21–30 of 54 posts
by the time i hovered your fancy kudos button and realized i had just given an "unretractable" kudo by accident I had lost all interest in what you have to say about countries... wonderful minimalism...
> I have a hypothesis, that the most life-capable beings are those, who are able to cope with risk and fear, cross the line of comfort zone, and explore new unknown areas. In this manner, America inherited the best ones in the world, and I think this is one of the reasons why America is the wealthiest country, according to several measurements. Uh, this is the first time I have heard that Americans are somehow geneti…
Please do not start a race-war, this was a solid reasoning, anyone could have moved to America back then.
On the contrary, we need fewer countries, fewer borders and more decentralization.
Full disclosure - I'm American and have lived here since birth, as is my entire family as far back as it matters. America was founded by political dissidents, religious nut bags, criminals, and paranoid sociopaths who couldn't cut it in civilized Europe. Today, America is controlled by billionaires that profit from and exploit that same paranoia and fear. Yes, America is a nation that is nearly entirely crippled by f…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPg9MdN9Gio&feature=youtu.be...
> I have a hypothesis, that the most life-capable beings are those, who are able to cope with risk and fear, cross the line of comfort zone, and explore new unknown areas. In this manner, America inherited the best ones in the world, and I think this is one of the reasons why America is the wealthiest country, according to several measurements. Uh, this is the first time I have heard that Americans are somehow geneti…
I don't think he was trying to get at race or genetics, but rather attitude. I wouldn't say it 'inherited', but the 'culture' was one of people willing to get rid of their old stable lives for one of 'unlimited' opportunity, freedom, risk and adventure. Whether or not that attitude is actually still pervasive or whether it's a nice story we tell ourselves is debatable, but it was true of the europeans that founded th…
I actually see much of the early immigration as the reverse: people who wanted to maintain their old stable lives, but for various reasons were finding it difficult to do so in Europe, due to religious or political differences. So, they left to found a new society elsewhere, where they could keep and enforce their traditional community norms. The Puritans were not looking for frontier living or risky fortune, but rather for the opportunity to maintain a very communalist, strict, religious community in keeping with their faith. Early Puritan communities were not some kind of individualist libertarian society, but more like religious communes, with strict rules on what you could do on which days of the week and in what manner. The Hasidim might be the closest modern-day analog: they moved to places like Brooklyn not out of a desire for adventure, but because it was somewhere they could maintain their traditional way of life, which was becoming impossible to do in Eastern Europe. Within the U.S., the "Mormon exodus" westwards from Illinois to Utah had a similar motivation.
Smaller Americas would be less likely to go to war, implement TBTF bank policies, or engage in other follies. Congressional districts would become too small to gerrymander. Buying five Congresses would cost five times as much.