Most White People are Still Living in the 1990s

While many of my posts put forth fairly controversial ideas, some are more so than others- and this is one of them. The genesis of this post comes from an observation made over the past 10-15 years, but the underlying phenomenon is likely much older. In its most visible form, at least in mainstream media, it takes the form of supposed western ‘experts’ and ‘public intellectuals’ making assertions and creating narratives about the rest of world which have no basis in current reality or are based in a very selective view of conditions which might have existed 30 years ago. While the ‘experts’ and ‘public intellectuals’ who make a living by professing these views and ideas are usually white, there is no shortage of non-white wannabes such as Francis Fukuyama who wrote the now infamous “The End of History and the Last Man”. Regular readers might remember that in the past, I have written multiple posts (such as link 1, link 2) about how widely promoted western ‘experts’ and other ‘credentialed intellectuals’ of our era display unusually high levels of incompetence, group think and other magical thinking. However one cannot put the blame entirely on these professional charlatans, scammers and grifters- because they would never succeed and flourish if there wasn’t a large pre-existing market for such magical thinking.

Which brings us what the vast majority of people in the West, who are still mostly white, believe about the world outside the borders of their countries- and the topic of their race is very relevant to their worldview and mindset. To better explain what I am talking about, let us talk about an ongoing event which highlights this disconnection from reality. As many might remember, when the Ukrainian war started just over three years ago, western mainstream media outlets were full of ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’ confidently telling their audience that “Russia has a GDP (in USD) smaller than Spain or Texas”, “Russia’s economy will be destroyed by Western economic sanctions”, “Western weapon systems are far superior to Russian equivalents”, “Russia is losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers” etc. However, as things stand today, after three years, we can clearly see that Russia is experiencing prolonged economic growth and makes more revenue than it did prior to Feb 2022. In fact, Russia never experienced any significant economic disruption- even in the first few months of this war. Russia also had no problem greatly expanding its production of weapon systems, developing/ testing new ones and supplying its vastly expanded armed forces with everything else that was required.

In contrast, the entire West still cannot ramp up the production rates of their highly overpriced weapon systems which have performed pretty poorly in this war. Even the USA, with the largest military budget in world, has been unable to make more than a fraction of weapon systems and other consumables that Russia has been able to make without any disruption of its civilian economy. So much for comparing the GDP of Russia with Spain, Texas or even USA. It should also be pointed out the large nuclear arsenal of Russia and its delivery systems are much newer and more advanced than USA. Russia has also been able to field and develop a variety of new weapons systems from Geran-2 drones, hypersonic missiles and more exotic weapons in addition to hundreds of thousands of FPV drones of various types. Notably, even USA lacks the industrial capability to replicate this effort- which, in retrospective, is a predictable effect of deindustrialization and financialization of its economy. And this brings us our first question- why were so many people in the West willing to believe, and still believe, in the professional grifters who got everything so wrong.

To start understanding this phenomenon, we have to look at another metric of the Ukraine war. While western mainstream media likes to pretend that “Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers”, the cold hard reality it is Ukraine who has lost over a million soldiers. The most accurate assessment of Russian deaths to date suggests a number between 60-90k, which still high but a small fraction of the almost two million that Ukraine has lost. While these numbers might seem lopsided, they make perfect sense once you realize that most battlefield casualties in modern war are caused by artillery, missiles, bombs, mines etc rather than personal weapons. Russia has a 10:1 and sometimes higher advantage for all these heavy weapon systems and the casualty numbers reflect it. Furthermore, NATO advisers and Ukrainian officers often pushed massive amounts of soldiers and equipment into situations and offensives that entirely unnecessary and poorly planned- making a bad situation worse. But have you seen any mainstream western media outlet or ‘expert’ try to even address the extent of this problem, even when its consequences are starting them in the face? Why is their audience not demanding such a correction? What is going on?

