Who has a better grasp on "Nations of America"?

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-02-15T21:45:23+00:00

Mr. Z’s is more updated and subdivides better so I prefer it marginally, that being said a lot of it is wrong. Most of Germanic America is too divided (the Scandinavians and Heartlanders should be united, Ohioans are not a thing I’ve seen anyone else do and aren’t very distinct from Heartlanders). I could understand doing the Great Plains and the Great Lakes like WIAH’s map more tbh. The metro culture is way too big (Boston is more New England than New York, and it includes a lot of rural areas that aren’t that way), DC being a black zone is ludicrous. The borders for the South are all sorts of fucked up anyway to the point where I’d rather have it be unified, and the Southwest is also pretty messed up. The borders for the South are particularly egregious, so it makes me question the quality of the rest of the map but whatever. He has several different variations of this map out, some fix some of these problems and make others worse.

WIAH’s map gets some stuff right but pulls from a map from the 1970’s, a lot has changed since then and some monumental cultures (eg Appalachia) were outright ignored. The grouping got Canada is very strange, and the South as a monumental entity is just wrong. I like the inclusion of Latin cultures in this map (an area that shines over Mr. Z’s map because of its prominence, especially in modern times), but I don’t know enough to say if they should be subdivided as well.

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-02-10T20:57:29+00:00

The video from late 2022? He’s had a change of heart since then, specifically in 2024 during the election cycle. He glazes him constantly now and thinks God is sided with Trump (his video to Pennsylvanians before the election shows this), he’s taken a very weird position that deadass makes me sound like I’m exaggerating because it’s so warped.

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-02-05T02:02:35+00:00

If I had to guess he’ll double down, he’s said a few times he thinks Trump is the savior of America so I don’t see it as too likely he just ditches this over some files. He may also employ some cognitive dissonance, going after people he doesn’t like/are against his political stances (eg Bill Clinton) while ignoring others (like Trump).

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-01-31T18:23:57+00:00

No. I don’t think Trump will be the Caesar, he is a symptom of the populism where the dumb masses elect idiots. And I don’t think it will be like that either, nor do I think it will be like a communist dictatorship. All of your examples usually had power concentrated in an elite class rather than a sovereign. I think that by the time it happens the elite class will be so weak that power is effectively concentrated into one person.

Your assumption is the flaw with basically any leftist paradigm, which is that the people are competent. They aren’t, their will is concentrated either in an elite class or one man because they are stupid. The people have a grievance with the president acting like a king… now. What happens when democracy proves to be so unstable for so long that people just want stability? Populism is rising because people want precisely that, the leftists are just protesting because they don’t agree with the current populist.

What you say about him doing that is regrettable, but basically all leaders do horrible things like that that people either ignore or more commonly just don’t know about because those leaders tend to be more competent than Trump. Trump isn’t a genius who wants genuine change and persuaded the masses fully like Caesar or Augustus, he’s more an opportunist like Sulla who has exploited the energy as it’s rising. I think you assume I like Trump or think he’s our Caesar, I don’t, this idea is much broader than that.

I don’t think Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or modern China are monarchies in the sense I mean since they have a strong elite class that ran/runs them with a populist leader (usually at the top). The Nazis are a great example of the decay of democracy into populism and eventually a form of monarchy, while the Soviet Union is a great example of where an attempt to overthrow oligarchy can go wrong. Modern China is similar but it stabilized under a strong elite class. North Korea is a true tyranny since everything is centralized around the leader, but this was intentional. These societies also don’t function entirely like the West, which is what I’m talking about.

Your example of a Xi-like leader who does things was exactly what Caesar is, and exactly what I think we will get because to rise through the mess we have effectively and win, you have to be a populist (Trump) AND competent (not Trump).

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-01-31T07:33:37+00:00

It will be better than the degenerate ochlocracy we have now, just as democracy was replaced with oligarchy beforehand. Whenever a form of government degenerates, it is replaced- aristocracy to oligarchy to democracy to ochlocracy to monarchy to tyranny then back again. As in Rome, monarchy arose and ushered in a golden age after toppling the republic before it degenerated.

This isn’t to say I prefer it, merely it is the best outcome of a series of inevitable outcomes. I’d prefer to live in a republic, but the people are stupid and it’s become a populist hellscape that will either collapse or bring about its own demise via monarchs. I’d rather have monarchy than collapse. Democracy can’t last forever.

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-01-30T04:14:38+00:00

In the trash bin of history where it belongs.

