>>510683438
Once the USSR collapsed, it really felt like democracy/capatlism had proven beyond all doubt to be the superior system. The West was clearly the best place to live too. It felt like the rest of the world was coming around to those ideas and the expectation was that once they implemented those, everything would be better there too.
We could even import many foreigners and they would boost the economy and clearly they would adapt our values since our values had been proven to be the best. Maybe we had to topple some governments here and there to help them see reason but it would work out. It was a pipe dream but an appealing one.
9/11 was the splash of cold water that ended that dream and made it clear that there were a lot of people in the world that weren't eager to westernize and wanted nothing more than to stick it to the West.
There were definitely people warning of the problems that would come in the 2000s but they just got ignored. Not unlike people smoking, eating junk and overspending. If it's not a problem today, they don't change anything.
Maybe they even acknowledge the problem and "some day" they'll stop. Usually "some day" isn't until they hit the brick wall of reality.
Not all hope is lost. The fact that the problems are now widely discussed (even if it's met with ridicule from the old guard) is a signal that things are changing. The brick wall is coming into view on a lot of these issues.
