3 ms·
Oh, I'm just taking "crazy" literally, rather than how it's meant in the article which is more like "unfeasible" etc. That's also an elephant in the room in a w
by thinkfurther 9y ago
Oh, I'm just taking "crazy" literally, rather than how it's meant in the article which is more like "unfeasible" etc. That's also an elephant in the room in a way.
But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. Of course, when you have your population under control so much that they will build any sort of robots in any quantities for you, that might be reconsidered. Hannah Arendt wrote:
> If the totalitarian conqueror conducts himself everywhere as though he were at home, by the same token he must treat his own population as though he were a foreign conqueror.
Maybe this goes the other way, too? I don't know, but when the only thing between your resources is the mercy of organizations that know no mercy, it might.
Of course, the trouble with China is.. "us". "The" West, if you will. We have little moral standing to point fingers, no alternative vision. We have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I'm not saying we're just as totalitarian, but that we're not sufficiently non-totalitarian. China and Russia, for all valid criticism there is to make, are first and foremost awesome scapegoats that keep our side of the machinery humming.
- cabalamat 9y ago> But I agree that China so far seems to have little wish to dominate anyone else. This may well change once the Chinese economy is bigger than the US economy. It already is at PPP, but at current exchange rates China will likely surpass the USA within 10 years.
- zebrafish 9y agoWe have the dictum of the dollar rather than the dictum of the party, but that's not a meaningful enough difference IMO. I have to disagree on this point. The dollar leads to objectivism. The party leads to collectivism. It depends on your definition of morality. Do you value the individual or the society? Would you see the outliers, both good & bad, purged or preserved?
- thinkfurther 9y agoOh yeah, objectivism. Ayn Rand being against welfare for other and the collecting it herself. > Do you value the individual or the society? .. or the dollar, which is entirely different from valuing people? Just one of a trillion examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkgFA9q7w0w It leads to treating people like objects, and it makes it "rational" to destroy others for profit and "irrational" to care about them. > It depends on your definition of morality. It depends on your humanity, on the strength of your backbone. Do you have your "values", your experiences inside you, or do you have external measures, like dollars or party approval or a "definition of morality"?