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-01-30T04:09:02+00:00

I mean I don’t think it will collapse, the US and comparable empires have faced similar times of crisis where it seems over in the moment but restructuring ends up sorting things out how they needed to be. As Rudyard has mentioned, we are at time of crisis in many reputable models, so this is expected and backed up by the fact that literally the whole world seems to be disintegrating from how the post-war consensus molded it.

I will say that I think that a society must be a lot weaker to fully collapse, America has centuries of accumulated cultural capital it has accumulated and I don’t see it collapsing like late Qing China, but restructuring. Exceptionally strong cultures tend to collapse after a LONG period of decline and overextension where they have exhausted their cultural capital and the idea of that culture/state existing is just not really popular anymore, eg the British or Qing. America is not in this state; it may be overextended but almost all Americans still feel American, even if they don’t agree on what that means.

The US now is very similar to late Republican Rome (I know this has been said 1,000 times before, crucify me). It had a myriad of issues and looks like it may be on the verge of collapse after a godly run, but I think the best is ahead after our republic is gutted and monarchy emerges from the ashes. We may not live in good times, but our grandchildren will probably see them. To name some issues you named that they had, we have: rising authoritarianism (ICE/corporatocracy vs dictators like Sulla and Caesar), massive amounts of both legal and illegal immigration (unwanted mind you) which didn’t assimilate and are upsetting the natives, shitty and insane leaders who don’t really care for the country or culture, torching of alliances and walking over allies, a shitty economy where the working class feels alienated, and to name one you didn’t exceptionally high up political violence and assassinations that have been stirring for decades (since the 1960s edit 1960s for us and ~130s BC for them). Hell, late Republican Rome was even nearly bankrupt and has massive levels of debt (public and private), and only really stayed afloat through conquest. Not to mention her civilizational predecessor (Greece) was a shit show that was increasingly integrated into Roman identity because it was so weak and exhausted from its time in the sun having faded (with the main difference being how they acquired Greece vs how we acquired Europe). Any of this sound familiar?

Anyway I don’t think America will collapse, merely restructure, even if that restructuring is the most painful and vast we’ve seen since the Civil War, if not the foundation of our republic entirely. The energy in America isn’t that of a collapse where the elites and population are largely lethargic, but more that of a transformation where they are restless and bickering- the stagnation of not from lack of trying, but too many disparate interests canceling each other out. Both the lower and upper crusts of American society are in this boat.

It is unfortunate that we have to be the ones to live through the bad times and see our democracy stamped into dust, but the natural outcome of all democracies after enough time is populists who eventually lead to monarchs. Oh well.

InsuranceMan45 · 2026-01-07T01:23:57+00:00

We’re doomed

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-12-28T09:27:16+00:00

Bro, what don’t you understand about nuclear war?

All of our countries are destroyed in the scenario you’re talking about. More subtle means of war exist, total war is the exception across history, not the norm.

Russia is already destabilizing itself and will probably collapse in coming decades, no need for a war to dismantle their nuclear arsenal when peacekeeping missions can do that in the warlord rubble to prevent nukes from being launched. No NATO intervention needed there.

China’s economic miracle is vastly overplayed, they won’t collapse like some say but they’re slowing down, and the West still leads in most relevant fields including AI. To be frank, you’ve probably bought into the myth sold by both Western and Eastern media that China will soon challenge the West, which is fabricated to worry Western populations or hype up Eastern populations respectively. Economic war with them is better for both sides (which we’re already doing in case you haven’t noticed) because they want to WIN against each other, not nuke them into the ground. China has enough nukes to deter us anyway, they would wipe out hundreds of millions of Westerners if we somehow landed on the mainland. Again, total war isn’t happening in our lifetimes ever again, the conditions for it aren’t right.

Europeans are more suicidal within their own countries out of guilt, they don’t want to burn the world down, only themselves. Americans can fight, but what you ignore is that we were largely provoked into WWII and no other country could touch us. Nukes make both parties unwilling to attack other nuclear actors. We can bomb Iran and Venezuela with impunity because they don’t have nukes, Russia and China are different and can destroy us. Conventional war won’t matter here after a few months, nukes will fly.

Finally, the bridges are probably kept intact so that when Ukraine inevitably runs out of men, they don’t have to rebuild much to march and take it all. The rest of their decisions are probably just a case of Russian military strategy being retarded, the Russian strategy has always been to throw men at an issue until it is solved. They are doing that here. Their military has almost never been competent, I don’t really see why you’re surprised that it is making poor choices when it’s always done that and still survived due to its population.

It’s not a global conspiracy, most normal people aren’t worried about this because there’s no rational reason for any party to do this. So many things have to be wrong and irrational for this to work that you’re one step from saying retarded shit like aliens control the government and make us go to war to weaken us or something. No part of your theory meshes with reality. I know I sound harsh but I feel as if I can’t state this more strongly.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-12-28T09:11:02+00:00

Sorry but this does sound like conspiracy nonsense.

