Do you think America is doomed, or that it hit a bump in it's progression as a nation? - General

People have been saying America was doomed since the country was founded. I'm disinclined to believe that now.

[QUOTE=semite;33946207]There is hardly an emphasis on intellect or enlightenment in America. Most people are born into families of stupid/simple people and grow up in that sort of environment. It's actually pretty sad because they can't help it. Anyone that listens to Joe Rogan or George Carlin will know what I'm talking about.[/QUOTE] That's not true. High school graduate 87.14% Some college 55.90% Associate's and/or Bachelor's degree 39.06% Bachelor's degree 29.93% Master's degree 7.60% Doctorate or professional degree 2.93% 40% of people in the United States age 25 and over have at least their bachelors degree. How is that "most" of people being born into simple/stupid families? That's just sort of absurd for you to generalize like that.

[QUOTE=electric926;34637509]People have been saying America was doomed since the country was founded. I'm disinclined to believe that now.[/QUOTE] Really? Why? We were a country founding on ideals, and so far, those ideals have worked pretty well for Western Civilization. Yes, for a Western country, we aren't doing as great as we should be at the moment. Also, everyone quit with this "end of America" and "end of society" bullshit. Yes, politically chaotic things happen. The Western World made it through the Great Depression, two world wars and the red scare. I think we'll be fine. The only serious threat we face that could really do us in, which would also do in [I]all[/I] civilization, is climate change. There are a lot of very bad things that can happen in the near future, but this isn't the Western world's, or America's for that matter, first rodeo.

It doesn't help when you xenophobic Bits and Europeans start mindlessly calling Americans fat/stupid, they even do it daily here in Estonia. Even though it's true to a percentage, it's not right

The big tripping stone of US is the federal reserve bank. The way it works. Almost every damn country has its own bank that controls the dosh. They emit too much money - it's bad; too little - it's bad. Now, US dollar is emitted by a pretty much private company. And they emit as much as they want. And this is already causing social and economic problems worldwide and in the states. Lets see how it goes...

Now that I think on it, I'm not sure what would actually make a civilisation fall, the real factors involved. Doom-sayers criticise everything from economic downturn to immigrants to defiant youths but what does make a civilisation fall. Many have fallen purely from conquest by another nation, but this is a more subtle fall. Rome comes to mind but I don't know enough about late Rome although things like lack of investment in infrastructure and vast expansion of bureaucracy are thrown around. Changing winds of time and an inability to adapt maybe but they are keeping up and that is only one case. I'm really not sure.

i was actually planning on moving there but i don't really know if it's worth the trouble. i mean don't you either need to be a star or have fucking amazing degrees to be let in? even if i DO get in i would probably regret it. or save america from its assured doom americans please feedback

I truly think America has declined in the past but I do think we will get past this and rise again.

Just a question. Will the United States of America still exist in 200 years time? Will this nation still be standing and supporting the world by the year 2200? Ok how about 500 years from now. In 2512 assuming we didn't nuke ourselves, will America be standing? If you think Nations are permanent, you are wrong. Look at the Roman empire, Ottoman empire, the mongols, British colonies. Nothing is permanent. Not even nations.

Taking a pause from my usual lurking just to say this: People are comparing the bump to the depression era and other such, but I'll focus on why the "The U.S. got out of the depression so why can't they now" is not very good: The Depression didn't end, instead America was kind of abruptly yanked out of it. When World War 2 started picking up, there became increased demand for small arms, artillery and ammo, tanks, etc. in European countries, which led to more heavy industry jobs opening up and of course the average American started holding a job again. The same really couldn't be true nowadays. The UN, or some other smaller system of alliance within, would be incredibly quick to stop a war in the case that one of the superpowers did decide to go on a rampage, and on top of that, what wars are fought now are mostly fought with black-market weapons like the remains of extremist insurgents in the middle east, or with locally-provided copies of weapons like in the Yugoslav wars. I'm not saying that the U.S. is totally reliant on weapons sales or anything like that, but that was formerly what essentially kept America powerful, and now that every banana republic has their own factories making off-brand AK-47s, it'd be considerably harder to recover as the U.S. normally does. Of course, that's one factor in a big jigsaw puzzle, but the point is, the depression argument isn't very good.

From our history we suffered a depression, and we have lived though it and it ended when we entered WW2 and the economy rises during the war, we got back up in our feet and reached even higher then the cold war hit and the arms race goes on. If we suffer from another depression, we will live though it, although we just don't know when it going to end until it happens. America is in a tough time and people begin to believe we are doomed because of the many issues that we have, but we will solve these issues in a matter of time, all we need to do is get our shit together and end this crisis the best way possible.

