Re your concerns about US global domination

Come on now, enough with the hyperbole. The US has been a superpower for 60 years, the beginning of which was marked with rebuilding Europe and Japan insead of enjoying the spoils of war, then turned to creating international organizations like NATO and the UN as a response to Soviet expansion, and then worked to clean up hotspots like Yugoslavia, Kuwait, and Bosnia.

I can't say I approve every US action in that span of time (particularly in South America and Southeast Asia), but the basis of comparison is the Europeans. This is a group of people who, when they had the power to, raped and pillaged the rest of the planet for 500 years, before just about destroying themselves in two wars. Now suddenly they're the moral compass for the rest of the planet?

Well, pretty much everyone raped/pillaged etc... more or less, when views change, someone's gotta be first to do it right?

You have a good point there. US global domination is not entirely worse than feudal Europe.

>>1
European hegemony  was a long time ago. Europe then is so different from Europe today that your comparison is not only invalid, but laughable.

In the same vein, blaming America for its past sins is stupid. I'll agree with you that some people are way too concerned about US domination, but we haven't really had a situation like this one before. The US is not only a superpower, but the only superpower these days. That scares some people, mostly because they have way too much respect for their own countries' pasts, traditions and culture.

>>4

I disagree with your suggestion that the U.S. is the only superpower. How do you define superpower?

Do you mean that they could militarily dominate or nearly dominate the world, like the Macedonians under Alexander, the Mongolians under Genghis, the British under Edward and Victoria, or the French under Napoleon? (all of whom were singular superpowers by the way).

Because if that is how you define superpower then I vehemently disagree. China could destroy the U.S. on its own (and they'd take the whole world with them, no doubt), so the U.S. has no option for military hegemony.

So... yeah, I'd like to hear how you define superpower in such a way that this period in history is so unique that it is the only time there was a single superpower. Here's the challenge though; how you can construct such a definition without invalidating the claims to super-power-dom of widely acknowledged superpowers, like... all the countries I named above?

MAYBE IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED AMIRITE BECAUSE Y'KNOW THERE WAS NO TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES IN THE OLD DAYS

>THERE WAS NO TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES IN THE OLD DAYS

...

tl;dr ...

>>5
Militarily, China is not superior to the US. It does have a larger army, but their training and equipment leave a lot to be desired.

>>8

Sorry, I should have been more explicit. What I meant was that China could nuke the US into the proverbial Stone Age. I don't care if they have an army smaller than Switzerland's and less well equipped than Swaziland's; all they need is a nuclear arsenal sufficient to make North America unliveable to prevent even the possiblity of US military hegemony. That's all you need, and they have it.

sum-4-tl;dr peeps: nukes ftw

>>9
Could they? They don't have a large number of nukes, far fewer ICBMs. More importantly, would they? The US has a couple orders of magnitude more nukes than China.

There are other forms of dominance as well, particularly economic. However, how much longer the US will stay there is a different story.

<Inst>
China has what is called a "Minimal Deterrance Strategy". That is, they save on military spending against the US by getting the delivery systems and nukes for the American west coast. They feel that, they could protect the nation and the government from American nukage and "kill" invasions by threatening to nuke the West Coast. They don't feel it's necessary to nuke the entire US, because they don't feel the US is willing to trade LA for China.

They're very pissed off about Anti-Ballistic Missile because that means they have to build more nukes, more ICBMs, and develop MIRVs.

>>10

read >>11. That's pretty much what I would have said.

Besides if California was nuked the prevailing winds would irradiate most of the western US including the entire Gulf Coast. Hundreds of millions would die within a decade.

How bad do we want China? Not that bad I think. There is no economic gain available in military hegemony, for the US.

Btw, good point about ABM Mr. 11. It's fucking retarded. It provides 0 protection against terrorists (who will ship the bomb in via the US's sea-transport system, and use the ultimate guidance system, a really pissed off human being, not an insanely expensive and wildly unreliable ballistic missile) and starts a new global nuclear arms race. :P

As to your other point Mr. 10, I can't imagine how the US economically dominates the world in a way that the EU doesn't.

tl;dr? The US is not the sole superpower in any sense of the word.