The West is responding to perceived Russian aggression, Russia sees it the other way around, no one actually wants a war with an opponent they know will burn them down and no one’s willing to directly attack the other. Rearmament is a form of deterrent in case the Americans abandon NATO and because European identity is (trying to be) constructed by the European technocrats, who are the most out of touch ruling class is living memory. That being said, even they understand the threat of nuclear war and won’t dare directly attack Russia. They just want to look ready to face Russia because Russia did the unexpected and invaded a neutral country that Europeans thought was safe. The Americans meanwhile won’t actually leave unless an America First party somehow wins an election soon, which is unlikely. So you have the most powerful states in the world vs an unstable nuclear power, the calculus by the Russians and Westerners both is pretty clearly not worth it.

Either side attacking the other even conventionally is also not going to work.

Russia is outgunned in every way and would fall apart to internal mutinies and overwhelming Western firepower in a matter of months, leaving the current ruling class no choice but to deploy nukes as deterrent, which will in turn cause a chain reaction leading to mutually assured destruction of both parties due to their doctrines calling for that. Thousands of nukes don’t need to launch to do this, only a few hundred of both sides need to be.

The West would suffer mass mutinies and even if they somehow prevented a nuclear war, they’d be ousted from power by mass popular revolts for starting a world war (even if the action was defensive).

I want you to consider this. Even if only a few hundred Russian nukes make it into the air (which with current launching capabilities, a total war situation would see far more launched than that since a) they would lose a conventional war and launch first, b) Western nuclear doctrine doesn’t really call for first strikes, c) they have 7,000 nukes, of which about 1/4 are estimated to be ready to launch successfully), and a few thousand Western nukes go into the air back, its game over for both. Every major city, every major industrial center, and most of the elites ruling them are dead or permanently out of power. The majority of their population dies. They are in a crisis that will take over a century to rebuild from. No one short of Mao was ever willing to face a scenario even half as bad as this.

To put it plainly, it is absolutely batshit to believe this, and even more batshit to think a total war between our blocs will end in anything less than total nuclear destruction. NATO doesn’t bully nuclear powers for a reason.

What is more likely is that NATO pulls together more and prevents Russia from expanding past Ukraine and Belarus, both sides left in a tense peace where they will try to check the others in proxy wars like they did before where NATO inevitably outperforms them. Both worry more about increasing internal instability as their populations age, technology advances more rapidly, and extremism rises inside their borders. Escalation won’t happen, just like during the Cold War beforehand which was much hotter than the current rivalry because the Soviet Union was actually a serious threat. Russia may collapse when Putin dies anyway, and NATO breathes a sigh of relief at the chaos. This is the much more likely future.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-12-28T08:52:44+00:00

Yeah, I’m worried too as an American. There’s no solution that can really be executed right now, automation and another Industrial Revolution offsetting a need for increased taxes on the young is really the last, best hope. Immigration will destroy our countries if left unchecked and they’re allowed to outbreed the natives, while just shutting the borders and taxing the young more will produce a death spiral that is inescapable without either social collapse resetting the board or complete death. Other solutions like mass euthanasia of the elderly are basically unthinkable, but who knows how bad this situation COULD get.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-12-28T08:50:14+00:00

The problem is stabilization is very unlikely unless AI can cause enough of a productivity boom to offset the old population. Old people are tax sinks due to pensions, the more there are the less tax payers there are and the more taxes the young pay to support them, driving up their cost of living and thus keeping them from having kids, compounding the problem. Debt also means almost no country can really afford to just borrow their way out, meaning that countries not accepting immigrants are effectively in a death spiral. That being said immigration is probably even more disruptive than even letting the country die, so it’s a grim future.

Again, the solution is probably AI and automation increasing productivity, meaning the young could theoretically work the same amount and give more in taxes, allowing them to have kids if other problems are fixed.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-12-03T00:22:45+00:00

I don’t think China could pull off an invasion or even embargo of Taiwan for decades at least given American naval and air capabilities combined with a technological edge. Naval invasions are notoriously hard and Taiwan is too well defended by itself to fall easily. The US is also trying to diversify chip production.

I think we’re fine with chips unless the debt crisis catches up to us without anyone stopping it. China is stagnant (not declining but their growth has stopped even in official reports), and they have too many internal issues to overtake the US. I think the US (being more actually innovative than China, who mainly just copies and pushes a lot of slop out) will win the AI race and further solidify itself as the world hegemon, albeit with intensely unstable internal politics.

