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Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

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Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#51

Post by gurkendoktor »

Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17
misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

The problem is that the PRC is going for an authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas", but at the same time they refuse to give up non-Han territories like Xinjiang that don't fit into this equation at all.

Also, the CCP won't leave people alone who leave China for more attractive systems. They're hardly interested in a competition of systems.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#52

Post by Udo »

misrab wrote: post #6

"When I brought up the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs—around a million are now in reëducation camps in the northwestern province of Xinjiang—he trotted out the familiar arguments of government-controlled media: “Would you rather that they be hacking away at bodies at train stations and schools in terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty.” The an…

The problem is that he's not wrong, and I really do see this as a massive problem, he wouldn't even be wrong if the word "Chinese" would be replaced by most Western demonyms. It's a straight-forward, honest, and well-reasoned position. It's also despotic and dystopian.

The issue I see for the future of the entire industrialized world is that this particular brand of consumerized dictatorship is based on the lessons of hundreds of years of failed regimes, and in an evolutionary effect it seems "we" have now come up with a system that is both stable and totalitarian. It's an emerging system for the whole world, and the fact that no human on the entire planet can escape it without losing access to everything they care about, only enhances its stability.

This system is precisely tuned to offer us just enough so we do not mind what's being taken away. I'm personally no exception to this: I want a high standard of life and security as well. I want the luxuries afforded by consumer electronics and high technology. Through technology and international connectivity, I have more options for meaningful social interactions than ever before. The prospect of losing access to any of that if I ever act up against the system is a powerful mechanism that keeps me in line. Not that I ever brush up against the boundaries, mind you, because the system is well designed to appeal to my need for perceived autonomy: as long as I keep my head down, I'll be left alone.

Right now, in the West, the price of reasonable dissent is not very high. Yet. But you can already feel the thousands of little mechanisms working to discourage it. When I became active in protesting against the EU copyright reform, my first attempt at being political in decades, the game was so thoroughly rigged that I'll probably refrain from attempting to change the official narrative in the foreseeable future. Had protesting been actively discouraged by the government, I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I would probably not have shown up at all.

I'm struck by our collective inability to come up with a good alternative to this system. It seems to me this system is evolving on its own, and that development is synchronous world-wide. Sure, it's appealing to the powerful, who actively push it. But that's not what's driving it. I suspect it's the collective human spirit.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#53

Post by pizza »

hungryhobo wrote: post #46
mamoswine wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it relies on the benevolence of a dictatorship (and I don't use the term dictatorship pejoratively). It's all fine and good to have a system where people's needs are provided for and in general the populace is taken care of (for example, the housing situation in Singapore is very good and much better than places where people have to pay through the nose for shacks, like…

An important factor that often gets left out when discussing different types of government is the level of development of a country. A centrally powerful government has some perks that makes rapid industrialization possible. Where as a democracy might be good if a country is wealthy and its citizens educated. South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed, and both were unde…

Germany? Japan? Taiwan?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#54

Post by pjc50 »

anon46121 wrote: post #7
mido22 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo, the second book was exceptional and as a standalone, one of the best sci-fi books of the past decade.

Not bad. The series reminded me of 1940's-50's sci-fi from the US, for a couple of reasons: A large confidence in the industrial and scientific capacity of their country. Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys. No consequential female characters.

> Relatively uncritical acceptance that their country is the good guys

Were we reading the same books? With all the Cultural Revolution trauma in Three Body Problem?

That is the only one of the three I've read, but to me a huge theme was information control. The cultural revolution as the historical event, and the single-particle invasion fleet interfering with humanity's science as the futuristic event. Both analogies for each other. And the ambivalent question underlying it of "what if this is necessary for survival"?

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#55

Post by pjc50 »

arugulum wrote: post #24
ur-whale wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate here, but to be fair, there's a pretty decent likelihood that we in the west have indeed been "brainwashed" into believing that freedom is actually more important than these other things he's listing (health care, housing, education, etc...). If you set aside freedom as a goal in itself for a second, then it's actually worth asking: is freedom actually the most important factor leading to those other…

> They phrased it this way: sure, we don't have a free press, and we have a benevolent tyrant running the place, but: I think the bigger problem is people completely mischaracterizing what Singapore is. Modern Singapore is nothing like a "benevolent tyranny". The best way to characterize it is probably to imagine a large, well-run city with strict laws, heavy bureaucracy, expansive regulation and government involveme…

I don't think it's all in the past: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/15/outcry...

(although it's a valid point that this was a colonial introduction)

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#56

Post by pjc50 »

fsloth wrote: post #22

Science. The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas. No freedom of press, no cars. That's the historical perspec…

China had technologies that were unavailable to the West for centuries; gunpowder, printing, silk etc.

What China did lack was liberalism, especially the economic freedom to develop technologies into products, and especially the freedom to be "disruptive". Imperial China absolutely hated disruption; for about a thousand years they successfully murdered anyone challenging the status quo.

Meanwhile a surprising amount of culture was preserved from the classical era in the Middle East while Europe was experiencing the "dark ages"; have you not noticed the Arabic numerals we use or the "al" in algebra?

> greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything

This didn't turn out so well for Socrates.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#57

Post by hungryhobo »

pizza wrote: post #53
hungryhobo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important factor that often gets left out when discussing different types of government is the level of development of a country. A centrally powerful government has some perks that makes rapid industrialization possible. Where as a democracy might be good if a country is wealthy and its citizens educated. South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed, and both were unde…

Germany? Japan? Taiwan?

Germany was already developed. And Japan and Taiwan also fit my example

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#58

Post by peisistratos »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #21
Tinfoilhat666 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country - which I suppose means I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp. I already do criticise on lots of other topics, and some of our worse moments of empire in history, or the lives ruined by UK's austerity dogma. I criticise the US too, and don't want to be just like them either. W…

> If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country

The UK did lock up dissidents in a mass internment during the 1970s - in the six counties of north Ireland. The Irish marched through the streets of Derry to protest and 14 (unarmed) men were shot. The queen then proceeded to pin medals on the parachute regiment who fired on the crowd.

Chinese needs no help from the Britains who launched a war to keep selling their opium and heroin to Chinese drug addicts - drug pushers using violence to keep addicts addicted, to "remember their humanity".

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#59

Post by gdy »

UglycupRawky wrote: post #13

It's a truly fascinating piece, but wow, I didn't expect going in that I'd come out not liking him. On the other hand, I didn't really know anything about Liu Cixin or his work before now, so maybe this is all well-trodden ground for everyone else.

The journalist worked hard to achieve that effect.

Re: Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

#60

Post by pjc50 »

arethuza wrote: post #32
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country - which I suppose means I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp. I already do criticise on lots of other topics, and some of our worse moments of empire in history, or the lives ruined by UK's austerity dogma. I criticise the US too, and don't want to be just like them either. W…

"I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp" From what I remember of Duncan Campbell's Secret Society I believe the legislation for just emergency measures as interment of 'subversives' and other emergency measures was drafted during the Cold War - this would be expected to be passed by parliament in the event of a suitable emergency. I would suspect these things have never been thrown out but will still b…

Internment was used in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the last prosecution for "sedition" in the UK was 1972 before it was reformed in 1975. http://www.bailii.org/ew/other/EWLC/1977/c72.pdf
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