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You can't have endless impressive growth. Once you're developed its going to hit a reasonable cap. China is still developing. You can't compare the most mature

You can't have endless impressive growth. Once you're developed its going to hit a reasonable cap. China is still developing. You can't compare the most mature economy to one of least developed. The move from back-breaking farm labor all day to manufacturing is MASSIVE growth. The problem with Western democracies is that we moved past that stage over 100 years ago. Now we're in a service based economy. That just doesn't have that wonderful growth curve. As many democratic and liberal nations have discovered, its a fool's errand to chase growth on that curve and, as you said, the wealth and stability of north Europe is a tempting target to emulate. With recent moves towards proper socialization like Obamacare and focusing on tax cuts for the middle class and raising the minimum wage, I feel like we're on the path to those economies and have long stepped off the path of just beating down workers for tiny gains as we fight the laws of diminishing returns. How much workers unrest does the CCP violently take down per year to keep people in line? How many secret police arrests? These pro-China pieces are mystifying to me. Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason. I guess they like the idea of a centralized control by elites, but that simply doesn't scale well and it invites corruption and other inefficiencies much faster than a more open political process. I'd rather live in the poorest Western nation than in China or Russia. Its crazy that we're actually seeing their system as superior to ours. Only on HN would this drivel be voted so highly. INTJ social and moral blindness is in full effect here. I look forward to the scandinaviation of all things. I believe its the best path humanity has.

hencq 12y ago
Completely agreed. Most of China's growth has been from moving people from agriculture to manufacturing. Essentially activating its giant labor force to compete on price. This has lifted millions of people out of poverty. However, it's still not entirely clear if China will be able to avoid the middle income trap that many countries seem to get stuck in as labor becomes more expensive and they aren't able to compete on price anymore.
secstate 12y ago
Excellent points. I live in a community with a fair few retired state officials, and the China fear/admiration is also entrenched amongst folks who are already very wealthy, and have a passing interest in staying on top of international politics. There is something to your observation of wealthy individuals of medium to high intellect falling in love with autocrats, as though if a few smarter people could just control a little more, things would be better/more optimized/grow faster. The twist of course being the punchline to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What is better? Why optimize? Growth for what purpose?
smacktoward 12y ago
> These pro-China pieces are mystifying to me. Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason. It's because we see the world through the lens of our relationship with our computers, and in that relationship, we are dictators. We tell the computer what to do, and it just does it. It never asks for more vacation time or complains when we push it to its physical limits. In those cases where it doesn't do what we told it, 99% of the time the reason is because we phrased the request wrong. Then we look at democracy and start thinking, man, how inefficient all this taking into account other peoples' needs and principles and desires is! When you start thinking of the world as a computer, it's not a giant leap to think that the solution to all its problems is just to give someone out there root privileges.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I disagree. I think it's mostly because geeks like effective solutions. Dictatorships, despite all their scary failure modes, have one very good feature democracies lack - they get things done. When there's a new power plant to be built or transportation project to be realized, they just happen. There's no need to pander to clueless people bitching about things they don't understand. No anti-nuclear movements, no NIMBYsm, etc. No decision-making overheads because various politicians are bribed to support different groups. No pandering to electorate. If it needs to be done, it just gets done. In contrast, western governments are pretty much incapable of any serious action on anything that matters. I think this is the very reason geeks seem to worship benevolent dictatorships. They're just efficient. It's maintaining the benevolent part that is hard.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    >have one very good feature democracies lack - they get things done. I think this is a misconception. Chaotic system almost exclusively defeat planned systems. A chaotic market will beat communist central planning every time. A chaotic fight for life via evolution will beat robots every time, etc. Humanity's greatest achievements have been done under largely western, open, and democratic societies (for various definitions of) from ancient Greece to what the US and EU has been able to do. While autocratic systems have their success stories, they're more rare and often hit a wall due to the natural of autocracy (threaten the political order, favor system stopping innovation). You're using an American OS on an American network stack and American root DNS and American URLs on an American designed CPU in English at an American website to have this conversation for a reason. I suggest you check out Kelly's Out of Control or Taleb's Anti-Fragile.
cyorir 12y ago
"Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason." I do not think this is entirely correct. You don't see widespread support for the majority of the world's autocrats. I think geeks want technocrats, not simply autocrats. In that sense, it is important to distinguish between different types of autocrats. There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or pro-Saudi pieces for example. What people see in China is a society which has faced many challenges - demographic challenges, economic challenges, environmental challenges, stability challenges. They are not a democracy, and yet they perform much better on many issues than the vast majority of autocracies out there - as Syria falls to pieces, Russia's economy falters, and Egypt regresses from revolution, states like China are actually making some progress, however slight, in meeting needs of their populations. China as a system that is superior to ours? I do not think sama and others are actually arguing this. However, I think that a state like China, while being an autocracy, does not make mistakes only - occasionally it does something right. And when a state occasionally does something right, there is a lesson to be learned.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  >There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or pro-Saudi pieces for example. I'm fairly political so I imagine I pay attention to this stuff more than most, but you bet your bottom dollar people here and on reddit and slashdot sing the praises of Cuba, Syria, and Russia. Usuallly the sentiment come from Europeans and others with an anti-US bone to pick. As someone who has done business with both the Chinese and the Russians, its incredible how shitty and dishonest their business culture is. I don't think a lot of the people cheerleading them have any idea what they are talking about.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > but you bet your bottom dollar people here and on reddit and slashdot sing the praises of Cuba, Syria, and Russia. Usuallly the sentiment come from Europeans and others with an anti-US bone to pick I think its a lot more common that American Exceptionalists mistake arguments of the form that, e.g., Cuba does better on some narrow measure than the US despite its much poorer, economy, so one might want to consider how the US could do better, or that abuses being complained about in Russia have parallels in the US, or that US government (or popular media) complaints about Syria are hypocritical in light of the same sources defense of regimes with the same features, in greater degree, than Syria shows as "singing the praises of" Cuba, Russia, or Syria.
ahomescu1 12y ago
> Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason. That's not entirely true, there are also plenty of libertarian geeks (including here on HN).

