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The West and Americans (in my experience) take for granted that civil rights, free speech, democracy, and other values automatically create better outcomes than

by n8cpdx 5y ago

The West and Americans (in my experience) take for granted that civil rights, free speech, democracy, and other values automatically create better outcomes than authoritarianism. This is how it was taught to me, and it seems baked into the culture. Unfortunately, the reality is that while (in my opinion) liberal values create better outcomes, it takes care and concerted effort to get the benefits. A democracy isn't automatically better than an authoritarian regime; that assumes that the democracy is effective and that the authoritarians are not. The CCP is clearly effective. They are able to nail jello to the wall and have it stick. The US Congress is clearly not effective. Chinese people got to go to movie theaters and eat at restaurants and dance at raves for most of 2020 and 2021; I, as an American, could not. The CCP delivered for their people in a way that the US did not. The United States is not particularly effective at national security (2021-01-06), foreign engagements (Afghanistan and Iraq, last 20 years), or social mobility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States#Current_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...). The media ecosystem is a mess (due to purposeful de-regulation), voting rates are abysmal, education is poor by rich world standards. Democracy doesn't work well when the populace is not sufficiently educated, accurately informed, and empowered by a political system (see the Senate's strong R electoral advantage). We keep choosing leadership who lose at the polls because we haven't invested in modernizing our democracy. The US and other Western states need to step up and put in the work to prove that their values can deliver for their people better than the authoritarians can.

throwaway894345 5y ago
> Chinese people got to go to movie theaters and eat at restaurants and dance at raves for most of 2020 and 2021; I, as an American, could not. I suspect this is largely CCP propaganda. > The United States is not particularly effective at national security (2021-01-06), foreign engagements (Afghanistan and Iraq, last 20 years), or social mobility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...). The media ecosystem is a mess (due to purposeful de-regulation), voting rates are abysmal, education is poor by rich world standards I'm not sure that I accept these as facts, but even so, I believe you're comparing the US to other democracies. If you compare the cohort of democracies to the cohort of authoritarian regimes, how do the democracies compare? I suspect China is an outlier among authoritarian regimes, and even while we marvel at Chinese foreign policy, their per-capita GDP and other indicators don't suggest that they are meeting our Western standards for "effective government". And even if an authoritarian government is more effective at establishing a global hegemony, what's the point if it comes at the cost of its citizens' basic rights, prosperity, etc?
benreesman 5y ago
This comment should be the parent of mine. You’ve laid out a far more detailed and compelling case for what I called a “queasy feeling” about how the West lost its stride.
tkinom 5y ago
In 2-5 years, US/Japan/UK can/will block every single silicon build with "ARM China" IP for < 28nm, similar to how it block Huawei last year. Just look at Huawei's current, next couple years revenues, you can predict what will happen to "ARM China". "ARM China" without any IP license / Interop tests for USB4, PCIe gen4,5,6, LPDDR5,6 etc, will be completely useless in 3 years. CCP is following the path of North Korean/Iran/Mao.....
qeternity 5y ago
Some of what you mention is indeed true, but some of it is selective. The US is truly a union, and one that is increasingly heterogenous. The US higher education system is the best in the world, which is why you will see wealthy Chinese send their kids to the US (or Oxbridge). The high school system is very mixed, as half the union runs around trying to convince the world that math is racist (no joke). I’ve lived in China. You’re not likely to see the next SpaceX emerge from there for all the reasons you mention. It’s an economy that is tuned to replicating/copying. But this is so culturally enshrined now that I cannot fathom the emergence of the Sino version of the American Dream.
indigochill 5y ago
China also has some unique ineffective areas. One example I ran into a little while ago was that China has essentially a review board that approves video games to be distributed to the Chinese market. A particular political backdoor to expedite the approval process was exposed, which quickly lead to an extreme backup of the approval queue as the party clamped down on that backdoor and made the entire video game industry wait several months to a year for them to get their ducks back in a row. Additionally, if you want to publish in China, it is advisable (although I don't think strictly required... yet...) that you provide some way to block any messages in your game that the party disapproves of. For some sorts of games, this is basically untenable. Essentially, China is effective where its policy of iron-handed top-down dictatorship is effective. It is less effective at bottom-up development, except insofar as that bottom-up development is done with the express intent of being a tool of the iron hand (but the iron hand's whims can change, so that presents a moving target). I suspect what we'll see over the next hundred-or-so years is that the iron-handed approach is effective while it has intelligent leadership (and though I disagree with China's politics, I'll concede they're making strong strategic decisions). Inevitably, though, every empire has stupid emperors and we'll probably see China stumble when its turn comes.
neither_color 5y ago
I agree with your first two paragraphs but I don't necessarily agree with the rest. The CCP is clearly effective at letting you see what it wants you to see because no matter what you think of our media, even the most biased right-wing or left-wing sources are more open than theirs and criticism of everything that goes wrong in the US flows freely. We're more like a reality TV drama that frequently airs our dirty laundry. Taking news from China at face value is like looking at someone's Instagram feed, you are only seeing the highlights. Some Chinese people got to go movie theaters and eat at restaurants in contemporary urban middle class sense. Hundreds of millions in the interior cannot afford the aforementioned middle class lifestyle. You can see the large gap in per capita GDP for provinces here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative... Also, if you were under the impression that they locked down once and beat the virus, then you'd be surprised to find out that they've had to do multiple recurring region-wide lock-downs all throughout, even up until now. August 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/millions-under-strict-lockdown-china-covid-outbreak https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/millions-under... June 2021 https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/3138002/flights-cancelled-and-districts-locked-down-amid-fresh https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/31380... January 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/china-covid-lockdown.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/china-covid-lo... I don't know what state youre from; I went through lockdowns too but I've gone to restaurants and movie theaters and traveled to other places freely as well. If you didn't, that's on your state, just like there were times that people in Shanghai had more freedom than people in Shenzhen, and vice versa. Your third paragraph is hard to comment on briefly and partly subjective, I can't comment on 1/6 because it's still an ongoing investigation with the FBI reporting a lack of evidence that it was some centrally coordinated plot. Sometimes riots get out of hand, we should be thankful that unlike a certain riot in 1989 we didn't roll out the tanks and run them over. Instead we arrested them all and they are going through due process. The foreign engagement failures of Afghanistan and Iraq don't exist in a vacuum. We've been in Germany, South Korea, and Japanese for decades and those are going quite well - you win some you lose some. When South Koreans went under repressive rule by Park Jung Hee, you could've said our nation building failed, but we held on and now it's a thriving country that exports its culture worldwide. As for social mobility, I'm an ethnic minority and no matter how bad you think social mobility is, and it's not easy, you do not have better chances anywhere other than the US and Europe. Make of that what you will, I've experienced it. First in my family to go to college, got a job in tech and all that. Believe me if you want. I appreciate the social mobility here and acknowledge that my family couldn't have done it without the civil rights movement of decades prior. I also understand why Americans look down on their own history, but the thing is contemporary Chinese folks do not look down on theirs. They are proud, they want their country to be the best, they want to win. More power to them, but the "Chinese Dream" is only for them. You can go there as a student, be an expat, but it's almost impossible to become a citizen. They are not a nation of immigrants. At best you can be a permanent resident, preferably if you have a western passport. Africans there are not treated as kindly: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079497/us-warns-african-americans-avoid-guangzhou-after-reports-black https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079497/us-w... https://news.yahoo.com/no-blacks-evicted-harassed-targeted-190938277.html https://news.yahoo.com/no-blacks-evicted-harassed-targeted-1... They didn't get the support of allies mass protesting police brutality in every city like Americans did. People like me don't appreciate the self-defeating sentiment that China's ascension is inevitable and well deserved because of our bad history. I don't mean to detract from your points too much. We do need better education, better healthcare, a more prudent foreign policy and all that. I'm just adding more context and my input that all hope is not lost and that western values are inferior to Chinese ones. All hope is not lost. We don't want to get to the point where we say "welp that settles it the only way to improve our standard of living is to become repressive authoritarian regimes too"

