So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised?
It depends...
If people are relocating across national boundaries, that could reduce nationalism, because they are not rooted anywhere. Say if they relocate because their job moves.
Or increase it, because they have moved on the basis of "I want to go to this particular place" (vs "I need to leave where I am.") See the immigrants to the US who embrace America to the point that they, or their children, volunteer for the US military.
On the other hand, there are those who relocate within a single country. It seems like they might embrace nationalism, simply because that is the level of group they still belong to. If you relocate from Alabama to Texas, you may not have strong ties to either. But you still have strong ties to the country overall.
So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised? Does it become stronger among the relatively few who stay put? How do they handle being outnumbered by "the others"? Do the movers become citizens of the world?
There's going to be conflict over land and resources. How will the lines be drawn? How rapidly do those lines shift? How large will the factions or coalitions of factions be?
Thinking about the future feels like forming the basis of a dystopian sci-fi novel. I might update my resume to tailor it to a position as a warlord.
But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I’d put the threshold for “perpetually moving”/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
We seem to be reaching a point where everyone will be more like me: perhaps not perpetually moving, but moving enough that the idea of being rooted in a place no longer holds. I feel like that inflection point is coming in the next few decades, helped along by the fact that climate will make the places we live so different from what they were. People may not be perpetually moving, but the place they are living will change with enough speed and strength as to make everyone strangers in their own towns.
There is doubtless a bit of racism in the mix. But I think by far the biggest part is simply that China is in a position to be an economic powerhouse rivaling the US. (And thus potentially a military peer.)
In contrast, Russia, at this point, is a second rate power. Or maybe third rate considering how they are faring against Ukraine. They've got nukes and (so far as we know) the technology to deliver them. But otherwise? They're a petrostate crossed with a kleptocracy. Even India is closer to being an economic peer than Russia.
That is one of the current double standards on the US right at the moment. Russian expansionism is less alarming to many because Russia is a white Christian nation, and the far right in America is smitten with the Orthodox church, its muscular Christianity and patriarchy, and its staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
China, in the eyes of the US right, are godless asian communists, and thus enemies of Western Civilization.
The significant difference being that most members of Congress are fairly rabid when it comes to China. A lot of them may not care that much if Russia expands. But China is a whole different deal. If Trump makes a deal there, he may need to publish the Epstein Files as a distraction.
Meanwhile, it is being reported, Xi has been telling Trump how Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and must be reunited with the motherland. A meeting is being proposed. The Putin playbook is clearly an inspiration...
Those other debts weren’t being enforced by the Russian Mafia.
Doesn'tneed to involve the Russiab mafia. The Russian government has demonstrated its ability to conduct its own enforcement operations around the globe.
So the Department of Defense (which Pete Dawg wants to be called the Department of War because the packing penis wasn't fooling anyone) has now declared that they are investigating Sen. Mark Kelly because Kelly had the temerity to remind US military service people, past and present, that they have a duty to uphold the Constitution which supersedes their duty to follow any order that would violate the Constitution.
You, know, keeping that oath that they swore when they joined the service.
And on social media the Ancient Orange One is calling Kelly et al's statement a "clear act of sedition."
This from the same merry band of miscreants who commuted Stuart Rhodes' federal sentence for having committed Seditious Conspiracy during the January 6 insurrection - while leading a group that called themselves the Oath Keepers.
So Kelly is being investigated for warning service people that if they violate the law and the constitution, they will end up a convicted felon like Rhodes.
They are going to keep pushing until there is a confrontation. And then they will push some more.
Trump will go with whatever end game in Ukraine allows his family to continue to service Trump Organization debts that are held by Russian entities. Without that, the family fortunes all go to shit.
The same is probably true for Saudi Arabia and Trump at this point.
It's not just about making money, it's also about whose money is actually backing all of those big splashy projects that they put the family name on.
IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
I agree with this. And in fact, if you ignore the noise/chaos around Trump's conflicting messaging (like the recent couple of days), the consistent trend is that he continues to imply (or worse) that he will pull back unless Ukraine gives in to Russian demands with a side order of servile and performative gratitude to him. This has now happened in almost exactly the same way 3 or 4 times - including messaging that "it's going well", "we're making real progress" etc etc, until Putin pulls the plug. And then it starts all over again, including ongoing destruction and death in Ukraine, until the next Trump-initiated "diplomacy" which results in essentially the same suggested settlement.
