[gumby]

The US is only 5% of the population. On a global scale all of those factors are improving.

Just as the Gibson quote went: "The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed"

[tuatoru]

No, they're not all improving.

Topsoil exhaustion and poisoning is global. Freshwater scarcity is much worse in China and the Subcontinent than in the USA. Antibiotic resistance is world-wide. Destruction of rainforests: likewise. Female literacy is declining in developing countries, despite more time spent in "school".

[TheOtherHobbes]

That suggests Rest of World will soon experience the decline the US, UK and some other Western countries are experiencing.

[gumby]

Or that the USA will eventually catch up with the more advanced nations. Actually even if everybody regressed to the mean it would be a step up for the States.