China has done everything they can to make people unaware of Tienamen Square but fundamentally, THAT is the future China faces.

There has never been a period in China's long history in which innovation, cosmopolitanism or even curiosity have flourished. On the other hand, the ebb and flow of Chinese trade is writ large across the historical record: auslanders take power, innovation happens, conservatives ride a wave of cultural resentment and the ethnic cleansing begins. That's China.

Which is my basic beef - There's a lot of "this time it's different" in everyone's thinking without any analysis or investigation into reasons why it might possibly be true. Facebook? Facebook allows you to hate the fuck out of people you'll never meet. Wars? Wars are over resources. Terrorism? I mean, here's the rate of violent crime in the US:

Middle of a pandemic, everyone at each others' throats, George Floyd having his neck stepped on on Facebook, Proud Boys marching on the capitol and last year was all the way up to the fuckin' Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Friend of mine got murdered last year. Back in the '90s it was two or three a year. Partly that's because I no longer live in a shithole. Partly that's because violence is just down.