can we keep religon out plese? I dont whant peoples religous ideas to be scorned and cause a all out war on this forum, and also stardock would shut it down. Nothing happend yet but since BowandHammer brought religon up, some one is going to dissagre and people are going to get angry! since this is my post I can ask a moderator to erase post that are offensive. Hate to sound threating but I dont whant people to start hating each other because of this.

The Ottaman empire wasn't just composed of turks, the arabs were also a part of it, hell most of ancient Persia was apart of it. And streakingsnake I don't know if they think those people wont lift a finger to do anything, if they thought that then why would they restrict their access to many, many foriegn sites.

besides if america does fall it will be one hell of a collapse, as of yet we have the most suffisticated meidcal technology on the market, which by the way is on of are major exports. Trust me if America goes down, just like any other superpower or semi-superpower (yes thats not really the term but heck)the world will feel it bad. People seem to always look at america as some horrible destroyer, and we really aren't, people from other countries come here, either because they have nowhere else to go or they just want to be free (well more free then they probably are). America will probably never fall as a country in the sense that are ideals will be lost. Hell we may even stay a superpower for a long time...a very long time. It really is hard to say and this is one hell off a topic to be asking since really you can never tell with these things.

Lets put it this way, we may not always be number one, but we will probably always be a super power. And in regards to China, well they certainly could be the new #1 superpower in the coming years but that won't change anything really. China as a nation likes to keep to themselves, hopefully they don't get a trigger happy leader to fire off some nukes or else we all die.

And also satelites aren't the only things we use to guide nukes, so no if they "zap" are satelites we aren't screwed as bad as people are saying on here, and China wouldn't do it so they can threaten us all they want, but for the good of the world lets hope they dont. All we need is another cold war, right.

Anyways bottom line America isn't perfect so shit can happen and we may not be #1 forever. People shouldn't worry about us so much anyways, we are run by the people and are people come from all over the world so you would have a hard time trying to piss us all off.   And while I don't think the Chinese government is trust worthy to a point really, I highly doubt they would do anything crazy so I don't see it as an issue really. And besides what will be interesting to watch out for is the birth of new superpowers, or the awakening of the UK, you mustn't underestimate the Ex-rulers of the world, but then again they would be quite a diffrent superpower then they were back then since they aren't being driven by imperalism any more.

Ah I wonder if it is possible for us to all get along on some level...

I'd be happy if Europe would just share the weight... I don't need the UK to try and play world police, but being able to fully man their aging navy would be a nice start. It's damned inconvenient being the only stable democracy capable of defending itself.

The restrictions are in place to make it difficult to get controversial news. It is easily bypassed by simple proxy servers (I used to do it all the time )but the idea is to make enough of a nuisance to discourage most people to not try look for it. The information eventually gets through but by then everything is over and done with and its not news anymore. People are mostly just too lazy to try look beyond the firewall. I'm not saying that China is free or anything but merely refuting the idea that people get locked up and beaten for posting anti china comments in forums or that forum discussions don't exist. There are certain stupid things like most forum have moderators who are or answer to the government which gives them instruction on what kind of posts to delete or threads shut down, like recently the counter-anti china protests in china against france led to passions running too high for the governments liking, which ordered the shutdown of boycott and rally-related organising threads on the internet. Even so, there were still protesters outside french businesses and the like, but the rest of the state security apparatus took care of that. People are allowed to flame all they like on the internet, but the government only feels it necessary to stop it spilling out into the real world.

Great thing about America is that she doesn't like to lose, so I doubt anyone will be taking the crown. Bad thing is that we have the ability to destroy the world to make sure we don't lose...

Well, I did mean it as a sort-of joke, but it was more geared towards China vs. the US. Even if you look at the EU, they still reserve the right to sensor websites from their people. In America, that doesn't happen.

And that is what it boild down to: Americans are so used to having these freedoms that if they ever get taken away, they are at least going to put up a fight.

Oh, finally, someone who at least agrees with me on some level! This is the basis of my theories: If you tax the wealthy, then there is not incentive to become wealthy. And yes, I completely agree, higher taxes lead to less tax revenue.

Myth perpetuated by Hollywood. Every nuke on earth, set off at the exact same time in as uniform a manner as possible, wouldn't even guarantee the extinction of many animals. We'd be pretty fucked up for a while, high rates of cancer, birth defects, stuff like that, but we'd be just fine in the long run. There'd be a lot less of us obviously, but the world ending cataclysm that wipes out life on earth is pure myth. The nuclear winter that may or may not come about is less of a threat than the last ice age was, note how the world still exists.

LMAO don't be so sure since if the U.S. Stock Market falls so will every other countries Stock Market just like back in 1929. Plus the countries that own the US Dollar will be fucked since they just lost out on millions of dollars they have invested in the US Economy.

Uh, no? Why would it? The basis of a higher-tax for the wealthy would be to maintain a linear curve of income tax, so that while the wealthy stay wealthy they pay more in proportion to their earnings. It's not as if the wealthy will get taxed back into a middle-class bracket, it's that they'll pay more because they earn more.

No he is right! as long as they insist on taxing me if I am rich I am going to make sure I stay poor! I am not going to waste my time getting rich just so that I have to pay taxes on it... I mean afterall as long as I don't get rich I don't have to pay taxes, so I am just going to sit here and waste my time doing nothing ... That will show them!