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
Sorry, that was not clear. I meant if the US stepped back and Europe and UK stepped up, it would nonetheless embolden him. I suppose if PURL were still on the table, it would work for a while, especially if the US continued to supply intelligence. But Putin knows Europe and the UK cannot sustain the delivery of materials by themselves, at least not at this point. IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO
Since there is nothing in it for Trump personally, it's hard to credit him with caring about whether they step up. He may complain about it, but then he complains about anything and everything. Actually doing anything is rare.
As for "getting NATO members to pay their fair share", it's hard to see a valid complaint from the US on that. The one and only time that NATO has invoked its mutual defense clause was when the Europeans stepped up to support the US in Afghanistan. They stepped up to support us! Seems to me we've got no complaint.
The European members of NATO have not increased their defense spending in response to anything Trump has done. If you must credit anyone, "credit" Putin.
"Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin"
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
"My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars."
If you will pardon my language, my take on Trump is that he has no f****ing idea what he's doing, other than finding ways to make money for himself, his family, and a close circle of already obscenely wealthy people.
In terms of actual governance, I think he's basically making it up as he goes along.
He wants to make a lot of money, he wants to be adored, and he wants to punish people who aren't nice to him (as he sees it). If there's more to him than that, I'm not seeing it.
I'm troubled by the purported peace proposal (I also note that since I started to write this, Trump is backing away from it). I want to see Ukraine free and prosperous and as intact as possible with a security guarantee (as the last one didn't work). This war is terrible and needs to end. And it needs to end in such a way as it doesn't happen again down the road as happened after Crimea. In a perfect world, Russia would be out of Ukraine. It's not a perfect world.
I can't tell whether or not Ukraine is on the brink. Certainly there is a conscription problem. If US support were to end, and the Europeans not step up, it would be a disaster. Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin and drag this debacle out even longer.
My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars. One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO (well, collectively at least). The pause in US support brought Europe in even more. But despite the implementation by NATO of PURL (launched by Gen. Rutte and Trump) to fund the acquisition of ready to use weapons in US stockpiles for Ukraine, total military aid from Europe declined 43 percent in July and August of this year (humanitarian and financial support remained steady). I think that is the latest data. With the plan, the EU and the UK raced to take part in high-level talks and are voicing ever stronger support for Ukraine. I wonder if this really has nothing to do with appeasing Putin but lighting a fire under the Europeans (yet again)? It is their backyard, after all. And while they have stepped up, it doesn't make up for decades of underfunding the military and building a (mostly former) dependence on Russian gas. Europe isn't in a great position to take up the slack. And it should be.
Another reasonable take here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-expert-conversation-separating-signal-from-noise-in-trumps-ukraine-peace-plan/
Hoping the Europeans really step in and Trump drops the hammer (e.g. Tomahawks). But I have my doubts on both.
Perhaps someone here can explain something to me. Trump says Ukraine must accept the Russian-written "peace proposal or "risk losing US support. So, let's assume a counterfactual: Ukraine accepts the proposal. What good is US support supposed to do them, even assuming it lasts more than milliseconds beyong Russia moving it's troops forward?
It looks to me that the actual choice is between losing US support or losing US support. The only difference is between losing a bunch of territory at the same time or not.
With all this rage, we must also have a bold, simple policy plan — one that every American can understand. In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74 percent approval rating in 2023. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63 percent of U.S. adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62 percent of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80 percent feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility. Or when 70 percent of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal child care a public good. And darn it, we should not fear that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We’ve already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. The era of half-baked political policy is over.
I'm well aware that not everyone here thinks kindly of James Carville, but I'm betting that nonetheless few will disagree with the extract above. Here's the whole thing:
I have tried to put down roots here, and I think I’ve done a good job, but given that it has been a conscious effort, I have to say that those roots aren’t deep, certainly not as deep as Japanese from here.
It's true that those who have moved tend to have shallower roots than those who have lived somewhere for a lifetime. And also, it's not surprising that some are better than others at developing new roots when they move. But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I'd put the threshold for "perpetually moving"/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
I acknowledge that my perspective is probably skewed by my personal experience. The US is called "a nation of immigrants" (suck eggs, Steven Miller!) for a reason. And California is a bit extreme, even for the US.
