>The odds of a global nuclear conflict are hopefully not in the double digit percentages, but I can't see why they aren't at a historic high in history.

It's not even close. There are many precedents for nuclear powers fighting each other directly without triggering a nuclear war. For instance:

- The Korean War. It wasn't a proxy war, Western troops were directly fighting Chinese soldiers and the Soviet air force.

- The Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969. Two nuclear powers fighting each other directly on their own soil.

- Indo-Pakistani conflicts. Both have nuclear weapons and they fight each other on their own soil.

- Indo-Chinese conflicts.

I'm not advocating for it, but I'm fairly certain that even a direct NATO intervention in Ukraine wouldn't lead to a nuclear war. Hell, Putin might even welcome it, it would give him a good excuse for the poor performance of his troops.

That power accumulation is inevitable when modern technology is used by humans, or aliens, or AI, or anything with the instinct of survival and self-replication, argues anti-technologist Ted Kaczynski. See the book Technological Slavery, free on internet archive.

>I want people to stop this hyper-collective power accumulation that is doing a remarkable amount of damage.

So why don't you get a bunch of people together with like minds that believe in the same thing to form a voting/power block of your representative views...

Oh, oops.

I'm having an extremely hard time not being snarky to the complete unawareness you have in this post. It really represents the peak ability of libertarians to ride the coattails of an already established power system while being blissfully incognizant of it.