The Country Which Has Had The Most Impact on The Modern World

[a completely inoffensive name]

It appears, though, that the future will belong to the Far East...

How so? China is a dictatorship that bribes its people with jobs, while facing the hard limits of the free market, bound at the hands and feet by western markets who are the main purchasers of their products, looking to shift the demand onto its own rising middle class which is becoming only more demanding from its government now that it has a taste of economic freedom and materialistic goods. Its own state capitalism can only serve to a certain point before they must reach the point of no return and relinquish control over its citizens in order to remain competitive since no top down economic structure has ever survived in the long term.

[Centurion1]

The most influential empire for the West and therefore the modern world is very clearly the Eastern Roman Empire. Without it the Muslims would have run roughshod over most of our ancestors and the world would likely be a much more dim place. Not because of the muslims themselves haha but because the west delivered the world to modernity was because the unique collection of nationalistic cultures and competing nations in such a tiny geographical area that resulted in warfare and thus technology positively exploding. So my answer goes to the Byzantines.

[Tuuvi]

Really? Even a concrete block?

I'm not convinced.

My dad worked for a concrete company for 15 years, and I helped him set up the forms and pour the concrete for the house I'm living in right now. Like I said in my edit; patios, driveways, sidewalks, basically anything that's just a simple slab, don't have rebar in them. So you were right about that. I probably shouldn't have even posted anything but I wasn't remembering clearly.

If by concrete block you mean like a cube, I imagine it would need to be reinforced, otherwise it would be too fragile and wouldn't be able to hold it's shape, it would just fall apart.

I love these threads. Everyone gives predictably nationalistic answers (apart from the jokers) whilst making every effort to appear completely rational and objective.

Trying to count philosophers, colonies, and inventions are ultimately exercises in futility. Western thought, achievements, and advancements were built upon one another. They are like the bricks and mortar that support modern Western Civilization. The British may have invented the jet engine, but the Germans made it workable, and so on.

That is, imho, the only reasonable answer to the question posed in the OP. The modern world has been most impacted by Western Civilization - Europe and European colonial nations. It appears, though, that the future will belong to the Far East...

I think you're right. You can't really name one country which impacted the modern world the most.

One country that needs to be added to the list that hasn't been mentioned yet is Spain. The conquest of the Americas transformed the world, and it's one of the events that allowed Europe to become such a powerhouse.

[InsaneApache]

Israel.

Game over. Thread needs closing now.

[Fisherking]

This:

France on the other hand gave us modern government,law,medicine,sex,sport, rock & roll, and philosiphy

Vive Le Francios

Vive Le Republique

You obviously come from an alternate universe.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

My dad worked for a concrete company for 15 years, and I helped him set up the forms and pour the concrete for the house I'm living in right now. Like I said in my edit; patios, driveways, sidewalks, basically anything that's just a simple slab, don't have rebar in them. So you were right about that. I probably shouldn't have even posted anything but I wasn't remembering clearly.

If by concrete block you mean like a cube, I imagine it would need to be reinforced, otherwise it would be too fragile and wouldn't be able to hold it's shape, it would just fall apart.





I think you're right. You can't really name one country which impacted the modern world the most.

One country that needs to be added to the list that hasn't been mentioned yet is Spain. The conquest of the Americas transformed the world, and it's one of the events that allowed Europe to become such a powerhouse.

Cast strone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_stone AKA "solid concrete blocks", very widely used in the UK for the outer course of external walls (inner course being thermal blocks) and for internal walls. It has the advantage of not suffering from "concrete cancer", so if the morter fails it does not crack as the steel rods rust. I've demolished the stuff with a sledghammer (fun afternoon) and I can tell you, it's just concrete a grit.

The US builds completely differently to the UK, what you call "dry wall" we call "stud wall" and we only use it to divide existing rooms, or in cheap builds.

[a completely inoffensive name]

That doesn't really disprove his point. If China underwent the scenario you described, then they would become truly comparable to the USA in the in the first half of the 20th century. They really would own the future if that happened.

Except the US was never a dictatorship, and that is where the key difference is in how the two handles social unrest when you can't provide millions of new jobs every year...

[Sarmatian]

You can stop this discussion as we all know what the answer is - it is Serbia of course. On what do I base this on, you wonder? Well, game that has sold most copies in history is GTA IV. What do you do in that game? You play a Serb, who`s kicking ass and taking names. It doesn't take a genius to understand this means that, consciously or subconsciously, you all want to be Serbs, which makes Serbia most influental country in the world ever. QED.

[gaelic cowboy]

My dad worked for a concrete company for 15 years, and I helped him set up the forms and pour the concrete for the house I'm living in right now. Like I said in my edit; patios, driveways, sidewalks, basically anything that's just a simple slab, don't have rebar in them. So you were right about that. I probably shouldn't have even posted anything but I wasn't remembering clearly.

