NationStates Jolt Archive

Last week on Fox News (awwwggh), there was an expert in economics who was on interview. He was talking about petrol, the upcoming petrol crisis, prosperity and the "ultimate goal of America".

I hope this guy has no links to the government, because what he said was chilling.

Basically, he stated that resources on the planet are too tight for us to share; so we shouldn't share the benefits of civilization. He said that "if everybody on the planet became suddenly as rich as the Americans, the resource drain would be so important that all economic systems would collapse, as well as the environment".

He then advocated the use of military operations, in order to
1) Control as much resources as possible, denying them to other countries.
2) Prevent other countries from becoming prosperous, stable or powerful.

He also said that that anyway, this policy is already being used around the world, it's only that now, with the upcoming petrol crisis, we can finally talk about it officially. Quote: "There's nothing wrong in being egoistic, if it's for the future of our children."

This interview was one of the most chilling things I have ever watched. It seems that every single word coming out of this guy's mouth was evil. But at the same time, what he says is probably true. So maybe he's telling the truth about global resources, prosperity or America's goals... and maybe we're just too scared to think clearly about this. But even if it's true, I still consider this whole logic *evil*.

So what do you think. Do you think it would be possible to provide the American level of comfort and prosperity to, say, 6 billion people? Would the planet have enough resources to sustain that? What would happen on the long run?

And: How morally acceptable is it for a country to use its power in order to deny prosperity and stability to other countries?

Last week on Fox News (awwwggh), there was an expert in economics who was on interview. He was talking about petrol, the upcoming petrol crisis, prosperity and the "ultimate goal of America".

I hope this guy has no links to the government, because what he said was chilling.

Basically, he stated that resources on the planet are too tight for us to share; so we shouldn't share the benefits of civilization. He said that "if everybody on the planet became suddenly as rich as the Americans, the resource drain would be so important that all economic systems would collapse, as well as the environment".

He then advocated the use of military operations, in order to
1) Control as much resources as possible, denying them to other countries.
2) Prevent other countries from becoming prosperous, stable or powerful.

He also said that that anyway, this policy is already being used around the world, it's only that now, with the upcoming petrol crisis, we can finally talk about it officially. Quote: "There's nothing wrong in being egoistic, if it's for the futute of our children."

This interview was one of the most chilling things I have ever watched. It seems that every single word coming out of this guy's mouth was evil. But at the same time, what he says is probably true. So maybe he's telling the truth about global resources, prosperity or America's goals... and maybe we're just too scared to think clearly about this. But even if it's true, I still consider this whole logic *evil*.

So what do you think. Do you think it would be possible to provide the American level of comfort and prosperity to, say, 6 billion people? Would the planet have enough resources to sustain that? What would happen on the long run?

And: How morally acceptable is it for a country to use its power in order to deny prosperity and stability to other countries?

I take it your not a fan of Machiavelli's "The Prince"?

I take it your not a fan of Machiavelli's "The Prince"?
It's hard to be a fan of this guy if you're not a citizen of a powerful nation.

It's hard to be a fan of this guy if you're not a citizen of a powerful nation.

He sounds like the Darth Vader of the American right. -.-

So what do you think. Do you think it would be possible to provide the American level of comfort and prosperity to, say, 6 billion people? Would the planet have enough resources to sustain that? What would happen on the long run?

And: How morally acceptable is it for a country to use its power in order to deny prosperity and stability to other countries?

It is impossible to provide the level of American resource consumption to everyone, but not standard of living. Hell, Sweden and Norway have higher standards of living than the US, and they don't suck up a fourth of the world's resources.

No it is not morally acceptable! That is.... the purest form of evil I have ever heard of. Seriously, it doesn't even have a twisted morality behind it... it is just pure, undadulterated selfish greedy behaviour. I would go half naked and starving before I supported a government initiative to steal from others to provide for me. We have no right. Absolutely no right. Heres praying China, Russia and the EU will be able to contain wanton US agression! I for one will leave this nation and actively aid any nation in containing this selfishness, should it come to that.

