Certainly. Those giant star fish might come down and steal all our natural resources, destroying all the corporate headquarters for the various fortune 500 on their way out.
Lets take two large US companies then. Lets say Microsoft and IBM both had Enron style collapses. I have a pretty good idea what would happen on the macro level (not much though I’m sure there would be some hit). What do YOU think would happen from 2 or a handful of US fortune 500 companies going tits up Enron style (something thats improbable in itself)?
I’m talking about a form of government that has not been invented yet… or are scientists and engineers the only ones that invent stuff anymore.
Ever been to Seattle? Any idea what kind of influence Microsoft has on Seattle? It’s huge, take out one of the largest employers and it’s easy to imagine what would happen. Think of the influence Microsoft has on the entire computer industry and how many companies use Microsoft products. Dell, located here in Austin, uses Microsoft in all their products. Take out their supplier and there goes support for Dell Diamond, the Dell Jewish Campus and let alone how many jobs would be lost just in the transition to another product (the Dell campus is HUGE, like a small university campus). Think of how many industries would have to transfer their systems over to other products, think of the cost.
Take a few more companies that have the kind of impact that Microsoft does and allow the same to happen. Not only would it erode consumer confidence in large companies it would erode investor confidence… and you don’t think that could have a huge impact?
Not the end of the nation, but the end (temporarily) of the sovereign republic. Note that the USA is a republic. Even if later generations call their nation “the USA,” by that term we in this time mean the political structure. For semantic purposes, we’re talking about the end of a sovereign state with a recognizable continuation of the the 1776 Revolution.
Again, China is not a single state in history. If your hypothetical states repudiate the federalism of the USA, they may be America, they may call themselves the USA, but for our purposes here, they are not what we know as the USA.
Yes.
No. The USA is not identical to US hegemony.
No. If the political system remains, it’s the USA. Unless they legally declare a break, & rename it, in which case it’s not. That said, it would be the fading of Anglo-American culture, & the subsumation of a nation. But the USA as a state is technically distinguishable.
Semantic nitpick: Countries are primarily regions of land. Nations are groups of people. States are political organizations. These terms are often treated as synonyms, but they are not the same.
Modern Egypt is the same country as pre-Alexandrian Egypt. It is not the same culture, not the same state, not quite the same nation (though the fellahin may be the *descendants *of that nation).
France is the same country as ancient Gaul, but not the same state, language, culture, nor nation. The 4th & 5th republics are the same language, culture, nation, & more or less the same state (or one is the direct inheritor of the other).
And hey, mazinger_z, & a couple of you others, the question isn’t “will the USA end in the next 70 years?” now, is it? Long view, people, or are you incapable of that?
I had a long post on one possibility, which involves gradual devolution, but didn’t notice when I hit “submit” that a dog had disconnected a cable. (Sigh.)
In any case, there’s not one correct answer. Well, determinists might claim that there is, but that doesn’t mean it’s visible to us. Short term (next 100 years, say) enough Americans are going to hang on to their identity that there will still be a USA, even if we, say, lose some territory; past that, we can’t see. It’s like standing in a thick wood & trying to see the trees a mile away.
From what I read on here, I see people are incapable of any hindsight whatsoever. I see the USA, as it is functioning right now with all the bliss and abundance, ending very soon. The way it’s being set up, everything is going to come crashing down very quickly, and “nobody” will have seen it coming (meaning you guys, because I’m sure somebody saw it but hasn’t told you).
How much of a role would the United States’ new-found lack of inertia compared to the rest of the world play in its decline? You can see it in things large and small, from the lack of universal health care (even though it’s the norm in the rest of the country) or high-speed rail to our reluctance to adopt the metric system or use a dollar coin. Most communities I work with are reluctant to allow New Urbanist development, because it’s different than the usual suburban sprawl. We now seem like we’re at a stage where we 're afraid to take risks, afraid to take any big steps forward, because it’s uncomfortable.
Another thing that will harm the US is the lack of fresh blood and ideas from immigration. In the past, “brain drain” from developing nations benefitted the US; the most talented, educated and skilled workers from those countries flocked to the US in droves. Increasingly, they’ll be staying at home, or going to countries that are considered more progressive, welcoming and tolerant of ethnic diversity; most likely Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Immigration will continue, but the vast bulk will probably be unskilled laborers and economic refugees. Skilled Mexican professionals wanting out will probably consider Spain, Argentina or Canada before the US. The unskilled laborers the US attracts tend to be very conservative, socially speaking.
Were the US used to be on the forefront in technology, social change and human rights, I see us now slowing to a crawl, as other nations speed ahead of us. Gay marriage in the 2010s is probably going to be the equivalent of metric conversion in the 1970s; common in the rest of the world, but not in the US. Why? IMHO, not so much because people are oposed to the concept, but because it’s a big change. The change will be more dfficult for Americans to accept than the idea of two men getting married to each other.
That’s how the US will end: it will just stop growing, stop changing, stop evolving, stop reforming. It will become a quaint, nostalgic backwater.
I personally believe in evolution. Barring any sci-fi fantasy type evolution (not saying that it’s not possible, but is there really a biological need to go that way?), I see the rest of the world catching up to us as being democratic representative forms of government. I suppose a technological evolution could really affect us in a different way, but in the end, I believe that it will make us all better, or at least more efficient, or a Borg Collective.
My long view is hundreds of years from now. We’ve managed to stay as a union through civil war, through civil rights expansion, and continuously through the impugning of our civil rights currently. The time for us to implode could’ve/should’ve happened many, many times already. Our constitution and our structure of government is so vague, yet so flexible, and defined where it needs to be, that it is increasingly more difficult to find a reason to separate.
