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The American Millennium


August1991

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How do we look back on the past 1000 years? How was the world in 1000 AD compared to now? How do ordinary people live now in the year 2000 compared to the year 1000 AD? What explains the changes? Whose millenium was it? And prior to 1000 AD or, for example, Athens' Golden Age in 500 BC, whose millenium was it?

America has existed for about two centuries. If this planet is lucky, the next millennium will be America's. In 3000, when people look back to the year 2000, IMV they will say that the past 1000 years were decided by America, and the New World. I believe in an American milennium. Why?

First, education. We in Canada do not have such an education system as Americans. We trust the State (a forced collective). Americans trust their voluntary community to pass on their knowledge.

Second, individuals. We together must understand how people matter yet make a civilized collective. No society on Earth now allows individuals to choose so freely as America does yet respect society, a voluntary community.

Third, originality. We must allow an individual to excel freely and discover. No State can provide such incentives. America creates private incentives.

-----

It is common now to criticize America. Some say: "George W. Bush has caused this awful Iraq war, another Vietnam." Americans go abroad either defending themselves, or apologizing - for this supposed awful beast.

I disagree.

I am not American but I think Americans should be proud of this 200 year old experiment and they should hope - with all their heart - that their offspring 1000 years hence will be proud too. America works and if it works in 3000, Americans will have every reason to be proud. As a Canadian, I know something about this. We Canadians let you Americans assume the risk of trying something new.

America is the last best hope of Man on Earth. Americans have made the world at large a better place to live.

Edited by August1991
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I agree.

America had contributed vastly to other nations as well. In my original country's case it was so fortunate for us to have been bought by the USA from Spain, and promptly introduced the people to education.

Other US territories like Guam seem to be doing well.

I remember my father pointing out what happened to those countries invaded by the Spaniards....and France. Most, if not all of them did not fare that well.

So yes, America's children have so much to be proud for.

Edited by betsy
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Yes, but providing they do not dig themselves into a hole by curbing the very things that made them great (i.e. tolerance, economic freedom, open immigration, respect for it's allies).

Americans trust their voluntary community to pass on their knowledge.

J

ust because the majority trusts their immediate community, does not automatically imply it is a good system. One can easily put trust in something bad.

While the U.S is absolutely unrivaled in terms of tertiary education, the recent trends which are focusing less on math and sciences and more in the ways of obscure theistic concepts (and considering the primary and secondary systems were never that great to begin with) are hardly enviable.

Furthermore, this trend, is further exacerbated by an ever growing xenophobia (under the pretext of security of course) which will only further reduce the amounts of foreigners coming in with the math and science skills which the home grown population so desperately lacks. And while they do have the best tertiary system in the world, it would be a crying shame to see it increasingly barren and empty.

The next few centuries are shaping well, but it is not a given and people cannot become to complacent. Complacency breeds laziness.

Edited by marcinmoka
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Guest American Woman
I am not American but I think Americans should be proud of this 200 year old experiment and they should hope - with all their heart - that their offspring 1000 years hence will be proud too. America works and if it works in 3000, Americans will have every reason to be proud. As a Canadian, I know something about this. We Canadians let you Americans assume the risk of trying something new.

America is the last best hope of Man on Earth. Americans have made the world at large a better place to live.

As an American who is always defending herself/apologizing overseas, I thank you for your post. :) I am proud to be an American. I realize we have a lot to fix, but that doesn't mean we can't be proud of what's right, and there has been plenty right during our existance too, so again, I thank you for pointing that out.

Edited by American Woman
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I think you might want to prepare yourselves for the unpleasant reality that the sun is setting on the American Empire, such as it has been. Sad but true.

Education? Don't be absurd. American drop-out rates are at record levels. The U.S. ranked about 25th in math, 20th in science on 2003 studies. They can't fill the attrition of tech and skill jobs from a retiring Boomer generation, while they work to make immigration harder and harder and thereby increasing the likelihood that skilled immigrants will look elsewhere (Canada, for instance).

