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Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

I read this too, but my first thought was "if this had been Iran we would have invaded at midnight".

Its cool tech, yes, but really...

Of course and that would've been the sensible thing to do. As Americans, we want a world where the U.S. is the one that has this technology, not countries who aren't the U.S. Our standard of living (1/4 of the world's resources for 5% of the world's population) literally depends on that state of affairs.

The US doesn't need military dominance to have 1/4 of the world's consumption. It needs to be able to pay people who have 1/4 of the world's production enough that they sell it to us. And about 80% of that latter group are Americans anyway.

That works until the country that does have military dominance decides to conquer you and take that production for itself. The market is meaningless when force can be used to take what you can't purchase in the market.

It is possible to be a wealthy nation that doesn't have military dominance (Switzerland, etc). The key is to be overall small enough that you can consume a lot per capita but still fly under the radar of the big boys. A country as big as the U.S. doesn't really have that choice.

Okay, I think I misread you. The meme of "the US only has 5% of the world people but consumes 25% of the world's resources!" is usually said by people who think it's "unfair" that the US is consuming "so much."

If you are saying that the US needs military dominance because we need to protect our own domestic production from invasion, that's something else. I still disagree but not as forcefully as I would to the other characterization.

(If an invader tried to invade America for the purpose of seizing our wealth, much of it would evaporate instantly. They can capture factories but more and more of it is IP that a potential invader could just stay home and pirate instead.)

I have no problem with the U.S. consuming that much, but I don't think we could do it without American military hegemony (and I don't think Europe could do it without American military hegemony).

I struggle with the "could not do it without military hegemony". I think the issue is military. Coca-cola achieved significant domination of world markets after WWII by piggy-backing on the distribution channels of the US Army. (essentially the troops were given morale boosting shipments of coke, later bottling agreements were put in place)

So it is reasonable to argue that Coke has achieved its position on the back of The American Military, but not reasonable to say it achieved it because of US military action.

An awful lot of US influence is down to pure dollar spend, which mostly comes through military related channels.

Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

I would argue that had the last 50 years seen a global spend by the US Forestry Commission equal to that of the US military-industrial complex, then we would see Occupy! marches burning effigies of Yogi Bear.

> Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

I think it's down to the military, to be honest (Note: I'm completely biased by my own affiliation with the Navy).

However Coca-Cola may have got their start, they are now a multinational and can't be claimed to have any great allegiance to U.S. interests.

The military is what gives the U.S. the clout to work diplomacy and lead policy amongst the nations. I think the best example of this is the South China Sea which is looking increasingly resource-rich. China has expressed great interest in this region (right up to the borders of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.), and is currently on a crash program to greatly expand the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy).

This is one of the driving reasons that President Obama and the DoD have enacted a "strategic shift" to the Pacific/Asia area because even in areas where the U.S. doesn't have a direct economic interest, the U.S. has indirect economic interests, in keeping natural resources within the effective economic control of their allies.

China has already heavily clamped down on rare earth production as a tool of economic and international political policy, so they've already demonstrated that they are willing to use monopolies on natural resources to their advantage (I'm not saying this to complain; just calling it how it is).

Money has substantial underpinnings in psychology (which is to say its value fluctuates wildly depending on what people think it's worth). And, sometimes you can't simply buy a country off. China is the example now, but for much of the period you discuss the example was the U.S.S.R. The Marshall Plan was successful in helping Europe recover, but the U.S.S.R. didn't allow its satellite nations to participate, and this isn't even going into the U.S. and Allied military efforts that kept the U.S.S.R. from expanding even farther.

When diplomacy fails the last resort for a nation's interests is the military, and the perception that its services are actually available.

I agree with rayiner on this much; Americans on average are very well off compared to much of the rest of the world. I would go further to say that Americans don't understand that their great advantage was never automatic. Not in the past; not in the future.

Now, given that the U.S. military was off doing what it was doing it would be foolish to claim that the follow-on economic effects weren't also important in U.S. hegemony, but I don't think economic factors played the major role.

