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China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline

economist.com

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

#111

Post by EdwinLarkin »

endisneigh wrote: post #93
EdwinLarkin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

China is not worse than it was 50 years ago however it's development is unsustainable and superficial.

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

#112

Post by oxymoran »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #46
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…

Perhaps its not infighting?

Seriously. While we were pretending that communism was defeated and the Cold War has been over since 1989, the CCP has infiltrated western corporations, institutions, and schools right under our noses. Lord knows what sort of havoc they have instigated and what IP they have stolen.

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

#113

Post by jorblumesea »

endisneigh wrote: post #62
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…

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…

I don't think "irreversible decline" meaning the raw metrics get worse. I think here it means the structure and ideology of the CCP means they will never be able to deliver what the West can deliver, especially on the personal freedoms front.

Maybe decline is the wrong word, and collision course is a better one.

As China globalizes and becomes more exposed to the outside world, they will start to wonder why they can't vote on things like environmental regulation, or why the local factory pollutes their river but they have little say in that process.

In this sense, this is the decline. It's the CCP being undermined by their own economic liberalization.

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

#114

Post by jszymborski »

cujo wrote: post #25
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.

>extreme racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry won't be a winning recipe Have you read the news about the "west" lately? US politics and Brexit are two biggies that seem to fall in line with this.

I get so tired of this line.

In the west, problems of racism and homophobia get put out into the sunlight so they might be addressed. It leads to people exerting their democratic right to manifest against injustice and root out inequality.

In China, racism and homophobia doesn't exist because any mention of it gets wiped off the internet, and "different" people get shipped off into camps.

I wonder what percentage of people that make your argument are doing so in bad faith.

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

#115

Post by elmomle »

thepasswordis wrote: post #71

It's because we stopped focusing on creating things, and instead started laser focusing on making sure that everybody gets exactly the same amount of everything all the time. It's ridiculous. We are trust fund children who don't understand where the money came from, and it will be our undoing. Twitter, NYT, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the like have monetized dividing us, and they have a multi-billion dollar a year budge…

Agree with exploitation mentality, disagree with "everybody getting their fair share" being the core. That exploitation/financialization mentality really hit its stride with Reagan, though both parties eventually vied to see who could do it more. It is ostensibly independent of where the money goes to.

But the winners were always the rich. Inequality in the US between the top 0.01% and "everyone else" has increased tremendously in the past 40 years (https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...).

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by throwaway-70b8 »

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.

spot on. CCP cultivates it.

also, your account is screwed. These are not the sort of opinions one's allowed to have connected to their real name

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

#118

Post by justinzollars »

The West is in total decline. We are living through the complete collapse of the old order and the values of Western Civilization are being replaced before our very eyes.

All of our advantages are being withered away and there is really nothing special about the West.

China is confident and is executing a plan to grow very quickly. They have embraced markets and their people are growing wealthy.

Personally I'm betting on China to win, my money is there. The Chinese work hard, they produce everything, their government works, their society is united and peaceful and the 21st century is literally theirs to take.

What do we have to offer the world? Soy Beans? Scrap metal? A government that doesn't produce results? I have trouble finding a single advantage.

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

#120

Post by earthboundkid »

I just don't see how the US keeps together.

The disconnect between the two sides is, on the one hand, not based on anything concrete. So maybe we can patch it up somehow. Like, before the Civil War, slavery is a real thing with real human and economic effects. Today though, conservatives are mad about what exactly?… It seems like they're mad about a generalized disrespect which the mainstream culture has towards them. And fair enough, they aren't imagining that. But they vent this anger into really bizarre things like trying to keep trans people from using the bathroom and imaginary voter fraud prevention laws. And those are the mainstream, non-conspiracy minded Republican issues!

On the other hand though, if there can't be any communication between the two sides, if anyone adopting a position that is popular with 40% of the public makes them a pariah to the other 40%, I just don't see how you can run a country like that. I also don't see any causes on the horizon that would cause the current trend to reverse and for things to become less polarized.

So my current best guess is that we are in the quiet period now, things will stew along for the next 2 to 4 years, then Trump will run again or some other crazy thing, and then there will be secession crisis. It doesn't have to happen, but preventing it from happening requires the Republicans to denounce Trump and anyone associated with him, and I don't think they're going to do it. That isn't to say that the Republicans will necessarily be the ones to precipitate the crisis. I think it's pretty much equally likely that Trump/a Trumpist wins and then the blue states decide to leave. I think something like that probably would have happened in 2020 if he had squeaked out another narrow electoral college win, so it could happen in 2024 or 2028 instead.

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