Can we agree on this? Biggest problem in the world today.

[Sir_Montague]

Personally, I view the U.S. as a few things: a great nation (don't ever get me wrong, I'm patriotic), and a modern day version of the Roman Empire. I do think that it's going to collapse one day and a greater country will take cultural and political power of the world as we know it (if several haven't already). So what do you think? Biggest problem in the world today? Doesn't have to be applicable to just the United States, but I was just wondering what you think will be mankind's downfall first, or a great contributor to it.

Personally, greed is the bane of everyone's existence. People kill because of it, and lives are ruined daily with greed in mind.

 

[ellie91]

Oil or the whole middle east situation

 

[Nomad]

Our downfall? I doubt there will ever be one. Biggest problem? World hunger, I guess. Although we could probably fix it quite easily (remove the price-roof on the world market so there'll be an incentive for people in poor countries to grow their own food, for example. At the moment they lose money by growing food, since it's cheaper to buy it from the world market due to an artificial price roof. Noone wants to buy the local farmers' food either, for the exact same reason. Too expensive. So the solution to that particular problem is removing the price roof and putting the money they used to spend there into funds for local farmers in poor areas. Man, this was a long paranthesis)

Still, in its current state, it's a big problem.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

The biggest problem in the world IS the United States. We arm small nations that would be otherwise be harmless so they can fight proxy wars for us and it turns around to bite us and our allies in the ass, we rape the environment harder than anyone else does, we consume more resources ourselves than any other country in the world despite being nowhere near one of the largest countries, our people are ignorant of cultures external to ours, our leaders care more about winning elections and their own wallets than they do about the well-being of humanity or even the well-being of our own local population, our corporations and mass-media are closely in league with our government in order for each entity to make as big of a profit as they possibly can, our military continues to build bigger and badder weapons and thus we have enough nuclear firepower to kill every human being alive over 300 times, and all the while our citizenry sits idly by and lets it happen.

If all of that does not make a country a threat to global security and stability then I don't know what does.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Is it a modern day Roman Empire? I'd disagree with that.

As would I.

 

[Nomad]

The biggest problem in the world IS the United States.

Oh, yeah, and that. For a multitude of reasons.

 

[Gladion]

The biggest problem in the world IS the United States. We arm small nations that would be otherwise be harmless so they can fight proxy wars for us and it turns around to bite us and our allies in the ass, we rape the environment harder than anyone else does, we consume more resources ourselves than any other country in the world despite being nowhere near one of the largest countries, our people are ignorant of cultures external to ours, our leaders care more about winning elections and their own wallets than they do about the well-being of humanity or even the well-being of our own local population, our corporations and mass-media are closely in league with our government in order for each entity to make as big of a profit as they possibly can, and all the while our citizenry sits idly by and lets it happen.

If all of that does not make a country a threat to global security and stability then I don't know what does.

Honest words from a frustrated citizen, but I have to say that many of the aspects you name (corrupt politicians and media) also apply on many other countries, like for example most, if not all, of them. African dictatorships, Russia, Europe (oh, don't get me started on my homecountry ) and, of course, the far east. The only exception I know seem to be Luxembourg and Switzerland - but that might just be an impression because you don't hear any bad news from there.

 

[Sockerbit]

The biggest problem in the world IS the United States.

Oh, yeah, and that. For a multitude of reasons.

Not that's it's the only problem. The world wouldn't just magically get better if the issues involving the US were to magically solve themselves. Let's keep this in the realm of realism.

 

[Spudgun Man]

Is it a modern day Roman Empire? I'd disagree with that.

As would I.

I also agree, at least the roman empire were competent.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

Honest words from a frustrated citizen, but I have to say that many of the aspects you name (corrupt politicians and media) also apply on many other countries, like for example most, if not all, of them. African dictatorships, Russia, Europe (oh, don't get me started on my homecountry ) and, of course, the far east. The only exception I know seem to be Luxembourg and Switzerland - but that might just be an impression because you don't hear any bad news from there.

You are absolutely correct; all governments are guilty, all governments are liars and murderers, but the United States government is one of the broadest-reaching and most powerful in the world, thus its corruption is the greatest threat to us all.

 

[Sewblon]

The biggest problem in the world is that humans are intrinsically evil. The biggest political problem is the ability of national governments to print money and impose taxes with impunity because those 2 things are financing the corrupt welfare states and bureaucracies.

The biggest problem in the world IS the United States. We arm small nations that would be otherwise be harmless so they can fight proxy wars for us and it turns around to bite us and our allies in the ass, we rape the environment harder than anyone else does, we consume more resources ourselves than any other country in the world despite being nowhere near one of the largest countries, our people are ignorant of cultures external to ours, our leaders care more about winning elections and their own wallets than they do about the well-being of humanity or even the well-being of our own local population, our corporations and mass-media are closely in league with our government in order for each entity to make as big of a profit as they possibly can, and all the while our citizenry sits idly by and lets it happen.

If all of that does not make a country a threat to global security and stability then I don't know what does.

The United States is the main source of global stability at the moment. If it vanished over night it would leave a trade and power vacuum. Countries such as China and Japan would lose their biggest trading partner and would have to resort to imperialistic expansion to maintain their economies.

 

[Holy_Handgrenade]

Getting this chewing gum off the bottom of my shoe.

 

[WrongSprite]

Is it a modern day Roman Empire? I'd disagree with that.

As would I.

I also agree, at least the roman empire were competent.

yeah, the romans did some good aswell.

 

[Jamash]

Is it a modern day Roman Empire? I'd disagree with that.

As would I.

Me too, ha ha what a joke.

Ruling your own country doesn't constitute an Empire...

 

[GonzoGamer]

Energy.
Energy is about to go through the same sort of renaissance computers just went through. In 10 years, we're going to be acquiring energy from completely different methods than we do now. That is of course unless the current powerful energy concerns continue to force us into the dying infrastructure they're so proud of but they can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

I'm putting my investments into solar and fuel cell tech. Those are the ones that are most likely to grow quickly because of their neutral or negative carbon footprint and potential value.

 

[Signa]

I also see greed as THE problem with the world today. There aren't many issues you can find that don't have greed as the root of the problem. World hunger was mentioned above, and that exists because of greed. Wars over land and political status is because of greed. Why can't people be happy with having enough for themselves?

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

The biggest problem in the world is that humans are intrinsically evil. The biggest political problem is the ability of national governments to print money and impose taxes with impunity because those 2 things are financing the corrupt welfare states and bureaucracies.

The United States is the main source of global stability at the moment. If it vanished over night it would leave a trade and power vacuum. Countries such as China and Japan would lose their biggest trading partner and would have to resort to imperialistic expansion to maintain their economies.

Humans are not intrinsically evil, just intrinsically stupid, and with stupidity comes an inability to find peaceful solutions to problems. That's why there's so much death and theft and violence in the world, because people are too stupid to solve their troubles through cooperation rather than conflict. We are not hard-coded to be violent, it's just an irrational and obvious conclusion that people come to when they do not think straight, or more often just don't think.

I agree with you on money and politics; the majority of American money doesn't even exist and our money is only created as debt. It has "value" as a currency because the Federal Reserve says that it does, and that's pretty much the only reason. There's nothing of actual value backing even the relatively small amount of money that actually exists as physical cash.

The United States may provide stability in terms of trade, but our other actions will cause any number of different forms of national or global destabilization if we don't change them soon. And we probably won't...