8 ms·

America Will Collapse by 2025 (2010)

35 points by truro 5y ago

educaysean 5y ago
Why is the Hacker News title editorialized? I believe the convention is to use the original title of the linked article. Removing the "how" from the sentence changes the tone by quite a margin.
Shadonototra 5y ago
America won't collapse alone, the whole Western block will collapse with it, our civilization already died, the moment we decided stock market is more important than the education and health of our people Greed, gluttony, spread of cancerous culture, lack of social justice and many more
kragen 5y ago
This is particularly timely after the Taliban routed the US in Afghanistan in May to August of last year. An interesting thing here is the central role played by energy in this analysis; this article was before the fracking boom (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#/media/File:US_Crude_Oil_Production_and_Imports.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#/media/File:US_Crude_... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_Upper-Bound_Peak_1956.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_Upper-Bound_Peak_..., which shows the US fracking boom, though not the recent decline) and before the last factor of 8 or so decrease in the cost of solar panels made them cheaper than fossil fuels in much of the world. So it predicts Iran and Russia will be "energy kingpins" in 02025, which doesn't really seem to be in the cards. Maybe China will be an "energy kingpin"—it could cover the Gobi with PV panels and run HVDC, which might be outside the state capacity of countries like Perú, Saudi, and Libya which control vast desert territories on paper. But, so far, despite installing more PV capacity than the entire rest of the world, China's PV capacity factor is a disappointing 13%, compared to 29% in California, so it's apparently making terrible choices about where to site its solar farms. (Still better than the 10% you get in Germany or the Netherlands.) For the last 2500 years the "world's reserve currency" has been gold, except for the last 77 or so. That could easily happen again. Bitcoin was kind of gunning for that position, but China's thoroughgoing rejection of it forecloses that possibility for at least a generation, and Bitcoin could easily cease to exist in that time. Although the knowledge of this article's author about computer security seems to come from Hollywood, the computer security situation is indeed extremely grave, and as more and more things become digital, any state that doesn't take it seriously and take effective measures to improve the situation is likely to be destroyed. Presently, that means every state in the world. It's true that when financial and military collapse comes, they are likely to come very quickly.
jfengel 5y ago
(2010)
starwind 5y ago
I lol'd at this oil analysis. The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this
- coldtea 5y ago
  >I lol'd at this oil analysis. You really shouldn't tho. >The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this None of the technological developments created since then [2010] are able to mitigate an oil shock of the kind described in the article given their current deployment levels. Actually, not even any developments that might be created in the next 5-10 years, in the level that they can be applied within the next 15 years would solve such an issue.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Given that the US is now a net oil exporter, an oil shock scenario is pretty much off the table. Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too. And yet the gas price is higher it's been since 2014 or so. And "moving to EVs", with 280 million conventional cars in the USA atm, ain't gonna happen in any large degree for the next 10-15 years. EVs (including hybrids) are less than 4% of current annual sales, and all-electric are half that. That's even assuming there was the production capacity, battery materials availability, network, etc for this to happen - which includes several breakthroughs or handwaving micacles.
      - starwind 5y ago
        Gas, like all commodities, create their own business cycles. You don't want to compare spot prices, you want to compare trends. As a counterpoint, I could say "2 years ago, gas was cheaper than it had been since 2006"
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Clubber 5y ago
Doom and gloom has been selling for decades. Don't buy it.
- fullstackchris 5y ago
  the end is nigh!
- coldtea 5y ago
  I think you've gotten the wrong takeaway message from "The boy who cried wolf story". At some point, there were indeed wolves, so dismissing the chance of them because of fradulent/failed prior warnings turned out to be a mistake. Plus, in 2022 it's more accurate than ever. Though of course, Rome didn't decline in a day, either...
  - Clubber 5y ago
    This isn't a boy who cried wolf story, this is a business model that is toxic and makes money of peddling fear and have been for decades.
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    The take away isn't to always listen, but to not always exaggerate/lie. The reader never got impacted by the wolves, the speaker did. So in the end, maybe the ones impacted will be the media, not the readers.
- esens 5y ago
  Empires all do end and when they do they often fracture because of a built up of social discontent, but they are predicted to be ending 1000x more often than they end. Eventually someone calls it correctly though, and generally you only know who in hindsight.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    720 broken clocks might have one with the correct time on it, but that doesn’t mean it was working properly.
djohnston 5y ago
