Gamgee
Member of Parliament
Posts: 20
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Post by Gamgee on Nov 28, 2004 21:36:06 GMT
Greetings haven’t poster here for a long while. Anyhow recent events have got me thinking, what direction is the human race heading in? We claim to be an "intelligent" species yet there is massive poverty throughout the world. We claim to be "intelligent" yet we still find the best way to solve our current problems is to shoot it out (I admit, force is needed on some occasions but it is still disheartening). Governments that forever champion freedom and democracy, openly take our liberties away. So where will the human race be in say, a hundred years, will we experience a new era of wisdom and harmony, or be struggling under the effects of the oh so familiar mushroom cloud of death.
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Post by Naselus on Nov 29, 2004 17:46:53 GMT
God knows. Why try and work it out? We'll all be dead by then, and frankly it's hard to guess more than ten years into the future with any accuracy at all. For all we know a race of hyper-mutated grasshoppers will pop out of an alternate dimension tomorrow and eat us. Best not to speculate.
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Post by Incubus on Dec 6, 2004 11:39:10 GMT
The future is of course, impossible to predict; however, that doesn't mean it's improbable.
In a hundred years time, it will probably just be exactly the same, except that the United States Of Europe will have been formed. This will mean the creation of another superpower, bringing the world into balance.
This is, of course not the actual truth as I stated in the first paragraph, though the USE idea is true. I got it from someone else, I forget who.
Any additional ideas?
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Post by HStorm on Dec 6, 2004 17:06:20 GMT
Well, we already predicted a USE in the National Anthem/USA v Europe poll in fact, and yes, at some point in the near future there will be a Federal Europe. Such a superpower is bound to be on frosty terms, at best, with the USA, so I suspect there may be another Cold War.
If you want to speculate on the nature of human societies in the future, well, we can read/watch any number of anti-utopia stories (or in my case, write a couple of them), but I think it's fair to say that in the shorter term society will become more regimented and stratified. Dunno about one hundred years into the future - as Ruzl says, that's far too far ahead to predict with any confidence at all (in 1900, would anyone have guessed that by 1970 Russia would be a Marxist superpower, that the British Empire would no longer exist, and that the USA would be the most powerful nation in history?) - but I would point out that when Governments are allowed to take away human liberties, it is very difficult to get them back again. Perhaps more than a hundred years work...
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Post by Naselus on Dec 6, 2004 17:21:23 GMT
In a hundred years time, it will probably just be exactly the same, except that the United States Of Europe will have been formed. Nonsense. In less than fifty years, we'll run out of fossil fuel. This means that the US will be in deep cack, as their entire economy is hopelessly reliant on it. So's ours, by the way. The US economy is headed for a painful nosedive soon enough anyway, and when they can't afford their guns anymore, they won't be able to hold on to their status as pre-eminent power. This will plunge them into even deeper cack. By this time next century, unless they do something a little more far-sighted than voting for a man named Bush, they'll be an economic sob-story of the same rating as Spain. Remember that about half the States of the union have a Gross National Product smaller than Wales. The USE, if it comes into existence, will probably become the new superpower. If it is able to pull itself together before the US collapses, it'll be unchallenged. If not, China will probably launch into an aggressive empire-building campaign and they'll be a new cold-war style scenario. Africa will continue to be ripped off and shat on. The Middle East, without any oil, will be allowed to grow beyond the state of petty warlords that we endevour to keep it in, particularly once the US can't afford the CIA anymore. Also, the Saudi's will face a truly horrific revolution once the US isn't backing them up for oil. Not many world leaders could deserve it more. Russia'll be under yet another dictator, probably more of a Saddam than a Stalin though. Australia might make something of itself if it can just get a population together to do it with. It's in a better state than the US was a hundred years ago. South America will probably be taken over by the USA in a series of nasty wars and CIA plots, particularly if Europe can get it's act together. There'll be no attempt at economic development, but all the resources might keep the USA in business for a whole century. If the US can't build up before economic collapse, then Texas'll be out of the union before you can say 'treacherous backstabbing southern bastards'. Ditto California, New York and maybe Florida. They make most of the money, and about thirty of the states are just dead weight. Those will become third world countries in a matter of months. In 100 years time, nothing'll be as it is now. Look at how things were in 1905. Britain was the number one power, America was still stumbling out of the wild west era, Russia was more or less the same as it is now (an ex-superpower), Germany and France were at each others throats, and most countries had either a stumbling effort at democracy, or absolute rulers. The Middle east was all under British and French rule, Italy had colonies rather than just clothes shops, Japan was an economic circus, China was in pieces, Austria and Turkey had huge empires stretching across the Balkan states. NOTHING is the same, save Russia, but they've been through quite a bit to get there. You can't guess what's going to happen. Even the educated guesses I've given above aren't very likely, but certainly you aren't going to recognise anything at all.
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Post by TheCritique on Dec 6, 2004 18:40:35 GMT
Two questions:
What is the difference between a Stalin and a Saddam? They both had world conquest ambitions, were at the head of police states, and would not tolerate any opposition.
How would a state of the US break off from the rest? Who would make the decisions, what does the US constitution say? What do individual state constitutions say? etc.
