6 ms·

There is nothing in the world right now that I fear more than the creep of Chinese surveillance/authoritarian practices into the rest of the world's society. Th

by _bxg1 8y ago

There is nothing in the world right now that I fear more than the creep of Chinese surveillance/authoritarian practices into the rest of the world's society. They are a rapidly growing superpower, and while I hold no fantasies of U.S. supremacy, this specific trend in the use of digital technology terrifies me. There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. (Military might today is usually directed from superpowers to third-world countries, but that's a topic for another day). China's influence and dominance will happen through the private sector, ironically. They have their own versions of Google and Facebook: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. These are the tech giants through which the Chinese government gets most of its data on citizens. They are even more ubiquitous than ours - people do everything from getting loans to scheduling medical appointments through them - and they've begun trying to break into the western markets. Tencent in particular has been investing billions in everything from Blizzard to Tesla. At the same time, Google, Facebook, and Apple are also trying to break into the Chinese market. Those companies have already compromised their values for the sake of that opportunity by blocking VPN apps on app stores, censoring content, etc. For now those policy adjustments only apply in China itself, but once it becomes an established (and massive) market - they have four times the population of the U.S. - do you really think the companies would stand up against pressure from the Chinese government to apply those policies elsewhere? Between the spread of the companies it effectively owns, and the deals being made with the rest of the world's most powerful tech companies, China will soon wield more influence than the U.S. I don't think it'll be long before surveillance-states are the norm.

wilsonnb3 8y ago
> I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. It's bad for business until it's not. Isolationist economic policies will over time make war more likely. > Between the spread of the companies it effectively owns, and the deals being made with the rest of the world's most powerful tech companies, China will soon wield more influence than the U.S. I don't think it'll be long before surveillance-states are the norm. I'm not sure about China wielding more influence than the U.S. That sort of thing is really hard to predict accurately, especially from the perspective of someone who isn't a world leader privy to all available information. I do agree that surveillance states will be the norm, though, at least everywhere that doesn't currently have a democracy functioning well enough to prevent it.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  "I'm not sure about China wielding more influence than the U.S. That sort of thing is really hard to predict accurately, especially from the perspective of someone who isn't a world leader privy to all available information." I think at the end of the day it just comes down to the numbers. With four times the population, they have four times the market of consumers and four times the workforce to create value. The U.S. is still in the lead for now, somehow, but China has recently taken up a very potent type of hybrid economic development, where free-market startup-culture is encouraged, but guided and pruned by the government.
  - wilsonnb3 8y ago
    Your base assumption seems to be that world influence has a positive linear relationship with population size, which is not something that I agree with. I don't necessarily disagree with it either, though. I think the situation is far more complex to boil down to just that.
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      I would amend that to say the potential for world economic influence has a positive linear relationship with population size. Clearly population alone doesn't do it, since China doesn't yet have the economic weight of the U.S., but they have a much greater capacity for growth.
      - wilsonnb3 8y ago
        That I generally agree with! It is possible that they are actually so large that it will start working against them. Like an animal so large that it can't eat enough food to stay alive. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what happens, though. It's a very interesting time to be alive and I hope that China does keep growing enough to provide all of it's citizens with a quality life. They've made great strides in the past half century, in spite of their current government's many flaws.
        8y ago
throwawayjava 8y ago
> There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. Although I agree with you, it's worth noting that this sentiment is not a new one. There were plenty of people who believed that WWI marked the end of war, at least in Europe. Even after WWII, Pax Americana (in Western Europe) was not an inevitability. Today's relative stability in that part of the world was the result of enormous investments in intentional policy. As well as a fair bit of luck. > Military might today is usually directed from superpowers to third-world countries, but that's a topic for another day This sentence is a bit of a tautology [1]. But in any case, it's worth remembering that those incursions always find their way back home. Consider the most recent wars. The European migrant crisis has its roots in the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, the USA will eventually feel the economic impact of those two wars. The fact that [2] could happen while the USA ran up enormous deficits (completely unrelated to that growth) is deeply worrying; what will happen in even a slightly less dynamic domestic economy? > China's influence and dominance will happen through the private sector, ironically. This view of the world also has a time-honored tradition. Thomas Jefferson was an early proponent of the view that national power flows from economic might rather than hard power. It's worth noting that the policies he actually implemented while in office diverged substantially from his ideological beliefs. I agree with you about what the future of conflict between the US and China will most likely look like. I think most people do. The question is how you hedge that bet: is the alternative military&economic peace (because military conflict is unimaginable)? Or, is the alternative military conflict on top of the existing economic conflict? I think the latter is more likely. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World [2] http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/virtually-768x449.png http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/virtually-768...
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Maybe. Part of my concern is that America's superiority complex will prevent those at the top from doing anything about it; just continuing to push ahead as normal with the presumption that we'll win. However, I have some friends who work in the government, and conversations with them have given me a small source of hope: the government may feel like it mostly consists of the clowns we see in the news every day, but the reality is that it's made up of a massive collection of American citizens, many of whom are extremely competent at their jobs and whose priorities are simply to keep things working well for everyone. They do incredibly thorough planning for contingencies that allow us to do things like weather natural disasters (that's the department one of my friends works in), etc. So much complexity and knowhow and effort goes into simply keeping this whole thing moving at all, and part of me hopes that there are people somewhere in there who are are thinking through all this stuff, who know what they're doing, and who have a plan.
zakm 8y ago
>There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. I tried to find the quote and couldn't, but IIRC this exact argument was used for why WW1 never could have happened (prior to WW1).
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Yeah. I'm no expert, but it's my intuition that the hindsight of WW1 and WW2, combined with the existence of the UN and of nuclear weapons, would be enough to change things. But who knows. At the very least, with how much money America dumps into its military, I think dominating our economy is simply a path of less resistance than trying to dominate our military.
dqpb 8y ago
It will be an interesting case study to see what they do with the Uyghurs. What can a government do to an enemy population when they've sequenced the DNA of every individual in that population?
- _bxg1 8y ago
  I don't know if "interesting" is the word I would use; what they're doing to that subpopulation is approaching Nazi Germany-level stuff. However, the human rights violations could prompt the global community to take action like they did in WW2, which could honestly be one of the better outcomes of all this.
  - gojomo 8y ago
    WW2 wasn't an action of "the global community" against "human rights violations". There was imperial/economic competition, escalating through trade restrictions to military actions and invasions, becoming all-out war. Many of the most egregious human rights violations weren't understood until after the war, and reached their worst practices under wartime pressures. And against this, you're hoping for "action like they did in WW2, which could honestly be one of the better outcomes of all this"?!? No, WW3 would be bad.
- r00fus 8y ago
  s/interesting/distressing/ I have no high hopes that good comes of what China does there.
stcredzero 8y ago
There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. Even when physical violence never occurs, it still fits into the geopolitical equation. So long as Taiwan continues to exist in a state of defacto independence, the US can act as a distant, only somewhat interested hegemon in opposition to local Chinese hegemony. Geography still dictates military strategy and power. So long as Taiwan remains a place to potentially base aircraft and ships, China can't credibly threaten and control the South China Sea. Taiwan itself is situated in relatively rough seas and has a rugged coastline which drastically restricts opportunities for a seaborne invasion. Invading Taiwan will take a supreme effort, smaller but in the same order of magnitude of the effort required to mount the D-Day invasion. China's influence and dominance will happen through the private sector, ironically. Thankfully. They have their own versions of Google and Facebook: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. I hope that the Great Firewall will be like the South China Sea. China may be influential, but the wells of culture run deep. Therefore the impetus for Japan and Korea to remain independent also runs deep and will remain strong. Stratfor's "China's Geographic Challenge" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8uWoBtCkg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8uWoBtCkg8
MichaelMoser123 8y ago
<< There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species What if climate change cause a massive movement of people? Can this scenario bring old school war for resources?
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  Without a shadow of a doubt.

