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Will the US still exist as a country in 100 years?
Results so far:
| No | 27% | 257 votes | Total: 937 votes | |
| Yes | 73% | 680 votes |
No
by Robert Griffith
Created on: April 29, 2009
I honestly have to answer this question No. In a hundred years it won't matter who our ruling political party is now. It won't matter how we feel about the disappearance of our nation. A 100-year perspective calls for broad-spectrum considerations of major societal, geophysical, oceanic, climatic, and population changes and events which will in large part influence the future of every currently existing nation. Within each of these categories there are historically unprecedented conditions developing now.
The historical record does provide us with an understanding of the rise and fall of nation states and empires, but today there are multiple global stressors present for which there are no records available. Global climate change, global industrialization, and global population density are all unfolding at unprecedented rates, and will produce unprecedented changes over the next hundred years.
We understand the cyclical nature of empires and recognize the elements of their genesis, expansion and decline. There is a good basis there indicating that the United States is currently entering into the last phase. Economically and politically, America is passing from a resource-rich, economically productive and militarily powerful past. Once we occupied a unique pinnacle of wealth, resources and might on the planet. Now we're moving toward a competitive, globalized future where the competition is formidable. Our natural resources are depleted, our productivity is in decline, our financial assets are rapidly being diluted as investors seek to invest in a burgeoning global economy.
American production is expensive, and our goods are produced at much higher cost in comparison to other countries. That fact in itself is a nation-killer. While America bounces against a financial "glass ceiling" of its own making, other economies can produce a loaf of bread and the crops and facilities to make it at a fraction of the cost. Cars, building materials, even traditionally local service industries are all rapidly going offshore. Investors are following because a country worth a dollar today but earning more every day increases in value more than a country worth a hundred dollars that only spends its dollars to buy bread from other countries. Follow the money and the trail of American wealth will lead you offshore. Fewer dollars are circulating within our country, the number of jobs is in decline, and in the throes of the current global economic crisis there is a strong probability that in America, when the crisis passes, there will be a "jobless recovery." And a recovery of that kind is solid evidence that America is in a profound economic decline.
The two remaining assets of America - our form of democratic government and the stockpile of wealth amassed in more productive times and stored in our infrastructure - will not be enough to sustain us. The dollar will continue to fall in value as other currencies rise as a result of our waning productivity and the rising productivity of other countries. It is likely that, caught in the throes of a fatal addiction to our former quality of life, America and Americans will borrow against our remaining assets, incur debt, and weaken the dollar further. As a result it is probable that within 25 years America will follow in the footsteps of the British Empire, and find itself reconciled to being a lesser economic and political presence on the world stage, regardless of other developments.
But what about the other crises currently manifesting which will have even more profound effects on the destiny of the United States? Global climate change appears to be the largest gorilla in the room. While lesser minds argue about who caused it, the best minds could care less and are turned toward consideration of the fact of its presence and what it will cause in the future. Already it is manifestly certain that increased levels of water and heat energy in the atmosphere will create violent climatic disturbances and damage food crops and supplies. Transportation, communications and energy production will be intermittently interrupted, and more destructive storms will cause unprecedented damage to human habitation and infrastructure. Currently projected consequences in the short term include impactful crop failures in Europe by as soon as 2010. Later changes in the oceanic circulatory system as a result of global warming may cripple our planetary oxygen supply, much of which is produced by plankton.
The geo-political consequences of deprivation and famine historically include wars and societal upheavals as human beings compete for limited, critical resources. Under stress and in the quest for survival, national identities dissolve into monolithic tribal and religious allegiances. We're seeing a precursor of that in the growing "culture wars" occuring in America. A diverse citizenry becomes a luxury, and only the brother-in-arms, the rigid adherent to the group ethic and goal is included in the struggle for survival. This possibility doesn't bode well for the survival of any nation state in a hundred years. It is much more likely to produce a polyglot, nationless, techno-oligarchy welded together by mutual personal interest rather than a land-based national identity.
And then there's the Malthusian exponent of global stressors: population growth. Our exploding planetary population may have already reached beyond the critical mass necessary for widespread human tragedy. At a time when our planetary natural resources are being gobbled and rapidly depleted to support and maintain the appetites of the world's existing population, the earth itself is entering into an early stage of a condition which will reduce what has in the past been an overflowing bounty of provision. More people, fewer resources. Not exactly a hopeful scenario for the future, and yet another indicator of future geo-political upheaval and realignment.