My god, I think I've beat the system! If I just live in a cardboard box by the freeway, I don't have to pay a thing! :]

oh god I'm happy that I've stopped trying to follow these debates

people just dont realize how common these topics are. people had the same concern 150 years ago, except theirs were far more warranted.

will America stay in front for the long term? nobody can tell. over centuries? obviously not. but for the short term America is still in the seat of power and has a certain keystone economic structure that neither the EU nor china can easily and quickly replicate.

so yes, sometime in the future, but not yet.

Upfront acknowledgements:

1. I am Chinese and live in China. I am naturally going to have a pro-China bias and I'll do my best to come across as objective as I can.

2. English is not my first (or second) language. My apologies if I have used incorrect vernacular or nuance in my text. I hope my underlying meaning is clear. When in doubt, I have used Babelfish and I know that at times, it comes out wrong.

3. I log on to Stardock because I like to play Twilight of the Arnor. I'm not a politics major. I don't lecture in American history or write books on global economics. I'm a gamer who much prefers to be blowing up Thalans than discussing international politics. I don't claim any knowledge beyond that which an ordinary member of the public might have.

There's been a lot of comment in this thread about China. Outside of this forum, there's been a lot of talk about China in recent times, from the Olympics and the torch, to Tibet, to issues of health, pollution, freedom etc.

I'd like to share some points of view from a Chinese living in China - about topics raised in this thread.

1. China is very poor and uneducated. Fair comment. We have 1.3 billion plus people, only 45% of whom speak Mandarin (our national tongue) as a first language. Our literacy rate is low compared to the United States and we all think Harvard is heaven.

However, that's not to say we are an entire country of beer swilling kindergarden pig farmers. If we consider the three major education centers of China, Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an, that's about 50 million people. In these places, we are educated, multi-lingual, increasingly wealthy, literate etc. True, 50 million is a small proportion of 1.3 Billion - but it's still not a small number. Just like any country, we have our 'good' places and our 'not so good places'.

2. China has no freedom. This is a big comment and I'd like to focus on act23456's comment about internet freedom of political speech. Streakingsnake made a comment that our blogs and forums are all filled with political discourse which I'd agree with. I'd go one step further and argue that we are more politically active than might be believed. If I say that Hu JinTao (our President) made a wrong move, will the Chinese secret police come battering down my day in the middle of the night to cut off my testicles?

Respectfully, I submit that the amount of hyperbole given to the 'control' of the Communist Party is rather extreme. We criticise all the time. Who doesn't? Whether it's over corruption, or the delay in providing aid to snow storm stricken places, or the appointment of person X to position Y, we criticise. To Streakingsnake's point about whether we turn e-dissent into 'real' dissent, I'm sorry that I am not clear what that means. Do we storm the streets? No - fair comment. Do we write to our local members of parliament (yes, we do have those), do we sign petititions, do we call in to talkback radio? yes. Do we complain that our voices are not heard? Absolutely. And with respect, is that not what you do in your countries as well?

3. China heavily censors the internet. CNN is blocked, Youtube / Flikr / Google / any big well known internet name being hounded out of the country etc. Again, true to some extent. And even I, with so little computer knowledge that I sometimes need to call technical support to work out how to check my email, know that with a simple change of a few settings in Internet Explorer (I don't know what those settings are called in English - proximates I think it's called)suddenly all those terrible censorships disappear. It's not that hard. We can also listen to BBC, Voice of America etc. on the radio. I can read Le Monde or the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times at the library. Yes, it's a pain. And it's not like we are living in a totally isolated bubble.

4. China is ruled by the Communist Party with an iron fist. Often, the China I read about in the press has Chairman Mao clawing his way out of the ground and spreading tentacles into every living room in China. Our Communist Party is (a) NOT the only party in China and ( heavily factionated - so much so that sometimes we consider needing to have special names for the different factions (Democrat and Republican was at one time suggested as a joke...) Small example, in China, two key issues right now are Health and Technology. We don't want to be seen as the home of SARS and Infant Foot and Mouth. We want to have better computers, trains, military equipment etc. (who doesn't?) The newly appointment Minister for Health and the Minister for Technology are both not Communist Party members. The new leadership of China is increasingly non-Party. Will it ever be totally non-Party? Probably not. But let's also not believe China has been some evil Communist regime since the dawn of time led by men in dark suits having clandestine meetings in smoky rooms. Communism is only about 60 years old here - and I humbly submit that it means something very different to us than it does to people overseas. We have good politicians and bad ones. Most start off good with high ideals and then get disenchanted by the slow progress. Things change too slowly. Yes yes and again yes. But change happens and we are quietly optimistic that tomorrow will be better than today.

China is by no means a perfect country. To use an American phrase, it 'sucks' in many ways. You think we are not worried about pollution, international reputation, corruption etc. as well? We think we are 100% in favour of the death penalty and chant kum-ba-ya praise be to the One Child Policy? Of course we recognise that there are LONG ways to go and MANY things we need to change.

And we are not the the backwater hole of depression, the uneducated cess-pool of sweatshops and the demonic anti-Christ against human rights that we are often portrayed as. We recognise our problems and are doing our best to solve them. We complain. We criticise. We blog.

But we also hope. We believe. We want to change things... step by step for the better. Do we WANT to become a superpower - I don't know. But I do know we have 1/5 of the world's population. 1/5 of the world's problems. And if we can go just a little bit towards solving them, it'd be a very good thing. So... we try.