5 ms·

You saying america isn't doing well?

Arainach 2mo ago
America is doing awful. Income inequality, oppression of minorities, visible corruption, the wholesale destruction of the scientific and policy infrastructure that made it a world leader, abandoning important technologies such as renewable energy, destroying the social safety net....should I go on?
- johnsmith1840 2mo ago
  Well there's the root of the disagreement. I view it as the opposite, that the US is setting itself up to be the dominant world power for the next 100 years. Energy, space and AI if US doesn't fumble those we're looking at a golden age the likes of which we've never seen. Also fyi the US science budget has literally not changed. So luckily the orange man can kick and scream but our budget for science isn't going away (not to say it's not disrupted).
  - Arainach 2mo ago
    America's dominance in science and technology (and art, and other fields) was due to an atmosphere where the smartest and best people from around the world wanted to come here. We have actively worked to drive them away and broken the processes in ways that can't be fixed with the stroke of a pen. Our economic influence was based around being a stabilizing force and soft power - both of which we have destroyed. The world was willing to forgive us for 2016-2020, but now they know we are not to be trusted - that we will abandon and publicly abuse our allies no matter how close, that our policy changes based on whichever dictator last talked to Trump, and they know that the other two wings of our government are spineless and powerless sycophants who will never put a stop to any of it. They are forming trade relationships and infrastructure without us, and we will never get back our preferred status. We have given up generational advantages and are not set up to be a dominant power in anything. We are an empire in accelerating decline.
    - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
      As we literally just invented cheap space travel and AI? Massive energy stores, massive military, massive datacenters. I would not want to bet against that
      - Arainach 2mo ago
        Outdated energy sources, no manufacturing base, and expensive AI that's barely ahead of cheap open source Chinese models. A massive military that's burning billions and depleting its reserves proving that it can't even protect ships from Iran. So. Much. Winning.
        johnsmith1840 2mo ago
        Outdated... Let me know when planes fly on solar, shipping containers on wind and your chair isn't made of plastic. Drones have made terrorism hard to stop in iran. But it's not over let's see where it goes. The positives are that Iran has effectivelt made lifelong allies of our arab neighbors. They used to lean toward china but now china is supplying weapons to the country bombing their people. Additionally israel and arabs may actually normalize diplomacy between each other as a result which would also be a massive win. If US can collapse Iran we're looking at it being the strongest it has ever been and likely the strongest power to have ever existed. If not then it's roughly british empire at its peakish as of now. You mix that with Russia getting it's asses kicked and every single country around china massively aligning with US and that's a recipe for success. EU honestly is the downside here they are upset but also the sad truth is europe is no longer a world power. A regional one at best. You could argue that america will BEGIN to decline as the recent policies take effect but as of now really the only negative is we don't do enough social spending and our supply chains aren't secure enough. Let's see how EU does over time if they are forced to build their own military again and population collapse hits their tax base that social spending is gonna get argentina like real fast.
        letmehelpyou 2mo ago
        [flagged]
  - hnlmorg 2mo ago
    SpaceX needed to happen because US had fallen behind the rest of the international community. And the USs advantage in AI shrinks year on year; presently estimated at only 6 months ahead. Also, all these technologies are owned by corporate entities, many of which are ran by exactly the kind of people America is trying to deport (ie not birth citizens). So who’s to say they wouldn’t just move their tech to Europe or china is they were to outbid the US? Meanwhile the middle and lower classes are getting poorer. None of this screams prosperity. All you’ve done is traded your national wealth for words of good faith from a small subset of known liars. And by all independent accounts, it’s already costing the US billions. Yes Europe is struggling too. But a large part of that is because we depended on a US alliance and you can see Europe shifting away from that in favour of building its own sovereign technologies. It will be hard, but if successful that would be the final nail in the coffin for America. Just remember that Russia used to be a superpower on equal technology footing as America. North and South Korea used to be equally prosperous. Countries can fall behind significantly when managed by egotistical and corrupt despots. Which is ostensibly who you have in charge of America right now. Other countries, when in the position America is now, are usually faced with two options: 1. Spend decades rebuilding international trust 2. Go to war, ultimately lose the war because it’s basically you vs the rest of the world, and then fall back to option 1 after a suitably humiliating defeat and millions of lives lost from all sides and critical infrastructure and manufacturing destroyed. It very much feels like America is going for option 2. So I wouldn’t be trusting your long term plans to the orange buffoon if were you. The best case scenario is this downwards spiral is a blip. The worst case scenario is you’ll drag the rest of the glob into another world war.
    - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
      On basically all metrics the US is most prosperous country on earth. Our middle class turned into upper class. It's a pretty bad argument when the poorest part of the country are richer than basically anywhere else in the world. The only argument I could entertain on this line of thought is that the US has reached it's peak (today) and may decline. That atleast has merit because there's a good argument the AI bubble popping could lead to a chain reaction causing long term decline. But saying the US has currently declined is crazy when seeing the previous 2 years. Maybe the argument is that the craziness the US has been doing is "burning" its potential for short term gaibs for long term damage. Totally possible but there really isn't an argument to be had that the US is currently some weak or lost cause as of now. EU is struggling for a lot of reasons the US was supporting the bad design. I do believe it's a kind of learned helplessness though and youre right. If EU stopped social spending reduced regulations rebuilt their military they could actually make a come back in like 15yrs. Sounds like a long time but that actually is really good and their recent discussions on actually rebuilding their militaries is a glimmer of hope. But the greatness of europe like it was in the past? As of now a totally lost cause and that's cultural. Until the current generation dies and people who want to see europe be a real power again come up there's no way. France would be my bet on this front. An actual failure of a super power is britain. That's what it looks like when a super power has "lost" the only question to ask is wether US is currently in it's 1700 British empire mode or 1940 one. Everyone has said how the us is failing for literally my entire life now. They intensified in 2016 with oramge man's first term and continued to now. But again, in realistic terms the US is not less than it was a decade ago and in obvious terms it's in a better position today since the 80s. The most obvious example is energy. Middle east and venuzuela were basically light advesaries. Saudi was leaning towards china. Now? US essentially controls the majority of oil in the entire world. Nobody else can put a fleet of ships on the output of ME like that. Sure Iran can commit terrorism on civilians but nobody can drop an army anywhere in the world like the US. Our arab allies have heavily realigned to the US. Our oil is the highest output ever. Venuzuela is ours so in 15yrs so is the next middle east of oil output. So again. World energy dominance for the next 50yrs minimum. We have the largest datacenter capacity by a stupidly large margin. Possibly in 20yrs a complete monopoly on industrial space flight. Those 3 things together to me are a near garauntee dominance. Even one of those things could be enough to stay a super power but all of them? All at once? That's a wild combo. No other country even has one of those (i suppose ME countries with oil is the only one). We'll see how Iran turns out though. That would be the chink in the output above. State sponsored civilian terrorism is a hard thing to stop but they have succeeded in aligning every arab ally against them pretty good.

America is doing awful. Income inequality, oppression of minorities, visible corruption, the wholesale destruction of the scientific and policy infrastructure that made it a world leader, abandoning important technologies such as renewable energy, destroying the social safety net....should I go on?

johnsmith1840 2mo ago
Well there's the root of the disagreement. I view it as the opposite, that the US is setting itself up to be the dominant world power for the next 100 years. Energy, space and AI if US doesn't fumble those we're looking at a golden age the likes of which we've never seen. Also fyi the US science budget has literally not changed. So luckily the orange man can kick and scream but our budget for science isn't going away (not to say it's not disrupted).
- Arainach 2mo ago
  America's dominance in science and technology (and art, and other fields) was due to an atmosphere where the smartest and best people from around the world wanted to come here. We have actively worked to drive them away and broken the processes in ways that can't be fixed with the stroke of a pen. Our economic influence was based around being a stabilizing force and soft power - both of which we have destroyed. The world was willing to forgive us for 2016-2020, but now they know we are not to be trusted - that we will abandon and publicly abuse our allies no matter how close, that our policy changes based on whichever dictator last talked to Trump, and they know that the other two wings of our government are spineless and powerless sycophants who will never put a stop to any of it. They are forming trade relationships and infrastructure without us, and we will never get back our preferred status. We have given up generational advantages and are not set up to be a dominant power in anything. We are an empire in accelerating decline.
  - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
    As we literally just invented cheap space travel and AI? Massive energy stores, massive military, massive datacenters. I would not want to bet against that
    - Arainach 2mo ago
      Outdated energy sources, no manufacturing base, and expensive AI that's barely ahead of cheap open source Chinese models. A massive military that's burning billions and depleting its reserves proving that it can't even protect ships from Iran. So. Much. Winning.
      - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
        Outdated... Let me know when planes fly on solar, shipping containers on wind and your chair isn't made of plastic. Drones have made terrorism hard to stop in iran. But it's not over let's see where it goes. The positives are that Iran has effectivelt made lifelong allies of our arab neighbors. They used to lean toward china but now china is supplying weapons to the country bombing their people. Additionally israel and arabs may actually normalize diplomacy between each other as a result which would also be a massive win. If US can collapse Iran we're looking at it being the strongest it has ever been and likely the strongest power to have ever existed. If not then it's roughly british empire at its peakish as of now. You mix that with Russia getting it's asses kicked and every single country around china massively aligning with US and that's a recipe for success. EU honestly is the downside here they are upset but also the sad truth is europe is no longer a world power. A regional one at best. You could argue that america will BEGIN to decline as the recent policies take effect but as of now really the only negative is we don't do enough social spending and our supply chains aren't secure enough. Let's see how EU does over time if they are forced to build their own military again and population collapse hits their tax base that social spending is gonna get argentina like real fast.
        letmehelpyou 2mo ago
        [flagged]
- hnlmorg 2mo ago
  SpaceX needed to happen because US had fallen behind the rest of the international community. And the USs advantage in AI shrinks year on year; presently estimated at only 6 months ahead. Also, all these technologies are owned by corporate entities, many of which are ran by exactly the kind of people America is trying to deport (ie not birth citizens). So who’s to say they wouldn’t just move their tech to Europe or china is they were to outbid the US? Meanwhile the middle and lower classes are getting poorer. None of this screams prosperity. All you’ve done is traded your national wealth for words of good faith from a small subset of known liars. And by all independent accounts, it’s already costing the US billions. Yes Europe is struggling too. But a large part of that is because we depended on a US alliance and you can see Europe shifting away from that in favour of building its own sovereign technologies. It will be hard, but if successful that would be the final nail in the coffin for America. Just remember that Russia used to be a superpower on equal technology footing as America. North and South Korea used to be equally prosperous. Countries can fall behind significantly when managed by egotistical and corrupt despots. Which is ostensibly who you have in charge of America right now. Other countries, when in the position America is now, are usually faced with two options: 1. Spend decades rebuilding international trust 2. Go to war, ultimately lose the war because it’s basically you vs the rest of the world, and then fall back to option 1 after a suitably humiliating defeat and millions of lives lost from all sides and critical infrastructure and manufacturing destroyed. It very much feels like America is going for option 2. So I wouldn’t be trusting your long term plans to the orange buffoon if were you. The best case scenario is this downwards spiral is a blip. The worst case scenario is you’ll drag the rest of the glob into another world war.
  - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
    On basically all metrics the US is most prosperous country on earth. Our middle class turned into upper class. It's a pretty bad argument when the poorest part of the country are richer than basically anywhere else in the world. The only argument I could entertain on this line of thought is that the US has reached it's peak (today) and may decline. That atleast has merit because there's a good argument the AI bubble popping could lead to a chain reaction causing long term decline. But saying the US has currently declined is crazy when seeing the previous 2 years. Maybe the argument is that the craziness the US has been doing is "burning" its potential for short term gaibs for long term damage. Totally possible but there really isn't an argument to be had that the US is currently some weak or lost cause as of now. EU is struggling for a lot of reasons the US was supporting the bad design. I do believe it's a kind of learned helplessness though and youre right. If EU stopped social spending reduced regulations rebuilt their military they could actually make a come back in like 15yrs. Sounds like a long time but that actually is really good and their recent discussions on actually rebuilding their militaries is a glimmer of hope. But the greatness of europe like it was in the past? As of now a totally lost cause and that's cultural. Until the current generation dies and people who want to see europe be a real power again come up there's no way. France would be my bet on this front. An actual failure of a super power is britain. That's what it looks like when a super power has "lost" the only question to ask is wether US is currently in it's 1700 British empire mode or 1940 one. Everyone has said how the us is failing for literally my entire life now. They intensified in 2016 with oramge man's first term and continued to now. But again, in realistic terms the US is not less than it was a decade ago and in obvious terms it's in a better position today since the 80s. The most obvious example is energy. Middle east and venuzuela were basically light advesaries. Saudi was leaning towards china. Now? US essentially controls the majority of oil in the entire world. Nobody else can put a fleet of ships on the output of ME like that. Sure Iran can commit terrorism on civilians but nobody can drop an army anywhere in the world like the US. Our arab allies have heavily realigned to the US. Our oil is the highest output ever. Venuzuela is ours so in 15yrs so is the next middle east of oil output. So again. World energy dominance for the next 50yrs minimum. We have the largest datacenter capacity by a stupidly large margin. Possibly in 20yrs a complete monopoly on industrial space flight. Those 3 things together to me are a near garauntee dominance. Even one of those things could be enough to stay a super power but all of them? All at once? That's a wild combo. No other country even has one of those (i suppose ME countries with oil is the only one). We'll see how Iran turns out though. That would be the chink in the output above. State sponsored civilian terrorism is a hard thing to stop but they have succeeded in aligning every arab ally against them pretty good.