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Comment by throwaway6734 | Hacker News Reader

The US is the largest oil producer in the world, one of the largest producers of food, one of the top innovators, has relatively healthy demographics, is surround by allies (one of which produces oil and fertilizer), and has the most dominant military on the planet.

Your outlook is significantly more gloomy than reality

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While this is all true, "cashing in" on any of those advantages is not something that can be done peacefully, so perhaps a gloomy outlook is warranted.

I don't understand? The US can disrupt food/oil/financial markets/innovation more than any other planet on earth. All of these can be flexed peacefully

Disruption of financial markets is not a precision weapon, and it frequently backfires. Currency wars aligning with multipolar powers makes them even more disruptive. Once the US defense of the dollar turns from theoretical to reality, it necessitates violence. You can say "the USD has all this power as a reserve currency because of US military power projection," and it may be true, but once other powers start to align and actively compete with the dollar as the reserve currency, the US needs to actively respond. And that means making good on their threats, not just projecting them. Thus, global financial instability leads to violence.

And the US military is having a recruitment issue. Not to mention new recruits tend not to be up to fitness standards. The two wars at once standard is questionable at best.

>more than any other planet on earth

Take a look at the space around you. How many of the items you see were made in the US?

And? Access to food and energy is significantly more important that new consumer goods

Modern food and energy rely upon countless items manufactured in China. John Deere would not be able to continue making the tractors they currently make without Chinese components. Same goes for everything from oil tankers to highway pavers. Even the logistics side would become difficult without being able to replace cell phones and computers.

There are no planets on earth

Yeah, but the popular narrative now is that China is the real super power because they have a strong autocratic leader and aren't bogged down by democracy, and don't have to deal with other people's uneducated opinions.

Not that they have a mountain of shadow debt built upon the biggest housing bubble the world has ever seen (by far) and an absolute demographic time bomb about to blow up their future...

It all depends on the willingness to extract that oil. Alternative energy has its merits, but there is a wing of the environmentalists that have convinced a segment of the population that "keep it in the ground" is a viable short term strategy. If this transition to green energy is not extended to more like 100 or 150 years, we are screwed.

All true! It's too easy to focus on the downsides, but there are significant upsides as this comment points out. There's an excellent discussion by Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan here [1]; he talks about China vis a vis the US with respect the geographic, demographic, and economic advantages/disadvantages. Worth a watch in this context.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4Vw6cuW4M

FYI, Peter is a bit of a sensationalist (he’s been predicting China will collapse within 10 years since 2005).

So very true, but that does not change the geographical, economic, and demographic factors he speaks about.

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