You really don't want to go there. Your continent invented that type of capitalism.

The single greatest thing the US has done in the last 100 years is be a country that no other country could or will ever replicate or live up to.

As I've said before, I think Canada is the "new" US in that they're the next country to grow and become powerful like us and have a lot of the good aspects of our country. However no country, not even Canada, will ever have the amount of amazing, genuine cultural movements and other things because all of that came out of struggle and out of all of the problems that we as a country have had. No other country could've produced Rock n Roll or Jazz or R&B because no other country had the combination of factors that have created so many amazing cultural movements in the US, and no other country ever will. Countries will hopefully learn from our mistakes and from our flaws and thus those factors won't be created or come together like that.

That, is the true marvel of the US.

 

The highlighted sentence begs a question......When will the US themselves learn from their own mistakes and flaws.

 

That's impossible. I also don't think you understand what I'm talking about by mistakes and flaws.

When will European countries learn from their mistakes or their flaws?

They won't, because we did. It's always the next in line that learns from the previous examples.

 

Given that unbelievable developments in science, mathematics, art, and music that came from what is now the Middle East (and were subsequently lost in the twin fires of colonialism and religious strife) could it be said that the Middle East got there first? A truly cosmopolitan society; the heart of east/west trading links; rich in knowledge and innovation; technologically advanced both in engineering and production; cradle of the oldest writing system in the world, the cuneiform...

It's mind-boggling what was going on there. In a way, I feel that it makes the cultural melting-pot of the US look small. That's not to denigrate the achievements of the US in the slightest; after all, NASA is probably the most profitable organisation in terms of ROI and applications of technology the world has ever seen. It is a company, after all, that virtually has to design all-new pens just to be able to write down whatever the hell it's all-new idea really is!

I think the most important thing that a country really needs to be great - socially, economically, militarily, and from a humanitarian perspective - is space. Space for people to move about. Space for people to get lost in, to contemplate in. Space for people to re-appreciate the world they live in, the solidity of its rock and the etchings of the wind. The Middle East has that in spades - and so does the US.

Is it a coincidence that both areas have produced such great travellers, thinkers, writers, artists, musicians and so on? Who knows.

 

The Middle East has come up with some majorly important and impressive things but not the things the US has. The US is the melting pot of the world and has been since its inception. It is the melting pot of everything, not just people. That's why in reality you can't even give the credit to the US because it was the coming together of all of that that created and caused all of the great things to come out of the US that weren't done as a country.

Actually, giving the credit to the Middle East is discounting that it was the entire ancient world that came up with many of these things, and it was the entire ancient world that was lost in colonialism and religious strife.

 

In its time, the Middle East was the melting pot of the known world. There, the cultural influences of the West met the cultural influences of the East. In its heyday, it was, quite simply, the crossroads of the world. Anyone who wanted to go from one side to the other had to pass through it. It doesn't get much more diverse than that.

And while they certainly kept the light of knowledge burning after the Classical civilisations crumbled under the weight of their own corruption (and a healthy dose of barbarian hordes) they also used that light to ignite much, much more. Not only that, but until the first Crusades, the three dominant religions lived in harmony - for example, in Moorish Spain, Jews and Christians are noted as holding high public offices. Religious tolerance like that, between those three faiths, hasn't been seen since - anywhere.

 

It wasn't just the Middle East though. Greece isn't a part of the Middle East, or Rome, or any of those places yet it was a very important part of that area of the world.

Nowhere else has ever been made up of as many different cultures and ethnic groups as the US is at its base and only Canada ever could be in the future. E Pluribus Unum. Out of Many, One.

In the US, Italian-American is a separate culture, African-American, Irish-American, etc. A neighborhood can create and sustain a culture that travels the world and produces things like jazz, hip hop, big band swing, etc etc.

It is both the US's good aspects and greatness and its flaws and mistakes that produced all of that. That is why there could never be a country like the US, and never has been before.

 

I'm not really talking about Greece and Rome; the time period I'm referring to come at the tail-end of their dominance and in the centuries thereafter.

Do you think America is the only country to have cultural subsets? Do you really think it's the only country that produced many very disparate artforms and managed to export them to the point where they became defining features of 'America'?

The odd thing is that on this side of the pond, no-one much cares for American music. In Britain, hip-hop has been fused with other things to become grime. Dub became dub step; like grime, this comes from London. The French are seen as the people who perfected synth-pop (Daft punk); the British synth prog (Sheffield scene) and the Germans synth experimental (Neu!, Can, Faust, etc).

In Europe, the British invented Heavy Metal.

The point is: any country with a racially diverse population has two things: racially-aggregated communities, and a fluidity between them that engenders innovation. I'm not trying to imply that Britain's got anywhere like the ability to put out the same kind of volume as the US - this isn't about the UK/US comparison.

