网友讨论：美国的衰落是真实的还是被夸大了？
America’s decline is so overhyped
译文简介
人们表现得好像美国已经完蛋了，因为它再也无法赢得战争了，但这显然是荒谬的。
正文翻译
America’s decline is so overhyped
美国的衰落被夸大了
评论翻译
很赞 ( 2 )
收藏
Things are bad for young people pretty much everywhere and tbh young people in the US aren’t doing that terribly compared to peer nations with higher unemployment rates.
China and India, who were hyped out the ass my whole life, are handicapped by all kinds of economic and social problems that probably will not be resolved anytime soon. Obviously Russia has completely fucked itself. All the best minds from those countries come to the US.
People act like America is done because it can’t win wars anymore but that’s obviously absurd. I am absolutely disgusted by the military industrial complex and think the last 50 years of American military intervention is appalling, but please Afghanistan wasn’t fucking Waterloo.
Ima dumb lib and even I still believe America is probably in the top 5 countries to live in.
虽然工人阶级的处境很困难，出生率和预期寿命的下降也令人担忧，但我并不真正相信维勒贝克/抑郁的千禧一代的口头禅，即美国作为世界上最重要的超级大国之一已经结束了。
几乎所有地方的年轻人的境况都很糟糕，而且老实说，与失业率较高的其他国家相比，美国的年轻人的处境并没有那么糟糕。
中国和印度在我的有生之年都被夸得天花乱坠，但它们却因各种经济和社会问题而步履维艰，而且这些问题可能不会在短期内得到解决。而且很明显，俄罗斯已经彻底完蛋了。这些国家最优秀的人才都来到了美国。
人们表现得好像美国已经完蛋了，因为它再也无法赢得战争了，但这显然是荒谬的。我对军事工业联合体感到非常厌恶，并认为美国过去 50 年的军事干预极为恶劣，但阿富汗并不是他妈的滑铁卢。
我是个愚蠢的自由主义者，但我仍然相信美国可能是最适合居住的五大国家之一。
Possibly so - most empires take centuries to really decline. Have you read Varoufakis' Global Minotaur? He argues that the US uncoupled from the gold standard/Bretton-Woods system due to running out of gold reserves in trying to sustain the war in Vietnam, but instead of shrinking their empire (as all previous empires had), they instead reversed the scxt.
Instead of being the worlds #1 manufacturer/exporter (as it had been since 1945), the US, from the 1970s, became the worlds #1 debtor. But it was so large a debt, that it paradoxically gives the US the same power as before - the US now sucks in all global currencies to sustain its consumption, and prop up the manufacturing of these peripheral countries, it is quite literally too big a debt to fail - it sustains all other countries with it's gravitational pull.
It's a brilliant move, but it's why - as you note above - America's allies are arguably declining faster than itself - it's own sluggishness affects them more severely. The outposts always collapse before Rome itself.
也许吧——大多数帝国需要几个世纪的时间才能真正衰落。你读过瓦鲁法基斯的《全球五角星：美洲，欧洲与全球经济的未来》吗？他认为，美国之所以与金本位/布雷顿森林体系脱钩，是因为在试图维持越南战争时耗尽了黄金储备，但他们并没有缩小自己的帝国（就像所有以前的帝国那样），而是试图反过来。
美国从 20 世纪 70 年代开始便不再是世界第一大制造商/出口国（自 1945 年以来一直是），而是成为世界第一大债务国。但这一债务规模如此之大，以至于非常矛盾地赋予了美国与以前相同的力量——美国现在吸纳全球所有货币以维持其消费，并支撑这些外围国家的制造业，这简直就是一笔不能让其失败的巨额债务——它以其引力支撑着所有其他国家。
这是一个绝妙的举动，但这就是为什么——正如你上面提到的——美国的盟友衰落的速度可以说比美国还要快——美国自身的低迷对它们的影响更为严重。前哨基地总是先于罗马本身崩溃。
"If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
“如果你欠银行100美元，那是你的问题。如果你欠银行1亿美元，那是银行的问题。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Varoufakis is a really brilliant guy and I'm happy to see him mentioned here. More people should listen to his stuff and read his books
瓦鲁法基斯是一个非常聪明的人，我很高兴看到他在这里被提及。应该让更多的人听他的东西，读他的书
Chinese ownership of so much of American debt is also a great reason for China’s investment in the maintenance of America. The Chinese own a huge amount of T-bills. Why would they ever go to war with the United States?
