I think its right to point out the particular futility here, but I also think that it is a mistake to attribute it all to a "mistake" or particular irrationalit

I think its right to point out the particular futility here, but I also think that it is a mistake to attribute it all to a "mistake" or particular irrationality of the West as a whole. These things appear to us a "pointless" and a waste of time because there are overriding economic principles we just don't want to touch, it is a willful pointlessness that is quite apparent in the big picture. It's not China, it's capitalism, (of which, granted, China is a huge agent within). If we lived in a world where the problems were simply about the distribution itself of food and shelter and power, we could point to the complexity of the systems, and understand the risks of wrongheadedness in the face of them, but we live in a world plagued by bad faith and non-human incentives that certainly muddy these waters, but it doesn't mean there aren't some simple solutions to a few things people haven't thought of... To create this dichotomy between the West and China is to deny the Anthropocene we are all in! One that is defined necessarily by the literally geological forces of a world-dominating economic order.