Which fading empire is more fucked, USA or UK

most global democracy hinges on the idea that everybody is good people and will respect norms and that is why it fails

not in comparison to the US though. electoral college and the whole "try and stop black people voting whenever possible" aspect is just unbelievable

we also just had a sitting President attempt a self-coup

the empire is not finished, it's a collaborative project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Justice_(Diego_Garcia)

yes, one sign of the fuckedness of the UK is that calling it "an empire" is largely perceived as a pity-compliment for a once-proud nation fallen on hard times. Not sure that's worse than the US's steadfast commitment to denying the blatantly obvious, mind

on that note, while the US might be fading on multiple fronts, I don't think its imperialism is one of them

Wait, isn't the US part of the UK's faded empire?

Wooooooaaahh

I seem to remember....a before times. We weren't America. we were...something....smaller, I think? clothes were different, colors were different. different people to give us instructions. an angry mob throwing product off of a boat.

guns and stabwounds and blood. and it goes black and then it was like different people.

but it's faint and i don't recall anybody know what that's about

believe you are recalling the KISS Cruise (AKA the KISS Kruise)

'Has it worse' as an empire or as a country to live in? As countries to live in, these two remain some of the best countries in the world to live in, by quite some distance.

UK still has plenty of empire-like elements and influence, if only through its multiples international corporations like BP, Rio Tinto and finance giants.

Yes, we need to remind ourselves that literally hundreds of thousands of people are trying to relocate to these miserable faded empires.

Wait, isn't the US part of the UK's faded empire?

― Andy the Grasshopper,

no, in the US there was a patriotic revolt in the late 1700s that was all about Taxed Enough Already and partying. and by 1833, when slavery was banned in most of the british empire, that was the final straw for the United States. like, no way would the US re-join the british empire after that

i mean yes, but as far as rich first-world countires go these are not among the most desirable to live in imo

best way to reunite UK and US would be to have a big meetup at a gas station. then everyone who is a true United Empire citizen just stands there talking and breathing in fumes, talking about gas vs petrol and that kind of stuff, lifts, elevators, and gettin reel dum dum together again

the phasing out of lead in gasoline, as well, led to further distance between the empires. we need to put more lead back in our blood so we can connect with the earth and our fellow man

eating dirt, as well. whatever happened to that? this empire of dirt? what dirt?

Nardwuar has a song about our 'Revolutionary War' was really more of a civil war between loyalists and those who wanted unilateral independence

we're all wearing the crown of shit

"...best way to reunite UK and US..."

We can't even reunify the Dakotas

feels like a Star Wars movie could be our only hope

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

As countries to live in, these two remain some of the best countries in the world to live in, by quite some distance.

Ive no idea what this is saying tbh

neither does he tbf

Maybe he noticed there's not so many death squads here in the USA now that the KKK has eased off on that strategy. That seems to be a highly attractive feature to many Central Americans right now.

really great point

The US and UK immiserated large portions of the rest of the globe as a branding exercise?

the us is a wonderful place to live if you have some capital and you're a capitalist. if those things aren't true, not so much.

it is almost as if whether or not any country is a good place for you is completely dependent on your class and ethnicity.

nothing is more smooth-brained than western exceptionalism / nationalism.

Immigrants seeking better standards of living are smooth brained now. Gotcha.

there are 5 countries with a higher median income (measure of income that is not affected by inequality) than the usa: luxembourg denmark norway australia sweden. combined population about 47 million, about 0.6% of the world population. there are 53 countries with a higher gini index than the unites states. five large ones brazil turkey mexico philipinnes and south africa have a combined population of around 600 million, about 8.5% percent of the world population

don't live in either but the uk seems more fucked, it's maybe starting from a slightly better place but things seem to be so much bleaker there with absolutely no chance at anything improving ever, even in comparison to the usa

if i had to choose one of the two to live in i'd absolutely choose the usa at this point but being trans certainly makes the decision much easier there

Immigrants go to the US and UK because those two countries reap the rewards for fucking up most of the globe, this isn't difficult guys.