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Post by HStorm on Dec 6, 2004 18:49:58 GMT
There's not a huge difference between Stalin and Saddam, and there wouldn't be; Stalin was Saddam's greatest hero, the leader he always modelled himself on. Stalin was clearly the more ruthless and paranoid, Saddam the more petty and aggressive. There are other distinctions that are largely circumstantial. (Even Saddam hating Communism and Stalin officially being a Communist doesn't count, as in practise Stalin was no more a Communist than Adolf Hitler was.) It's an enormous overstatement, by the way, to suggest that Saddam had world conquest ambitions. That was never going to be an option for him.
I don't know much about the inner workings of the individual States in the USA, but as far as I know, if it were to happen completely legally State Governors would start secession proceedings - although as the State Governor would almost always be a member of one of the two big parties, both of whom are firmly Federalist, such proceedings are never likely to start in a time of (relative) domestic stability. And they wouldn't succeed without a referendum result in favour anyway, which is also unlikely to happen in the current climate. (In spite of 9/11 and all the anti-Islam hysteria, the USA is actually pretty stable at the moment, even if it's in economic straits and becoming increasingly paranoid. Indeed the paranoia towards outsiders is a unifying force of a negative kind that is decreasing any secessionist sentiments.)
It should also be noted that Washington DC is militantly anti-secessionist, and so any States wanting to leave would face a fight, perhaps literally. The USA might well fall apart that way, but not until its military becomes crippled by economic disaster. But that could well happen...
I agree with a lot of Ruzl's other educated guesses, especially about the imminent oil crises (which I've commented on in a recent essay that should be up soon) - indeed I think it may happen a lot sooner than in fifty years - and the ensuing economic cave-in facing the USA. I certainly don't see the USA remaining in an unassailable position for much longer, Liquidus, but one area I'm not too sure of is a mighty future for the USE. Yes it will be formed, with or without the UK, and when it does it will be a mighty presence and a huge threat to the USA's unchecked power. But its economy will be almost as dependent on fossil fuels as America's, so economic hardship that affects either side of the Atlantic will affect the other soon enough.
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Post by Thanatos on Dec 6, 2004 19:59:08 GMT
There's a big difference between a Saddam and a Stalin: Stalin killed far, far more people and created something much closer to a perfect totalitarian state.
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Post by HStorm on Dec 6, 2004 20:28:16 GMT
Don't get me wrong, Stalin was clearly worse than Saddam, and his aims were different (but then they had to be, hence my use of the term 'circumstantial'). Overall they had quite different attitudes, but for the respective populations it didn't make an enormous difference.
Not sure how to define a 'perfect totaliarian state' by the way.
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Post by Naselus on Dec 18, 2004 21:40:41 GMT
Stalin was more of a success.
Individual US states have no official militaries, and are essentially dependant on Washington to protect them. However, some of the states have extremely patriotic populations, such as Texas. Texan soldiers would support Texas against anyone, even Washington.
It is theoretically possible for a US state to leave the union through political means, but the chances are close to zero. All governors want to be President one day, and you can't rule the US if you aren't a member. However, Washington would almost certainly be happy to start ditching the weaker states, like Hawaii and New Mexico, the moment the cash starts drying up. And probably also Texas and Alaska, once the oil runs out.
Remember that about half the states of the Union were conquered or bought. They weren't involved in all that "Independance" nonsense, had nothing to do with the Boston tea party. And their own constitutions are quite different from the one Washington bands about. Gambling's legal in Nevada, you can get married and have kids at fourteen in New Mexico. Texas has almost no laws to protect worker's rights. California's frankly nuts. They don't want to seperate now, but when the money runs thin and they start to ask why they're supporting Kentucky, for example, when it does bugger all for them, the Union won't be so unified.
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Post by TheCritique on Dec 19, 2004 18:42:03 GMT
How is Hawaii weak? Its got a major naval port (largest in the world isn't it?), and that serves as a base for most, if not all, of the US pacific fleet. Based on that, Hawaii's not militarily weak, and is not going to be among the first to go if Washington was going to rid itself of weak states.
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Post by Naselus on Dec 20, 2004 9:16:22 GMT
Economically weak, Will. All states are Militarily weak apart from Washington DC, the one which actually owns the Army. Hawaii has indeed got Pearl Harbour, but the US has many other naval bases and Hawaii is economically and technologically backward, has one of the smallest populations of any state, and only got into the union BECAUSE it agreed to have the naval base built there. If things start looking tricky for the US Hawaii would be axed pretty fast.
If you want to measure the states in terms of value then you can't just look at the troops DC keeps there, since they can simply be shuttled off to other areas. You need to look at population, production, and natural resources. Texas, or example, wuold be kept for as long as possible as it has oil, a large population, and is strategically very handy (as well as making up about a sixth of the total area of the US). North Dakota, on the other hand, has no major industrial base, it's population is somewhat smaller than London's, and it's major natural resource is snow. It doesn't matter if the US has air bases in North Dakota, since one of the advantages of jet fighters is that you can move them. Same with ships. Same with US rangers. Same, indeed, with military installations, since they're mainly prefab anyway.
Oh, and the largest naval base in the world is actually Norfolk naval base. It's in Virginia.
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