Is America like the Soviet Union in 1990? It sometimes feels that way — “America’s symptoms of decline are everywhere — and history tells us what happens if we don’t change course”
by throwaway16830261
Is America like the Soviet Union in 1990? It sometimes feels that way — “America’s symptoms of decline are everywhere — and history tells us what happens if we don’t change course”
by throwaway16830261
4 comments
* Copied from https://old.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/gza212/dominionists_say_crises_and_trumps_reelection/ftf1atm/ ([https://archive.is/AMOnp](https://archive.is/AMOnp)):
“The Histomap. Four Thousand Years Of World History. Relative Power Of Contemporary States, Nations And Empires.” by John B. Sparks, 4194 x 19108 pixels: http://web.archive.org/web/20130813230833if_/alanbernstein.net/images/large/histomap.jpg via http://web.archive.org/web/20130813230833/alanbernstein.net/images/large/histomap.jpg
or
http://archive.is/1wEk8/332f1c70b1ffd9854847dbfa7ad77b4915cbd50a.jpg via http://archive.is/1wEk8
– Read the publishers’ foreword in “(Covers to) The Histomap. Four Thousand Years Of World History. Relative Power Of Contemporary States, Nations And Empires.”: http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200374~3000299:-Covers-to–The-Histomap–Four-Thou?printerFriendly=1
Mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20140208134443/www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200374~3000299:-Covers-to–The-Histomap–Four-Thou?printerFriendly=1
– Source for the original, very large, high-resolution image (4194 x 19108 pixels): http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200375~3001080:The-Histomap–Four-Thousand-Years-O?printerFriendly=1 (“Download 1: Full Image Download in MrSID Format” and “Download 2: MrSID Image Viewer for Windows”)
Mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20101212055705/www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200375~3001080:The-Histomap–Four-Thousand-Years-O?printerFriendly=1
* Submitted article mirrors: https://archive.is/zN55e , https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UDbT9yqkkpwJ:www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/ , https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UDbT9yqkkpwJ:www.salon.com/2024/01/21/is-america-like-the-soviet-union-in-1990-it-sometimes-feels-that-way/
The question is how you quantify decline and what is important to you?
Is Amazon wonderful or is it killing retail?
Franchise restaurant or family restaurant?
Stock market numbers or percentage living paycheck to paycheck?
“America’s symptoms of decline are everywhere”
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Netflix, Intel, AMD.
There are no other countries in the world that have companies that can even come close to the above, which are all American. We can also throw OpenAI, Tesla, Qualcomm and Disney to the list just for shits and giggles.
The top designs in semiconductors in the world is American. American companies dominate AI, Cloud computing, general software, e-commerce and entertainment. Again, not even China has companies that can come close, with the exception of electric cars. All the Chinese AIs run on US designed chips and they do so because there are no alternatives, from anywhere.
The US is NOTHING like the 1990 USSR.
A lot of Americans live in suburbs and only know what they see on the TV and internet. They may never even visit the interesting parts of America before they die of obesity. They’ll certainly never have a passport. So did they ever even really live? They basically lived a good life for a hamster.
That seems like decline to me. But maybe that’s what people want?