NationStates

Sundiata wrote:How the poor are so mistreated.

Is it the actual treatment, or the underlying belief that poverty is a choice and that poor people are merely "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires" that permeates US society ?

The fact that it doesn't have a biggest threat is in fact the US's biggest threat.

It seems the only thing gets America to stop shooting itself in the foot is to have a bigger greater threat to focus itself on, without that, the country tries to eat itself as all the various competing groups in the country seek to dominate.

Media! The US (and every people) need to realize that the era of media being sold like a physical product, went out with cassette tapes. The problem used to be people overvaluing their artist or news source, because of what they had to pay for it. The only part of that ethos that endures is the false idea that "you get what you pay for". Now that there's so much free media that there's a wide range of choice within it, there's a pernicious idea that it's all equally worthwhile, good, or entertaining for the individual consumer. People so easily follow up some news, with some archive comedy, with some up-to-the-minute forum tomfoolery, then something they barely made a choice of that they saw a link for and were curious about. This collective idiocy is well illustrated by the YouTube recommendations and autoplay. People who liked this video of a famous cello player in a cathedral, also liked the latest episode of the Simpsons. Oh, OK, I guess that's a valid choice then. If other people's reaction to classical art is to get the hell away as soon as it's over, to the first thing that springs into their head as being totally different, then it's OK for me to follow their example.

In short, now that old media has totally lost its once-monopoly power to make viewing or listening choices for the consumer, we're tending to a herd mentality. Other people are interested in X, so I probably should be too. And never mind that you may have strayed into a bubble where the other people are certifiable morons, or interested in whatever initially strikes them as most improbable ... or seem interested in cool Nazi architecture and design, and when you hang around long enough, they start hinting that there's even cooler stuff on on the private server ...

The problem isn't the existence of these people on the internet, it's that they're indistinguishable to the consumer. A like is a like. The false equality of "popular" with "interesting" and induction of young people into cultures they would be appalled by in real life, because on the internet you're allowed to be whoever you want. I really can't see the end of it, until AI's are so flexible, trustworthy, and available that we can all interact with the internet through them. If that sounds like dystopia, well it's not great I admit, but it may become necessary as people get better and better at leading others "by the nose" ie by deciding for them what they like. The internet is already quite dangerous to mental health, and I believe it will only get more so as it further diversifies and attention-getting techniques compete with each other.

Yeah, my answer is the Media. But not the Old Media (newspapers, TV). Media of the future, in "mediums of media" (forgive me) which we can only guess at. Be careful what you give attention to, lest you run with a herd and can't even see where you're headed ... let alone choose.

The Lone Alliance wrote:The fact that it doesn't have a biggest threat is in fact the US's biggest threat.

I used to be able to find a quote from Mikael Gorbachev, but it always was suspect of being apocryphal and I guess it's faded into internet history. But I did find this, very similar bit:

Washington Post 1988 wrote:Georgi Arbatov, the Soviets' leading U.S. expert, once told an interviewer that the Kremlin had a "secret weapon" to use against the United States. "We'll deprive America of its enemy," he said. The Soviets would thus cleverly force Americans to turn their attention inward, toward those internal problems from which they had been distracted by decades of international tension.

The Lone Alliance wrote:The fact that it doesn't have a biggest threat is in fact the US's biggest threat.

It seems the only thing gets America to stop shooting itself in the foot is to have a bigger greater threat to focus itself on, without that, the country tries to eat itself as all the various competing groups in the country seek to dominate.

I’m not so sure about that. I wasn’t alive for it but America didn’t seem more United in the 60’s or 70’s at the height of the Cold War.

Kandorith wrote:None of the above. The largest threat to the USA and it's allies, is the USA itself. We've seen this happening during the past administration more than enough.

As a bystander, I think it is the kind of mentality subtly expressed into this post above, which is going to gradually destroy the united states in the long run.
(but not the only contributing element to it)
The mentality of turning any discussion, any topic, into a: "A team vs B team", where teams A and B are coincidentally always identified with the two main political colors which show up to the elections. It could be called the mentality of the permanent electoral campaign.

Like with just about any other country, itself.

Adamede wrote:

The Lone Alliance wrote:The fact that it doesn't have a biggest threat is in fact the US's biggest threat.

It seems the only thing gets America to stop shooting itself in the foot is to have a bigger greater threat to focus itself on, without that, the country tries to eat itself as all the various competing groups in the country seek to dominate.

I’m not so sure about that. I wasn’t alive for it but America didn’t seem more United in the 60’s or 70’s at the height of the Cold War.

Despite it being the height of the cold war by that point in the war the threat of the Soviets invading the country was almost non-existent, once MAD was in place and the Cold War just became endless proxy wars that ended the threat of Russians roaring across the sea became part of the problem.