I believed it until China started scoring own goals kneecapping their tech industry and their best and brightest kept coming to the West... Someday though, my VEMAX investments will look like a good decision.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  One of America's secret sauces is that everyone in the world is welcome to defect from their home regime and come here. Hell, there's even a chance we'll make your children our leaders (Obama and Harris for example). And you personally have a chance to start a business and become a billionaire or advance up the corporate ladder to CEO of existing giants. The inverse is not true. The best and brightest Americans (regardless of race) can never effectively defect to China. Maybe if you're ethnically Han Chinese your children will have a chance to be fully integrated and accepted, but definitely not if you're any other race. The gravity of best and brightest migration is still one way into the American singularity.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    We’ve substantially curbed immigration into the US, so I wonder how that might affect this “secret sauce”.
    - yakz 5y ago
      Have we? With the exception of 2020 due to the pandemic, how much has immigration declined?
      - TameAntelope 5y ago
        Oh I guess we haven't, that's good. Looks to have more or less steadied out over the past decade or two. [0] [0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/annual-number-of-us-legal-permanent-residents https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...
- jeffreyrogers 5y ago
sAbakumoff 5y ago
America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because Mr. Biden is a total loser. With the supermajority, the GOP will establish an autocracy for decades.
- chasd00 5y ago
  > the GOP will establish an autocracy for decades. do you just mean win elections for decades? That i can sort of believe (or at least comprehend), but wholesale destruction of Democracy? To me, that means canceling elections and the president declaring themself absolute power for life which i just don't see happening. I would expect a military coup before that since the military swears allegiance to the constitution first and then civilian leadership next.
  - sAbakumoff 5y ago
    What I mean is the following strategy: - shredding off what remains of voting rights - packing courts all over the country, including the SCOTUS with conservative or right-wing judges - appointing right-wing figures to top positions in DoJ, DoD, and FBI - cementing the state legislatures authorities to determine the outcome of elections
- misiti3780 5y ago
  If that happens, the democrats only have themselves to blame at this point. Biden came in with a 60+% approval rating, now he is in the high 20s / low 30s. I actually think it's more likely that a third party like Andrew Yangs Forward Party emerges and wins an election. A lot of people are sick of two options, and feel alienated in by their own party (both sides)
  - sAbakumoff 5y ago
    100%. The only promise that Biden can keep is that "nothing will fundamentally change".
S_A_P 5y ago
Ahh the early days of clickbait. I wonder if the author was hoping to stop the demise or just wanted to be able to scream "see I told you so!" as the world burns.
- chasd00 5y ago
  i bet lunch that as soon as the author pressed the publish button they wrote another article under a different name title "Click to find out how that other guy is wrong and America won't collapse in 2025"
phekunde 5y ago
America will not collapse, it will become less relevant. The multipolar world is going to be more prominent going forward. Even France's Macron is talking about making EU independent of US influence. And with emerging country like India already having a DNA of non-alignment, it looks like the US will have a say in global world order but the influence will be far more limited than what it use to be.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world. One thing I agreed with Trump policy was this inward-looking aspect - no more stupid wars, no more pulling the weight of NATO and no more nation building in ME. Note that these policies were bipartisan - Bushes and Clintons/Obama supported them and spun the military industrial complex slot machine. What Trump did was very much in the stark contrast to the classic liberal/conservative stance of US foreign policy. Essentially a more lucid version of Ron Paul.
  - piva00 5y ago
    > Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world. Unfair share? Based on what? The spending is directly correlated to USA's interests, there is no nanny-ing or "good will" going on, it's a matter of purely international interests. Looking at this with the patronising "unfair share" is a bit preposterous. I'd say it's pretty unfair to a lot of countries being forced under the sphere of influence of the US to be continuously subjugated, through foreign policy or direct meddling in internal affairs, like the whole of Latin America. That is really fucking unfair.
    - avgDev 5y ago
      OP completely missing the point why US is spending so much money on military. US doesn't care about ANYONE but US. All moves and "nannying" is strategical in nature and to US benefit.
      - 5y ago
davideous 5y ago
The book "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" by Ray Dalio compares the rise (and decline) of the American "world empire" to prior world empires. The two most recent are the U.K. and the Netherlands. The same things that are happening now have happened before -- just not in our lifetimes. The history and his analysis is quite instructive. The book was refreshing in its objectivity, lack of political bias, and clarity of writing. I've given copies to several friends. It's pretty clear from his analysis and the data that the U.S. is in a decline of global influence. https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/dp/1982160276/ https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/...