by n8cpdx 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

> Chinese people got to go to movie theaters and eat at restaurants and dance at raves for most of 2020 and 2021; I, as an American, could not. I suspect this is largely CCP propaganda. > The United States is not particularly effective at national security (2021-01-06), foreign engagements (Afghanistan and Iraq, last 20 years), or social mobility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_...). The media ecosystem is a mess (due to purposeful de-regulation), voting rates are abysmal, education is poor by rich world standards I'm not sure that I accept these as facts, but even so, I believe you're comparing the US to other democracies. If you compare the cohort of democracies to the cohort of authoritarian regimes, how do the democracies compare? I suspect China is an outlier among authoritarian regimes, and even while we marvel at Chinese foreign policy, their per-capita GDP and other indicators don't suggest that they are meeting our Western standards for "effective government". And even if an authoritarian government is more effective at establishing a global hegemony, what's the point if it comes at the cost of its citizens' basic rights, prosperity, etc?

benreesman 5y ago

This comment should be the parent of mine. You’ve laid out a far more detailed and compelling case for what I called a “queasy feeling” about how the West lost its stride.

tkinom 5y ago

In 2-5 years, US/Japan/UK can/will block every single silicon build with "ARM China" IP for < 28nm, similar to how it block Huawei last year. Just look at Huawei's current, next couple years revenues, you can predict what will happen to "ARM China". "ARM China" without any IP license / Interop tests for USB4, PCIe gen4,5,6, LPDDR5,6 etc, will be completely useless in 3 years. CCP is following the path of North Korean/Iran/Mao.....

