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The American Dream™
Why are Americans such assholes?
The Civilized States of America and Jesusland
Does God Bless America?
Give Peace a Chance
How to Defrost a Frost-Free Fridge-Freezer
Making America Proud of You
Military Salute
9/11 Inside Job?
1 American = Thoroughly Nice Guy.
2 Americans = Loud conversation
250 million Americans = major threat to life on Earth as we know it.
Discuss.
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I had a rather scathing reply all typed and was ready to press the send icon, however decided rather than initiate or participate in a childish flame war, I thought I would simply ask you to provide the rationale for your third statement - including your choice of the American people as threat. Lurking Shadow |
Wise move. I am perfectly serious about this problem. Americans are nice people but collectively they are a huge danger. There is a commonly held belief in the USA that if everybody pursues their own self interest the result will be good. This idea began with Adam Smith, it works in its own simple terms in a limited way in a world with a healthy abundance of natural resources and people acting entirely rationally. If you ignore the caveats, add to that theory huge doses of Protestant fervour and unquestioned belief in your racial and national superiority and launch a nation in an underpopulated continent then you are bound to have trouble.
The American way is to assume that if you do your own thing other people will not be harmed, unless they stand in your way. However the whole world is not an under-developed and under populated continent. The world is very finite and we have now crossed every horizon and frontier and found ourselves on the other shores. Nobody has ever managed to explain to me how Adam Smith's invisible hand can magic up new oil reserves just because it would be convenient or indeed profitable to find them. When there is no more cheap energy the USA will be a very nasty place to live in, or with. You might argue that this is not going to happen overnight, perhaps so, but you cannot convince me that there is any mechanism available that will ensure that catastrophe cannot occur.
The USA has been on a four hundred year long lucky streak. You have destroyed large parts of your forests and got away with it. You have destroyed large parts of your wildlife and got away with it. You have succeeded in driving the most populous bird in the history of life on this planet extinct and you have got away with it. That does not prove that your attitude to your natural resources is working and will ensure that America always goes from strength to strength. The problem with America is its self belief and confidence. The national attitude is so artificially optimistic that it blinds you to the realities. America is like the driver who gets drunk very night for twenty years and has never had an accident, yet.
America is the loudest guy at the party who breaks all the rules and has a good time and always gets away with it. America is living proof that if you just smile a lot, get violent when you don't get your way, make a fast buck when you can you will always, always, come up smelling of roses. America is two hundred odd million people saying that it is right to burn fuel, not only is it right it is A RIGHT, just as it is your right to party.
I think back to my college days and I remember a chap who spent a fortune on restaurants, never paid his rent and had a fantastically good time. He said if you owe the bank £50 you have a problem, if you owe the bank £2,000 they have a problem. It was very beguiling advice. It is oh so easy to start to live like that. Be rich, feel rich, spend it, earn it, enjoy it because in the long run we are all dead. America is now that living example of how to destroy the planet while feeling good about yourself. The Japanese have already bought into that dream, next may come China and then the end must surely be close. If China spends the Earth's resources in the way America does then we will be in very big trouble.
A child in the USA uses thirty times as much of the Earth's resources as a third world child. If the USA becomes the model, which seems likely considering how cool America seems to be, the rest of the world will head in the same direction and we will be in very serious trouble as all the cheap energy and easily mined ores will be used up in a very short time. I don't like the idea of a world full of American "I have a right to breed, drive, barbecue, fornicate, indoctrinate, etc. as much as I choose" attitudes. The world population is currently in excess of six billion and the energy, food and resource use are at a unprecedented level. I don't like the idea of three billion Asians with cars, air conditioning, lawn sprinklers, automatic weapons and a belief in their God-given right to consume whatever they want.
I see rule number one for sustainability is to ask yourself if six billion people chose to live like me what would be the consequences? If the world lived like the USA global warming would be unstoppable, population growth would escalate and our grandchildren would be inheriting a world with no ice caps, oil, gas, coal, soil, animals, plants, future, hope...
Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Americans, that is the essence of the problem. Americans are... well, I have already said that.
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I'm glad I didn't respond in a negative manner to your initial post as I cannot disagree with your response - except of course, I hope you are speaking of Americans as a society and not individually.. There are actually a few of us who want to "save the entire world" (as my father often accused me) and are willing to die trying to accomplish that goal (smile). Thanks for the reply. I meant to post my response to you to the newsgroup, as I certainly would have enjoyed seeing yours posted for everyone to read. Yesterday was my first time to read newsgroup postings and I am still trying to learn what I am doing. I was not at all impressed with a great number of the posts that I read (many seemed quite childish), but one like the reply I received from you would have been pleasant surprise (it wasn't an ad or a flame, and it actually revealed a literate individual). Kindest regards, Lurking Shadow |
Note: US Population is now over 300 million, and world population is over 6.6 billion. Latest population figures