China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline • Hacker News Board

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#91

Post by pcbro141 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

rafale wrote: post #15

The west is in decline because progressive values don't promote strength. They focus on class and are inherently divisive. Ironically, they only blossom in strong societies. The decline will allow other societies with a more conservative philosophy to take over and it will be their turn in a few centuries to succumb to the same tragedy. The baizuo tragedy.

Progressives and 'woke politics' are the reason the US let its infrastructure crumble? I don't follow your logic. You are saying progressive weakness is the reason America has let its infrastructure crumble, and why America doesn't have universal healthcare, why its education system isn't as good as it should be? That sounds wrong.

I see a lot of claims lately that 'woke politics' are the reason the US has let itself crumble and underperform for decades (relative to its potential), but 'woke politics' is a fairly new thing, and progressives generally aren't against infrastructure spending or universal healthcare or investing in education/science/tech, so I don't see the connection. The 'woke'/progressive politicians actually tend to favor this type of major investment/public spending more than the right does.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#92

Post by jkingsbery » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

tonyaiken wrote: post #13

hundchenkatze wrote: post #2

non-paywalled: https://web.archive.org/web/20210412021807/https://www.econo...

Only first few paragraphs are visible for me

I just had to refresh and it showed for me.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#93

Post by endisneigh » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

EdwinLarkin wrote: post #86

endisneigh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is factually untrue. By pretty much every imaginable metric China has improved for nearly everyone (in China) for the past 50 years. Is this also true in the USA? I don't think China is superior to the USA, but to say China is in a "irreversible decline" is ridiculous. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/celt/eng/jmgx/jjxs/t124869.htm https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-economic-growth-histo... https://www.cfr.org/ti…

It is factually true. Chinese have access to poisoned shitty water that everyone has to boil first and that's not only because of that chi bullshit. Meanwhile I have access to delicious spring water from Alps. China has achieved only superficial changes that will bite them in the ass in the future.

Do you seriously believe China is worse now then it was 50 years ago?

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#94

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

Daho0n wrote: post #43

mrits wrote: post #10

I'd like to think that extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe. A lot of the advantages China has in their government is beneficial for competing with other nations but will eventually eat itself from within.

>I'd like to think that extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe It worked just fine in/for the US though. Look back at the US's rise to where it is today and it was pretty bad. Another example is that it is still pretty bad in the US today and it is top dog anyways. I doubt it will make any difference in PRC either.

In the last thirty years:

+ The US has decriminalized homosexuality and was one of the first countries to have same sex marriage

+ Has had robust hate crime laws and strong equal rights protections

+ Is slowly but consistently rolling back low level drug offenses

We always have to compare to our peers, not some unicorn standard. The US had continually been an extremely liberal and accepting society even with it's faults and missteps.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#95

Post by Daho0n » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

EdwinLarkin wrote: post #33

That's ridiculous.China is the one in irreversible decline. Most people in the West get to enjoy freedom and access to utilities money cant buy in China. 1) For once most people in the west have access to safe and good tap water.Chinese urban dwellers dont. 2) Most people in the west live in places with significantly better air quality than chinese. 3) Most people in the west get to enjoy freedoms chinese cant even t…

Your examples says nothing about the rise (or decline) of the west. Only about how it is right now. That is missing the point. Those stats you mention seen over time show that the west is at best at a standstill while PRC have risen meteoric. The middle-class in PRC were pretty much nonexistent some decades ago in PRC. They did get the better standard of living and it is still becoming better. It doesn't go as fast as it once did but far better than the west.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#96

Post by fullshark » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #3

If someone happened to agree with this analysis and was bearish on western liberalism, is there a place they should put their money in order to potentially profit?

If you're bullish on eastern communism, then your ambition should probably not be to become a wealthy capital holder.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#97

Post by remirk » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

j_walter wrote: post #35

They are probably not wrong. When you look at the infighting within the US that is front page news every day...the decline is in full swing. People care less about how to actually improve the country than they do about trying to hold entire professions accountable for the actions of a few (not just cops)...then we are focused on the wrong things. Spending hundreds of days protesting something instead of putting that…

You are saying you would like people to actually improve the country, but are saying defunding the police counters that.

When people say they'll want to defund the police, they are not saying there should be no police. People want a different police. There are structural problems that are not easily fixed, as we have seen. Making a new police-like organisation from the ground up is a way to fix those structural problems. I'm not sure if I agree that is the best solution, but people that do are trying to improve the country that way.

In fact, all people that are protesting do want to improve the world. But they realise that they are held back. See climate change and inequality. Those problems cannot be fixed without getting the people in power to help.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#98

Post by alert0 » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

It is just where we are in the long term debt cycle. The US dollar will devalue in the next decade, but we aren't facing a collapse or anything. We are out of monetary tools (interest rates near zero) to stave off deflation, so we will turn to fiscal tools (printing money). This is a good thing as it will make the US more competitive on exports. We may lose our global reserve currency status but that is not a sustainable position, so it is somewhat inevitable.

The US is still one of the most desirable places for foreign talent. I hope we maintain that position. That creates demand for US resources and provides the people currently here with a comfortable retirement. China is not so welcoming to foreigners, nor is it very desirable given the pollution.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#99

Post by jszymborski » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

rafale wrote: post #21

mrits wrote: post #10

I'd like to think that extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe. A lot of the advantages China has in their government is beneficial for competing with other nations but will eventually eat itself from within.

China promotes a monolithic Chinese identity above race and class. That's why they are called an ethnostate. It's the anti multiculturalism and it seems to be working for them for the most part. Despite the awful nazi grade stuff going on in some parts.

This "unity" comes at a horribly steep cost.

Side-stepping for a moment the humanitarian and ethical costs for a brief moment, an enforced homogeneity of ideology leaves little room for independent thinking. At some point, you end up passing down every decision down and idea down a party line like a bucket through a fire brigade. That severely stifles innovation and creates an incredibly narrow view of your options.

But I promised we'd come back to the humanitarian and ethical costs. Diversity is strength. It's more than twee corporate advertising, it's a truth. It's hard to approach new problems when everyone is reading off the same song sheet. Strengths become reinforced, but weaknesses become far more weak; it's a very brittle strength.

Re: China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

#100

Post by hohohmm » Tue, Apr 13, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

Wrong. China is not betting on it, rather the US is betting that China is betting on it, to poise China in an adversary role.

China has plenty of its own problems to mind and its road to mondernization is far from over. It's the US that's in question. Why is it fussing over China so much? Why not mind its own business? Why blame everything on China when the US could spend the time improving lives for its own citizens? Or is its blood-sucking, globally exploitive economy cannot function without the sacrifice of an imaginary enemy?

US is the one that gets red-eyed all over a country that's doing good, just because itself can't seem to get out of the decline. What the US doesn't have, others can't either.