America invented income tax in that century to tax the rich, before that it didn’t exist. Low end was taxed little, anything over $500k was given to the country. Now it robs everyone but the rich. Also, for some reason they structured it so citizen->country->state rather than citizen->state->country (I believe the EU is structured in the latter) yet nobody has questioned this terrible error. An American citizen can’t skip paying Federal taxes, as they are imprisoned. Even though debtors prisons America purports to not have. Yet when their own Federal government destroys their state via many means, they can’t do anything about it as an individual.
America sat around while Nazis and their prequel happened, thought about doing it. Set up a honeypot for Japan to attack Hawaii, then “saved” the world, made movies about it for decades. The hero that did nothing until we found it convenient.
America pushed nuclear power so hard as it would revolutionize everything…in the 1950s era. We wouldn’t have to be so desperate for “efficiency” if inefficient processes like resistive heat, electrolysis, and other things to generate things we need were throwaway bonuses. Power bills would be a thing of the past, every energy bill would be, natural gas, fracking, etc. would be unnecessary. Nuclear power would be safer than it already now is. They inflated the bad incidents like 3 mile island, and enlisted the Simpsons to poison a generation. (Hopefully people pick up that the Simpsons bit was a joke, ish.) Even ozone-destroying chemicals (theoretically) could have been reduced because the refrigerants used in every heating or cooling pump could have just been Peltier devices instead of a chemical. At scale, massively inefficient. Unlimited power? Why not?
America liked oil like it was crack and decided that was the better choice. We needed to fund airlines and cars. Backed by taxpayer-funded airports and roads. Move over trains, we have a bigger way to delete your money.
So, tl;dr, omitting a lot of details that could span a week of typing, we in the FO part now dawg.
Ogy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because exactly those things you describe (as well as some other factors/events) were reckless, violent experimenting (ideological, military, technological). And now we’re finding out. Like I’m not sure if you’re aware but the world changed ridiculously fast during the 1900s and now the early 2000s compared to the rest of history.
Sektor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They burned coal like crazy in 19th century, killed all the whales, soaked everything in mercury, genocide was the name of the game.