He makes the mistake of thinking that grabbing all the resources for one country actually benefits that country in the long term. In reality all that does is cause worldwide imbalance, which leads to far more problems than simply sharing equitably would have done.

If everyone is seen to be working together hostilities will be at a minimum. As soon as one nation is seen to be hogging all the resources and screwing over the rest of the world, the energy will shift away from working to solve problems to working to take down the oppressor.

He sounds like the Darth Vader of the American right. -.-
Italian quackery

Well...hes an idiot. There everywhere these days. Im working on an Idiot Neutralizer that vaporizes them when they open their mouthes, or get within 50 feet of a computer, typewriter or pencil.

What's depressing is that in the 1970s, there was a catch phrase:
"The Earth can feed everybody."

Now it's being turned upside down.

Before the Iraqi war, I have read numerous comments from readers, in Canadian newspapers. Some people were saying, basically: "It's OK to kill these people to grab their petrol. I don't care about them. All I care is to be able to drive my car to go to work." While others wrote: "These people are very egoistic because they don't want to share their petrol with us. It's just not right." Hmmm... how about *buying* the petrol?

I think that, as resources will become scarce, we'll hear more and more of this discourse. It might even become official. People are very fond of their level of comfort, of their security, of their lifestyle. In a egoistic person's head, the equation might be "My personal security is worth the death of 100 strangers" or "Having a powerful AC system in my house and 2 recent cars is worth confiscating and plundering somebody else's yard."

So maybe we can consider "security" a resource, which works the same way as petrol, water, fish stocks: something that you want for yourself, and if you feel threatened, you'll first make sure to deny the resource to the others. Just in case.

Well on one hand he does have a point, and on the other hand he is pure EVIL!! Anyway, we do need to make sure that every person gets what they need to live and to be the best person they can(food and education). I mean, I can understand why we would want to oppress the world as ruthless dictators, but ultimately such oppression would come at a cost to overall production and at a cost to the total happiness of the world's people. After all when one person has a problem, it can affect everybody.

From an economics perspective, which is his field, he is perfectly correct. Or he would be if the human race didn't have it's greatest strength, the ability to create and invent.

Last week on tv I saw this goofy looking guy on tv who said "Do the chickens have large talons?

"Last week i saw some guy say" is a pretty sorry way to start a thread
unless it's supposed to be funny.

You've got overactive childish lefty's on here just waiting for the chance to condemn their own country. People on here are pledging support to communists and despots to help stop the evil americans, over hearsay of some unnamed guy saying rediculous things. Give me a break.....

From an economics perspective, which is his field, he is perfectly correct. Or he would be if the human race didn't have it's greatest strength, the ability to create and invent.

The problem is that it then encourages the gradual collapse of ordered governing as it instills the idea that individual advancement at the direct cost of others is acceptable.

Its a little funny really.

If you thump your neighbor over the head with a shovel and steal his car, thats assault and battery (possibly attempted homicde as well) with a side dish of auto theft.

If a nation invades another country for resources, thats looking out for your citizens.

As resources grow more scarce and the pool of priviledged shrink, you get more and more discontent population levels. Eventually, depending on how great the disparity (and ease of arms acquisition), you might see a full scale insurrection as people attempt to do what is commonly called wealth redistribution.

Of course if any nation attempted to sieze the entirety of Earth's resources for its own use, it doesn't differ that much from the rule the world complex. In the case of that, it usually becomes difficult as the remaining nations have a tendency to band together to combat the would be pirate. As it stands, I find it highly unlikely that any single nation has the military capacity to combat the rest of the world entirely on its own. Ultra nationalists may feel free to combat this point.

Quote: "There's nothing wrong in being egoistic, if it's for the future of our children."

