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The overall American economy is going to pay the price in the long term. And current foreign policy is reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partne

by t0mas88 2mo ago

The overall American economy is going to pay the price in the long term. And current foreign policy is reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner, which will make things even worse.

inigyou 2mo ago
Well yeah, it's basically locked in now that in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best.
- petcat 2mo ago
  > It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best. If Canada was a US state it would rank around 4th or 5th in terms of economic size and power. There's a lot of doomerism, but I seriously doubt the US is going to lose its top 4 or 5 economies in the next 50 years. If you want to go really doomer, then I think it's actually more likely that Canada would become a US state instead of the US economy shrinking to the size of Canada. But this is all nonsense talk anyway.
- gruez 2mo ago
  >in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best. What's going to replace it? Rapidly aging China? https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/media-assets/image/20230610_WOC449.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/media-assets/image/20230610_WOF447.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=100,format=auto/content-assets/images/20260808_FBC715.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=10...
  - Hnrobert42 2mo ago
    Isn't the US also approaching a peak? https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-POPULATION/AGING/gdpzaomqyvw/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-POPULATION/AGING/gdpzao... There's so many ways to slice the data, I'm not sure there's an apples-to-apples comparison between US and China. However, it's fair to say both economies face demographic headwinds.
  - fn-mote 2mo ago
    > What's going to replace it? Rapidly aging China? Using the age profile of a country with over a billion people to dismiss its geopolitical power has no credibility. More appropriate to point out their (our) lack of domestic chip production and outsourcing of critical technologies.
    - gruez 2mo ago
      >Using the age profile of a country with over a billion people to dismiss its geopolitical power has no credibility. The first two charts are for GDP, which correlates pretty well with geopolitical power. Moreover if we're going by population, wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?
      - andsoitis 2mo ago
        > wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers? Conventionally, a continent isn't a superpower. A country is.
      - dathinab 2mo ago
        GDP is subtle broken in many ways A "in general" correlates with geopolitical power doesn't necessary mean you can point at a specific case look at their GDP and come to a good conclusion. Especially not if it's as much of a special case as China. > wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers? which might actually happen. If the US falls further from grace and the situations stays like that for a few decades, or the US and another huge power (e.g. China) fall into some costly conflict then India or a union of African countries have a serious chance to become a world super power. --- => But more relevantly this discussion is going into red hering argument direction: - No one argued that you should go _only_ by population, the argument is, that if a country with a gigantic population shrinks hugely they still have enough people left to wage large scale wars. - Similar no one (should) argue that GDP is by itself meaningful for such an assessment, it's one imperfect not supper reliable statistical point. Especially given how things move wrt. dark factories (i.e. fully automated => no light one as no human there), AI and similar. Yes, if GDP is supper low or high that says a lot, but a lot is not everything and a average GDP for decade long trends in a word looking to face a major time of change means not much in any direction. - Similar we are speaking about decade long developments, current military strength ist also just another non fully reliable indicator. E.g. Germany post WW1 had close to actual 0/no military strength, and then there was WW2 just a few years later...
  - daishi55 2mo ago
    lol… you don’t know anything about the Chinese government if you think they aren’t already preparing for this. And the difference between them and us is that when they prepare for something, they actually prepare for it with real state capacity and planning. You know they are building armies of industrial and humanoid robots for exactly this reason? Also, sorry but the economist hates China with a passion, you really shouldn’t believe a thing they say on the topic.
    - gruez 2mo ago
      >Also, sorry but the economist hates China with a passion, you really shouldn’t believe a thing they say on the topic. Note I'm just linking charts and figures, not their editorials. It's ironic that you accuse "economist hates China with a passion", but the best refutation you can come up with is some handwaving about future robot armies. How do we know you're not just hating US (or loving China) with a passion?
      - daishi55 2mo ago
        > I'm just linking charts and figures It’s adorable that you think charts and figures can’t be biased or malicious. > handwaving about future robot armies Yeah and you would’ve said the same thing about China’s EVs, solar panels, or any number of other areas in which the Chinese state demonstrated both accurate foresight and ability to execute on long-term strategic economic/technological plans. And you would’ve been wrong. As you are now.
  - jurgenburgen 2mo ago
    You don’t need a numerical advantage to dominate if you have a technological / organizational advantage. The British empire was outnumbered 10 to 1 and still managed to control a large portion of the world for a while. US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future.
    - gruez 2mo ago
