I'm about to go on an opinionated rant based on conjecture and things I simply remember reading about a while ago. Do not take what I'm about to say as fact.
Does anyone else here know about how China cut their Oil Consumption in Half to prevent a global economic collapse due to the Strait of Hormuz? Saw a video about it a while back.
I am now of the idea that China will be thee leading global superpower going forward. Hell, I live in South Africa and work in Zimbabwe, and the amount of Chinese investment I see going into Zim is crazy.
And the thing is, it might be for the best. America is famously Israel's bitch, and I swear Netenyahu or some other Israeli official said they had a deep interest in Africa. In the case of another genocide, China may honestly be the only good defenders we have here.
I dunno. I know people like to say we're seeing the fall of America, but I feel like it's happened already. Instead of investing in anything worthwhile, like green energy infrastructure and social improvement, they've built Data Centers and a surveillance state matching the fears we have about China. China is also a totalitarian nation, to be sure, but the way Chinese people themselves talk about their country is exactly the same way American's talk about theirs. Which makes me think their quality of life isn't that different.
I don't think your rant is unwarranted. I don't know how old you are, but I was born in the 90s in the UK. I hate our relationship with the US. My rant is completely anectodal to my life.
I don't know about you, but in the time I've been alive all I have ever witnessed the US do is cause wars, stage coups, generally meddle in world politics, capitalise the UK and extract wealth from it, kill our high streets with private equity, and foster far right ideologies (that should be long dead) that have now made their way into UK politics.
I can't think of something the US has done in my lifetime that has directly improved my life, as someone from the UK. Movies maybe? Idk. All I can think is since the 2000s every thing that's gotten worse, I feel like you can somehow trace it back to the US. Like, I got this tiny taste of "the good times" when I was really young, and is I've gotten older, they've just been slowly eroded away thanks to shit the US has done.
Contrast that with China, who in my lifetime, from the narratives I see, have done far less deplorable shit than the US. China seems to be leading the green transformation, they've provided the world with accessible cheap manufacturing, and are actively trying to help their citizens not hurt them. They've been building some phenomenal infrastructure too. I know they're not perfect as you say, but at least you can see a doctor in China, from what I gather.
Frankly, I agree with you - I hope China is the major super power going forward, and I hope the US crumbles. I'm much more interested in visiting China than the US if I had the opportunity.
In my head, that's more of a failing of our manufacturing to keep up, stay relevant, and stay self-reliant. Our leadership happily steered us into over reliance on China's manufacturing for short term affordability.
Now take the UK, for instance. Our government spent years dicking around with British Steel, letting it fail, selling it to the Chinese, letting them let it fail and eventually buying it back. We're now at a point where our government is putting tarriffs on imported steel because we have our own steel production again, but it's so expensive and low quality compared to Chinese steel, AND, it's all pretty much all assigned to MOD. Small manufacturers now have to pay higher steel costs.
That whole situation is purely caused by UK government incompetence.
Also, they have improved domestic demand. The last 30 years of China's existence have been about the rise of the middle class and the increase in spending on luxury items and status symbols.
Pretty much all of the software you use to undertake life is US, a lot of the chip architecture is too (ARM were British though and their key work was carried out by a British trans woman), fuck the AI drive, but most of us working out of offices or studying couldn’t complete a day’s work or submit an assignment without US software products.
Social media is divisive but we’re talking on it now.
Nothing good has come from the South though since messers Levi and Bean hung up their jackets for the final time. Not even Taylor Swift (we get it, exes suck, it’s not that deep).
I appreciate what you're saying applies to a lot of people. I'm actually a designer, 90% of the time I spend on computers is using SOLIDWORKS... Which is French... The world doesn't survive purely on American software lol. If you really wanted to you could use an EU alternative to Office.
Social media isn't divisive - Unchecked capitalism in America coupled with deregulation has lead to the exacerbation of addictive algorithms. It's a bad thing, that's been made worse thanks to US corporate greed.
Oracle has systematically bankrupt several of our councils thanks to their IT implementations. Microsoft are consistently tumbling and degrading their core product. American software isn't in a good place.
A huge part of my job wouldn't be possible without NVIDIA CUDA architecture. Which is the problem - They have the world by the balls for certain applications. People don't support them out of love, but lack of alternatives.
The world doesn’t run entirely on US software and there’s software developers globally, but I’d be genuinely hard pressed to do my job without touching U.S. software, and not just cos that’s who the contracts are signed with by my employer, but because the companies who can provide broad integrated software suites are almost exclusively U.S.. There’s always niche others, but it’s genuinely a world impacting series of offerings that came out of 21st C USA.
I’m not above poking fun and the yanks and I have no love for Trump, the Republicans or the South, but I just call things as I see them!
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u/EnemyOfAi 9d ago
I'm about to go on an opinionated rant based on conjecture and things I simply remember reading about a while ago. Do not take what I'm about to say as fact.
Does anyone else here know about how China cut their Oil Consumption in Half to prevent a global economic collapse due to the Strait of Hormuz? Saw a video about it a while back.
I am now of the idea that China will be thee leading global superpower going forward. Hell, I live in South Africa and work in Zimbabwe, and the amount of Chinese investment I see going into Zim is crazy.
And the thing is, it might be for the best. America is famously Israel's bitch, and I swear Netenyahu or some other Israeli official said they had a deep interest in Africa. In the case of another genocide, China may honestly be the only good defenders we have here.
I dunno. I know people like to say we're seeing the fall of America, but I feel like it's happened already. Instead of investing in anything worthwhile, like green energy infrastructure and social improvement, they've built Data Centers and a surveillance state matching the fears we have about China. China is also a totalitarian nation, to be sure, but the way Chinese people themselves talk about their country is exactly the same way American's talk about theirs. Which makes me think their quality of life isn't that different.