by _bxg1 8y ago

wilsonnb3 8y ago

> I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. It's bad for business until it's not. Isolationist economic policies will over time make war more likely. > Between the spread of the companies it effectively owns, and the deals being made with the rest of the world's most powerful tech companies, China will soon wield more influence than the U.S. I don't think it'll be long before surveillance-states are the norm. I'm not sure about China wielding more influence than the U.S. That sort of thing is really hard to predict accurately, especially from the perspective of someone who isn't a world leader privy to all available information. I do agree that surveillance states will be the norm, though, at least everywhere that doesn't currently have a democracy functioning well enough to prevent it.

_bxg1 8y ago
"I'm not sure about China wielding more influence than the U.S. That sort of thing is really hard to predict accurately, especially from the perspective of someone who isn't a world leader privy to all available information." I think at the end of the day it just comes down to the numbers. With four times the population, they have four times the market of consumers and four times the workforce to create value. The U.S. is still in the lead for now, somehow, but China has recently taken up a very potent type of hybrid economic development, where free-market startup-culture is encouraged, but guided and pruned by the government.
- wilsonnb3 8y ago
  Your base assumption seems to be that world influence has a positive linear relationship with population size, which is not something that I agree with. I don't necessarily disagree with it either, though. I think the situation is far more complex to boil down to just that.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    I would amend that to say the potential for world economic influence has a positive linear relationship with population size. Clearly population alone doesn't do it, since China doesn't yet have the economic weight of the U.S., but they have a much greater capacity for growth.
    - wilsonnb3 8y ago
      That I generally agree with! It is possible that they are actually so large that it will start working against them. Like an animal so large that it can't eat enough food to stay alive. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what happens, though. It's a very interesting time to be alive and I hope that China does keep growing enough to provide all of it's citizens with a quality life. They've made great strides in the past half century, in spite of their current government's many flaws.
      - 8y ago