It's always awkward when this topic comes up. I've been chatting with people on steam being worried of that America is fucked, surrounded by "bad guys" and that everyone hates America. The huge debt is one problem. And some people in the US barely notice anything wrong happening with their country. I'll quote a steam friend about the debt problem with china. "The US got twice the money they own China. If the US gave back the money, it would still be the same case, but the other way" Of course, this person might just be another kid rambling about, so we shouldn't use him as a sure example, but it makes me really mad that someone can be that wrong. I think the US could do good stuff after some time, but you sure have hit a bump. If your country stops loaning money from other countries, it should be okay some time. I think.

America's not in bad shape compared to how it was in the past. Socially, we're at a moderate high. Gay rights movements, racism rapidly decreasing, etc etc. We have a hell of a lot less civil injustice than we did in the early 1900s. Corporate abuses today are completely incomparable to ones in Rockefeller's era. Otherwise, we're just hitting a bump of anti-intellectualism and political apathy. It might get a bit worse from here, but it's hard to believe that a progressive movement won't stem from it. It's happened in the past, and it will absolutely happen again. People exaggerate stuff. We live in an age of fast results and instantaneous communication, and our political system is simply too dated to handle it. America's been in better shape, but it's nowhere near dying.

I don't think a majority of us have any authority to say we are doomed. I thought we were but in terms of the things we've dealt with, this is nothing. We've survived a civil war and the great depression and we are the longest lasting constitutional democracy in the world. But all you kids will start spewing "OUR POLITICS ARE RUINED, NO FIXING IT, WE ARE DOOMED, NOTHING GOING RIGHT" Yeah, our economy isn't the best right now but its a whole lot better than other countries. We still have SO many opportunities. So many of the people who will disagree with me though will be arrogant to the facts and think its more fun to think America is doomed because they obviously know politics, I mean, they have been on this earth for ~17 years! PLENTY OF TIME RIGHT? hah... I tend to rant in responses in this section than the topic. I just hate the mentality that anybody on the forum, no matter their education or age, can seemingly have just as valid a debate as somebody who studies political science for a living...

People just want to place the blame on someone else. No matter who's the President is, they will always take the blame.

The nation itself doomed to fall? Probably not anytime soon. Our reputation doomed for all eternity? Oh yeah.

[QUOTE=BCell;34664771]Just a question. Will the United States of America still exist in 200 years time? Will this nation still be standing and supporting the world by the year 2200? Ok how about 500 years from now. In 2512 assuming we didn't nuke ourselves, will America be standing? If you think Nations are permanent, you are wrong. Look at the Roman empire, Ottoman empire, the mongols, British colonies. Nothing is permanent. Not even nations.[/QUOTE] Every nation that fell before didn't have the advantage of modern governing techniques and the big one, you know, technology... You seriously just can't compare old "great" civilizations to the modern world to such a point where you can say "Well, all these civilizations broke up due to X factors, looks like we're screwed"

[QUOTE=ice445;34813976]Every nation that fell before didn't have the advantage of modern governing techniques and the big one, you know, technology... You seriously just can't compare old "great" civilizations to the modern world to such a point where you can say "Well, all these civilizations broke up due to X factors, looks like we're screwed"[/QUOTE]Yes, but it works both ways. Those parameters you mentioned dont guarantee ultimate safety from collapse. Human greed and laziness still exists.

[QUOTE=Splooosh;34939958]Yes, but it works both ways. Those parameters you mentioned dont guarantee ultimate safety from collapse. Human greed and laziness still exists.[/QUOTE] But so do Ingenuity and Creativity, two things that built the Hoover Dam, the Great Wall of China, Mount Rushmore, and many, many, many, many other things. also, Humanity, as a collective whole, has always had misconceptions about the future. For starters, in the 50s, everyone thought that we'd have flying cars capable of space travel, and laser guns and robot servants (well, actually this one we do kind of have...) by 2000.

[QUOTE=BCell;34664771]Just a question. Will the United States of America still exist in 200 years time? Will this nation still be standing and supporting the world by the year 2200? Ok how about 500 years from now. In 2512 assuming we didn't nuke ourselves, will America be standing? If you think Nations are permanent, you are wrong. Look at the Roman empire, Ottoman empire, the mongols, British colonies. Nothing is permanent. Not even nations.[/QUOTE] Agreed. We actually had an assignment in my Early World History class in which we compared the Roman Empire to present day America. It's actually somewhat creepy when you realize how similar they are.

I feel doomed

[QUOTE=Ericson666;34952411]Agreed. We actually had an assignment in my Early World History class in which we compared the Roman Empire to present day America. It's actually somewhat creepy when you realize how similar they are.[/QUOTE] Its also creepy how similar their governments are... OH WAIT, thats because they both have somewhat similar ideas of democracy, imperialist (America at one point) and world powers during different times. Of course they are going to deal with similar problems in a different context. Its like astrology. Its stupid but there are some similarities between what the horoscope says and what is actually true, kind of a bad analogy but thats the only thing I can think of. We associate things together based on a few similarities. Thats some kind of rhetorical fallacy but the name escapes me.