Growing up, I lived in a little farm town, just starting to evolve into a suburb. When my parents moved here, after WW II, the population was under 500. By the time I graduated high school, my graduating class was around 500. For all that there were a couple of families who had been here for a century, pretty much everybody in town was from somewhere else. Often, the kids in my classes had moved a couple of times already. Today, the town is up to nearly 50,000.
That sort of thing continues. I'm in the long time rooted category because, although I've lived in a half dozen different places over the years, they've all been within a hundred miles of here. But my family, my friends, my neighbors? All have moved or lived previously, far away. I've got a brother who, in his 20s and 30s, lived "in Europe" -- never settled anywhere for more than a couple of months, as far as I could tell. Definitely in the perpetually moving category.
Hartmut, no worries, It's complicated by the fact that Karp is a non-native speaker of German, so it would be difficult to know what is from the translator and what is from Karp's German. In the New Statesman podcast, they say that Habermas turned down Karp's request to be the second reader on his dissertation because he didn't think that Karp's German was good enough, though softened that rejection by acknowledging that the ideas in the dissertation were probably difficult for native speakers of German to get across.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Shabana burns the cakes”
So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised?
It depends...
If people are relocating across national boundaries, that could reduce nationalism, because they are not rooted anywhere. Say if they relocate because their job moves.
Or increase it, because they have moved on the basis of "I want to go to this particular place" (vs "I need to leave where I am.") See the immigrants to the US who embrace America to the point that they, or their children, volunteer for the US military.
On the other hand, there are those who relocate within a single country. It seems like they might embrace nationalism, simply because that is the level of group they still belong to. If you relocate from Alabama to Texas, you may not have strong ties to either. But you still have strong ties to the country overall.
"
So what happens to nationalism if many more people are either moving from place to place or or at least relocating from where they were raised? Does it become stronger among the relatively few who stay put? How do they handle being outnumbered by "the others"? Do the movers become citizens of the world?
There's going to be conflict over land and resources. How will the lines be drawn? How rapidly do those lines shift? How large will the factions or coalitions of factions be?
Thinking about the future feels like forming the basis of a dystopian sci-fi novel. I might update my resume to tailor it to a position as a warlord.
"
But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I’d put the threshold for “perpetually moving”/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
We seem to be reaching a point where everyone will be more like me: perhaps not perpetually moving, but moving enough that the idea of being rooted in a place no longer holds. I feel like that inflection point is coming in the next few decades, helped along by the fact that climate will make the places we live so different from what they were. People may not be perpetually moving, but the place they are living will change with enough speed and strength as to make everyone strangers in their own towns.
On “An openish thread featuring the comedy stylings of Steve Witkoff”
There is doubtless a bit of racism in the mix. But I think by far the biggest part is simply that China is in a position to be an economic powerhouse rivaling the US. (And thus potentially a military peer.)
In contrast, Russia, at this point, is a second rate power. Or maybe third rate considering how they are faring against Ukraine. They've got nukes and (so far as we know) the technology to deliver them. But otherwise? They're a petrostate crossed with a kleptocracy. Even India is closer to being an economic peer than Russia.
"
That is one of the current double standards on the US right at the moment. Russian expansionism is less alarming to many because Russia is a white Christian nation, and the far right in America is smitten with the Orthodox church, its muscular Christianity and patriarchy, and its staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.
China, in the eyes of the US right, are godless asian communists, and thus enemies of Western Civilization.
"
The Putin playbook is clearly an inspiration…
The significant difference being that most members of Congress are fairly rabid when it comes to China. A lot of them may not care that much if Russia expands. But China is a whole different deal. If Trump makes a deal there, he may need to publish the Epstein Files as a distraction.
"
Meanwhile, it is being reported, Xi has been telling Trump how Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and must be reunited with the motherland. A meeting is being proposed. The Putin playbook is clearly an inspiration...
"
bc and GFTNC, thank you for your explanations.
TBH, I can't make sense of any of this mess. It's utterly unclear who exactly is driving the bus on our end. Or what their motivations are.
Putin wants Ukraine absorbed into Russia. Ukraine doesn't want to be absorbed into Russia. The UK and EU very much do not want the conflict to expand.
What do we want? Who is the "we" that is deciding?
