161–170 of 273 posts
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People are only getting concerned by the "hype thing of the day". (today it is the 1500 immigrant children lost, yesterday it was some battle in Syria) They don't care about things until a mob of similar people care about it. It is group thinking and virtue signaling at its peak
Like the frog in gradually heated water, no one notices the gradual intensification.
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I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…
> I very much doubt it is sustainable. What if you're wrong? You have doubts, where's the evidence? > What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict This part I don't see at all. Who are the sides in this low intensity conflict? The examples in Wikipedia are distinct identities or states. What identities are in contention in China?
I am not in the clairvoyant business. Expressing doubt is as much as I could do.
>This part I don't see at all. Who are the sides in this low intensity conflict?
Armed insurrection has been ongoing on since the early 90s[0] loosely organised by ETIM[1] as well as various affiliated Islamist groups in neighboring countries especially of late. They are backed by sympathetic donors in the Gulf states, Turkey and (allegedly) the CIA. Since then there have been several high profile riots and terrorist attacks both in[2] and out[3] of Xinjiang.
Obviously they are fighting against the police and the army loyal to the government. In addition there are local entities known as Bingtuan[4] that are best described as a military-industrial complex with several company towns at strategic locations throughout the region. They are under the direct command of the state department and are expected to counter the provincial leadership should they become insubordinate.
There are also smaller groups of Hui (Chinese Muslims) seeking to consolidate their identity and Kazakh irredentists seeking reunification with Kazakhstan, but they are much less significant and tend to be allied with he government against the Uighur.
[0]：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baren_Township_riot [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan_independence_mo... [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio... [3]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack [4]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Production_and_Constr...
In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…
Seems many Americans are willing to crap all over the 2nd Amendment, which is specifically in place to prevent totalitarian government.
Exactly. If America has learned anything from the past half century of foreign military adventures, it should be that a big modern Army can't easily defeat a motivated insurgency that has the support and sympathy in the local population.
The 2nd Amendment may have a lot of costs, but the private gun ownership it provides for would definitely make it much more difficult for a domestic totalitarian regime to establish itself in the US.
In the West we have a false sense of security that totalitarianism will inevitably fail. We've seen so many examples of fallen tyrannical states. But many ideas fail the first few times they're tried. China seems committed to making totalitarianism "work." It's hard to think of any more dangerous invention. Even nuclear weapons aren't as dangerous as a sustainable model for modern tyrannical government. This is an in…
One could argue that “totalitarianism” was the default government form for most of history. The problem is, the higher we go on the Maslow pyramid, the more likely it is for it to fail. You just can’t have a huge mass of creative, inventive people without them complaining about leadership (and wanting to improve it). And totalitarianism by definition has problems accepting criticism. The only way for totalitarianism…
After Augustus Rome still had a couple of hundred years of expansion where a nationalist could argue, “hey look at that! Things are still going good.” But they couldn’t outrun the rot in the system forever.
After Xi will China get another strongman? I think this is the key. If there are a series of total dictators things will decay. Whatever justifications a dictator uses for their rules, ultimately they are going to try to implement policies that keep themselves on top first.
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No, it's not funny. A century or two of attacks on the region from Christians has soured relationships in the area, but those Lebanese Christians lived in Muslim controlled areas for over a millennium. By comparison, Muslims in Spain were immediately forced to convert or leave, and in 200 years any ember of the religion was dead. The current situation stems from much more than just religious choice.
You are rewriting history. The actual Lebanon territory contained Christians centuries before it became muslim. And it became a muslim territory after conquests. The fact that most regions of the world where there is muslim believers (Middle East, some parts of Europe and of the Indian subcontinent, Maghreb) is because of military conquest is telling. The only place this religion spread peacefully is South-Asia. The…
The Spanish case is not different. Much of Spain had been Muslim for as long as it had ever been Christian, and the Christians had been part of the empire for centuries. The expulsion wasn't an ancient grudge over being conquered, if it was then they wouldn't have also forced the Jewish population to do the same thing.
Oh, and if Spanish aggression was justified, colonialism justifies the current aggression in the Middle East.
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I very much doubt it is sustainable. The cost of policing is quite substantial and the productivity lost is hard to replace which adds to the cost. What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict[0] not unlike what took place in white Rhodesia/Namibia, Northern Ireland during the troubles, etc. There is a economic reason why these conflicts could not last indefinitely, no matter what ideologies drive…
If technology is able to repress resistance in more powerful ways than was previously possible then things like Northern Ireland won't be possible.
Northern Ireland (in the 1900s) was less about resistance to a tyrannical state, and much more about a population split 50/50ish who had hated each other for a few hundred years. British action there was far from exemplary, but had the people of Northern Ireland woken up one day to find they were part of the Republic of Ireland, precisely no problems would have been solved.
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Doesn't make his point any less valid in this PARTICULAR context. I mean, where are we going to move the factories if the prerequisite is "No brutal use of deadly force against Muslims" ?
Was he making a relevant point besides that the West/US has done bad things too?
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> I very much doubt it is sustainable. What if you're wrong? You have doubts, where's the evidence? > What we are seeing today is essentially a low intensity conflict This part I don't see at all. Who are the sides in this low intensity conflict? The examples in Wikipedia are distinct identities or states. What identities are in contention in China?
> What if you're wrong? You have doubts, where's the evidence? There's not enough data to make predictions like that. But one very good reason for optimism is that China's current totalitarian stability is an unstable false vacuum. It's sustained by the outrageously rapid economic growth seen in the decades since the cultural revolution. Basically: if you're Chinese, your grandparents (if they were lucky) survived a…
This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? On an iPhone and the web link didn’t work, nor did going through twitter or Facebook. Thanks in advance for any help.
>This paywall is defeating all my usual tricks, can someone help me out? Paying for the content ought to do the trick.
Get real, only suckers pay for such things.
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That didn’t work for the USSR, why would it work for China? As long as some things are off limits / as long as people know they arn’t alowed to research this or that, then they’ll be at a long term disadvantage to those that do. China was here before. Cutting yourself off from the world just means you eventually find yourself having fallen behind everyone else.
> That didn’t work for the USSR, why would it work for China? The CCP does have the benefit of learning from the failures of the Soviets. > China was here before. Cutting yourself off from the world just means you eventually find yourself having fallen behind everyone else. That mainly happened because they were so dominant in their sphere that they didn't bother themselves with far off areas that seemed primitive to…