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I'd like to elaborate on the unity of the different elements of Chinese society you mention. Chinese institutions are all unified under a single structure, and

I'd like to elaborate on the unity of the different elements of Chinese society you mention. Chinese institutions are all unified under a single structure, and that structure is the Communist (in name only) Party. Party members are embedded in every single important facet of society. Education, the military, the government, the private sector, it's all linked and unified by the party. Now, we can compare this structure to the mammalian neocortex. The neocortex incorporates inputs from lower layers of the brain to form high level abstractions and integrations. The West is basically functioning without a neocortex. Our institutions are not unified. There is no integrating layer above the corporate sector and government. In fact they are often at odds. What I am saying is that China represents an existential threat to the entire project of the West. If China is able to outcompete us with their more advanced (?) organization, we will be forced to copy them or become irrelevant. This would mean doing away with free democracies and instituting a ruling party - a neocortex - to oversee the entire society. I am not sure this would even be possible in diverse societies like those of the Western democracies. There is too much infighting and tribalism, at least right now. That does not bode well for us. But it's possible that cultural unity within our democracies may be sufficient to align the different parts of society to allow us to compete with China, without the formal superstructure of an all powerful Party.

joejerryronnie 7y ago
You're assuming the centralized "neocortex" model (i.e. communism/socialism) is more effective than the distributed model (i.e. marketplace/capitalism/crowd sourced). Who knows, at this point, but the next decade will be very interesting to watch.
- throwaway94857 7y ago
  China is not Communist or Socialist though. They are basically fascist, or if you want to be strict about the definition of fascism they represent an entirely new form altogether.
  - joejerryronnie 7y ago
    Doesn't communism and socialism eventually lead to fascism though? It's an inherent flaw in these ideologies. They are too optimistic and fail to account for the basic human nature that a show of weakness will immediately be capitalized on by a more aggressive party. It's a cynical take but humans have always been a kill or be killed species, and modern day capitalism has been the most successful system at controlling our worst impulses.
    - olau 7y ago
      I don't understand your thought process. If you have a system where a corrupt organizer can end up amassing power uncontrolled, then sure you're going to end up with dictators. The system is self-selecting for a catastrophe. But this does not really say much about humanity in general. The trick is to design systems with checks. Well-run states have these checks, both in the state organizations themselves and towards other sectors. Even if you're rich, there are limits to what you can get away with in a Western society. And yes, these checks are not perfect, defending against corruption is really hard. As we get better at automation, unless we screw up in the Western world, I have a hunch we're going to end up with universal income and a Star Trek-like society, probably not that far from what Marx imagined when he was ranting about the horrible conditions for factory workers at that time. The trick is to make everything so cheap that the universal income is affordable for society.
- cttet 7y ago
  The problems of the centralized model is that it is in fact implemented in a distributed setting: there are breakdowns of nodes, there are broken messages, and there may be adversaries who take advantages of their positions.
md224 7y ago
I'm pretty conflicted on this topic. On the one hand, I've heard that authoritarianism is soul-crushing and I've been raised to believe that individual freedom is paramount. On the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasystem_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasystem_transition I keep coming back to this idea of a society united by a shared telos that cuts across all racial and religious divides, acting together as a tightly-integrated social organism, a large-scale collective agent. What if this is the next stage of human evolution? Is there a way to embrace integration without stifling the uniqueness of the individual? There's that fear of a Borg-like outcome, where diversity is annihilated by assimilation into the collective. But I was recently reading "The Phenomenon of Man" by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (originator of the Omega Point[1] concept) and this quote stuck out to me: "In any domain -- whether it be the cells of a body, the members of a society or the elements of a spiritual synthesis -- union differentiates. In every organized whole, the parts perfect themselves and fulfil themselves." So perhaps integration doesn't necessarily mean the erasure of the individual. Food for thought. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point
- cltsang 7y ago
  I agree the east asia approach is better if it works in the ideal situation. The problem is everyone is not perfect. Power and wealth corrupts. And even if we are lucky to have the ideal situation at some point, no one can guarantee the next. That's why we need separation of power: a system with checks and balances. I think as of now we don't have a equation to make the perfect system, but democracy is proven to be the best we've got so far.
- shalmanese 7y ago
  > On the one hand, I've heard that authoritarianism is soul-crushing and I've been raised to believe that individual freedom is paramount. You need to be aware that you're buying into a persistent pro-Western, anti-China propaganda. If you survey a random sampling of Chinese citizens, the vast majority of them would in no way find the system they're living under "soul crushing". Yes, people of Xinjiang and Tibet live under brutal paramilitary rule and those issues have gained special salience in the West but they represent a tiny fraction of the Chinese population. If you happen to be a political advocate or trying to shed light on human rights, then the Chinese government is not a pleasant adversary (although again, the stories in the West focus solely on the worst cases. I know plenty of Chinese NGO workers who are fighting the good fight while playing enough by the rules that they've forged a productive partnership with the government). But, for the median Chinese person, the weight of the government rests pretty lightly on their shoulders as they just want to have economic opportunity, raise their children well and enjoy their lives. I tell people that, in many ways, life in China is much freer than life in America. The Chinese system looks totalitarian from the outside but, from most facets, more closely resembles ungovernable anarchy. The CCP has been likened to the Eye of Sauron, overwhelming it it's power when it gazes on you but can only focus on a limited set of concerns at any one time. There's a reason why the air that the leaders breathe in Beijing continues to be extremely polluted and it's because the power the CCP has in Beijing province over factory owners in neighboring Hebei province is, by design, so limited that even Beijing Rulers can't clean up their own air. For day to day life in China, there's a real sense of mind your own business, to each their own indifference which is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. People renovate their houses in crazy ways and their neighbors don't care, I've seen empty concrete shells transform into functioning business in a matter of weeks as there's very little red tape you need to comply with. There's regularly blue trucks on the road that visibly fail China's emission regulations and are the cause of the bulk of the vehicle pollution but it doesn't matter because the trucking company knows how to pay off the right inspectors. If you speak to most Chinese people, they're generally in favor of more government, not less because they feel Chinese society is too 乱 (messy) still and the government hasn't reached far enough into people's lives to provide enough of a civilizing force. That's one of the many reasons why, despite Social Credit being so derided in the West, it has largely broad support from within Chinese society.

