alt Hacker NewsHow old are you? What are your political views?
How do you measure decline and what in your opinion is rising vs. this decline.
There have certainly been some trends like globalization, climate change, social media, the pandemic, immigration etc.
Can you elaborate on how it's in the interest of a hypothetical French person commenting on Hacker News, typing on their MBP laptop, tuning in to NetFlix, asking ChatGPT for recipes, to see the US fail and what you mean by fail. Fail as in break up? chaos? become a third world country? Total collapse of US tech? What does fail look like.
This is not a zero sum game.
EDIT: you edited while I was replying which makes this a moving target.
EDIT2: The US has already survived depressions and world wars.
It's true that wealth inequality is historically high but not the highest: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf
But as I said this is not a zero sum game: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N real median household income is at all times high.
I'm not saying everything is great but I'm certainly not brainwashed by the media. Will there be economic trouble ahead- sure. There always are. Are there other places in the world with structural advantages over the USA? I'm not seeing them. Can the US lose its advantages - everything is possible.
Replies
> It also has giant homeless camps stretching on for miles, abandoned and collapsing old houses, factories, etc as far as the eye can see.
On a political tuning side, I would put this as ultra-rightwing, rather than left. Said homeless camps only exist in right wing media
> How old are you?
Irrelevant.
> What are your political views?
Irrelevant.
> How do you measure decline
Countless ways. I use my eyes and ears to start.
> and what in your opinion is rising vs. this decline.
Poverty, destitution, illiteracy, and ignorance are all rising trends in the USA.
> Can you elaborate on how it's in the interest of a hypothetical French person [...]
Completely irrelevant. You don't get to wish for the world that you want. The FACT is, it is the end of the American Empire. And the end of France too in a lot of ways, based on what I can see from here. Especially if there's a lot of folks like you in the population.
How big is your farmstead and how much food can you produce? What skilled trades do you have that are of use in a World War type situation, besides holding a machine gun? Those are facts that will be of importance to you in the coming years.
> EDIT: you edited while I was replying which makes this a moving target.
It's OK if you sit back and wait for my thought to be completed before rushing to reply with your ignorant opinion.
Familiarize yourself with the essay "The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival" by Sir John Glubb. Then I would recommend America's Secret Establishment by Antony Cyril Sutton.
There are many, many more books you will need to read before you understand anything about the present day, let alone what tomorrow holds.