      >US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future. "Rest of the world"? Europe isn't even a player in the AI race. China might be better placed, but they also lag the US in terms of model development and capital deployed. They've been catching up, but that's not the same as "[American will] be in a similar place to Canada at best". That would require a lot of things to go right for China and/or a lot of things to go wrong for the US.
      - fhdkweig 2mo ago
        >>US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future. >"Rest of the world"? Europe isn't even a player in the AI race. I think the legacy technology he is referring to is the more about the electrical generation method rather than the AI use of that electricity.
        jurgenburgen 2mo ago
        Yes, all the technologies of the future demand a huge increase in energy generation that fossil fuels can’t satisfy. In the long run (decades) the US won’t be able to stay in the game with this kind of anti-scientific policies.
      - dh2022 2mo ago
        AI is purely a virtual world play. It may (or may not) make it easier to write code, reply to emails or Slack messages or create PowerPoint presentations. In the real world what matters are energy, natural resources and making (manufacturing) things. AI will not make it easier to build a house, to harvest a corn field, to assemble a car. AI will not improve weather forecasting accuracy- this is already pretty much 99.999% solved. So AI will not improve standards of living. All this to conclude that China’s standards of living will improve while America’s will stagnate (or worse) But sure, go ahead and enjoy those AI videos-some of them are even funny.
  - dathinab 2mo ago
    > What's going to replace it? I'm not sure if I'm mis-reading your comment, but: The idea that you "need a single extremely powerful country to replace it or the US will stay in its position" just doesn't add up. I'm not fully sure if that is what you meant but I have seen that argument a few times. _There doesn't need to be a replacement._ For most of the worlds history there wasn't a single leading world supper power, just regional super powers, or supper powers in specific sectors. And if we speak about who could become a supper power _after the US stops being one and there isn't one for some decades_. Then there are a bunch of candidates. E.g. China has a population collapse issues, but due to it's cut throat ruthless government and total population number and lead in factory automation might be from all countries with similar problems by margin the most likely to overcome it without power collapse. E.g. the EU might have many issues (as it's members has many issues) but the general concept has proven hugely successful. And what people forget is EU is the cherry on top of a huge stack of treaties which can be extended to 3rd parties independent of full EU membership. Like e.g. Canada, which doesn't plan to become an EU member, but might join some of this treaties as result of the non stop hostility from the US. Same for military treaties between NATO members which are independent of NATO like e.g. JEF, which would likely be open for letting Canada join. Anyway way to many words. But the end result may be a world supper power which is not one entity but a complex lossy coupled network of countries. Then there have been some other cross country unions and countries, which want to gain super power relevance but have so far been too irrelevant due to a combination of corruption, bad luck and sabotage by existing powers etc. But if we speak about going for a few decades without any leading super power and maybe prime canidates harming each other (e.g. a US <-> Chineese war) then they do actually have a chance.
    - gruez 2mo ago
      >The idea that you "need a single extremely powerful country to replace it or the US will stay in its position" just doesn't add up. I'm not fully sure if that is what you meant but I have seen that argument a few times. The OP goes further than merely claiming that US will lose its spot as the top power. It claims it won't be a world power at all: >in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best For reference, Canada ranks #11 in GDP, below Russia and even Brazil. On military spending it ranks #16, below Poland and Spain. It doesn't have nukes. To suggest US will ever come close to that in 50 years is laughable.
stevesimmons 2mo ago
Speaking as a European, current foreign policy is not "reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner". It has already reduced trust to rock bottom. It's hard to see how much worse it could get, short of outright invasion or allying with Russia. Just this week, amongst other news: * America's useless adventures in Iran have used up so many Patriot missiles there aren't any left to defend Kyiv against Russian missiles, while Iran is still firmly in control of the Straits of Hormuz. * Meddling in Greenland went up a notch with landing equipment to start oil drilling. * State Department funding MAGA-oriented "free speech" disinformation campaigns in the UK. * The revival of Trump's tariffs under the hypocritical guise of guarding against slave labour. Especially when the US prison system is such a large domestic source of slave labour. Zero trust left here. Zero desire to visit the US ever again.
- amarcheschi 2mo ago
  I feel it is hard to grasp for an American how much perception of US shifted in eu. This is just anedoctal of course, but a famous Italian singer famous for having written a song about American and sexual liberation decades ago, wrote an updated version. The former is "America", the latter is "America INC." You can guess which one depicts America in a bad light. I wouldn't have expected a famous singer to make such a song, given that America was always portrayed in italian pop music with a positive image, and negative views were relegated to mostly political groups or singers with political themes
  - xyzelement 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mschuster91 2mo ago
      > Will my kids be an ethnic minority in their own country in the next generation I didn’t expect having to read great replacement bullshit on Hacker News. JFC do some napkin math, it’s utter nonsense.
      - 2mo ago

by t0mas88 2mo ago

The overall American economy is going to pay the price in the long term. And current foreign policy is reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner, which will make things even worse.

