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How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

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Re: How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

#32
post #3

"In 1839 [...] the United States had already defeated Britain’s navy in two wars" This statement is wrong and trivially falsifiable. Perhaps the author meant that the U.S. had by that point won some naval battles against the British?

I completely fail to recall that time we burned down Buckingham Palace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington

We did flex quite a bit on lesser powers, though, even in the 1800s. The US Navy was infamously rebuilt after the revolution to fight a war against Tripoli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_corsairs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars

Before the end of the century we'd fought a hundred or so largely forgotten wars. Who remembers that time we invaded Korea? No, the other one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_expedition_to_Ko...

Or Fiji? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1858_Fiji_expedition

Or New Orleans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811_German_Coast_uprising

Re: How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

#33
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With shitty climates. The surface area of optimal climate in the US is likely larger than that of all the countries you've named combined. What's optimal? For example in Canada most farmed areas yield only one harvest per year. And most of the land is barren wasteland. You have some of it as well, but it's not the majority of the territory.

Argentina seems like a counterexample here: the Pampas are one of the world's major temperate agricultural regions.

Honestly if other countries did the same stuff as Argentina they'd probably be way worse off than Argentina as the country is still relatively wealthy. They were arguably too rich (and not populated enough with 4 million people in 1900) for a while making industry, especially export oriented industry, less viable sort of like dutch disease.

Re: How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

#34
post #27
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thread was about climate. US is 3.5x greater than Argentina.

Not per capita. Look, Japan (and S Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, etc) have shit for natural resources yet they are not technologically retarded. They have a highly advanced economies and societies.

This is drifting from the point. The thread was about the share of territory with optimal farming climate, not per-capita anything, and not whether resource-poor countries can be advanced.

Re: How the U.S. Engineered Its Sovereignty

#37
Honestly, this is just a bad article.

The history of engineering in the USA is actually SUPER important. The article touches on some restrictions the British imposed on their colonies, but it goes much further. The fight for 'Sovereignty' took a long time and was almost never certain.

I HIGHLY recommend the Yale lecture series. They're not engineering-specific, unfortunately. But still really, really, good (I mean... it's Yale)

The Revolution with Professor Freeman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTBSGoYtK0&list=PLDA2BC5E78...

America at 250 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TNcFQiqHGw&list=PLh9mgdi4rN...

The Civil War and Reconstruction with David Blight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXp1bHd6gI&list=PL5DD220D6A...

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