Individualism? The idea that America (or any country) values individuality as the highest ideal is a cheap myth. Everybody's and individualIST, but they don't like individuals. Perhaps in simpler times it was true, but no modern industrial culture can really afford a population of unpredictables. This is the result of expressing individuality in America today. Try to wear an anti-Bush tshirt within a mile of one of his appearances and you'll see just how much your individuality is cherished.

Of course it needn't have been so, but sadly the 1990's happened and the Peace Dividend was squandered. America had won the Cold War; had proven their economic system better than the Russians' once and for all. The Gulf War proved What We Say Goes. What did America do with its place as the sole remaining superpower? America turned inward. They rode out the glorious economic boom convinced of the myth of Infinite Growth. They watched Survivor and Seinfeld. Drunk on cheap gasoline, America's love affair with the S.U.V. had its honeymoon.

Did America try to fix some of the things and places around the world that were damaged or even destroyed as a result of the struggle against the Russians? Nope. Somebody had to drop a couple of skyscrapers before America even remembered those places existed, and even today you could go blue in the face trying to convince most of them that one thing has anything to do with the other.

By then it was too late anyway. The kleptocrats and carpetbaggers who took over from Clinton saw 9/11 only as a chance to consolidate their own power and funnel more taxpayer money into the pockets of corporate chums. They have beggered the US economy and created a Godzilla-sized debtload.

Who is the future? Well...while the European Union is just now getting the kinks out and preparing to dwarf the USA, I think the smart money is on China. Thanks to the financial ineptitude of the Bush administration, the Chinese don't even have to *do* anything to tank the US economy. All they have to do is stop what they're doing now; simply stop accepting those government bonds as IOU's and watch the fun.

Education? Chinese kids kick *everybody's* ass, never mind the poor struggling American kids with their evolution-free textbooks.

Individuality? The Chinese continue to work towards the necessary freedoms that most people agree are necessary, but they certainly don't have a cult of the individual. They know the value of collaboration as well as competition, something we in the west have lost.

That, of course, is speculation. China's authoritarian government may not be ushered out by the next generation. But America ruling the next thousand years? Get real. America is going to have its hands full fighting off the enemies it has made and trying to get its children to pay off the huge debt they've run up out of low-pay, no-benefit service industry jobs. Good luck ruling the world. :(

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Sadly CLRV, I must agree with the bulk of your post. But I will say that while the US is presently in a deep trough, I remain optimistic that they will pull themselves out of this rut. For the Americans, much like Canadians, are a resilient lot.

GW Bush is, and has been a complete and utter disaster as a president. History is likely to argue that he was (in the voice of comic book guy) the worst president ever. But the beauty of the American system is that he is constitutionally prohibited from winning another term (by theft or otherwise).

Right now the US is mounting spiraling budgetary and trade deficits, has the bulk of its military committed to unconquerable killings fields, has an economy built on paper with ever-more consumers owing more than they own, has rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, and a labour market that is cannibalizing the middle-class. Add to this that the world outside its borders is growing more annoyed with their imperial posturing with each passing day, and it is rather easy to draw rather negative impressions as to America’s future – as if nothing can change an inevitable trend.

But the United States of America has overcome greater challenges in its past, and it will do so again. It will do so because its people wish it to do so and have the ability to make it so: By The People, For The People.

As for the millennium “belonging to the US” as the original poster of this thread postulates, I would argue that not even the last century “belonged” to the US. While it was undoubtedly the foremost beneficiary of the prosperity born from the times, I can cite dozens of examples where countries outstripped the US in growth during the last 50 years. While the US remains the strongest economic power in the world and is likely to do so for some time, the fact remains that the number of nations closing that gap grows with each year.

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I don't think one can look at any field of human enterprise-- art, literature, music, science, technology, or anything else-- and not find that Americans are among the foremost contributors and innovators.