[QUOTE=Stick it in her pooper;34662035]It doesn't help when you xenophobic Bits and Europeans start mindlessly calling Americans fat/stupid, they even do it daily here in Estonia. Even though it's true to a percentage, it's not right[/QUOTE] Agreed. There's a lot of stereotypes against Americans, and it's baseless generalizing. There's several different ethnic groups in the US. It's very evolved ethnically and has great potential. A corrupt party system is the only thing that has held us back. And poor education, newer generations have higher learning capacities and require more challenge.

America isn't doomed, nor has it experienced a 'bump' in its progress. It's just that the rest of the world is catching up.

[QUOTE=Stick it in her pooper;34662035]It doesn't help when you xenophobic Bits and Europeans start mindlessly calling Americans fat/stupid, they even do it daily here in Estonia. Even though it's true to a percentage, it's not right[/QUOTE] I like how you did that. "EVEN THOUGH IT'S TRUE, it doesn't help."

[QUOTE=Atlascore;34967682]I can't even begin to comprehend the insane levels of ignorance in this post. The rest of the world had catching up to do, way back in 1945. It's 2012 now and we're behind in pretty much everything, public transportation, health care, roads, and laws, especially those regarding human rights and corporations, we are so far behind Europe it's ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Holy subjective post batman! How exactly are we "behind" in laws? And how is it fair to compare public transportation and infrastructure quality when there are so many different factors that go into each (For example, population density is a big factor along with World War 2). You're actually more ignorant than the person you quoted.

[QUOTE=ice445;34968376]Holy subjective post batman! How exactly are we "behind" in laws?[/QUOTE] Off the top of my head, sexuality based equality, as he mentioned, laws pertaining to corporations, there's the fact that basic financial regulatory law is a loophole ridden piece of shit, and current tax law is pathetic. [QUOTE=ice445;34968376]And how is it fair to compare public transportation and infrastructure quality when there are so many different factors that go into each (For example, population density is a big factor along with World War 2).[/QUOTE] Uh, we were behind in our public transportation well before WWII, and, again, off the top of my head, there are longstanding unaddressed flaws in things that are not affected by population whatsoever, such as energy efficiency standards for buildings, which are simply unscientific and useless. [QUOTE=ice445;34968376]You're actually more ignorant than the person you quoted.[/QUOTE] Nah, I'm pretty sure he's just being vague, and you're just fishing for an easy zing while failing miserably.

[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;34968747]Off the top of my head, sexuality based equality, as he mentioned, laws pertaining to corporations, there's the fact that basic financial regulatory law is a loophole ridden piece of shit, and current tax law is pathetic. Uh, we were behind in our public transportation well before WWII, and, again, off the top of my head, there are longstanding unaddressed flaws in things that are not affected by population whatsoever, such as energy efficiency standards for buildings, which are simply unscientific and useless. Nah, I'm pretty sure he's just being vague, and you're just fishing for an easy zing while failing miserably.[/QUOTE] You and him both failed at understanding, so let me help you. With regards to public transport, the United States has a far more spread out population over a much wider area, thus making the cost of effective public transportation far higher than in Europe. Infrastructure in America services well over 300 million people as well, which means it's far superior in simple size and scope than anything any European countries have to deal with. This makes completely revamping it a several trillion dollar investment. We also didn't have the luxury of our entire infrastructure being bombed to oblivion forcing us to rebuild it to a more modern standard. It's not even close to a fair apples to apples comparison. It has nothing to do with Europe (Or Japan) being superior in this aspect. I'm not even going to touch the laws aspect because that's not a field of interest for me, so don't try to use it to "prove my ignorance".

Compared to the rest of the world, I think we're doing just fine. Nothing can last forever. Everything and everyone is inevitably doomed to fade into history and time. The question is not if but when. I am sure we'll be around for the next hundred years or so.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;34969814]Several trillion dollar investment? You're out of your mind, it's not even close, we can easily afford to fix up our infrastructure, especially around populated areas where it's the absolute worst, also over half the stuff modern European and Japanese infrastructure uses wasn't even a concept back when they were bombed, a lot of that stuff wasn't made until the 70's/80's, especially the trains. Wooooooow, are you for real? So you're going to ask how we're behind, than when someone proves you wrong you try to claim our arguments are invalid because of your lack of interest? Congratulations you win the award for worst debater.[/QUOTE] Your comprehension skills are really poor. First of all, you're wrong about the infrastructure being a cheap fix. You should do some research. Second, I wasn't proven wrong about anything. I merely asked how you thought we were "behind" in laws, and you gave some plausible points. So is that part of the discussion not concluded? I'm not going to try to debate something I know barely anything about. You shouldn't try either.