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> We're (the US) are done. We're cooked. I think I've written this comment a few times already, but it'll never stop being relevant: The curse of growing up i

> We're (the US) are done. We're cooked. I think I've written this comment a few times already, but it'll never stop being relevant: The curse of growing up in a rich country during prosperity is that every single issue is the most serious problem your country has faced in your entire lifetime. Chill out. It's going to be fine. You're still going to be a high-income country with good standard of life, even if it falls a little. And even if you're right and the US as we know it is done, it's not because of one orange man with an attitude. It's because of bigger forces. The US became so strong because it used right the once-in-a-millenium opportunity where its engineers would run circles around other countries. When US was sending men to the Moon, China was recovering from an unfortunate incident of having forgotten how to grow rice. That's how big the gap was. Circumstances for such a situation to arise appear extremely rarely, and during "normal times" country's wealth is pretty much tied to its population size. With China and India being together seven times as populous as the US, it's just not possible for the US to maintain its hegemony no matter whether you vote Republican, Democrat, or draw a penis on your ballot, unless the US happens to be lucky enough to again stumble upon some revolutionary discovery comparable to the invention of computers, and have it impossible to produce in rival countries. Spoiler alert: seems like AI is the next big thing, and even if the US still has the lead, China is already technologically closer than Soviets were during their peak.

stego-tech 2y ago
> The curse of growing up in a rich country during prosperity is that every single issue is the most serious problem your country has faced in your entire lifetime. Oh, no, it's not just me saying this. Friends who grew up in dirt poor countries with totalitarian regimes and fled to the USA, are now openly wondering if they should've gone to the EU instead given the sudden about-face. Peers who lived through democratic collapses into authoritarianism are screaming that "this is how it ends, not how it begins". I'm hardly the only one saying this. > And even if you're right and the US as we know it is done, it's not because of one orange man with an attitude. Never said it was? Like, their actions certainly acted as a strong wakeup call to the rest of the world that we are done, that the era of American Hegemony is over, but it's also a long time coming. My personal argument is that this has been in motion since midway through Carter's administration, and has been its own snowball of policy decisions and dismantling of institutions for short-term gains, seizing acquired capital from profitable enterprise rather than reinvesting it into future growth. > The US became so strong because it used right the once-in-a-millenium opportunity where its engineers would run circles around other countries. Yeah, nah, that's a side-effect of good institutions but not a root cause of prosperity. We used to have the best engineers, manufacturers, refineries, and extraction companies in the world, until we kept the Corporate HQs and outsource everything elsewhere. We sacrificed long-term growth for short-term gains, and that's something that causes harm regardless of population density or growth. Your argument kinda goes all over the place to try overplay how important the US' highly-educated domestic workforce was to its successes, and downplay the harms to the underlying systems caused by a rejection of long-term strategic planning in favor of wealth pumps and short-term thinking. I don't quite know how to respond to that without picking it apart line-by-line, and that time would be better served finishing my dang essay.

stego-tech 2y ago

> The curse of growing up in a rich country during prosperity is that every single issue is the most serious problem your country has faced in your entire lifetime. Oh, no, it's not just me saying this. Friends who grew up in dirt poor countries with totalitarian regimes and fled to the USA, are now openly wondering if they should've gone to the EU instead given the sudden about-face. Peers who lived through democratic collapses into authoritarianism are screaming that "this is how it ends, not how it begins". I'm hardly the only one saying this. > And even if you're right and the US as we know it is done, it's not because of one orange man with an attitude. Never said it was? Like, their actions certainly acted as a strong wakeup call to the rest of the world that we are done, that the era of American Hegemony is over, but it's also a long time coming. My personal argument is that this has been in motion since midway through Carter's administration, and has been its own snowball of policy decisions and dismantling of institutions for short-term gains, seizing acquired capital from profitable enterprise rather than reinvesting it into future growth. > The US became so strong because it used right the once-in-a-millenium opportunity where its engineers would run circles around other countries. Yeah, nah, that's a side-effect of good institutions but not a root cause of prosperity. We used to have the best engineers, manufacturers, refineries, and extraction companies in the world, until we kept the Corporate HQs and outsource everything elsewhere. We sacrificed long-term growth for short-term gains, and that's something that causes harm regardless of population density or growth. Your argument kinda goes all over the place to try overplay how important the US' highly-educated domestic workforce was to its successes, and downplay the harms to the underlying systems caused by a rejection of long-term strategic planning in favor of wealth pumps and short-term thinking. I don't quite know how to respond to that without picking it apart line-by-line, and that time would be better served finishing my dang essay.