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The moment I realized this was going to be the truth was when the Chinese government essentially purged a bunch of unicorn social media companies overnight, era

The moment I realized this was going to be the truth was when the Chinese government essentially purged a bunch of unicorn social media companies overnight, erasing billions of wealth on paper. It seemed like the motive was to value and encourage actual economic value over worshipping whatever makes the line go up. When I saw they had the guts and wisdom to do that I realized that they may have a better grasp on philosophy. Previously I always thought democracy was a slow but eventually correct system of producing wisdom. And to a degree there’s been truth to this. However the missing ingredient has been what do we do with that success once we’ve had it. The west would never have the guts to delete a billion dollar industry even if they realized it was a net negative. We simply don’t know how to guard against our passions, pleasures, and handle success in a responsible way. I think cccp has many flaws but taking bold action against this kind of problem isn’t one of them. I do hope that I’m wrong about this though and that a democratic system can see its way out of a local maximum built upon an unsustainable way of doing things. I think the belief in the market as some kind of oracle that knows value and price is its language has a lot to do with this track we’re on.

viraptor 2y ago
Which social media companies have been removed? They still have large clear leaders at the moment.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Jack Ma’s
ProjectArcturis 2y ago
I agree with your comments about the West. The fact that we continue to expand legal gambling is evidence enough that we don't care about the negative consequences of an industry. But let's not pretend China is perfect. The purge had much more to do with a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP, and b) Xi's boomer-era gut instinct that new media forms are bad.
- jampekka 2y ago
  > a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP Eliminating businesses competing with state power sounds like something that we too should have done when we still could.
- asimpletune 2y ago
  Yeah, good points. Definitely not my intention to say China's perfect, and I'm probably reading too much into the wisdom of this vs. good ol' preservation of power.
ninetyninenine 2y ago
>When I saw they had the guts and wisdom to do that I realized that they may have a better grasp on philosophy. It's not a better grasp on philosophy. It's a logistical issue. A centralized government can wipe this out because control is centralized. In a democracy the control is spread out among people who understand, people who don't understand and among people who have business interest in said topic. Think about it this way. The very people responsible for the unicorn social media companies in a democracy have a say in whether or not there own companies can be wiped out. If they're rich they can influence the game even more with advertising and propaganda. They influence the outcome and thus self interest actually pollutes the decision making process in a democracy. It's not about guts. It's literally that in a democracy even the conflicting business interests can stop the right thing from happening because of they are self interested in the bad thing to happen. It is a logistical issue. When business interests influence government then government decisions favor business interests. It's that simple. And right now since businesses are more centralized and have more power then individuals then the government actually favors big corporations. That's the eventual outcome of most capitalist societies. In a dictatorship, the dictator is usually well removed from such things and thus can make decisions very impartially and with no resistance. But like an evil dictator can do stuff like behead your entire family if you talk shit about him. Good sides and bad sides. The problem is you live in a democracy so everyone talks about how shitty the alternative is because of bias. The reality is democracy and dictatorship are simply two sides of a coin.

viraptor 2y ago

Which social media companies have been removed? They still have large clear leaders at the moment.

selimthegrim 2y ago
Jack Ma’s

ProjectArcturis 2y ago

I agree with your comments about the West. The fact that we continue to expand legal gambling is evidence enough that we don't care about the negative consequences of an industry. But let's not pretend China is perfect. The purge had much more to do with a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP, and b) Xi's boomer-era gut instinct that new media forms are bad.

jampekka 2y ago
> a) eliminating a potential competing power to the CCCP Eliminating businesses competing with state power sounds like something that we too should have done when we still could.
asimpletune 2y ago
Yeah, good points. Definitely not my intention to say China's perfect, and I'm probably reading too much into the wisdom of this vs. good ol' preservation of power.

ninetyninenine 2y ago

>When I saw they had the guts and wisdom to do that I realized that they may have a better grasp on philosophy. It's not a better grasp on philosophy. It's a logistical issue. A centralized government can wipe this out because control is centralized. In a democracy the control is spread out among people who understand, people who don't understand and among people who have business interest in said topic. Think about it this way. The very people responsible for the unicorn social media companies in a democracy have a say in whether or not there own companies can be wiped out. If they're rich they can influence the game even more with advertising and propaganda. They influence the outcome and thus self interest actually pollutes the decision making process in a democracy. It's not about guts. It's literally that in a democracy even the conflicting business interests can stop the right thing from happening because of they are self interested in the bad thing to happen. It is a logistical issue. When business interests influence government then government decisions favor business interests. It's that simple. And right now since businesses are more centralized and have more power then individuals then the government actually favors big corporations. That's the eventual outcome of most capitalist societies. In a dictatorship, the dictator is usually well removed from such things and thus can make decisions very impartially and with no resistance. But like an evil dictator can do stuff like behead your entire family if you talk shit about him. Good sides and bad sides. The problem is you live in a democracy so everyone talks about how shitty the alternative is because of bias. The reality is democracy and dictatorship are simply two sides of a coin.