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  Ray Dalio is an international treasure. When I watch the Davos videos he often seems like the only one who's not in a quiet state of panic.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > The book "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" by Ray Dalio compares the rise (and decline) of the American "world empire" to prior world empires. Why should I put much stock in historical analysis done by a "American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager" [1]? My gut feel that someone like that probably has so much other stuff on his plate that the analysis would be in many ways superficial, and such a person likely has enough status that large numbers of people would indulge his pretensions at being a polymath even if it's not actually true. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio
  - todorus 5y ago
    Ad hominem
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Ad hominem No, I didn't say he was wrong because of who he was. I have suspicions that he might be over-hyped, and I was asking questions about that. And if that's wrong, I have literally a million self-published books that you really ought to carefully consider, lest you be guilty of "Ad hominem."
newaccount2021 5y ago
JavaBatman 5y ago
Even if we transition to a multipolar world order and renewed great power competition, America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. It has hegemony in the western hemisphere through its enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; it is protected by the two largest oceans; it has historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to two regional powers on both sides of the ocean (UK and Ireland in Europe, Australia and NZ in the Asia Pacific, Five Eyes, etc.); it is by far the leader in soft power (music, movies, TV, technology, English language, etc.); and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far. Despite strategic defeats in the Middle East and South Asia, US officers gained tons of battlefield experience and the ability to test its weaponry. So even if the US now has to deal with a hegemonic challenger in East Asia (China) and more assertive one in Europe (Russia), its geography and demography give it advantages no other great power has.
- jrs235 5y ago
  >America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. >and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far. "America" (The U.S.) will likely collapse from internal conflict, possibly precipitated or accompanied by external provocation (cyber warfare, infrastructure attacks, propaganda), that will divide the country and the military. Imagine the U.S. during the Civil War/War between the States. This time there won't be borders between the sides. How is a country facing such internal strife going to be able to control, let alone worry, about global affairs beyond it's borders?
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  - trembonator 5y ago
- wdr1 5y ago
  A lot of people don't realize the United States has the second largest air force in the world. Oh, it has the largest too -- the US Air Force. It's just the second largest air force in the world belongs to the US Navy. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-a...
erik_landerholm 5y ago
Using number of patents as a measure makes this whole premise dubious.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
No risk of socialism taking over?
parkingrift 5y ago
>After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. It's funny and interesting that the military budget is such a common punching bag. The defense budget is a pretty small percentage of the overall outlays. Yet people continue to act like it's the single line item that is holding America back. Here's where the American federal government spent money in 2020. * $1T on unemployment compensation and paycheck protection program * $1.1T on social security * $1.2T on medicare and medicaid * $1T on "other" which includes federal employee retirements and welfare programs * $900B on non-defense discretionary spending on thing such as housing assistance, transportation, and education. ...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B. The budget deficit for FY2020 was $3.1T. Maybe the military budget is so high it is causing a ripple in the multiverse that makes arithmetic different in this universe. Maybe if we cut $300B from the military budget in our universe it will even out to $3T because magic.
- chasd00 5y ago
  > ...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B. just a small reminder that $700B is less than the bank bailout of 2008/2009 which straddled both a Republican and Democrat president. That's in the top 5 most outrageous things in my lifetime (so far).
  - DesiLurker 5y ago
    what you conveniently left out was that its only less by $100B (also one time vs recurring). Secondly it happened at the hand of a republican president and the democrat had to clean up the mess made by republican as always. one more thing the bank bailout was absolutely necessary if you did not want economy to collapse into a depression but none of the conservatives ever talk about all the banking deregulation (like graham beach leahy & glass stegal) that actually led to the conditions where financial system became so fragile that it had to be bailed out. Also, Govt actually made money on the TARP bailout after the funds were mostly returned.

