The US gov't did not directly supply Iraq with weaponry, but many British- and US-based companies did sell arms to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. The US gov't did sell Iraq "dual-use" goods, which were not weapons per se, but could be used in the logistics of waging war.
But you are right, my post read like the gov't was selling Iraq bombs, and that was not the case. My main point, though, was that the US gov't did have a stake in the war. President Raegan did not want to see Iran win this war because he feared a fundamentalist regime would take over Iraq, like it had in Iran in 1979. But would a fundamentalist regime have taken over Iran if the Shah had not been forcibly placed in power by British and Americans decades earlier?
Depends what you mean by "create." I grant that the city of Jerusalem was not created by the European Powers, and that that region is the holy center of Judaism, but the European Powers did lend a hand in forming the modern day nation state of Israel. From Wikipedia's entry on Israel:
The modern state of Israel has its roots in the Land of Israel, a concept central to Judaism for over three thousand years. After World War I, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate for Palestine with the intent of creating a "national home for the Jewish people".[7] In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of the Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
But that my friends is what "free market capitalism" is all about: protecting corporate profits with the blood of the citizens.
I think it's more of, "that's what the 'human condition' is all about." War and redistribution of wealth was happening long before the first corporate charter was effected.
My introduction to gaming was through my dad, at age three, as well. Our neighbors went on a multi-week vacation, and my parents were asked to look after their house - water the plants, get the mail, and so on. They had an Atari and Space Invaders, so my dad and I would go over there to "water the plants" and stay for hours playing Space Invaders.
Three or four years later we bought a used Atari at a garage sale, although I think the trivial interest in video games had worn off for him by then, so it was primarily my brother and I playing. A pattern we would repeat through Nintendo - Techmo Super Bowl and Zelda being the two we played together most often - and then a Sega, with our favorites being NBA Live 95, Madden, and NBA Jam.
Your country could perfectly afford mass immigration. It is fundamentally empty in many places, all opposition is borne from racism pure and simple.
Using the word "all" is pretty strong. My father-in-law immigrated from Korea in the 1970s, and he is one on the most staunch people against illegal immigration. Are you saying that he's a racist immigrant hater?
The problem with affording illegal immigrants is that these immigrants are not going to just move to the wide open plains of Kansas. They are going to move where there are jobs. And being illegal residents, they are likely getting paid under the table, not contributing to the tax base. Yet the enjoy the services that legal residents' tax dollars pay for.
I am pro-immigration. As I alluded to, my wife would never have been in this country if it wasn't for immigration. But I think a government has a right to dictate the process by which people enter its borders. Furthermore, I think that a country that is a magnet for others - like the US - can afford to be very selective on the types of people it wants to invite. Namely, we should strive to attract the brightest and most experienced and hardest working individuals because it benefits our nation the best. Yet our immigration policy today is very screwy - we basically use whether a person has existing family in the country as one of the main factors in determining whether to grant entry. So say I have an uncle-in-law in Korea who's always broke and is a drunk. He has a better chance of getting a green card than his neighbor, who has no relatives in the US, but is a diligent and hard working lab technician. Bleh.
What exactly is wrong with doing those things (except for the fact that OBL doesn't like it?).
Because it results in the people of this country hating us. Put yourselves in their shoes. How would you like it if you lived in a country where another country was propping up an unpopular and brutal leader? And then how would you interpret someone from the country propping up your despot saying, "What exactly is wrong with doing that?"
OBL would have just been a crazy nobody if it weren't for the West's involvement in the Middle East. Sure, there's been strife in that region for millennia, but if the West had totally staid out of the region there'd be no artificially borders, like those that define Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Israel. There would never have been a radical Islamist government in Iran. Sure, things over there would probably be a lot less civilized at this point in time, there would probably have been a lot more civil war, but I assure you that there would have been less negative consequences on the Western world.
Had we not stepped into WWII, Hitler very well may have succeeded.
But why did we step in to WWII? It was because we were attacked, by Japan, and then Germany declared war on us! I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves. If we are attacked or if another nation declares war on us, then I am not opposed to using military might.
