Heh, I knew it'd happen eventually, someone would accuse me of being a "China-lover", and accuse me of hating America. Funny, because it's the farthest thing from the truth. Trust me... wait til you read my write-up analyzing life in China.
My original post in this thread wasn't any commentary about life in China, it was totally about the US. Yeah, China has problems. MANY more problems than the US. But that doesn't mean they're not a threat.
And Slang, on your come-back post, I 100% agree with you. There's nothing we can do to stop the Chinese from their own push to get ahead, but we CAN change the game to make sure we stay ahead. Good point, well said.
ZenGum... EXCELLENT point about complacency. I'm actually getting to that point in life myself. I'm tired of the long days and big demands at work, and I'm contemplating shifting to a lower position to actually get to spend more time with my family, even if it means scaling back on lifestyle.
The interesting side-effect of that though... is if culturally we all say, "well, I guess we've accumulated enough", then we may get left behind in the future. I've never seen this theory anywhere else, but, here goes my brand new concept on why America had such a meteoric rise...
In Europe in the 1800's people felt they pretty much "had it good enough". Democracy was spreading, rampant wars were subsiding, the grip of the church was lessening, illness was less of a factor...
And the result was they became complacent. Life was pretty well balanced, they COULD do a little more work to get more out of life, but what was the point?
And then the US bounced along, sat on top of some pretty fantastical innovations in the 1900s, and launched to the head of the class. You even look at Europe... in the 1900s they had substantial manufacturing capabilities, even beyond what the US had. Yet it was still the grand ol' USofA that became #1, even though they had the added challenge of being so far away from Europe making it tougher to import / export goods. If, at the same time, any European culture would have had the same level of raw materials resources and the same culture of hard-work to get ahead, then maybe that country would be the sole world power today. But it didn't happen (Germany threatened, but failed), so today it's only the US, all because of two things: innovation, and hard-work mentality.
It's an interesting theory to consider... the main new idea in there for me is the point about a culture "accepting their position in life", and not pushing on for more-more-more. And in turn, that becomes the factor that puts them at the biggest disadvantage when suddenly you find yourself in the future, and what once was considered a good salary isn't even enough to buy you a vacation on Venus, or a even get you a decent clone-body to transplant your brain.
Interesting stuff.