中国拥有如此多的美国债务也是中国投资维护美国的一个重要原因。中国人拥有大量国库券。他们为什么要与美国开战？
I think it's more like a slow decline - everything is getting just a little bit worse, socially it's more obvious but I don't know that it's a uniquely American issue, the internet has really fucked people's brains up in the past 10-15 years. Don't want to be a boomer and blame tiktok and IG and all that shit but the attention span thing has gotta contribute to overall mental wellness.
The prices of housing/cars etc are so high and seem unsustainable but again, it keeps getting worse for those on the buyer side. Even maintaing a modern car has gotten rougher since 2020, I have a '18 A4 that's been in the body shop for mild cosmetic damage for 80 days.
我认为这更像是一种缓慢的衰退——所有事情都在一点点变糟，在社交方面更加明显，但我不知道这是不是美国独有的问题，互联网在过去的 10-15 年里真的把人们的大脑搞坏了。我不想成为一个责怪 Tiktok 和 IG 之类东西的婴儿潮一代，但注意力的问题一定会影响整体的精神健康。
住房/汽车等的价格如此之高，似乎难以为继，但对于买方来说，情况却越来越糟。自 2020 年以来，即使只是维护一辆现代汽车也变得越来越困难，我有一辆 18 年的 A4，因为轻微的外观损坏，已经在车身修理厂呆了 80 天了。
All of this is true basically everywhere though
但是你这些话基本上在任何地方都说得通
It’s worse outside america I’d say.
我想说，美国以外的情况更糟。
Totally see what you're saying but it is relevant that deaths of despair are way more prent in the US as opposed to in places like France and the UK. Mortality rate has continued to decline in most comparable European countries but it's been steadily rising in the US since like 2000. Plus we're getting shorter, which is weird.
完全明白你的说法，但重要的是，与法国和英国等地相比，美国因绝望而死亡的情况更为普遍。大多数同类欧洲国家的死亡率持续下降，但美国的死亡率自 2000 年以来一直在稳步上升。另外，我们的身高越来越矮，这也很奇怪。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Isn't that just immigration?
“越来越矮”
这不就是因为移民吗？
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Could contribute to it but does not fully explain it.
与之相关，但不能完全解释它。
What makes you think it doesn’t fully explain it?
是什么让你认为这没有完全解释它？
100% explains it
这100%解释了
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
A lot of the declinist rhetoric is convenient to the wealth-hoarding classes because telling that story about the overall national situation redirects the blame for working class downward mobility. It is true that the rate of profit tends to fall and also that we aren't quite in the position of unchallenged power that we were in 30–80 years ago. But the small erosion in our economic power was way less consequential than the breaking of the social contract generally. The rise in downward mobility is, in essence, a social/spiritual/cultural problem even more than it's a macroeconomic problem. It's a social problem that starts at the top (with a capitalist class that has lowered the minimum standard of living) and trickles to the bottom (with a working class that is now less likely to take advantage of the remaining opportunities that do still exist for upward mobility in this great nation, because they feel so disempowered). At some point, maybe the big picture of our economic/global power dipped a little, and in turn capitalists sort of killed off capital — viewing wealth hoarding as more worthy than reinvesting and building up our middle class. With the story of "imperial decline," we blame an invisible hand for those changes, rather than an economic logic that some people have agency over.
许多衰落论的言论对财富囤积阶层来说很趁手，因为以国家为整体陈述这种状况转移了对工人阶级向下流动的指责。确实，利润率趋于下降，而且我们也不再像 30-80 年前那样处于无可挑战的地位。但是，我们经济实力的小幅削弱远不及社会契约的普遍破灭造成的影响大。从本质上讲，向下流动性的上升是一个社会/精神/文化问题，甚至比宏观经济问题更严重。这个社会问题从上层开始（资本家阶级降低了最低生活标准），一直蔓延到底层（工人阶级现在不太可能利用这个伟大国家仅存的向上流动的机会，因为他们觉得自己被剥夺了权力）。在某些时候，也许我们的经济/全球实力的大局略有下降，反过来，资本家们也在某种程度上扼杀了资本——认为财富囤积比再投资和建立我们的中产阶级更有价值。通过讲述“帝国衰落”的故事，我们将这些变化归咎于一只看不见的手，而不是某些人所掌控的经济逻辑。
我完全同意你的最后一点——很多其他地方都很糟糕，而美国仍然处于领先地位，尤其是在机会方面。但正如我所说，文化/社会对向上流动和经济增长的承诺出现了大幅下滑（这伪装成了帝国衰落的故事）。这种衰落在美国各地都能明显感受到，因此我们确实存在很多社会问题（绝望而死、社会关系疏离、大规模吸毒和犯罪等），这些问题很多时候让美国的情况感觉很糟糕，似乎比许多其他国家都要糟糕。但同样，没有一个故事（比如国家衰落）可以解释这一点。一方面，我确实认为，当你用一个仆人社会（这就是我们现在所处的社会）取代一个由生产性工人（建造东西的人）组成的社会时，要维持社会联系确实很难。另一方面，我们仍有拥有其他地方无法比拟的经济机会，但是这个社会自上而下的精神病态却无法让这些机会变得有意义。
What you need to understand is just because American hegemony is not in serious decline (global control of shipping lanes, energy independence, giant military, etc). Does not mean that life as a US citizen isn’t getting worse. America is the laboratory of commodifying every aspect of life and charging you top dollar for it. This money flows freely to a small portion of the populace—for them American hegemony means more $$$ and a jump in living standards because they own securities and assets and wield political influence. This is not the case for almost everyone else.
