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Post by rareearth on Apr 26, 2011 11:14:43 GMT 10
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Post by rareearth on Apr 27, 2011 0:50:14 GMT 10
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Dagostinia
Full Member
Monarchy of Dagostinia
Posts: 114
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Post by Dagostinia on Apr 27, 2011 1:40:37 GMT 10
Not that I don't believe it but as the CNN article states, "statistics are often used like a drunken man uses a lamp-post -- for support rather than illumination." My experience with graphs is that there are either too many outliers or too many unforeseen hiccups.
All the same, this is why Dagostinia seeks to be truly self-supporting and cut her umbilical cords to the US.
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Post by rareearth on Apr 27, 2011 3:23:54 GMT 10
Not that I don't believe it but as the CNN article states, "statistics are often used like a drunken man uses a lamp-post -- for support rather than illumination." My experience with graphs is that there are either too many outliers or too many unforeseen hiccups. All the same, this is why Dagostinia seeks to be truly self-supporting and cut her umbilical cords to the US. When you add together... - The fate of the US manned space mission
- The size of the US deficit
- The Standard & Poor's outlook on US sovereign debt
...you realise that the fall of the US is not a mere lying with statistics. In fact, you realise that the fall is already occuring, and probably cannot be reversed. Rome too fell because of Roman legal attitudes (the Romans were not as open-minded towards foreigners as the Greeks, and in fact Rome survived a little longer as the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire), but also because of imperial overstretch, and the European Union (EU) today is not a resurrected Rome by any measure despite of Evangelical Christian claims to the contrary. Nota Bene: Isaiah seems to predict the collapse even of the European Union...
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George
Global Administrator
Head Honcho and Spangle of the Cosmos
Posts: 2,997
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Post by George on Apr 27, 2011 6:39:34 GMT 10
Reports of the demise of the United States are, in my opinion, somewhat premature.
That said, all empires eventually fall - it's just a matter of whether they collapse in a heap, go quietly into the night or reinvent themselves and evolve into something even bigger than before - as China seems to have had a particular knack of doing for most of the past 2000 years.
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Post by Zandrovia on Apr 28, 2011 0:09:40 GMT 10
Not that I don't believe it but as the CNN article states, "statistics are often used like a drunken man uses a lamp-post -- for support rather than illumination." My experience with graphs is that there are either too many outliers or too many unforeseen hiccups. All the same, this is why Dagostinia seeks to be truly self-supporting and cut her umbilical cords to the US. I could not agree more, if we are to survive at all, it MUST be apart from the US. For Zandrovia, being separate is not only a religious mandate, but a common sense fact of survival.
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Post by Zandrovia on Apr 28, 2011 0:18:53 GMT 10
Reports of the demise of the United States are, in my opinion, somewhat premature. That said, all empires eventually fall - it's just a matter of whether they collapse in a heap, go quietly into the night or reinvent themselves and evolve into something even bigger than before - as China seems to have had a particular knack of doing for most of the past 2000 years. As someone who has been predicting the fall and coming civil war for a few decades, believe me it is not premature. The US is doomed, end of story. Of course you have to understand that the south is STILL fighting the first civil war. Of course, ALL capitalist societies with this model are so fated because capitalism itself can not survive, and since there is nothing to the US but capitalism, no true adhesive culture (no culture at all) no communal values, nothing to hold the nation together apart from its economic imperialism, then it is most certainly headed for disaster. Couple that with its stubborn dependence on fossil fuels and its readiness to execute anyone who tries to break that addiction and the “every man for himself” menality and it means that not only will it fall, but it will do so hard and fast when it does. Of course, it was doomed from the very beginning.
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Post by rareearth on Apr 28, 2011 9:46:36 GMT 10
A multicultural society which is vastly illiterate about its many cultures and their history, and whose sole formula for adhesion is the most irresponsible and destructive form of capitalism the world has ever known, can only fail in the end.
The US has become a superpower after abandoning its natural and historic isolationism, and became a superpower in a relatively brief time, largely because of European decadent political values. The US's economic values are no less decadent as Europe's political ones prior to the end of WW2, and its slide to ex-power will probably occur as rapidly as its rise to preeminence.
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Post by Zandrovia on Apr 28, 2011 13:01:16 GMT 10
A multicultural society which is vastly illiterate about its many cultures and their history, and whose sole formula for adhesion is the most irresponsible and destructive form of capitalism the world has ever known, can only fail in the end. The US has become a superpower after abandoning its natural and historic isolationism, and became a superpower in a relatively brief time, largely because of European decadent political values. The US's economic values are no less decadent as Europe's political ones prior to the end of WW2, and its slide to ex-power will probably occur as rapidly as its rise to preeminence. On this, I must agree.
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