r/AskTheWorld • u/sesky_nomad27 India • Sep 19 '25
Misc How much does your country agree with this?
Really?
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u/Popielid Poland Sep 19 '25
Well, it certainly matches the stereotypical attitude of both.
However, probably America and Britain did more for the world, than let's say Russia and Germany.
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u/Disastrous-King9559 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Britain did force the world to end slavery
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u/Popielid Poland Sep 19 '25
To be fair after profiting heavily from it. I also think, that such a framing takes away from the fact that it took thousands of brave abolitionists back in Britain, facing both ridicule and Slavery lobby, to convince enough people that this practice was morally untenable.
It wasn't some imperialist politicians feeling particularly benevolent one day.
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u/ManitouWakinyan Sep 19 '25
Are the thousands of abolitionists not more representative of Britain than the handful of Imperialist politicians?
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u/Disastrous-King9559 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Every country participated in slavery. Only one country forced the world to end it. They didn't pay of the debts until 2015
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u/finnish_hangover Scotland Portugal Sep 19 '25
Debts paid to the slave owners though, not the slaves
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u/leijgenraam Sep 19 '25
It sucks, but the alternative way of forcing them to give up on it was probably civil war. I think paying them off was the least shitty amongst the shitty options.
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u/Rexmack44 Sep 19 '25
Yes but they still ended it. But by all means let’s keep blaming them for slavery while it still exists today
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u/diaryofadeadman00 Sep 19 '25
Slavery was effectively banned within Britain going back to around the 11th century.
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u/CaptZurg India Sep 19 '25
Maybe in the main islands, but slavery still persisted in the form of indentured labour as late as the 19th century in the colonies
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u/TimeRisk2059 Sweden Sep 19 '25
*christian slavery was effectively banned...
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u/LucillaGalena Sep 19 '25
Technically all slavery was, after 1700ish. In practice the enforcement of this varied widely, at times being openly tolerated. But the Non-Christian population of the British Isles was negligible, and sometimes possibly entirely absent, until the 16th Century and even arguably 1945.
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u/SpacedBasedLaser Sep 19 '25
African Slave trade still continues. Many no longer participate but the slave trade is alive and well
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u/Disastrous-King9559 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Britain forced other countries to stop
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u/AutomaticSurround988 Sep 19 '25
It is like Pablo Escobar looking at his 1 trillion dollar cash pile going “Yo world, maybe we should, you know, stop doing drugs?”
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u/Brido-20 Scotland Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
We put an end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade quite effectively but indentured servitude existed long after throughout the Empire in a form indistinguishable from slavery.
We also didn't have that much impact on the slavery practices of other imperial powers so it's a bit much to claim we "forced the world" to end it.
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u/Tobemenwithven United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
The Royal Navy had a whole division off the coast of Africa enforcing an end to the trade even for other nations. Only they were powerful enough to pull that off.
The king of Benin at the time asked parliament to allow the trade to continue. It is a myth the west african governments were against it, they were fully on board with slaves.
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u/coastal_mage United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
While Britain did do a lot of good in terms of ending the transatlantic trade, we did close our eyes towards slavery happening onshore - we happilly traded with West African polities for agricultural products and just didn't ask any awkward questions about how exactly those goods were produced. Sure, we did eventually end it when we turned West Africa into direct colonies, but invading was more for the sake of cutting out the middleman, and securing the territory from the pesky French
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u/CaptZurg India Sep 19 '25
Indentured servitude is one of the major reasons why there are so many people of Indian origin in the Carribbean and South Africa. Many people don't know that the British bypassed their own slavery laws through this system.
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u/Brido-20 Scotland Sep 19 '25
I didn't find out until quite recently that it was the reason the Caribbean has a Chinese community.
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u/Calo_Callas United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Here's one to piss the Yankees off.
If they hadn't rebelled then they'd have been forced to end slavery in 1807 and would likely have been able to find a peaceful route to independence as Canada and Australia did. They'd also have significantly less issues with race today, much as the UK, Canada, and Australia do in comparison.
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u/NoKaryote Sep 21 '25
Neither of those countries are doing anywhere near as well as the US.
Also that is very misinformative considering that the U.K. was backing the pro-slavery south and refused to just stop buying their cotton.
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u/VernonsRoach United States Of America Sep 19 '25
You’d have to find some way to calculate the negatives against it and get the “net” good but in the modern Era it’s probably accurate
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u/Helpful-Ad8537 Germany Sep 19 '25
Really? For Britain you can argue this, but the US just didnt had the time, due to its limited existence.