Whose children? His? WTF do I care about this guy providing swimming pools and subarus for his brats?

*yawns*

Whose children? His? WTF do I care about this guy providing swimming pools and subarus for his brats?

*yawns*

lol. His choice of words is poor, but he does have a point. The world *would* collapse in on itself if everyone lived at the US standard.

As it is, the US economy itself will probably collapse within the next decade anyway, and it'll stay that way for quite some time.

At our current level of technology we don't have the ability to afford a decent standard of living to six billion people. Which is why I suggest we cut down on the baby-making. We can still enjoy the process without the end product.

Competition for resources will continue to cause strife between various nations. You only have to look at nature to see what happens when the population becomes to large for the resources available.

If everyone had the standard of living America is afforded, then it would require approximately three earths worth of resources to sustain.

You know, this sounds an awful lot like the Yes Men (http://www.theyesmen.org)
I don't know if you've seen the movies, these guys have a website that mirrors that of the WTO, www.gatt.org. Every now and again, somebody mistakes their site for the real one and they get asked to give interviews and presentations on behalf of the WTO. Which they do.
In the movie, they showed a presentation on the idea that slavery would be inefficient today anyway because letting the Africans work in the own country is actually cheaper for companies than really owning them, another one about a concept to recycle human waste and sell it as food in 3rd world countries, etc.
Maybe that was onr of those interviews... does the guy on that page look familiar?

If only gross stupidity and egotisticallness were jailable offenses.

Since we are the biggest, most advanced nation in the WORLD (insert manical laughter or osme shit), we have the right to prevent anyone else from being advanced, stable, or powerful JUST so we can have access to their resources? I have a BETTER idea? We stop being stupid, egotistical, imperialist morons and start making use of what we have to create replacements for the resources we need to confiscate from otehr nations. However, this will NOT happen without a super power taunting the US from afar

The irony is that we could provide a good standard of living for the world if we cut down the waste. The US uses 25% of the worlds resources for 1/24 of it's populace.

The UK doesn't use anything lke that, even in proportion yet we have just as good a stadard of living on the whole. I suspect we have it better n some levels.

A big problem with the American life-style is that it's incredibly wasteful. In Germany, we pay more than twice as much for gasoline as Americans do. This leads to less gasoline being used and a market for cars that use less fuel. There isn't much incentive for American car producers to build cars that save gas, because frankly, not enough people care.
But there's one unhappy example that shows that some standards of living and life-styles can't be the same everywhere: Water. In the former GDR, there's a problem with all the citizens moving to the western states of Germany to find work. Coupled with a general attitude directed to saving water, it's actually making the situation worse. The pipes that the water flows through need to be cleaned more often because the water stagnates and microorganisms flourish. This drives the price up.
The sad thing this means is that saving water in Germany will not allow Kenyans to use more.

The irony is that we could provide a good standard of living for the world if we cut down the waste. The US uses 25% of the worlds resources for 1/24 of it's populace.

The UK doesn't use anything lke that, even in proportion yet we have just as good a stadard of living on the whole. I suspect we have it better n some levels.Yep, a distinct lack of neo-cons for one ;) That guy is insane.

And: How morally acceptable is it for a country to use its power in order to deny prosperity and stability to other countries?
It's not. This guys sounds like an extremist. Americans will probably have to change their excessively consumerist lifestyle. This does not mean a drop in quality of life. It's just about sustainibility.

The guy's acting absurd. The world could easily provide for an American standard of living. It's just that not every country has the technology to exploit their own resources.

It also remembering the "CNN factor" that the poor people or atleast the middleclass in the poor countries get more and more information about the american and european lifestyle. Leading to more and more people can compare there situation with that of the people of USA and EU have, and want the same lifestyle. Then telling them that the american deserve there lifestylde and they don't is not a good idea.

Also comparing the USA and EU is like comparing a guy that going full throttle into a brickwall with a guy that want to brake, but because it's to hard to brake he do a lousy job. Because even if EU try to to do things it is to little ecpecially sens USA don't seemed to want to help out.

