Poll of the Day > How do you feel about China and Germany being the next global powers?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Germany has been an economy beast for ages, but it is presently having success developing clean energy technology that replicates how the sun works, iirc. They managed to sustain the reaction for a brief moment in time, which means they got it to work and the science just needs further development. Goodbye, pollution (in several decades). China is less subtle in its strong new environmental focus and ever-growing economic might and tends to be on everyone's minds, they'll take the top spot, obviously.

What got me thinking about this was a 20-part slideshow I saw regarding major infrastructure projects, and the only American one on the list was being paid for by Google (something to do with "smart cities" and internet infrastructure). Even fucking Iraq had one on the list, and it still has ISIS there causing trouble... and it is a bigger, better project. It's a skyscraper that'll be about 3800 feet tall and power itself entirely with a "veil" of solar panels on its side.
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America isn't done, but Germany being a global power is a good thing imo not so much China with their blatant human rights violations, they are an enemy of anything good
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Fuck the US. I hope what's left living is eaten by indifferent maggots anyway, our war machines and pretentious political ecosystems filled with fuckwads who are nothing but always right.

Muscles posted...

America isn't done, but Germany being a global power is a good thing imo not so much China with their blatant human rights violations, they are an enemy of anything good

Who cares about human rights violations?

*see also: Israel
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Lokarin posted...

Who cares about human rights violations?

The humans getting violated.
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I doubt my life will change much within my lifetime.
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Kungfu Kenobi posted...

Lokarin posted...

Who cares about human rights violations?

The humans getting violated.

Don't ignore the second part of my post. Israel has one of the highest human rights violations in the world and it's just ignored cuz Blanket of the Sleeping Giant
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Lokarin posted...

Kungfu Kenobi posted...

Lokarin posted...

Who cares about human rights violations?

The humans getting violated.

Don't ignore the second part of my post. Israel has one of the highest human rights violations in the world and it's just ignored cuz Blanket of the Sleeping Giant

Same with Saudi Arabia. They'll like cut a woman's head off because she was sexually assaulted...
*does stupid thing with finger moving up and down over lips repeatedly while blowing like in Looney Tunes*
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Nation States won't exist in 50 years. All hail the new global corporatocracy!

Germany will never individually be a superpower. It will unquestionably lead the EU until France gets gets it shit together enough to be desirous of more international leadership and/or the UK comes crawling back but it will never be a superpower.

China will be a nightmare for everyone. I have qualified reservations about China's capacity for international leadership and reasonable goal setting but nothing that would preclude them from ever making sense as a massive power. I'm just horrified at what having those gaping assholes in charge of the entire Asian continent would mean. Hong Kong and Taiwan will be the first regions to get annihilated and assimilated into the borg; Japan will get the Emperor Valerian treatment (among other things the Persian king used him as a living footstool); Korea will surge in every negative direction possible to please China and become a shit hole in the process.

I gotta wonder though, with some countries having so much economical strength and pull over other countries, will future wars more than likely be fought with money more so than soldiers or weapons? Short of some major incident I cannot imagine the United States going to war with any first world country without other countries or allies possibly questioning supporting us if their own economy is tied to the country we're going to war with.
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Germany's economic position is largely due to the Euro. If the Euro were solely a German currency, it would have risen much more in value as Germany became wealthier, but since it's a currency shared w/ all of Europe, the economically weak countries like Greece and Spain...most of southern Europe, really... help to deflate it back down a fair bit. By having a "cheaper" currency, it gives Germany a trade advantage on the price of their exports that they really should not have. Meanwhile, Euros are too expensive for the impoverished European nations to afford much of them and their economies go into a death spiral because of it, with the added kicker that they can't use methods such as printing more money to deflate the value of their currency and make their exports cheaper, since the central bank (ie, Germany, they pretty much control that shit now) would have to agree to it.
TL;DR: Germany's economic boom is literally built upon the suffering, joblessness, and starvation of its own neighbors.
Hopefully that won't go on for much longer and things will re-balance.

China is an awful human rights violator and also manipulate their currency (but not to the extent Germany effectively does, yet only China gets called out on it), but even without any trickery, they're the most populous nation on earth and rich in natural resources. Barring revolt or civil war, they're pretty much certain to become the top world power eventually.
Pretty mixed feelings on that. U.S. obviously can't be the most powerful country forever and China's ascendance is inevitable and pretty pointless to fight against. But it would be nice if along the way they treated their own people better...

I love Germany
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I expect Japan to keep on powering forward while America goes in to entropy from trying to latch on to post-war economics while China dies from literally culling its own people.
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Zelda64 posted...

I love Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKx3JlTnHbc
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I highly doubt it could be much worse than when Germany and Japan were major world powers...
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At this point, I doubt they could screw things up worse than the United States has.
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gguirao posted...

At this point, I doubt they could screw things up worse than the United States has.

Well, for starters, they don't topple foreign nations because of their oil or their desire to start a gold-backed currency to trade said oil on instead of the US dollar.
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They already are global powers. Maybe you never took a history class, but Germany was a major world power even before it took over a large chunk of the world during WWII and China has long been a power as well. Granted, China is a second-world nation and that's not changing any time soon, but even when it was a monarchy it was still a world power.

However, America is still the strongest nation on the planet and that won't change within the next few lifetimes unless some countries decide to beef up their militaries, become capable of running enormous trade deficits, etc.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

China is less subtle in its strong new environmental focus and ever-growing economic might and tends to be on everyone's minds, they'll take the top spot, obviously.

lolwut? China's cities are so polluted it's difficult to breathe and that won't change any time soon. The only time they "clean up" is during official visits, etc, when factories shut down.

TheCyborgNinja posted...

What got me thinking about this was a 20-part slideshow I saw regarding major infrastructure projects, and the only American one on the list was being paid for by Google (something to do with "smart cities" and internet infrastructure). Even fucking Iraq had one on the list, and it still has ISIS there causing trouble... and it is a bigger, better project. It's a skyscraper that'll be about 3800 feet tall and power itself entirely with a "veil" of solar panels on its side.

New infrastructure projects have nothing to do with world powers. Need proof? Look at the fact Iraq has one.
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Muscles posted...

America isn't done, but Germany being a global power is a good thing imo not so much China with their blatant human rights violations, they are an enemy of anything good

While I agree with China not being a good world power, the US is worse than them when it comes to global politics. China isn't warmongering like the US is.
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I dunno

Will it affect me?
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