The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Is the U.S. in charge of the world?
Meiz
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was rather surprised when a fellow forumer made such a statement in another thread.
I for one can see that the U.S. has a lot of say and for all intents and purposes is the dominating superpower, but in charge of the whole thing to the point where its running the show?
At first I was, how cute, this guy thinks the U.S. is in charge and responded in my usual curt nature. But then I noticed he's actually making some points that might bring a discussion to the table.
I can't say I share that view specifically and personally. Perhaps a debate between peers might be able to get the points across and people can judge for themselves.
Here's , albeit a dumbed down, conversation between myself and chomamadog:
So, what kind of influence do you think the U.S. has on the world as a whole? Is it absolute? Could it be and should it be stronger?
Floor's open.
I for one can see that the U.S. has a lot of say and for all intents and purposes is the dominating superpower, but in charge of the whole thing to the point where its running the show?
At first I was, how cute, this guy thinks the U.S. is in charge and responded in my usual curt nature. But then I noticed he's actually making some points that might bring a discussion to the table.
I can't say I share that view specifically and personally. Perhaps a debate between peers might be able to get the points across and people can judge for themselves.
Here's , albeit a dumbed down, conversation between myself and chomamadog:
chomamadog wrote: »chomamadog wrote: »chomamadog wrote: »Gotta go with Colbert, whoever said that Miyamoto influences the world, while Colbert only influences the US. Well, the US pretty much runs the world...so?
There's a thing called traveling, I'd look into it if you want to avoid making such obtuse claims in the future.
The US bullies anybody that doesn't get on board with it's agenda. Be it through conventional military might, or through less conventional means, such as economic warfare. Really, you think the US stays at the top by playing FAIR? If we're going to have out this debate, I'd prefer it continue on in PM format, as I don't like saying this stuff aloud, being that it does OFFEND people, but it's the truth.
Well, I take no offense but what your saying is pretty asinine considering the massive payload of fuel the US just gave North Korea so they can fuel more missiles and point them at South Korea.
If you consider your initial statement to be true, well, you should re-evaluate that statement because it's not a very smart thing to say.
Whether what I said is "asinine" or "not very smart" is your opinion, whereas what I said about the US running the world is backed up by the fact that they are the dominant force in the world. Unless you can name me someone they answer to? Even your example of the US giving fuel to South Korea is in favor of the US running shit. We have the resources, be it fuel, money or food, to aid whoever it is we want to aid, often times tipping the scales in their favor through our direct or indirect involvement.
Whether you want to call aid "troops/peace keepers" or whether you want to call it us supplying dictatorships with supplies to keep their corrupt administration in power, allowing us to benefit off the cheap labor of the third world. It does not matter what you call it, we have the resources to ensure we back the winning side. It doesn't come free, we exploit whoever we "help" either by setting up some corporation to steal their natural resources from them, or by establishing factories that enable us as Americans to buy products at dirt cheap prices.
Seriously though, I don't want to continue this "argument" in this thread, let alone if you're just going to try to brow beat me into reversing my statement by poor attempts to call me stupid.
So, what kind of influence do you think the U.S. has on the world as a whole? Is it absolute? Could it be and should it be stronger?
Floor's open.
Meiz on
0
Posts
It's the the most powerful state, sure, but its power is still limited (and diminishing). Not just because OMGCHINA.
Could it be stronger? Sure. Should it be? I suppose that depends on how you view the US's actions. I think most reasonable people would say no, and a lot of people would say it should be considerably less. I'm of the opinion that it is what it is, and the question of whether or not we should have more influence is not nearly as important as how we should use the influence we do have.
I agree, but in essence, we run the world. There are a lot of people that won't dare oppose what we say for fear of us turning our wrath on them, and I hate to make that sound so biblical. We really are the big kid on the block that everyone hates, but is too scared to stand up to.
Are we talking before or after 9/11? Was that not people standing up and attacking the big boy?
Basically what I'm trying to say is: The US doesn't rule the world. It rules the politicians in some countries, but most people don't want to do what it says. Which, I suppose, means they control those countries, but there are plenty of countries that ignore America's wants. Look at the lack of support they get from the most of the EU, for one thing.
We're by no means unique in that respect. Nations are doing or not doing things all the time based on fear of reprisal, be it economic or military. Have we gone in and kicked NK's ass yet? No? That's because we don't dare go in there for fear of Kim Jong Il turning his wrath on us. (Well, actually on South Korea.) Do we make ultimatums towards the Chinese? No, because we want friendly economic relations with them. That's just the way foreign policy works. You kiss ass to certain people so they give you what you want.
