9/6/2021

Over the years, there’s always been talk of America having to have a continuing presence after a conflict has come to some resolution and Afghanistan is the first case where we don’t have a presence—we just pulled out and there’s nothing there to hold the peace. It’s like the internet or social media where popular people have a presence and after a while it starts to become an annoyance because they’re always at the ‘”top of the feed”. The United States always had to be at the top of the feed by the natural “algorithms” in society, now it’s actually computer algorithms that keep the presence there in some respects. 

There’s an interesting section in this book that I’m reading, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life by philosopher John Gray on feline ethics: “...those who think they are convinced they know what morality dictates, there cannot be fundamental disagreement where right and wrong are concerned after all, being moral is the supreme good....”

So having the presence means that it’s a signaling that we still care or that there’s something that might break out and we’ll be there to react because we have to have presence; we feel that we’re at the top of the food chain and now nobody sees us as being on top of the food chain—no one takes us that seriously anymore. So I wonder how the United States can retain relevance in the world now. I would say it’s civil and human rights: put that at the top of the food chain and make that the priority. 

[9/6/2026: Now 6 months into the Iran War]