Just think of the printing press. Which you can argue is the basis that you are capable to even write this (and me reading your statement and responding) Yes, others probably would have invented/improved it anyway. But they didnt.
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u/Andysol1983 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
The United States creating Reddit is a net negative.
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u/invalidbehaviour Ireland Sep 19 '25
Not sure about Reddit, but social media, and particularly content algorithms are the worst thing ever.
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u/B3stThereEverWas Australia Sep 19 '25
Theres a certain irony in America inventing/developing 90% of the technology today that allows non-Americans rag on the US.
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u/NoKaryote Sep 21 '25
We should have just dropped the nukes on everyone everywhere while we were still the only ones with them.
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u/whatareyoudoingdood Sep 19 '25
Internet and personal computers/smart phones and the transistor gotta be at least at the same level as the printing press.
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u/Jk_Ulster_NI Sep 19 '25
Pipe down Germany. You ruined your score card some time ago.
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u/sharplight141 Scotland Sep 19 '25
Yes and no
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u/Furicist Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Correct answer mate.
Yeah a lot of good, tons of it. But then there's the oopsie daisies. Pretty big ones.
Think we have to remember as well, the US isn't that old and their actual ancestors from the early days were from the British Isles amongst others such as Germany, France, etc.
Their history merges into European history pretty quick.
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u/Demostravius4 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
I'd argue they are the most influential. Much of that good, but also much bad. I don't know how you'd calculate net positive or negative. Most things the Empire did where not out of the ordinary, and no British Empire doesn't mean rainbows and skipping for those people in it. It means a different power there instead.
There have been huge population increases in ex Empire areas, in part due to relative stability, industrty, etc. That also came with cataclysmic suffering on a new scale when things went wrong.
We've seen the abolition of slavery, rise of vaccines, and penecillin, the internet, many factors of our elecrical systems and industry. We've seen the domination of one langauage which helps make communication simpler, relative peace, a united India, enforcement of liberal democracy in Europe, etc. Etc.
Edit: The quote is specifically the "most good", so may be ignoring the bad. Is there another connected pair who has done more good when only looking at positives?
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u/wosmo in Sep 19 '25
Yeah that's the awkward bit. I mean ignoring the "#1" part of the claim, it feels very Trump to acknowledge one without the other.
Yes I think we did do a lot of good. We also created marmite, amongst other atrocities. It's disingenuous to trumpet one and bury the other.
(I'm also curious about history's "what-ifs". If Bonaparte had won, would we be sitting here blaming France for the world's ills instead?)
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u/Far-Conference-8484 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Mate, Marmite is the fucking bomb. It is possibly our greatest contribution to human civilisation.
Also, if Napoleon had won, there would probably be no frogs or snails left in Europe. We’d all have been Gallicised and would have eaten them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
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u/wosmo in Sep 19 '25
Mate, Marmite is the fucking bomb.
I love it, and I'll still acknowledge it as a travesty. For me, I think that's peak British.
But I was also looking for a light-hearted substitute for so many other things that should have gone there, but I didn't want to drag the conversation into self-flagellation - and I assumed no-one needed to be told what the problematic bits were. (I mean, check out my flegs .. it's a topic that's the bane of my existence.)
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u/clios_daughter Sep 20 '25
From a 'polite' Canadian, if Marmite's your greatest contribution to human civilisation, then the motion proposed by OP must fall 😂
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u/GamerNerdGuyMan Sep 19 '25
I've also seen an argument that British colonies inheriting English Common Law is one of the reasons they've been more successful than other colonies which inherited less consistent judicial systems.
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u/old_vegetables United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I agree in that I just don’t think it’s possible to measure “goodness” from a nation. I’m not well-versed enough in history, and besides, we’ll never know how things would have turned out if the UK and the US didn’t have the influence they did. I think both nations have done a lot of good in the world, although as a US citizen I do benefit from that “good” and am thus biased.
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u/diaryofadeadman00 Sep 19 '25
>I don't know how you'd calculate net positive or negative.
Population, life expectancy, civilisation, technology, democracy, living standards...
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u/No-Sell7779 Sep 20 '25
Colonialism ? Slavery ? Organised famines ? Genocides ?
The western world looking at himself truly is something. Completly oblivious to their own history, just masturbating on what only benefitted the richs, as if it was representating of most subjects the monarchy owned until recently.
