Bulgaroctonus

Oh, hate doesn't factor completely into my thinking. Also, I'm not going to wander into useless generalizations about whether we should have prejudice or not. Sometimes prejudice is good (when competitors are eliminated) or bad (when the neighbors are actually really nice people). It's not a simple as saying, 'all prejudice is bad and love thy neighbor.' The Israelis and Palestinians have plenty of reason to be prejudiced.

The world is not a monastery, not everyone is thy brethren.

Enlighten me.

Only some people need stay home.

Immigrants need to assimilate in order for the melting pot to work. There seems to be a certain reluctance of immigrants in Europe to assimilate. Many immigrants seem to imagine that they are living in an enclave.

Leader

What do they produce today? What have they produced in the last 50 years?

Yeah, they were great once upon a time, but now?

Transplanted Europeans? Most of us are people that fled oppression and poverty in Europe. Our ancestors took the risk to come here. They weren't "transplanted."

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Bulgaroctonus

I am still unconvinced that war will go away. Even if China conquered America peacefully and subtly, I would rage against it all the same.

Bulgaroctonus

The Swiss still make great chocolate and watches. Seriously, do you want me to recount every European cultural and/or technological innovation of the last fifty years?



All things must pass. They will ask the same question of America one day. Does that mean that we were insignificant? Your point was that European culture never amounted to much, and so I pointed out its influence.



The very impulse to seek freedom and equality are European ideas themselves, vis-a-vis, the Enlightenment. Transplanted we are.

Sameer

China is not going to be conquering America, by the time the CHinese have the millitary might to stand a chance, the world would have evolved beyound the post 17th century concept of the nation state. The EU is the begining while it could have gone much faster and better had it been less socialist in terms of economic policy.


We all know that eventually there will be one culture. I may not like it myself but its life, the past is irrelevant, we need to look forward, not backward. I wish for a strong Europe because it is the begining of what I want, a more efficient system beyound the primitive concept of the nation state or barriers created due to culture or religion.

IN the 21st century people will think like I do, eventually.

take the most efficient culture.

make money

religion, race, cultural differences are irrelevant. Improving ourselves is more rational.


The sinister free market economy will take us there. God bless Smith.

Leader

Things that make the world a better would be nice. Specifically, those made by France, Germany, and Spain. Does it even come close for making up all the harm they've done?

I doubt it. Someone may look back like that, but it won’t be Europe.

No it wasn't. Europeans were quiet significant. In a good way for a while and then in a very bad way.

So those Euros that wanted freedom and equality came here. They still chose to come. One can't chose to be transplanted.

Bulgaroctonus

Death to the Wahhabi Scum! Ray, you and I and two automatics! We'll take that nation by storm!

Sameer

All stagnant cultures fall, Asia fell because it was arrogant and found itself humiliated and conquered a few hundred years later (that would be my stupid ancestors). Now Europe is stagnating, America is not, so America moves forward, Asia is adopting American culture because it works and is convinient and Asia is rising. If Europe decides to move forward, it will also enjoy the same benefit.

All this being said, i like European culture, i love wine, cheese, Budha bar, soccer, trance, I have already taken those aspects that I like from that culture combined it with American adn Indian cultures and I am quite happy.

Bulgaroctonus

Yes, but the dice is still up as to what flavor that culture takes. Also, may globalists and readers of Thomas Friedman assume that this united future will be luminous and egalitarian. I have pessimistic theories about the future.

Again, too utopian for my intellect to adopt right now.

Maybe some economists, but many people don't think about the big picture.

This seems a simplistic predicition. Money is a translation of power, it does not idly sit in people's hands. The will to power (a Nietzschean tidbit for you) may be only magnified in such a materialistic world.

I think the best way to be sure about the future is to apply advanced economic game theory. Of course, that takes immense computing power.

