What makes a country strong? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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What makes a country strong?

682 sats \ 36 comments \ @unschooled 8 Apr AskSN

Is it the people or the law of the country?

Still thinking about this myself, but it was a colleague that posed this question to me.

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144 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 8 Apr

I'm trying to be pedantic but this is such a common confusion that I try to address it when I see it.

Country is the land
Nation is the people
State is the government

Agree with @k00b education is the biggest factor outside of culture. This is why the state will never let go of schooling and want so much control over children. They need to get them early to make them good little citizens. Government schools train us how to think. Education is actual learning. Training is creating a response to certain stimuli.

Here's an example. If you are taking a gun training course you will be instructed to practice. The reason is so that when you need to respond you will not have to think. You will just act. Thinking might cost your life. If you have to think about drawing and aiming your weapon you might be dead.

But, education will teach you how to read a scenario and determine the risk in the moment. So a well rounded human should be educated with knowledge as well as trained to respond.

The government school system trains children to be compliant to authority figures. It trains you that democracy is good and everyone needs to vote. You are not invited to think critically or question the things you are told.

But you are right. It is the people. If you have a well educated and moral populace you will have a strong nation. Today in the US we have low information populace that is trained to follow influencers.

But, the bright side is that it has never been easier to educate yourself, to find answers, to read multiple views on history, and to train one's self to respond in the ways you want to respond.

63 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

I also tend to think that a solid education is the foundation of making a great people. I wonder about the interplay of education and culture, which some others have alluded to already.

What is conventionally meant by "country" may be the phantom of what we now call the once great civilizations of antiquity. I think one common element that we can point to in these civilizations is that they all had a cohesive culture. It is hard to say what could have inculcated that if it hadn't been a unified philosophical or spiritual understanding that was somehow inculcated in their systems for education.

And as much as education feeds into culture, I believe the inverse is equally true.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 8 Apr

+1000

97 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 8 Apr

Education is upstream of everything imo

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 8 Apr

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

Great chart. Do you happen to have the source handy?

At first glance, there seems to be an inverse correlation in educstion and reserve FX Status until a a certain threshold where they start to both take a steep downturn.

I'm sure there's a lot more that can be said about this.

But my shot in the dark guess is that, as @jimmysong likes to say, fiat delenda est

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 8 Apr

Education or human capital (intelligence, skills, resourceful, etc)?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 8 Apr

There's a feedback between the two.

Institutions that protect property rights are necessary, but they aren't possible without people who want to maintain them.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

Institutions that protect property rights are necessary, but they aren't possible without people who want to maintain them.

Agreed.

And as noted here #938550 I think as a corollary of their protecting property rights, strong institutions also help safeguard the peoples' cultural capital.

Ultimately, a country's strength cannot be so reduced to a single aspect - it was an interesting debate being had among some colleagues of mine and I thought I'd let the stackers the chance to weigh in!

31 sats \ 5 replies \ @Roll 8 Apr

what do you mean by strong ?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 8 Apr

i wud define strong as capable of exerting force - this can be construed in a positive sense (force of creation, creativity) or negative sense (violent force). strength can be in numbers and/or skills.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

Good point. I think the person posing the question meant whatever is conventionally meant by strong in the sense that it is expedient to the nation's prosperity, but I'm not sure I'll have to ask.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Roll 8 Apr

;)

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

Just confirmed. As I suspected, this is what they meant, but they clarified: strong as in conomically prosperous.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 8 Apr

why not say prosperous?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 8 Apr

Violence. The more violence aggressed upon citizens, the more likely they are willing to join armed forces and redirect that aggression upon citizens of other countries.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @birdeye21 8 Apr

Strong rule of law and a cohesive identity/culture. "A country is not its land, but its people!" -- someone wiser than me!

Of the places I've been, the common thread throughout challenged countries are broken law enforcement. I distinctly remember a 13-hour drive across Ghana where we were pulled over by police three times, resolved by bribing each time.

