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Comment by dingaling911 | Hacker News Reader

US rise as a world superpower was luck as opposed to something deliberate, just like most rises are.

Luck? They killed 95% of the existing inhabitants, used a huge agricultural, mining, and forestry base to spread productivity, built national infrastructure with enslaved and indentured labor. They stayed out of two crippling wars as long as they possibly could, and ultimately were the only major power that was able to mostly avoid damage from the war.

After which they invited the best scientists from the axis to come build things for them. They then used their position to topple governments around the world for their companies, annex territory (see: Hawaii), and press their interests globally.

What about these steps is luck? Evil, sure, but luck?

You missed reserved currency advantage

2 World Wars broke out that had impacts on us, it left a ton of our peers completely devastated and we were not. UK did not end food rationing until 1954. By that time, US was building suburbs out, sending a ton of GI to higher education and Marshall plan had our completely functioning factories turning out goods by metric tons an hour.

Luck means things just happened to work out not that they didn’t take steps. Luck means the same thing somewhere else wouldn’t work. That’s the way I’m using it.

It's not luck it's starting conditions. People have written books about the benefits of geography and natural resources.

So can you please explain me the rise of Switzerland, Singapore and South Korea? No natural resources, no energy independency, small countries surrounded by enemies. And why Russia that has all the natural resources of the world is such a failed state? Starting conditions are something that was valid around 2000 years ago in the civilization and empires rise and fall. Not actual anymore.

I'm not a believer in geographic destiny but the fact that Russia is still relatively rich (compared to e.g. CAR or Uganda) shows that natural resources are quite handy. Switzerland does have quite some hydro energy (potential) and because of its resource poverty many Swiss had to leave the country during the 19th century (and these swiss actually created wealth in many of these places). There's millions of americans with swiss ancestry.

starting conditions is pretty much the definition of luck.

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