Sunday, November 8, 2015

Can we measure greatness?

I do not think there can be a greatest country in the world classification. I think a country be the most influential or powerful in certain spheres or regions, but being the ultimate country in the world doesn’t even make any sense. I consider it to be nationalism and a sense of pride for the people. America is obviously a very wealthy country and a large one, but I’m not even sure wealth is a good measure or that wealth of a people can be measured with a nominal gross domestic product. Even adjusting for prices does not really reflect the different basket of goods and culture that can influence how wealthy people can consider themselves to be. I think a lot has to do with what people find important and there is a lot of bias when people say their country is the greatest because otherwise they would have moved elsewhere. It’s like asking residents of a certain area what location they think is the greatest place to live, and I can assure you many would choose their place of residence because they live there and have a sense of pride for that. In other words, I do not even know what the greatest country in the world even means. How do we measure something that cannot be measured? If it cannot be measured then I won’t believe in it. I don’t think making random claims is very scientific. Like if someone said America is the most powerful country in the world then maybe I would agree because of how much influence the country has on what other countries decide to do, and maybe that can be measured better than greatness. We all think we are the greatest, but what we think doesn’t really change reality. 

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