Since the founding of the nation, the US Navy has played a different role than most imperial navies played. It rarely interferes in the trade between any other two nations, and has focused on international commerce being relatively safe and unfettered.

It's a more productive role, but it also means that American businesses have to be able to compete on their own merits, rather than being able to rely on exclusive access to markets.

Creating the conditions where businesses are free to thrive is a little different than being responsible for their success, though.

>>So it is reasonable to argue that Coke has achieved its position on the back of The American Military, but not reasonable to say it achieved it because of US military action.

it's more reasonable to assume that Coca-Cola made most of its money by creating local factories in developing nations which struggled with getting clean water.

This pushed the use of Coca Cola as a health conscious choice. On top of that, the labor was near free by western standards, the syrup price lock is so low, and the shipping is handled by the natives.

Coca-Cola has also been accused of massive civil liberties violations due to their opportunistic nature in South America.

This is usually too fringe for me to post, but http://killercoke.org/

It's not just Coke, though obviously they're an interesting case that's particularly close to home in e.g. Mexico. But many american companies have gotten contracts to privatize water resources and blatantly break the contracts, sometimes even providing people with worse water than what they were already getting.

However, I don't think any of that would have been possible without the american military, though to say that Coke is so successful because of military action is rather absurd. Yes, it's probably true, but Coke's actions are so far removed from the military action (that happened decades, if not a century, ago) that it's a little dramatic and silly.

> Is the US' international reach down to its military, or its money?

You can't ignore the interrelation of the two. One of the things that made the U.S. rich was our being a superpower allowed us to remodel the world in our image after World War II, making it a market for American goods, and one that operated on American terms. Another was the period of relative peace that we have had over the last 60 years, peace that has been the result of American military hegemony and peace that has allowed international trade and markets to flourish.

If the U.S. had not spent the last 50 years being the dominant military power, do you think it would still be the dominant economy? Money by itself doesn't protect you, it only helps you buy guns. Guns, in turn, let you back every market transaction with the implicit threat of force, and fend of other people who have guns who might find it more convenient to simply take things by force instead of engage in market transactions.

Why is it you do not care about the US consuming that much? Do you not care that 96% of the world only has 75% of the world's resources? Are you really so centered on yourself and your culture you literally want us to exploit the rest of humanity?

I don't think it's unfair, just morally despicable.

The US produces 22% of the world's GDP. There's nothing despicable about consuming what you are producing.

What is despicable is people who think they are entitled to the labor of others for free.

> There's nothing despicable about consuming what you are producing.

I agree, what's despicable is ignoring the rest of humanity. No, there's no entitlement (whatever that means really, a pejorative term for rights), but I do think you have a moral obligation to help people who need it.

I want China and India and Africa to have first-world standards of living, with similar per-capita GDPs. That will be awesome, both for them as well as for the US and Europe.

Yes, standards of living is the big thing, and not just across china, india, and africa. I would be fine with the US's dominance if I though other people in the world could have satisfying lives where they don't have to worry about employment (and the resulting food, shelter, health care). But, we are probably decades from achieving that in even China and India, both of which have a lot to offer the world even now.

Unfortunately, the US also has many inherent resource advantages (pretty amazing farming, for instance), which much of the rest of the world doesn't have. I really don't see at least the arid parts of Africa competing any time soon on material goods, and they don't have the education or cultural draw to attract production of intellectual goods. So at some point, the world does need to help itself out. It's not just going to magically fix itself without people helping each other.

I guess I should make this clear: I'm not advocating some kind of world socialism thing. I'm pretty sure things like classes are inherent in human societies. But I would like to drastically reduce the difference between the poorest and the richest people, and I do want to make sure that the basic things we take for granted in the US are available everywhere.

How much would you pay to save the life of your wife? Your best friend? An acquaintance? A random American? A random Somali?