Right now, the US is a major player, and a lot of people kiss our asses to get what they want. But that differs from the status quo only quantitatively, not qualitatively.
Moreover, not everyone hates us, and not everyone is too scared to stand up to us. Nations tell us to get fucked all the damned time.
I agree with everything you said, except the last bit about nations telling us to "get fucked." I can't think of anybody that likes us for reasons other than economic. Our policy is shit. In the short term peasants in third world countries might be like "bring us democracy," but as soon as their newly installed dictator starts selling them out for a dollar an hour labor source (and I'm being generous here), they're going to think fuck the US. Or as soon as our vacationers start sleeping around with their children, THEN they're going to hate us.
Africa, we've practically abandoned, save for their diamond mines, we'd have no business to be there.
Middle East, oil.
Asia, one of the premier spots for loser ass business men to go marry a nice 12 year old boy dressed as a woman. Along with cheap labor
Europe, hates our fucking guts universally.
Australia, I don't know what there is to say about Australia, I guess they have no natural resources we can take advantage of so we just live and let live there.
South America, cheap labor and resources.
Japan might be the exception, but that's only because we've neutered them post WW2. Sure they sell us a lot of electronics and cars, but if memory serves me correctly, they're an overpopulated island nation with no natural resources. Where do they get the materials to be industrialized from? Yeah, every Japanese car made is money in the American steel owners pockets.
It's not universal, it's simply because of eveything you say and do. There's a difference.
Part of that influence comes from the fact that, most of the time (not all of the time), the aims of the U.S. are in line with the aims of those in charge elsewhere. Do you really think, for example, U.S. economic policy "dominates" because Europe and others are too afraid to say otherwise, or is it because, largely, they're also on the same page?
Sure, there are those who hate the U.S., but a lot of people also benefit from the current system and wouldn't want it any other way.
One way to consider things is - is most of the world proceeding together and co-operating because some more powerful state is forcing them along this path, or, is most of the world proceeding along a common path, and one of those states happens to be more powerful?
This isn't to say that the U.S. is wonderful benign, not by a long shot, but the scenario chomamadog paints, where the U.S. gets what it wants, when it wants, and shapes the international scene solely through the exercise of its power is also erroneous.
Read the book Confessions by an Economic Hit-man, by John Perkins. He lays it out clearly.
- private corporations that have alleged ties to the NSA and CIA send in their economic forecasters (i.e. "economic hit men") to developing countries
- the job of the forecaster is to come up with massively exaggerated economic development forecasts and using those forecasts try to convince the leaders to take loans from the World Bank and IMF (and other banks)
- the leader is, in most cases, convinced. he borrows the massive loans (on the specific condition that he will use it to contract Western construction and engineering companies), thinking he can pay off the loan plus the interest using the profits made from the forecasted (forecast?) economic boom. meanwhile, his influence is strengthened among the populace.
- a few decades down the line it turns out the country can't pay its debts, and this gives USA massive political power over the country. so when the USA wants to build a military base there, or convince the country to stop trading with another country, or anything, it can use the debts as political leverage.
- meanwhile, US construction and engineering companies are making billions of dollars from contracts to build roads, bridges, factories, entertainment centers, you name it. In this sense, the money isn't leaving the USA. It is just being transferred from the banks to the corporations, but through the developing countries.
- so in the end the developing country moves forward (significantly in some cases, such as in the case of Saudi Arabia), the dictator's foothold among the populace becomes stronger, but he becomes USA's bitch.
in rare cases where the leader in question is not convinced by the economic models of the forecaster, or sees through the ploy and refuses to "cooperate", the USA starts political assassination, and when that fails, actual assassination (planting bombs in airplanes seems to work pretty well).
(and in very few cases that fails, and you end up with a country like today's Venezuela.)
Which is good because our behavior can and will change, with some luck and a good outcome in 2008
Then again, France might screw itself during this election (way to reject the centrist candidate and risk having that conservative prick win) so we're not the only ones making bad decisions lately.
Because you're doing nothing to prepare us for this:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Oh man your last point on Japan made laugh so hard. Do you recall the massive wave of bankruptcy that the steel industry experienced in the late 90's and earl 00's (right when Japanese car companies really ramped up production and market share)? The only reason the steel industry is doing ok now is because of massive chinese demand for minerals of all sort and capacity reductions created by the bankruptcies I mentioned earlier. I think you should go check out just how much steel we export to Japan before making statements like this.
Yeah.
If i recall correctly, Japan is the only country in the world that has the capacity to make the girders needed for sky-scrapers. Bethlehem Steel used to make them, but . . . they are no longer in business.