"
Those other debts weren’t being enforced by the Russian Mafia.
Doesn'tneed to involve the Russiab mafia. The Russian government has demonstrated its ability to conduct its own enforcement operations around the globe.
"
You seem to think that Trump wouldn’t just walk away from his debts, in spite of all past evidence.
Those other debts weren't being enforced by the Russian Mafia.
"
"Trump will go with whatever end game in Ukraine allows his family to continue to service Trump Organization debts that are held by Russian entities"
You seem to think that Trump wouldn't just walk away from his debts, in spite of all past evidence.
"
So the Department of Defense (which Pete Dawg wants to be called the Department of War because the packing penis wasn't fooling anyone) has now declared that they are investigating Sen. Mark Kelly because Kelly had the temerity to remind US military service people, past and present, that they have a duty to uphold the Constitution which supersedes their duty to follow any order that would violate the Constitution.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/24/nx-s1-5619314/pentagon-mark-kelly-trump-hegseth-military
You, know, keeping that oath that they swore when they joined the service.
And on social media the Ancient Orange One is calling Kelly et al's statement a "clear act of sedition."
This from the same merry band of miscreants who commuted Stuart Rhodes' federal sentence for having committed Seditious Conspiracy during the January 6 insurrection - while leading a group that called themselves the Oath Keepers.
So Kelly is being investigated for warning service people that if they violate the law and the constitution, they will end up a convicted felon like Rhodes.
They are going to keep pushing until there is a confrontation. And then they will push some more.
Do not yield.
"
Trump will go with whatever end game in Ukraine allows his family to continue to service Trump Organization debts that are held by Russian entities. Without that, the family fortunes all go to shit.
The same is probably true for Saudi Arabia and Trump at this point.
It's not just about making money, it's also about whose money is actually backing all of those big splashy projects that they put the family name on.
"
IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
I agree with this. And in fact, if you ignore the noise/chaos around Trump's conflicting messaging (like the recent couple of days), the consistent trend is that he continues to imply (or worse) that he will pull back unless Ukraine gives in to Russian demands with a side order of servile and performative gratitude to him. This has now happened in almost exactly the same way 3 or 4 times - including messaging that "it's going well", "we're making real progress" etc etc, until Putin pulls the plug. And then it starts all over again, including ongoing destruction and death in Ukraine, until the next Trump-initiated "diplomacy" which results in essentially the same suggested settlement.
"
russell:
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
Sorry, that was not clear. I meant if the US stepped back and Europe and UK stepped up, it would nonetheless embolden him. I suppose if PURL were still on the table, it would work for a while, especially if the US continued to supply intelligence. But Putin knows Europe and the UK cannot sustain the delivery of materials by themselves, at least not at this point. IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
"
One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO
Since there is nothing in it for Trump personally, it's hard to credit him with caring about whether they step up. He may complain about it, but then he complains about anything and everything. Actually doing anything is rare.
As for "getting NATO members to pay their fair share", it's hard to see a valid complaint from the US on that. The one and only time that NATO has invoked its mutual defense clause was when the Europeans stepped up to support the US in Afghanistan. They stepped up to support us! Seems to me we've got no complaint.
The European members of NATO have not increased their defense spending in response to anything Trump has done. If you must credit anyone, "credit" Putin.
"
Charles, you amaze me (not).
"
I’m well aware that not everyone here thinks kindly of James Carville, but I’m betting that nonetheless few will disagree with the extract above.
I disagree with all of it.
On “Pop!”
but at the rate those data centers will swallow up water and warm the planet
doubling compute capacity every 6 months is a hell of a rate.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/11/google-tells-employees-it-must-double-capacity-every-6-months-to-meet-ai-demand/
On “An openish thread featuring the comedy stylings of Steve Witkoff”
"Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin"
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
"My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars."
If you will pardon my language, my take on Trump is that he has no f****ing idea what he's doing, other than finding ways to make money for himself, his family, and a close circle of already obscenely wealthy people.
In terms of actual governance, I think he's basically making it up as he goes along.
He wants to make a lot of money, he wants to be adored, and he wants to punish people who aren't nice to him (as he sees it). If there's more to him than that, I'm not seeing it.