As far as when we exert ourselves, I don't claim to have an answer that can be applied to all situations. What I do know is that it's poppycock to even remotely argue that going into Iraq was because we wanted to spread "freedom." If that was our lofty goal, then why did GWB make such a big deal about supposed WMD? Why did he try to speciously tie Saddam to OBL and 9/11? And if we are all for spreading freedom then why do we focus attention on some nations but not others? Why does Iraq get our attention? Why did we pull out of Somalia? Why aren't there troops in Kenya right now? Why did we waffle during genocide in Rwanda? Why did we do nothing when Pol Pot was murdering millions of Cambodians? Et cetera, et cetera.
I agree that bad shit happens in the world. There are dictators and murderers and oppressors. But why is it our responsibility to put an end to it all? I would hope we'd get our domestic issues straightened out first before we invest too much time, energy, or resources in trying to fix others' problems.
We are trying to help establish a democracy in Iraq! Damned if we do; damned if we don't.
We shouldn't ever be waging war to promote democracy. And if going into Iraq was just about "spreading freedom" - which is a laughable claim - then why aren't we "spreading freedom" to other countries in the world that are led by despots?
We shouldn't be dicking with other countries' governments at all. We shouldn't be supplying arms and money to unpopular dictators. We shouldn't be sending in tanks and bombs to unseat a government we dislike. European powers shouldn't have carved up the Middle East 150 years ago into Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc., etc. They shouldn't have created Israel after WWII. They shouldn't have carved up Eastern Europe like they did after WWI. Britain shouldn't have been such meanies over in India. France shouldn't have tried to control Indochina. The US shouldn't have forced Japan to trade and modernize back in the early 20th century.
I know I'm rambling here, but what I'm trying to say is that when one nation takes it upon themselves to direct the peoples of another nation, bad stuff is bound to happen. It might be minor bad stuff, or it might be major bad stuff. It might happen in 5 years, it might happen in 25 years, or it might happen in 100 years. But nothing good will comes of bullying other people around.
Although you claim to be a libertarian, you think like a legal positivist as if ownership was granted by a government... but how does that government get the right to grant ownership? You're caught in a meaningless loop.
If there is a conflict between two people on the claim to a property, who decides who's claim is valid? A court of law, correct? Who funds the court of law? Who decides what people are the court judges? Who establishes the rules that the court abide by?
And if you answer, "The government," then I ask you how is it that the government obtains these right to decide these decisions? Moreover, you say that "Property is initially acquired by homesteading, by mixing your labor with the natural resources," but what august body decides that that is how property is defined?
In short, we need some axioms in our social system. You hold one axiom, that "Property is initially acquired by homesteading, by mixing your labor with the natural resources." I hold another: that things are messier and that there really isn't a clean and fair way to decide these rules, which is why we, as a populace, get together and form a body that compromises and makes a set of rules.
I wish your way was "The Way," because then I'd have parts of South Carolina coming my way as my great-grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. But I understand that reality is more complex and a lot of libertarian ideals do not fit nicely into reality.
And when I say I am a libertarian, I do mean it. I wish your way would be a way that could work in the real world. I wish that governmental decisions were made entirely at the local level, that we had a virtually non-existent military force, that there was no income tax, that there were no pervasive laws prohibiting drug use, that people were left alone and allowed to work out their business and personal lives on their own without governmental interference. But I know that the extreme views of libertarianism won't work. I think a more realistic ideal would be to get our government more libertarian-leaning, but to expect that it is possible to have a truly functioning, libertarian society of any appreciable population size spread over any appreciable area is wishful thinking.
Even if you bought all the land surrounding mine, and good luck with that, I'd still have homesteaded a right to the path outside of my own that the previous owner couldn't reclaim and transfer you.
Outside to where? If the country is a patchwork of private property, your land has to end at another person's property, or an international border, or some natural landmark, like an ocean or river or lake, no?
I consider myself a libertarian, so I understand and appreciate your perspective. But I've also been around the block enough times to know that many of the "pure libertarianism" ideals just won't work in reality, where there is more gray than black and white, where people (even judges and elected officials) are not always truthful or kind or honest, and where there are many situations in which both sides can be in the right.
For starters, you talk about private property, but how is ownership granted? Don't you need some concept of land that is innately owned by the government? And then this deed is sold to a private individual? I mean, there has to be some initial condition, some starting point, where the land is owned by SOMEONE, right, otherwise how is it now under your ownership? And who gets to decide where that initial condition rests? You may say that your property is yours because you bought it, but I may say that the guy you bought it from bought it from someone else, who bought it from someone else, who got the land from my great-great-great-great-grandfather, a Native American chief whose tribe was situated on that land. So whose land is it? Your's? Mine? My great-great-great-great-grandfather's? And if it is your's, who or what gave you the authority to claim it as your own?