To be short: I think it's arrogant to claim that the US is a country that no other country could ever hope to live up to or to replicate when there is no hard and fast way of measuring cultural impact. For all you (or I) know, the cultural impact of the east/west trade avenues could have been far greater than, say, Philly Cheese Steak or Tupac.

It's an argument that doesn't really have an end because it's impossible to quantify 'greatness' in any universally meaningful sense. Perhaps all one can ever say is that its greatest achievement was that it prospered - and not only prospered, but became an ideological homeland for millions.

If that's not success, I don't know what is.

 

Even so, you can't talk about that area without mentioning Greece or Rome.

To this level, without a doubt the US is the only country to have subsets. I don't think you'll ever understand it unless you live here. Even on a local level. The perfect example of this is New York. When I think of New York's "race", I think of a blend of Italian-American and other "white" ethnicities, Hispanic, all kinds of Asian and African, and just every ethnic group under the sun, and it all blends together into one race: New Yorker. Yes, we all know that there's historically been segregation in neighborhoods there but even so, the point is that no other city in the world will ever have that. Definitely not Europe, because no place in Europe is not heavily influenced by the European heritage of that country.

Nobody much cares for American music? The majority of your current music wouldn't exist without American music!

By the way, things like dubstep came about because of disco, which came about from African American and urban culture in the late 60s/early 70s.

 

This is true, in a sense. John Logie Baird is largely credited as the inventor of electromechanical television. This system had a lot of limitations and couldn't transmit a very clear image. It was eventually replaced by electronic television, the system we still use today, which was pioneered by Philo Farnsworth, an American.

As for my list, a lot of what I would put has been said already, so I'll just add a few.

- Modern air conditioning. I absolutely hate the heat, and thanks to Willis Carrier, it is much more bearable for me.

- Nuclear technology. Yes, we invented the bomb which is capable of decimating entire countries, but the development of those lead to advances in nuclear power as well as applications in medicine.

- The internet. I'm not talking about the world wide web, which was invented by a Swiss guy, but the simple linking of two computers in California. ARPANET was the first system to use packet switching, which is the foundation for all data sharing that allowed things like the WWW to be developed.

- Surveillance and stealth technology. Inventions such as the U2 spy plane, SR-71 Blackbird, and stealth bomber and fighter greatly improved the military's reconnaissance and strike capabilities.

 

LOL
Everything was invented by a Scot.
Or a Russian :excited:

 

Come on we all know you want to add slavery to your list.

 

Slavery was ended in the US over 140 years ago and the US didn't invent slavery.

You live a pretty sheltered life, don't you?

 

Actualy, many of the modern convieniences that you enjoy today came from the space program.

From NASA's website

"The areas in which NASA-developed technologies benefit society can broadly be defined as: health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, environmental and agricultural resources, computer technology and industrial productivity.

1978: Teflon-coated fiberglass developed in the 1970s as a new fabric for astronaut spacesuits has been used as a permanent roofing material for buildings and stadiums worldwide. (By the way, contrary to urban myth, NASA did not invent Teflon.)

1982: Astronauts working on the lunar surface wore liquid-cooled garments under their space suits to protect them from temperatures approaching 250 degrees Fahrenheit. These garments, further developed and refined by NASA’s Johnson Space Center, are among the agency’s most widely used spinoffs, with adaptations for portable cooling systems for treatment of medical ailments such as burning limb syndrome, multiple sclerosis, spinal injuries and sports injuries.

1986: A joint National Bureau of Standards/NASA project directed at the Johnson Space Center resulted in a lightweight breathing system for firefighters. Now widely used in breathing apparatuses, the NASA technology is credited with significant reductions in inhalation injuries to the people who protect us.

1991: Tapping three separate NASA-developed technologies in the design and testing of its school bus chassis, a Chicago-based company was able to create a safer, more reliable, advanced chassis, which now has a large market share for this form of transportation.


1994: Relying on technologies created for servicing spacecraft, a Santa Barbara-based company developed a mechanical arm that allows surgeons to operate three instruments simultaneously, while performing laparoscopic surgery. In 2001, the first complete robotic surgical operation proved successful, when a team of doctors in New York removed the gallbladder of a woman in France using the Computer Motion equipment.
1995: Dr. Michael DeBakey of the Baylor College of Medicine teamed up with Johnson Space Center engineer David Saucier to develop an artificial heart pump – based on the design of NASA’s space shuttle main engine fuel pumps – that supplements the heart’s pumping capacity in the left ventricle. Later, a team at Ames Research Center modeled the blood flow, and improved the design to avoid harm to blood cells. The DeBakey Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) can maintain the heart in a stable condition in patients requiring a transplant until a donor is found, which can range from one month to a year. Sometimes, permanent implantation of the LVAD can negate the need for a transplant. Bernard Rosenbaum, a Johnson Space Center propulsion engineer who worked with the DeBakey-Saucier group said, “I came to NASA in the early 1960s as we worked to land men on the moon, and I never dreamed I would also become part of an effort that could help people’s lives. We were energized and excited to do whatever it took to make it work.”

