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Xi's crackdown on tech companies doesn't appear to be some sort of huge disruption that would lead to an existential crisis. Meanwhile, the PRC launching a huge
by Apocryphon 4y ago
Xi's crackdown on tech companies doesn't appear to be some sort of huge disruption that would lead to an existential crisis. Meanwhile, the PRC launching a hugely expensive preemptive war, risking untold amounts of diplomatic condemnation, economic sanctions, and chaos to international supply chains could very well break the entire global economy. It'd be burning down your neighborhood to spite your face.
- code_biologist 4y agoIt'd be burning down your neighborhood to preserve CCP legitimacy and control of China, which seems to be a reasonable tradeoff from Xi's perspective.
- Apocryphon 4y agoNot if it destroys all of the developmental progress they've made since Deng! Blowing up world trade is highly detrimental to a country's standard of living.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yks 4y agoRussia is yet again proving that destroying standards of living in a dictatorship does not threaten the rulers which is the only thing that matters. CCP survived Mao’s policies and so they will survive the changes in GDP per capita whichever way they go.
- Apocryphon 4y agoThey have far more to lose now. I suspect things are rather different once you attain a certain level of prosperity and preeminence, which causes one to reevaluate one's appetite for risk.
- kneebonian 4y agoExactly, like in 1914 when the Austro-Hungarian empire and the German Empire were the worlds 2nd and 3rd leading exporters of electrical appliances, and had this massive trade network where German goods were going all over Europe, financed by English capital. No country would be stupid enough to bring all that crashing down because some stupid nationalist dispute in the Balkans, that would be idiotic and stupid. Clearly people are to rational for that.
- Apocryphon 4y agoIt would be certainly be a stupid thing to do so after the precedence of the Great War is already firmly entrenched in everyone's imaginations, not to mention the advent of nuclear weapons, which makes outright open warfare between the great powers a historical memory thus far (which also explains why the U.S. is fighting a proxy war rather than an actual war in Ukraine).
- SllX 4y agoWars continue to happen for even dumber reasons; they just rarely involve the largest nations clashing anymore. If you’re betting on human rationality over time in the hands of people with a lot of centralized power, you’re making the losing bet. There’s a reason people were genuinely afraid of nuclear war (and still should continue to be): if it happens, it will involve very few people and there will be nothing any one of the billion’s of others can do about it. There is a solution: the dispersal of power tends to work well; but the risk you run up against is charismatic individuals acting as a locus for a majority’s power, so you also need anti-majoritarian institutions and a culture that values them. Hard to get all three.
- kneebonian 4y agoYou're right it would be a stupid idea for Russia to march on Germany, given the precedence of the Napoleonic Wars that killed so many. Not to mention the advent of chemical weapons and high powered artillery which makes outright open warfare between the great powers a historical memory thus far (which also explains why the Russians are fighting a proxy war rather than an actual war in Serbia)
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThis is the disadvantage of authoritarian systems. They are more capable of making stupid decisions because there are fewer voices.