I was going to wait for him to respond but I will just let you know that Japan produces more steel anually than the U.S. and is an exporter, not an importer of steel (they were really pissed off by the Bush tariffs in 01-03). U.S. steelmakers don't make a single dime on Japanese cars unless it is a domestic manufacturing facility.
EDIT: In fact, Japan doesn't import any steel from NAFTA nations, just a little bit from primarily lower cost regions in Asia. Here is a great read if you have any interest.
http://www.worldsteel.org/pictures/newsfiles/WSIF06.pdf
INTENTS AND PURPOSES. pet peeve of mine, because it seems to be happening a lot lately. Sorry to derail.
Generally a lot of America's influence (especially in Europe) is people genuinely liking the US and its models.
I don't really care if the U.S. is the big dog. I kind of prefer it to the other contenders for the position I guess. It would be pretty cool not to have to spend 530 Billion dollars per year on our military.
I apologize, I'm at work, chances are I wouldn't have had anything to say in response to this anyway.
Are you saying because of everything I personally say? Or Americans?
I agree.
Yeah, this is more what I was getting at. The US spear heading the corruption.
I agree with everything you said. I usually don't argue anymore, and I'm pretty rusty on debating period. As a hobby, I fucking hate it.
I don't know about that. There hasn't been a world war for the past seven decades. No two first world countries have engaged in total war. Economies are expanding globally. Democracy and human rights have advanced considerably in most countries.
I'm hard pressed to find a better global situation than the one today looking back over the passed several centuries.
Democracy and human rights don't mean a thing if we continue to profit at the expense of the Earth's health. Capitalism is about profit, as opposed to what you "need." Which is probably where this thread goes down the drain, defining what it is we "need."
Overpopulation, the extinction of species (I'm unsure of the rate, but I'll say faster today than ever before), destruction of the rain forests, global warming, pollution of most any environment possible. 4 out of those 5 are applicable to the US.
Maybe profiting isn't such a good thing? Quite frankly, we're taking far more than we're giving to the Earth.
Yeah, we're not going to define what "need" is because it doesn't matter, only what people demand.
These post is so far out of left field. Youre a bit of a hippy, aren't you?
I was just accepting the previous premise that the U.S. is in charge of the world.
As in when you said "If the U.S. is in charge of the world, you're doing a shit-job."
Eh, there are good things, but there are also a lot of bad things too. Like you said, it is impossible to tell since we have nothing to compare to.
What I despise is USA's self-righteous attitude in bringing about change that it deems positive and necessary.
At least, that's how I understood their post. Only they know what they really meant.
4 out of 5 of them apply to every developed nation on the globe. 5 out of 5 of them apply to the rest.
Actually only 3 of them apply to the US, unless you consider promoting it in other countries. The US is far from overpopulated, and the population is stabilizing.
This is also where I point out that overpopulation is more or less a non-issue for the First World at the moment- the trend is stable or DOWN.
The native US population is actually seeing a population decline (our population is growing due to immigration), but I was feeling particularly uncharitable and decided to ding the US for being responsible for a couple percent of the depletion of the planet's rainforests. Bad US! Bad!
Also, I like this new Shinto. He's at least 5% less caustic than the old one.
Well, our population density, in general, is pretty damn bad thanks to the grey belts around major urban centers. The same is true for some European towns, (London's urban density is the same as LA) but thanks to their development, in comparison to ours, it's generally a starker urban-rural divide rather than sprawling suburbs that every US city has. So while we may not be overpopulated, we could certainly have a smaller population footprint.
I don't even understand why a lot of it is so low given the shit sized lots that developers give for suburban homes. The draw just doesn't make any sense.
If you want to minimize impact, population density is a good thing, true.
Sprawl comes from cheap gas, essentially. It makes it so there's no economic sense in living close to your job. If the choice is between driving 20 miles farther and paying $300 more in rent/mortgage, that's something like $180 a month in favor of more driving. And it just gets worse when you consider the costs of moving. Those "shit sized lots" also tend to be a lot bigger than anything comparable in the city itself.
Not entirely. The highway arterials certainly opened commuting up to a further level, but the primary force behind the initial surge was Federal money backing mortgages and loans made out beyond the city's core over inside of it. The system was set up to be gamed for suburban development over other aspects. It wasn't part of the GI bill, but came about around the same time.
It's not as though there aren't cheap areas of metropli that are offering condominium or coop setups where you aren't renting and are building equity. Price per square foot can be comparable or even better within the city's core, which is why mass gentrification is beginning to become a problem for some areas. You may not have a yard, but the same could be said of some of those lots. 1/8th of an acre is not a lawn. Especially when there's a park within a 10 minute walk, and the potential of green roofs which are just starting to be tapped into here.