I'd say China and India today are just as big of a threat, if not bigger, as the USSR was. Why don't we see this same competition now? Is it because it's not se

I'd say China and India today are just as big of a threat, if not bigger, as the USSR was. Why don't we see this same competition now? Is it because it's not sensationalized? Because no one takes it seriously for some reason this time around? I honestly don't know, but if what we need is a worthy competitor, there are two just waiting for a slip up. It seems especially dire when you consider that the western world's main export isn't a physical good, and it basically all hinges on the fact that the smart and able are allowed to succeed and produce "value", where as the smart and able in poorer countries don't have those opportunities. India and China make up half the world's population, an order of magnitude larger than the "western world", so I expect that they have far, far more able and smart people there just waiting to take the opportunity if it's given. I think that when (if?) those countries catch up to our "modern standard of living", they'll quickly leave us in the dust. At the same time I'm not sure it's quite as possible in such a connected world to have a competitor as isolated as the USSR was. The economy is far more global and intertwined than it was, maybe we'll all just boost the worldwide standard of living with cooperation instead of competition? I honestly don't know what's going to happen down the road (and hold no strong ideas of what might, all outcomes seem equally as likely/unlikely to me), and neither does anyone else, but I wouldn't be surprised if the world doesn't change all that much. Factories have closed down, jobs were lost, and people ended up in a different kind of factory, now sitting at a desk staring at a computer instead of a machine on an assembly line. Many people (here on HN especially) seem to think that jobs will disappear and not be replaced. In 1930, no one could have accurately predicted the world 100 years later. When machines started replacing factory workers, I doubt anyone would have expected us to all be staring at glorified tv screens and while banging away on our typewriters as a job, and that the some of the biggest companies around wouldn't actually sell anything physical, yet here we are. So who's to say that the next step is indeed something like basic income, instead of yet another version of the same factory? What if the next change in type of employment seems just as ridiculous and unimaginable today as today's world would to someone 100, even 50, years ago? Job Opening: Virtual Reality Tour Guide, must have at least 5 years experience in navigating WorldBook.com's(Facebook's VR world, launched 3 years ago) . Well this got really off topic towards the end.