Here can you also tell how many earth needed to have your lifestyle, sadly I failed big on it:
http://www.myfootprint.org/

Last week on tv I saw this goofy looking guy on tv who said "Do the chickens have large talons?

"Last week i saw some guy say" is a pretty sorry way to start a thread
unless it's supposed to be funny.

You've got overactive childish lefty's on here just waiting for the chance to condemn their own country. People on here are pledging support to communists and despots to help stop the evil americans, over hearsay of some unnamed guy saying rediculous things. Give me a break.....

You are astute in your observation. Too bad nobody else here keyed in on the obvious faults and claims of the original poster, Sarkasis.

There is no link, no name, no source. The claims are dubious. "If everone were as wealthy' is a silly statement lacking definition. There is no mention of also matching US productivity. There is no mention of how they determined the worlds resources could not meet demand. There is no discussion of renewable energy sources and their impact.

Simply a schitzo-paranoid diatribe which includes all of the liberal hot-buttons;
Fox News, petro, evil, military, planetary resources and American.

Pretty conclusive evidence that many of the liberals here either have no ability to perform critical analysis, or just turn it off when they see their favorite buzz words.

How embarrasing for them.

Simply a schitzo-paranoid diatribe which includes all of the liberal hot-buttons;
Fox News, petro, evil, military, planetary resources and American.

Pretty conclusive evidence that many of the liberals here either have no ability to perform critical analysis, or just turn it off when they see their favorite buzz words.

How embarrasing for them.

To be fair, it happens on both sides of the fence.

As cold as it is, the man is correct in at least one way: there isn't enough resources on Earth to provide a fully Western lifestyle to every person alive. For example, there simply isn't enough steel on the entire planet to provide vehicles at the same ratio as America or Europe to Africa, China and India.

How embarrasing for them.
I'm not embarrassed.

Ahh... the new mercantilism. I wonder how many "supporters" of free trade in the Republicommies consider this sound thinking.

Last week on Fox News (awwwggh), there was an expert in economics who was on interview. He was talking about petrol, the upcoming petrol crisis, prosperity and the "ultimate goal of America".

I hope this guy has no links to the government, because what he said was chilling.

Basically, he stated that resources on the planet are too tight for us to share; so we shouldn't share the benefits of civilization. He said that "if everybody on the planet became suddenly as rich as the Americans, the resource drain would be so important that all economic systems would collapse, as well as the environment".

He then advocated the use of military operations, in order to
1) Control as much resources as possible, denying them to other countries.
2) Prevent other countries from becoming prosperous, stable or powerful.

He also said that that anyway, this policy is already being used around the world, it's only that now, with the upcoming petrol crisis, we can finally talk about it officially. Quote: "There's nothing wrong in being egoistic, if it's for the future of our children."

This interview was one of the most chilling things I have ever watched. It seems that every single word coming out of this guy's mouth was evil. But at the same time, what he says is probably true. So maybe he's telling the truth about global resources, prosperity or America's goals... and maybe we're just too scared to think clearly about this. But even if it's true, I still consider this whole logic *evil*.

So what do you think. Do you think it would be possible to provide the American level of comfort and prosperity to, say, 6 billion people? Would the planet have enough resources to sustain that? What would happen on the long run?

And: How morally acceptable is it for a country to use its power in order to deny prosperity and stability to other countries?

Wait! Who is this guy you mention and why should his point of view be considered? I see the thread is turning anti-American on the basis of "some guy said" something that is patently ridiculous, and what basis for an intelligent conversation is what "some guy" said? And on a news show with a transparent interest in controversial matters.

You could just as well make the argument that the opposite is true, that militaries will be used to force the sharing of resources. Read "The Pentagon's New Map" by Barnett.

