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The Future, Made in China

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Re: The Future, Made in China

#51

Post by andriy_koval »

kibwen wrote: post #31
Hasz wrote: post #23

> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of the US on a "Chinese timescale", the US rejected autocratic rule, built a system that decentralizes power, uses ambition to check ambition, and provides for frequent, peaceful transfer of power. To an autocratic Chinese bureaucrat, this is all wasteful shortsight…

The belief that autocracies will inevitably fall (or perhaps that "the arc of history bends towards justice") is hopelessly naive. Technology is a force multiplier with the power to entrench autocracy, forever.

there is competition in technology field, and autocracies are not most competitive entities compared to say public corporations. Its still not clear who will win (common folks unlikely though)

Re: The Future, Made in China

#52

Post by polotics »

dyauspitr wrote: post #42
Hasz wrote: post #23

> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of the US on a "Chinese timescale", the US rejected autocratic rule, built a system that decentralizes power, uses ambition to check ambition, and provides for frequent, peaceful transfer of power. To an autocratic Chinese bureaucrat, this is all wasteful shortsight…

The Chinese model is 100% not exportable. It is in essence a benevolent dictatorship that actually seems to be functioning. It’s exactly like having a good monarch and if you look at history, good monarchs, were not all that frequent.

Can you qualify the benevolence maybe as a factor of the distance to Beijing?

Re: The Future, Made in China

#53

Post by polotics »

_superposition_ wrote: post #45
kibwen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The belief that autocracies will inevitably fall (or perhaps that "the arc of history bends towards justice") is hopelessly naive. Technology is a force multiplier with the power to entrench autocracy, forever.

What if communism/socialism works with the assistance of technology?

Can you be more precise maybe?

Re: The Future, Made in China

#54

Post by xXSLAYERXx »

verdverm wrote: post #39
altmanaltman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China had an enermous corruption problem, what are you talking about? Xi has been on an anti-corruption campagin since 2012 and they are just getting rid of top leaders like just last month. And I am sure his "anti-corruption" campaign is totally not ignoring some aspects. While Trump might be an outlier in how obvious the grift is, that doesn't make China suddenly the good guys who only care about their country or t…

1995 was a different leader in a different time. Let us not forget at one point, America forced walked people on The Trail of Tears. American Amnesia is very potent and powerful, we easily forget about last week, year, century When did we go from bad guy to good guy?

Yes, let us not forget The Trail of Tears which happened two hundred years ago.

> China increasingly says to autocrats, Would you like to stay in power? I can help you with that.

> This is one of the safest places in the world, if you’re not a dissident

> In March, authorities abruptly barred the two founders of an A.I. startup called Manus from leaving the country.

Did you even read the article?

Re: The Future, Made in China

#55

Post by andriy_koval »

daliusd wrote: post #35
kibwen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The belief that autocracies will inevitably fall (or perhaps that "the arc of history bends towards justice") is hopelessly naive. Technology is a force multiplier with the power to entrench autocracy, forever.

Still you will not be able to give any existing example that lasted longer than 100 years. There are examples like Sayfawa dynasty which is counter-example to your claim about technology being multiplier

many autocracies in terms of social management systems lasted for many hundreds years.

Leaders of specific autocracies change, right (e.g. king got killed, but now we have new king), but governing structure persisted.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#56

Post by pydry »

Avicebron wrote: post #48
graemep wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many of them genuinely believe that it is progress to be above mere national interests. Certainly many people believe it to be a more progressive point of view.

Not sure if it was a naive new world order belief, blinding greed, racism, plain stupidity or a mixture of all of that. But the end result was selling the American people down the river..

there was an element of drinking their own kool aid. the economic religion of the late 90s and 00s was the theory of (static) comparative advantage vs export oriented industrialization.

China was only shooting itself in the foot, it was argued, by not opening its markets fully and following export oriented industrialization.

profit margins dictated economist opinions though. This is why EOI was treated as quaint while TOCA was treated as gospel truth even though one was nonsense.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#57

Post by grunder_advice »

Hasz wrote: post #23

> Common sense says countries rise and fall in cycles Oh common sense. If you believe all countries are autocracies, maybe. But to examine the trajectory of the US on a "Chinese timescale", the US rejected autocratic rule, built a system that decentralizes power, uses ambition to check ambition, and provides for frequent, peaceful transfer of power. To an autocratic Chinese bureaucrat, this is all wasteful shortsight…

I find your framing somewhat historically inaccurate. China did not make an "autocratic bargain" with its people. Democracy and Liberalism are offshoots of Christian culture that originated in Europe and spread to the former European colonies (including to Venezuela and Argentina) and post-WWII to the allies. Although China flirted briefly with liberalism and democracy those remained foreign concepts and did not permeate Chinese culture.

So therefore to me a more correct historical reading is that China, a fairly insular culture, was pretty much always ruled as an authoritarian inward focused realm and it still is today. I think it is also an unjustified assumption that China would fare better under a liberal democratic regime. For example, currently the CCP keeps all the Chinese oligarchs in check. A liberal democratic China would find it much harder to control those oligarchs.

Argentina and Venezuela are completely different situations where the population is a mix of different cultures and ethnicities and unlike China they had been injected with a heavy dose of western liberal democratic tradition before they regressed back to authoritarianism.

Bottom line is, I think people tend to have this really weird blind spot to culture and history when they discuss politics.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#58

Post by dyauspitr »

polotics wrote: post #52
dyauspitr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese model is 100% not exportable. It is in essence a benevolent dictatorship that actually seems to be functioning. It’s exactly like having a good monarch and if you look at history, good monarchs, were not all that frequent.

Can you qualify the benevolence maybe as a factor of the distance to Beijing?

The nobles and the courtiers were always favored more.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#59

Post by graemep »

Avicebron wrote: post #48
graemep wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many of them genuinely believe that it is progress to be above mere national interests. Certainly many people believe it to be a more progressive point of view.

Not sure if it was a naive new world order belief, blinding greed, racism, plain stupidity or a mixture of all of that. But the end result was selling the American people down the river..

There was a belief in "the end of history": that any economy that developed would inevitably become a liberal free market democracy.

I think this has left its mark. A lot of people do not seem to be able understand that this is not true. Even if they accept it intellectually its such a fundamental assumption that its still influential.

I think there was, and is, an element of racism. It still persists in that a lot of westerners cannot comprehend that they can be overtaken technologically or threatened by non-western societies. This includes people who think they are not racist, or are anti-racist.

Re: The Future, Made in China

#60

Post by verdverm »

xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #54
verdverm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1995 was a different leader in a different time. Let us not forget at one point, America forced walked people on The Trail of Tears. American Amnesia is very potent and powerful, we easily forget about last week, year, century When did we go from bad guy to good guy?

Yes, let us not forget The Trail of Tears which happened two hundred years ago. > China increasingly says to autocrats, Would you like to stay in power? I can help you with that. > This is one of the safest places in the world, if you’re not a dissident > In March, authorities abruptly barred the two founders of an A.I. startup called Manus from leaving the country. Did you even read the article?

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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