-k

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As much as I enjoy saying "worst xxxx ever" and actually do a creditable voice imitation of the Comic Book Guy, I always try to qualify my opinion of George W. Bush's presidency by saying he's the worst president *in living memory* (Nixon being the runner-up). For all I know, William Howard Taft could have been pound-for-pound a more inept and arrogant fathead. I don't know. I never saw him in action so I cannot say. All I can say is, given the realities of 21st century technology, economics, geopolitics and America's global primacy, Bush has been able to do more serious and widespread damage than any other president in history; not least to the American people and the US Constitution -- a remarkable document worthy of emulation abroad, not emasculation at home.

And please don't get the idea I'm rooting for a Chinese takeover. As much as I like Chinese on an individual basis, I also realize that they would make the Americans look like the Swiss.

I also share your skepticism that any millenium can belong to any one nation. It's a fairly far-flung premise. Has there been an empire in history that lasted a thousand years? I can't think of one.

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I also share your skepticism that any millenium can belong to any one nation. It's a fairly far-flung premise. Has there been an empire in history that lasted a thousand years? I can't think of one.

Didn't the Roman Empire last a thousand yrs, more or less.?

Historically speaking isn't the Roman Empire the greatest, longest lasting etc., empire in history?

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Actually it's pretty much acknowledged that the Roman Empire was founded around 1000 BC and ended around 476 AD. Fifteen hundred years, not a bad run at all. It's believed they succeeded so well because of Geographic location and knowledge garnered from the Greeks who settled areas of the southern coast of present day Italy.

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Education? Chinese kids kick *everybody's* ass, never mind the poor struggling American kids with their evolution-free textbooks.

Individuality? The Chinese continue to work towards the necessary freedoms that most people agree are necessary, but they certainly don't have a cult of the individual. They know the value of collaboration as well as competition, something we in the west have lost.

There is at least one problem with your "theory" of global Chinese hegemony in the future. Education means millions of Chinese going to the USA and other nations for undergraduate and graduate degrees, not domestic scholarship for the peasant class, or even workers in Shanghai. I personally travelled to China in the 90's to teach basic quality and reliability engineering concepts to support the transfer of manufacturing technology (for vapor deposition, sputtering, and coating processes on films). They were ignorant of such basic things as failure mode effects analysis, statistical process control, or national testing standards. The biggest problem was translating so many technical references from those "struggling" Americans in so little time. Ten years later, China still can't do what my company did well for over 40 years.

Edited by bush_cheney2004
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OMG, they don't know about failure mode effects analysis? :o I don't even go to the bathroom in the morning without doing a failure mode effects analysis first! How the hell have they survived this long?

If you present yourself as a qualified engineer taking a crap, then you had better know. They didn't, and didn't even know they didn't know. They desperately needed western education and technology, and got a lot of it from the "stupid" Americans.

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OMG, they don't know about failure mode effects analysis? :o I don't even go to the bathroom in the morning without doing a failure mode effects analysis first! How the hell have they survived this long?

I think they have survived this long because they don't have your arrogance.

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How the hell have they survived this long?

They "survived" quite well, without indoor plumbing, telecommunications, efficient transportation and distribution networks, public health technology, etc.

Now they come to the USA, Canada, and other nations to learn of such things:

The annual statistics gathered by the Institute for International Education show that during the 2003-2004 academic year, there were 61,765 Chinese students at institutions of higher education in the United States. They are nearly 11 percent of all the foreign students in our country. Only one country, India, sends more students to American campuses.

http://www.iienetwork.org/?p=56814

Edited by bush_cheney2004
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In a spaceship full of components marked "Made In China".

If you say so (an astronaut's Ipod?)...still, I can't figure out why they would need to buy jetliners from Boeing or Airbus. Or copy ancient Soviet designs. They did help to build a mean railroad in Canada and America...mostly cheap labor...same as it is today.

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I seriously doubt whether spaceship components are made in China. <_< As I recall, they were in the U.S. spying on our space technology not too long ago.

Indeed....China cannot even match semiconductor manufacturing long mastered elsewhere in Asia.

This is just more of the usual great hope for America's demise, as if by magic all that has gone before will be eclipsed by an ascending China. What they don't realize is that we have already seen this movie, and the Americans only got bigger and better at what they do.

The Flying Tigers must be laughing in their graves.

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