35 points by truro 5y ago

Why is the Hacker News title editorialized? I believe the convention is to use the original title of the linked article. Removing the "how" from the sentence changes the tone by quite a margin.

Shadonototra 5y ago

America won't collapse alone, the whole Western block will collapse with it, our civilization already died, the moment we decided stock market is more important than the education and health of our people Greed, gluttony, spread of cancerous culture, lack of social justice and many more

kragen 5y ago

This is particularly timely after the Taliban routed the US in Afghanistan in May to August of last year. An interesting thing here is the central role played by energy in this analysis; this article was before the fracking boom (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#/media/File:US_Crude_Oil_Production_and_Imports.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#/media/File:US_Crude_... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_Upper-Bound_Peak_1956.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_Upper-Bound_Peak_..., which shows the US fracking boom, though not the recent decline) and before the last factor of 8 or so decrease in the cost of solar panels made them cheaper than fossil fuels in much of the world. So it predicts Iran and Russia will be "energy kingpins" in 02025, which doesn't really seem to be in the cards. Maybe China will be an "energy kingpin"—it could cover the Gobi with PV panels and run HVDC, which might be outside the state capacity of countries like Perú, Saudi, and Libya which control vast desert territories on paper. But, so far, despite installing more PV capacity than the entire rest of the world, China's PV capacity factor is a disappointing 13%, compared to 29% in California, so it's apparently making terrible choices about where to site its solar farms. (Still better than the 10% you get in Germany or the Netherlands.) For the last 2500 years the "world's reserve currency" has been gold, except for the last 77 or so. That could easily happen again. Bitcoin was kind of gunning for that position, but China's thoroughgoing rejection of it forecloses that possibility for at least a generation, and Bitcoin could easily cease to exist in that time. Although the knowledge of this article's author about computer security seems to come from Hollywood, the computer security situation is indeed extremely grave, and as more and more things become digital, any state that doesn't take it seriously and take effective measures to improve the situation is likely to be destroyed. Presently, that means every state in the world. It's true that when financial and military collapse comes, they are likely to come very quickly.

jfengel 5y ago

(2010)

starwind 5y ago

I lol'd at this oil analysis. The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this

coldtea 5y ago
>I lol'd at this oil analysis. You really shouldn't tho. >The author had no idea what technological developments would be widely deployed in just the next couple years after they wrote this None of the technological developments created since then [2010] are able to mitigate an oil shock of the kind described in the article given their current deployment levels. Actually, not even any developments that might be created in the next 5-10 years, in the level that they can be applied within the next 15 years would solve such an issue.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Given that the US is now a net oil exporter, an oil shock scenario is pretty much off the table. Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too. And yet the gas price is higher it's been since 2014 or so. And "moving to EVs", with 280 million conventional cars in the USA atm, ain't gonna happen in any large degree for the next 10-15 years. EVs (including hybrids) are less than 4% of current annual sales, and all-electric are half that. That's even assuming there was the production capacity, battery materials availability, network, etc for this to happen - which includes several breakthroughs or handwaving micacles.
    - starwind 5y ago
      Gas, like all commodities, create their own business cycles. You don't want to compare spot prices, you want to compare trends. As a counterpoint, I could say "2 years ago, gas was cheaper than it had been since 2006"

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Clubber 5y ago

Doom and gloom has been selling for decades. Don't buy it.

fullstackchris 5y ago
the end is nigh!
coldtea 5y ago
I think you've gotten the wrong takeaway message from "The boy who cried wolf story". At some point, there were indeed wolves, so dismissing the chance of them because of fradulent/failed prior warnings turned out to be a mistake. Plus, in 2022 it's more accurate than ever. Though of course, Rome didn't decline in a day, either...
- Clubber 5y ago
  This isn't a boy who cried wolf story, this is a business model that is toxic and makes money of peddling fear and have been for decades.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  The take away isn't to always listen, but to not always exaggerate/lie. The reader never got impacted by the wolves, the speaker did. So in the end, maybe the ones impacted will be the media, not the readers.
esens 5y ago
Empires all do end and when they do they often fracture because of a built up of social discontent, but they are predicted to be ending 1000x more often than they end. Eventually someone calls it correctly though, and generally you only know who in hindsight.
- kube-system 5y ago
  720 broken clocks might have one with the correct time on it, but that doesn’t mean it was working properly.

djohnston 5y ago

I believed it until China started scoring own goals kneecapping their tech industry and their best and brightest kept coming to the West... Someday though, my VEMAX investments will look like a good decision.

