[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

No dude, Persia is Iran now.

 

you never did the analogies test huh? haha ok

as fun as it would be for reality to follow fiction, i don't see the 1984 blocks really happening now

oceania / eurasia / eastasia? hmmmm

well actually we don't even know if those actually existed in the world of the novel or if they were just made up for propaganda, something often missed when people talk about 1984, "the world is divided in..." well we can't know

but in orwell's times those 3 blocks were imaginable and also possible (hence their popularity)

however, the symbolic eurasia/eastasia are now merging in real life. so we now just have 2 big warring blocks shaping up

in antiquity also we had 2! it was greece/rome "the west" vs roughly persia as "the east" (china was in its own world)

historically, the "east" of europe used to be the persians, because china was too far for full contact. the hun and mongol cavalries did kiss the edge of europe but never really stayed for long. the russians were the ones in trouble with the tartars (but now they will be a chinese province so they don't matter in the long run)

for millennia however we had:

egypt vs mesopotamia
greece vs the persians
(alexander joins the edges briefly)
rome (who took egypt) vs the parthians
greek rome (byzantium) vs the sassanids
europe vs the arabs (who take over persia and greek rome)
europe vs the ottomans (who finished killing greek rome)

see the dividing line, always returning?

but now! persia is piddly and practically a pawn. and china is the big bogeyman it was never before! they used to be providers of exotic merch, now they are the competition even in africa korps, they are putin's patrons, iran's buddies, etc

china as enemy of "the west" is a new paradigm, at multimillennial scale.

but it's same song as the old anti-persian song, just different lyrics now. this is bigger than ever. it's planetary. russia + iran + china + north korea *a block*. we didnt have this before. usa the new rome and china in charge of persia. actually nato is more like the delian league than rome. but ok it's not a replication, just theme + variations

(previously we had "the eastern block" with the soviets but that was short-lived. russia and china used to be enemies which is what drove china and nixon together)

and now that the usa is heading towards full imperial government... who is going to stop this madness? we'll be ruled by fiat and assassinations just like "the other side". xi, putin, kim and the ayatollah vs ... our own unchecked authoritarians?

i am just looking to get away from the future front lines (eg yesterday the balkans, today ukraine and gaza, tomorrow...?). hard to tell where they will be with satellites and hypersonic nukes and cyberwarfare though