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Neal makes some good points about western nations, but some of the more authoritarian governments aren't restricted by citizen initiatives or environmental laws

Neal makes some good points about western nations, but some of the more authoritarian governments aren't restricted by citizen initiatives or environmental laws. China is a poster-boy for this sort of growth. If they continue to increase prosperity faster than democratic western nations, their style of government might become the template for the future. From http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/china-ascendant.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/china-ascendant.html : The world has emulated Western policies mainly because those nations were high status, not because their style of law or government was obviously more efficient. Chinese styles are likely similarly efficient, and if China becomes higher status, the world will emulate it instead. A generation ago, people in China were starving. Now they're the second-largest economy in the world. Last week they launched a space station. Of course China has problems, but their government seems to know how to grow quickly, and that increases their citizens' quality of life.

seabee 15y ago
China is starting from a different point to much of the West. What remains to be seen is whether their style of government will peak or surpass Western ones as it approaches the same quality of life, and it will be very informative whichever one it is.
tokenadult 15y ago
China's haste to build deadly boondoggle projects is not something that any democratic nation, eastern or western, desires to emulate: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140703132/from-progress-to-problem-chinas-high-speed-trains http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140703132/from-progress-to-pro... http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/subway-train-crash-in-shanghai-injures-more-than-280-reviving-doubts-over-railways-rush/2011/09/29/gIQAPtGE6K_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/subway-train-crash-in...
- mainguy 15y ago
  Actually, those aren't boondoggles, those are exactly the sorts of risks the author is talking about. To make big gains, you have to take big risks. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt
  - gvb 15y ago
    High speed rail is not a big risk technologically. The technology has existed since the 60s. At this point, the technology is advancing incrementally with incrementally improved materials and technology, not "big risk game changing" technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Technology The risk in high speed rail is primarily due to the scale of the implementation; the cost in terms of time, effort, and money of acquiring the rail right-of-way and physically building the infrastructure. The big risk in the Wenzhou train collision referred to by the OP was not in the technology that was used or the building of the infrastructure, but was a system and management failure. The technology in the train system, when correctly implemented and used properly, is well known, well proven, and safe. To be blunt, the failure was not due to "big gains big risk technology," but was due to the fact that the high speed rail system in China was a boondoggle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision
- melling 15y ago
  What makes them boondoggle projects? You don't think a city the size of Shanghai needs a large subway? Isn't a subway more cost effective and a more efficient way to move people in a large city? The same argument can be made for HSR. Moving 1.3 billion people are now free to move about the country. In the US, we're still arguing over building our first HSR.
gwern 15y ago
You missed the much more important OB post: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/revised-growth-claim.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/revised-growth-claim.h... Anyway, the unanswered, and currently unanswerable question, is what happens in China's future? (For the above post - does the increased variance continue even at higher wealth levels or is there a soft ceiling which means the authoritarian countries will not come to dominate?) I've seen this game played before, and I'm skeptical China will be the exception: http://www.gwern.net/Notes#chinese-kremlinology http://www.gwern.net/Notes#chinese-kremlinology China, Russia, Japan, Singapore - all these countries had relatively low-hanging fruit by simply industrializing. But they aren't a 'poster-boy' until they equal or surpass the Western countries! Take Japan, which was the China-before-China, and look at its per capita GDP: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_count... No matter which of the 3 charts you look at, the USA is still 5-10+ countries higher than Japan. South Korea is even further down the list. Singapore doesn't do too bad, but if you know anything about the place, you know that that 'success' is not possible to replicate on larger scales. > Now they're the second-largest economy in the world. Which isn't very impressive on a per capita basis, when one is trying to make the claim that 'Chinese styles are likely similarly efficient'. If China reached a USA level per capita, its economy would be something like $61.1 trillion. As opposed to the current $5 trillion.

seabee 15y ago

China is starting from a different point to much of the West. What remains to be seen is whether their style of government will peak or surpass Western ones as it approaches the same quality of life, and it will be very informative whichever one it is.

tokenadult 15y ago

China's haste to build deadly boondoggle projects is not something that any democratic nation, eastern or western, desires to emulate: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140703132/from-progress-to-problem-chinas-high-speed-trains http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140703132/from-progress-to-pro... http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/subway-train-crash-in-shanghai-injures-more-than-280-reviving-doubts-over-railways-rush/2011/09/29/gIQAPtGE6K_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/subway-train-crash-in...

mainguy 15y ago
Actually, those aren't boondoggles, those are exactly the sorts of risks the author is talking about. To make big gains, you have to take big risks. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt
- gvb 15y ago
  High speed rail is not a big risk technologically. The technology has existed since the 60s. At this point, the technology is advancing incrementally with incrementally improved materials and technology, not "big risk game changing" technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Technology The risk in high speed rail is primarily due to the scale of the implementation; the cost in terms of time, effort, and money of acquiring the rail right-of-way and physically building the infrastructure. The big risk in the Wenzhou train collision referred to by the OP was not in the technology that was used or the building of the infrastructure, but was a system and management failure. The technology in the train system, when correctly implemented and used properly, is well known, well proven, and safe. To be blunt, the failure was not due to "big gains big risk technology," but was due to the fact that the high speed rail system in China was a boondoggle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision
melling 15y ago
What makes them boondoggle projects? You don't think a city the size of Shanghai needs a large subway? Isn't a subway more cost effective and a more efficient way to move people in a large city? The same argument can be made for HSR. Moving 1.3 billion people are now free to move about the country. In the US, we're still arguing over building our first HSR.

gwern 15y ago

You missed the much more important OB post: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/revised-growth-claim.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/06/revised-growth-claim.h... Anyway, the unanswered, and currently unanswerable question, is what happens in China's future? (For the above post - does the increased variance continue even at higher wealth levels or is there a soft ceiling which means the authoritarian countries will not come to dominate?) I've seen this game played before, and I'm skeptical China will be the exception: http://www.gwern.net/Notes#chinese-kremlinology http://www.gwern.net/Notes#chinese-kremlinology China, Russia, Japan, Singapore - all these countries had relatively low-hanging fruit by simply industrializing. But they aren't a 'poster-boy' until they equal or surpass the Western countries! Take Japan, which was the China-before-China, and look at its per capita GDP: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_count... No matter which of the 3 charts you look at, the USA is still 5-10+ countries higher than Japan. South Korea is even further down the list. Singapore doesn't do too bad, but if you know anything about the place, you know that that 'success' is not possible to replicate on larger scales. > Now they're the second-largest economy in the world. Which isn't very impressive on a per capita basis, when one is trying to make the claim that 'Chinese styles are likely similarly efficient'. If China reached a USA level per capita, its economy would be something like $61.1 trillion. As opposed to the current $5 trillion.