All that money people complain about they’re burning through due to inflation is siphoned to the rich AND they’re relatively unaffected by said inflation because they can rent seek during a time of price inflation.
你需要明白的是，美国的霸权并没有严重衰落（对全球航道的控制、能源独立、庞大的军事力量等）。。但这并不意味着美国公民的生活不会变得更糟。美国是将生活的方方面面商品化并收取高额费用的实验室。这些钱自由地流向一小部分人，对他们来说，美国的霸权意味着更多的美元和生活水平的提高，因为他们拥有证券和资产，掌握着政治影响力。而几乎所有人的情况并非如此。
人们所抱怨的因通胀而烧掉的钱都被虹吸到了富人手中，而且他们相对不受通胀的影响，因为他们可以在物价上涨时寻租。
The main thing that we as regular people regularly benefit from (IF YOU HAVE DISPOSABLE INCOME) is that as Americans the ability to consume and have convenience at your fingertips is unparalleled. Social mobility here is pretty stagnant but unlike our european counterparts if you have a little bit of money and skill or risk tolerance, you can make a boatload of money very quickly. Like its hard work to live comfortably in the US vs Europe. Our economy is admittedly very robust, its just that surplus is being directed at a smaller and smaller slice of the population. Overall its not an outright horrible place to live but I wouldn’t say we’re top 5 because of the precarious nature of life here.
我们的预期寿命正在下降，绝望导致的死亡人数大幅增加，我们的公共教育系统和大学教育系统正在不断衰退，医疗保健费用高昂且糟糕透顶。我们有一个反动的最高法院，它正在积极削弱人民的权利，并通过前所未有的有利于企业的法律。我们的立法者几乎无法维持关心我们的表面形象，因为他们永远忙于为自身利益服务。他们积极助长了一场有毒的文化战争，而这场战争只会分散我们对真正重要的事情的注意力。
我们作为普通人经常受益的主要事情（如果你有可支配收入）是，作为美国人，消费和享受触手可及的便利的能力是无与伦比的。这里的社会流动性停滞不前，但与欧洲不同的是，如果你有一点钱、技能或风险承受能力，你可以很快赚到一大笔钱。与欧洲相比，在美国过上舒适的生活并不容易。诚然，我们的经济非常强劲，只是盈余流向了越来越小的人口。总的来说，这并不是一个完全糟糕透顶的居住地，但我不会说我们是前五名，因为这里的生活非常不稳定。
The quality of everyday life directly correlates with jobs, but in a society as open as the US, the elite narrative of economic well-being is about trade, not jobs. And free trade is directly at odds with good jobs, which is why we can hit economic milestones and have a worsening quality of life at the same time.
日常生活质量与就业直接相关，但在美国这样开放的社会中，精英们对经济福祉的叙述是关于贸易，而不是就业。而自由贸易与良好的就业直接相悖，这就是为什么我们在取得经济里程碑的同时，生活质量却每况愈下。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
OP
You’re right. The antigovernment sentiment was damaging enough and now the reactionary nature of institutions like the Supreme Court makes real progress even more impossible.
你说得对。反政府情绪已经造成了足够的破坏，现在最高法院等机构的反动性质使真正的进展变得更加不可能。
I'll stop being anti-government when they stop being bought out by the corporations that are fucking me in the ass
当他们不再被那些背刺我的公司收买时，我就会停止反政府
anti government posting will stop when the government stops proving me right
当政府不再证明我的观点是正确的时候，反政府的帖子就会停止
OP
So what’s your solution? Deregulation? More power for corporations? Yeah the government sucks because it’s run by corporations and needs to be reformed. But whose gonna reform the government? I suppose activism will get the ball rolling but ultimately, the government.
