English as a First Language? Don't Learn Another Language Then.

[Dis]

Al Quida? No. Internal downfall. This is just a hunch, but I still think there is a 50/50 chance of this happening.

[Shi Huangdi]

This is extremely basic economics UR. When Demand for an item goes up, both the price of the item and the quantity provided increase.

[DanS]

On a proportional economic basis, the US has been declining in importance since WWII. The UK since before WWI.

However, English is much more important than Chinese will ever be, considering that India is rising as well. They might be 20 years behind China, but in the scheme of things, this sort of timing is unimportant.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Dissident
Al Quida? No. Internal downfall. This is just a hunch, but I still think there is a 50/50 chance of this happening.

Nah. The US is versatile enough, love them or hate them, to adapt to anything that gets thrown at them.

Like look at the whole terrorism thing, they're all over that, and they're doing a good job too... at least when it comes to protecting themselves. And thats all that counts.

The US isn't going to be like Rome and curl up and die because the goths started riding horses.

[Dis]

and by collapse I'm not expecting the country to go away. That will never happen. The U.S. will always be around. But I think we will start to drown in poverty, crime, and boy bands.

And I do think the U.S. is a lot like Rome. It will take hundreds of years for anything to happen though. As of now no one can take us, and no one will. But we will become even more fat, spoiled, and lazy. It will reach a point where we will have no one to fight our wars. The military is already having trouble meeting quotas.

And when this terrorism thing started up these panty waists wanted out of the military claiming they didn't sign up for the military to go to war. . They only joined the military for the money and education opportunities. I think those wussies did get out.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by DanS
On a proportional economic basis, the US has been declining in importance since WWII. The UK since before WWI.

However, English is much more important than Chinese will ever be, considering that India is rising as well. They might be 20 years behind China, but in the scheme of things, this sort of timing is unimportant.

I wouldn't say that. Its just because other countries are gaining a bit of a foothold in the world market place. It doesn't mean the US is declining. And its not like there's a static amount of wealth in the world to be had (where if you have more that means I have less), that kind of thinking is mercantalist and outdated.

The US has, by far, the largest economy in the world. Bar none. Its GDP is 10 larger than China's in fact (although I'm not basing it soley on GDP). Also, this may be slightly off by a place or two, but if you took the state of California and made it a seperate country, it would rank, like, number 3 or 4 as the world's largest economy... and the US would STILL be number 1.

And as for the UK, I bet you in 500 years history books will treat the US and the UK as the same country. It basically is, even now.

[Switch]

I agree with that whole single language thing. Personally, I think it should be a somewhat simplistic language which uses a basic alphabet, such as our Phoenetic alphabet with Arabic numerals, and a language which is both simple and able to convey complexities in detail. German migh be a good choice, as it can be VERY detailed (geschwindigkeitsbegrendzung ), although it's sentence structure is a little rough.

I know. THere is one language with many standards, and used the Phoenetic alphabet/Arabic numerals: Newspeak!
It would at least be perfect for the business world, as it's quite compact and quick (ie, duckspeak).