• invo_rt [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    55
    ·
    4 days ago

    This isn’t even a question. It’s a numbers game.

    China has 4X the number of people than the US, graduates 4X the number of engineers and scientists, invests heavily in infrastructure, and focuses R&D on technologies of the future. The US, on the other hand, doubles down on outdated tech and lets all its infrastructure crumble in the name of corporate pillaging and stock manipulation while spending absurdly on maintaining empire.

    • Cimbazarov [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      4 days ago

      I think it’s interesting to look at the technical and highly skilled work that a country requires. I feel the US strategy is to depend on educated foreigners to come to their country and contribute to American economy and technological development, while the citizens who are educated here are given the lowest quality education because of austerity. It’s incredibly short sighted.

  • Bruja [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    4 days ago

    [Trump] undermines America’s competitive strengths

    What strengths? Cruelty, exploitation, and manipulation?
    “His cruelty, exploitation, and manipulation makes it harder for other seppos to be cruel, exploit, and manipulate” isn’t the call for sympathy the writer thinks it is.

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      4 days ago

      It’s kind of funny because this problem has been around the us since its inception of not using its competitive edge

      (click here for a wall of text)
      • Blame the lazy ceos who have been too scared to expand their businesses and allow even millennials to work in what they’ve studied. It’s been a never ending boomer party for how long?

      • Blame what is essentially a racial caste system for putting white men’s egos over what’s good for the country. Yeah I know this is just purely an economism-based chauvinism sprinkled in with some nationalism, but I’m just showing how irrational fascists are with even achieving their own goals.

      • Blame the general culture of pig-headedness America’s ruling class is known for. Green energy is borderline nonexistent, no one wants to actually build infrastructure because “muh freedumz”, shit sucks. It’s hypocritical we claim to love the free market yet we allow the capitalist class to engage in its own form of syndicalism by having capital unions collectively work together and fight for their interests. The underemployment issue could be a lot better if we forced companies to actually compete.

      • How much are we wasting on wars, something we use as a ‘poor people disposal method?’. Fascists shed crocodile tears about male disposability and Trump’s in no rush to fully abolish selective service in ernest. Look at how many older chuds cluck about how more younger men should be soldiers, especially ones that never served.

      TL;DR: If capitalism wasn’t so myopic and capable of thinking long term, the US might actually pose a plausible alternative to socialism. Now I need to shower, I gave capitalism CONSTRUCTIVE criticism instead of pure dunking.

      • dil [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        If capitalism wasn’t so myopic and capable of thinking long term

        I think the two are inseparable? i.e. short-sightedness is an emergent property of a society where individuals are motivated by capitalism.

        Neoliberalism is an attempt to control the emergent properties of capitalism without changing individual’s underlying motivators, and we see that it fails to do so.

        The properties of a society emerge from the incentives, motivators, and beliefs that individuals in that society hold.

        Changing motivators at the individual level is how a society can start thinking long term, and I don’t think there’s a way keep the extractive greed that capitalism promotes AND have a society that is run for the benefit of all people in the long term.

        I really like Diallo’s thoughts on a cultural revolution

  • ClassIsOver [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    4 days ago

    The Deprogram just had a great episode about a bunch of Chinese projects that sound awesome. It made it sound as if the US is completely out of its element and in a complete nosedive based on the context in which it exists.

    • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      4 days ago

      fucking patreon must be broken, that ep dropped 3 days ago and it’s still not on the episode feed despite showing up on the website

  • Skye [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    Turns out the answer to “But at what cost?” was always amerikkka

    What they want to pin solely on Trump is that the American vassal states are increasingly more willing to pay that sicko-crowd

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    4 days ago

    The future of liberalism in the US is going to be liberal nationalism based around “We’ve fallen behind China, that’s not capitalism’s fault it’s Trump and the Republicans’ fault”.

    Blue maga under the “restore US hegemony” liberal banner rather than the “RETVRN” fascist banner.

  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    4 days ago

    Unfortunately I don’t think a consumer market of 300 million people will ever be “irrelevant,” but yes hopefully it will be at best a regional power. Still won’t happen until China et al. break the dollar’s hegemonic global reserve currency status.

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    4 days ago

    It is totally possible for us to stop sucking and actually contribute something positive to the world, but God forbid a handful of gentlemen with increasingly thinning hairlines (and whatever Zuck’s doing to overcompensate for his Roman emperor haircut days) end up too destitute to afford a third super-yacht.