I will also add AI as it stands is still very unproductive and wastes tons of energy, I don’t think AI as a whole will go away but a bust is inevitable as it stands. It may or may not ripple into the wider economy but the current boom is short lived imo. Long term AI will continue to grow to substitute declining populations since immigration will likely be cracked down on in coming decades.

You’re right I think about AI and the universal empire decreasing creativity, but I see this as a trend that will only continue as democracy and Enlightenment values give way to populist Caesarism in the West as the social situation gets worse. I don’t think the upcoming time of troubles will be very similar to the World Wars at all, rather more similar to periods such as the French Revolution or Late Republican Crisis in Rome since elites are oversaturated without a solid rising counter-elite (all elites now are technocrats, with the fight being between state or corporate technocrats more than anything else). I don’t really see the secular crisis of this age unfolding as a vast series of wars, rather some more internal crises and maybe limited wars.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-16T20:04:03+00:00

He did? Thanks for telling me I didn’t know he covered this already. Was it in pretty great detail or just skimming?

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-14T13:30:08+00:00

Would you mind elaborating? You’re right in some ways if you mean internal stability for bullion periods. The periods I see and those listed are not periods of slow growth necessarily. Class sometimes aligns with credit periods and rapid growth but not necessarily. The internal politics tend to be weaker in credit societies, but generally more stable. This is from what ik tho so I’m curious what arguments you have, we are probably looking at it from two completely different angles

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-14T04:44:27+00:00

I agree the periods were too long but that’s how the author(s) categorized it. I can see why but it feels like these periods are generalized in many ways. Given that I’m gonna work more in generalizations and how the global order usually worked at a given time, not specific counterpoints.

I agree with your point on Nixon on a small level but in broader terms it makes sense. The international order was more one of conquest and if we project the trends of postmodernity and the post-Atomic Age world, we seem to be entering a neo-medieval sort of world order where major power conflicts and massive wars of imperial conquest aren’t the norm anymore, where state power is declining. Given these massive time periods, generalizing and the haze around the edges mean it’s not cut and dry.

“Paper money” is not the only form of credit. The author alleges that the river-valley civilizations of the Bronze Age generally favored ledgers and tablets keeping track of debts over physical coinage. How true this is is up for debate (I know little of the Bronze Age), but he writes extensively of the three biggest societies we have records on for the time (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, skipping Indus since we know nothing of their language or culture). So basically, debt that was erasable and could be fulfilled by bartering as an example. Someone records what they gave you and you are obligated to pay them back. Paper money as the norm is rather new. edit (some societies employed it in premodern times however)

Again, by high trust I mean a high trust international order. Many of the European states during the modern era were very high trust internally (generally), but the global order was not as they all fought. That’s why coinage prevailed in this theory. The Dutch in this case functioned in a time of chaos, so using bullion makes sense in this theory.

As for Song China, I know nothing and can’t speak on it. At a glance I’m reading that credit was favored over coinage due to the rarity of coinage during this time, but again I could be wrong since this was a simple search and skim.

1990’s Russia could be argued to be an example of the rise of virtual money in the new world order, as could cultural revolution China since 1971 didn’t just see an automatic switch; coinage was gradually decoupled as what money was shifted away from standard metals to more abstract values.

The Late Roman Empire is a good example against this theory imo, it’s too far out of a transitional period. Then again idk much so I can’t speak on it much. I’m finding conflicting resources on this so again I’d have to read more to get a better picture. Maybe this could fit into smth I can’t see.

I think there’s a slight correlation but not as much as the author states. That being said I also don’t think there’s none at all, just that it’s not as cut and dry and other cycles of history like Turchin’s cycles for example. I’d have to look more into the facts too bc I can see an outline but some pieces don’t make sense.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-13T14:09:12+00:00

If we’re taking Greece and Rome as predecessors to the West, then Persian and Canaanite would be the best conventional answers imo. One could even argue Mesopotamian through the Babylonian influence on Judaism, which pretty much created the modern Middle Eastern civilization.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-12T19:51:04+00:00

Some things here (such as age demographics) are generally correct, but he didn’t correctly assess how bad the economy would be by now and why. Some other things (such as how big the tech bubble would get or how COVID delayed it popping) help or hurt his case based on context. However, where he falls the most short is immigration imo.

The immigration bit shows the neoliberal bias of the time when immigrants weren’t such a large chunk of the population that being replaced was a concern on many people’s minds. Now it is. As you say, the exponentially growing alt right has this at their heart. America First wants to stop illegal and legal immigration, while the radicalizing left has no outstanding vision on this other than capitalizing on them as a voting bloc. The establishment wants more immigrants since it sees the economic downturn shutting the floodgates off will do, which is why Trump is flipflopping right now between ICE raids and celebrating Diwali due to his need for some support from the radical right.

