Everyone’s already encountered the starting conditions in most other countries. US is the only one winning Civilization Earth. I’m a naturalized US citizen, for example. Could have ended up anywhere but it’s best here in terms of opportunity and making new stuff.
Depends what you mean by winning. Other countries have different priorities, for instance the health and welfare of the population over individual wealth. That doesn't make one right or wrong, but it really this reflects on your priorities more than anything else. And that's ok! I'm just saying it's subjective, not objective, and there's no reason to believe that some aliens would share your personal beliefs in re: superiority and therefore prioritize observations there.
I think that's the main means of winning Civilization? Been years since I played one.
Some members of the Russian government take the view that anyone who can speak Russian is fundamentally Russian; they would presumably consider "X% of the world population speaks Russian" to be a victory condition.
Many religious groups consider "X% of the world shares our beliefs" to be a victory condition, of course.
I don't share any of these positions, but of course I come from a Western Liberal background.
The 6 types in the Civilization games are Science, Culture, Domination, Religion, Score, and Diplomacy. I don't see what else could be added.
If Civilization were made in Denmark, you'd have Population Happiness Victory and that's about it.
Thread framed the conversation around Civilization, I followed suit. If you have a problem, take it up with that guy.
Culture victory? You did come up with the book of Mormon, which I guess is some kind of achievement.
Conquer Victory, now this eclipses everything. The size of US army apparatus is astounding. No doubt about that.
Inequality is a term so alluring to mid-IQ activists. I'll take today's inequality vs. poverty of 100 years ago. The world has improved, period.
Similarly, I'll take a nation full of extreme inequality if their average standards of living are better than say, Honduras.
I can elaborate : Alabama. Louisiana. Arkansas.
I live in one of those states. I actually like it down there.
But those 4 states address your points and a few more.
For now, I'll honestly take 2.5x salary in US over pretty much any other place. And I love guns (own several).
It's a good question, my guess is network effects. The people who would want to do this want to be near other people who would want to do this - and the biggest extant pool is in California.
> For now, I'll honestly take 2.5x salary in US over pretty much any other place.
Yeah, that's basically my situation too. Honestly probably closer to 4-5X annually what I'd make back home. Nominally, not adjusted for PPP of course.
> And I love guns (own several).
Haha, we don't have to agree on this one - although I will say they are super fun to shoot.
I am the opposite. I own them for the philosophy of autonomy, freedom and individualism that guns imbibe. Target shooting isn't that much fun in cities (indoor ranges), only if you go out to the country.
This tweet describes it all:
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The Bill of Rights feels intense today, but try reading it in the mindset of someone in 1791.
A few years removed from Louis XVI selling Divine Right of Kings.
Then suddenly “Hell no, also we’re gonna say and print whatever we want, you can’t search us, and everyone gets guns.”
---
Quoting, source: https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1525640468129673216
I've never understood the elevation of the founding fathers to infallible deities. They had some good ideas, and some terrible ideas, and that doesn't detract from what they accomplished.
The wedding is over, the priest can go home now.
I guess my point is, in your hypothetical question about imagining life in 1791... you mean as a straight, white, male right? Because if I'm anything other than that particular combo, dude, I can't tell you I'd arrive at the conclusion you want me to. 14th wasn’t until 1866. Women couldn’t vote until the 19th in 1920. That's not an argument for guns so much as it's an argument for 'being top dog is pretty good.'
I can very much explain my opinions in re the 2nd.
Each amendment is independent and invalidating one does nothing to any other.
But looks if you can convince me the 1st amendment needs a revisit, I'd be open to it. I don't think so, but a compelling case would change my mind.
For example, liberals support gay rights but don't dare to condemn muslims who hold/preach hatred towards gays and defend wearing burq as a good thing that ever happened to muslim women.
The regulations are onerous and the taxes are high. Why would anyone take the extreme risks associated with building a high-risk high-reward business when everyone gets in your way and most of the reward upside would just get taken from you anyway?
Specifically because the risks aren't nearly as extreme and the rewards are still very good.
You really don’t get materially more of your yield taken from you in France than you do in California where top marginal tax rate is over 50%. And that rate clearly doesn’t stop anyone in California. Imagine Steve Jobs going hmmm, I would start Apple but the top tax rate is like 5% higher than it could be, I’m just going back to bed then.
The top federal and (California) state tax brackets both start at over 500k, and you'd have to be earning significantly more than that even for it to start affecting your overall tax percentage very much.