anonporridge 5y ago
One of America's secret sauces is that everyone in the world is welcome to defect from their home regime and come here. Hell, there's even a chance we'll make your children our leaders (Obama and Harris for example). And you personally have a chance to start a business and become a billionaire or advance up the corporate ladder to CEO of existing giants. The inverse is not true. The best and brightest Americans (regardless of race) can never effectively defect to China. Maybe if you're ethnically Han Chinese your children will have a chance to be fully integrated and accepted, but definitely not if you're any other race. The gravity of best and brightest migration is still one way into the American singularity.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  We’ve substantially curbed immigration into the US, so I wonder how that might affect this “secret sauce”.
  - yakz 5y ago
    Have we? With the exception of 2020 due to the pandemic, how much has immigration declined?
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Oh I guess we haven't, that's good. Looks to have more or less steadied out over the past decade or two. [0] [0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/annual-number-of-us-legal-permanent-residents https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...
jeffreyrogers 5y ago

sAbakumoff 5y ago

America will not collapse, but American democracy likely will collapse. At the end of 2022, GOP will win the mid-term elections and have the majority in the house and the senate. They already have state legislatures effectively under control, and the supreme court is full of conservative judges. In 2024 Ron De Santos, or another authoritarian candidate, will win the GOP nomination and easily win the election because Mr. Biden is a total loser. With the supermajority, the GOP will establish an autocracy for decades.

chasd00 5y ago
> the GOP will establish an autocracy for decades. do you just mean win elections for decades? That i can sort of believe (or at least comprehend), but wholesale destruction of Democracy? To me, that means canceling elections and the president declaring themself absolute power for life which i just don't see happening. I would expect a military coup before that since the military swears allegiance to the constitution first and then civilian leadership next.
- sAbakumoff 5y ago
  What I mean is the following strategy: - shredding off what remains of voting rights - packing courts all over the country, including the SCOTUS with conservative or right-wing judges - appointing right-wing figures to top positions in DoJ, DoD, and FBI - cementing the state legislatures authorities to determine the outcome of elections
misiti3780 5y ago
If that happens, the democrats only have themselves to blame at this point. Biden came in with a 60+% approval rating, now he is in the high 20s / low 30s. I actually think it's more likely that a third party like Andrew Yangs Forward Party emerges and wins an election. A lot of people are sick of two options, and feel alienated in by their own party (both sides)
- sAbakumoff 5y ago
  100%. The only promise that Biden can keep is that "nothing will fundamentally change".

S_A_P 5y ago

Ahh the early days of clickbait. I wonder if the author was hoping to stop the demise or just wanted to be able to scream "see I told you so!" as the world burns.

chasd00 5y ago
i bet lunch that as soon as the author pressed the publish button they wrote another article under a different name title "Click to find out how that other guy is wrong and America won't collapse in 2025"

phekunde 5y ago

America will not collapse, it will become less relevant. The multipolar world is going to be more prominent going forward. Even France's Macron is talking about making EU independent of US influence. And with emerging country like India already having a DNA of non-alignment, it looks like the US will have a say in global world order but the influence will be far more limited than what it use to be.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world. One thing I agreed with Trump policy was this inward-looking aspect - no more stupid wars, no more pulling the weight of NATO and no more nation building in ME. Note that these policies were bipartisan - Bushes and Clintons/Obama supported them and spun the military industrial complex slot machine. What Trump did was very much in the stark contrast to the classic liberal/conservative stance of US foreign policy. Essentially a more lucid version of Ron Paul.
- piva00 5y ago
  > Good, US has been spending unfair share and has been the nanny of the world. Unfair share? Based on what? The spending is directly correlated to USA's interests, there is no nanny-ing or "good will" going on, it's a matter of purely international interests. Looking at this with the patronising "unfair share" is a bit preposterous. I'd say it's pretty unfair to a lot of countries being forced under the sphere of influence of the US to be continuously subjugated, through foreign policy or direct meddling in internal affairs, like the whole of Latin America. That is really fucking unfair.
  - avgDev 5y ago
    OP completely missing the point why US is spending so much money on military. US doesn't care about ANYONE but US. All moves and "nannying" is strategical in nature and to US benefit.
    - 5y ago

davideous 5y ago

The book "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" by Ray Dalio compares the rise (and decline) of the American "world empire" to prior world empires. The two most recent are the U.K. and the Netherlands. The same things that are happening now have happened before -- just not in our lifetimes. The history and his analysis is quite instructive. The book was refreshing in its objectivity, lack of political bias, and clarity of writing. I've given copies to several friends. It's pretty clear from his analysis and the data that the U.S. is in a decline of global influence. https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/dp/1982160276/ https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/...