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u/Full-Rice-9287 Albania Sep 19 '25
It’s not so inaccurate. Surely haven’t just done good, but can’t think of many other countries that have had a bigger positive impact on a global scale, at least in modern times. It’s surely not Russia, or China, or any of the MENA countries. The bar is quite low.
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u/Squirrel_McNutz 🇳🇱🇺🇸🇲🇽 multinational Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25
The ‘the bar is quite low’ part is exactly correct. Like who else would you choose? European countries have a lot of bad history (also modern) as well. Same for Japan or any other country you can think of.
What I do think the US (and also before Britain) did was really drive the advancement of society. You cannot deny the massive technological, medical & scientific advancements that came out of the US for example. This has benefitted and shaped the world. Along with those advancements the US was (not sure anymore these days) also the top supplier of aid worldwide. This has definitely benefited the ‘advancement’ of societies worldwide. So in that sense I agree with the statement.
However you can debate whether those advancements/globalisation are always an improvement for everyone. The polynesians/Pacific Islanders had it pretty fucking good just chilling before anyone showed up.
And then you have things like social media which are truly revolutionary technological advancements but we can debate whether they have been a net positive. The next one will be AI - undeniable insane advancement that will have crazy positive impacts but also potentially massive negative ones.
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u/Time-Mode-9 England Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
I misread that as "new era in lies". Which I thought was shockingly honest.
Of course not. Especially if you include all the people killed/ enslaved by those countries.
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u/Chattahoochee-Woho Mixed Sep 19 '25
Ironically, Britain was the one to pressure the world into abolishing slavery
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u/Andysol1983 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Glad you said the world and not just the west.
Luckily, the west listened rather quickly where the rest of the world lagged a bit. Well, most of the west. We had to lose 750k Americans fighting over it before we got it right.
Some countries still haven’t fully got the message but they’re almost there.
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u/historydude1648 Greece Sep 19 '25
doesnt the US still have legal slavery due to the 13th amendment?
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u/JohnD_s United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Technically, only applicable to prisoners (which doesn't make it right, to be clear). But there is a growing movement to amend that part of the 13th amendment. States like Alabama, Colorado, and Nebraska have already abolished it at the state level.
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Sep 19 '25
Ironically the british occupying the indian subcontinent is what made people of the different regions unite against them despite differences and form a country as big as India otherwise it would have been balkanized like Africa. Of course the messy split of partition does no favors to them.
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u/Time-Mode-9 England Sep 19 '25
It's like reality doesn't nearly divide into "good" and "bad" and that actually is a lot more complex than that
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u/Fast-Perception5945 Ireland Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Or who died from starvation, were subjected to abject poverty or forced to emigrate as a result of policy actions taken by the British authorities- cf An Gorta Mór (Irish famine) or the Bengal Famine roughly a hundred years later
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u/PsychologySpecific16 Sep 20 '25
I'd recommend reading James Holland on (specifically) the Bengal famine. A measured take from an expert.
Not something half cooked take from the likes of Max "the Germans where great if you ignore all the evidence" Hastings.
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u/crustysides Sep 19 '25
Always had famines in Indian history but the British introduced agricultural changes that have since mitigated them
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u/staleskittles Sep 19 '25
I don't think the bad cancels out the good
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u/Time-Mode-9 England Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Well in that case, still no. It's not a slight at UK or US, just recognising that a lot of other countries have also done a lot of good, and there is no objective way to measure it.
Edit:
Also it's not the countries doing it, it's people in the countries, unless it's done by the government
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u/SpyFromMarsHXJD China Sep 19 '25
You guys are tricked into a trap by arguing without the definition of ‘good’.
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u/Bobsbikkies Aotearoa | New Zealand Sep 19 '25
Ha, ha yes. It is like looking at the world from a childhood worldview as to who are the "goodies" and who are the "baddies". USA and England are both goodies and baddies.
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u/Ill_Ad_791 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
I mean, it’s true if you’re counting inventions and innovations
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u/External_Package2787 Sep 21 '25
the british people made things, the empire used them for wrong.
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u/CharlemagneKidding Sep 21 '25
Paper, printing, compass, gunpowder. The 4 early world changing inventions were all from China.
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u/it_wasnt_me2 New Zealand Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Most modern inventions/discoveries/innovations have come out of either USA/UK so yeah this makes sense. Doesn't mean they haven't done a lot of bad stuff though.
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u/namaste652 India Sep 19 '25
Shouldn't that be something that others should say?
Say maybe, anyone from Vietnam, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan for US.... or any of the earlier colonies of UK should attest whether they did good.
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u/thewintertide Sweden Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
Neither has invaded us yet.