>>12

The EU's economic co-dominance is obviously very new. Anyway, I don't understand your definition of superpower, and I also don't see why the US has to be the sole superpower in order for global empire (America or whatever) to be a problem.

Back in the cold war it was pretty accepted that both the US and the USSR were superpowers, right? Neither of them would have been able to invade China back then either. Things changed for both superpowers, but the US hasn't lost *that* much ground in it's ability to project military and economic force.

So I don't see how you could question whether the US is a superpower. The only question is whether China is also. Right? *That* would determine whether the US is the "sole superpower". And who cares? Does that make empire-building ok?

I'd like to point out the fact that the larger portion of the newest generation at legal votin ages believes mostly in their rights.  In this respect, I feel that if America were to attempt to take over other countries, the United States would erupt in a violent culture and civil war.

Other countries like Iraq?

>>13

Not to belabor the point, but I think that perhaps you just didn't have the opportunity to read the discussion you're replying to. My replies are a continuous thread criticizing the statement made in >>4:

>The US is not only a superpower, but the only superpower these days.

tl;dr? follow the >'s all the way back pls.

But here's a reply to the issues you raise in your misdirected reply:

>your definition of superpower

I don't have one. I don't believe in the concept. Any theoretical point wherein a country crosses over from national power to regional power to superpower is simply arbitrary, and presumes a naive-reductionist continuity of focus which is not available in anything but the most totalitarian nations. A country can't even hypothetically be a superpower without a superfocus, just like neither Inspector Clousseau from the Pink Panther movies, or Maxell Smart from the Get Smart TV series could be considered "excellent investigators" by any rational person. While they sometimes get things done, they do it accidentally and through coincidence, just like nations run by electoral committees stand no possibility of setting a delineable course or objective for anything but the extreme short-run. This is a good thing because some nations possess too much hypothetical capacity, so the extreme wastefulness of bureaucracy in democratic governance is an ideal method of keeping them from really fucking things up.

>>16

Ok, then >>13 is disagreeing with >>4, not you. Whether or not the US is a superpower doesn't determine whether empire building is ok.

Dunno why you'd go on about whether the US is a superpower when you don't believe in the concept. If there's such a thing as a superpower, we're it. If there isn't, then nevermind, right? Dunno about *sole* superpower, but whatever.

>>15
What about them?

>>16
So you're saying, that by keeping the really dangerous powers at each other's throats all the time, we can live a peaceful normal life?

>>19

Not exactly. Not "at each other's throats". I think that by keeping them filling out extensive paperwork allows us to live a peaceful normal life. Strangled in the red tape of bureaucratic largesse. Something like that. Who are they struggling against? Byzantine bureaucracy. Who are "they"? People who think anything anywhere needs to change.

What I honestly believe is that change usually hurts more people than it helps. The destruction of childhood diseases in Africa in the early 20th century led to the overpopulation and famines of the African mid-century, which led to the civil wars and genocides that are still going on.

In "Adventures of Ideas", Whitehead says (and I'm paraphrasing, I don't have it with me), that by the 20th century all of the lessons of history and most of the mechanisms of social intercourse were rendered invalid. Why? Because throughout human history, life was essentially stagnant; one could expect that no matter what happened, one's children would inherit the same Earth that they themselves had been born into. This is no longer the case. The force-multiplying abilities of modern technology have allowed anyone who wants it bad enough with a real possibilty to affect their environment.

This is a horrific thing.

Your average human being is using playground morality in his decision making processes. Perhaps this is fine at the microlevel, but we are too strong to use the rationale of children. It is a mind-boggling tragedy that human moral science (if there is a thing even worthy of that term) hasn't made almost any progress since Zoroaster, but our natural science has undergone an incalculable number of revolutions. This is not a comparison between Newtonian models and Relativisitic models. Our ethics are so antiquated that if our technological model was  equivalent, we'd be reading Heraclitus and musing about whether or not everything really is principally fire. :P

tl;dr? TAKE THE GUN AWAY FROM THE BABY!

So, what do you believe our new morality should be like?