People divide on issues, but come together on others, and, for the vast majority of the people, not one issue defines them. We change our minds, territorial expansion and the Indians were an issue, now it’s terrorism. Immigration and abortion always come to a boil, but subside to education, tax, and campaign reform. So, barring any cataclysmic event, we will continue in this way for a long time to come.
Eventually, others will catch up to us. They will look at our example and find a way to do it better, if for the only reason that they have studied our mistakes and dare not repeat them. China and India have massive labor and massive room for technological improvement to easily surpass us. We, and the rest of the world, will be more than willing to give them the capital needed to grow. I, for one, welcome their growth.
So, super long view, I see us evolving into one global government/political structure, divided by trading blocs to maximize efficiency and ease of accounting and geographic reference. We’ll probably be a two, three, some number under 6, government world for a long, long time, assuming we don’t blow up ourselves in another world war. However, the more the world’s governments align themselves to the stable representative democracy model, the less likely that will happen. So, to throw a number out there, just b/c everone else is doing it, let’s say 500 years (nice round number). It will be less, I guess, if the world’s wealth and technological innovations continue to grow.
WOoOooOAAhHHh, 500 years? I say things start falling apart this year, and then things really get rolling over the next few. Our economy will definitely take a nose-dive soon. Eventually, we’ll go out with a bang!
Why would a severe economic dislocation mean that the USA will “go out with bang”?
What other modern countries disintegrated because of an economic meltdown?
OK, the Soviet Union is arguable. Except we’re in a totally different situation than the Soviet Union. They were a totalitarian communist imperial dictatorship. So the Russians lost part of their Empire, they threw out the communist ideology, there was a discontinuity of leadership. But Russia is still there.
Think how many South American countries have gone through financial meltdowns. Why does Chile, or Argentina, or Haiti, still exist then?
Why is America the exception? Why is it that when American hits a speed-bump, we’ll explode into a fireball, where every other country manages to muddle through wars, civil wars, depressions, financial meltdowns, resource depletion, and on and on? Why can Chile survive a financial meltdown, but not the US?
All good questions Lemur866, but at a more fundamental level I’d like to know why bigpappadiaz thinks that at a time of economic expansion in the US that we are poised to go tits up in the next year or so.
Will it be a magic (or invisible) economic downturn bigpappadiaz?
How could it take the US five minutes to cook its economic downturn when it takes the entire economic-downturn-eating world 20 minutes? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into an economic downturn faster in the US than any place on the face of the earth?
Disease will wipe out the majority of the population, leaving nothing but Twinkies, cockroaches, and rednecks. The rednecks will re-establish the nation and revise the constitution. When other countries invade, the nation will be broken up, but that small section run by rednecks will still be called the United States.
Sort of like the British Empire…but most Englishmen today don’t seem too upset.
Their parents/grandparents ruled the entire world for almost 2 centuries.Then, in only 15 years, it all fell apart. (1935-Biritish aristocrats kept native servants to polish their shoes–in India, China, Africa. By 1950–England was nothing more than an average country, with no empire. It was the end of something—but is that such a tragedy ?
The US will face the same “end”, probably within your lifetime.
Yeah, because Microsoft going bankrupt would automatically and immediately cause Windows, Word, and every other Microsoft product to stop working. It’s the HCF instruction on a global scale!
And it’s not like the code base will still be around for someone to buy up and continue supporting.
It’ll be worse than a few years ago when a few airlines went bankrupt and we all had to go back to taking ships across the oceans while the planes rusted on the runways.
Well, there are a couple of critical differences between the US and the British empire that may make such a comparison problematic. First off, the US is a contenential nation…the core of the British empire was a rather small (and relatively resource poor) island. Secondly we have a larger and more diverse population base already…and of course we are less reliant on people of color doing our shoes for us. We also have a markedly different economic model and ‘empire’ than the British did, with a vast difference in such fundamentals as HOW we trade and with whom. One effect of this is that our ‘empire’ is unlikely to disintigrate because the colonies under our thumb want independence.
Finally the US hasn’t fought a series of bloody and costly wars with our European neighbors, weakening us both economically, morally and stripping us of large percentages of entire generations.
All that said its a reasonably valid point that eventually the US won’t be THE world hyperpower…someone at some point will pull even and surpass us. I doubt it will happen as it did with the Brits and that within the course of a decade we will go from the most powerful nation in the world to where the Brits found themselves in the 50’s (or later). It will be a much slower decent, and I don’t think we will fall quite so far in the end.
Now that is a question, could Microsoft products survive without continual updates? You might have better luck finding the question to 42.
Note: I said Enron style collapse not an airline style bankruptcy. Huge difference.
Seriously though, I didn’t think of someone coming behind and picking up the pieces of Microsoft code. :smack: I would suspect, I don’t know, that their products would be tied up in litigation for a time, and I wonder if anyone would be willing to invest in the product after its been off the market for a couple years. Of course, I don’t know what would actually happen to their products but if I’m not mistaken, Enron was forced to sell a lot of their products and companies to meet their bankruptcy agreement even though the companies have been up and running.
So I suppose it could be just a stock thing and everyone in the market gets screwed, but regardless it would definitely have a huge impact on consumer confidence, particularly if Bill Gates was tied up in an investigation the way Ken Lay is.
Well…you know that someone is coming behind and picking up the pieces to Enron, right? Its not completely defunct and totally out of business. Same with Worldcom (the other company generally used in this kind of discussion).
Even if Microsoft blew up in an Enron style explosion you can pretty much guarentee that SOMEONE is going to pick up the pieces…because Microsoft is a huge money making machine with patents out the ass and huge internal resources. And a rather large market share and customer base.
And of course none of this touches on how unlikely it is that Microsoft AND several other fortune 500 companies are suddenly going to go tits up this way. Hell, its unlikely in the extreme that MICROSOFT is going to go belly up Enron style.
