RE: superpowers, good or bad?
July 3, 2013 at 1:14 pm
(This post was last modified: July 3, 2013 at 1:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(July 3, 2013 at 12:02 pm)paulpablo Wrote: Have really big super powerful countries like America, Britain, Rome, Greece been a good thing for humanity or bad thing?
This isn't a philosophical thread that concentrates on what is a good thing or bad thing, you just have to assume that bad = things like people dying, good things = stuff like higher levels of technology and health care and crime prevention.
On the whole, overwhelmingly good. The interest of strong powers lies in providing relative peace, stability and ease of commerce to the most economically productive regions under its influence.
Peace and room for development in these regions has benefits to the whole mankind that far outweighs the misery that the periferal wars such powers are likely to engage in.
In any case, without the presence of these strong powers, periferal war would in fact have happen more often, and with deadlier results.
The only exception is the power becomes so dominant that it could decay for a long time and not be replaced by a peer power of comparable level of social, technological and cultural development, such as with Rome and her linger collapse without replacement.
If a power is dominant, but there are other powers waiting in the wings to replace it when it becomes decayed, that would be ideal. Examples include replacement of Hellenistic Greece by Rome, replacement of Britain by America, and now potentially the replacement of America by China.