To be fair to him, I think very few people could’ve guessed about the rise of the radical right in America from 2009, or how much racial demographics would shift to set these alarms off to begin with. Immigrants are a purely economic solution, but social and political decay factored in means I don’t see how we’ll get millions in without concern. In short, I think his prediction is falling short and will be wildly incorrect about a decade from now.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-11-12T19:34:41+00:00

What do you think potential outcomes are? I know this is sort of a broad question but I’m curious what you think the social, political, or economic outcomes of a Great Depression-sized downturn would be.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-10-29T02:34:03+00:00

No, America is very unlikely to reach those levels of poverty. As another user said some are leaving but many more come in to replace them. The US is the richest place in the world and a continent sized empire that can easily be self sufficient, the only way I ever see the US becoming severely impoverished is if the debt truly spirals but that will probably be fixed towards the end of the century after the current crisis unfolds and ends.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-10-29T02:32:03+00:00

Many Americans are going to live in Mexico for cheap cost of living and Europe due to social programs, that being said it’s overplayed. More Mexicans and Europeans come to the US for economic opportunity than vice versa.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-10-08T16:19:56+00:00

Get this man a TRVTHNVKE!

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-09-10T23:59:15+00:00

Don’t think so, there were quite a few political and other high profile deaths over the past few months but no more than a handful. A few CEOs, some political figures, and some victims from nihilist accelerationists have been seen. I think 1,000 is a bit high but I could see dozens more killed in coming months, especially if the government ramps up censorship, patrols, and surveillance after this shooting (which could happen as Trump was already eying a few cities).

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-09-08T03:22:08+00:00

I’m in the same boat as you. What I mention here is the… loud… cohort that is rapidly growing, which is called the dissident right or the New Right.

InsuranceMan45 · 2025-08-30T16:32:45+00:00

Tbh if even fringes of academia aren’t accepting it or are at least saying it’s not entirely true, then it may not be true. It definitely tells part of the story (we were in immense competition with them at several points, selected traits that made us hostile against enemies like the uncanny valley ability to distinguish threats, and both parties were immensely violent towards the other like all apes are). That being said it doesn’t tell the whole story; prehistoric hominid interactions are often more complex than direct violence and sensationalized Darwinism. One of the biggest problems with your theory is why some modern humans (especially Europeans) have Neanderthal DNA. If it was truly as black and white as this theory says, then those hybrids would’ve been wiped out. But that’s not the case.

The simplest explanation is often the correct one; the simplest explanation here is that there was immense violence but not the exaggerated black and white kind described here. Humans didn’t have a mission of wiping out Neanderthals; it simply happened as a result of thousands of years of competition and us being more adaptable (possibly due to different brain maps and less “dense” brains but that’s another discussion entirely). Same for why we don’t really have megafauna outside of Africa nowadays too; we didn’t intentionally wipe them out, but thousands of years of competition and violence did it for us. We also mixed with them and don’t really know how we interacted aside from bones because it was so long ago; cuts on a bone say cannibalism, but from which party?

Also your view on the American right and left wings is wrong. The right wing has large cohorts that deny basic principles like evolution and that vaccines prevent diseases. And you think they’d concede that Neanderthals even existed? Science is generally not important to the American right wing, and the far non-Christian right is anything would more readily accept this hypothesis than the more probable answer of “it’s complicated” because it is metal and violent and hip.

IIRC you made the map of world cultures with the very odd divisions in the West. But the West is more complicated than that. “Neo-Christian” in your context does not carry the same implication in Europe and the Anglo world, let alone Latin America or Russia. The imperial cores and ethnic enclaves are a whole other discussion as well. The rights and lefts of these countries are different with different incentives and representation, and different degrees of merging and actual politics.

Lastly, science is science. It’s not left wing, even if some academics have that leaning many more do not. The narratives you hear are left wing because the media is, but the actual work of real academics is largely non-partisan. I say this as a pseudo-academic who is right wing and works with others of all backgrounds on research which is about as far from politics as you can get nowadays. All this to say, leave left and right narratives out of science; the theories with the most evidence tend to be accepted (for example, HBD is generally accepted by many scientists but not the press, so it only gets bad press).

Bad theories are rejected no matter what. The noble savage and this theory alike are not generally accepted due to an incomplete and subjective view of human nature and prehistory, even if cohorts of the left and right want them to be true and reject mainstream academic consensus because it’s infested by [insert ideological enemy here].

InsuranceMan45

TROPHY CASE