2000: NASA’s “Software of the Year” award went to Internet-based Global Differential GPS (IGDG), a C-language package that provides an end-to-end system capability for GPS-based real-time positioning and orbit determination. Developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the software is being used to operate and control real-time GPS data streaming from NASA’s Global GPS Network. The Federal Aviation Administration has adopted the software’s use into the Wide Area Augmentation System program that provides pilots in U.S. airspace with real-time, meter-level accurate knowledge of their positions.

2000: Three Small Business Innovation Research contracts with NASA’s Langley Research Center resulted in a new, low cost ballistic parachute system that lowers an entire aircraft to the ground in the event of an emergency. These parachutes, now in use for civilian and military aircraft, can provide a safe landing for pilots and passengers in the event of engine failure, midair collision, pilot disorientation or incapacitation, unrecovered spin, extreme icing and fuel exhaustion. To date, the parachute system is credited with saving more than 200 lives.

2005: Two NASA Kennedy Space Center scientists and three faculty members from the University of Central Florida teamed up to develop NASA’s Government and Commercial Invention of the Year for 2005, the Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (EZVI) Technology. Designed to address the need to clean up the ground of the historic Launch Complex 34 at KSC that was polluted with chlorinated solvents used to clean Apollo rocket parts, the EZVI technology provides a cost-effective and efficient cleanup solution to underground pollution that poses a contamination threat to fresh water sources in the area. This technology has potential use for the cleanup of environmental contamination at thousands of Department of Energy, Department of Defense, NASA and private industry facilities throughout the country."

And yet more from NASA...

"Beyond recognizing the value of these technologies, it is also inspiring to learn the story of the people behind the innovation. Consider the case of Dr. Rafat Ansari, a longtime scientist at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, who, while working with fluid physics experiments conducted by astronauts in space, found an unusual use for a NASA device when his father faced the challenge of cataracts. The physics experiments looked at colloidal systems, small particles that are suspended in liquids, a description which also happened to fit the nature of his father’s eye disease. In a flash of insight, Ansari realized that the instrument being developed as part of the colloids experiment might be able to detect cataracts – possibly earlier than ever before. The device is now being used to assess the effectiveness of new, non-surgical therapies for early stages of cataract development. It is also being adapted as a pain-free way to identify other eye diseases, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer’s. The device also may have an unexpected return for NASA: It has been investigated as a possible medical tool for astronauts, who may develop cataracts as a side effect of the kind of radiation exposure that they might experience in long-duration spaceflight. Perhaps as interesting is the motivation that space provided to Ansari to pursue a career in science. He says it traces entirely to a single moment: when he was 9 years old in Pakistan, and he saw the live, grainy television images of people walking for the first time on the moon."

Still not amused? here is some more...

"Just how are the International Space Station and old artwork related? Well, atomic oxygen found hundreds of miles above Earth attacks and very gradually destroys materials used in satellites and spacecraft. NASA built a facility here on Earth that bombards materials planned for the ISS with atomic oxygen to test their durability. NASA Glenn Research Center engineers Bruce Banks and Sharon Miller realized that their atomic oxygen facility could be used in a positive, rather than destructive way: It could gradually remove unwanted material from surfaces without ever needing to touch or rub them. Their invention has been used to restore two 19th century paintings coated in soot from a church fire in Cleveland, Ohio; the technique also restored a vandalized Andy Warhol painting for the Pittsburgh Museum of Art. In both cases, no existing art restoration methods would work. Again, the unique demands of space exploration created unique innovation here.
How about food safety? Well, NASA invented a system (really a seven-step guide to monitor and test food production) to try to assure that the astronauts on the way to the moon would not get food poisoning. Twenty-five years later, the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department adopted that safety system for all of us, and a year later, according to industry, the number of cases of salmonella dropped by a factor of two.
Today, the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge are coated in a protective material that NASA needed to invent to save its launch pads from the destructive effects of hot, humid and salt-laden air.
Finally, the multispectral imaging methods used for seeing and understanding the Martian surface have been applied to, as the Chicago Tribune noted in 2006, “badly charred Roman manuscripts that were buried during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Examining those carbonized manuscripts under different wavelengths of light suddenly revealed writing that had been invisible to scholars for two centuries.”

There is a whole lot more...enough to fill volumes frankly... but these are the highlights that NASA is most proud of.

Here is a quic list of some of the spinoff benefits that another web site includes...

