WTF is wrong with America?

[J603]

You guys strayed wide off topic again, the question remains: Why is the US raping the rest of the world and how long are they gonna take it.

The US is top-dog in the Anarchic hierarchy, of course. They are the world police, the biggest bully on the block, they have the biggest military and the most guns. Therefore, when negotiations and other formal niceties break down, they can just say "do what we say, or else!" The world is going to keep taking it until someone else becomes top-dog. The only other contenders I can think of right now are China, Russia, maybe some kind of revitalised British empire if they can get all those Commonwealth countries obediently onside. A couple of other possibilities: Spanish, French, Portuguese, or Japanese empires. As Germany demonstrated in the last century, they're all sleeping giants with no apparent interest in dominating the world, therefore anything can happen

Alternatively, instead of thinking about the world along country lines, we can focus on language and other aspects of culture. How do cultures develop and spread? People participate in them. They go there, live there, work there, speak the language, and make babies.In the XX century the US culture spread around the world for a variety of reasons, not just because of force. It has been running out of steam for a while so it'll change eventually.

New British Empire? I don't think so. The Commonwealth is a joke. It's more of a formality than an alliance. Maybe Canada and Australia would hop on board but I could never see India or Pakistan following the UK. Going against the US would also destroy its economy, as the US is its largest trading partner.

China will not go against the US because it would be economic suicide for both countries. The majority of their economy which has allowed them to become a relevant power is based on trade with the US. The US is the only trading partner with a bigger economy than China, so China would have a tough time finding a partner who can keep up with an economy of 1.3 billion people. Meanwhile the US will need to find another source of cheap labor, which may be fairly easy (India, perhaps?), but will certainly lead to a depression in the interim.

Russia simply is not powerful enough. It is a shadow of the USSR. If they couldn't keep their territories like Georgia and Chechnya under check how can they be expected to defeat the most powerful country on Earth?

Spain has one of the worst economies in Europe, so they have no chance whatsover.

France is doing well economy-wise but has not been a strong military power since WWI.

Portugal is irrelevant on the world stage.

Japan has no offensive military, so good luck to them.

Germany does control the EU, however they're too busy babysitting Greece, Spain, Italy and Cyprus to do anything. If they could turn the EU into something actually representing a "Union" they might be able to contend with the US. The EU is the largest economy, so were it to unify into one body it is possible for it to go against the US. The EU is also fairly self-sufficient, however until it shows that it can act as a unified body and not a bunch of squabbling second-rate nations it will never be able to contest US dominance.
Portugal

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[PrintMule]

To me it seems that language is a huge factor here. It serves to bond people together, they share knowledge, and it also limits contact between different languages. Part of the US' dominance seems attributable to the fact that their main language is English (sort-of ) which allowed them to piggyback on the strength of Britain's earlier imperialism. All they really had to do was promise a nice environment to attract foreign scientists and entrepreneurs (freedom, New World, lack of world wars, etc) and they were all set.

Language and the fact that oil is traded for dollar, and dollar is the "world's currency", not bitcoin

But I must say,that I hope someday we all will speak one language. There are better and worse languages, technically speaking, I would choose between english as it's dominant already, or japanese, as it's very "practical and economical". If the whole world except USA would suddenly use some other language (russian, mandarin, you name it) it would certainly be fun to see how it has to keep up with the rest.

[Rassah]

To me it seems that language is a huge factor here. It serves to bond people together, they share knowledge, and it also limits contact between different languages. Part of the US' dominance seems attributable to the fact that their main language is English (sort-of ) which allowed them to piggyback on the strength of Britain's earlier imperialism. All they really had to do was promise a nice environment to attract foreign scientists and entrepreneurs (freedom, New World, lack of world wars, etc) and they were all set.

