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For some useless anecdata, I visited Beijing five times in the last year - compared to my visits in years prior, the air was definitely cleaner. In years past t

For some useless anecdata, I visited Beijing five times in the last year - compared to my visits in years prior, the air was definitely cleaner. In years past they’ve had entire months where the particulate level never dropped below “very high” - visiting in that month was like suffocating in an airport smoking room. The authoritarian government has its pros - not having to worry about your regulations, laws and work rolled back every four years is nice. It makes it possible to have long-term plans and execute really aggressive, even economically harmful policies in pursuit of a goal. Of course, the negatives of such a government - the corruption, the abuses, the drive to maintain power - are all too often the downfalls of such a system, and I’m rather afraid that Xi has started down a bad road by trying to cling to power there.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Chaebixi 9y ago
Another anecdote: I visited a less-visited area in China a few months ago and was told a steel plant was recently moved there from Beijing. So, maybe they haven't shutdown or cleaned up many of those polluters, they just moved them to less politically sensitive areas.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  That has always been true. Most of Beijing’s heavy industry was actually moved out before the 2008 Olympics. But they are running out of places to move them, northern china, especially Hebei, has a serious pollution problem that is drastically worse than Beijing’s.
  - joemag 9y ago
    I just checked Hebei on iqicn.org, and it’s polution level is around 500. Twice the level of Beijing. Holy Molly.
    - Chaebixi 9y ago
      Beijing would probably be in Hebei if it was part of a province. Ditto with Tianjin. Look at its map and you can see those cities pretty distinctly carved out in the center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei.
- beisner 9y ago
  From a public health perspective that’s still a net gain, even if it’s not an environmental one.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    I'm not so sure: it was still to a city with a couple million residents and a smog problem.
hristov 9y ago
Then again if they had a democratic government it is very unlikely they would get in the present state of pollution to begin with.
- mazerackham 9y ago
  I find it hard to believe that if you truly sat down and thought about it from first principles for an hour, that you would actually believe that
  - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    Or looking at historical pictures of a city with street lights on at mid-day because of industrial smog ... https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/stunning-photos-of-pittsburghs-air-pollution-in-the-1940s https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/stunning-photos-of-pittsb...
    - sengork 9y ago
      I wonder how those pictures would compare if they were taken by the same camera technology.
      - nneonneo 9y ago
        Try this on for size: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/lastwinterthiswinter.jpg https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/lastwin... from this following article: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aghast-over-beijings-air-pollution-this-was-pittsburgh-not-that-long-ago/267237/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aghas... The left image is, amazingly, a daytime shot - the sun is visible in the top-left corner. The smog was so bad on that day ("Black Tuesday", November 1939) that a camera essentially could not capture any detail _in broad daylight_.
    - nneonneo 9y ago
      I live in Pittsburgh. The air is clean now and the water is clear - but there's constant reminders that it wasn't always this way. Although most of the historic buildings were cleaned of soot, a few chose to keep some parts sooty and black as a reminder of what once was - a great example is the Mellon Institute just a few blocks from my work (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mellon-institute-columns https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mellon-institute-columns). It did take Pittsburgh a long time to start fixing its environmental issues, and it took the total collapse of the steel industry to fully clear the air. Even back when I came here (~2011) people had an impression of Pittsburgh as a polluted, industrial hell-hole - I'm so glad that it wasn't the case when I came.
mikeash 9y ago
It looks like it's still pretty bad. Aqicn.org (pretty accurate from what I remember) shows the current PM2.5 level in Beijing at 242. (For comparison, the closest station to my house near Washington, DC shows a level of 27.) I don't doubt that it's better, but it still has quite a way to go. Authoritarian governments can be great until they go wrong. It's commonly said that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. The problem is ensuring benevolence, which is really hard in the long term. Democracy's advantages lie not in the ability to get stuff done (which they suck at), but in their ability to transfer power peacefully and limit the damage caused by power-hungry maniacs.
- dlwdlw 9y ago
  Interestingly enough ancient Chinese texts like the Tao Te Ching emphasize that the best ruler is one who doesn't seem to exist. Similarly with free markets and letting people do there thing in peace an invisible quality emerges. The Emergence of quality from frictionless interaction is a very interesting thing. Ants seem to have agency. Our brains seem to create consciousness. Markets seem to have an invisible hand. Hubris creating actions that seek to understand what can't be understood that destroy these sources of quality is a common trope that happens in history.
  - adamsea 9y ago
    It does say that but that’s not quite it. I actually just read a translation with some really cool annotations and explanatory text. That said, I’m no expert, etc. But .... ... basically what this author was saying was that in the context of Taoism “do nothing” kinda means to do what is natural - as you say, ants just do ants. To do “something” would be to go against the nature of what being an ant is. This is also true for badgers, bears, flowers, people, etc - everything has its “way.” So, the “way” of being a person could, say, involve taking compassionate action to help a fellow human beings, if the way/nature of humanity is to help others, say. I dunno about the Tao of free markets. If anything you could argue for a harmonious balance of unregulated and regulated. Not sure what “free” means for the consumer if they face a monopoly or a syndicate or shit wages or dangerously defective products or tons of pollution.
- 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Chaebixi 9y ago

