Re: second-biggest superpower

Ron Resnick (rresnick@dialogosweb.com)
Tue, 01 Sep 1998 04:26:20 -0400


Battle of the MIT Labs here, huh? (As AI tells Media "I'll whup
you boy", and Media replies "Yeah, but my grants are bigger
than yours so nyaah!")

Robert S. Thau wrote:
>
> But hey, who cares about net-loneliness? The world's second biggest
> superpower is about to fall into chaos.
>
> China's about to fall into chaos? Things must be worse than
> I had imagined...
>
> rst

Yer both wrong. The US is falling into chaos? Things are bad! Dow
falls >500 points in a day, NASDAQ is worse.

See, what's the definition of a "second biggest superpower"?
If it's nuclear might, Nelson's right in his (implied) answer
of Russia - even Bill Clinton says so:
> Before leaving Washington some nine hours earlier, Clinton said Monday
> that his meeting with Yeltsin is a mission to keep the world's
> second-largest nuclear power "on the path of reform."

Now, if it's population, China ranks #1, India would rank #2 but
really can't be called a global superpower, leaving the US as #2,
hence my comments above.

Either way, China is either #1 (pop) or #3 (nukes), but not #2.
Unless "superpower size" is some averaged function
size = c1*pop + c2*nukes where c1 &c2 are weighted such that China
comes in at #2. Bleah - more lying with statistics :-).

Chalk one down for AI Lab! (For shame rst :)

Ron