inigyou 2mo ago

Well yeah, it's basically locked in now that in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best.

petcat 2mo ago
> It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best. If Canada was a US state it would rank around 4th or 5th in terms of economic size and power. There's a lot of doomerism, but I seriously doubt the US is going to lose its top 4 or 5 economies in the next 50 years. If you want to go really doomer, then I think it's actually more likely that Canada would become a US state instead of the US economy shrinking to the size of Canada. But this is all nonsense talk anyway.
gruez 2mo ago
>in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best. What's going to replace it? Rapidly aging China? https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/media-assets/image/20230610_WOC449.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80,format=auto/media-assets/image/20230610_WOF447.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=80... https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=100,format=auto/content-assets/images/20260808_FBC715.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,quality=10...
- Hnrobert42 2mo ago
  Isn't the US also approaching a peak? https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-POPULATION/AGING/gdpzaomqyvw/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-POPULATION/AGING/gdpzao... There's so many ways to slice the data, I'm not sure there's an apples-to-apples comparison between US and China. However, it's fair to say both economies face demographic headwinds.
- fn-mote 2mo ago
  > What's going to replace it? Rapidly aging China? Using the age profile of a country with over a billion people to dismiss its geopolitical power has no credibility. More appropriate to point out their (our) lack of domestic chip production and outsourcing of critical technologies.
  - gruez 2mo ago
    >Using the age profile of a country with over a billion people to dismiss its geopolitical power has no credibility. The first two charts are for GDP, which correlates pretty well with geopolitical power. Moreover if we're going by population, wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?
    - andsoitis 2mo ago
      > wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers? Conventionally, a continent isn't a superpower. A country is.
    - dathinab 2mo ago
      GDP is subtle broken in many ways A "in general" correlates with geopolitical power doesn't necessary mean you can point at a specific case look at their GDP and come to a good conclusion. Especially not if it's as much of a special case as China. > wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers? which might actually happen. If the US falls further from grace and the situations stays like that for a few decades, or the US and another huge power (e.g. China) fall into some costly conflict then India or a union of African countries have a serious chance to become a world super power. --- => But more relevantly this discussion is going into red hering argument direction: - No one argued that you should go _only_ by population, the argument is, that if a country with a gigantic population shrinks hugely they still have enough people left to wage large scale wars. - Similar no one (should) argue that GDP is by itself meaningful for such an assessment, it's one imperfect not supper reliable statistical point. Especially given how things move wrt. dark factories (i.e. fully automated => no light one as no human there), AI and similar. Yes, if GDP is supper low or high that says a lot, but a lot is not everything and a average GDP for decade long trends in a word looking to face a major time of change means not much in any direction. - Similar we are speaking about decade long developments, current military strength ist also just another non fully reliable indicator. E.g. Germany post WW1 had close to actual 0/no military strength, and then there was WW2 just a few years later...
- daishi55 2mo ago
  lol… you don’t know anything about the Chinese government if you think they aren’t already preparing for this. And the difference between them and us is that when they prepare for something, they actually prepare for it with real state capacity and planning. You know they are building armies of industrial and humanoid robots for exactly this reason? Also, sorry but the economist hates China with a passion, you really shouldn’t believe a thing they say on the topic.
  - gruez 2mo ago
    >Also, sorry but the economist hates China with a passion, you really shouldn’t believe a thing they say on the topic. Note I'm just linking charts and figures, not their editorials. It's ironic that you accuse "economist hates China with a passion", but the best refutation you can come up with is some handwaving about future robot armies. How do we know you're not just hating US (or loving China) with a passion?
    - daishi55 2mo ago
      > I'm just linking charts and figures It’s adorable that you think charts and figures can’t be biased or malicious. > handwaving about future robot armies Yeah and you would’ve said the same thing about China’s EVs, solar panels, or any number of other areas in which the Chinese state demonstrated both accurate foresight and ability to execute on long-term strategic economic/technological plans. And you would’ve been wrong. As you are now.
- jurgenburgen 2mo ago
  You don’t need a numerical advantage to dominate if you have a technological / organizational advantage. The British empire was outnumbered 10 to 1 and still managed to control a large portion of the world for a while. US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future.
  - gruez 2mo ago
    >US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future. "Rest of the world"? Europe isn't even a player in the AI race. China might be better placed, but they also lag the US in terms of model development and capital deployed. They've been catching up, but that's not the same as "[American will] be in a similar place to Canada at best". That would require a lot of things to go right for China and/or a lot of things to go wrong for the US.
    - fhdkweig 2mo ago
      >>US government is working overtime to make sure legacy technologies stay around while the rest of the world is investing into the future. >"Rest of the world"? Europe isn't even a player in the AI race. I think the legacy technology he is referring to is the more about the electrical generation method rather than the AI use of that electricity.
      - jurgenburgen 2mo ago
        Yes, all the technologies of the future demand a huge increase in energy generation that fossil fuels can’t satisfy. In the long run (decades) the US won’t be able to stay in the game with this kind of anti-scientific policies.
    - dh2022 2mo ago
      AI is purely a virtual world play. It may (or may not) make it easier to write code, reply to emails or Slack messages or create PowerPoint presentations. In the real world what matters are energy, natural resources and making (manufacturing) things. AI will not make it easier to build a house, to harvest a corn field, to assemble a car. AI will not improve weather forecasting accuracy- this is already pretty much 99.999% solved. So AI will not improve standards of living. All this to conclude that China’s standards of living will improve while America’s will stagnate (or worse) But sure, go ahead and enjoy those AI videos-some of them are even funny.
- dathinab 2mo ago
  > What's going to replace it? I'm not sure if I'm mis-reading your comment, but: The idea that you "need a single extremely powerful country to replace it or the US will stay in its position" just doesn't add up. I'm not fully sure if that is what you meant but I have seen that argument a few times. _There doesn't need to be a replacement._ For most of the worlds history there wasn't a single leading world supper power, just regional super powers, or supper powers in specific sectors. And if we speak about who could become a supper power _after the US stops being one and there isn't one for some decades_. Then there are a bunch of candidates. E.g. China has a population collapse issues, but due to it's cut throat ruthless government and total population number and lead in factory automation might be from all countries with similar problems by margin the most likely to overcome it without power collapse. E.g. the EU might have many issues (as it's members has many issues) but the general concept has proven hugely successful. And what people forget is EU is the cherry on top of a huge stack of treaties which can be extended to 3rd parties independent of full EU membership. Like e.g. Canada, which doesn't plan to become an EU member, but might join some of this treaties as result of the non stop hostility from the US. Same for military treaties between NATO members which are independent of NATO like e.g. JEF, which would likely be open for letting Canada join. Anyway way to many words. But the end result may be a world supper power which is not one entity but a complex lossy coupled network of countries. Then there have been some other cross country unions and countries, which want to gain super power relevance but have so far been too irrelevant due to a combination of corruption, bad luck and sabotage by existing powers etc. But if we speak about going for a few decades without any leading super power and maybe prime canidates harming each other (e.g. a US <-> Chineese war) then they do actually have a chance.
  - gruez 2mo ago
    >The idea that you "need a single extremely powerful country to replace it or the US will stay in its position" just doesn't add up. I'm not fully sure if that is what you meant but I have seen that argument a few times. The OP goes further than merely claiming that US will lose its spot as the top power. It claims it won't be a world power at all: >in 50 years America won't be a world power any more. It'll be in a similar place to Canada at best For reference, Canada ranks #11 in GDP, below Russia and even Brazil. On military spending it ranks #16, below Poland and Spain. It doesn't have nukes. To suggest US will ever come close to that in 50 years is laughable.