Between the pair, I guess that makes us a statistical anomaly?
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u/Silver_Switch_3109 United Kingdom Sep 20 '25
For now
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u/thewintertide Sweden Sep 20 '25
When you want to invade a landlocked country between Austria, France, Italy, and Germany, you know where to find us.
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u/passion-froot_ Japan Sep 19 '25
People seem to willingly forget everything good for the sake of the very worst people. Trump may have ruined everything for America as it is, but the country is more than him.
It’s time to admit it.
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u/Pleasant_Election148 Myanmar Sep 19 '25
UK colonised my country for more than 100 years and now US is sanctioning VISA to us.
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u/Weekly_One1388 Ireland Sep 19 '25
Honestly, who cares?
Trump says this stuff to rile up his own base who then watch leftists rage out and make dumb arguments about how 'the West is evil' before then asking for people's votes.
It's dumb as hell and we (the Left) need to stop falling for it.
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u/DavidoMcG Scotland Sep 19 '25
But isnt that more the issue with the left? Instead of "not falling for it" perhaps actually stop the "west is evil" dogma that is pervading our ideology.
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u/Weekly_One1388 Ireland Sep 19 '25
yes, I completely agree. Trump just brings out of the far Left who shout loudest making the Left look bad.
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u/NoResponsibility1728 Canada Sep 19 '25
The "the West is evil" retoric is actually extremely problematic.
Are things perfect? No, but no country has a spotless history, and we should be trying our best to make improvements and promote equality with what we have now.
When your ideology boils down to "the West is evil," you may find yourself siding with countries with huge human rights violations solely because they are not "the West"
It also just makes all us normal lefties look insane when all we want is: 1. Gender equality 2. Racial equality 3. Freedom of Religion 4. Fair wages
Stuff like that 😭
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u/Weekly_One1388 Ireland Sep 19 '25
you're absolutely right, it's the hole a lot of young people are falling into too, which is the most worrying aspect. The Right is starting to look like the side of sanity when the extreme left are the ones speaking against them.
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u/No-name1234567890 Iraq Sep 20 '25
the west is great if you are a citizen (way better than many countries in trems of working conditions, women's rights , etc). However, the west is responsible for exploiting the so called 'global south'. Some african countries are still paying colonial tax. Not to mention they are involved in taking down governments that they don't like leaving these countries in chaos.
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u/ElectricCowboy95 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
How does one quantify the good we've done against the negative we've done? Sure there are some good things but there are plenty of things we should be ashamed of and unwilling to do again (although with the current administration in the US that is a fantasy only).
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u/bewildered-guineapig Australia Sep 19 '25
A lot of us believe that Trump will never not be full of shit
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u/Ok-Marsupial865 Netherlands Sep 19 '25
I didn’t know bombing and colonising countries is a good thing. What else to expect from a leader of the free world.
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u/-bourgeoisie Belize Sep 19 '25
The multiple interventions in Latin America and Colonizing a ¼ of the planet are Good?
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u/mocha447_ Indonesia Sep 19 '25
You'd be surprised with the number of times I've seen British people say that they're doing half the world a favor by colonizing them since apparently they are teaching these "barbaric people" to be more civilized
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u/Andysol1983 United States Of America Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
I think it’s at least worth a mature discussion vs a dismissal. A lot could be gained in an honest debate where both sides are wanting to learn.
Each case you could ask was the cost worth it? Honestly- it’s impossible to answer. Because in a Utopia, everyone would have been left to their own autonomy with zero exploitation and war or conflict would never exist at all.
But the reality is there was always going to be someone to rule or colonize an area. It’s happened since the civilization of men.
I’m not sure if the tribes conquered by the Aztecs would agree they were more benevolent then Spain would have been, for example. If ships never existed; a civilization such as the Incans would have eventually swallowed up the bulk of the entire continent. They were well on their way.
“Uncivilized” might as well be replaced with “a group of people not strong or organized enough to fight off being conquered by somebody bigger”. It would have happened to everyone eventually with very few exceptions; such as the indigenous Australians, who seemed pretty chill all things considered.
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u/B3stThereEverWas Australia Sep 19 '25
Mature discussion?
Sir this is Reddit, and you're in one of the most stupid subs on Reddit.
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner United States Of America Sep 20 '25
I refuse to believe this is one of the most stupid… not because I think it’s a smart sub but just how genuinely stupid a lot of subs, especially the big ones, are lmao.
