# So what would the world complain about if America didn't exist?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 27, 2018, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348 "2018-08-27T10:49:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/1 "2018-08-27T10:49:19Z")
Honestly very curious, and this isn’t motivated by current events because I remember the Internet of the mid-90’s back when “Everything Is Fine!” Europeans mainly were still talking a shitstorm about the United States.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/2 "2018-08-27T10:50:42Z")
Wow, you really think the world revolves around you, I see.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/3 "2018-08-27T11:01:01Z")
The cost of Hover Car gas?
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### Author:  [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/4 "2018-08-27T11:16:26Z")
That expanse of land between Canada and Mexico. Why hasn’t anyone settled it?
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### Author:  [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/5 "2018-08-27T11:50:07Z")
Not having comical displays of butt-hurt to point and laugh at?
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/6 "2018-08-27T12:29:16Z")
It’s always the guy at the top of the heap that the world is going to throw dirt clods at. If it wasn’t America, it’d be some other nation.
Consider it part of the price of being #1, the position naturally attracts lots of criticism.
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### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/7 "2018-08-27T12:31:05Z")
England has been talking shit about France and vice versa since before the New World was discovered - sometimes a good natured “we only tease because we love” and sometimes by sending armies. It didn’t stop just because we came along. Japan and China and Korea have been at it just as long…The Sunnis and the Shiites have only been at it about 1000 years.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/8 "2018-08-27T12:32:02Z")
The very premise of this thread relies upon an assumption that criticisms of the US constitute “complaining,” making it the all-time champion whine-fest.
It’s a crass trivialization of actual people’s lives. It’s shameful.
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/9 "2018-08-27T12:35:48Z")
Would have thought that 99% of threads started here about the all and the and sundry of US sourced shit storms were started by Americans.
YMMV
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/10 "2018-08-27T12:38:28Z")
If the U.S. did not exist, another country would be the hegemon, from the time the first humans existed the hegemon always abuse their power, so the answer to your question is: the world would complain about the replacing hegemon.
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### Author:  [@Steve\_McQwark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_McQwark)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/11 "2018-08-27T12:46:30Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#):
>
> That expanse of land between Canada and Mexico. Why hasn’t anyone settled it?
What? Not settled? I’m French. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent.
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### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/12 "2018-08-27T13:24:42Z")
The same thing we’re complaining about now - \*all the fucking Nazis running around. \*
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### Author:  [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/13 "2018-08-27T14:04:58Z")
From the responses in this thread I’d say that one thing they would complain about is a thread started by some guy in the #1 country who posed a “what if we didn’t exist” thought experiment.
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/14 "2018-08-27T14:53:13Z")
Russia. (If they could)
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### Author:  [@Apanthro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apanthro)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/15 "2018-08-27T15:05:37Z")
I think it’s reasonable to conclude that if the US for whatever reason did not have its impressive military and the capability to carry out regime change conducive to western trade interests then the EU would (to a greater extent than they do already). This is a historical what-if however, and thus worth less than the electricity costs of posting it.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/16 "2018-08-27T15:23:22Z")
Franco leaving Bayern Fallen (although not without paying the compensation clause),
Our politicians,
The neighbor’s politicians,
The other neighbor’s politicians,
Whether it is true or not that French-Spanish (as in double nationality) politician Manuel/Emmanuel Valls would like to become mayor of Barcelona (that would be an interesting concept of “retirement”, I guess),
Whether [Lo Malo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYXCsZunjRM) is a bigger earworm than Despacito or not (the OP didn’t disappear Puerto Rico),
And add [Déjala Que Baile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yda62tNSLsQ) into the mix,
Non-machista Reggaeton,
Feminist Reggaeton,
I’m starting to become a bit tired of Reggaeton,
Spanish Treasury being able to prove that Shakira owed them several years’ worth of paperwork - based on her hairdressing bills (really woman?),
Kids preparing for school…
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/17 "2018-08-27T17:57:31Z")
For several hundred years, Britain had probably the biggest empire. So certainly people might be “complaining” about the British empire if the US didn’t exist. Imagine, for instance, a parallel universe in which the US is still a British colony.
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### Author:  [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/18 "2018-08-27T18:02:58Z")
The weather. That’s pretty universal I think.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/19 "2018-08-27T18:03:06Z")
They would probably be complaining about the USSR taking over all of western Europe and the Middle East and about China taking over Japan and most of Africa.
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### Author:  [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-would-the-world-complain-about-if-america-didnt-exist/820348/20 "2018-08-27T18:30:39Z")
Any person or institution that has an enormous amount of power becomes the focus of complaints. People tend to complain about bosses, parents, the IRS, etc. because even a kind and competent person in a position of power can completely mess up your life with the twitch of a finger.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that all “complaining” is equal. The fact that people will complain even if they have a good boss does not mean that abusive asshole bosses can say “oh, well, they’d be complaining anyways”. The fact that any other country with the kind of power that the U.S. has would also attract complaints does not mean that the U.S. is not acting like a gaping asshole.
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