Another anecdote: I visited a less-visited area in China a few months ago and was told a steel plant was recently moved there from Beijing. So, maybe they haven't shutdown or cleaned up many of those polluters, they just moved them to less politically sensitive areas.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
That has always been true. Most of Beijing’s heavy industry was actually moved out before the 2008 Olympics. But they are running out of places to move them, northern china, especially Hebei, has a serious pollution problem that is drastically worse than Beijing’s.
- joemag 9y ago
  I just checked Hebei on iqicn.org, and it’s polution level is around 500. Twice the level of Beijing. Holy Molly.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    Beijing would probably be in Hebei if it was part of a province. Ditto with Tianjin. Look at its map and you can see those cities pretty distinctly carved out in the center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei.
beisner 9y ago
From a public health perspective that’s still a net gain, even if it’s not an environmental one.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  I'm not so sure: it was still to a city with a couple million residents and a smog problem.

hristov 9y ago

Then again if they had a democratic government it is very unlikely they would get in the present state of pollution to begin with.

mazerackham 9y ago
I find it hard to believe that if you truly sat down and thought about it from first principles for an hour, that you would actually believe that
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
  Or looking at historical pictures of a city with street lights on at mid-day because of industrial smog ... https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/stunning-photos-of-pittsburghs-air-pollution-in-the-1940s https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/stunning-photos-of-pittsb...
  - sengork 9y ago
    I wonder how those pictures would compare if they were taken by the same camera technology.
    - nneonneo 9y ago
      Try this on for size: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/lastwinterthiswinter.jpg https://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/lastwin... from this following article: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aghast-over-beijings-air-pollution-this-was-pittsburgh-not-that-long-ago/267237/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/aghas... The left image is, amazingly, a daytime shot - the sun is visible in the top-left corner. The smog was so bad on that day ("Black Tuesday", November 1939) that a camera essentially could not capture any detail _in broad daylight_.
  - nneonneo 9y ago
    I live in Pittsburgh. The air is clean now and the water is clear - but there's constant reminders that it wasn't always this way. Although most of the historic buildings were cleaned of soot, a few chose to keep some parts sooty and black as a reminder of what once was - a great example is the Mellon Institute just a few blocks from my work (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mellon-institute-columns https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mellon-institute-columns). It did take Pittsburgh a long time to start fixing its environmental issues, and it took the total collapse of the steel industry to fully clear the air. Even back when I came here (~2011) people had an impression of Pittsburgh as a polluted, industrial hell-hole - I'm so glad that it wasn't the case when I came.

mikeash 9y ago

It looks like it's still pretty bad. Aqicn.org (pretty accurate from what I remember) shows the current PM2.5 level in Beijing at 242. (For comparison, the closest station to my house near Washington, DC shows a level of 27.) I don't doubt that it's better, but it still has quite a way to go. Authoritarian governments can be great until they go wrong. It's commonly said that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. The problem is ensuring benevolence, which is really hard in the long term. Democracy's advantages lie not in the ability to get stuff done (which they suck at), but in their ability to transfer power peacefully and limit the damage caused by power-hungry maniacs.

dlwdlw 9y ago
Interestingly enough ancient Chinese texts like the Tao Te Ching emphasize that the best ruler is one who doesn't seem to exist. Similarly with free markets and letting people do there thing in peace an invisible quality emerges. The Emergence of quality from frictionless interaction is a very interesting thing. Ants seem to have agency. Our brains seem to create consciousness. Markets seem to have an invisible hand. Hubris creating actions that seek to understand what can't be understood that destroy these sources of quality is a common trope that happens in history.
- adamsea 9y ago
  It does say that but that’s not quite it. I actually just read a translation with some really cool annotations and explanatory text. That said, I’m no expert, etc. But .... ... basically what this author was saying was that in the context of Taoism “do nothing” kinda means to do what is natural - as you say, ants just do ants. To do “something” would be to go against the nature of what being an ant is. This is also true for badgers, bears, flowers, people, etc - everything has its “way.” So, the “way” of being a person could, say, involve taking compassionate action to help a fellow human beings, if the way/nature of humanity is to help others, say. I dunno about the Tao of free markets. If anything you could argue for a harmonious balance of unregulated and regulated. Not sure what “free” means for the consumer if they face a monopoly or a syndicate or shit wages or dangerously defective products or tons of pollution.
9y ago