Can't wait until we go to space and solve all these stupid problems

>>20
Of course you'd have to assume that powerful, organised groups  usually do more harm than good. Unfortunately there is no evidence that this is the case except for philosophical conjecture.

>>23
Historically, it leads to slavery. I would say slavery is harmful.

LIBERTARIANISM FTW AMIRITE? -_-

But noooo, they'd never stand a chance of acquiring any office of power. That's exactly the kind of mentality that will never PUT them in one. The republicans are becoming democrats and the democrats being even bigger democrats. Just bigger and bigger government, I mean hell, George Bush is the biggest spender in the history of our country, not even counting the war, that's the only reason I don't like the guy. (God help us if Hillary gets elected president...) Yay for military protection and highways, etc., but what business does the federal government have with all the other shit it does? By what right do they require we send our children to them to be educated? Why do we LET them? I could go on for a while... Time for a change, people. Vote smaller government.

>>21

Hell if I know. Thats why I advocate a period of technological stagnation or regress while we work this shit out.

>>22

Expanding the size of our environment would reduce the probability of destroying it all in one go. But it would also reduce the disincentive to destroy large parts of it. I think that going to space would just encourage us to use our nuclear weapons more freely.

>>23

I _do_ assume that powerful, organized groups usually do more harm than good (I think I said that in >>20, more or less). Indeed I do not have "proof", this is not an anthropological "law", but I think it is a good theory supported by the most readily available evidence. Read any book of human history, and find groups of people doing INARGUABLY more good than harm. Post that list. My list is easy: every war ever fought in human history. I bet you my list is bigger.

Yes it's just a theory. Yes there is no way to prove it. But it is impossible to describe evolution or gravity as a law either... so I don't feel bad that all I've got is a non-provable (and non-disprovable) theory well-supported by the facts.

Notes: When I say good and harm, I mean it in the sense of a Pareto optimality. Simply put, if at least one person is made happier, and no-one is made less happy, than a situation is "good", elsewise it is harmful. For more info pls check wiki. I wrote that article and a lot of the other one's on social economic calculus. :P

p.s. to >>26

By non-provable and non-disprovable I of course mean "not easily provable" and "not easily disprovable".

>>25
Required education is one place I agree with government, even if the only thing they can do amounts to daycare for eight hours out of the day, dumb kids at least learn SOMETHING.

You are a douche of a troll, >>25.

Libertarians would never be able to make the immediate and radical changed they want to make.  That would probably be harmful; I think the best they can do (and this is ideal in my opionion) is a partial and gradual change.

Most of the smartest people in the US are libertarian, I've noticed.

>>18

>>15 was a response to >>14, who had said that the United States would erupt in civil war if it invaded another country. Obviously this is not the case.

>>20

Eradicating childhood disease is the cause of the civil wars and genocides in Africa? Colonialism didn't play the teeniest role? Eradicating childhood disease wasn't the cause the civil wars and genocide in Europe and Asia, right?

That reads like bullshit.

>>29
Well, one thing that must be admitted is that saving all their lives in theird world countries during the 1960's with genetically modified super crops that their soil couldn't support for very long caused mass famines and death when that food wasn't available anymore. 

If you feed stupid people, their birthrate goes up, so wars and the like become more likely with the extra population.  Not saying there's a direct cause there, there might have been wars anyway.

I am not >>20 BTW.

>>26
And so, with that logic, you can justify spending billions and billions of dollars to make one person slightly happier?

>>29
<Usarname:Inst>
Argue with the guy who is arguing that society will completely degenerate after Oil is depleted. Malthus! Fun!

>>20
It's better that you argue that the advent of modern technologies is anti democratic. That is, since we, as a society, cannot march forward together towards greater ethical behavior and the psychic maturity required for powerful technologies, then we must spawn an aristocracy to do that for us. You see, during the Red Scare the popular hysteria didn't get us to drop the bomb, and JFK vs Khrushchev did not result in nuclear war.

JFK vs Khrushchev

Both were idiots who should have been shot.

Just to let everyone know.