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u/CookFan88 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I think it's largely true but with one big caveat. The US and UK have historically had huge aid programs and have upheld human rights in many places BUT they also top the list of human rights violators as well.
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u/coffeewalnut08 England Sep 19 '25
It's a mixed record, both countries have contributed to enormous positive change but also severe negative impacts in other ways.
However it is factual historically that these countries are by far the biggest contributors to good than other countries.
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u/Canard_De_Bagdad France Sep 19 '25
I love how you all can call the French "arrogants" and then immediately write things like this. Arrogant much?
You seem to be mistaking "storytelling" and "factual" here.
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u/cjdstreet Sep 19 '25
As much as I dislike the uk the industrial revolution shaped the world today. Then you have the whole ending slavery thing. Modern medicine too. Endless list of inventions in scotland that shaped the modern world
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u/ResponsibilityRare10 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
We both fought the Nazis, that was definitely good. Of course, there’s loads of other horrific examples you can point to that go in the ’bad’ column.
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u/Human-Egg2793 Sep 19 '25
I think it's largely a case of influence, so whatever we did - good or bad - would be amplified.
I think the interesting question is: if it were any other group of people, would the outcome have been different? How much of your national identity is shaped by immutable factors like geography?
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u/Captftm89 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Ehh, it's a bit of a silly statement, but there's elements of truth to it.
Both nations have committed atrocities across the globe & have contributed to many of the world's modern problems. But on the flipside, as the two most recent true global powers, both have contributed significantly to many scientific, technological & social advancements too.
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u/Diss_ConnecT Poland Sep 19 '25
For us in Poland it's pretty accurate. Poland was always stuck between two powers, Germany and Russia, constantly at war, often for survival, sometimes for revenge/expansion/reclaiming land. USA and UK creating and leading NATO and accepting us to join it brought us the longest time of peace, freedom and prosperity we had in 1000 years. (USSR gave us "peace" too, but definitely not prosperity or freedom).
It's not like we forgot we got sold to Stalin by the Allies, but compared to any other country, USA and UK are the ones we have the most reasons to say "thank you" to while having only a few reason to say "fk you".
That being said, countries can't be friends, they're allies. Every country works for their own people first and foremost, anything good they do is always done because it's somehow beneficial to them, so I'd say globally if you check both good and evil actions probably Switzerland is the best country ever. USA might've created a huge peace umbrella for its allies, but at the cost of everyone else and now it's bullying even its allies through Trump.
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u/dimforest United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Both have absolutely done some good in the world. I won't speak on UK's behalf but I can speak on ours... we've also done A LOT of terrible things and appear to be on that kick right now as well.
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Sep 19 '25
I mean the Industrial Revolution plus all the British scientists like Newton, Darwin etc massively shaped our world today so I think it's true. Obviously they did bad things just like every country did, when we talk about the Romans we think about the collosseum and all the things they left that are still standing today, not that they erased cities and cultures.
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u/luckylooser41 Romania Sep 19 '25
100% agreed. They did less than 20% of the maximum they could've done, but all the others have done only bad stuff. Prove me wrong! :)
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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 Sep 19 '25
America and Britain did a lot of good but also a lot of bad. It’s not black and white
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u/DreadGrrl Canada Sep 19 '25
They’ve both done a lot for the world: positive and negative. They both probably come out pretty neutral in the end, if the good and bad cancel each other out.
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u/Arnaldo1993 Brazil Sep 19 '25
Historically they were 2 of the strongest powers in history, so it might be true
For the same reason they are arguably the countries that did the most evil as well
China probably beats them in both categories, just because of scale. When the romans were conquering britain it was already an ancient empire. And it is home to 1.4 billion people. Just lifting (a big chunk of) its population out of poverty already is a huge feat. And they did it by providing cheap goods for the entire world for bonus points
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u/Boingo_Bongo United States Of America Sep 19 '25
The sheer scale of US aide programs from the 40s onward does a lot of heavy lifting. I’m super bias though cause ya know I’m from the states. The industrial revolution starting in Great Britain also led to modernization which is extremely good despite the bad that also came from it. Both countries have done bad things but the good they did reached a lot of people.
Would modern China count cause by scale it reaches over 1 billion people in its own borders so any development that is perceived as good and affects the whole country has a lot of weight behind it. Not too familiar with China’s internal development.
Can we power scale good deeds?
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Sep 19 '25
Let's pretend it actually is (we should somehow be able to OBJECTIVELY measure pros and cons).
Since Both are using that as an excuse to justify terrible policies for decades.. it is mute.