Why do most people in West want to keep believing in stuff that is easily contradicted by readily observable reality. The very simple and short answer to that enigma is that they are still living in the 1990s- specifically the period between 1991 and 1999/2001. If you find this answer a bit odd or peculiar and want more clarification, with examples, read on. The first part of uncovering what is implied by “still living in the 1990s” requires us to address the proverbial elephant in the room- magical thinking in the form of a belief in intrinsic racial superiority. While many in the West, especially self-identified white liberals and some conservatives would like others to believe that we live in post-racial society- that is not quite true. To be clear, I am not ignoring the fact that there have been massive advances in the area of reducing racial discrimination in most western countries since the 1970s- but we are talking about legal changes not personal or behavioral. If you find think that separating these two aspects (legal vs personal) is pedantic, that is your choice.

Perhaps another example or two would help you better understand the point I am making. Consider that the median (and average) income of Americans of Indian and Chinese descent is significantly higher than Whites. While this might seem to be a sign of a post-racial society, adjusting the numbers for amount of post-secondary education yields a rather different result and you know what I am talking about. Prejudices have been pushed below the surface in the service of making more money or avoiding legal sanction. But economic equality is not the most relevant part of this observation, at least for the topic of this post. Instead, let us dissect why people believe whatever they believe about themselves and others. To put it bluntly, the vast majority of people derive their sense of self and self worth from external sources- usually in the form of foundational and social myths, made-up narratives and other assorted bullshit. They do so because their own lives and abilities are not remarkable enough to create their own sense of self. This is why Whites with no achievement or ability to speak about spend much time obsessing about racial differences in “IQ” etc.

Mediocre people who happened to win a lottery ticket by accident of birth in a country at the right time in its own history want to believe that they are somehow special and won the lottery through means other than dumb luck. With that in mind, ask yourself- when was the last time that the gap between quality of life for median person in West and rest of the world was at its greatest. Not surprisingly, it was the 1990s- specifically between 1992 and 1999 or 2001. This timespan started with the fall of USSR and ended with the bursting of first-dot com bubble or Sep 11, 2001- depending on whom you ask. Since then, the West has experienced a still ongoing period of prolonged stagnation and decline (technological, artistic, aesthetic, quality of life etc), multiple unresolved economic crises and downturns and increasing acceleration of multiple negative trends (economic, social, political). However the rest of world, at least its most populous parts, have gotten much better during this timespan. While China is the most obvious example of how far the rest of world has changed since the 1990s, many other parts of the world have seen similar if less dramatic improvements.

A quick look at YouTube videos of drive through of Asian cities, in countries ranging from Malaysia and Indonesia to Vietnam and Thailand, show cityscapes, amenities and architecture (esp in newer areas) that are equivalent or better to what one would expect in a western city. The same is true for many countries in Eastern Europe. To make matters worse, the West can no longer build or maintain large civil engineering projects- among other things. Consider that Delhi Metro, in India, has a higher rider-ship and distinctly better facility maintenance than NYC Metro. The subways and Rapid Urban Transit systems in many large Chinese cities make anything in the West look sad, ancient and poorly managed by comparison. The same is true for other large projects such as airports, highways, high speed rail systems, residential buildings and much more. Even India, a country infamous for its bureaucracy, delays and multiple layers of corruption, now routinely builds airports, highways and other infrastructure projects much faster than western countries such as Germany or USA. And it is not as if they are just slapping something together that is cheap and shoddy - which is something that would have surprised me a couple of decades ago.

Consider that China has had multiple 3 year time-spans in past two decades where it manufactured and used up more concrete than USA in the entire 20th century. To put it another way, China has put up about 4-5 times the total amount of residential, office, commercial and industrial buildings in USA within past two decades. Now, all those photos and videos of new and unbelievably large and grand Chinese cities, infrastructure and factories make a lot more sense. Or consider that China went from a car ownership rate of less than 2-3% for households in 1990 to almost 50% and still growing. Even in India, the car ownership rates went up from 2-3% to about 8% today- with much higher rates in certain parts of that country- and this trend shows no sign of leveling off anytime soon. Two wheelers are now almost universally owned in India with high rates found even among the poor. Then there is also the issue of how most industrial production and manufacturing in the world has shifted to Asia. Most people in West still think that all Chinese factories are sweatshops full of poor people who are engaged in making shoes, clothes and plastic knick-knacks when the average factory in that country today is more modern, automated and robotized than whatever you see in USA- and they make goods that either dominate or compete with whatever is still made in the West.