"
I'm troubled by the purported peace proposal (I also note that since I started to write this, Trump is backing away from it). I want to see Ukraine free and prosperous and as intact as possible with a security guarantee (as the last one didn't work). This war is terrible and needs to end. And it needs to end in such a way as it doesn't happen again down the road as happened after Crimea. In a perfect world, Russia would be out of Ukraine. It's not a perfect world.
I can't tell whether or not Ukraine is on the brink. Certainly there is a conscription problem. If US support were to end, and the Europeans not step up, it would be a disaster. Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin and drag this debacle out even longer.
My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars. One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO (well, collectively at least). The pause in US support brought Europe in even more. But despite the implementation by NATO of PURL (launched by Gen. Rutte and Trump) to fund the acquisition of ready to use weapons in US stockpiles for Ukraine, total military aid from Europe declined 43 percent in July and August of this year (humanitarian and financial support remained steady). I think that is the latest data. With the plan, the EU and the UK raced to take part in high-level talks and are voicing ever stronger support for Ukraine. I wonder if this really has nothing to do with appeasing Putin but lighting a fire under the Europeans (yet again)? It is their backyard, after all. And while they have stepped up, it doesn't make up for decades of underfunding the military and building a (mostly former) dependence on Russian gas. Europe isn't in a great position to take up the slack. And it should be.
Another reasonable take here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-expert-conversation-separating-signal-from-noise-in-trumps-ukraine-peace-plan/
Hoping the Europeans really step in and Trump drops the hammer (e.g. Tomahawks). But I have my doubts on both.
"
Perhaps someone here can explain something to me. Trump says Ukraine must accept the Russian-written "peace proposal or "risk losing US support. So, let's assume a counterfactual: Ukraine accepts the proposal. What good is US support supposed to do them, even assuming it lasts more than milliseconds beyong Russia moving it's troops forward?
It looks to me that the actual choice is between losing US support or losing US support. The only difference is between losing a bunch of territory at the same time or not.
"
With all this rage, we must also have a bold, simple policy plan — one that every American can understand. In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74 percent approval rating in 2023. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63 percent of U.S. adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62 percent of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80 percent feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility. Or when 70 percent of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal child care a public good. And darn it, we should not fear that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We’ve already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. The era of half-baked political policy is over.
I'm well aware that not everyone here thinks kindly of James Carville, but I'm betting that nonetheless few will disagree with the extract above. Here's the whole thing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/opinion/democrats-platform-economic-rage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k8.RLeA.wVApkzjlRXhM&smid=url-share
On “Shabana burns the cakes”
I have tried to put down roots here, and I think I’ve done a good job, but given that it has been a conscious effort, I have to say that those roots aren’t deep, certainly not as deep as Japanese from here.
It's true that those who have moved tend to have shallower roots than those who have lived somewhere for a lifetime. And also, it's not surprising that some are better than others at developing new roots when they move. But I would point out that, while you feel your new roots are shallow, you are hardly someone who is perpetually moving. (I'd put the threshold for "perpetually moving"/rootless at relocating every couple of years or less.)
I acknowledge that my perspective is probably skewed by my personal experience. The US is called "a nation of immigrants" (suck eggs, Steven Miller!) for a reason. And California is a bit extreme, even for the US.
Growing up, I lived in a little farm town, just starting to evolve into a suburb. When my parents moved here, after WW II, the population was under 500. By the time I graduated high school, my graduating class was around 500. For all that there were a couple of families who had been here for a century, pretty much everybody in town was from somewhere else. Often, the kids in my classes had moved a couple of times already. Today, the town is up to nearly 50,000.
That sort of thing continues. I'm in the long time rooted category because, although I've lived in a half dozen different places over the years, they've all been within a hundred miles of here. But my family, my friends, my neighbors? All have moved or lived previously, far away. I've got a brother who, in his 20s and 30s, lived "in Europe" -- never settled anywhere for more than a couple of months, as far as I could tell. Definitely in the perpetually moving category.
On “The surprising philosophy behind Palantir”
Hartmut, no worries, It's complicated by the fact that Karp is a non-native speaker of German, so it would be difficult to know what is from the translator and what is from Karp's German. In the New Statesman podcast, they say that Habermas turned down Karp's request to be the second reader on his dissertation because he didn't think that Karp's German was good enough, though softened that rejection by acknowledging that the ideas in the dissertation were probably difficult for native speakers of German to get across.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.