Concrete is poor in tension but excellant in compression hence it's use for concrete blocks basically you put steel in a foundation to improve its tensile strength. However you dont do this for the blocks as there expected to do a different job and it would be uneconomical and unneccessary to put steel in a block.


Basically a concrete foundation or lintel needs to prevent stretching and bending but the block only needs to resist compression.

[Rhyfelwyr]

A point to consider might be how appropriate it is to equate global culture (McDonalds etc) with American culture.

[Tellos Athenaios]

A point to consider might be how appropriate it is to equate global culture (McDonalds etc) with American culture.

Or: how come an American company is equated with global culture, and what does it say about the impact of the country that fostered the company?

[gaelic cowboy]

A point to consider might be how appropriate it is to equate global culture (McDonalds etc) with American culture.

Depends on your definition of global culture fully the majority of the world has proably never eaten a big mac can it be described as global then.

Your also missing the point that it doesnt matter if the idea is not inherently American they came up with the system of the McDonalds takeaway and exported it to the world.

Nowadays even completely Irish takeaways like Supermacs are using a system designed by and for Americans, this must influence how we treat the experience even if we have come to see it as global in nature.

Or: how come an American company is equated with global culture, and what does it say about the impact of the country that fostered the company?

You cant deny that America is influencing the world through it's fast food, soft drinks, telly an movies all consumed by non americans on a far larger scale.

It actually says more about the Non American consumers than the Americans themselves as there not the ones equating McD's with America

[Tellos Athenaios]

It actually says more about the Non American consumers than the Americans themselves as there not the ones equating McD's with America

Yeah, well, Mac Donald's is simply (part of) America's legacy to the world so that is what America is equated with. I imagine the Irish are not the ones equating Ireland with shamrocks and pubs. Certainly the Dutch don't equate the Netherlands with wooden shoes, wind mills or tulips.

[gaelic cowboy]

Yeah, well, Mac Donald's is simply (part of) America's legacy to the world so that is what America is equated with. I imagine the Irish are not the ones equating Ireland with shamrocks and pubs. Certainly the Dutch don't equate the Netherlands with wooden shoes, wind mills or tulips.

True but the influence is still there underneath it all however diluted

[Vladimir]

I love these threads. Everyone gives predictably nationalistic answers (apart from the jokers) whilst making every effort to appear completely rational and objective.

Trying to count philosophers, colonies, and inventions are ultimately exercises in futility. Western thought, achievements, and advancements were built upon one another. They are like the bricks and mortar that support modern Western Civilization. The British may have invented the jet engine, but the Germans made it workable, and so on.

That is, imho, the only reasonable answer to the question posed in the OP. The modern world has been most impacted by Western Civilization - Europe and European colonial nations. It appears, though, that the future will belong to the Far East...

By far east you mean China? I don't think so. Paper tigers don't last long.

Other than that I agree.

[Sarmatian]

By far east you mean China? I don't think so. Paper tigers don't last long.

Other than that I agree.

Huge population, ethnically homogenous, great GDP growth with an actual trade surplus, no debt etc... Western countries are more like paper tigers compared to China. After all, various western nations rose to prominence for a century or two, but China has led the world economically, technologically and militarily for 90% of the known history.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Or: how come an American company is equated with global culture, and what does it say about the impact of the country that fostered the company?

Maybe it just says that America was the environment that allowed for big multi-national corporations to take off. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are exporting American culture when they establish themselves elsewhere.

What would you say is inherently American about McDonalds? The place is decorated and the staff dress in a modern, western fashion. The food is based on American cuisine, although I've heard that McDonalds in places like India etc do all sorts of Indian foods.

I once heard the term "glocalisation" used to describe companies like McDonalds. Global in their reach, but adopting local customs wherever they are. I think that term is pretty appropriate.

Depends on your definition of global culture fully the majority of the world has proably never eaten a big mac can it be described as global then.

Your also missing the point that it doesnt matter if the idea is not inherently American they came up with the system of the McDonalds takeaway and exported it to the world.

Nowadays even completely Irish takeaways like Supermacs are using a system designed by and for Americans, this must influence how we treat the experience even if we have come to see it as global in nature.

But the question is that when the likes of Supermacs adopt McDonalds system, are they doing so because people buy into the American culture that is supposedly represents? Or are they doing it because it is simply the most efficient business model and an American company happened to come up with it first?

When I think of American culture I think of American football, basketball, rednecks, 50's diners, country music etc.

McDonalds isn't any of that, it's just bland generic corporate capitalism.

[Noncommunist]

Huge population, ethnically homogenous, great GDP growth with an actual trade surplus, no debt etc... Western countries are more like paper tigers compared to China. After all, various western nations rose to prominence for a century or two, but China has led the world economically, technologically and militarily for 90% of the known history.

