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Why the United States has the best research universities

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Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#251

Post by TheCoelacanth »

WalterBright wrote: post #178
birdyrooster wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I never said that. I am saying that the US was able to have the largest economy in the world by the turn of 20th century (before major international conflict) even despite an incredibly bloody civil war because of chattel slavery. Basically, in addition to how they stayed out of international conflict in WW1 and WW2, they had a big tail wind.

The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.

The slave economy was only partially dismantled, not burned to the ground.

Southern poverty stems from post-war wealth extraction by the same land-owning elites who dominated the pre-war economy.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#252

Post by WalterBright »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #251
WalterBright wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.

The slave economy was only partially dismantled, not burned to the ground. Southern poverty stems from post-war wealth extraction by the same land-owning elites who dominated the pre-war economy.

Sherman's "March to the Sea" was a deliberate and successful strategy to burn the heard of the South to the ground.

Germany and Japan were also burnt to the ground in WW2, and rose from the ashes to quickly become economic superpowers, due to adopting free markets.

> Southern poverty stems from

That implies you agree that the superpower economy of the US is not the result of the pre-war slave economy.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#253

Post by gorgoiler »

WalterBright wrote: post #185
gorgoiler wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repetitive flooding of the Mississippi didn’t help much either. Some natural disasters are hard to come back from.

I didn't realize the Missisouppi only started flooding after 1865.

Hey, if this was an ironic statement then I don’t think it was called for.

I wasn’t disagreeing with you or making a counterpoint, merely adding to your “history of the decline of the south” by adding some interesting facts about how devastating Mississippi floods were the nails in a coffin that, as you pointed out, had already been glued-up, waxed and lined with silk.

Have a great day!

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#254

Post by 8bitsrule »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #149
sk5t wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> built on the spoils of war Negative, you may have confused the US with Rome. The US is the beneficiary of tremendous natural resources, temperate climate across a vast geography, natural isolation from external threats, and mostly very stable governmental structures.

Those "tremendous natural resources" were all the result of the Indian wars. America was at war nearly constantly expanding its empire from 1775-1865. Surely you didn't think north America was terra nullis or that the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources to European colonists? Anglo-Powhatan Wars (3 separate wars), Pequot War, Kieft's War, Peach Tree War, Esopus Wars, King Philip's War, Tuscar…

Amen that. Speaking of resource-extraction, I'll just add-in US history in South America for over a century. There the wars were, and still are, fought by the dictators against their own people. For example, Thatcher's 'friend' Pinochet.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#255

Post by 8bitsrule »

pdonis wrote: post #181
freddie_mercury wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "tremendous natural resources" were all the result of the Indian wars. America was at war nearly constantly expanding its empire from 1775-1865. Surely you didn't think north America was terra nullis or that the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources to European colonists? Anglo-Powhatan Wars (3 separate wars), Pequot War, Kieft's War, Peach Tree War, Esopus Wars, King Philip's War, Tuscar…

> the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.

That blanket statement holds no water. Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature - indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it.

May we have time to catch up with that knowledge.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#256

Post by boringg »

raverbashing wrote: post #218
ur-whale wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can anyone point me to high profile megacap EU startups Don't waste your time looking, there are none or almost none. EU is simply not geared (anymore) for this type of endeavor to succeed: - finance infrastructure for this is non-existent (VCs are a joke in Europe, both in terms of size and in terms of the type of stuff they invest in) - risk-taking is simply not a cultural value anymore - administrative burdens (…

This is not so much a list of "reasons" (though there are levels of impact), it is more a list of, maybe "excuses". Because I could come up with a big list of reasons why the US would be a bad place to start a company with. It is a good place to start, but even then most of the top high-earners companies are located into 2 or 3 very small geographical areas in the whole US. China has many more impediments/bureaucracy…

I mean the problem with China is you have no real control of your company and no real freedom (even if large market and a lot of money). See Jack Ma. Even if you make a huge company worth billions you are still owned by the Communist Party of China.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#257

Post by [deleted] »

kmstout wrote: post #243
mncharity wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US views on China repeatedly remind me of old-regime European commentary on a younger US.

Here's an example: "The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the campaigns of the Revolution the French introduced a new system of tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals, and very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe. They undertook (what had never before been attempted) to make shift without a number of things which had always been held to be indispensab…

[deleted]

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#258

Post by pdonis »

8bitsrule wrote: post #255
pdonis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.

That blanket statement holds no water. Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature - indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it . May we have time to catch up with that knowledge.

> Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature

You can respect nature and still make use of natural resources. Even if native Americans did the former (see below--some did but many did not), they fell far short on the latter. There were many natural resources in the US that native Americans never made any use of, and European settlers did.

This is an example of the more general fact that the native Americans did not build very much wealth, while European settlers built much, much more. The native American cultures would never have built the medium through which we are having this discussion, for example. Or modern medicine, or modern sanitation, or all of the other things that have led to a huge increase in both average length and average quality of life.

> indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it.

Perhaps some did. Many did not. Travel around the US Southwest and see how many sites there are where native American tribes lived and either died out or had to move on because they had mismanaged the local resources to the point where those resources could no longer support the tribe.

Re: Why the United States has the best research universities

#259

Post by 0xBDB »

8bitsrule wrote: post #255
pdonis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.

That blanket statement holds no water. Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature - indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it . May we have time to catch up with that knowledge.

Unfortunately this isn't the case.

The Pleistocene North American mass extinction, which wiped out the saber-toothed tiger and North American mastodon, was a result of hunting pressure about 10,000 years ago.

The positive stereotypes you are selling aren't real. They're largely the product of Hollywood (e.g. the "Crying Indian" ads), just like the negative stereotypes of the same peoples. Native Americans are people; given the opportunity they wreck nature, and once given guns and horses they stepped up their hunting of buffalo, for example, to levels that would have been unsustainable even if white people hadn't been killing the Buffalo off at far greater rates at the same time.

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