But as others have stated this trickles down to the average citizen less than you'd think and most of Europe has better overall quality of life than either imo.

(and yes most of those European countries are also reaping the aforementioned rewards but the anglos are MVPs on this)

Is there a measure of general happiness that isnt gini or median income

I dont see too many happy US or UK ppl tbh so i don't think they work as measures

The happy ones don't post here

There’s the quality of life index & the happiness report xp

there are 18 countries with a 2021 world happiness index above the united states. in descending order finland denmark switzerland iceland netherlands norway sweden luxembourg new zealand austria australia israel germany canada ireland costa rica uk and czech republic. combined population around 310 million, about 4% of the world population. the number of people in the world who live in countries with higher happiness indexes than the us is smaller by about 20m than the population of the us itself. the other 92% of the population of the world live in countries with lower happiness index than the us

there are 14 countries with higher 2021 quality of life index than the usa. switzerland denmark netherlands finland austria australia iceland germany new zealand norway estonia oman sweden and slovenia. combined population 183 million, 2.4% of the world population

there are 53 countries with a higher gini index than the unites states. five large ones brazil turkey mexico philipinnes and south africa have a combined population of around 600 million, about 8.5% percent of the world population

― flopson, Sunday, June 27, 2021 2:24 AM (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you update these numbers: about 1.5 billion people (around 20% of the population of the world) live in countries with a higher gini index than the usa

all the countries with higher gini than the us also had lower median income. so to the extent that there is a trade off between living in a less unequal country and living in a richer one (i.e., it's better to live in a poorer country if it is more equal) for 1/5th of the world, they are both poorer and more unequal than the us

ty 4 yr service itt flopson

all the countries with higher gini than the us also had lower median income. so to the extent that there is a trade off between living in a less unequal country and living in a richer one (i.e., it's better to live in a poorer country if it is more equal) for 1/5th of the world, they are both poorer and more unequal than the us

― flopson, Sunday, June 27, 2021 3:18 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's possible to go a little bit further than this with the numbers i gave

0% of the world is richer and more unequal than the us

0.6% of the world is both more equal and has a higher median income than the us

79.4% of the world is less unequal and has a lower median income than the us

https://i.ibb.co/g4BTLjx/Screen-Shot-2021-06-27-at-12-47-49-PM.png

this chart has mean not median income so it's more sensitive to inequality, but basically this is saying that if you drew a vertical and horizontal line at the us, there are 0 countries in the top right quadrant, 0.6% percent of the world live in the bottom right quadrant, 80% of the world live in the bottom left quadrant, and 20% live in the top left.

Is real GDP per capita a passable way for a median or above income USAmerican to estimate the standard of living for someone in say Poland or Japan who makes less money than they do?

Optimism index now pls

thank you, flopson. wikipedia has something called "Gini after taxes". Is that a worse metric? It seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure.

Sometimes a nation can be truly fucked up and yet contain many happy people who have not yet realized how bad their lives are.

The fools

Is real GDP per capita a passable way for a median or above income USAmerican to estimate the standard of living for someone in say Poland or Japan who makes less money than they do?

― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Sunday, June 27, 2021 4:16 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

imho it's good for broad comparisons

for all its faults, gdp per capita is highly positively correlated with its alternatives (happiness, quality of life, life satisfaction)

it's easy to calculate since it only relies on 2 numbers: an estimate of output and an estimate of population. compared to something like median household income, which requires a survey, and where it can be hard to get comparable estimates.

the happiness surveys are actually quite good in terms of comparability since they have been doing them consistently everywhere for years. one problem there is more interpretability, since the data is inherently non-quantitative, so different transformations of the same ordering can give different results

thank you, flopson. wikipedia has something called "Gini after taxes". Is that a worse metric? It seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure.

