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China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only b

by funkyy 11y ago

China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only because West thinks this is "brutal and cruel" dosent mean our laws would ever worked there. Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better - to clarify). Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move? Our freedoms are not always applicable in other parts of the world.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mkaziz 11y ago
Democracy is typically a thing that is grown at home, not a thing that is "given".
- funkyy 11y ago
  It should be that way. But some cannot understand that some countries do not want Democracy. Its not that they don't matured - they just don't want it. Even in some European countries we can see the move to shift much more power to presidents (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland).
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    TIL some people actually believe the things Mubarak says.
    - vlehto 11y ago
      "Royalists" have been a phenomena everywhere. Then again population of a country is able to change it's mind. Just before WWI lot's of European intelligentsia favored communism. Same happened before WWII with fascism. It is still completely possible that spread of democracy is just multinational fashion trend. And something else will come after it. For any given moment, it's even probable that majority of some country does not want democracy. There are ~200 countries and several somewhat convincing ideologies.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > Just before WWI lot's of European intelligentsia favored communism. Just to get a real feel for it, I recommend reading through this[0] book review, it may scare one shitless. Also, that belief went for longer than just I WW, it went through the II WW and finally dwindled down when the Cold War started. But imagine this - western newspapers were literally refusing to print bad news about Soviet Union, because it would offend their readers. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/11/book-review-chronicles-of-wasted-time/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/11/book-review-chronicles-...
      - crdoconnor 11y ago
        >"Royalists" have been a phenomena everywhere. As has barefaced lying to the populace about their own dislike for democracy. It seems particularly common in Egypt where the idea that "the people just aren't ready for Democracy yet like they are in the west" is commonplace among the country's elite. >It is still completely possible that spread of democracy is just multinational fashion trend. Nobody's ever voted democracy away and it's not fashion that causes it to end, it's violence.
        vlehto 11y ago
        If I would find a country where people voted out democracy, you would probably just say the election was rigged.
        crdoconnor 11y ago
        Only if there were evidence of vote rigging.
  - fineman 11y ago
    If someone truly doesn't want democracy then they are participating in it. Only some theoretical person without desires could be said to not want a system that lets them express them. Now, it's debatable if a "representative democracy" would seem to offer that, but I wonder that myself from time to time...
    - funkyy 11y ago
      The problem is that current democracy is no democracy at all in most countries. It support corruption, the governments are barely changing (same deputies, the name just changes), total detachment of administration from real human problems, hostile approach towards small businesses. The thing is that true patriot and authoritarian government for a decade can fix many problems that democracy cant handle. Once again - not everywhere though. In Libia for example most people loved Kadaffi. Yet, he was removed by revolution that would surely fail if not for major help from west. Kadaffi while violent man, managed to make Libia in to blooming example of African country that can distribute prosperity to majority of people. Let us check Singapore - did it work? Sure. Was it bad for people? Not really. Obviously there will be some affected by strong power, but devastating majority seen their lives skyrocketing comparing to Malasia. The issue is that majority of strong Leaders are either military man, or democratically chosen governments that refuse to give power away - and they are often bad news.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > The thing is that true patriot and authoritarian government for a decade can fix many problems that democracy cant handle. Once again - not everywhere though. Exactly this. And isn't it the reason so many people here are into startups? Technology is inherently undemocratic, and so are tech startups that succeed - but we don't call it that because this is "private land", not "politics land". And even ignoring the profit motive, that's why technology is appealing - a few smart people (backed by enough money) with one good design can force a change on the entire world that would never fly if you've asked people themselves. And frankly, this might be something that we desperately need for the coming decades. Democratic countries have proven themselves unable to tackle the serious issuses of energy and climate change. They don't even bother making token gestures. On the other hand, if a decade ago they'd just said "fuck it, we're building those nuclear power plants whether you like them or not", we'd all be running on green energy now.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Oh hell like anyone wants to shift power to president in Poland. Or as if anyone believed presidents have any power over anything (even the US president doesn't have any real power; you don't get to be in that position if you're a wildcard that is likely to do things against your party or the rest of administration). If anything we have a conflict between people who want the country to be more Catholic and the ones who want it to be less Catholic, and a secondary push against any government because people seem to believe that entrepreneurs are force of good that is being murdered by the Evil Government through means like taxation. Democracy is strong here - people are being indoctrinated in it since early childhood, and it's especially effective since we have the boogeyman of comunist USSR to scare them with.