Yes, yes, in theory the country is a patchwork of individual land, but we both know better that that doesn't work in practice. And if you became the US Supreme Dictator and could enact such silliness, I would promptly buy the land on all sides of your's and threaten to shoot you for trespassing if you tried to leave your residence, just to make my point.
Agreed. Especially when the neighbor east of me, who has annexed, and the neighbor west of me, who as also annexed, decide to go to war and enter my yard (US territory) to reach their enemy's. What do I do? Does the US Army now make housecalls? Or perhaps I get to borrow a stealth bomber!
I would increase punishments for non native americans who commit crimes. If they commit a crime, everything they got in the USA will be confiscated, they will be added to a criminals database and they would be deported to their countries (I do not want to make taxpayers fund their prison terms).
And I would start a contract killing business. I would hire immigrants, telling them that they just had to come here, do one murder, and they would then be sent back home to live in peace, at which point I'd wire them their salary for the killing performed on US soil.
Although you have to seriously wonder if OBL (or his ilk) would have even bothered the West if the West hadn't:
Propped up the Shah in Iran
Propped up the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia
Supplied Israel with advanced weaponry
Supplied Saddam with weaponry to wage war with Iran
Our foreign policy over the past 75 years has been screwy and downright slimey at times. We like to preach democracy, but we don't hesitate to help prop up un-popular dictators who will bend to our will.
If the populace doesn't own it, who does? You may say, "The Federal government," and that's fine, but who dictates the laws and policies of the Federal government? Officials who were elected by the populace.
What are you proposing? That anyone can freely move to any country, and no one can say differently? And if that's the case, that someone can come to America without any permission from the government, then why is it that they can use services that my tax dollars help fund? Shouldn't I get a say in what people can use the services my tax dollars fund?
Just because the fed govt says something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral
It is wrong or immoral for an uninvited guest to enter your house, no? Or for a guest to your home to not leave if you tell him to do so? So if our populace says, "We only want to allow X number of immigrants into our country this year," isn't it wrong and immoral for someone to come over uninvited? I would say so.
I'm all for having a healthy amount of immigration, but our system can afford a mass influx of immigrants. Moreover, I'd hope that our country would enact policies to attract immigrants that offer the best bang for the buck, so to speak. Immigrants with education and skills that are needed.
Ugg, the ol' "THE USA IS THE NEXT ROMAN EMPIRE!" bit. For some reason this is a popular meme on the Internet, even though it totally discards the vast governmental, communications, technological, societal, and economical differences between now and 2,500 years in the past.
I'm not saying that the US is always going to be the world's sole superpower, but I am saying that the only way the US will descend to a third-world nation - with runaway abject poverty, infant mortality, corruption, crime, famine, and other ills of third-world nations - is if some real bad shit happens all over the world first or in tandem.
Do you think it's possible for a country that has the majority of the world's guns and butter to become a third-world nation without using its guns and butter to ensure that it remained a first-world nation?
Right, I'm talking long term (but not terribly long term, as few environmental policies anywhere on Earth today are looking hundreds or thousands of years in the future).
Envision what it will be like 50 or 100 years from now when China has fewer resources and larger environmental problems due to their shortsighted policies. The US will still have relatively clean and productive natural resources and not insignificant non-renewable reserves.
I'm not saying such a world will be especially pleasant to live in, but if there are increasing environmental issues worldwide, the best place to be located would be those nations that have strong natural resources reserves and successfully "exported" their environmental damage to other countries.
I don't know if it was by accident or on purpose but we are using up china's steel.
I think it is mostly on purpose. Why use up your own non-renewable natural resources when you can let another country deplete it's stockpile first? In short, many first world nations use second and third world nations as their garbage cans and sources of non-renewable resources because they want to protect their own environment.
Back in my day, you'd write an article, put it on your website, and Google would index it. People who wanted to find information would go to Google, type their query into the search box, and get a list of related web pages.
Slashdot Mirror
The US gov't did not directly supply Iraq with weaponry, but many British- and US-based companies did sell arms to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. The US gov't did sell Iraq "dual-use" goods, which were not weapons per se, but could be used in the logistics of waging war.