Language and the fact that oil is traded for dollar, and dollar is the "world's currency", not bitcoin

But I must say,that I hope someday we all will speak one language. There are better and worse languages, technically speaking, I would choose between english as it's dominant already, or japanese, as it's very "practical and economical". If the whole world except USA would suddenly use some other language (russian, mandarin, you name it) it would certainly be fun to see how it has to keep up with the rest.

I wonder what a programming language written in Japanese would look like?

[DumbFruit]

Ithkuil.

[Zaih]

It was fluoride all along... well fuck me

[J603]

To me it seems that language is a huge factor here. It serves to bond people together, they share knowledge, and it also limits contact between different languages. Part of the US' dominance seems attributable to the fact that their main language is English (sort-of ) which allowed them to piggyback on the strength of Britain's earlier imperialism. All they really had to do was promise a nice environment to attract foreign scientists and entrepreneurs (freedom, New World, lack of world wars, etc) and they were all set.

Language and the fact that oil is traded for dollar, and dollar is the "world's currency", not bitcoin

But I must say,that I hope someday we all will speak one language. There are better and worse languages, technically speaking, I would choose between english as it's dominant already, or japanese, as it's very "practical and economical". If the whole world except USA would suddenly use some other language (russian, mandarin, you name it) it would certainly be fun to see how it has to keep up with the rest.

I think it would make more sense to use a Cyrillic or Latin alphabet with arabic numerals than Japanese. Most Asian languages are hard to learn to write for non-natives.

My personal vote would go for Spanish, since it's easy to speak and is more orderly than English.

[bernard75]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

[J603]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

[bernard75]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

What i meant was when during the 90s there were serious attempts to adopt it in Europe, havent heard a word about it since then.

[PrintMule]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

What i meant was when during the 90s there were serious attempts to adopt it in Europe, havent heard a word about it since then.

In my school years, Esperanto was treated like a game of sorts, amongst nerds.

[J603]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

What i meant was when during the 90s there were serious attempts to adopt it in Europe, havent heard a word about it since then.

I think it was most serious during WWII, when Stalin and Hitler thought it was such a threat that they sent Esperantists to the gulags or concentration camps.

And also, that other post I quoted inspired me starti lernas la lingvo.

[Mike Christ]

I wonder what a programming language written in Japanese would look like?

I know what it would be like in Chinese:

[domob]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

What i meant was when during the 90s there were serious attempts to adopt it in Europe, havent heard a word about it since then.

I think it was most serious during WWII, when Stalin and Hitler thought it was such a threat that they sent Esperantists to the gulags or concentration camps.

And also, that other post I quoted inspired me starti lernas la lingvo.

I'm also all in favour of Esperanto, although I see it more as an interesting experiment than something that really has a chance to win (at least not any longer).  The grammar is quite nice, though.   (And shouldn't it be "starti lerni la lingvon"?  But I've never really spoken any Esperanto, just read a bit.)

[J603]

The older members here will surly remember Esperanto.
It was a mix of the most popular languages geared towards simplicity.
It failed miserably because those in power are always old farts that dont want to learn anything new.

Older members? How old? That language was started in 1887.

What i meant was when during the 90s there were serious attempts to adopt it in Europe, havent heard a word about it since then.

I think it was most serious during WWII, when Stalin and Hitler thought it was such a threat that they sent Esperantists to the gulags or concentration camps.

And also, that other post I quoted inspired me starti lernas la lingvo.

I'm also all in favour of Esperanto, although I see it more as an interesting experiment than something that really has a chance to win (at least not any longer).  The grammar is quite nice, though.   (And shouldn't it be "starti lerni la lingvon"?  But I've never really spoken any Esperanto, just read a bit.)

At the time of that post, I had just started. I tried to say "inspired me to start learning the language", so I think that lernas could be correct. But the lack of n was definitely wrong, so thanks.

While I don't see it ever becoming a major language, I do think it's cool because it follows set rules. However, I think the language is ugly as hell. It looks like a mixture of Hungarian, Spanish, and Russian written phonetically.