bhouston 11y ago
> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better - to clarify) That is highly contentious statement.
- funkyy 11y ago
  Some parts of the world are not grown up to handle democracy or make social decisions. Those worlds usually have only three options, forced dictator, forced democracy or domestic war. We could go in to the detail but I assumed my point was clear on this one.
  - justicezyx 11y ago
    When did you got the illusion that "there is some parts of the world can handle democracy"? Or when did you got the illusion that "human are capable of handling democracy"... Dont tell me USA is a democratic country... There is hardly anything people can control in this country, let along democracy...
nsxwolf 11y ago
Yes, forced abortions and drownings of infants are sometimes necessary in some cultures. We shouldn't judge.
- matt-attack 11y ago
  Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child? They knew the law and flaunted it. Not saying the law is just, but the parents did it to themselves.
  - moistgorilla 11y ago
    > Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child No, it couldn't. The person responsible for killing the child is the person that enforces the law and the person that created the law.
    - grecy 11y ago
      Iteresting. It follows then the person that kills a death row inmate is responsible for their death, not the inmate for committing a crime in the first place.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - moistgorilla 11y ago
        When a death row inmate is killed the executioner is without doubt responsible for the death. Just like the judge that sentenced him is responsible. Now whether they were justified or not is a different question (which many would argue there is never good enough justification for the death penalty) Anyway, it's not interesting, the only thing the parents are responsible for is having a second child and breaking the law. What people do to enforce the law is their responsibility not the responsibility of the parents that broke it, the same applies for the murderer on death row. Just because something is legal doesn't absolve you of responsibility. The same way soldiers "just following orders" are responsible for the actions they commit at the behest of their superiors. Both the superiors and the soldiers are responsible
rtpg 11y ago
>Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move? Well for one thing, you'd have a billion more potential farmers... Population growth is a pretty old problem, and if recent developed nations' demographic reports show, it solves itself once you reach a certain level of development. China's success is not necessarily because of the policies in place by the government. It could very well be in spite of them.
- lostInTheWoods3 11y ago
  a billion more potential farmers yes, but land and water are finite resources
  - marrs 11y ago
    Details. We'll just build multistorey farms.
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      If you're going the technical route, you can automate a lot of the farming. Still might not need more labor.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    The quantity of the available resources is not nearly as much of a problem as the allocation. Subsistence farmers are not as productive on the same plot of land as industrialized commodity farmers. We have more than enough land and water to feed everyone, but the (simplified) problem is that when one person does all the farming for the whole world, nobody else can afford to trade for any of it from them.
    - chii 11y ago
      Surely the farmer needs clothing. So he will trade with the sole cloth maker. Surely the club maker needs threads and dyes, so she will trade with the due maker and the thread spinner... And ad infinitum.
tormeh 11y ago
>Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better - to clarify). A mistake was made. It was not understood that people in war-torn countries want peace and stability above all else, and are willing to hand in their liberties for it. It was also not understood that among people who don't trust news or words of any kind (justified in this case) it is rational to support the candidate that's closest to yourself genetically. The link between democracy and wealth, stability and trust flow both ways, and it's easier to start with wealth, stability and trust than with democracy.
- lallysingh 11y ago
  It was understood <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_need..., nobody cared. I have my own beliefs on the matter, but I'll save us the argument.
- emergentcypher 11y ago
  Also, there is a lot more at play in the middle east than simply whether the people want democracy or stability. There is plenty of foreign interference going on from USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc... it's hard enough to overthrow a dictatorship and set up a free and democratic replacement. It's even harder when several foreign powers are fighting to prevent this from happening.
  - curun1r 11y ago
    For more background on what emergentcypher is talking about, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq-Syria_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq-Syria_pipeline As I understand it (probably needs some correction): This is a cold war being fought over who will supply Europe with natural gas. Russia, the current supplier, makes a ton of money off the current arrangement and it gives Russia influence over Europe. Europe has largely stayed out of the fracas publicly, to avoid antagonizing Russia, but supports the US's efforts to get the pipeline built to have an alternate source for the energy they need. I'm unclear as the role of the US in all this, but we're tightly allied with Western Europe, so I imagine we're representing Europe's interests by proxy. But what is clear is that it's no coincidence that the countries where all this craziness is happening are the countries along the planned route for the pipeline. Seen through this lens, everything starts to make sense, including Russia's endeavors to support Assad, an opponent of the pipeline. Expecting stability in a region where one superpower wants a pipeline built and another doesn't isn't reasonable, no matter how ready the population is for democracy. Add in that the region has a ton of people who believe in a medieval religion that advocates violence against non-adherents, and what little hope there was vanishes.