― butyrate humbucker bobbins (Sufjan Grafton), Sunday, June 27, 2021 4:36 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm not a huge fan of gini index (one issue is it's not very good at capturing the tails of inequality--the extremely rich or extreme poor--since it puts the most weight on the middle of the income distribution) but if you're going to use it it makes sense to use post-taxes data. gini is convenient because people have calculated it for lots of countries in the world. most new inequality research is focused on things like 90-10 percentile ratio, top 1% share, top 0.1% share. but it's still a work in progress to get those for many countries

Oh I know. My absurdist quip was meant to suggest that democracy is in peril in the US and although it's unlikely for us to outright stop existing, who knows what we'll look like in ten years.

I'm already terrified of 2022 and 2024 election results being upended

Two of the four countries of the UK already have goverments that are entirely or partly led by political parties whose goal is the dismantling of the UK, we just need Plaid Cymru to get their fingers out and complete the set.

I could see various autonomous regions springing up. NY/NJ/CT could easily secede, though PA would probably want in and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Let the Confederacy realign, as long as they sign non-aggression pacts with everybody else. All the Western states destined to eventually burn/drought themselves to death could become one big desert empire, except California which I'm sure wants no part of that bullshit. The biggest conflicts would likely come between, like, Vermont and New Hampshire or Minnesota and Wisconsin.

That's all fantasy though, I'm talking reality here.

Two of the four countries of the UK already have goverments that are entirely or partly led by political parties whose goal is the dismantling of the UK, we just need Plaid Cymru to get their fingers out and complete the set.

― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Monday, 28 June 2021 17:14 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Three

A de jure breakup of the USA is much less plausible to me than a de facto diminution of federal power as passing legislation becomes impossible and governing by executive order and continuing resolution ossifies into the only means of doing business. Some Supreme Court ruling or other will lead to a nullification crisis of some kind, west coast and Acela corridor states will enter into miscellaneous intergovernmental agreements, federal tax revenues will decline precipitously, that sort of thing

The military (and nuclear arsenal) make an actual dissolution of the US almost unthinkable barring nigh end of the world global catastrophe. Fort Hood has 50k troops, only a sliver of which at any given time are from Texas.

A federalism where the only real federal superstructure is the military and intelligence community... now that's possible.

https://www.axios.com/gop-megadonor-south-dakota-troops-border-21881b13-f0d8-461f-a7af-fe6288b5bcbd.html

A Tennessee billionaire and high-dollar Republican donor is funding the deployment of South Dakota National Guard troops to the U.S. Mexico border.

The UK a fading empire? What year is this, 1956?

this was stupid, yes.

eh fading can take a long time. When I become a Canadian citizen, I have to swear loyalty to the queen. Plus there's this whole thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories#Current_overseas_territories

xpost

The deployment of the National Guard from SD is insane, it sets a worrying precedent. I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where Republican-led states use National Guard to amplify conflict, and it could draw in elements of the militia movement etc.

My issue with most analysis setting out scenarios of US breakup is that they treat the South as one distinct political unit but that’s simply not the case now. The political divisions in the country now are much more along urban-rural lines than along the big geographical divides of the 19th century. Alabama now has more in common with South Dakota than with Virginia, politically speaking.

I’m not sure how whether this really makes breakup of the US less likely, but it does seem plausible that nominally Red states like Georgia will have to focus on repressing internal dissent.

A federalism where the only real federal superstructure is the military and intelligence community... now that's possible.

Sort of the Grover Norquist ideal, right? To the extent there is a coherent Republican strategy right now (and I'm not saying it's very coherent), I think that's it. Seize more-or-less unshakable control of the federal govt, and then strip it down, dismantle the regulatory state, theoretically leave things like environmental regulation up to the states, but then of course use federal leverage to penalize California/NY/anyone who steps out of line.

It is definitely among the possible scenarios.

That’s not unlikely, but basically lose-lose for California in particular considering climate change is one of the main points of contention, CA is getting some of the worst effects of it, CA also pays more than its share of taxes, and the US military has been (and maybe still is) the single organization with the largest carbon footprint.

this was stupid, yes.

o rly

https://i.imgur.com/93Ltr2V.jpg