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For the record, I don't think "excess population" is bad. I think more population is good, if the rest is done well. I just think the CCP has done a really, rea

For the record, I don't think "excess population" is bad. I think more population is good, if the rest is done well. I just think the CCP has done a really, really, bad job at this by directing the economy (and birth rates) too much. While I wouldn't go as far as to say India has "its shit together" currently, their way of governance is way less centralized and heavy-handed, which I believe is way more efficient and sustainable and won't lead to such disasters as in China. Of course India won't take exactly the China route - and it shouldn't, because that is (in my opinion) a bad route. Then again my opinion is heavily Zeihan-influenced, so I suppose we'll see :) The trend in recent years has certainly seemed to reverse really quickly. Even 5 years ago, most people I knew were positive on China generally, or at least they'd argue that the economic benefits might outweigh the human rights violations. Now that's completely shifted, not just in The West, but also among pretty much any other nationality I've talked with in America, Europe, and Asia.

dirtyid 4y ago
I think if more population is good then immigration driven developed nations would have open border policies. But they don't, instead reserving space to brain drain high end talent while limiting low end labour (i.e. farm hands) to transient / seasonal work. There's a need for low skill labour, but not that much. For reference US agriculture has 2M farmers and imports 2M seasonal foreign workers. Combine with automation that's all it takes to become one of the largest ag producers in the world. Meanwhile PRC has 200M farmers doing labour intensive farming simply to maintain a massive rural jobs program. India is even worse. There is a thing as having too many unproductive people. As for attitudes toward PRC, it's sunk among US led order countries, had a big dip during covid, but is recovering in the last few years in the rest of the world, especially global south which all the western surveys and news reports leave out and pretend 1st world consensus is somehow world consensus. Ultimately, compare US containment proposals from 5 years ago and what actually got done, the TLDR is despite heavy lobbying by two US admins, and its evident economic benefits still drive most relations with PRC, and most US aligned parties aren’t voluntarily falling into US orbit, i.e. there’s a reason US had to announce unilateral export controls, because they couldn’t get CHIP4 partners to play ball. Cordially dropping out of this thread now.

dirtyid 4y ago

I think if more population is good then immigration driven developed nations would have open border policies. But they don't, instead reserving space to brain drain high end talent while limiting low end labour (i.e. farm hands) to transient / seasonal work. There's a need for low skill labour, but not that much. For reference US agriculture has 2M farmers and imports 2M seasonal foreign workers. Combine with automation that's all it takes to become one of the largest ag producers in the world. Meanwhile PRC has 200M farmers doing labour intensive farming simply to maintain a massive rural jobs program. India is even worse. There is a thing as having too many unproductive people. As for attitudes toward PRC, it's sunk among US led order countries, had a big dip during covid, but is recovering in the last few years in the rest of the world, especially global south which all the western surveys and news reports leave out and pretend 1st world consensus is somehow world consensus. Ultimately, compare US containment proposals from 5 years ago and what actually got done, the TLDR is despite heavy lobbying by two US admins, and its evident economic benefits still drive most relations with PRC, and most US aligned parties aren’t voluntarily falling into US orbit, i.e. there’s a reason US had to announce unilateral export controls, because they couldn’t get CHIP4 partners to play ball. Cordially dropping out of this thread now.