Because it was much cheaper to order some peasants to haul a boat, instead of buying a steam engine?
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Because it was much cheaper to order some peasants to haul a boat, instead of buying a steam engine?
Because it was much cheaper to order some peasants to haul a boat, instead of buying a steam engine?
You can see the same in modern Eastern Europe. The companies were totally surprised that EU membership lead to massive emmigration which caused labor shortaged/high wage rises. This was damaging to quite a few for them because of grester usage of manual labor (since it was cheap).
That's actually good for us, employees here
Until you are replaced by a robot
(I heard the answer from a swiss technology company how they can keep manufacturing jobs in Switzerland: well it is easy the production line is fully automated, so practically none is working there)
I'm a civil engineer, so and one of the least to be replaced. I hope.Until you are replaced by a robot
(I heard the answer from a swiss technology company how they can keep manufacturing jobs in Switzerland: well it is easy the production line is fully automated, so practically none is working there)
Also, I am only 12 years to the retirement, so I hope they will not make it before anyway
I'm a civil engineer, so and one of the least to be replaced. I hope.
Also, I am only 12 years to the retirement, so I hope they will not make it anyway
Lawyers are the least to be replaced since they are the ones who write the rulebook. ;-)
Being a technological / economic leader does not require superpower status. In the case of the USA, the two things happened to occur at about the same time.
Really? Thanks god my kids are already too old for Lego and I don't need to boycott it
Russia had overpopulation?
Russia's rural areas were poverty-stricken, illiterate and undeveloped, but I wouldn't call the vastness of that land interspersed with the odd village "overpopulated".
And indeed "Protestant work ethic" is utter tosh.
Only a relatively small part of the (allegedly huge) Russian Empire was fit for cultivation (using pre-industrial methods and without artificial irrigation), with Ukraine being obviously the best part of it. And as the Central Powers discovered to their dismay in 1918, yes, the Ukrainian countryside was overpopulated and there was very little surplus to seize and transport to Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Last edited:
If the current need for lawyers ever dries up, they can find employment in the field of medical testing. Consider the advantages of using lawyers instead of rats for testing:
1 - there is no risk of the researchers becoming emotionally attached to the lawyers.
2 - there are no equivalent protection organizations to PETA or the ASPCA to protest over their treatment.
3 - there are some things that a rat will refuse to do based on ethical grounds.
I would guess too a better investment in colonies. The US spent its time and effort effectively colonizing the rest of the US. And grabbing a few islands to be fair, but those to my knowledge have been mostly good investments still. Importantly, the US also integrated its colony efforts. The US is considered one, inseparable country. Compare that to a map of the British colonies pre-WW1. Sure, they had enough territory under their control such that the sun never set on the empire, but it overall didn't do much for the country. Then with the stresses of WW1, they lost most of these colonies, as they never were really integrated into the country.
this was not always true, America only granted the right for New Mexico to be a state (having a hand in the election of the president) in 1911 because it was conquered off the Mexicans and Americans did not want Mexicans to be able to vote in American presidents for a long time
that is not when the British empire fell, it fell after the Suez Crisis in 1956
Britain was a Global superpower for the best parts of 2 centuries
this I do agree on, Britain fell because the largest parts of its empire (India, Africa ect...) were from different religions and cultures, the other colonies are now part of the commonwealth but asked to form their own government (and Britain learned from a previous encounter that taxation without representation was a good way to get into a war with your colonies)
America was full of represented and taxed people and the parts that are still not represented are too small to rise up against them (which is why Polynesia is such a mess of different 19th century colonial powers)
Well, the USA had also some problems with rebelled provinces, but they were close enough to call them to order pretty easy, unlike in British case
The beautiful part of the US system is that states are added on and then thought of as part of the US as a whole. Hawaii and Alaska weren't added on until 1959, and they're still taught as being irrevocably a part of the US. States are foreign until they aren't anymore, and then pretty quickly assimilated. Really nice system overall.
The British started their process of decolonization with WW1. It may have taken awhile for the process to fully complete itself, but they were incredibly diminished following that war. Perhaps a better wording would be "Due to the stresses of WW1". The Suez canal was the signifier of the end, more than the end itself.
- 1
No it's a significantly flawed system designed to produce violent revolt when put under enough pressure. Wishful thinking and assimilation myths won't be enough.
- 2
Just to go back a bit...
In a Pearl Harbor situation, probably fairly well. In a bid to prop up a despotic puppet state in the Middle East or Central Asia &c., much less so.
For a few years, anyway, but the CCP like Cixi before them are often more concerned with having people busy at work than boosting productivity and abstract per capita GDP.
The missile gap was always a lie, under Kennedy an absolute one and later a relative one inasmuch as the Russians did end up with a larger number of more defective rockets. Whether that made the USSR a paper tiger or not has to do with how you weigh their objectively larger standing conventional forces. Presumably, the US could have mobilized as many people in the abstract and that becomes a question of how well its society could have held together.
In a Pearl Harbor situation, probably fairly well. In a bid to prop up a despotic puppet state in the Middle East or Central Asia &c., much less so.
Lego factory, China... Different thing. Lots of people, more machines, fewer robots.
For a few years, anyway, but the CCP like Cixi before them are often more concerned with having people busy at work than boosting productivity and abstract per capita GDP.
Last edited:
The question of how well a society holds together would depend more on how homogeneous it is, instead of whether there was a sneak attack.