I always enjoyed this one: posted by /u/lolmonger Link

There's a whole lot of butthurt in the replies I'm getting. OP asked for what the US is "good" at (which I stress, is not the right use of exceptional in 'American Exceptionalism', so I provided that. I could very easily make a huge list of things America is fucking terrible at, and it would be very long and just as passionate. Ask me to, and I will. There is a lot the US gets wrong, both in how it is exceptional, and in how it is conventional, and I alluded to that. That isn't what OP asked for however. Edit 2: also, it's funny how claims that all absolute output must be normalized to population when the USA and its 300 million are involved, but never the EU and its 500 million, or China and its 1.2 billion. Somehow, it's only when the US is an order or so magnitudes ahead of everyone, or absolutely better, that we want to break out the fraction bars and start dividing. Exceptional in English doesn't mean "better" than, and it's not used in that context. American Exceptionalism has traditionally meant those ways in which the US is an exception to standard notions of governance and polity. However, by the tone of your question, I think what you're doing is fishing for "Things America does well", whether the process by which it is done is unique or not. The GDP of the United States of America as March 2014 is ~17 trillion, and has been for many years, the single largest national economy on the planet. Only when you take a combination of every single nation#Lists) in the European Union can you get an estimate just slightly higher (and within some margins of error), than the US. By any ranking, whether it is the Chinese, the Brits, or some good ol' American newsagency, America has an absurdly disproportionate share of the best universities. This is reflected in research output; the United States' has recently been overtaken by China in terms of patents filed - - but American aerospace, biomedical, heavy industry, defense, and information technologies industries are without equal. Our success, furthermore, is often the result of private enterprise, not national sponsorhood: Wal Mart Exxon Mobil Chevron Apple Berkshire Hathaway General Motors General Electric Ford AT&T Verizon Hewlett Packard IBM Costco Amazon Go though a list of companies by sheer profit, and you'll see the Stars and Stripes over and over and over again - - but not because the government destruction of competition and massive influx of tax dollars created them, as China's National Petroleum industry (which isn't as profitable as Exxon), but because they have fought tooth and nail to be as brutally efficient in capturing market share as possible, all other considerations be damned. The greater international peace and order that has existed for 70 years, that makes people in their 20s and 30s think of the eruption of war as a novelty instead of understanding that like polio, it was a plague kept damped down from being common by those before them, has been upheld by the single most widely deployed military force on the planet Global trade on the magnitude it exists today exists because of safe shipping, because Europeans are never really going to need to go to war with one another, because even the Russians understand their people would be annihilated if they broke the sanctity of the post-Cold War Hegemony that is the United States' Department of Defense. Here is the list of operating aircraft carriers by country The DoD doesn't even consider half our fleet to be "true" aircraft carriers, and they alone nearly outnumber the rest of the world's non-carriers combined. We are tremendously diverse, in language, religion, culture, and ethnicity. Compared to the only two other military powers on this planet: The Russians who have gone to war with their own neighbors for the sake of military expansion in 2008 and 2014, and the Chinese who have slaughtered their own people and many other nationals by the millions in their history of pursuing ideologically and ethnically "harmonious" (homogeneous) populations, what alternative do we have to a mono-polar security arrangement upheld by a single power? We certainly don't want to default to the system of less civilized times, with every industrialized nation building the implements of war to compete with everyone else as was the planet's history prior to the end of WW2, and totally moved away from with the implosion of the Soviet Union. We have more immigrants than anywhere on the planet. To this day people from all over, not just Mexico, come to live and work in the United States because they realize no matter where they are from, their children being born Americans gives an unparalleled edge (often via admission as US nationals to those top universities previously mentioned) We have the largest proven coal reserves, and we are now going to be the the world's largest natural gas and petroleum exporter. That advantage of our natural conventional energy sources are why many manufacturing industries are going to the United States; away from Asia, and even our Teutonic cousins the Germans and their heavy industries. But we also are the largest producers of nuclear energy. In fact, we are the largest producers of nuclear energy when that as a total percentage of our energy production is only 20% (compare that with the second largest nuclear producer, France, whose economy relies on 75% of its energy coming from nuclear). Our economy is unparalleled: We are simultaneously the holders of the most foreign direct investments to economies abroad while being the nation with the single greatest total foreign direct investments here. After our debt vote ceiling crisis in 2013 people bought US bonds. After a crisis as to the payment obligation of US debt, people bought more US debt holdings. Coupled with the Dollar being the longtime greatest reserve currency in foreign exchange markets, it would take assumptions of stupidity and perverse worship (like the Chinese state official newspapers often make) on the part of the global economy to explain this behavior, sans the acceptance of this fact: There will likely continue to be no reasonable military ,economic, or political threat to American hegemony. $13.66 billion, UK $13.11 billion, Germany $5.68 billion, Canada $3.02 billion, Sweden $0.81 billion, Ireland That's a sampling from the top 20 list of nation's by charitable giving. China doesn't even make the top 20. What does the United States' gives in development assistance? $30.46 billion And we lead by a crushing margin in humanitarian assistance as well We don't just have the means to extinguish human life wherever we choose - - we often, and have for decades, worked to improve and protect it across the planet. As a share of official development assistance spending, the United States makes up 21.5% as of 2011. Germany is in number two with 9.8%. As it turns out, having literal floating cities with completely equipped medical, food safety and preparation, water purification, and airlift capabilities that can be anywhere on the planet or within aircraft distance within hours makes it kind of easier to help people in need. So we do. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/humanitarian.htm This isn't a new thing, either. There isn't a single nation that comes close to the US in terms of total scientific output, humanitarian spending, peacekeeping, warmaking, economic production or financial dominance. It takes the combination of 30 different nations with accumulated centuries of opportunity many times our existence to come anywhere near. The US doesn't always live up to its ideals, it's history, like many other nations, has genocide and war and racism, and a whole parade of terribles that should give everyone pause. The failure to hedge as close as possible to the lofty notions of freedom, and unalienable rights is one we experience over and over. But no other nation has an obsession with being the best, a national pasttime of moral and ideological self hatred and critique and policy contest, as neurotic, intense, or as strong willed as Americans do. I haven't even mentioned the food, music, movies, television, and language of the US, which have come to dominate human culture in ways no one could have predicted in 1776. Call us fat, we'll crush you in the Olympics. Call us stupid, we'll make human beings play golf on the Moon, and then have our robot scientists do stuff on the face of Mars. Attack us without cause and we'll nuke you. Twice. And then establish a massive network of troops, bases, airfields, nuclear submarines, surveillance satellites, intelligence officers, etc. so that we never have the specter of invasion threaten ourselves or allies again. Ask for help, and we will float a metropolis of scientific advancement in clean water provision, food distribution and medical care towards you, or send you the greatest marvels of our warmaking that we have labored over for your use, or more money than God; whichever is appropriate to your economy.