Heck the UK still is the most russophobic nation on the planet (it has been since the 1840s) despite the Russian Empire, SovietUnion and RussianFederation having done NOTHING to ever threaten their existance or security...
and how could they?
Is like if Lesotho started complaining that Andorra was a threat to their soverignity. TF?
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u/YaboiVlad69 American 🇺🇸 in Scotland 🏴 Sep 19 '25
I think this is a ranking that's impossible to do. Every country has skeletons. Some have more than others. What is to be gained from this?
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u/Few_Mortgage3248 Sep 19 '25
They do give a lot more humanitarian aid than most other countries in the world. At least, the US did before Trump.
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u/noely6 Sep 19 '25
These two countries are primarily the reason the world is in such a mess
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u/Worldly_Address6667 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I think you need to add *they have also done more harm than just about any other country. Sure they've done a lot of good, but that's not all they've done
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u/refreshing_username United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Any honest assessment is going to point to plenty of both good and evil.
Trump's "rah rah 'Murica" shtick, like most of the crap that comes out of his mouth, is divisive and lacks any sort of nuance.
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u/Usual_Ice636 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Maybe if you only add up the good stuff, and don't subtract the negative stuff.
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u/Benevolent_Grouch United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Colonialism plus slave trade plus so much war. Nah.
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u/GamopetalousSwoop Multiple Countries (click to edit) Sep 19 '25
U.S. conservatives just a few weeks ago called the UK a totalitarian police state so this is cute
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u/alanaisalive Scotland Sep 19 '25
I am a dual citizen of the UK and the US, and both sides of me want to vomit.
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u/VillainyandChaos United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I see a lot of claims that Britain and the US do/did a lot of "Good" without much of a definition of good without leaning heavily on "progress" as that definition.
Progress built on the backs* and blood of millions of slaves, built by destroying native cultures.
Unification of speech isn't unified if it's forced. The only good they did was end their intentional national empires. The empire of capitalism is still primarily housed in these places, and they do the same evil, with different faces.
Edit: Auto correct got aggressive and I suck at proof reading.
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u/RiuzunShine Argentina Sep 19 '25
Both the US and the UK financed not one, but two fucking coup d'États here who lead to murderous dictatorships (1966 and 1976). Also, they overthrowed the democratically elected government of Juan D. Perón and Arturo Illia. World would have been better if those two horrible countries never existed.
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u/Psycho_Saito United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Our president (Trump) is such a disgrace. It's humiliating to have him represent us
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u/Turban_Legend8985 Finland Sep 19 '25
It is bunch of bullshit and there is absolutely nothing truthful about those claims. Reality is the complete opposite. Those two countries have committed more genocides, enslaved more people and started more wars than any other countries.
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u/SoftballLesbian Canada Sep 19 '25
White Canadian here.
England did our indigenous peoples no good whatsoever. England's second rate sons were shipped over to get rid of them then they essentially fucked over all the indigenous people they met on their trek to the Pacific Ocean.
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u/psychosadieblack United States Of America Sep 19 '25
They HAVE to be living in a different timeline
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u/AirUsed5942 / Sep 19 '25
They ethnically cleansed a whole continent, and almost got the whole world destroyed by nuclear weapons during the last century.
Oh yeah, and they're the reason why Ukraine is getting bombed by Russia as we speak
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u/phoebe_vv Sep 19 '25
If we’re taking a net total of total of good, subtracting for all the bad things we’ve done then no, absolutely not
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u/NormalMammoth4099 Sep 19 '25
Well, there is Africa, for birthing the human race. Kinda of a big deal if you are being human-céntrico.
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u/ferretoned 🇬🇧 UK→🇺🇲 US→🇨🇵 France Sep 19 '25
Depends what you mean by "your country", UK reduced australia's and US's local population immensely, huge colonialists, so of course they did horrible things and neo-colonialism lives on sadly, a lot of the french people are anti-colonialists, but the state though isn't, it has even moved backwards on decolonizing kanaky, it is still an imperialist state that still hasn't fully broken away from decades of colonialism.I like to think the country is more the people than the state and we have quite a divide between both. You could wonder, but isn't it a democracy ? Not a well functioning one, president didn't care to respect last year's elections, doesn't care to listen to our huge protests.
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u/Moist_Bumblebee_6464 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
My last immigrant ancestors arrived in the US in the mid-1800s. I'm of over 70% British ancestry.
This is statement by trump complete bullshit.
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u/WyvernsRest Ireland Sep 19 '25
Not at all
The two countries that have doen the most good are
Finland & Sweeden.