I think the chances that America will be around in a hundred years are about a million to one. But for the generations ahead and the hope they will need to carry on in the presence of the turbulent and overwhelming conditions to come, I can tell them what I think that one chance in a million is:
If you can evolve and elucidate the Darwinian paradigm, survival of the fittest, to define the "fittest" as those individuals who are creative, thoughtful, unselfish and thrifty - and if you can be absolutely ruthless with those who are not - then you have a chance. Otherwise the wily, thoughtless, selfish gluttons who have risen to power consistently throughout human history will ride your backs down to extinction.
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Yes
by Politico Mind
Created on: January 07, 2008
First of all, to assume that the United States would not exist in 100 years is almost a foolish proposition. Before delving into the methods of absurdity surrounding this proposition, there must first be an analysis as to what defines the concept of 'exist.' These are the scenarios under which the United States may not exist:
1. The United States may be violently overthrown by some stronger power.
2. The United States may initiate its own constitutional motions to dissolve itself, and then reform itself as a new distinct entity.
3. The United States may not exist due to humanity not existing.
THE POTENTIAL VIOLENT OVER THROW OF THE US GOVERNMENT.
The potential for the US to be defeated by another nation is almost entirely impossible for any nation which possess nuclear power has one clear and almighty advantage: the threat to unleash its nuclear weapons just before being potentially conquered. This threat of assured destruction discourages any other nation from even attempting to launch a military invasion against a nuclear power. The summarizing principle is that no nation with nuclear weapons can be conquered simply because the moment before it is struck by tge mortal blow it would merely send off nuclear weapons against its enemy.
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE US GOVERNMENT
Because the US Government and its people seem to hold freedom of speech as the omnipotent right of the nation, this right gives way to the possibility that a belief system may emerge which propels the people of the US to form a new distinct entity, with a fresh constitution. One of the advantages of starting over is that past wrongs such as slavery, female oppression, and abuse of the Japanese during WW II could be essentially erased from the cultural consciousness. Thus, under a new name, and a new system, the people may feel that the new Nation, NATION X, did not enslave or oppress or imprison, rather, it was the United States. This of course is possibly the most likely proposition of the three scenarios.
THE END OF THE SPECIES
The doomsday naysayers and quick-wit prophets may be trying to convince others that any minute, potential our next, could be our last. Yet, the doomsday prophets have been preaching their fear-mongering since 1000 ad. In fact many religions were formed when the congregation went outside at 1000 ad to await the coming of the end, only to be disappointed. And rather than go on with life, they decided to form another religion for the next thousand years. And this will go on eternally. The advantage of proliferating a concept of the end of the world is that many will follow the man or woman that preaches of the end and seek him out for comfort or for the way to assure a comfortable afterlife. This is of course is all orchestrated for the benefit of the deceptive doomsday sayer himself. Now, connect that analogy to those who are using the weather and the climate as the end all and be all of the earth. These predictors, these prophets, these end of good-times warners are simply using the same technique of the religious doomsday sayer. They are merely attempting to gather a great following around their fear-mongering, so that those afraid will seek them out for consolation.
The United States is powerful. Almost all great world powers still exist. Egypt, Greece, Rome, Germany, England, China, each at one point had its dominance and each still exists. What comes with being a superpower is a belief that the powerful people have some essence, some grandeur, some given attributes that the next superpower does not want to extinguish but rather desires to build upon. The Greeks took societal policies from Egypt. The Romans took architecture, art and philosophy from Greece. The Celtic people took military principles and warfare from Rome. England took military science, art, architecture, philosophy, literature, laws and inventions, from Greece, Rome, Germany, France, and China.
Even if in some off remote possibility the United States cannot defend itself even with its nuclear weapons the next superpower would not desire to destroy it and eliminate it, but rather the next great power would desire to learn from its economic genius, its accounting principles, its great propensity to invent and innovate, its civil principles of equality, and its advanced constitutional and legal system. Again, consider some nations never get conquered they merely diminish in power and remain a symbol of some era on the map.
The only realistic conceivable way that the United States will no longer be a nation in 100 years is if it decides to reform itself for the good of the people. Odd it seems that the only thing powerful enough to alter the United States is the opinion of its own citizens; not bombs, nor missles, nor mighty armies, but merely what the United States holds dear itself can alter its destiny . . . words and the freedom of speech. Yet, it does not seem likely that the United States will be reshaping itself within 100 years.
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