But you are right, my post read like the gov't was selling Iraq bombs, and that was not the case. My main point, though, was that the US gov't did have a stake in the war. President Raegan did not want to see Iran win this war because he feared a fundamentalist regime would take over Iraq, like it had in Iran in 1979. But would a fundamentalist regime have taken over Iran if the Shah had not been forcibly placed in power by British and Americans decades earlier?
The "European Powers" didn't "create Israel"...
Depends what you mean by "create." I grant that the city of Jerusalem was not created by the European Powers, and that that region is the holy center of Judaism, but the European Powers did lend a hand in forming the modern day nation state of Israel. From Wikipedia's entry on Israel:
But that my friends is what "free market capitalism" is all about: protecting corporate profits with the blood of the citizens.
I think it's more of, "that's what the 'human condition' is all about." War and redistribution of wealth was happening long before the first corporate charter was effected.
My introduction to gaming was through my dad, at age three, as well. Our neighbors went on a multi-week vacation, and my parents were asked to look after their house - water the plants, get the mail, and so on. They had an Atari and Space Invaders, so my dad and I would go over there to "water the plants" and stay for hours playing Space Invaders.
Three or four years later we bought a used Atari at a garage sale, although I think the trivial interest in video games had worn off for him by then, so it was primarily my brother and I playing. A pattern we would repeat through Nintendo - Techmo Super Bowl and Zelda being the two we played together most often - and then a Sega, with our favorites being NBA Live 95, Madden, and NBA Jam.
Sweet memories.
Your country could perfectly afford mass immigration. It is fundamentally empty in many places, all opposition is borne from racism pure and simple.
Using the word "all" is pretty strong. My father-in-law immigrated from Korea in the 1970s, and he is one on the most staunch people against illegal immigration. Are you saying that he's a racist immigrant hater?
The problem with affording illegal immigrants is that these immigrants are not going to just move to the wide open plains of Kansas. They are going to move where there are jobs. And being illegal residents, they are likely getting paid under the table, not contributing to the tax base. Yet the enjoy the services that legal residents' tax dollars pay for.
I am pro-immigration. As I alluded to, my wife would never have been in this country if it wasn't for immigration. But I think a government has a right to dictate the process by which people enter its borders. Furthermore, I think that a country that is a magnet for others - like the US - can afford to be very selective on the types of people it wants to invite. Namely, we should strive to attract the brightest and most experienced and hardest working individuals because it benefits our nation the best. Yet our immigration policy today is very screwy - we basically use whether a person has existing family in the country as one of the main factors in determining whether to grant entry. So say I have an uncle-in-law in Korea who's always broke and is a drunk. He has a better chance of getting a green card than his neighbor, who has no relatives in the US, but is a diligent and hard working lab technician. Bleh.
What exactly is wrong with doing those things (except for the fact that OBL doesn't like it?).
Because it results in the people of this country hating us. Put yourselves in their shoes. How would you like it if you lived in a country where another country was propping up an unpopular and brutal leader? And then how would you interpret someone from the country propping up your despot saying, "What exactly is wrong with doing that?"
OBL would have just been a crazy nobody if it weren't for the West's involvement in the Middle East. Sure, there's been strife in that region for millennia, but if the West had totally staid out of the region there'd be no artificially borders, like those that define Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Israel. There would never have been a radical Islamist government in Iran. Sure, things over there would probably be a lot less civilized at this point in time, there would probably have been a lot more civil war, but I assure you that there would have been less negative consequences on the Western world.
Had we not stepped into WWII, Hitler very well may have succeeded.
But why did we step in to WWII? It was because we were attacked, by Japan, and then Germany declared war on us! I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves. If we are attacked or if another nation declares war on us, then I am not opposed to using military might.
As far as when we exert ourselves, I don't claim to have an answer that can be applied to all situations. What I do know is that it's poppycock to even remotely argue that going into Iraq was because we wanted to spread "freedom." If that was our lofty goal, then why did GWB make such a big deal about supposed WMD? Why did he try to speciously tie Saddam to OBL and 9/11? And if we are all for spreading freedom then why do we focus attention on some nations but not others? Why does Iraq get our attention? Why did we pull out of Somalia? Why aren't there troops in Kenya right now? Why did we waffle during genocide in Rwanda? Why did we do nothing when Pol Pot was murdering millions of Cambodians? Et cetera, et cetera.
