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Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because less and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s human rights v

Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because less and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s human rights violations. Regarding plan based diets, I agree but I think that eating meat will be seen as babaric. I believe that the way way we treat animals now will be seen similarly as we see slavery now. Regarding, decentralized internet and crypto currencies. I don’t see why those would happen and believe will see more regulation not less.

wayoutthere 7y ago
> Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because less and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s human rights violations. Think you're totally wrong here. The only countries that will care about China's human rights record are the NATO countries. The other 6 billion people in the world live under governments that will be happy to work with a superpower willing to look the other way to their own transgressions.
- ma2rten 7y ago
  But those are the countries that China would want to trade with. China also has territorial conflicts with all of it’s neighbors in South China Sea.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    China is very much in the same position the US was in at the turn of the 20th century: lots of territorial conflict with old powers, but a grudging recognition that the winds of change are in their favor. All it will take is a single small-scale conflict akin to the Spanish-American War and China will have unquestioned dominance over the South China Sea (like the US did with the Caribbean and South Pacific). Their neighbors will be forced to play nice with them or be blockaded. Which is exactly what the US did in the early 1900s with central / south American banana republics. There is a playbook for ascendant superpowers, and China is just playing their best hand. Anyone who isn't a superpower is just going to have to accept what China does.
alasdair_ 7y ago
People are more than happy to deal with the Saudi’s despite appalling human rights records. So long as they have something people want, countries don’t care about human rights.
- ma2rten 7y ago
  There are number of differences: China doesn’t have a natural resource only China has, China’s human rights violations are on a larger scale, China is trying to pressure western companies (e.g. the nba) and is copying intellectual property which will backfire on them. I also believe that people will be more aware of these things in the future than in the past.
gfodor 7y ago
I agree with you on the sentiment of meat of our descendants. I consume meat but have moved towards less sentient animals, but the status quo gives one a deep moral appreciation for the world it seems likely people lived in during slavery, where the moral calamity was appreciated to varying degrees by all, but each person other than those who woke up each day fighting the institution directly were living lives with some level of embedded hypocracy. It will be quite satisfying to see the folks today who believe they hold the apex of morality and yet still eat meat, or tacitly support through participating in animal-product economic activity, realize ultimately that despite their self-assurance they are truly moral, good people their kids will see them as abject moral failures skin to those who sad idly by and participated in the economy underpinned by slave labor. The great irony is that just as they look down on our ancestors as being morally unenlightened, they will not even slightly avoid the same branding by the next generation — it seems unavoidable as long as our world exists due to the unjust treatment of others, including animals.

wayoutthere 7y ago

> Regarding China, I believe that the Chinese economy will collapse because less and less countries will want to do business with China due to it’s human rights violations. Think you're totally wrong here. The only countries that will care about China's human rights record are the NATO countries. The other 6 billion people in the world live under governments that will be happy to work with a superpower willing to look the other way to their own transgressions.

ma2rten 7y ago
But those are the countries that China would want to trade with. China also has territorial conflicts with all of it’s neighbors in South China Sea.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  China is very much in the same position the US was in at the turn of the 20th century: lots of territorial conflict with old powers, but a grudging recognition that the winds of change are in their favor. All it will take is a single small-scale conflict akin to the Spanish-American War and China will have unquestioned dominance over the South China Sea (like the US did with the Caribbean and South Pacific). Their neighbors will be forced to play nice with them or be blockaded. Which is exactly what the US did in the early 1900s with central / south American banana republics. There is a playbook for ascendant superpowers, and China is just playing their best hand. Anyone who isn't a superpower is just going to have to accept what China does.

alasdair_ 7y ago

People are more than happy to deal with the Saudi’s despite appalling human rights records. So long as they have something people want, countries don’t care about human rights.

ma2rten 7y ago
There are number of differences: China doesn’t have a natural resource only China has, China’s human rights violations are on a larger scale, China is trying to pressure western companies (e.g. the nba) and is copying intellectual property which will backfire on them. I also believe that people will be more aware of these things in the future than in the past.

gfodor 7y ago

I agree with you on the sentiment of meat of our descendants. I consume meat but have moved towards less sentient animals, but the status quo gives one a deep moral appreciation for the world it seems likely people lived in during slavery, where the moral calamity was appreciated to varying degrees by all, but each person other than those who woke up each day fighting the institution directly were living lives with some level of embedded hypocracy. It will be quite satisfying to see the folks today who believe they hold the apex of morality and yet still eat meat, or tacitly support through participating in animal-product economic activity, realize ultimately that despite their self-assurance they are truly moral, good people their kids will see them as abject moral failures skin to those who sad idly by and participated in the economy underpinned by slave labor. The great irony is that just as they look down on our ancestors as being morally unenlightened, they will not even slightly avoid the same branding by the next generation — it seems unavoidable as long as our world exists due to the unjust treatment of others, including animals.