>>29, >>30's reply is pretty much what I'd say. Except I'd remove the word "stupid". Pretty much all people's birth rate goes up when their food supply increases. So either most people are stupid or... well nm, most people are stupid. And by stupid I mean monstrously short-sighted.

Colonialism is not even a tangential cause of the civil wars and genocide in Africa. Colonialism was ending or over throughout the entire continent before the true horrors of Africa's 20th century began. I could see some sort of argument that a *lack* of colonialism caused those horrors, but I think that's simply conflating correlation with causation.

More likely I think that an uncontrolled population boom caused starvation which caused civil war which caused the search for a non-rational excuse to kill a lot of civilians to reduce economic demand for food. What's the cause of the population boom? Well, how about 7 out of 10 children surviving to the age of 18, instead of 3 out of 10.

As to why this didn't happen in Europe and Asia with the eradication of childhood disease, it's because the consumate rise in survival wasn't as great. Europe went from 7/10 to 9/10, and Asia went from 7/10 to 8/10.

tl;dr? You are not omnipotent. You do not know the effects of your causes.

>>31

Yes, spending a billion dollars to make one person slightly happier is "good", as long as it makes no one less happy. Now presume that that same billion dollars could make 1,000,000 people slightly happier. The second option would be quantifiably 1,000,000x "good"er. This is how modern economics works.

>>28
Well, if you all wanna let this country become socialist, which it's getting that way, then don't push the ideal. Don't inform your congressmen of what your ideas are. Let Hillary get elected and watch the country go a little further down the toilet. Just make sure you have an escape plan...

>>36
Uh, I've joined the libertarian party.  What more do you want?

This country started out as pretty libertarian. A lot of states follow the route of more and more central power; ie. away from libertarianism even though they were a federation of countries previously.

>>34
Er yeah, cos letting 4 out of 10 children die IS better than civil war.

What kind of logic is this?

>>35
Except economics also says you face a tradeoff. So there is no such thing as "makes no one less happy".

>>26
LOL

Let us assume that centralised power is bad (bad = does more harm than good). The result of centralised power is civilisation. The best way of making sense of any cumulative effect of history is to look at the present, since the present is the combined effect of the past. So civilisation now as we know it must be bad.

If you agree with this, you can kil yourself now.

>>34

I don't follow how colonialism could have not encouraged civil wars in Africa. Most of the time, colonialism will at some point end and leave a vacuum of power.

>>40

No. I don't know how to argue with this other than to point you to the wikipedia articles on satisficing, pareto optimality, and kaldor-hicks efficiency. Those represent some of the jewels of modern socio-economic analysis, and they're all based around the idea that you can give without taking. There are indeed some schools of economic theory that believe what you say... but they're predominantly pre-modern. Everyone else accepts the ideology of compensation.

>>39

I find your point compelling. Are you suggesting that a few brief decades of war in which tens of millions die is preferable to the continuation of a pattern of hundreds of thousands dying in infancy since time immemorial? Perhaps!

I'm tempted to say "but notice that the African unrest has led to tens of millions more dying of AIDS; fundamental issues of social behavior are the cause for disease, and you can't cure them all", but that's a bit of a low-blow. There are only a limited number of plagues, and curing one doesn't necessitate the creation of another.

Yet if you gave me the choice of killing 40% of my children in the first year of their life, or subjecting my ethnic group to something like the Biafra genocide, where 80% of people were killed or had an immediate family member killed, I think I'd choose the former. But a hell of a choice it is! I suppose it comes down to personal preference... and I suppose you'd choose the genocide, hmm?

As an aside, while your point is clever, you are misusing the word "logic". My point is logical because it is a series of premises followed by a conclusion, what you mean is that it isn't "rational", or "well-thought out".

>>41

I have no opposition to civilization, and I don't know where you got that idea. I wish you'd have quoted which part of my comments you thought were anti-civilization, so I'd know where you got that idea!

I'm against compulsive systems of organization. If that's how you define civilization I suggest you read the Wikipedia articles on the history of anarchy. Perhaps the reason why you can't imagine another way is because someone doesn't want you to be able to imagine it.

