I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about which nation will build the future, if the U.S. plans on abandoning funding for science and technology. If it’s not going to be us anymore, who will pick up the crown of technological progress?
There’s one obvious contender, especially in light of this news: China recently announced that it’s built and is successfully operating a nuclear reactor based on the element thorium, which is more abundant and cleaner than uranium. It’s a design that was tested and proven to be feasible by 20th-century Western research, but was never deployed on a large scale.
How should we Americans feel about this? Should we be worried and dismayed that we’re losing our dominance and sliding into backwardness? Or should we be heartened that someone is continuing to make progress, even if it’s not us? What does this mean for the future of science – and the future of democracy, if an authoritarian state like China is stepping in where we won’t?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter:
In the long run, scientific and technological achievement benefits all of humanity. New discoveries spread and diffuse until they’re part of the common knowledge base of the world, which raises everyone’s living standards. China, after all, can claim credit for bringing the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing into existence. These inventions changed the world for everyone, no matter where they were created.
At this moment of history, when some nations are falling under the shadow of malignant anti-intellectualism, it’s reassuring to know that progress is continuing somewhere. Even if the US is marching backwards, we’re not dragging the rest of the world with us. Smarter nations will continue to fund research, make discoveries, and build the future whether we join in or not.
That being said, there are also reasons to feel ambivalent about this story…
If you are/were a middle-class-to-wealthy white person, by whatever the contemporary idea of “white” is/was, then the US is/was a beacon of liberty and freedom to you. But let’s not pretend that it has ever been anything more than the best of bad options. At least the EU seems to have completely given up imperialism, something which the US has thus far failed to do… even if it’s still a bit tainted due to most of the member nations refuse to let go of any imperial inheritances they might have.
That aside, I’d currently put roughly equal odds on each of the following being the long-term outcome in the US:
1.) The country becomes an authoritarian dystopia no better than China, in which case it probably matters little if the baton gets passed to them.
2.) The country breaks up, in which case even if one of the fragments retains the name “United States”, the US as we know it won’t exist to be a beacon of science and knowledge anyway.
3.) The country manages to pull back from the brink, likely reverting to something akin to the Clinton and Obama eras. If it happens quickly enough (say, by 2029), then it might be able to regain the lead without having to play a long game of catch-up.
There’s a fourth possibility, “civilization collapses”, which I would consider somewhat less likely at present, but it would make the entire discussion moot, so I’ll ignore it.
In the case of #1, I’d prefer the EU over both the US and China to inherit the role of “science leader”, though I wouldn’t put high odds on that. In the case of #2, maybe one of the remaining fragments can take over, especially if said fragment includes California, which could practically be a global power all on its own. Also, a California-lead world would likely be better than a US-lead world anyway. In the case of #3, everyone get to pretend that it was all an anomaly which somehow happened twice, nothing to see here, let’s not take any steps to make sure it never happens again, that would interfere with healing or something. Which would give China more chances to pull ahead if it does.
As for the question “how much does it really matter who’s the science and tech king?” I don’t have an answer either. At least a little, but I wouldn’t hazard a guess if it’s more than just a little. I don’t think that’s the sort of thing you can reasonably predict in advance. Even if the only clear affect on the outcome is “the Chinese people are trapped under the boots of Big Brother for centuries, minimum” I wouldn’t consider that at all a positive regardless of any way I personally benefited.
I don’t think the U.S. has ever been anything more than the best of a set of bad options, but then again, when in human history has that statement not been true?
I also don’t think that Europe is populated by superior humans. The European powers were as brutally colonialist as the U.S. ever was, if not more; they just started earlier, so maybe they got it out of their system earlier. They also have their own problems with racism and xenophobia and their own fascist right-wing political parties. But at least they have health care.
It’s going to be a long time before the world trusts the U.S. again, if it ever does. The damage wrought by a second Trump term isn’t going to be forgotten quickly. It’s confirmation in the worst possible way that his first term wasn’t a fluke. Who’s going to want to make a new trade deal with us in the full knowledge that it might all be wiped away by an even more deranged administration every four years?
An independent California doesn’t sound so bad at this point. They have the economic power to do it. Heck, the West Coast and the Northeast could both secede – you could make two prosperous and intelligent nations out of them.