But try telling this to any older white person in the West, and this is another part of the problem. The population of western countries, but especially their white population, is noticeably older (median age) than countries where things changed a lot during the past 20-30 years. A significant part of the adult population of West grew up in an era before these massive changes occurred in rest of the world. To make matters worse, or more interesting, the West has stagnated on multiple levels in past 20-30 years to the point where looking at photos the same neighborhood or city from two decades ago does not reveal much (if any) change. Therefore a lot of people living in the West do not expect or believe that the rest of world has changed a lot during this time-span. It is hard to get most people in the West to understand that China has over two hundred times the commercial shipbuilding capacity of USA, makes over 10 times the amount of steel and produces a large percentage of all precursor chemicals and plastics in the world. It is even harder for them to appreciate that India comfortably outpaces USA in steel production and Indian-owned corporations are the second largest producers of steel in the world. They cannot grasp why China is the largest automobile market in the world by a healthy margin or why even India is the third largest (four wheeler) or second largest (all vehicle categories) automobile market in the world.

They cannot comprehend a world where countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam are far more important to the global economy than western countries such as Canada, Australia or Italy. They do not appreciate how dependent the West is on chemical manufacturing and petrochemical industries of countries such as China, India, Japan, South Korea. And irrespective of what Trump says, most of the manufacturing jobs that have left USA are not going to come back- for many reasons far beyond the problems associated with reindustrialization. Simply put, the economy of western countries is now too financialized and managerialized for real industrial growth or actually useful technological advances to be possible. But most importantly, they are unable or unwilling to comprehend that the rest of world understands how far the balance of power has changed. At this point, some of you might say- why not let people live in their delusionary world? Personally, I would have no problem with that course- however these delusions have some very negative real world consequences.

Let us now talk about some ways that this delusion is accelerating the decline of whatever is still left in the West- starting with the price of housing. Have you ever wondered why housing has become uniquely expensive in western countries (relative to income) over the past two decades? Why is housing in many other countries ranging from China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand or even East-European countries such as Hungary, Poland, Russia etc affordable for the people living there? What makes a 1- or 2- bedroom condo in the Bay Area over five times more expensive than a similar or better apartment in Shenzhen or any other large city in the Pearl River Delta? Why does an apartment in Shanghai cost a fifth of what a much older and poorly maintained equivalent one goes for in NYC? Is the quality of life five times better? Why is food in Japan, of much better quality, usually 2-4 times cheaper than in USA? Why do hotels in Japan, South Korea etc cost only a fourth of what they do in USA? Why are houses so expensive in rundown and rapidly declining countries such as UK? Could it be that the delusional belief that West is somehow magically better than rest of the world be one of the main factors driving such pricing differences?

And it is not just housing.. East Asian countries can provide very good healthcare at a fraction of the cost. Japan has the longest life expectancy for any country and spends only a third of what USA spends in spite of having a much older population. Countries such as China and Thailand have life expectancies surpassing USA even though they spend about a tenth of USA. Or consider how the stock prices of many western corporations such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, FaceBook, Amazon, Tesla etc are completely out of whack with their actual earnings, profit numbers and likely future. In fact, almost every single tech company or startup in the West is massively overpriced. But why? Could magical thinking about intrinsic superiority and non-existent bright future be driving this overall trend? What about the cost of university education in some Western countries? Is it really 10-50 times better than in an equally well funded university somewhere in rest of the world? My point is that delusions and magical thinking about intrinsic superiority forms the base of such ridiculous valuations and is a major factor in propping up neoliberal rent-seeking and other deleterious corporate behavior in the West.

Having said all of this, there is something darkly comic about how the choice of white people in West to live in the 1990s and deluding themselves with the belief of their alleged intrinsic superiority is hurting them the most. Then again, that is their choice.

What do you think? Comments?