The few governments around the world that used to be largely consistent with production have ruined more in two years than was generated in a century. If you think America is on the wrong road, look at eastern Australia.

One of the passages in Atlas Shrugged that is often overlooked is how producers have to plan in terms of decades. This requires a stability that no country on the planet has any more, and will not have for decades.

It could be reasonably argued that it has been a very long time indeed since we have been progressing toward reason. History does not progress slowly. It moves in great surges of disruption, with technology usually leading toward positive disruption and authoritarianism always leading toward negative disruption.

The environment for invention is like a recessive gene. When mixed with a dominant gene of authoritarianism, it gets dominated.

Note his point "over centuries." A few centuries ago, Taliban behavior would be the norm, with what we regard as civilized attitudes in a minority of nations at the time. We're less than 500 years from the Salem witch trials in this country, e.g.

Are we headed toward a dystopian situation, as you observe? There are indications that we are once again backsliding into a romance with authoritarian government as the solution to all life's problems. Combine that with a refusal to acknowledge the hard rules of economics (Modern Monetary Theory, cryptocurrency), and you have the prime elements for societal collapse, so yes, a dystopian situation could be developing.

Is a dose of reality pending, and could the path to recovery be a violent one? One has to happen, and the second is a possibility, as humanity tends to reach for desperate solutions when a conflict of ideals occurs.

Once again, much hinges on the behavior of superpowers. Unfortunately both China and the current US administration are not on positive paths. Xi Jinping is acting more like an emperor, threatening the nations around China and making the PLA unhappy at the thought of violent confrontation. The Biden administration is exercising the usual craziness of trying to make the US internationally inoffensive, which inevitably leads to other nations trying to grab power. Either nation could invite a blowup, which could be big (nuclear) or small (local, myriad grinding conflicts).

We don't have much influence over China's internal situation, except to send the message to Emperor Xi that military conquest is not acceptable in the modern world. However, for that message to be delivered carefully and surgically, the US has to be perceived as responsible and credible, neither of which is believable under the Biden administration, which is overflowing with incompetence.

Hopefully, the path to sanity remains, with enough mentally stable voters this next election to place competent, credible government civil servants in place to restore internal balance. I believe in the original vision of our Founders, which is that the people have to hold elected officials accountable and constrained, and I hope that vision can be restored.

CircuitGuy is right on this point: Defend America or "reset" is a false choice. Circuit Guy is wrong on this point: Reason is gaining sway over the whole world. We are accelerating toward the dystopia that Ayn Rand wrote about in Atlas Shrugged.

Defend America or "reset" seems like a false choice. I think reason is slowly (over centuries) gaining sway over the whole world. But it's far from a guaranteed evolution. I'm generally optimistic, but sadly I don't think big leaps forward for liberty will happen in the US. I'm not sure where it will happen because there's no place distant enough to be left alone but close enough for trade and investment. In science fiction the next frontier is in outer space, but space is way to far and impractical right now. Maybe that will change with some technological leap in the next few centuries.