joejerryronnie 7y ago

You're assuming the centralized "neocortex" model (i.e. communism/socialism) is more effective than the distributed model (i.e. marketplace/capitalism/crowd sourced). Who knows, at this point, but the next decade will be very interesting to watch.

throwaway94857 7y ago
China is not Communist or Socialist though. They are basically fascist, or if you want to be strict about the definition of fascism they represent an entirely new form altogether.
- joejerryronnie 7y ago
  Doesn't communism and socialism eventually lead to fascism though? It's an inherent flaw in these ideologies. They are too optimistic and fail to account for the basic human nature that a show of weakness will immediately be capitalized on by a more aggressive party. It's a cynical take but humans have always been a kill or be killed species, and modern day capitalism has been the most successful system at controlling our worst impulses.
  - olau 7y ago
    I don't understand your thought process. If you have a system where a corrupt organizer can end up amassing power uncontrolled, then sure you're going to end up with dictators. The system is self-selecting for a catastrophe. But this does not really say much about humanity in general. The trick is to design systems with checks. Well-run states have these checks, both in the state organizations themselves and towards other sectors. Even if you're rich, there are limits to what you can get away with in a Western society. And yes, these checks are not perfect, defending against corruption is really hard. As we get better at automation, unless we screw up in the Western world, I have a hunch we're going to end up with universal income and a Star Trek-like society, probably not that far from what Marx imagined when he was ranting about the horrible conditions for factory workers at that time. The trick is to make everything so cheap that the universal income is affordable for society.
cttet 7y ago
The problems of the centralized model is that it is in fact implemented in a distributed setting: there are breakdowns of nodes, there are broken messages, and there may be adversaries who take advantages of their positions.

md224 7y ago

I'm pretty conflicted on this topic. On the one hand, I've heard that authoritarianism is soul-crushing and I've been raised to believe that individual freedom is paramount. On the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasystem_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasystem_transition I keep coming back to this idea of a society united by a shared telos that cuts across all racial and religious divides, acting together as a tightly-integrated social organism, a large-scale collective agent. What if this is the next stage of human evolution? Is there a way to embrace integration without stifling the uniqueness of the individual? There's that fear of a Borg-like outcome, where diversity is annihilated by assimilation into the collective. But I was recently reading "The Phenomenon of Man" by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (originator of the Omega Point[1] concept) and this quote stuck out to me: "In any domain -- whether it be the cells of a body, the members of a society or the elements of a spiritual synthesis -- union differentiates. In every organized whole, the parts perfect themselves and fulfil themselves." So perhaps integration doesn't necessarily mean the erasure of the individual. Food for thought. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

cltsang 7y ago
I agree the east asia approach is better if it works in the ideal situation. The problem is everyone is not perfect. Power and wealth corrupts. And even if we are lucky to have the ideal situation at some point, no one can guarantee the next. That's why we need separation of power: a system with checks and balances. I think as of now we don't have a equation to make the perfect system, but democracy is proven to be the best we've got so far.
shalmanese 7y ago
> On the one hand, I've heard that authoritarianism is soul-crushing and I've been raised to believe that individual freedom is paramount. You need to be aware that you're buying into a persistent pro-Western, anti-China propaganda. If you survey a random sampling of Chinese citizens, the vast majority of them would in no way find the system they're living under "soul crushing". Yes, people of Xinjiang and Tibet live under brutal paramilitary rule and those issues have gained special salience in the West but they represent a tiny fraction of the Chinese population. If you happen to be a political advocate or trying to shed light on human rights, then the Chinese government is not a pleasant adversary (although again, the stories in the West focus solely on the worst cases. I know plenty of Chinese NGO workers who are fighting the good fight while playing enough by the rules that they've forged a productive partnership with the government). But, for the median Chinese person, the weight of the government rests pretty lightly on their shoulders as they just want to have economic opportunity, raise their children well and enjoy their lives. I tell people that, in many ways, life in China is much freer than life in America. The Chinese system looks totalitarian from the outside but, from most facets, more closely resembles ungovernable anarchy. The CCP has been likened to the Eye of Sauron, overwhelming it it's power when it gazes on you but can only focus on a limited set of concerns at any one time. There's a reason why the air that the leaders breathe in Beijing continues to be extremely polluted and it's because the power the CCP has in Beijing province over factory owners in neighboring Hebei province is, by design, so limited that even Beijing Rulers can't clean up their own air. For day to day life in China, there's a real sense of mind your own business, to each their own indifference which is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. People renovate their houses in crazy ways and their neighbors don't care, I've seen empty concrete shells transform into functioning business in a matter of weeks as there's very little red tape you need to comply with. There's regularly blue trucks on the road that visibly fail China's emission regulations and are the cause of the bulk of the vehicle pollution but it doesn't matter because the trucking company knows how to pay off the right inspectors. If you speak to most Chinese people, they're generally in favor of more government, not less because they feel Chinese society is too 乱 (messy) still and the government hasn't reached far enough into people's lives to provide enough of a civilizing force. That's one of the many reasons why, despite Social Credit being so derided in the West, it has largely broad support from within Chinese society.