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They have invested a lot into their energy sources whether it's nuclear or renewables + batteries or hydro. They also have industrial capacity. I feel like we

They have invested a lot into their energy sources whether it's nuclear or renewables + batteries or hydro. They also have industrial capacity. I feel like we tend to forget that the brunt of the economic output is made by machines which feed on energy. When you have virtually free energy and sufficient level of machinery, you can do anything.

throwaway29812 1y ago
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soulofmischief 1y ago
Personally, I directly use energy, both current and future (access to resources) as the main currency of my economic model of the world, not money. So I do understand that China is well-equipped to weather the storm on multiple fronts. But that's orthogonal to the fact that they will experience major population shock that radically and painfully transforms their economy, and also to the fact that China is a totalitarian nightmare with strict moderation of culture, knowledge and financial mobility. Who cares if the country still exists in name, if the number of people who manage to maintain a quality of life comparable today's average continues to dwindle? And what happens if China faces civil unrest and balkanizes, due to backlash against its increasingly authoritarian regime?
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  > China faces civil unrest and balkanizes, due to backlash against its increasingly authoritarian regime? I've been hearing this is eminent for my entire life.... > major population shock that radically and painfully transforms their economy Ah Peter Zeihan's evergreen bugaboo. Chinese old people != American old people, the cost of old people is completely different. While China does have a Ponzi economy, much like the US, and thus is susceptible to reverse wealth effects their corporations are run by politicians instead of the other way around. As much as I would like to be able to assume that repressive autocracies lead to political instability the empirical evidence does not seem to bear that out.
  - ordinaryradical 1y ago
    You’ve been hearing it’s eminent because most of Chinese history has played out this way and the Chinese world view sees government as dynastic and cyclical as opposed to progressive or something else. It’s plausible because it’s culturally coherent but that does not necessitate it. Communism could have easily been too alien to succeed but Mao made it contextual, so it unified the society instead. The way I look at it, every government has an existential risk of getting out of sync with its host culture. When that happens, the system breaks and you get an irruption—revolution, civil war, Balkanization; is the current Chinese system and its overall direction compatible with its cultural inheritance? The degree of that answer is the degree of risk.
    - cjbgkagh 1y ago
      I’ve been hearing it’s eminent because China is not a democracy, I hear the western perspective. I see revolutions as an alternate elite agitating for change. In my model an effective suppression of an alternative elite is sufficient to prevent revolution. In my model it comes down to which secret police are more effective, the MSS or the CIA. Which is especially relevant here because how much of the ‘Thielverse’ is really a CIA cutout, is Yarvin an external expression of an internal CIA power struggle.
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when an empire will fall, but the signs seem to be around for a long time prior to that moment, and you basically have the people who recognize those signs, the people who don't, and the people who profit from confusion and disorder that pay a lot of money to both overtly and subtlety convince people that everything is fine.
        cassepipe 1y ago
        > The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either. It's a weird statement because you are jumping from a descriptive statement ("not a functioning democracy") to a normative one (if it's not at least 80% democratic then I have decided that it's not a democracy) I am getting too old not to notice such rhetorical tricks. Do better.
- esseph 1y ago
  The world population is supposed to start declining between 2080-2100 depending on your source. It's not just China, it's a global problem.
  - soulofmischief 1y ago
    It's a China problem that they are currently projected to lose half of their massive 1.5bil population within a century, potentially putting significant strain on existing social and economic infrastructure.
    - esseph 1y ago
      So is the United States, but that is also the global population trend. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po... https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-release... https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertility-isnt-just-declining-its-collapsing/ https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertili...
    - esseph 1y ago
      It's a global population trend. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po... https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-release... https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertility-isnt-just-declining-its-collapsing/ https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertili...
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        There aren't many countries going from 1.5bil to 750mil in 75 years. That's a loss of 10 million a year, with an increasingly aged population. It's a problem at a much different scale.

throwaway29812 1y ago

[dead]

soulofmischief 1y ago

Personally, I directly use energy, both current and future (access to resources) as the main currency of my economic model of the world, not money. So I do understand that China is well-equipped to weather the storm on multiple fronts. But that's orthogonal to the fact that they will experience major population shock that radically and painfully transforms their economy, and also to the fact that China is a totalitarian nightmare with strict moderation of culture, knowledge and financial mobility. Who cares if the country still exists in name, if the number of people who manage to maintain a quality of life comparable today's average continues to dwindle? And what happens if China faces civil unrest and balkanizes, due to backlash against its increasingly authoritarian regime?

cjbgkagh 1y ago
> China faces civil unrest and balkanizes, due to backlash against its increasingly authoritarian regime? I've been hearing this is eminent for my entire life.... > major population shock that radically and painfully transforms their economy Ah Peter Zeihan's evergreen bugaboo. Chinese old people != American old people, the cost of old people is completely different. While China does have a Ponzi economy, much like the US, and thus is susceptible to reverse wealth effects their corporations are run by politicians instead of the other way around. As much as I would like to be able to assume that repressive autocracies lead to political instability the empirical evidence does not seem to bear that out.
- ordinaryradical 1y ago
  You’ve been hearing it’s eminent because most of Chinese history has played out this way and the Chinese world view sees government as dynastic and cyclical as opposed to progressive or something else. It’s plausible because it’s culturally coherent but that does not necessitate it. Communism could have easily been too alien to succeed but Mao made it contextual, so it unified the society instead. The way I look at it, every government has an existential risk of getting out of sync with its host culture. When that happens, the system breaks and you get an irruption—revolution, civil war, Balkanization; is the current Chinese system and its overall direction compatible with its cultural inheritance? The degree of that answer is the degree of risk.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    I’ve been hearing it’s eminent because China is not a democracy, I hear the western perspective. I see revolutions as an alternate elite agitating for change. In my model an effective suppression of an alternative elite is sufficient to prevent revolution. In my model it comes down to which secret police are more effective, the MSS or the CIA. Which is especially relevant here because how much of the ‘Thielverse’ is really a CIA cutout, is Yarvin an external expression of an internal CIA power struggle.
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when an empire will fall, but the signs seem to be around for a long time prior to that moment, and you basically have the people who recognize those signs, the people who don't, and the people who profit from confusion and disorder that pay a lot of money to both overtly and subtlety convince people that everything is fine.
      - cassepipe 1y ago
        > The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either. It's a weird statement because you are jumping from a descriptive statement ("not a functioning democracy") to a normative one (if it's not at least 80% democratic then I have decided that it's not a democracy) I am getting too old not to notice such rhetorical tricks. Do better.
esseph 1y ago
The world population is supposed to start declining between 2080-2100 depending on your source. It's not just China, it's a global problem.
- soulofmischief 1y ago
  It's a China problem that they are currently projected to lose half of their massive 1.5bil population within a century, potentially putting significant strain on existing social and economic infrastructure.
  - esseph 1y ago
    So is the United States, but that is also the global population trend. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po... https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-release... https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertility-isnt-just-declining-its-collapsing/ https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertili...
  - esseph 1y ago
    It's a global population trend. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-po... https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/lancet-dramatic-declines-global-fertility-rates-set-transform https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-release... https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertility-isnt-just-declining-its-collapsing/ https://www.aei.org/articles/fewer-and-faster-global-fertili...
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      There aren't many countries going from 1.5bil to 750mil in 75 years. That's a loss of 10 million a year, with an increasingly aged population. It's a problem at a much different scale.