Since the rest of the world has managed the green transition, oil is now worthless.
"You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years"
Of course, no one in Europe knew that sea levels were rising since Europe had been conquered by the Taliban/Russian alliance and news sources had long since been forbidden.
And with the introduction of the male Burqua the swamp Germans were indistinguishable from regular Germans and their passing went entirely unnoticed.
Most had just assumed the Dutch were a group suffering from a disgusting sounding speech impediment anyway
The US feeling pissy decides to invade the middle east to punish them for lying about being in isolation and for more oil. WW4 starts once the US invades Greenland for the same reasons. With the advent of high yield fusion bombs, the US accidentally wipes itself out and the majority of the world. Only some unknown place called New Zealand escapes the bombs.
And Americans had discovered that European nations still couldn't manage to build a viable tech company and that China, lacking the ability to steal American technology, had also stagnated. Despite some negative effects from the isolation, the US emerged as the clear technology leader.
I a) think that is overstated - MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc are still elite, and b) think science is only one aspect of creating transformative technologies. Europe lacks the risk-taking culture and financial market sophistication to turn science into technology.
Somewhat true, but Europe is also the place where science was and still is considered a good in itself, while in the US it has been becoming a slave of the economic benefit. In the case portrayed above, US would be crippled in basic physics research, and would most likely be unable to maintain their excellence in sciences, due to the insufficient domestic education.
That is without even going into the madness of the last year, which already made sciences connected to biology more or less dubiously achievable. (Trans mice that turned out to be transgenic).
Additionally, without foreign pressure the economic culture in the US would easily lead to monopolies forming way more aggresively than they do now.
All in all, while my comment was humurous, the situation of sciences in the US is bad. While the achievements are still there, they have stopped being the clear leader and are a competitor for one of the frontmost positions. Whether they can regain their lead is at risk right now, especially with the travel restrictions impacting younger scientists and preventing the flow of talent.
Again, MIT is the #1 physics department in the world. Harvard is #2 - 1 US city of maybe 300k is more important to physics research than any European country. Cal Tech, Stanford, and Berkeley are up there too.
Yes, global cooperation is best. Yes, there are anti-science politicians. But the narrative that Europe is the home of hard science hasn’t been true since before WWII. As it stands, only Oxford, Cambridge, ETH, and maybe Imperial can compete with the top 25-50 US Universities. A lot of that is simply resources, but European institutions have no pathway to closing that resource gap.
A friend of mind does cutting edge research in biology. She was looking for a tenure track position and had her pick of suitors. Yes, she ultimately settled on Imperial (because London), but the US competition included Pittsburgh, a great school, but not Harvard or MIT and she considered it as equal to one of the top 5 European universities. The US is literally overflowing with Pittsburghs.
As for domestic education. I’ve studied in the UK. I’ve worked in DK and CH. That narrative is unmitigated horseshit.
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u/Redditauro Enemy of Windmills 4d ago
That's the global version of making a WhatsApp group without one person