I agree that bad shit happens in the world. There are dictators and murderers and oppressors. But why is it our responsibility to put an end to it all? I would hope we'd get our domestic issues straightened out first before we invest too much time, energy, or resources in trying to fix others' problems.
[Looks at youtube video running in browser] Really? [Looks again] You SURE about that?
[Looks at your bank statement showing the income you've made from sharing your YouTube video with the world] Yep, I'm sure about that.
We are trying to help establish a democracy in Iraq! Damned if we do; damned if we don't.
We shouldn't ever be waging war to promote democracy. And if going into Iraq was just about "spreading freedom" - which is a laughable claim - then why aren't we "spreading freedom" to other countries in the world that are led by despots?
We shouldn't be dicking with other countries' governments at all. We shouldn't be supplying arms and money to unpopular dictators. We shouldn't be sending in tanks and bombs to unseat a government we dislike. European powers shouldn't have carved up the Middle East 150 years ago into Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc., etc. They shouldn't have created Israel after WWII. They shouldn't have carved up Eastern Europe like they did after WWI. Britain shouldn't have been such meanies over in India. France shouldn't have tried to control Indochina. The US shouldn't have forced Japan to trade and modernize back in the early 20th century.
I know I'm rambling here, but what I'm trying to say is that when one nation takes it upon themselves to direct the peoples of another nation, bad stuff is bound to happen. It might be minor bad stuff, or it might be major bad stuff. It might happen in 5 years, it might happen in 25 years, or it might happen in 100 years. But nothing good will comes of bullying other people around.
Although you claim to be a libertarian, you think like a legal positivist as if ownership was granted by a government... but how does that government get the right to grant ownership? You're caught in a meaningless loop.
If there is a conflict between two people on the claim to a property, who decides who's claim is valid? A court of law, correct? Who funds the court of law? Who decides what people are the court judges? Who establishes the rules that the court abide by?
And if you answer, "The government," then I ask you how is it that the government obtains these right to decide these decisions? Moreover, you say that "Property is initially acquired by homesteading, by mixing your labor with the natural resources," but what august body decides that that is how property is defined?
In short, we need some axioms in our social system. You hold one axiom, that "Property is initially acquired by homesteading, by mixing your labor with the natural resources." I hold another: that things are messier and that there really isn't a clean and fair way to decide these rules, which is why we, as a populace, get together and form a body that compromises and makes a set of rules.
I wish your way was "The Way," because then I'd have parts of South Carolina coming my way as my great-grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. But I understand that reality is more complex and a lot of libertarian ideals do not fit nicely into reality.
And when I say I am a libertarian, I do mean it. I wish your way would be a way that could work in the real world. I wish that governmental decisions were made entirely at the local level, that we had a virtually non-existent military force, that there was no income tax, that there were no pervasive laws prohibiting drug use, that people were left alone and allowed to work out their business and personal lives on their own without governmental interference. But I know that the extreme views of libertarianism won't work. I think a more realistic ideal would be to get our government more libertarian-leaning, but to expect that it is possible to have a truly functioning, libertarian society of any appreciable population size spread over any appreciable area is wishful thinking.
Even if you bought all the land surrounding mine, and good luck with that, I'd still have homesteaded a right to the path outside of my own that the previous owner couldn't reclaim and transfer you.
Outside to where? If the country is a patchwork of private property, your land has to end at another person's property, or an international border, or some natural landmark, like an ocean or river or lake, no?
I consider myself a libertarian, so I understand and appreciate your perspective. But I've also been around the block enough times to know that many of the "pure libertarianism" ideals just won't work in reality, where there is more gray than black and white, where people (even judges and elected officials) are not always truthful or kind or honest, and where there are many situations in which both sides can be in the right.
For starters, you talk about private property, but how is ownership granted? Don't you need some concept of land that is innately owned by the government? And then this deed is sold to a private individual? I mean, there has to be some initial condition, some starting point, where the land is owned by SOMEONE, right, otherwise how is it now under your ownership? And who gets to decide where that initial condition rests? You may say that your property is yours because you bought it, but I may say that the guy you bought it from bought it from someone else, who bought it from someone else, who got the land from my great-great-great-great-grandfather, a Native American chief whose tribe was situated on that land. So whose land is it? Your's? Mine? My great-great-great-great-grandfather's? And if it is your's, who or what gave you the authority to claim it as your own?
