china will never be a superpower, and there will never be a war between powerful nations, simply because they are all co-dependent, china needs australia's coal, the USA needs everyones oil. the UN will bitch and whine if any influential nation threatens another "big" country and the rest of the world will be pretty much told to intervene, and the NATO alliance will protect the US/Britain/australia from ANY country threatening war. coz america has the military, britain has the nice clean public image as a former superpower.

and if just a few countries stopped all their exports to china, china would collapse in a VERY short time(they would have a large defecit in reaources and have to use their"safety net" supply to survive), (the communist government in china is so unpopular, it has to block some western sites just so the people of china dont see media coverage of tibet and decide to turn on their commie government and vote them out. china is too unstable to be a superpower anytime soon

Obviously you do not know how to read, I said they did not become millionaires until they were over 50 so yes they are rich NOW. But of course anti American factions (I refer to them as Republicans????) always spew their hatred of her and Bill with their name calling. The rabidness with which the Clinton haters fight is amazing, they are willing to destroy this country rather than see her win thus bringing back the days when their control of our country was reduced.

I know Bill Clinton, I used to work for him, and I know the kind of person both He and She are. Are they perfect? No, but at least when it comes to policy they will not lie to us, they will not arrange for an additional three trillion in debt be thrust upon us so that their friends can make a few billion and then move to Darfur.

They do put America first in their policies. Are they always right? Of course not, but at least they will not suspend Habeas Corpus for Americans! At least with them we will not have Americans disappearing off the streets and sent overseas to "undisclosed" prisons run by "undisclosed countries". Our treasury will not be looted as it has been for the last eight years.. Money that should have been used to fight the war on terror not lining the pockets of Halliburton and Black Water.

as far as them not being middle class you are correct about that, they are smarter, better educated and better mannered then the vast majority of middle class people.

They also know how to be as vicious as they need to be to get done what needs to be done.

I would rather see Joe Leiberman in the White House but he is not running. (unless MaCain grabs him). We could use another Bill Clinton in the white house, he could undo the damage that Bush has done to us over the last eight years, I mean, how bush and his crew botched the war is beyound me. My mother could have done a better job, hell I know six year olds that could have done no worse then this administration.

SpacyPony your right, My mom could do better, why do people how seem like they have get the answer for our problems and screw up and make it worse. Spacepony by a another clinton do you hillary? because I think she would do a good job. And also what is this about us being behind technology, dude have seen what we have in production in the show future weapons, we have more military tech then any country, china probally gets their tech from bootlegging all are stuff. Also just show you know we have more powerfull weapons than nukes (I do not know why we have them, we just do). The weapons ae called Thermobaric, what they do is about heat and pressure, a fire ball that continues expanding, exploding, and literally crushing and burinig everything in its path untill it is dust. dude that is scary

LOL - The US is not literally alive, so it won't literally die. It will just do what the USSR did and slowly lose infrastructure and power as the money goes away.

Answer: Yes.

Note: Germany was overrun first by the Nazis and then by the Communists and Capitalist Allies and split in two, had a wall erected in its capital city, and reunited for some reason no one can quite work out, and it now has one of the strongest economies in Europe, if not the world.

With the Cold War, America and Russia screwed themselves over royal by putting all their brains into how they could increase the yield of the nuclear bomb, and finding out cooler and more intricate and advanced ways of killing people. Germany on the other hand used its brains for actually developing itself up, and this has allowed it such a spectacular return to the world stage.

Having a better military does not make a country more advanced than another. When Britain took over India, was it because Britain was more advanced than India? Hell no. Britain just happened to have a better military at a time when India's culture was very strong, but its government was becoming slack and weak. The British, as it turns out also turned out to be very good users of the Divide and Conquer philosophy, which they used very well in India.

Even considering the Australian Aborigines, they were most likely to be the most stable civilisation ever to have existed. It is true that they were basically hunter gatherers, but their spiritual advancement was far beyond that of European Christianity, as it taught not to look to the heavens and forget the Earth, but to bring one back down to Earth, as they believed that one came from the Earth, and returned to it when one died. This type of religion, this kind of spirituality as part of any civilisation will greatly enhance the sustainability of the civilisation it is in. It was the longest surviving civilisation, and existed for 40-80,000 years before the British arrived and sacked it. If Australia and its aborigines were behind some sort of curtain that cut it off from the rest of the world, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they continued their way of life more or less unchanged far longer than the (comparitively) rapidly changing Western civilisations.