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
Ray Dalio is an international treasure. When I watch the Davos videos he often seems like the only one who's not in a quiet state of panic.
tablespoon 5y ago
> The book "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail" by Ray Dalio compares the rise (and decline) of the American "world empire" to prior world empires. Why should I put much stock in historical analysis done by a "American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager" [1]? My gut feel that someone like that probably has so much other stuff on his plate that the analysis would be in many ways superficial, and such a person likely has enough status that large numbers of people would indulge his pretensions at being a polymath even if it's not actually true. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio
- todorus 5y ago
  Ad hominem
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Ad hominem No, I didn't say he was wrong because of who he was. I have suspicions that he might be over-hyped, and I was asking questions about that. And if that's wrong, I have literally a million self-published books that you really ought to carefully consider, lest you be guilty of "Ad hominem."

newaccount2021 5y ago

JavaBatman 5y ago

Even if we transition to a multipolar world order and renewed great power competition, America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. It has hegemony in the western hemisphere through its enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; it is protected by the two largest oceans; it has historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to two regional powers on both sides of the ocean (UK and Ireland in Europe, Australia and NZ in the Asia Pacific, Five Eyes, etc.); it is by far the leader in soft power (music, movies, TV, technology, English language, etc.); and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far. Despite strategic defeats in the Middle East and South Asia, US officers gained tons of battlefield experience and the ability to test its weaponry. So even if the US now has to deal with a hegemonic challenger in East Asia (China) and more assertive one in Europe (Russia), its geography and demography give it advantages no other great power has.

jrs235 5y ago
>America will still be the strongest and most secure global power. >and most importantly, it has the strongest military by far. "America" (The U.S.) will likely collapse from internal conflict, possibly precipitated or accompanied by external provocation (cyber warfare, infrastructure attacks, propaganda), that will divide the country and the military. Imagine the U.S. during the Civil War/War between the States. This time there won't be borders between the sides. How is a country facing such internal strife going to be able to control, let alone worry, about global affairs beyond it's borders?
RickJWagner 5y ago
- trembonator 5y ago
wdr1 5y ago
A lot of people don't realize the United States has the second largest air force in the world. Oh, it has the largest too -- the US Air Force. It's just the second largest air force in the world belongs to the US Navy. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-a...

erik_landerholm 5y ago

Using number of patents as a measure makes this whole premise dubious.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

No risk of socialism taking over?

parkingrift 5y ago

>After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. It's funny and interesting that the military budget is such a common punching bag. The defense budget is a pretty small percentage of the overall outlays. Yet people continue to act like it's the single line item that is holding America back. Here's where the American federal government spent money in 2020. * $1T on unemployment compensation and paycheck protection program * $1.1T on social security * $1.2T on medicare and medicaid * $1T on "other" which includes federal employee retirements and welfare programs * $900B on non-defense discretionary spending on thing such as housing assistance, transportation, and education. ...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B. The budget deficit for FY2020 was $3.1T. Maybe the military budget is so high it is causing a ripple in the multiverse that makes arithmetic different in this universe. Maybe if we cut $300B from the military budget in our universe it will even out to $3T because magic.

chasd00 5y ago
> ...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B. just a small reminder that $700B is less than the bank bailout of 2008/2009 which straddled both a Republican and Democrat president. That's in the top 5 most outrageous things in my lifetime (so far).
- DesiLurker 5y ago
  what you conveniently left out was that its only less by $100B (also one time vs recurring). Secondly it happened at the hand of a republican president and the democrat had to clean up the mess made by republican as always. one more thing the bank bailout was absolutely necessary if you did not want economy to collapse into a depression but none of the conservatives ever talk about all the banking deregulation (like graham beach leahy & glass stegal) that actually led to the conditions where financial system became so fragile that it had to be bailed out. Also, Govt actually made money on the TARP bailout after the funds were mostly returned.