Sure, they've been fairly powerful but they've also been fairly contained. In the 1500s and later, Europe was sending ships everywhere around the world, trading and conquering. Aside from Zheng He, how much was China really able to show any sort of dominance on the world stage and really demonstrate a "lead"?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

hmm, that's really not how I would describe Chinese history based on what I know of it. The triumphalism seems misplaced.

If you look at ancient Egyptian history, they were very wealthy, had great agriculture and population, only went abroad for luxury items, built great monuments etc. They had "enough" because of their complaisance and willingness to bow to a supreme god/ruler. China seems similar. Their belief that they had nothing to learn from the Europeans was more like arrogance than actual superiority.

In any case, China engaged in a great deal of colonialism. You don't need to cross oceans in ships to be colonial.

[PanzerJaeger]

By far east you mean China? I don't think so. Paper tigers don't last long.

Other than that I agree.

I was actually referring to Asia in general. A number of factors, including population size, economic size and dynamism, government sobriety and foresight, and shared cultural norms are converging to push the genesis of most future human advancement to that part of the world. The cultural emphasis on education shared by most Asian nations alone will allow successive generations of Asian young people an ability to operate in the digital era in a way that many Western children will not be capable of. They will be the creators and we will be the users. In South Korea, laws have been passed to limit the amount of time children can study each day. Such problems do not exist in the West. There is a unique discipline, a will to succeed both on a personal and national level, that can only be found in Asia.

Contrast that to the complacency and governing incompetence that can be found in all aspects of life in the West. We are living in a society largely built on ideas, technologies, and wealth created generations ago. Walter Russell Meade calls it the blue model, and there is no alternative to our socio-economic arrangement on the horizon even as the money to pay for it slowly dries up. Our ability to pursue transformational national priorities diminishes each year due to political infighting, a cultural epidemic of shortsightedness, and the incredible cost of getting anything done in the West. Worse, our people's ability to envision such goals is in a similar downward spiral. Asian nations are embarking on great infrastructure and development programs while America could not even stem the tide of deteriorating infrastructure with half a trillion dollars for ‘shovel ready projects’. China built entire cities as America struggled to rebuild the site of the Twin Towers. The Eurozone's problems are well documented.

There is a genuine, shared goal among the Chinese at all levels of society to transform the nation. The French, on the other hand, are pretty content with where they are. Pseudo intellectuals and academic establishment types scoff at the idea of a 'national will' as it harkens back to the bad old days of colonialism and nationalism, but the concept does exist and is on display far more prevalently in Asian nations than Western ones. It can be very powerful.

Just as Europe and European colonial nations shaped the globe for centuries, that role will increasingly shift to Asia in the future.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@PJ: Sure, but in turn they come with their own unique set of issues that don't point at "too much of a good thing" but "too little of another good thing". If you take Japan as an example of a country which was largely driven to success in much the same way, it morphed into a country which is almost addicted as a society to escapism and it breeds very nasty social issues. South Korea has very tough problems related to a persistent corruption and the extent to which government and a couple of powerful families/concerns are intertwined, also in the way how the less fortunate South Koreans are treated ...

[Greyblades]

China built entire cities as America struggled to rebuild the site of the Twin Towers. The Eurozone's problems are well documented.

Those cities and chinese products have a habit of falling apart or exploding.

Also, this was something I found that makes me laugh:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...v-news-top-gun

[Vladimir]

Those cities and chinese products have a habit of falling apart or exploding.

Also, this was something I found that makes me laugh:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...v-news-top-gun

Too much to respond to but this is basically right. Chinese progress is built on an unsustainable bubble, particularly in regards to their housing market. Really, who builds cities where no one lives?

The rest of Asia has peaked with only limited chances of growth. Granted, not as limited as, say, Europe, but the Asian tiger is a fantasy.

[rory_20_uk]

Where does one country / civilisation end and the next begin? If one were to choose England for example, it merely passed on developments which can easily be traced back to Greek / Roman developments and is hence merely a vector.

As such, I would have to say that the Roman Empire continues to have the largest effect: we still use their laws, they turned a religion of a few nutters running around in the Middle East to a religion of nutters spanning the globe. Their influence of language can be seen in several continents.

If we are merely talking very recent and impact in terms of geopolitical, then I think that the biggest bruiser in the room, complete with a big stick and lobotomy scars, is the USA. Never afraid to cause impact all over the place with a curious mix of zealous self interest and good intentions which invariably leads to if nothing else a big impact and unintended consequences.

China manufactures a lot of stuff, but as yet creates little of it, and if they were not doing so there are many other countries that would pick up the slack. No other countries would be prepared to have the unilateral impact in so many different areas that the USA does.

[Moros]

As such, I would have to say that the Roman Empire continues to have the largest effect: we still use their laws, they turned a religion of a few nutters running around in the Middle East to a religion of nutters spanning the globe. Their influence of language can be seen in several continents.