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 8 Apr

too much corruption and graft

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

I also land somewhere in the area of culture after thinking about this, as I explained a bit here #938547

When a people's cultural ties and allegiances start to erode I think the first place it is normally felt is in the education of their young ones. Not to be reductive, but I think cultural association is one of the building blocks for a peoples' moral foundation, which is transmits itself through their education systems.

The Ghanaians in your anecdote have no strong moral or praxiological incentive to behave otherwise as it would be too great an inconvenience. If they had had a sense of moral obligation to a cultural (be it religious or national) allegiance instilled in them from a young age by the education of their elders, then they may just vote with their feet and leave to a friendlier place. In this case, the "law" of the land would directly impacts their self-expression of a cultural identity. Common sense seems to suggest that the law follows culture and education and can certainly play a great role in helping to uphold them.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @suraz 8 Apr

Strong borders.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 8 Apr

Military power and good reserves or commodity control

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satoshi__Nakamoto 8 Apr

I think both plays a crucial role as well as other things too.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 8 Apr

Some of it is geography and history.

Some of it is cyclic and reflective of human nature. When a nation is strong it tends to accumulate wealth...usually this involves and enables the projection of power upon other nations and the acquisition of resources and further wealth. A 'virtuous' cycle.

Think of the rise of Britain, the US and now China. As the nation becomes more wealthy the citizens tend to become increasingly demanding of 'rights' and less appreciative of their fortunate relative advantage due to the power projection superiority of the nation state. This tends to lead to the decline of the nation. The cycle of decline.

The strength of the nation then is in part driven by the willingness of citizens to recognise and remember their reliance upon the nation state as the primary driver of their liberty, security and collective wealth. When they do that the laws they write will serve them well. When they forget that, the laws they implement will lead to decline.

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled OP 8 Apr

geography and history

Both are very important and definitely aspects I intend on digging into a little more. There are some great discussions, afaict, about these elements in The Sovereign Individual.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @j7hB75 8 Apr

I misread this as "What makes a country song?"

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 9 Apr

It was all that I could do to keep from cryin' Sometimes it seems so useless to remain You don't have to call me darlin', darlin' You never even call me by my name.

You don't have to call me Waylon Jennings And you don't have to call me Charlie Pride. You don't have to call me Merle Haggard, anymore. Even though your on my fightin' side.

CHORUS And I'll hang around as long as you will let me And I never minded standin' in the rain. You don't have to call me darlin', darlin' You never even call me by my name.

I've heard my name a few times in your phone book I've seen it on signs where I've Played But the only time I know, I'll hear David Allan Coe Is when Jesus has his final judgement day.

CHORUS...

Well, a friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song and he told me it was the perfect country and western song I wrote him back a letter and told him it was NOT the perfect country and western song because he hadn't said anything about Momma, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk. Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent it to me and after reading it, I realized that my friend had written the perfect country and western song. And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here:

Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison. And I went to pick her up in the rain. But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a d___ed old train.

CHORUS:

So I'll hang around as long as you will let me And I never minded standin' in the rain. No, You don't have to call me darlin', darlin' You never even call me, I wonder why you don't call me Why don't you ever call me by my name.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @398ja 8 Apr

The people and the law are correlated, methinks

37 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 8 Apr

Deadlifts

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 8 Apr

a better, more descriptive name for deadlifts are stand-ups, so that's definitely what makes people of a country strong, especially "country" in the original sense, i.e. cultivated land - if those people stand-up for themselves, then they and their collective is strong.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @398ja 9 Apr

Long family lines and a dominant culture.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ContraMundum5 9 Apr

That’s a great question and one that doesn’t have an easy answer. I think it’s both, and the balance between the two really shapes how a society functions.

The law sets the framework, but it’s the people who give it life (or push back when it fails). You can have the best laws on paper, but if the people don’t uphold them or if the culture doesn’t value them, they don’t mean much. On the flip side, a strong and principled group of people can sometimes rise above bad laws and demand change.

It’s a dynamic relationship. Laws influence people, but people also shape the laws. Definitely something worth thinking about more.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @flat24 8 Apr

I think it is a combination of both, fair and robust laws in conjunction with people who possess cultural wealth and true education, in that branch of people true leaders arise capable of building a great nation.