There are some philosophical questions involved about what is "advanced": is it purely a matter of timeliness? Of what requires a more sophisticated set of inst

There are some philosophical questions involved about what is "advanced": is it purely a matter of timeliness? Of what requires a more sophisticated set of institutions to sustain? Who has more advanced weaponry: a civilization with barely functioning firearms, or one with arcane but sophisticated metallurgy to forge durable, sharp swords? Comparing consumer payment infrastructure in the US and China, there is really no comparison. For me, in cost, convenience, and security (against the threat models I'm concerned with), China wins on every factor, by significant margins. Except opening a bank account. A month after I moved to China, I got a fraud notification. From what? It turned out a gas station in Oakland had a skimmer. I'm told stuff like that simply can't happen in China (which I take with a grain of salt, but I have a hard time imagining what fraud vectors there are).