The further away, in relation, a random human is from myself, the less that person's well-being affects me directly. It is, therefore, entirely rational to care less about their well-being than the well-being of humans closer to me.

The morality of that is neither here nor there--and indeed it strikes me as a very corrupt system of morality that rejects one of the most basic of human instincts.

Well, you're envisioning a world where your "moral" living, if you can get away with than Ayn Randian bullshit, is actively removing the ability of many other people to do the same. By pretty much every moral system, America is a pretty shitty place in a worldwide context. You think Kant, who wrote "Perpetual Peace", or John Stuart Mill, who advocated generating the most amount of happiness globally and said the best pleasures are intellectual (read: what people pirate on the internet), would approve of the way America (and Europe) holds the rest of the world hostage, economically and militarily? And honestly, most people on this site live far, far above what is necessary for a good life, in the sense of good health, food, and stability. It's a little sickening to see people not only ignore the rest of the world but to claim that it's "moral". Go spend a day watching people starve or die of curable sickness and then defend buying that nice car or that new computer. Hell, go into the ghetto and claim that what the upper class does to the lower classes (which is much nicer than what America does to the rest of the world) is moral.

Look, we all want to provide for our loved ones, but to claim that the level of excess we all indulge in is moral is just disgusting. I literally want to vomit at the thought and I'm ashamed to share a citizenship with you—at least I have the grace to admit that I'm a pretty shitty person for not giving back to the world to the extent that I could.

And at least I do SOMETHING (namely, volunteer and give unneeded money to efficient charities) to save the life of someone outside the US, which is more than most people do. I'm pretty sure the view of people suffering in third world countries is economically an entertainment product sold by CNN and christian charities.

How many rural villages in China were polluted from a nearby factory producing components of the computer you used to make this post?

Every single person posting in this thread is guilty of consuming far more resources than a majority of global inhabitants. The time and energy to even have this specific debate is mark of privilege. What's the solution? A global return to agrarian subsistence living?

I get where you are coming from, but I think the battle is already lost. The "haves" have always, intentionally or not, screwed over the "have-nots", and while it varies by degrees based on how little or much you "have", it ultimately comes down to the innate selfish nature of creatures living in a world of scarcity.

Hey, I already admitted I was as guilty as the rest of this country. But how the hell do you avoid products from china? Shit's impossible. I'd much rather make china (and india) rich enough to divorce themselves from the states, it would also help us reduce dependency on people who hate us (for a pretty good reason, I think).

As for a solution? I don't know, I really don't, and I suspect it won't be addressed until it absolutely needs to (overcrowding?). But I don't think that's a valid excuse to GIVE UP and continue to be a blatantly selfish nation. I think that if everyone gave a significant portion of their paycheck to efficient charities, the world would be a much better place. It doesn't even need to be charity, most people just need a little help to bootstrap themselves: http://www.kiva.org/start

> The "haves" have always, intentionally or not, screwed over the "have-nots", and while it varies by degrees based on how little or much you "have", it ultimately comes down to the innate selfish nature of creatures living in a world of scarcity.

I totally agree, I think this is a natural phenomenon in society (if the world natural means anything). However, we can raise the standard of living for everyone, so even the have nots aren't living in hell on earth, and reduce the distance between someone who is broke and someone worth many billion.

I don't know, I wouldn't necessarily want to be associated with this. An hypersonic plane, and CPGS technology in general, looks for the layman like me, more like a tool for a very limited type of extremely hard force projection. Well, maybe it could be used for reconnaissance, at most. But it's not particularly useful for counter-terrorism, since that takes on ground intelligence. It's useless for defense. It's not even a deterrent, you won't go MAD with it; the whole point of CPGS is that a strike with this thing should not guarantee a nuclear or ballistic response, after all.

To put it plainly, this plane is made for intimidation. If the USA is to support its standard of living on it, then it's not worth supporting.

Crazy, first thing I did was google how far it is to Tehran (albiet I'm Iranian). Seems like 30mins from New york at mach 20.

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