austenallred 11y ago
> China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws To be clear, do you think that killing children or forced abortions were major contributors to that? Or does it just so happen that the two happened at the same time? It seems like a bit of a logical stretch to me to say, "America installing democracy didn't work in Iraq, so we shouldn't be worried if China kills or forcefully aborts children."
- funkyy 11y ago
  Maybe instead of building camps and fighting between A and B consider option C? I am not saying its OK by my standards but it seems that this was only way for China to properly handle this issue at the time when they made this move. Your assumption is a stretch. You are putting words in my mouth and that's just below level of conversation one should expect from HN community.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    That's reasonable, but that's not what your comment said. I still disagree with your overall point, but I was responded to what you wrote, not what you had in mind.
emergentcypher 11y ago
There is a lot more at play in the middle east than "they never really wanted it". As I wrote elsewhere, it's hard enough in a vacuum to overthrow a dictatorship and start a free and functional democracy. It's even harder when there are a multitude of foreign powers interfering in your country preventing this from happening. Democracy is failing in the middle east because there are a lot of powerful people and nations who don't want it to succeed, want the region to remain unstable, and want the region to remain within their respective spheres of influence. And finally, how does anybody know "what they really want" unless you ask the entire country in a free and fair manner? This is the big fallacy behind "the people prefer the lesser evil of dictatorship." You can't say that. You don't have a clue what the people prefer. This is the whole point: if the people want a dictatorship, give them a free, fair, democratic vote and let them choose dictatorship.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > And finally, how does anybody know "what they really want" unless you ask the entire country in a free and fair manner? This is the big fallacy behind "the people prefer the lesser evil of dictatorship." You can't say that. You don't have a clue what the people prefer. This is the whole point: if the people want a dictatorship, give them a free, fair, democratic vote and let them choose dictatorship. It's not even that easy. Ask the entire country in a free and fair manner and you'll quickly discover that people's opinions are not independent and do not exist in a vacuum. They may say to you they prefer living in a dictatorship because of a combination of not knowing anything else and pro-dictatorship propaganda. Or they may say "democracy!" because they drank the kool-aid. I'm starting to believe that the only way to reach democracy as a stable state is for a society to naturally evolve towards it. Just leave it alone, let them figure things out; after a few generations they will probably sort out their culture and then they'll have a democracy that's sustainable because it'll be backed by decades of cultural growth. Trying to speed this transformation up is a dangerous game. Trying to speed it up with tanks and guns is just crazy.
  - jenscow 11y ago
    > Trying to speed it up with tanks and guns is just crazy. No, that's dictating.
fineman 11y ago
> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it Does the presence of terrorists in developed countries prove "we" don't want democracy either? Because I didn't see the people (of the middle east) choosing, I saw the same thugs and warlords of the past continuing to make the decision for them.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Are you implying that all those middle-eastern countries were failed states, ruled by hordes of warlords? For instance, I vaguely remember Iraq being a pretty fine country; for decades, a lot of engineers from my country went there, and we had a pretty good economic cooperation. Then the US came and bombed the living shit out of it. As for Africa, isn't most of the mess the result of Europe coming there, destroying their local governance, abusing them for a while and then withdrawing, leaving a huge power vacuum behind?
  - clock_tower 11y ago
    Iraq after the invasion sort of was. No civil society existed, but there were plenty of bands of guerillas and local religious extremists who'd been fighting Saddam; they inherited the state when we destroyed the Baathists. (The CPA tried to create a civil society, but that can't be done artificially.) _The Prince of the Marshes_ is a good book to read on this subject.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Please don't recommend me any more books today. I already bought one because of this discussion[0]. But more seriously, thanks for the recommendation :). [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10474120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10474120.
  - fineman 11y ago
    While Iraq was being a fine country they were gassing hundreds of thousands of people. And theocracies and kingdoms are slave states by definition, so most of what was around them is the same or worse.
clock_tower 11y ago
These are two different issues -- democracy and human rights. There's nothing wrong with having a king, for example; but there's something very wrong with state-mandated infanticide -- and it would be just as wrong if it was imposed by a democracy as by any other form of government.
awakeasleep 11y ago
"Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it" You have a lot of exciting history reading ahead of you if you have the will to learn.
oafitupa 11y ago
> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative Is that what they teach in American schools? Let's see how you cope with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