Under the Space Act of 1958, NASA has had a mandate to share all the information it has gained with the public. Here are a few of the practical applications that have resulted from technologies and information learned by space scientists:


CAT scans
MRIs
Kidney dialysis machines
Heart defibrillator technology
Remote robotic surgery
Artificial heart pump technology
Physical therapy machines
Positron emission tomography
Microwave receivers used in scans for breast cancer
Cardiac angiography
Monitoring neutron activity in the brain
Cleaning techniques for hospital operating rooms
Portable x-ray technology for neonatal offices and 3rd world countries
Freeze-dried food
Water purification filters
ATM technology
Pay at the Pump satellite technology
Athletic shoe manufacturing technique
Insulation barriers for autos
Image-processing software for crash-testing automobiles
Holographic testing of communications antennas
Low-noise receivers
Cordless tools
A computer language used by businesses such as car repair shops, Kodak, hand-held computers, express mail
Aerial reconnaissance and Earth resources mapping
Airport baggage scanners
Distinction between natural space objects and satellites/warheads/rockets for defense
Satellite monitors for nuclear detonations
Hazardous gas sensors
Precision navigation
Clock synchronization
Ballistic missile guidance
Secure communications
Study of ozone depletion
Climate change studies
Monitoring of Earth-based storms such as hurricanes
Solar collectors
Fusion reactors
Space-age fabrics for divers, swimmers, hazardous material workers, and others
Teflon-coated fiberglass for roofing material
Lightweight breathing system used by firefighters
Atomic oxygen facility for removing unwanted material from 19th century paintings
FDA-adopted food safety program that has reduced salmonella cases by a factor of 2
Multispectral imaging methods used to read ancient Roman manuscripts buried by Mt. Vesuvius

 

Actually, London would be a good example of a similar effect to what's going on in NY. Why? Because Britain does not have, and has never had, a 'European' outlook. We refused the Euro, we dislike the centralised bureaucracy of Brussels - we are European only in name.

London is a vast melting pot, far disproportionate to the size of the UK. There are more people in the Greater London Area than in the entirety of Scotland, and it contains people from every colour, race, creed, and background imaginable who simply consider themselves 'from London'.

This is why I made the point about American music being nothing special over here. Because London's had such a huge non-British/white population for so long, the musical heritage, especially of the black artists, stretches back through London artists for decades. The UK hop-hop scene grew out of the Jamaican immigrants in the 1960s, after all. That's 50 years - small wonder they don't see themselves as merely imitating America.

A lot of the British indie music that's being made also traces its roots back through British folk, a strand of music that's not derivative of anything that came from America, with the referencing of traditional English melodies and instrumentation.

Again, I'm not trying to say the UK is on par with the US. All I'm trying to say is that I don't think it's wise to make absolutists statements without having travelled to other places and experienced them.

 

I know I absolutely hate it when one can't find a fuel dock while traveling through space.

The Canadarm or Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) was designed, developed and tested in Canada, however the technology that controls it was developed in Houston Texas by a division of IBM.

Although the shuttle program has been retired, the Canadarm continues to help maintain, repair and construct the International Space Station.

 

I knew you would mention something like this but no. It is a COMPLETELY different thing. Trust me on that. London and all of England is still VERY much English at the end of the day, whereas New York is a true melting pot.

No, it didn't. Sorry but you flat out had nothing to do with the invention of hip hop culture. That happened in the US only. It happened in New York, Philly, and LA, with maybe a few other spots. All of your "British" music is derived from US music in some form. Hip hop culture came out of many, many things, not just Jamaican influence. There are 5 tenets of it. Graffiti was started in Philadelphia and in the eyes of many perfected by New Yorkers, to name just one of them. The fashion and culture itself came out of the streets and the neighborhoods.

Well that's different, though it isn't if it's using any bit of rock n roll, R&B, hip hop, jazz, etc etc.

Well I can make them because I know it for a fact. The only other place that is ANYTHING like the US in this regard is Canada, and considering that they don't and won't have our problems like we've had, they won't be the same thing. They'll be a more improved version of it one day, where there isn't as much ingrained poverty or class differences.

 

London is literally the most international and probably the most multicultural city in the world. Over 300 languages are spoken there. A restaurant scene that typifies its cultural make-up with more ethnic restaurants than any other metropolis. It is not just a home to to ethnic minorities from all over the world, there are many Americans that live there as well as people from continental Europe. For instance, by population it is the 5th biggest city for French people in the world, including all of France. It doesn't matter where you are from, you don't feel like a foreigner in London.

I love the place.

 

No it isn't.

New York is.

England is almost 90% English last time I checked. New York is populated entirely, and has been from its inception, by people of all cultures. Their multiculturalism and international status has been around since the early 20th Century and exploded in the 90s.

 

London is not England. London is a city within England.