No. Both were a products of the age mostly not much Roman about it in many aspects. Most typical and new things of Christianity are typically for the late-hellenistic Judean situation and religious trends. So typical of Christianity as the apocalypse or the Messiah, was just the sectish trend in Judea after first being dominated both politically and culturally by the Hellenes and later the Romans, and the inspiration found in the uprising by the Maccabaeans or for the Messiah part the Bar Kochba revolution. The old testament is of course a product of even more ancient times. Sure the Romans changed (or distorted) it a lot and invented the church (though personally I see that as a bad thing in some ways) and it's organisation. When it comes to law, yes Rome made some innovations and we took their laws as a basis, but again it was a by product of the time.

Men has made the world as it is today, not states, which are of course man made as well.

[PanzerJaeger]

@PJ: Sure, but in turn they come with their own unique set of issues that don't point at "too much of a good thing" but "too little of another good thing". If you take Japan as an example of a country which was largely driven to success in much the same way, it morphed into a country which is almost addicted as a society to escapism and it breeds very nasty social issues. South Korea has very tough problems related to a persistent corruption and the extent to which government and a couple of powerful families/concerns are intertwined, also in the way how the less fortunate South Koreans are treated ...

I am certainly not suggesting that the Asian nations are flawless. Indeed, each comes with its own unique set of issues. However, as a whole, the region is comparatively better positioned for growth and advancement than the West at this point in history.

Those cities and chinese products have a habit of falling apart or exploding.

That is nothing compared to some of the shoddy construction and poor products one could find in cities like New York, Chicago, and St. Louis near the turn of the 20th century and even in rapidly industrializing Britain a bit earlier.

Too much to respond to but this is basically right. Chinese progress is built on an unsustainable bubble, particularly in regards to their housing market. Really, who builds cities where no one lives?

Ever heard of ghost towns?

[Greyblades]

Nothing? When was the last time you heard of exploding chairs in america? Or a New York man hole shooting 50 feet in the air? Yeah the western engineers and architects screw up, but rarely in such spectacular ways. Heck, where else do you find exploding watermelons?

[Vladimir]

Ever heard of ghost towns?

I must admit that they do it better than we did.

I'm just trying to keep things in perspective. Asian growth is relative growth. While I'm glad that modern prosperity is spreading in the region I'm not in awe of it like others. It's hard to pin this down to a single country or political entity because, like others have shown, it's about Western culture and the exchange of ideas. China, in particular, is much more involved in intellectual theft than innovation.

[gaelic cowboy]

Those cities and chinese products have a habit of falling apart or exploding.

Also, this was something I found that makes me laugh:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...v-news-top-gun

While this is all true there is nothing in those same articles or in Asian character prevents them eventually correcting these defects.

When one examines the idea people had of something being "Made in Japan" it has changed in the last 50 yrs completely. Forced by a lack of materials and resources after WW2 they had by default to focus on product quality.

This focus meant Japan imported the most modern management and quality techniques from America and eventually supassed many American technical achievements. This went as far as people even believing that Japan invented lean manufacturing when in fact American invented it but saw no need for it as it had no competitors.

Eevntually when America woke up to Japanese engineering they foolishly believed they were competing on price so they cut quality budgets and made inferior products this in turn reinforced Japans standing as a quality manufacturer.

What brought Japan down was a simple property bubble that was let get out of hand however even a laid low Japan is still a massively developed and rich country.

[PanzerJaeger]

Nothing? When was the last time you heard of exploding chairs in america? Or a New York man hole shooting 50 feet in the air? Yeah the western engineers and architects screw up, but rarely in such spectacular ways. Heck, where else do you find exploding watermelons?

Look up the American 'muckrakers' of the early 20th century and read some of their works. My favorite, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, details some of the egregious practices in the American meat packing industry. Here's a spoiler: workers often fell into rendering tanks and were simply ground up with the rest of the meat and sent out to grocery stores around the country. China is certainly not unique among developing nations in demonstrating the dark side of industrialization.

Furthermore, it should be noted that the Chinese manufacture products to the specifications they are given. Chinese companies are capable of designing and building technologically sophisticated products, but it is often the case that Western companies contract Chinese manufacturers to produces products in the cheapest manner possible with very few questions asked. They often find out that you get what you pay for.

I'm just trying to keep things in perspective. Asian growth is relative growth. While I'm glad that modern prosperity is spreading in the region I'm not in awe of it like others. It's hard to pin this down to a single country or political entity because, like others have shown, it's about Western culture and the exchange of ideas. China, in particular, is much more involved in intellectual theft than innovation.

I'm taking a much longer term perspective. Individual Asian economies will grow and falter, but the region will be the center of world economic activity in not so distant future. With that comes the ability to have the kind of global impact discussed in the OP.