by funkyy 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mkaziz 11y ago

Democracy is typically a thing that is grown at home, not a thing that is "given".

funkyy 11y ago
It should be that way. But some cannot understand that some countries do not want Democracy. Its not that they don't matured - they just don't want it. Even in some European countries we can see the move to shift much more power to presidents (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  TIL some people actually believe the things Mubarak says.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    "Royalists" have been a phenomena everywhere. Then again population of a country is able to change it's mind. Just before WWI lot's of European intelligentsia favored communism. Same happened before WWII with fascism. It is still completely possible that spread of democracy is just multinational fashion trend. And something else will come after it. For any given moment, it's even probable that majority of some country does not want democracy. There are ~200 countries and several somewhat convincing ideologies.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > Just before WWI lot's of European intelligentsia favored communism. Just to get a real feel for it, I recommend reading through this[0] book review, it may scare one shitless. Also, that belief went for longer than just I WW, it went through the II WW and finally dwindled down when the Cold War started. But imagine this - western newspapers were literally refusing to print bad news about Soviet Union, because it would offend their readers. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/11/book-review-chronicles-of-wasted-time/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/11/book-review-chronicles-...
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      >"Royalists" have been a phenomena everywhere. As has barefaced lying to the populace about their own dislike for democracy. It seems particularly common in Egypt where the idea that "the people just aren't ready for Democracy yet like they are in the west" is commonplace among the country's elite. >It is still completely possible that spread of democracy is just multinational fashion trend. Nobody's ever voted democracy away and it's not fashion that causes it to end, it's violence.
      - vlehto 11y ago
        If I would find a country where people voted out democracy, you would probably just say the election was rigged.
        crdoconnor 11y ago
        Only if there were evidence of vote rigging.
- fineman 11y ago
  If someone truly doesn't want democracy then they are participating in it. Only some theoretical person without desires could be said to not want a system that lets them express them. Now, it's debatable if a "representative democracy" would seem to offer that, but I wonder that myself from time to time...
  - funkyy 11y ago
    The problem is that current democracy is no democracy at all in most countries. It support corruption, the governments are barely changing (same deputies, the name just changes), total detachment of administration from real human problems, hostile approach towards small businesses. The thing is that true patriot and authoritarian government for a decade can fix many problems that democracy cant handle. Once again - not everywhere though. In Libia for example most people loved Kadaffi. Yet, he was removed by revolution that would surely fail if not for major help from west. Kadaffi while violent man, managed to make Libia in to blooming example of African country that can distribute prosperity to majority of people. Let us check Singapore - did it work? Sure. Was it bad for people? Not really. Obviously there will be some affected by strong power, but devastating majority seen their lives skyrocketing comparing to Malasia. The issue is that majority of strong Leaders are either military man, or democratically chosen governments that refuse to give power away - and they are often bad news.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > The thing is that true patriot and authoritarian government for a decade can fix many problems that democracy cant handle. Once again - not everywhere though. Exactly this. And isn't it the reason so many people here are into startups? Technology is inherently undemocratic, and so are tech startups that succeed - but we don't call it that because this is "private land", not "politics land". And even ignoring the profit motive, that's why technology is appealing - a few smart people (backed by enough money) with one good design can force a change on the entire world that would never fly if you've asked people themselves. And frankly, this might be something that we desperately need for the coming decades. Democratic countries have proven themselves unable to tackle the serious issuses of energy and climate change. They don't even bother making token gestures. On the other hand, if a decade ago they'd just said "fuck it, we're building those nuclear power plants whether you like them or not", we'd all be running on green energy now.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Oh hell like anyone wants to shift power to president in Poland. Or as if anyone believed presidents have any power over anything (even the US president doesn't have any real power; you don't get to be in that position if you're a wildcard that is likely to do things against your party or the rest of administration). If anything we have a conflict between people who want the country to be more Catholic and the ones who want it to be less Catholic, and a secondary push against any government because people seem to believe that entrepreneurs are force of good that is being murdered by the Evil Government through means like taxation. Democracy is strong here - people are being indoctrinated in it since early childhood, and it's especially effective since we have the boogeyman of comunist USSR to scare them with.