qeternity 5y ago

Some of what you mention is indeed true, but some of it is selective. The US is truly a union, and one that is increasingly heterogenous. The US higher education system is the best in the world, which is why you will see wealthy Chinese send their kids to the US (or Oxbridge). The high school system is very mixed, as half the union runs around trying to convince the world that math is racist (no joke). I’ve lived in China. You’re not likely to see the next SpaceX emerge from there for all the reasons you mention. It’s an economy that is tuned to replicating/copying. But this is so culturally enshrined now that I cannot fathom the emergence of the Sino version of the American Dream.

indigochill 5y ago

China also has some unique ineffective areas. One example I ran into a little while ago was that China has essentially a review board that approves video games to be distributed to the Chinese market. A particular political backdoor to expedite the approval process was exposed, which quickly lead to an extreme backup of the approval queue as the party clamped down on that backdoor and made the entire video game industry wait several months to a year for them to get their ducks back in a row. Additionally, if you want to publish in China, it is advisable (although I don't think strictly required... yet...) that you provide some way to block any messages in your game that the party disapproves of. For some sorts of games, this is basically untenable. Essentially, China is effective where its policy of iron-handed top-down dictatorship is effective. It is less effective at bottom-up development, except insofar as that bottom-up development is done with the express intent of being a tool of the iron hand (but the iron hand's whims can change, so that presents a moving target). I suspect what we'll see over the next hundred-or-so years is that the iron-handed approach is effective while it has intelligent leadership (and though I disagree with China's politics, I'll concede they're making strong strategic decisions). Inevitably, though, every empire has stupid emperors and we'll probably see China stumble when its turn comes.

neither_color 5y ago

I agree with your first two paragraphs but I don't necessarily agree with the rest. The CCP is clearly effective at letting you see what it wants you to see because no matter what you think of our media, even the most biased right-wing or left-wing sources are more open than theirs and criticism of everything that goes wrong in the US flows freely. We're more like a reality TV drama that frequently airs our dirty laundry. Taking news from China at face value is like looking at someone's Instagram feed, you are only seeing the highlights. Some Chinese people got to go movie theaters and eat at restaurants in contemporary urban middle class sense. Hundreds of millions in the interior cannot afford the aforementioned middle class lifestyle. You can see the large gap in per capita GDP for provinces here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative... Also, if you were under the impression that they locked down once and beat the virus, then you'd be surprised to find out that they've had to do multiple recurring region-wide lock-downs all throughout, even up until now. August 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/millions-under-strict-lockdown-china-covid-outbreak https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/02/millions-under... June 2021 https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/3138002/flights-cancelled-and-districts-locked-down-amid-fresh https://www.scmp.com/coronavirus/greater-china/article/31380... January 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/china-covid-lockdown.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/world/asia/china-covid-lo... I don't know what state youre from; I went through lockdowns too but I've gone to restaurants and movie theaters and traveled to other places freely as well. If you didn't, that's on your state, just like there were times that people in Shanghai had more freedom than people in Shenzhen, and vice versa. Your third paragraph is hard to comment on briefly and partly subjective, I can't comment on 1/6 because it's still an ongoing investigation with the FBI reporting a lack of evidence that it was some centrally coordinated plot. Sometimes riots get out of hand, we should be thankful that unlike a certain riot in 1989 we didn't roll out the tanks and run them over. Instead we arrested them all and they are going through due process. The foreign engagement failures of Afghanistan and Iraq don't exist in a vacuum. We've been in Germany, South Korea, and Japanese for decades and those are going quite well - you win some you lose some. When South Koreans went under repressive rule by Park Jung Hee, you could've said our nation building failed, but we held on and now it's a thriving country that exports its culture worldwide. As for social mobility, I'm an ethnic minority and no matter how bad you think social mobility is, and it's not easy, you do not have better chances anywhere other than the US and Europe. Make of that what you will, I've experienced it. First in my family to go to college, got a job in tech and all that. Believe me if you want. I appreciate the social mobility here and acknowledge that my family couldn't have done it without the civil rights movement of decades prior. I also understand why Americans look down on their own history, but the thing is contemporary Chinese folks do not look down on theirs. They are proud, they want their country to be the best, they want to win. More power to them, but the "Chinese Dream" is only for them. You can go there as a student, be an expat, but it's almost impossible to become a citizen. They are not a nation of immigrants. At best you can be a permanent resident, preferably if you have a western passport. Africans there are not treated as kindly: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079497/us-warns-african-americans-avoid-guangzhou-after-reports-black https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079497/us-w... https://news.yahoo.com/no-blacks-evicted-harassed-targeted-190938277.html https://news.yahoo.com/no-blacks-evicted-harassed-targeted-1... They didn't get the support of allies mass protesting police brutality in every city like Americans did. People like me don't appreciate the self-defeating sentiment that China's ascension is inevitable and well deserved because of our bad history. I don't mean to detract from your points too much. We do need better education, better healthcare, a more prudent foreign policy and all that. I'm just adding more context and my input that all hope is not lost and that western values are inferior to Chinese ones. All hope is not lost. We don't want to get to the point where we say "welp that settles it the only way to improve our standard of living is to become repressive authoritarian regimes too"