[dustinmoris]

The US can continue to bully everyone around them, but one day there will be no friends left and while the US is starting a trade war (or even an actual war) with friends and enemies other nations will strengthen their relations and the power balance will shift eventually.

China has been on track to overtake the US as the largest economy for many years now. The US obviously feels threatened by the shift of economic powers and currently tries every thing they can to prevent this from happening, but it's going to happen regardless. China has a stable country, a hard working population, people feel content and the government is looking after its people despite what Western media is reporting. The Western world is increasingly becoming divided, fueled by capitalist greed, social media which is anything but "social", huge wealth disparities, racism and many other deep ingrained problems. The US might complain about other nations spying, etc., but it is the US and the NSA who has been the only nation which has been proven black on white that they have been grossly spying on everyone else in this world, it is the US which is the only nation which is constantly starting wars with other nations and destabilising economies. It's not China, nor France, nor the EU.

I can only recommend anyone in the US to go and visit other nations and explore the world and it becomes very quickly apparent that the Western world has some deep issues which other countries seem to be much better in control of. If entire freedom of everything means that people live divided, in poverty, exploited, plagued by suicide, mental health issues, obesity and mass shootings, then maybe the way the West has shaped in the last 50 years is not all that great which everyone wants us to believe.

Other countries have other issues, but honestly, after being to many many other places and far East I can only say that these problems look minor in comparison to what I observe in the West.

[nolok]

I don't stricly disagree (nor agree) with your comment, but there are several thing that you include as "a global grave issue of the western world" in general but is actually very US-centric. When I look at the list you give, "people live divided, in poverty, exploited, plagued by suicide, mental health issues, obesity and mass shootings", it's not that those issues don't exists in other countries, but in the western world the US has that strange habit of always exhibiting the most extreme form, and frankly to not look like it's working and making any advance at fixing them.

[mhkool]

> frankly to not look like it's working and making any advance at fixing them.

yes and no. It appears that nothing is done to prevent or fix since mainstream media do not report anything. The US has the largest number of doctors of "functional medicine", which contrary to the rest, seek to find the root causes of disease, and many times find them and restore health with supplements, probiotics, life style changes and toxin avoidance. For the hardliners that deny functional medicine, I recommend to read about the full story of Dr Terry Wahls. TL;DR a professor with the best treatment for MS by many top doctors deteriorated to being in a wheelchair and she cured herself by reading the scientific literature, understanding the whole body and doing a different treatment. She now treats MS patients who who has heard of her? So fixes exist but are unknown.

[kodz4]

The US is a much more diverse population and a much larger population. It's going to be more chaotic than anything the Europeans have to deal with.

But dealing with that chaos, at that scale, produces lessons and learning that won't happen anywhere else, other than probably India.

[maxheadroom]

>The US is a much more diverse population...

Why is this always a fallback reference point? It is demonstrably false[0,1,2,3] and is continually regurgitated - as if the continued repetition would make it consequently true. There are countries in Europe that are far more diverse than the United States. Full stop.

>But dealing with that chaos, at that scale, produces lessons and learning that won't happen anywhere else, other than probably India.

You could start with your immediate neighbours, yeah? Canada and Mexico are both far more diverse than the United States and would - by your own argument - be far more chaotic than anything the United States or Europe has to deal with, yeah?

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...

[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-an...

[2] - https://www.atlasandboots.com/worlds-most-diverse-country/

[3] - https://archive.fo/9AV1K

[kodz4]

Just point at the data. The extra layer of attitude doesn't sell your argument, but just distracts from it.

Sort the first table by rank US - 87 UK -109 France - 117 Germany - 148. When we talk about the West who else is anyone referring to? Denmark - 144. Norway - 146.

My comment is in response to someone separating the US from the west, not US compared to the rest of the world. So don't be in such a hurry to react.

The data shows the US is more diverse than other western countries.

Population is another important factor. What happens in a city of 10 million people and what happens in a country of 10 million people is very different. I come from India and have lived in both the US and Europe. My city has a population somewhere between Ireland and Norway but it's impossible to handle social issues the way those countries do or use them as models precisely because of the population density and diversity.

[JAlexoid]

Belgium(65) and Switzerland(63) are definitely western world.

[maxheadroom]

>Just point at the data. The extra layer of attitude doesn't sell your argument, but just distracts from it.

I gave you the data, you did a cursory look over it, cherry-picked the data points you wanted, and then continued on with your belief that you are correct.

If you take offense to my frustrations at having heard this for the three-thousandth time, then I do apologise but this tired, old cliche is burning itself out faster than a B1 in a binary system.

>Sort the first table by rank US - 87 UK -109 France - 117 Germany - 148. When we talk about the West who else is anyone referring to? Denmark - 144. Norway - 146.

...and...

>The data shows the US is more diverse than other western countries.

From the exact same table that you referenced: Bosnia and Herzegovina - 41, Latvia - 61, Switzerland - 63, Belgium - 65, Estonia - 77, Moldova - 78, Spain - 82

Now back to:

>When we talk about the West who else is anyone referring to?

From a non-American exceptionalism perspective, when we mention the west we are generally speaking about the countries that make up the western world, not just the United States, yeah? ...or we can even go so far as to say countries that have been directly influenced by or have direct political affiliations with countries in the Western Hemisphere. ...or if you want to go Soviet-era, the west could just be any country that has any form of democracy.

>The data shows the US is more diverse than other western countries.

It does not, as the data I originally referenced proves. Even limited to just the Northern and Western Hemispheres, Canada and Mexico are far more diverse and have cities that are just as densely populated.

>My city has a population somewhere between Ireland and Norway but it's impossible to handle social issues the way those countries do or use them as models precisely because of the population density and diversity.

This makes no sense. They all have forms of representative democracies, county governments, city governments, etc. Why do you believe it's "easier" for these areas to handle social issues and that it comes down to the sole factor of diversity and/or population density...? Do you honestly believe that differences do not exist in the political spectrum in homogeneous areas? Are you not aware that there have been periods where countries didn't have official governments for this reason (e.g.: Ireland and Sweden)?

[eeZah7Ux]

You posts paints a false dichotomy between US and China.

The "West" never existed. There are hundreds of languages, cultures and paths in history.

Your criticism of "poverty, exploited, plagued by suicide, mental health issues, obesity and mass shootings" is grounded in reality but you framed it in a completely one-sided way.

[buboard]

> It's not China, nor France, nor the EU

Dont disagree, but this comes part and parcel with being a global superpower. When USSR was alive, we had 2 of them.