Still, I disagree with this whole notion of cultural and religious differences going away. Maybe a system run by supreme intelligences, or artificial intelligence, will make such a rationalist system. Nonetheless, the masses are not easily weaned off of their opium, religion.



At the same time, curse him for making exploitation the accepted way. I still prefer to be a hermit. How silly economics looks from the mountain!

Bulgaroctonus

Before I list any accomplishments, let's get one thing figured out: What are your criteria for making the world a better place?



America, like all things, must end. It may be that there is no one around afterwards (i.e. catastrophic nuclear war) to think about. All the same, we won't last forever. I suppose you have to ask yourself a more fundamental philosophical question: "Can things that ultimately end (i.e. life and existence) have any meaning?" If you think they can, then the fact that America and Europe must fall does not diminish their one-time cultural significance.

I must avoid a philosophical tangent...



The bad way your refer to is probably Nazism? Well that was not a pervasive trend and was shut down after a while. I'm interested in what other negative impacts Europe has had.



The word transplant does not imply a forced moving. It is instead a 'resettlement,' a transfer. My whole point is that the first white settlers of America operated entirely within a European ideological framework, even if it was a liberal, egalitarian system.

Leader

Moving the world toward peace, prosperity, and freedom for all. So making nice chocolates and wine doesn't count.

You misunderstand me. The world may not even resemble what it is now. I hope that when America’s time is up the world will be at peace. Therefore there won’t be a need of a superpower.

I've never said that Europe didn't once have significance. What I've said is that they've ****ed up the world, which now has to be fixed.

More colonialism. But fascism and communism have played their part as while.

Africa and the Middle East are totally ****ed up because Euros drew a bunch of strait lines on a map and grouped people together that want no part of each other.

Bulgaroctonus

While I still stand by good chocolates and wine, I do want to seriously answer your post. Let's look at one important way the Europeans benefit the world today. The European Union is the world's largest giver of foreign aid. I do recognize that the U.S. does give a huge amount. All the same, the Europeans are not heartless.

Also, a good amount of the medical research that fights the worlds diseases occurs in Europe.

Europe, England in paticular, has a relatively good university system that helps educate people from all over the world.

I will go on if you want.



Alright, we'll just leave it at that.

Europe did draw some arbitrary lines. For example, they probably should have left Iraq as three provinces, not one uneasy country. However, I think that European cultural, technological, and governance contributions outstrip some of Europe's bad geographical decisions.

For example, the Enlightenment set the stage for modern democracy and government. Britain in particular has been a model of responsible and relatively democratic governance for some time now (at least sine 1750). These methods of European governance can be seen in many nations today.

European ideas of free-market economy displaced the antiquated and inefficient systems that existed outside of Europe. Remember Adam Smith.

European technology and science has been essential to human progress. Let us not forget that Newton, Leibniz, and Einstein were all Europeans.

You may have a point about Africa and the Middle East being disadvantaged by Europe. Certainly European colonialism did not help Africa. However, I am also inclined to say that Africa has several broad geographic disadvantages that have crippled it. For example, notice that when Africa (or the Americas for that matter) was conquered by the Europeans, it was not a thriving bed of powerul civilizations. No, instead it remained a weak and agrarian society, something it remains today. I wonder how much the Europeans really had to do with it.

About the Middle East: Again, I think it is mostly geography (and an unhelpful religion in some respects) that keeps this region from advancing. European intervention here was short-lived. I blame the Ottoman Empire for not being able to advance or reform, thus letting its Arab provinces become obsolete and impoverished.

bull

First and free elections!!! What abt the people dying on the road???

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What's the difference between people who pray in church and those who pray in casinos?
The ones in the casinos are serious.

bull

Wah Ray!!!

bull

US is huge,financial and military super power house.Everyknows that and almost everyone acknowldges that.
But pls donttry to make US the moral police of the world and be sure that its right only bcoz america is doing it


If america can/did a mistake 14 years ago then i wud say that its still suspectable to doing wrongs.