bhouston 11y ago

funkyy 11y ago
Some parts of the world are not grown up to handle democracy or make social decisions. Those worlds usually have only three options, forced dictator, forced democracy or domestic war. We could go in to the detail but I assumed my point was clear on this one.
- justicezyx 11y ago
  When did you got the illusion that "there is some parts of the world can handle democracy"? Or when did you got the illusion that "human are capable of handling democracy"... Dont tell me USA is a democratic country... There is hardly anything people can control in this country, let along democracy...

nsxwolf 11y ago

Yes, forced abortions and drownings of infants are sometimes necessary in some cultures. We shouldn't judge.

matt-attack 11y ago
Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child? They knew the law and flaunted it. Not saying the law is just, but the parents did it to themselves.
- moistgorilla 11y ago
  > Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child No, it couldn't. The person responsible for killing the child is the person that enforces the law and the person that created the law.
  - grecy 11y ago
    Iteresting. It follows then the person that kills a death row inmate is responsible for their death, not the inmate for committing a crime in the first place.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - moistgorilla 11y ago
      When a death row inmate is killed the executioner is without doubt responsible for the death. Just like the judge that sentenced him is responsible. Now whether they were justified or not is a different question (which many would argue there is never good enough justification for the death penalty) Anyway, it's not interesting, the only thing the parents are responsible for is having a second child and breaking the law. What people do to enforce the law is their responsibility not the responsibility of the parents that broke it, the same applies for the murderer on death row. Just because something is legal doesn't absolve you of responsibility. The same way soldiers "just following orders" are responsible for the actions they commit at the behest of their superiors. Both the superiors and the soldiers are responsible

rtpg 11y ago

>Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move? Well for one thing, you'd have a billion more potential farmers... Population growth is a pretty old problem, and if recent developed nations' demographic reports show, it solves itself once you reach a certain level of development. China's success is not necessarily because of the policies in place by the government. It could very well be in spite of them.

lostInTheWoods3 11y ago
a billion more potential farmers yes, but land and water are finite resources
- marrs 11y ago
  Details. We'll just build multistorey farms.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    If you're going the technical route, you can automate a lot of the farming. Still might not need more labor.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  The quantity of the available resources is not nearly as much of a problem as the allocation. Subsistence farmers are not as productive on the same plot of land as industrialized commodity farmers. We have more than enough land and water to feed everyone, but the (simplified) problem is that when one person does all the farming for the whole world, nobody else can afford to trade for any of it from them.
  - chii 11y ago
    Surely the farmer needs clothing. So he will trade with the sole cloth maker. Surely the club maker needs threads and dyes, so she will trade with the due maker and the thread spinner... And ad infinitum.

tormeh 11y ago

>Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better - to clarify). A mistake was made. It was not understood that people in war-torn countries want peace and stability above all else, and are willing to hand in their liberties for it. It was also not understood that among people who don't trust news or words of any kind (justified in this case) it is rational to support the candidate that's closest to yourself genetically. The link between democracy and wealth, stability and trust flow both ways, and it's easier to start with wealth, stability and trust than with democracy.

lallysingh 11y ago
It was understood <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_need..., nobody cared. I have my own beliefs on the matter, but I'll save us the argument.
emergentcypher 11y ago
Also, there is a lot more at play in the middle east than simply whether the people want democracy or stability. There is plenty of foreign interference going on from USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc... it's hard enough to overthrow a dictatorship and set up a free and democratic replacement. It's even harder when several foreign powers are fighting to prevent this from happening.
- curun1r 11y ago
  For more background on what emergentcypher is talking about, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq-Syria_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq-Syria_pipeline As I understand it (probably needs some correction): This is a cold war being fought over who will supply Europe with natural gas. Russia, the current supplier, makes a ton of money off the current arrangement and it gives Russia influence over Europe. Europe has largely stayed out of the fracas publicly, to avoid antagonizing Russia, but supports the US's efforts to get the pipeline built to have an alternate source for the energy they need. I'm unclear as the role of the US in all this, but we're tightly allied with Western Europe, so I imagine we're representing Europe's interests by proxy. But what is clear is that it's no coincidence that the countries where all this craziness is happening are the countries along the planned route for the pipeline. Seen through this lens, everything starts to make sense, including Russia's endeavors to support Assad, an opponent of the pipeline. Expecting stability in a region where one superpower wants a pipeline built and another doesn't isn't reasonable, no matter how ready the population is for democracy. Add in that the region has a ton of people who believe in a medieval religion that advocates violence against non-adherents, and what little hope there was vanishes.