>>42

Basically you're saying "shit sux? colonialism was probably involved!". It's an inane point of view. Yet in point of fact, you're blaming colonialism for *leaving*... if everything was fine, then colonialism "at some point end"ed, and there was a "vacuum of power", which caused shit to sux0r, then I would be inclined to say that the rational conclusion to your argument is "don't let colonialism leave!".

Where is the point where colonialism's presence causes shit to sux0r?

>>44

Where is the point where colonialism's presence causes shit to sux0r?

The point at which it destroys local government.

Well can't say it's that bad thing that US is basically the sole superpower of the western world. Just think of few alternatives we could have. What comes to my mind is Soviets or Nazis.
Now US is LOT of gooder choice than those. US in it's whole world dominating time has never done anything "bad"(atleast not directly) affecting to me or my family. That's quite an achievement considering that Soviets and new "superpower" EU have already done such things.

>>45

Local government is a relative term. The Japanese displaced the Ainu to form their nation, yet the American occupation of Japan after WW2 is often called colonialism. Most inhabitants of North Africa are ethnically Middle-Eastern, yet it's often called colonialism when Europeans have occupied those countries.

The truth is, if you go back far enough, all land was taken from someone. The epithet of colonialism presupposes something obviously false to any rational person: eternal nationhood.

Everything had a beginning. Objecting to colonialism is silly; object to acquiring land through war if you like. There's an argument in that somewhere... but colonialism is just a meaningless buzz-word like terrorism or extremist.

>>34
Well, all the most educated countries in the world have low birthrates.  I'd say stupidity figures into it.  It's still shortsighted, I wasn't deriding them for having kids or being stupid, I only meant that stupid people have high birthrates when not controlled by food scarcity.  I believe that education plays a part in that, not just our technology.

>>47

That's idiotic. You seem to be arguing that colonialism is a word without meaning when that is plainly not the case. >>45 didn't say aboriginal government, he said local.

Whenever you can describe the government as "occupation", red flags should be going off.

>>43
"Are you suggesting that a few brief decades of war in which tens of millions die is preferable to the continuation of a pattern of hundreds of thousands dying in infancy since time immemorial? Perhaps!"

Yes, perhaps. I am saying it's difficult to make a judgment like that because:
1) Hindsight is 20/20, but it didn't have to turn out the way it did. Your logic is flawed. You failed to address that lack of food causes starvation as well as having many, many people. It's only half the story. It's like saying the Treaty of Versailles was solely or even mostly responsible for the holocaust.
2) If you asked everyone who died in the genocide whether they would have preferred to be murdered or never have been born at all (or died at birth), well... yeah it IS an issue of principle.

>>44
I believe you mean Anarchism. Okay. Tell me one civilisation that has been anarchistic.

>>43
So there is no such thing as "makes no one less happy".

I should amend my statement. No REAL such thing.

>>49

Colonialism is a word without objective meaning.

But you're saying that "any occupying government" is an example of colonialism? So then, in the case of the North African countries occupied by European powers in the recent centuries...

Napoleon occupied Egypt; is that colonialism? Yet the people who were running Egypt before Napoleon conquered it were the descendants of the Muslim empire which stormed across North Africa in earlier centuries. Were they colonialists?

So, in your wildest dreams, who should Egypt be governed by? Who is the non-colonial hereditary owners of Egypt?

>>53
Heshepsut, of course. 

>>54

Even Heshepsut was a wicked "colonialist". The dynastic Egyptians were originally two kingdoms. Lower Egypt conquered Upper Egypt giving rise to the Pharaonic dynasties, which then governed other's lands as if they were their own for thousands of years.

The only non-colonial nations in this world are pre-historic. If they even had names they never survived long enough to be written down.

To clarify, I do believe that colonialism means something; there's no way to argue with that, it's a simple fact. The problem is, it is unfairly applied to some things which fit its description, but not others... and that is because when it is fairly applied to every nation who rules over people and place's that they have not ruled over since the first system of social coordination arose in that place, then it applies to everyone and every nation now living.

Hence, it is a worthless concept.

First a definition:

The colonial system of political government or extension
of territory, by which one nation exerts political control
over another nation, territory, or people, maintaining the
colony in a state of dependence, its inhabitants not
having the same full rights as those of the colonial
power. The controlling power is typically extended thus by
military force or the threat of force.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC]


This means that Heshepesut was probably not a colonialist because Lower Egypt annexed Upper Egypt and in the treated it's citizens equally. Upper Egypt was not meant to be like a gold mine for Lower Egypt but more of a territorial expansion. Upper Egypt was considered part of Lower Egypt.

With Arabs, I think they killed most of the Egyptions (i dunno lol). If they did, it would not be colonialism either.

Concerning France in Algeria, the French were using Arabs as slaves or servants. The Arabs did not have the same rights as the French. If the French had driven out the Arabs or something, would that be colonialism?

What the hell; my ramblings are too vague and so is the currently accepted meaning for colonialism.

>>56

...I *must* have misunderstood you.

I feel like I'm getting the impression that you're saying that the Lower Egyptians didn't use Upper Egyptians as slaves? Also, are you suggesting that when the Muslim empire conquered the pagan sun-worshipping Pharaonic Egypt they treated the denizens they didn't slaughter as equal citizens?

I must be confused... there's no way you could be making those assertions... what *are* you saying?

>>53

You are an idiot. >>49 dude did not say "any occupying government". Your response ignores >>49's only point, which is that no one is demanding an aboriginal government for Egypt.

Who should govern Egypt? The people who live there. What's your problem?

>>49 only mentioned occupation in response to >>47, which acted as if every military action was indistinguishable from colonialism. >>47's own language gave away a distinction.

>>55

Go reread that posted definition. Your post completely ignores it. The provided definition clearly does not apply to the way France rules France, the US rules the US, or the way Germany rules Germany. No, the people in those governments did not evolve from apes in those places. They are not the first form of government that those places knew. Still doesn't fit the definition of colonialism.

| it is fairly applied to every nation who rules over people and place's that they have not ruled over since the first system of social coordination arose in that place

That's plain bullshit.

>>58

The people who live there do govern Egypt, and always have.

When Napoleon governed it he lived there for several years.

p.s., why am I an idiot when you've obviously never read a single book on the subject of modern Egyptian history?

>>59

I didn't ignore the definition; I've been aware of it the entire period I've been writing in this thread. It's just so broad as to be useless.

"one nation exerts political control over another nation, territory, or people" describes every nation I can think of. Syria and Lebanon, Greece and Macedonia, Turkey and Greece, Russia and its client states, China and its client states, China and Taiwan and Hong Kong, the US and most everything, Canada and the inuits, Mexico and the Zapatistas, India and the indigenous Muslims, Pakistan and the indigenous non-Muslims, Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan and the Palestinians, Iraq and the Palestinians... every nation in Africa has its own little minority which it is constantly torturing.

How am I misunderstanding the definition? Do they not maintain these peoples, territories, and nations in a state of dependence? Do these peoples, territories, and nations not suffer and survive at the whim of these nations? So then, is not every nation on Earth a colonial power?

So then, what is the purpose of the term? If one decries colonialism, isn't one simply decrying government?

>>60

I don't understand how the three things you say about >>58 relate to the actual contents of >>58. I will grant that they are all true. >>53 asked who should govern Egypt, and >>58 answered. If Egyptians govern Egypt, than whatever bad shit their government pulls, it probably can't be called a colony.

Fortunately, whether one has read books on Egyptian history does not determine idiocy.

>>60

Well fortunately, "one nation exerts political control over another nation, territory, or people" wasn't the whole definition. I'm glad you ask: YES, YOU MISUNDERSTAND THE DEFINITION.

1) I do not grant that every nation on Earth is a colonial power. If it's locally run government that is independent of a foreign power doing the dirt to some minority, then it's just plain human cruelty. Not a colony. You acting like that distinction does not exist.

2) If it were granted that every nation on Earth were a colonial power, one could still decry colonialism without decrying government. Obviously that is neither the only purpose of government, nor is it a necessary purpose. If every government provided the enforcement of legal slavery, protesting slavery would not be protesting the existence of government. Agreed?

I wish I knew names for the kind of hand waving you're doing. This feels like arguing with a three year old. I'm done.