throwawayjava 8y ago

> There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. Although I agree with you, it's worth noting that this sentiment is not a new one. There were plenty of people who believed that WWI marked the end of war, at least in Europe. Even after WWII, Pax Americana (in Western Europe) was not an inevitability. Today's relative stability in that part of the world was the result of enormous investments in intentional policy. As well as a fair bit of luck. > Military might today is usually directed from superpowers to third-world countries, but that's a topic for another day This sentence is a bit of a tautology [1]. But in any case, it's worth remembering that those incursions always find their way back home. Consider the most recent wars. The European migrant crisis has its roots in the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, the USA will eventually feel the economic impact of those two wars. The fact that [2] could happen while the USA ran up enormous deficits (completely unrelated to that growth) is deeply worrying; what will happen in even a slightly less dynamic domestic economy? > China's influence and dominance will happen through the private sector, ironically. This view of the world also has a time-honored tradition. Thomas Jefferson was an early proponent of the view that national power flows from economic might rather than hard power. It's worth noting that the policies he actually implemented while in office diverged substantially from his ideological beliefs. I agree with you about what the future of conflict between the US and China will most likely look like. I think most people do. The question is how you hedge that bet: is the alternative military&economic peace (because military conflict is unimaginable)? Or, is the alternative military conflict on top of the existing economic conflict? I think the latter is more likely. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World [2] http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/virtually-768x449.png http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/virtually-768...

_bxg1 8y ago
Maybe. Part of my concern is that America's superiority complex will prevent those at the top from doing anything about it; just continuing to push ahead as normal with the presumption that we'll win. However, I have some friends who work in the government, and conversations with them have given me a small source of hope: the government may feel like it mostly consists of the clowns we see in the news every day, but the reality is that it's made up of a massive collection of American citizens, many of whom are extremely competent at their jobs and whose priorities are simply to keep things working well for everyone. They do incredibly thorough planning for contingencies that allow us to do things like weather natural disasters (that's the department one of my friends works in), etc. So much complexity and knowhow and effort goes into simply keeping this whole thing moving at all, and part of me hopes that there are people somewhere in there who are are thinking through all this stuff, who know what they're doing, and who have a plan.

zakm 8y ago

>There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. It's just bad for business. I tried to find the quote and couldn't, but IIRC this exact argument was used for why WW1 never could have happened (prior to WW1).

_bxg1 8y ago
Yeah. I'm no expert, but it's my intuition that the hindsight of WW1 and WW2, combined with the existence of the UN and of nuclear weapons, would be enough to change things. But who knows. At the very least, with how much money America dumps into its military, I think dominating our economy is simply a path of less resistance than trying to dominate our military.

dqpb 8y ago

It will be an interesting case study to see what they do with the Uyghurs. What can a government do to an enemy population when they've sequenced the DNA of every individual in that population?

_bxg1 8y ago
I don't know if "interesting" is the word I would use; what they're doing to that subpopulation is approaching Nazi Germany-level stuff. However, the human rights violations could prompt the global community to take action like they did in WW2, which could honestly be one of the better outcomes of all this.
- gojomo 8y ago
  WW2 wasn't an action of "the global community" against "human rights violations". There was imperial/economic competition, escalating through trade restrictions to military actions and invasions, becoming all-out war. Many of the most egregious human rights violations weren't understood until after the war, and reached their worst practices under wartime pressures. And against this, you're hoping for "action like they did in WW2, which could honestly be one of the better outcomes of all this"?!? No, WW3 would be bad.
r00fus 8y ago
s/interesting/distressing/ I have no high hopes that good comes of what China does there.

stcredzero 8y ago

There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species where superpowers duke it out in such a literal fashion. Even when physical violence never occurs, it still fits into the geopolitical equation. So long as Taiwan continues to exist in a state of defacto independence, the US can act as a distant, only somewhat interested hegemon in opposition to local Chinese hegemony. Geography still dictates military strategy and power. So long as Taiwan remains a place to potentially base aircraft and ships, China can't credibly threaten and control the South China Sea. Taiwan itself is situated in relatively rough seas and has a rugged coastline which drastically restricts opportunities for a seaborne invasion. Invading Taiwan will take a supreme effort, smaller but in the same order of magnitude of the effort required to mount the D-Day invasion. China's influence and dominance will happen through the private sector, ironically. Thankfully. They have their own versions of Google and Facebook: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. I hope that the Great Firewall will be like the South China Sea. China may be influential, but the wells of culture run deep. Therefore the impetus for Japan and Korea to remain independent also runs deep and will remain strong. Stratfor's "China's Geographic Challenge" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8uWoBtCkg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8uWoBtCkg8

MichaelMoser123 8y ago

<< There won't be a war, by the way. I honestly think we're past the point as a species What if climate change cause a massive movement of people? Can this scenario bring old school war for resources?

King-Aaron 8y ago
Without a shadow of a doubt.