austenallred 11y ago

> China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws To be clear, do you think that killing children or forced abortions were major contributors to that? Or does it just so happen that the two happened at the same time? It seems like a bit of a logical stretch to me to say, "America installing democracy didn't work in Iraq, so we shouldn't be worried if China kills or forcefully aborts children."

funkyy 11y ago
Maybe instead of building camps and fighting between A and B consider option C? I am not saying its OK by my standards but it seems that this was only way for China to properly handle this issue at the time when they made this move. Your assumption is a stretch. You are putting words in my mouth and that's just below level of conversation one should expect from HN community.
- austenallred 11y ago
  That's reasonable, but that's not what your comment said. I still disagree with your overall point, but I was responded to what you wrote, not what you had in mind.

emergentcypher 11y ago

There is a lot more at play in the middle east than "they never really wanted it". As I wrote elsewhere, it's hard enough in a vacuum to overthrow a dictatorship and start a free and functional democracy. It's even harder when there are a multitude of foreign powers interfering in your country preventing this from happening. Democracy is failing in the middle east because there are a lot of powerful people and nations who don't want it to succeed, want the region to remain unstable, and want the region to remain within their respective spheres of influence. And finally, how does anybody know "what they really want" unless you ask the entire country in a free and fair manner? This is the big fallacy behind "the people prefer the lesser evil of dictatorship." You can't say that. You don't have a clue what the people prefer. This is the whole point: if the people want a dictatorship, give them a free, fair, democratic vote and let them choose dictatorship.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> And finally, how does anybody know "what they really want" unless you ask the entire country in a free and fair manner? This is the big fallacy behind "the people prefer the lesser evil of dictatorship." You can't say that. You don't have a clue what the people prefer. This is the whole point: if the people want a dictatorship, give them a free, fair, democratic vote and let them choose dictatorship. It's not even that easy. Ask the entire country in a free and fair manner and you'll quickly discover that people's opinions are not independent and do not exist in a vacuum. They may say to you they prefer living in a dictatorship because of a combination of not knowing anything else and pro-dictatorship propaganda. Or they may say "democracy!" because they drank the kool-aid. I'm starting to believe that the only way to reach democracy as a stable state is for a society to naturally evolve towards it. Just leave it alone, let them figure things out; after a few generations they will probably sort out their culture and then they'll have a democracy that's sustainable because it'll be backed by decades of cultural growth. Trying to speed this transformation up is a dangerous game. Trying to speed it up with tanks and guns is just crazy.
- jenscow 11y ago
  > Trying to speed it up with tanks and guns is just crazy. No, that's dictating.

fineman 11y ago

> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it Does the presence of terrorists in developed countries prove "we" don't want democracy either? Because I didn't see the people (of the middle east) choosing, I saw the same thugs and warlords of the past continuing to make the decision for them.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Are you implying that all those middle-eastern countries were failed states, ruled by hordes of warlords? For instance, I vaguely remember Iraq being a pretty fine country; for decades, a lot of engineers from my country went there, and we had a pretty good economic cooperation. Then the US came and bombed the living shit out of it. As for Africa, isn't most of the mess the result of Europe coming there, destroying their local governance, abusing them for a while and then withdrawing, leaving a huge power vacuum behind?
- clock_tower 11y ago
  Iraq after the invasion sort of was. No civil society existed, but there were plenty of bands of guerillas and local religious extremists who'd been fighting Saddam; they inherited the state when we destroyed the Baathists. (The CPA tried to create a civil society, but that can't be done artificially.) _The Prince of the Marshes_ is a good book to read on this subject.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Please don't recommend me any more books today. I already bought one because of this discussion[0]. But more seriously, thanks for the recommendation :). [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10474120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10474120.
- fineman 11y ago
  While Iraq was being a fine country they were gassing hundreds of thousands of people. And theocracies and kingdoms are slave states by definition, so most of what was around them is the same or worse.

clock_tower 11y ago

These are two different issues -- democracy and human rights. There's nothing wrong with having a king, for example; but there's something very wrong with state-mandated infanticide -- and it would be just as wrong if it was imposed by a democracy as by any other form of government.

awakeasleep 11y ago

"Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it" You have a lot of exciting history reading ahead of you if you have the will to learn.

oafitupa 11y ago

> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative Is that what they teach in American schools? Let's see how you cope with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat