America Lost the Mandate of Heaven

by mefengl on 4/18/2026, 7:56:18 AM

https://geohot.github.io//blog/jekyll/update/2026/04/18/america-mandate-of-heaven.html

Comments

by: jareklupinski

America never had a Mandate? it infamously tried to Manifest a Destiny

4/18/2026, 11:51:55 AM

by: rock_artist

> When I was younger I used to think more negatively about jobs, I even called it the jobs problem in my 2019 agentic coding startup template. I have since come around, the point of a society is the flourishing of its inhabitants.That’s the key. The world is a delicate fabric that changes over time.It’s nice (or frustrating) reading opinions. Forecasting the future is tricky.While the world and us humans waste our time arguing, conflicting or dreaming, earth and the universe can easily introduce earthquakes, meteors and other unforeseen events that will have more impact than human made events we already cannot completely forecast.

4/18/2026, 10:34:11 AM

by: pm90

I was expecting a more nuanced article that talked about the “Suez Moment” in America but this is basically a (not even a good) critique of deindustrialization.

4/18/2026, 9:31:19 AM

by: ben_w

> Take the Mythos vulnerability finding thing. They didn’t just point Mythos at the codebase and say go, they built a harness where they asked it about each piece of code and if it was vulnerable. They triaged and spent more time looking at things that were flagged more, until eventually they passed it up to “uppper management” aka the people.> You could imagine building this exact same thing with humans. Educate them, get them to sit at a desk, read code, find vulns. Actually, I can only really imagine that in China, have you seen the current graduates from the American universities?Imagine, sure.But why didn't anyone? I don't think it is a question of quality, though China simply being more populous than the USA* means there are more people at any given competence in any given domain, but cost, both monetary and opportunity.AI's cheap. It would still be cheap compared to a human even if it cost 3000 USD/month for the token limit we get from the 20/month subscription.That's the danger.* by about 4x: <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china%20population%2Fusa%20population" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china%20population%2Fus...</a>

4/18/2026, 8:50:10 AM

by: havblue

A problem with politics now is it becomes a debate on Trump and sidesteps existential problems that we're facing and in favor of dunking on the other party. Stocks are going up when manufacturing isn't and the clumsy tarrif system we slapped on top of our economy isn't going to right the ship. I think the article is on the right track as we probably need more jobs related to building physical goods and not inflating the price of financial products. I'm just not sure if it goes far enough into a positive vision on what we should do to correct that.

4/18/2026, 10:36:19 AM

by: kdilner

More sophomoric ramblings from this egotist.

4/18/2026, 9:57:58 AM

by: xg15

> I read an article a while back about how, basically because labor unions became too much of a pain to deal with, they were just cut out of the conversation. > This isn’t like when stuff is made in China. Those are basically American factories, just located in another country where you don’t have to negotiate with American labor.I guess you do need to be socialist to formulate that first sentence in the active instead of passive voice or wonder how it even was possible that America could build American factories in other countries without negotiating with any labor (American or of the other country).The part that is also missing is how China gladly took all the outsourced jobs, said "thanks guys!" and used them to become the rivaling power to the US it is today.

4/18/2026, 10:33:54 AM

by: roenxi

> It’s interesting how America believes in these apocalyptic AI narratives while China doesn’t.As the rest of the article alludes to, America is a services economy [0]. An industrial economy obviously doesn't have anything to fear from AI because their jobs don't primarily involve pressing buttons on a keyboard to justify their paycheck. That probably explains most of the difference; for China I'd imagine more AI -> More prosperity.> A human is about 20 petaflops. All of this installed compute is only about a million people.The number of effective humans might only be around a few million people. Gauss and Euler did a bit more for society than the average 20 petaflops of human flesh. One of the lessons of history is that being able to reliably connect a few really good humans has a lot more potential than a moderate number of more easily confused ones.There are a lot of smartest cow in the herd phenomenons out there. Even a few hundred thousand AIs would probably outnumber the senior politicians of the world and reducing the damage those politicians do would be a huge win. Gargantuan. Possibly species level impacts like we've never yet seen if a major power like China did it.> Oh sorry sorry, in a preemptive strike they obviously would have hit us if we didn’t attack them first. Yes yes, defensive preemptive attack. It’s just bullying. It’s stupid.And I'm probably packing too much into one comment, but you can tell everyone knows this is stupid because the politicians consistently have to use lies instead of trying to argue things on the merits. As soon as people have to try and connect the actual facts to someone who isn't corrupt being better off the argument collapses. The worst people are the ones in the grip of that team-sports emotion where they just support "their side" despite the fact that a policy of war hurts the side engaging in it. The warmongers aren't even on the same side, they're their own lobby of psychopaths.[0] A term which might be in for the "third world" euphemism treatment, but you never know.

4/18/2026, 10:07:20 AM

by: oezi

The article is certainly firebranding, but the core tenet strikes a valid point: how has the US lost the plot within such a short time? How did it go from the flag bearer of freedom and progress to isolationist bully that wants to invade Greenland and become best friends with Russia?From the outside it is really hard to comprehend. Was it FoxNews that poisoned the American mind or the social media brainwashing? How can a society allow a billionaire to cut programs in Africa that saved hundreds of thousands of lives that cost pennies when compared to any military adventures.

4/18/2026, 10:19:56 AM

by: roncesvalles

The Chinese are not worried about AI taking anyone's job. In fact they're excited by it.For some reason, there is this unbelievably thick air of paranoia in America where everyone is just waiting for the day when their job will go away. To a point where I think it should be classified as mass hysteria and looked into by public health authorities.We should all introspect why so many of us perceive America as this very delicate thing that is hanging on with borrowed time and will fall apart at any moment. Because I don't think it's actually like this.

4/18/2026, 10:32:19 AM

by: adjejmxbdjdn

Imagine using Hong Kong as evidence of a good society and saying “No homelessness anywhere”.One of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, where people are living 4-6 to the room.This is simply expat navel gazing and little more.

4/18/2026, 10:41:20 AM

by: vrganj

Yes, America is a declining empire, but it has nothing to do with the reasons listed.Decades of capitalist cruelty has created a social environment so toxic it enabled a clique of conmen to rise to the top.Now, American hard and soft power are both being dismantled at a rapid pace. Former allies and trade partners are working around the US instead of with it now. It's leadership position has been abandoned, for no good reason at all.The internal rot is being projected onto the global stage and I don't think Americans quite understand the consequences yet.

4/18/2026, 10:13:41 AM

by: expedition32

Providing healthcare isn't your employer's job it is something that comes from the government.It is the original sin of the American healthcare system.America was on the road to socialism from the 1930s to the 1950s but it all went to shit and here we are: back in the Gilded Age.

4/18/2026, 10:31:11 AM

by: derelicta

The US Empire has reached the limit of its capitalistic mode of production. Now is time for Americans to consider the next step of any industrialised capitalist society; scientific socialism. It did wonder for China, Vietnam, and many more, and it can do wonders for the American people too.

4/18/2026, 9:52:51 AM

by: ipkstef

[dead]

4/18/2026, 10:30:56 AM

by: huflungdung