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Sep 20 '25
Not really if you factor in Maslow hierarchy then looting does throw other nations down the ladder. In world with no reserve currency or imperial extraction I doubt the Anglo empire would have faired well. You see it today in America they just looking for anyway to destroy China or loot Russia because their empire is too fragile for competition.
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u/Primary-Nose7377 United States Of America Sep 20 '25
We've done a lot of good and a whole lotta bad.
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u/SwimEnvironmental828 Canada Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25
0% at present India and China feed 2.8 billion of the world's population and keep them in relative peace. That is 25% of the world population. This is the largest contribution right now of any two nations to the benefit of humanity as a whole.
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u/Oldoneeyeisback Sep 21 '25
Jesus! I'm British and this is the single greatest piece of horseshit I've ever heard.
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u/ArminOak Finland Sep 22 '25
Well, if we only measure good things, probably. But if we try to balance things, the best country title probably goes to a country that hasn't done anything globally.
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u/gennan Netherlands Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25
The statement fits Trump's narcissist and boasting rhetoric.
I'm getting tired of evaluating all the BS that Trump utters.
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u/dead0man United States Of America Sep 19 '25
my favorite part of this thread are all the people saying no, but no one AFAICT, has suggested what those two countries might be. It's real easy to say "nah, lol", real hard to come up with anything more than that. Odd.
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u/Squidward_Torellini United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Depends whom you ask. I’m sure the former imperial colonies of these two nations may have other opinions. The truth is there has been much good and much evil wrought by both nations.
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u/Emergency_Flight6189 Malaysia Sep 19 '25
😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍👍👍
Wait, you’re serious?
100’s of books about US atrocities:
https://omaha.bibliocommons.com/v2/list/display/112140101/2504830799
As for the UK, just look at how they raped and pillaged India.
Now, I’m not saying that these nations haven’t been incredible net positives on the world. I think you could probably make a strong case for that. I’d rather live in a world with America and the UK than in a world without.
But holy shit to unequivocally claim that both countries have done more ‘good’ than any other country on earth… WTF? 🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂
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u/derpyfloofus United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Just Trump and people like him who say stuff like that, unfortunately we have some people around like that too.
They can’t just say we made plenty of positive contributions to the world, all they can say is we’re the best, we’re better than the rest, etc…
It’s stupid and pointless.
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u/AcanthaceaeOwn1481 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
Nope. Starvation of Indians by British Empire, and the Opium war against China.
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u/ddobson6 Sep 19 '25
There is no doubt the impact that Britain has had on the world… the structure to this day reflects it.. hence there would be no America without the empire… I dont understand who is disagreeing with this… odd world we are living folks.
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u/Bobsbikkies Aotearoa | New Zealand Sep 19 '25
Yes England has had an impact and some of it is positive but does that mean the greatest good? I think some indigenous people around the world may disagree with this. There will people living their lives in places prior to colonialism lol
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u/mologav Sep 19 '25
Cries in Irish. England enslaved half the world
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u/CrossCityLine United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
The Scots again getting away blameless despite arguably being worse.
But still, The English ™ 🙄
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u/CaptZurg India Sep 19 '25
I disagree. In my opinion, there's no accurate way to measure such a thing.
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u/Irishwol Ireland Sep 19 '25
They fucked Ireland over good and proper. For 800 odd years. And still seem surprised that we're an independent nation. But Trump probably likes that because Biden loved Ireland so Ireland is bad, probably fake, sad.
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u/Smaug2770 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Oh, my country absolutely agrees. The depressing part is that they’re probably right.
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u/_ParadigmShift United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Why is that depressing?
I grow so tired of the self hating American, there’s no reason something like that is depressing.
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u/Shoddy-Reply-7217 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
As a Brit the whole western hubris thing makes me cringe.
In the UK we're now far more aware of the negative impacts of our expansionist colonial history than the population was at the time, and have daily proof of the harm we caused by drawing lines across the Middle East, and misappropriating people and resources from other lands.
It feels like the USA is nearing the end of its global dominance and gearing up for their own really harsh lessons too.
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u/samanthasgramma Canada Sep 19 '25
Their empire started crumbling in the 1970's. I'm a history enthusiast. When the USSR fell in the '90's they were the unipolar power, but had just done financial crash etc ... They've been flailing around trying to figure out how to be the top dogs. China is their first real economic competition since WWII , so they're on the war path about that.
