4 ms·

> My thesis is something like "any authoritarian can sail a ship in calm seas". The government of China's hard times are ahead of it. It's too early to write an

by arp242 1y ago

> My thesis is something like "any authoritarian can sail a ship in calm seas". The government of China's hard times are ahead of it. It's too early to write an epitaph for democracy. This applies to neither Russia nor China. Especially not China – authoritarian China if the 50s-70s was a complete clusterfuck every which way, in no small part due to Mao's staggering incompetence. A key part of Xiaoping's reforms of the 80s – which lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty – was renouncing some of Mao's more mad notions. There are plenty of other examples where authoritarians screwed over their countries quite badly, from Mugabe to Suharto to Maduro. To say nothing of people like Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, and similar jolly fellows who outright murdered their own people by the millions. In authoritarian regimes you have no meaningful pushback. When Putin says "we're going to invade Ukraine real quick, stoke me a kipper, back before supper" then no one is going to say "you idiot, that's fucking mental" because you risk brutally accidentally falling out of the window while taking a shower. And now Russia is "stuck" in this pointless war because Putin has painted himself in a corner, and there is not going to be a peaceful change of governance in Russia, after which a new administration can change course. In addition authoritarians are free to be as corrupt as they like of course. Who is going to hold them to account? In the short term an authoritarian can do the right thing (Xiaoping is an example), but in the long term it never works out because sooner or later an idiot and/or asshole will plant their arsecheeks on the throne, after which you're fucked.

saulpw 1y ago
> in the long term it never works out because sooner or later an idiot and/or asshole will plant their arsecheeks on the throne, after which you're fucked. Seems like this can happen in a democracy just the same.
- arp242 1y ago
  No system is completely immune of course, but it's exceedingly rare for a dictatorship to remain stable and benign for for even just a few decades, never mind hundreds of years.
  - aurareturn 1y ago
    Zhou dynasty lasted for 790 years. Does that count? I think it's interesting to talk about. India is a democracy, yet its development is so far behind China in virtually all aspects. Democracy in India seems to create a ton of in-fighting, indecision, and lack of will power. It seems far more corrupt than China as well. India seems stuck while China leads the world in many areas. So it doesn't seem like a democracy works for all nations (depending on what you measure). Democracy has clearly worked for many. But not all.
    - Paradigma11 1y ago
      But when you compare Taiwan to China, which has the same culture, people and is a much better comparison, you can clearly see how much better democracies perform. Taiwanese people have a life expectancy of 81 to Chinas 76 years. Taiwans GDP per capita is 33k vs 13k of China. So Chinas regime is stealing 5 years and 2/3rd of the income of its people.
      - aurareturn 1y ago
        Taiwan had a much earlier head start and far fewer problems though. But even so, if you look at life in Tier 1 Chinese cities and Taipei, I think Chinese cities are ahead. I spent quite a bit of time living in Taipei before and have visited a few T1 Chinese cities. Life in Taiwan is really not that much different than China. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=China&city1=Shenzhen&country2=Taiwan&city2=Taipei&displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... You can look at this. Local purchasing power is actually higher in Shenzhen than in Taipei. People earn a higher salary and have lower living cost in Shenzhen than in Taipei. Not only that, Shenzhen felt more convenient, cleaner, more technologically advanced, and newer. If not for the internet block situation, I'd definitely prefer to live in Shenzhen than Taiwan. Taipei 4k walk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzYW9k3qkSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzYW9k3qkSs Shenzhen 4k walk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjw_omzE_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjw_omzE_U You tell me which one looks more world class. Perhaps rural Taiwan is better than rural China. But that's to be expected because of the late start in China and just far more people. So Chinas regime is stealing 5 years and 2/3rd of the income of its people. I don't think you can say this. We have to look at projections and trends. We know China had a very late start due to Mao being an inept leader. Many places barely had running water and electricity 30 years ago. Taiwan also has the economic privilege drawing from the US well and the China well. Taiwanese people can live and open business in China freely while also doing business freely with the US. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that exploited Chinese labor and sold to American businesses as an example. Even with that, the only industry where you can definitively say Taiwan is ahead of China is chips. That's it. That's mostly to do with ASML not allowed to sell EUV machines to China and China has to do the whole chip supply chain from scratch.

by arp242 1y ago

saulpw 1y ago

> in the long term it never works out because sooner or later an idiot and/or asshole will plant their arsecheeks on the throne, after which you're fucked. Seems like this can happen in a democracy just the same.

arp242 1y ago
No system is completely immune of course, but it's exceedingly rare for a dictatorship to remain stable and benign for for even just a few decades, never mind hundreds of years.
- aurareturn 1y ago
  Zhou dynasty lasted for 790 years. Does that count? I think it's interesting to talk about. India is a democracy, yet its development is so far behind China in virtually all aspects. Democracy in India seems to create a ton of in-fighting, indecision, and lack of will power. It seems far more corrupt than China as well. India seems stuck while China leads the world in many areas. So it doesn't seem like a democracy works for all nations (depending on what you measure). Democracy has clearly worked for many. But not all.
  - Paradigma11 1y ago
    But when you compare Taiwan to China, which has the same culture, people and is a much better comparison, you can clearly see how much better democracies perform. Taiwanese people have a life expectancy of 81 to Chinas 76 years. Taiwans GDP per capita is 33k vs 13k of China. So Chinas regime is stealing 5 years and 2/3rd of the income of its people.
    - aurareturn 1y ago
      Taiwan had a much earlier head start and far fewer problems though. But even so, if you look at life in Tier 1 Chinese cities and Taipei, I think Chinese cities are ahead. I spent quite a bit of time living in Taipei before and have visited a few T1 Chinese cities. Life in Taiwan is really not that much different than China. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=China&city1=Shenzhen&country2=Taiwan&city2=Taipei&displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... You can look at this. Local purchasing power is actually higher in Shenzhen than in Taipei. People earn a higher salary and have lower living cost in Shenzhen than in Taipei. Not only that, Shenzhen felt more convenient, cleaner, more technologically advanced, and newer. If not for the internet block situation, I'd definitely prefer to live in Shenzhen than Taiwan. Taipei 4k walk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzYW9k3qkSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzYW9k3qkSs Shenzhen 4k walk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjw_omzE_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjw_omzE_U You tell me which one looks more world class. Perhaps rural Taiwan is better than rural China. But that's to be expected because of the late start in China and just far more people. So Chinas regime is stealing 5 years and 2/3rd of the income of its people. I don't think you can say this. We have to look at projections and trends. We know China had a very late start due to Mao being an inept leader. Many places barely had running water and electricity 30 years ago. Taiwan also has the economic privilege drawing from the US well and the China well. Taiwanese people can live and open business in China freely while also doing business freely with the US. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that exploited Chinese labor and sold to American businesses as an example. Even with that, the only industry where you can definitively say Taiwan is ahead of China is chips. That's it. That's mostly to do with ASML not allowed to sell EUV machines to China and China has to do the whole chip supply chain from scratch.