Wait! Who is this guy you mention and why should his point of view be considered? I see the thread is turning anti-American on the basis of "some guy said" something that is patently ridiculous, and what basis for an intelligent conversation is what "some guy" said? And on a news show with a transparent interest in controversial matters.

You could just as well make the argument that the opposite is true, that militaries will be used to force the sharing of resources. Read "The Pentagon's New Map" by Barnett.
The fact that the American life-style is more wasteful than any other I can think of is not necessarily anti-American. It also doesn't depend on this guy's opinion (or whether this guy exists).

The fact that the American life-style is more wasteful than any other I can think of is not necessarily anti-American. It also doesn't depend on this guy's opinion (or whether this guy exists).

The topic is not American wastefulness - and wastefulness is relative to productivity and other factors. Get a thread going on that and we can get some statistics on the table, not just opinions.

I have seen so many threads on NS degenerate into senseless anti-Americanism that I have reasonable cause to suspect that this one will as well. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I find it tiresome to have reasonable discussions derailed by people with an agenda. Ok, done with a minor rant.

I disagree completely with everything this Fox report said, and I completely disagree that these statements reflect "the ultimate goal of America". If anything, globalization is in America's and the world's interests.

For developing nations to approach the wealth of America and Europe will require a massive re-allocation of natural and human resources. And a commitment to globalization by all developed nations. Can all countries achive this standard? Who knows - but we do see significant improvements when this occurs, i.e. China.

The topic is not American wastefulness - and wastefulness is relative to productivity and other factors. Get a thread going on that and we can get some statistics on the table, not just opinions.

I have seen so many threads on NS degenerate into senseless anti-Americanism that I have reasonable cause to suspect that this one will as well. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I find it tiresome to have reasonable discussions derailed by people with an agenda. Ok, done with a minor rant.

I disagree completely with everything this Fox report said, and I completely disagree that these statements reflect "the ultimate goal of America". If anything, globalization is in America's and the world's interests.

For developing nations to approach the wealth of America and Europe will require a massive re-allocation of natural and human resources. And a commitment to globalization by all developed nations. Can all countries achive this standard? Who knows - but we do see significant improvements when this occurs, i.e. China.
Good points, but I think the thread is going to slow as that it might someday become an anti-American thread...

It is impossible to provide the level of American resource consumption to everyone, but not standard of living. Hell, Sweden and Norway have higher standards of living than the US, and they don't suck up a fourth of the world's resources.

No it is not morally acceptable! That is.... the purest form of evil I have ever heard of. Seriously, it doesn't even have a twisted morality behind it... it is just pure, undadulterated selfish greedy behaviour. I would go half naked and starving before I supported a government initiative to steal from others to provide for me. We have no right. Absolutely no right. Heres praying China, Russia and the EU will be able to contain wanton US agression! I for one will leave this nation and actively aid any nation in containing this selfishness, should it come to that.

I will personally assist the Muhajadeen if the US invades Iran. And I do not joke.

Laerod - have you read "The Pentagon's new Map", Thomas Barnett? Interesting views on globalization and suggests the opposite of this Fox premise. That military could be used to force globalization and the sharing of resources. Worth a read, regardless of political conviction. Although it may be a bit abstract for a non-US citizen.

OT, I lived and worked in Germany (my mother is German) and I do understand how you can see us as wasteful.

Laerod - have you read "The Pentagon's new Map", Thomas Barnett? Interesting views on globalization and suggests the opposite of this Fox premise. That military could be used to force globalization and the sharing of resources. Worth a read, regardless of political conviction. Although it may be a bit abstract for a non-US citizen.

OT, I lived and worked in Germany (my mother is German) and I do understand how you can see us as wasteful.
Teehee, I'm actually half American. My mom's German too, but my Dad's American. I've just never lived in the States, that's all.

I will personally assist the Muhajadeen if the US invades Iran. And I do not joke.
Your contribution will be duly noted with a Darwin award.