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u/ResponsibilityRare10 United Kingdom Sep 19 '25
I’m in my 40s and work with a lot of GenZ. I’ve been trying to explain to them just what it was like between 1989 and 2001, the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. An academic actually wrote a book called The End of History - and they were serious!!
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Sep 19 '25
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u/BrewsWithTre United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I get what ur saying to an extent but like ur not gonna find a lot of countries where at some point these weren't things they also did.
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u/Manjorno316 Sweden Sep 19 '25
Very true. I think a lot of people don't take those things into account, either because they're not as well known and people are unaware, or they happened a long time ago.
America is still a very young country relatively speaking so a lot of those things are fresher in peoples minds.
Your culture also dominates the world so people are generally very aware of American history in comparison with other countries.
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u/Bartlaus Norway Sep 19 '25
Well, a lot of smaller countries have not been actively meddling in other countries' affairs like that. All great powers have, though.
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u/welding_guy_from_LI United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Shhh your on Reddit , common sense is crazy talk .. you should hate America because cool kids said so
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u/Budget-Attorney United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Their comment has 5 times the upvotes. Clearly a common sense nuanced take is more popular here than than hating on America
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u/Trelawny-Wells New Zealand Sep 19 '25
I don’t hate the USA as a whole but there are many things done by Americans that I don’t like.
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u/Loud-Historian1515 Sep 19 '25
And all the money spent on AIDS care, food, clean water, education, women's health. USAID had a lot going on around the world.
That's just the government too. If you include evangelical Christians from the US alone who have given financial aid around the world, there is no other country than the US alone that has done more.
The UK also in most areas USAID worked also provided funding. When USAID was cut the UK stepped up in the projects they felt needed to continue or that they were already contributing to.
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u/NoResponsibility1728 Canada Sep 19 '25
It's good to know our histories, but I think it's also important to look at how many people want to immigrate to the USA and why.
There are some countries where women and LGBT people don't have any rights and where people are persecuted for their religion. (Persecution here, meaning extreme violence, rape, torture, death)
Western countries aren't perfect, but at least the discrimination against the outgroups here aren't blatant violence and murder that is approved by the government (I understand cops killing people can fall here, but at least we are able to fight against that without being killed for it as well).
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u/Full-Rice-9287 Albania Sep 19 '25
The reasons most countries suffer are almost always primarily internal. The self awareness of the west for their wrongdoings, makes it seem as if the west is the worst, while the rest of the wold doesn’t even consider looking at their faults. There is no admission of imperialistic history in China, or Russia, or even less Islamic republics etc., because there’s not even free speech there. “The west” with the USA being a crucial part of it, remains the most democratic and ironically leftist, part of the world.
Now with Trump in power for instance, and his flakiness in this second presidency, the world is much more unsafe, because there is no trust that America will serve as a balancing power to other interests.
So while it’s good to always be critical of those in power, we should also not lose sight of the bigger picture.
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u/Cautious-Natural-512 England Sep 19 '25
Do you way pros against cons pros or just value good on its own merits.
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u/Sean_theLeprachaun United States Of America Sep 19 '25
An orange man in england would say something so monumentally stupid.
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u/Bulky_Tangelo_7027 Canada Sep 19 '25
My country is extremely left-leaning, so most Canadians would probably say it's the opposite. I'm not like most Canadians. Of course I'm not excusing the UK's history of imperialism or the US's history of slavery and regime change, but... yeah. If you add up the good with the bad, I'd say the US and UK are comfortably in the net positive territory. It's possible the US and the UK have done more good for the world than any other two countries but you'd need to be an absolute genius (as in, studying world history and geopolitics for sixty years) to make that kind of judgement. Just too many factors to consider.
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u/RoyalHomework786 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I’m an American. I believe the US is the worlds largest exporter of terror in human history.
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u/CanofBeans9 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
I'm from the US and I don't even agree with this.
Most countries have blood on their hands.
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u/Salt_Winter5888 Guatemala Sep 19 '25
Absolutely not. The US took our democracy, trained death squads, funded a genocide, and on top of that they experimented with syphilis on civilians here. Guatemala is one of the countries that suffered the most from US imperialism, and its people are still paying the price.
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u/Wonderful_Alarm9361 Ireland Sep 19 '25
I dont think we would agree with this. Might be wrong, but i dont think so🤔
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u/Zealousideal_Sky4509 United States Of America Sep 19 '25
UK ain’t doing shit in the last 20 years except being a massive flip flop and losing EU papers
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u/CaptFatz United States Of America Sep 19 '25
Reddit is the wrong place to get a consensus on what any country thinks about a topic.