It's because technology doesn't change the fundamentals of global geopolitics. Which is that nearly all of history can be explained as a struggle to control basic resources such as arable land, oil, minerals, etc. Everything you're seeing today is because those resources are becoming either increasingly scarce, or increasingly valuable.

Technology can change things but people that profit today from something will oppose a change.

Case in point: switching from oil to renewables - which can lower dependency to external actors a lot as solar panels and windmills have life span of years, so even if the producers suddenly refuses to sell more, one has some time to find an alternative - was done slower than it could have because of "discussions".

Since 20 years I almost feel the discussion "climate change or not" is fueled by people that want dependency on oil, such that we don't talk about the issue of a couple of big producer points of failure (USA, Russia, Gulf countries). Not sure if oil companies are smart enough to finance green groups (to which I agree generally but is besides the point), such that the public discourse stays in a conflict area (climate) rather than a simple one (independence), but if they are that would be meta-evil.

Are they?

We have so much stuff that we just throw things away if a tiny piece of it gets tarnished / broken.

The US's population density is pretty low and we have a ton of land not in cities that's very sparsely populated.

Like it largely seems that geopolitics of now is about creating scarcity.

> increasingly scarce, or increasingly valuable.

Neither of which is actually true for oil. We're still finding oil reserves faster than we deplete them, major users such as China are rapidly decarbonizing, and the price was relatively low before the war.

But the people in power thought it was true, which is all that matters.

No actually. There's no real "resource" justification here.

This is directly caused by technology. Morons have helped the worst possible people build surveillance and coordination and propaganda networks and are all confused pikachu about that going exactly the way you should have expected it to go.

Technology was also bypassing the "resource" problem at warp speed. Solar panels are the energy future, and thanks to China being actually good at strategic planning, solar can be deployed and utilized far faster than any other energy innovation. With the sheer abundance possible through bulk solar, water scarcity is an engineering issue, about manufacturing enough plumbing and membranes to desalinate whatever you need.

We are fighting an 80s oil war because people voted for an 80s TV personality to run our country after he was known to rape kids, brag about Mein Kampf (even though everyone knows he doesn't read for fun), and attempt to invalidate the 2020 election.

Israel saw a clear opening to wildly advance their imperialist ambitions and because Donald Trump is so damn stupid we have jumped in to this absurdist situation because Donald Trump wanted to be seen shooting first, because he thinks that looks "Strong".