stevesimmons 2mo ago

Speaking as a European, current foreign policy is not "reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner". It has already reduced trust to rock bottom. It's hard to see how much worse it could get, short of outright invasion or allying with Russia. Just this week, amongst other news: * America's useless adventures in Iran have used up so many Patriot missiles there aren't any left to defend Kyiv against Russian missiles, while Iran is still firmly in control of the Straits of Hormuz. * Meddling in Greenland went up a notch with landing equipment to start oil drilling. * State Department funding MAGA-oriented "free speech" disinformation campaigns in the UK. * The revival of Trump's tariffs under the hypocritical guise of guarding against slave labour. Especially when the US prison system is such a large domestic source of slave labour. Zero trust left here. Zero desire to visit the US ever again.

amarcheschi 2mo ago
I feel it is hard to grasp for an American how much perception of US shifted in eu. This is just anedoctal of course, but a famous Italian singer famous for having written a song about American and sexual liberation decades ago, wrote an updated version. The former is "America", the latter is "America INC." You can guess which one depicts America in a bad light. I wouldn't have expected a famous singer to make such a song, given that America was always portrayed in italian pop music with a positive image, and negative views were relegated to mostly political groups or singers with political themes
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mschuster91 2mo ago
    > Will my kids be an ethnic minority in their own country in the next generation I didn’t expect having to read great replacement bullshit on Hacker News. JFC do some napkin math, it’s utter nonsense.
    - 2mo ago