Part of the internal war of the 60s and 70s was that one half of the country didn't believe there was an external enemy and that it was all a scam to keep the status quo versus the other half who believed the first half were working for said external enemy.

The Lone Alliance wrote:Despite it being the height of the cold war by that point in the war the threat of the Soviets invading the country was almost non-existent, once MAD was in place and the Cold War just became endless proxy wars that ended the threat of Russians roaring across the sea became part of the problem.

Those Soviets were sneaky. Amphibious invasion by icebreaker? Don't rule it out!

Itself. (And if you really want to be calling a spade a spade, about 70% the Republican Party and the conservative media/religion/news ecosystem, but that would take a while to get into). America, with a slight exception of China, basically has no external threats whatsoever.

America

Washington Resistance Army wrote:Donald Trump.

To be fair, Donald Trump is powerless without the people who put him in power, and I would argue that the craziness he represents was already in the Republican Party well before he switched sides (moderate Republicans used to be terrified of Rush Limbaugh for instance). He just knew how to manipulate it for the votes.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:America.

aMeriCA bAD. What a sheep.

Vex Aternus wrote:

Dumb Ideologies wrote:America.

aMeriCA bAD. What a sheep.

hey! DI is not the sheep here!

That said, the biggest threat to America is indeed itself.

Vex Aternus wrote:

Dumb Ideologies wrote:America.

aMeriCA bAD. What a sheep.

That’s not what they’re saying Einstein.

Vex Aternus wrote:

Dumb Ideologies wrote:America.

aMeriCA bAD. What a sheep.

Well, I dunno about you, but someone's going to have to clean all that straw off this carpet.

Suriyanakhon wrote:

Washington Resistance Army wrote:Donald Trump.

To be fair, Donald Trump is powerless without the people who put him in power, and I would argue that the craziness he represents was already in the Republican Party well before he switched sides (moderate Republicans used to be terrified of Rush Limbaugh for instance). He just knew how to manipulate it for the votes.

That very craziness is a massive threat to America though, and it's not going to go away. They tried to carry out a coup and 50% of the Republican Party membership is OK with that, and they had help from multiple congressmen, so I find it difficult to believe that that one group isn't the biggest threat. It was a long time in the making, deliberately cultivated in many cases by special moneyed interests, and around a third of the country is now devoted to that culture.

Allow me to be the latest person posting in the thread to offer some variant on 'domestic terrorism'.

Last time I checked, none of the poll options had launched a physical assault on the US Capitol in the last two weeks.

The Lone Alliance wrote:

Adamede wrote:I’m not so sure about that. I wasn’t alive for it but America didn’t seem more United in the 60’s or 70’s at the height of the Cold War.

Despite it being the height of the cold war by that point in the war the threat of the Soviets invading the country was almost non-existent, once MAD was in place and the Cold War just became endless proxy wars that ended the threat of Russians roaring across the sea became part of the problem.

Part of the internal war of the 60s and 70s was that one half of the country didn't believe there was an external enemy and that it was all a scam to keep the status quo versus the other half who believed the first half were working for said external enemy.

There was never a serious threat of the Russians roaring across the seas and invading America, same for Japan and Germany. But that’s not what makes a common enemy.

America is the biggest threat to America right now. And by that I mean the political machine making the country harder to reform and more polarized due to "politically convenient" rhetoric as well as selling out to huge corporate interests.

If you're talking externally, though, then it's probably China. But their threat is nothing compared to America against America, so external threats might not need to be our focus.

wheres the America option?

As far as the list is concerned, I’ll say C H Y N A.

Though in truth, in my opinion, it’s socio-political division and rising insurgency over said division.

The rich.

The Alma Mater wrote:Is it the actual treatment, or the underlying belief that poverty is a choice and that poor people are merely "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires" that permeates US society ?

Lets be real, most people in most societies don't truly care about the poor unless they're lower/working class themselves. The middle and upper class people have enough economic mobility to be satisfied with the status quo but not so much for people in poverty. It a real struggle to survive below a certain point.

I'd say it is sort of like in romance. Some people are successful in relations with the opposite sex whilst some people just aren't. Some people just don't have game or can't be bothered to improve enough to become attractive or whatever else that correlates to more success in social contexts. In the same way that some people find it easy to land lucrative jobs or be career successful. Some people in contrast- are just bums or economic losers for whatever reason. Usually it is something inherent to them or circumstantial where they're trapped into a lower status.

People are different from one another. The popular view is that someone either has what it takes or they just don't. What sort of person are you going to be? Well off, average, poor, or somewhere in between? Someone's outcome is perhaps decided by a mix of choices they've made (good or bad) and what their fate/destiny happened to be.

Trump, his followers and qanon believers.