Whoops, replace 'annexed' with 'seceded'.
Yes, yes, in theory the country is a patchwork of individual land, but we both know better that that doesn't work in practice. And if you became the US Supreme Dictator and could enact such silliness, I would promptly buy the land on all sides of your's and threaten to shoot you for trespassing if you tried to leave your residence, just to make my point.
This has far far reaching implications.
Agreed. Especially when the neighbor east of me, who has annexed, and the neighbor west of me, who as also annexed, decide to go to war and enter my yard (US territory) to reach their enemy's. What do I do? Does the US Army now make housecalls? Or perhaps I get to borrow a stealth bomber!
I would increase punishments for non native americans who commit crimes. If they commit a crime, everything they got in the USA will be confiscated, they will be added to a criminals database and they would be deported to their countries (I do not want to make taxpayers fund their prison terms).
And I would start a contract killing business. I would hire immigrants, telling them that they just had to come here, do one murder, and they would then be sent back home to live in peace, at which point I'd wire them their salary for the killing performed on US soil.
Win-win!
Although you have to seriously wonder if OBL (or his ilk) would have even bothered the West if the West hadn't:
Our foreign policy over the past 75 years has been screwy and downright slimey at times. We like to preach democracy, but we don't hesitate to help prop up un-popular dictators who will bend to our will.
The "populace" does not own the US territory.
If the populace doesn't own it, who does? You may say, "The Federal government," and that's fine, but who dictates the laws and policies of the Federal government? Officials who were elected by the populace.
What are you proposing? That anyone can freely move to any country, and no one can say differently? And if that's the case, that someone can come to America without any permission from the government, then why is it that they can use services that my tax dollars help fund? Shouldn't I get a say in what people can use the services my tax dollars fund?
Just because the fed govt says something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral
It is wrong or immoral for an uninvited guest to enter your house, no? Or for a guest to your home to not leave if you tell him to do so? So if our populace says, "We only want to allow X number of immigrants into our country this year," isn't it wrong and immoral for someone to come over uninvited? I would say so.
I'm all for having a healthy amount of immigration, but our system can afford a mass influx of immigrants. Moreover, I'd hope that our country would enact policies to attract immigrants that offer the best bang for the buck, so to speak. Immigrants with education and skills that are needed.
Ugg, the ol' "THE USA IS THE NEXT ROMAN EMPIRE!" bit. For some reason this is a popular meme on the Internet, even though it totally discards the vast governmental, communications, technological, societal, and economical differences between now and 2,500 years in the past.
I'm not saying that the US is always going to be the world's sole superpower, but I am saying that the only way the US will descend to a third-world nation - with runaway abject poverty, infant mortality, corruption, crime, famine, and other ills of third-world nations - is if some real bad shit happens all over the world first or in tandem.
Do you think it's possible for a country that has the majority of the world's guns and butter to become a third-world nation without using its guns and butter to ensure that it remained a first-world nation?
Does anyone know if there are Win32 binaries available?
Right, I'm talking long term (but not terribly long term, as few environmental policies anywhere on Earth today are looking hundreds or thousands of years in the future).
Envision what it will be like 50 or 100 years from now when China has fewer resources and larger environmental problems due to their shortsighted policies. The US will still have relatively clean and productive natural resources and not insignificant non-renewable reserves.
I'm not saying such a world will be especially pleasant to live in, but if there are increasing environmental issues worldwide, the best place to be located would be those nations that have strong natural resources reserves and successfully "exported" their environmental damage to other countries.
I don't know if it was by accident or on purpose but we are using up china's steel.
I think it is mostly on purpose. Why use up your own non-renewable natural resources when you can let another country deplete it's stockpile first? In short, many first world nations use second and third world nations as their garbage cans and sources of non-renewable resources because they want to protect their own environment.
And best of all, they (the individual who copied my article to Google) can claim that they wrote it!
Kids these days.
Back in my day, you'd write an article, put it on your website, and Google would index it. People who wanted to find information would go to Google, type their query into the search box, and get a list of related web pages.
Obligatory telescopic evolution scene from Waking Life.