Who is really the greatest european nation?

[Hirlok]

we are 14 years into the 3rd millennium (according to some papal nonsense calendar, but nvm) and still talk about "nations" and "countries"?

well...

Guess I'll have to come back in a couple hundred years... or maybe better not at all... ;-)

[Chosen1]

As an American the only european country I like is Switzerland. Beautiful country, beautiful women, great government, it's almost as good as America. I would even call the Swiss honorary Americans.

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[Oberyn]

Nations? What about extended family groups, tribes, religions, ethnicities, political ideologies, cults, etc, forms of "arbitrary" tribal identification that STILL exist, and probably always will? Do you understand that a "country" is literally the most inclusive and non-restrictive form of tribal identification that has ever existed? Do you think people will suddenly identify purely as "human" if you remove them? Are you functionally retarded?

[Svitjodkarl]

Why is Sweden not in list? we have taken finland, norway, estonia, parts of russia, parts of germany we sacked entire poland couple of times and we fucked up the danes a gazillion times. we even had colony in america.

And we had warrior kings who led the men in the frontlines of battles instead of the other gay european kings who sit on their high horses kilometers away using a binocular.

[Teeth]

Nations? What about extended family groups, tribes, religions, ethnicities, political ideologies, cults, etc, forms of "arbitrary" tribal identification that STILL exist, and probably always will? Do you understand that a "country" is literally the most inclusive and non-restrictive form of tribal identification that has ever existed? Do you think people will suddenly identify purely as "human" if you remove them? Are you functionally retarded?

Well, at least the scale of identification with other humans and of thinking in 'we' terms has steadily increased. I am sure it was once impossible to imagine for different German tribes two thousand years ago to once look at eachother as all Germans. I am inclined to believe humanity could eventually 1up countries to a larger, more inclusive and even less restrictive form of primary identification. Obviously as you say, old forms of identification will continue to be present in that case, but their impact has diminished in for example western society in the past and possibly will diminish further.

As an American the only european country I like is Switzerland. Beautiful country, beautiful women, great government, it's almost as good as America. I would even call the Swiss honorary Americans.

I am sure the Swiss will be delighted with that label.

[Ikarus]

Clearly Austria, we were so mighty that we ran out of foes, so we started to fight each other out of pure boredom!

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Nah actually we were just fucking stupid ahahahaha 
read through the wikipediatext, instead of "alarm, alarm!" the soldiers understood "allah! allah!" and attacked each other, ahaha my belly hurts ahahaha
god I love this country 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karansebes

[Teeth]

I'd argue that the obsession with race, religion and identity *within* these nations is a counter-force and a means of coping with a new identity so large we cant realistically comprehend being a part of it. If a global nation is ever achieved, i'd expect these other forms of identity to become even more important to people.

What obsession? Me and many of my fellow-countrymen don't seem to be obsessed with any form of identity, be it class, religion, race and what not. I am white with roots that are completely Dutch, raised a christian now an atheist, parents are lower middle class, currently a student myself. None of these things seem to have any adverse affects on my interactions with other human beings in my country, and not even with most people outside my country. Honestly I think that identity factors like the ones you mentioned are fairly unimportant for large groups of people and I can imagine that with better education and increased mobility, the number of such people can increase.

[Tomas_Miles_again]

I think it will always be important to record and acknowledge history and heritage, but I do think that over time people will embrace the changes in identity and put less effort into preventing them.

[darmaster]

Honestly i almost feel sad for people who really need national pride; even more for those who think we'll never achieve a one nation one vision fried chicken thing.
Raelly does anybody believe it is that hard to happen? It will surely take a huge amount of time no doubt about that but it is a thing that has already "started" imo and it's not that visionary, come on, english anybody? We also have the tools and experience to see that these massive changes already happened and once were truly considered impossible; actually weren't considered at all: women sufmy old friende, ap black people slavery, black people suffrage, people suffrage, suffrage, suff. French almost conquering europe, greeks not blowing each others pp and so on. We've seen a tons of amazing achievement so far in times where the tools to do such things were so surprisingly little, i don't see why freeing ourselves from the pride of others' deeds would seem so revolutionary in 2014.
Probably people would take pride from something else, but the cosmopolitanism of a society is a drastic change to the society itself obviously and this will change the nature of humans, just as had already happened.

[Leshma]

Russia

Why? Because they were the first to conquered the space. As climate becomes worse every year and nature is literally trying to end humanity once for all, even if that means demise of the whole planet earth, leaving our planet will prove to be the only worthy goal we ever achieved as a specie. It's a shame we could be a tad bit late, many scientists start to shift their opinion from moderate to "we're too late" doomsday stance.

[Osiris]

probably die like the many times before when the climate shifted its not a new thing..

its like documentary about how Manhattan has changed over the years. it was solid land then island then trees then city etc followed by a documentary about how world will end if the polar ice melts (despite world was fine without the ice before) Humanity will survive and adapt like it did during the ice age. 

[Xant]

It's just more of Leshma's doomsaying retardation, humans at this point are almost impossible to completely wipe out, certainly a mere climate change won't do that. Worst case scenario is that population goes down drastically.

[Oberyn]

Worst-case scenario is we just wipe out humanity, planet will be fine, it'll find a new equilibrium and carry on. Planet earth dont care if it has humans on it or not. I'd feel bad for all the human-dependent species though, what would they do without us?

This, the arguement that man-made climate change and pollution will lead to the death of all life on the planet is pretty weak. A severe enough nuclear winter, sure, and even then bacteria and probably even insects and a few mamals, birds, etc and flora would survive. Not to mention the vast reservoir of life that are the planet's oceans. It might take millions or even billions of years to return to the current biodiversity, but time isn't exactly something the Earth lacks. And the concept of time over such a long period is meaningless to anything but humans as far as we know. What's billions of years to a single-celled organism?

It does seem like a popular arguement for blatant misanthropes who perceive humanity as a destroying virus.  Humanity isn't worth saving anyways, just other untainted, innocent life forms.

Although I have to agree with Leshma that even if the most horrible projections are accurate (and not another Malthusian Catastrophe bullshit colored entirely by politics and guesswork) one of the only good results from it will be forcing humanity out into space. We've only barely touched our toes in it and that was largely as a result of a dick measuring contest between the two most powerful countries in the world at the time. If NASA had as much fervour and funding behind it today as it did in the 60's I'm sure we'd be amazed by the results.
Hopefully the chinese will start challenging the americans in space soon, that should light a fire under their ass.

The ideal would be a multinational organization with prioritized funding, but it's never going to happen unless it's absolutely necessary, i.e it's crystal clear the planet cannot sustain any more people at the current level of technology.

[Gnjus]

Although I have to agree with Leshma

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[Admerius]

Yay!

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We need another world war so that decent-peace-loving people gets reminded of that "peace" is the exception to the rule. I'm not saying war is out basic nature, I'm saying that "peace" is an invention and a delicate thing to preserve as along as humans collectively identifies in- and out-groups.

Let WW3 begin so that humanity gets a reminder of why war is a bad idea and that we all suffer from the same condition: "being humans"

Regarding the climate... life will survive if we manage to destabilize the climate enough to cause a return of snowball earth... however if we become like a slightly cooler version of Venus then life(DNA/Water based) will most likely go extinct except on the hull of ISS ;)