Anyway, a book by Michio Kaku written ten years ago, I don't know if it still applies, states that there is a reduced number of PhDs and whatnot being produced in the States than before, science budgets are being downsized, and many top-scientists are being laid off. This is all part of a short sighted search for short-term profits. The only reason the US scientific community has remained as strong as it is is because of a large influx of educated migrants, but as DuderSeb stated, there is an increasingly hostile view towards immigration in the States, which will cut of this resource of intelligence if allowed to continue.

"In sum, the United States is eating up its own scientific seed corn."

America's strength comes from it's money, which comes from capitalism. Taxes will drive off companies, sucking out money, sucking out power. As long as leftist bastards keep their grubby red hands out of the honey pot, yes. China is almost a superpower, but their gender imbalance may cause a lot of odd problems in 10-20 years. Russia, with new oil revenue, is on the way back. So, how many of us think they're going to be all nice and friendly and let the old west keep the power it's grown fat and lazy on without a fight? Canada's toast.

To add... I think ALL OF YOU should watch this video:

After you watch it, have everyone you know watch it, and have them show it to everyone they know and so on.

It answers the question of this and many other similar threads everywhere:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

Please, do come back and say what you thought of it.

Nothing is forever. Empire rises and falls. Superpower comes and goes. Ideas were created then lost. Even if we cannot predict the future, the word "always" will never happen.

By the way, China was the superpower for 1000 years before the rise of Europe. Only currently did it re-rise out of the ashes of physical wars and ideological wars.

Russia no longer is a country but run by the Russian mafia.Gorbachev has his new party the Union of Social Democrats backed by money from the West.

Wait till the dollar is no longer the number one currency in the world.
Bill Clinton has already told us that the US won't be the number one super power in the world for long.Of course with Bill you don't whether that is instigation or prognostication.

Take emphasis on the "CAPITALIST" part. Farmers and factory workers are the country, yes. But they don't have the capital nor the education to invest in those very same factories and run them, thus the country would have a lot of workers, but very few business person/engineers/scientist/economists.




LOL, I accept I do not know who Carl Sagan is, but I must say he is somewhat mistaken about it being pointless. Most of the technological advances have been made because the Military had a need for it. Things like computers, the Internet, nuclear power plants, solar power cells, batteries, jet aircrafts, helicopters, satellites, the Jeep, chocolate. All of those things were funded and develop at some time for and by the military.

Good point about the xenophobia though, its seems to have increased exponentially since 2001.

Always is a very long time. Given the track record of history I think its safe to say that at some point the sovriegn entity that the united states is now will no longer be the top dog.

The likeliest scenario for this change will not be china or india comming to dominance but change in the sovriegnty of the country itself most likely in the form of a north american union with canada and mexico. once that happens then the usa will no longer be the country it once was. Mexico is already having a drastic demographic effect on the internal culture of the us(over 10% of the population of mexico already lives in the us).

I have many rather sad views on current occupation of our homeland in the world, yet, it???s not a bad thing not to be a supper power if done properly. Sweden, once an ambitious Empire, defeated by a long war with the rising power of the Russian Empire, pawing the way into its decline as a dominant power. Now Sweden is one of the most successful countries in the world, with ether the highest or second highest living standards anywhere on the globe. I don???t mind, this edgy policy of US interventions be that good or bad, grinding to the halt. I don't mind Russia, China, India, or any other would be supper power rising in place, as long as US, while loosing this supremacy, will rise in social areas like Sweden. Intact I would favor, total collapse, the most humiliating defeat of out troops possible, the most disastrous terrorist attack capable (as horrific as it sounds) if it leads us to become the best place on earth to dwell in, to be completely socially secure and so on, just like Sweden.

I love optimism... even when its clearly misplaced.

World War I -- immediately after they decided that war was so horrible, there'd never be another one! Mankind had "learned its lesson" at long long last.

Ooops.

World War II -- Nuklear weapons made war a thing of the past, no one could stand up against them!

Korean War, Vietnam War...

And, finally, the UN could no more stop a nation from invading another nation than it could vote in its own taxes. All it can do is try to coordinate other nations to counter the aggressor -- which is still war.

And, ignoring all that, civil war is still quite possible.

The fact is, people are people; technological progress doesn't change human nature.