I came across this quote while reading. Although it has some merit, innovation seems to come from many places. Nevertheless, despite considerable patriotic grandiosity it is true that the States remain influential. Still, the quote seems over the top. Any thoughts?
Was this in something written recently?
That quote sounds like the writer died before finishing his sentence. The world’s new…what?
I’m thinking he was trying to question whether the US is in large part, the world’s source of innovation over the past century or so.
I can see why someone might contend that it is the case, but I think in reality it’s something that’s widespread across all the industrialized economy nations. Looking at the World Intellectual Property indicators, it seems like China is far ahead on some indicators but so much so that it makes me question the validity of the information, or whether China is doing something like trying to patent everything under the sun- their application to grant ratio is less than 28%, while many other nations, including the US have considerably higher rates. (the US rate is about 50%, the EPO is about 72%, and Japan’s is about 66%).
But patent applications and grants don’t tell the whole story; it is true that a very large number of critically important inventions seem to have come from the US since the 1850s- electric lighting, phonograph, telephone, most computing innovations, smartphones, automobile, airplane, air conditioning, much nuclear power innovation, much aerospace innovation, and a lot of industrial innovations as well- chemical, process, etc… are all American inventions.
Now how we’d actually quantify that, I have no idea.
It was in a book written in 2013. I think it is somewhat true, but also includes the idea “new” things are sometimes bad (eg obstructionist politics).
…wave of fascism?
New tech? If that’s what this thread is about I look forward to others better-informed posts.
New political realities, though? Metternich was right when he said “When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” Plenty of Google results are the titles of articles arguing that “America” replaces Paris.
All generalizations are wrong.
Besides, the TV show “Curling Night In America” is an appropriation of Canada’s national heritage. 
WOW, Is “Curling Night In America” a real thing?
Sometimes I would not mind not having a TV set.
Not only is it real, it’s in its 7th season.
The tension as the doughnutty object slides toward the target zone with helpers furiously sweeping is…palpable.
Not sure if ‘new’ must necessarily be limited to technology. America continues to exert cultural hegemony through things like new music, film, and dance.
America no longer wields cultural hegemony, IMO. It’s been too diluted by the current state of entertainment to function as a proper hegemonic vehicle.
My original thoughts were about technology and entertainment. It is largely dominant in some other countries such as Canada. It is a surprising non-entity in other countries, like Colombia (which is generally pro-US).
My limited experiences with curling are that players take this game very very seriously. Not sure I can do that. I think of it as an excuse to drink and socialize. Good players seem to see it as a test to see if they can will other rocks into exploding if they sweep or stare with enough intensity. Sweep, Baaldamn you!
Curling is just about the finest combination of tactical and physical skills around. You have to both outthink and outcurl your opponents.
This thread is not about curling and I have no wish to offend the good people who take it seriously. I agree curling takes a lot of skill. I’m not in a position to say if it is or is not the best combination of tactics and physical skills because I can think of many things I would rate far more highly. There is much more skill than luck in curling. Maybe very little luck at high levels of play.
But good football and hockey players have to have to excel in so many domains: strategy, strength, long endurance, hand coordination, leg coordination, checking, short acceleration, dexterity, wide vision for seeing teammates and the big picture. Poker might have more psychology; chess also seems to involve knowing a lot of theory before becoming decent at pattern recognition. How long would it take an expert curler to teach all of the theory they know to a novice player?