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Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

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Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#21

Post by defen »

gwern wrote: post #5
andreyf wrote: post #4

Also surprising to many westerners is the extent to which Chine encourages and provides the opportunity for folks to volunteer for a eugenics programs: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23838

Miller overstates his case. Aside from the total failure of the mentioned BGI project and it being beaten to the punch by the first IQ GWAS hits being released by the Western SSGAC consortium that very year (Rietveld et al 2013), Westerners practice a good deal of that 'Chinese eugenics' (look at Down rates, assortative mating, fertility rates by education level, and the practices of sperm & egg banks), and his (and…

> even universal use of IVF would not deliver more than maybe 4.5 IQ points

That still doubles the number of people in your population with a 130+ IQ. Assuming baseline 100 mean and 15 std dev.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#22

Post by idra »

Although I mostly agree with your comment, I find the subtext of it (and especially the fact that you had to put "racism" in quotes, as if Chinese prejudice towards other races isn't actually racism) quite distasteful. Racism is racism, and "limited experience with other cultures" isn't an excuse for it.

Update: I see you've reworded your post and removed the quotation marks, I appreciate it.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#23

Post by Redditshill »

idra wrote: post #12
Redditshill wrote: post #10

Very long read. TBH I only read the beginning and end carefully, and skimmed through the middle...200? pages. What really stuck out to me was this line that explains how racism benefits the Chinese government: "First, the Han Chinese possess a strong in group identity with a polarized and tightly defined out group. This allows the Chinese government to expect sacrifice and as well as support from the considerable maj…

These attitudes are a direct consequence of government propaganda, and what you've described as "golden years" and "negative experiences" are pretty much the de facto spin on history spread by the Chinese state media and education system. The ironic thing is that the exact opposite situation happened as recently as in the last 50 years. China closed itself again to have "little outside influences" and started the Cul…

Those are valid points, and I admit that having close Chinese friends have probably biased my thinking on this a bit. I still believe in my main point of the Chinese needing some time/exposure to the West in order to truly change their mindset towards the West.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#24

Post by Redditshill »

idra wrote: post #22

Although I mostly agree with your comment, I find the subtext of it (and especially the fact that you had to put "racism" in quotes, as if Chinese prejudice towards other races isn't actually racism) quite distasteful. Racism is racism, and "limited experience with other cultures" isn't an excuse for it. Update: I see you've reworded your post and removed the quotation marks, I appreciate it.

I agree that racism is racism, but there is a clear distinction for me between having certain preconceptions about people you've never met before versus having heavy bias against people that you encounter on an every day basis (thus heavily supporting a confirmation bias). Is one better than the other? I'm not going to try to argue that but I think it's necessary to distinguish between the two in order to better understand who you are dealing with.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#25

Post by vtange »

idra wrote: post #22

Although I mostly agree with your comment, I find the subtext of it (and especially the fact that you had to put "racism" in quotes, as if Chinese prejudice towards other races isn't actually racism) quite distasteful. Racism is racism, and "limited experience with other cultures" isn't an excuse for it. Update: I see you've reworded your post and removed the quotation marks, I appreciate it.

Agreed and edited to remove the quotes. Compared to the U.S. and Europe, China is very behind when it comes to racism.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#26

Post by analyst74 »

vtange wrote: post #19

I'm Chinese American. I won't claim to represent everyone and everything Chinese, here are my two cents. China is what happens when you enclose a really big population in a box. And this box is really comfortable; you have little incentive to go outside of it. You have the company of millions of other Chinese folk, and Chinese culture and its derivatives (to this day many of us see Korea and Japan as copies of Chines…

About your last point, I think that is slowly improving, with more black athletes and business people living in China, racism against black people is probably subsiding, especially in bigger cities and among sports fans.

Hopefully, as more Chinese traveling overseas, and China attracting more foreigners into the country, local populace are exposed to more diversity, and start to form their own opinions based on personal experiences instead of biased media reporting and hollywood.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#27

Post by gwern »

defen wrote: post #21
gwern wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miller overstates his case. Aside from the total failure of the mentioned BGI project and it being beaten to the punch by the first IQ GWAS hits being released by the Western SSGAC consortium that very year (Rietveld et al 2013), Westerners practice a good deal of that 'Chinese eugenics' (look at Down rates, assortative mating, fertility rates by education level, and the practices of sperm & egg banks), and his (and…

> even universal use of IVF would not deliver more than maybe 4.5 IQ points That still doubles the number of people in your population with a 130+ IQ. Assuming baseline 100 mean and 15 std dev.

Sure (I include a table of the consequences on the tail for various scenarios), but consider that the Chinese population is already more than twice the size of the US population and available measurements suggest it may have a higher starting mean as well, but that has not had a huge impact. Why would another doubling be expected to? (The US could probably easily double its 130+ numbers if it wanted to just by changing immigration policies.) At the very least, it can't be expected to have the impact of anything like an IES/synthesis scenario where the gains would be anywhere upwards of +100 points.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#28

Post by Red_Tarsius »

vtange wrote: post #19

I'm Chinese American. I won't claim to represent everyone and everything Chinese, here are my two cents. China is what happens when you enclose a really big population in a box. And this box is really comfortable; you have little incentive to go outside of it. You have the company of millions of other Chinese folk, and Chinese culture and its derivatives (to this day many of us see Korea and Japan as copies of Chines…

I think your comment is somewhat removing agency – and therefore responsibility – from your fellow Chinese. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you seems to imply that China's attitude toward black people is white people's fault. However China's history is not devoid of ethnic and cultural issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_China But I appreciate reading an 'insider' point of view.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#29

Post by danbruc »

ucaetano wrote: post #20
danbruc wrote: post #13

If one substitutes United States for China and fixes geographical references, there still seems to be some truth in those statements, at least as far as I can tell from my outside perspective. One could probably also substitute still other countries or sometimes the West in general and still get some true statements. In Chinese history and contemporary culture, the Chinese are seen to be unique and superior to the re…

My controversial 2 cents, which might be very wrong: There is a major difference between the two countries: China sees itself as a single "people", in the sense that there is a clear dominating national identity linked to a certain culture and ethnicity, similar to other old world countries in the past century (some of which are still like that). The US in this sense is closer to other "new world" countries, with a n…

I was not so much aiming at the racism point, there I would - if the paper correctly characterizes China - side with the author and say that the West is on a much better path to deal with the issue.

But you still have American exceptionalism, the desire to spread western values like democracy, individual freedom and capitalism, being the world police, interference with other countries and so.

I mean it is somewhat understandable, if you believe in something, then you have to almost by definition assume that it is true and better than the alternatives. On the other hand you can also be more restrained r modest, you can believe in something but still avoid trying to force it onto everyone else.

Re: Strategic Consequences of Chinese Racism: Strategic Asymmetry for the USA (2013) [pdf]

#30

Post by Redditshill »

hneans wrote: post #18

Chinese people have been discriminated against for so many years since 1840s, yes, we Chinese people are racists, please keep a distance with China. Do not let China be infected by political correctness and "holy war". When extremists attack your noble Westerners, they are terrorists, but when they attack the Chinese people they become "freedom fighters". interesting, lol

From my comments earlier in the thread it's pretty clear that I understand why many Chinese have the viewpoint that outside influence is bad. However, I think your viewpoint is way too extreme. China isn't some passive country now that is just sitting around being attacked by extremists/freedom fighters, but China is actively making aggressive moves towards many other countries. For example, China has threatened Taiwan many times, which is completely unacceptable in my eyes.
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