那么你的解决方案是什么？放松管制？给企业更多权力？是啊，政府烂透了，因为它是由公司在幕后管理的，需要改革。但谁来改革政府呢？我想激进主义会推动改革，但最终还是要靠政府。
My solution is go outside and grill because I can’t stop any of this
我的解决办法是出去烧烤，因为我无法阻止这一切
OP
A better plan than most
一个比大多数人都要好的计划
You don't even know what you've lost. It's not a matter of geopolitics, for me. It's that vitality, individuality and subjectivity itself are less and less possible, the more captured we are by culture/information industries. This is involved in all the other corruptions you see. I'm not one for giving up hope based on any one judgement, but you need some historical context to understand why we aren't in a golden age any longer, of anything, geopolitical hegemony OR of great pop music or Hollywood.
你（楼主）甚至不知道你失去了什么。对我来说，这不是地缘政治问题。而是我们越被文化/信息产业所俘获，活力、个性、主体性本身就越来越不可能。你所看到的所有其他腐败现象都与此有关。我不是一个会因为某一个判断而放弃希望的人，但你需要联系一些历史背景来理解为什么我们不再处于黄金时代，无论在什么方面：地缘政治霸权，还是伟大的流行音乐或好莱坞。
I think all the west lost hope for the future, that sense of everything improving going forward, after 2008
我认为，2008 年之后，所有西方国家都对未来失去了希望，失去了一切都在改善的感觉
I agree that the US is no longer in a golden age but is definitely still global hegemon geopolitically and culturally. A decrease in relative power does not equal a complete loss of power
我同意美国不再处于黄金时代，但在地缘政治和文化上绝对仍然是全球霸主。相对实力的下降并不等于完全丧失实力。
If the competition declines faster than us, we decline, but we're still number one.
而且如果竞争对手下降的速度比我们快，我们即使会下降，但仍然是第一。
Anyone else notice how obsessed people are with labels now too? Why can't you just be yourself anymore? Lol
而且有人注意到现在人们对于身份标签有多么痴迷吗？为什么你就不能只是你自己？哈哈
America’s decline relative to its global peers is massively overhyped, it’s clearly died out in the last couple of years as Russia pukes on itself, China is tied in knots with its own problems and the EU once seen by Americans as a utopia is showing cracks.
But as others said, America’s spiritual decline relative to its former self is massive. Not at any level of society do we have the chutzpah that once defined us.
美国相对于全球其他国家的衰落被过分夸大了，在过去的几年里，随着俄罗斯自食其果、中国因自身问题陷入困境以及曾被美国人视为乌托邦的欧盟出现裂痕，美国的衰落不值一提。
但正如其他人所说，与以前相比，美国的精神衰落是巨大的。我们在社会的任何层面都没有了曾经的那种野蛮生长的态度。
USA is such a weird country to me (Dane), because on the one hand it is doing incredibly well economically and technologically, but at the same time it seems to be fracturing from the inside. Contrary to what you might believe it is not "healthy country behavior" that life expectancy declines, that a reality star is elected president, that parents are afraid of sending their children to school due to the fear of bitter outsiders shooting their former classmates, that an angry mob storms the parliament, that a new drug 50 times more lethal than heroin is sweeping the country, that most adult citizens believe in a number of conspiracy theories (whether they are true or not is somewhat besides the point), etc. Who could have predicted the breakdown of the Soviet unx? It was not destroyed by outside forces, but suddenly crumbled from the inside. The increasing division and polarization inside your country is certainly a real and dangerous phenomenon, but I hope for the life of me that your country will not break, because for all its faults the world desperately needs a strong USA...
美国对我（丹麦人）来说是一个非常奇怪的国家，因为一方面它在经济和技术上表现得非常好，但同时它似乎正在从内部分裂。与你可能认为的相反，预期寿命下降、真人秀明星当选总统、父母因担心苦大仇深的外来者枪杀昔日同学而不敢送孩子上学，愤怒的暴徒冲击议会，一种比海洛因致命50倍的新毒品正在席卷全国，大多数成年公民相信一些阴谋论（无论它们是真是假都有点题外话了），等等，这些都不是“健康的国家行为”。谁能预测苏联的解体？它不是被外力摧毁的，而是突然从内部崩塌了。你们国家内部日益加剧的分裂和两极分化无疑是一个真实而危险的现象，但我希望在我的有生之年你们的国家不会崩溃，因为尽管有种种缺点，世界仍然迫切需要一个强大的美国……
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Gradually, then suddenly”
“你是怎么破产的？”
“逐渐地，然后突然地”
Well America was the sole hyperpower in the 90s so its relegation to "the foremost superpower" as you put it is already a sign of decline.