If an American businessman fails, they just get another job and life goes on. They still make 3-10x as much as they would in europe.
Also this idea that taxes are lower in the US is mostly bullshit - once you add together state income + sales + federal + healthcare insurance costs it's not meaningfully different from many European/Australasian nations.
You don't have to be a threat, just appear as the biggest possible one.
"based on how strong their bows are when you are traveling in a stealth bomber."
One has to know what a bow is and that they only have bows to come to that summary conclusion. If you have no knowledge of the capabilities, caution is warranted - whether we're talking about civilizations or a new species of spider.
Except we don't use our most powerful energy source (nuclear weapons).
Advanced technology != invincibility. Actually, a lot of times the more advanced tech is, the more vulnerable it is to catastrophic failure.
(I’m saying that mostly for the sake of argument, not because I think your reasoning is incorrect.)
Sounds like they'd care more about China/South Korea/Japan/Taiwan/etc then.
Well, if they care about software, all of the above have inferior software compared to the US.
Btw I’m not from the US.
Most =/= brand prestige either.
"Designed in Cupertino. Made in China".
I live in the US, Going to Shanghai, It seems like more futuristic than New York
I don't know. I feel like the countries without constant gun violence, where the government is actually capable of passing legislation, where the people actually accept that they live in a society with some acknowledgement of social responsibilities, and can access healthcare and education without incurring a lifetime of crippling debt, are currently winning at civilization a bit harder.
Being the richest and the most capable at propaganda and world-ending violence isn't the same as being the most civilized.
So... Switzerland, which has the Large Hadron Collider? That would probably be the most attractive thing to aliens. Maybe France, which is building ITER? Or the UK with a successful early nuclear fusion test?
I mean it's cool that the US has YouTube and big pieces of metal that shoot smaller pieces of metal and all. Also they launch rockets, but everybody launches rockets. I'm just not sure aliens would be that interested in that, more like "secrets of the universe" type stuff that we're getting closer to.
And don't get me wrong, I'm just as addicted to my trinkets from China as anybody else, and I benefit from US hegemony. Just trying to think from a total outsider's perspective.
If the ship of such an incredibly advanced civilization came across Earth then the differences between US technology & that of other parts of the world would require an anthropological microscope for them to detect. Like us looking back on Western vs. Eastern roman empire circa 400-500 C.E. and trying to decide which was more advanced. (well, at least < 476 C.E... being conquered is going to take one side down a few pegs)
I think the super advanced aliens aren't showing themselves because we're letting a bunch of auto-fellating monkeys run the planet
They may just as well look at humans as the white ants of a potential galactic bus stop.
Some folks seem to think it's intentionally absurd. I thought about playing along and chatting up how New York is clearly the capital of the world if you don't realize us savages lack a world government, but all my comedian friends have told me to keep my day job.
Or would if I had any comedian friends. Or, you know, a day job even.
Not a single city in the top 100 most livable cities on Earth.
That's a very strange kind of winning.
https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/global-liveability-index-202...
It is easier for the kind of person who reads HN to efficiently trade their labor for money in the US than in Europe, and this index does not account for that very important aspect of most people's lives -- earning power.
American society is more chaotic and dangerous than Europe, I do concede. Maybe more Americans who have accumulated enough savings to last the rest of their lives should move to the top 100 cities in this index.
you're really leaning into the out of touch engineer stereotypes if you think civilization can be won using criteria from a video game of all things, and that the main criteria of winning is tech & research and not say ability to sustain peace or end homelessness
“they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.”
src: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7320721-teasers-are-usually...
The notion that it's impossible to figure out whether an advanced alien would think Afghanistan or the US have more advanced tech/research/science, is absurd. And if you can make that distinction, you can keep going.
To measure us, would they look at the capacity to produce tech or consume tech (they would probably be more interested in East-Asia than North-America)?
If they look at introducing themselves and communicate peacefully, what metrics would they look at to determine what society they want to deal with?
If they look for dominance, once again they would hit where we produce tech, and hit our means of communication, which are worldwide.
I feel like people in this thread don't watch enough Science Fiction. There are LOTS of situations where a species could trivially navigate the universe (Someone stole the technology and ran away with it, the people who invented the technology died a million years ago, they were gifted the technology by a superior race, or it was discovered by accident). Lots of possibilities out there.
Imagine being skipped over for first contact because your country invented "software patents", making itself uncompetitive... ;)