Hacker News Reader

Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

This article is 56 years late.

"The End of the American Era" was published in 1970:

https://www.amazon.com/End-American-Era-Andrew-Hacker/dp/B00...

There were many other books/articles/documentaries with the same doom-and-gloom published since.

I think most people don't understand America. So maybe an immigrant like me can help: the United States isn't an enduring superpower because it's an eternal and permanent amazing place free of problems. Its unique power of self-healing and course correction, combined with its plentiful resources and human capital, is what makes it great. When everything seems lost, when everybody says "this time is different, it's the big one that will end America", our system finds a way out.

I won't argue about whether the current administration and wars are good or bad. I'll just say that we'll overcome, like we always did, our problems.

View on HN

Agreed. We've been in much much worse positions in the past. We will fix ourselves and _hopefully_ learn from our mistakes.

It will take generations, if it's even possible, for the US to recover its standing in the eyes of the world, and that standing was the core of our power.

"Fixing ourselves" is critical, but just the first step. There's a huge amount of additional work after that.

The US never became the world's superpower because it did anything "moral" or had "character" or anything remotely like that. The US became the world's superpower because Europe and Japan decided to do WW2 and destroy everything, while committing atrocity after atrocity after atrocity.

It was never anything about the US per se that made it a superpower. It was to a much greater extent incredible moral, economic and military failings on the part of everyone else. From Albania to Zimbabwe, Morocco to China.

The US lost superpower status and boom. There are big shooting wars again. In Europe. In Asia. I was kind of hoping it to take at least a decade or two after the US lost control. Then again, maybe it has.

> The US never became the world's superpower because it did anything "moral" or had "character" or anything remotely like that.

I never asserted, nor do I believe, that it did.

"America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still."

-- e.e. cummings

Between going to hell and standing still, I’d prefer the latter.

> Its unique power of self-healing and course correction is what makes it great

is it because each batch of immigrants is always rehabilitating it :3

(second gen)

> There were many other books/articles/documentaries with the same doom-and-gloom published since.

The USA losing its pre-eminent superpower status doesn't mean the end of the USA, or even the end of life as we know it. Are you rejecting some claim in the article that wasn't even made?

There are two very different positions:

- America will stop being a superpower

- America will stop being the superpower, the only one

There was a point after the fall of the Berlin wall and before China joined the WTO (and for an indeterminate number of years after) where America's status as the sole superpower was indisputable.

The moment the US can no longer rely on the Dollar being the most popular reserve currency to finance its internal debt, it risks ceasing to be A superpower. Its military might was built on debt and that’s not sustainable.

> Its unique power of self-healing

Extraordinary claims require an extraordinary proof. So far, I am not sure it’s either unique or even there.

When was the last time the US needed “self-healing”?

> I'll just say that we'll overcome, like we always did, our problems

This is true, until you don’t. Past evidence is not a guarantee of future performance. Whether the US can live up to its idealised version remains to be seen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com