美国是上世纪九十年代唯一的超级大国，所以正如你所说，它降级为“最重要的超级大国之一”已经是衰落的迹象。
There is no military power on the scale of the US. China is matching it as an economic power in some ways for some of its citizens but it doesn't have a credible military nor do its military officers have any experience in any recent conflicts.
没有一个国家有与美国同等规模的军事力量。中国作为一个经济大国，在某些方面与美国不相上下，但它没有一支可靠的军队，其军官也没有参与近期冲突的经验。
True but the U.S is involved in every single continent and in every single conflict all the while actively cooking up at least 2-3 other giant conflicts, and its ability to project power is necessary for maintaining the current status quo, creating potentially an endless amount of conflicts the U.S would have to be involved in. China is just focused on a couple of things a few miles off of its shore.
It's too much. The U.S can't sustain it (which is why they aren't anymore the hyperpower they were in the 90s). Even Russia invading Ukraine forced the U.S to ease up on Venezuela.
没错，但美国卷入了每一块大陆和每一场冲突，同时还在积极策划至少两三场其他大规模冲突，而美国的力量投射能力是维持现状的必要条件，这就可能造成美国不得不卷入无穷无尽的冲突。中国只是专注于距离其海岸几英里的几件事。
这太过了。美国无法维持下去（这就是为什么他们不再是 90 年代的超级大国）。甚至俄罗斯入侵乌克兰也迫使美国放松了对委内瑞拉的制裁。
The Ukraine situation is truly a masterpiece of American foreign policy idk what you’re talking about. Basically allows America to not worry about Russian maneuvering for the foreseeable future.
乌克兰局势明明是美国外交政策的杰作，我不知道你在说什么。基本上让美国在可预见的未来不用担心俄罗斯的动向。
If anything it might be easier to sustain. What used to take 50 coked up secret operatives trained for clandestine operations can now be done by some guy in Langley working a 9-5 on a screen
硬要说的话，它可能更容易维持了。过去需要 50 名接受过秘密行动训练的秘密特工才能完成的任务，现在可以由兰利的某个朝九晚五的人在屏幕前完成。
It's true that it should be easier to sustain, but that's not happening. I mean Americans can huff on hopium about living standards or consumption levels but in terms of the stuff that actually makes countries superpowers and hyperpowers the U.S has declined and is. Hegemony is fickle, having a huge FIRE economy won't save it. The U.S was economically more advanced than Britain for many years before Pax Britannica was actually broken. And what broke it?
的确，它应该更容易维持下去，但事实并非如此。我的意思是说，美国人可以对生活水平或消费水平之类的唱衰言论嗤之以鼻，但就真正使国家成为超级大国和超级强国的东西而言，美国已经衰落了。霸权是无常的，拥有庞大的火热经济并不能拯救它。在英国治下的和平实际上被打破之前的很多年里，美国在经济上一直比英国先进。是什么打破了它呢？
IMO At the very least as long as the US Dollar still retains hegemony as the global currency it ensures Americas status even if everything else goes to shit. Every attempt at de-dollarization has failed laughably despite all the crazy predictions and there’s nothing indicating its end on the horizon. I think that as long as at the very least that remains true, US global dominance will continue. Maybe in the future something will happen to challenge that in the future that we aren’t aware of now
在我看来，只要美元仍然保持全球货币的霸权地位，即使其他一切都陷入困境，它也能确保美国的地位。尽管有很多疯狂的预测，但每一次去美元化的尝试都以可笑的方式失败，而且没有任何迹象表明它即将终结。我认为，只要这一点至少保持不变，美国的全球主导地位就会继续下去。也许未来会发生一些我们现在不知道的事情来挑战这一点。
I feel that we have culturally declined and that reneged on our promise to the world that we are a beacon of hope and democracy. I kinda wish I was born when my parents were to experience the peak.
We can't even come up with new IP anymore. Our entertainment and culture is just rehashing what was good 40 years ago.
我觉得我们在文化上已经衰落了，这违背了我们对世界的承诺，即我们是希望和民主的灯塔。我真有点希望我出生在我父母经历巅峰的时候。
我们甚至无法再拿出新的IP了。我们的娱乐和文化只是在不断重演 40 年前的美好事物。