hencq 12y ago

Completely agreed. Most of China's growth has been from moving people from agriculture to manufacturing. Essentially activating its giant labor force to compete on price. This has lifted millions of people out of poverty. However, it's still not entirely clear if China will be able to avoid the middle income trap that many countries seem to get stuck in as labor becomes more expensive and they aren't able to compete on price anymore.

secstate 12y ago

Excellent points. I live in a community with a fair few retired state officials, and the China fear/admiration is also entrenched amongst folks who are already very wealthy, and have a passing interest in staying on top of international politics. There is something to your observation of wealthy individuals of medium to high intellect falling in love with autocrats, as though if a few smarter people could just control a little more, things would be better/more optimized/grow faster. The twist of course being the punchline to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What is better? Why optimize? Growth for what purpose?

smacktoward 12y ago

> These pro-China pieces are mystifying to me. Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason. It's because we see the world through the lens of our relationship with our computers, and in that relationship, we are dictators. We tell the computer what to do, and it just does it. It never asks for more vacation time or complains when we push it to its physical limits. In those cases where it doesn't do what we told it, 99% of the time the reason is because we phrased the request wrong. Then we look at democracy and start thinking, man, how inefficient all this taking into account other peoples' needs and principles and desires is! When you start thinking of the world as a computer, it's not a giant leap to think that the solution to all its problems is just to give someone out there root privileges.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I disagree. I think it's mostly because geeks like effective solutions. Dictatorships, despite all their scary failure modes, have one very good feature democracies lack - they get things done. When there's a new power plant to be built or transportation project to be realized, they just happen. There's no need to pander to clueless people bitching about things they don't understand. No anti-nuclear movements, no NIMBYsm, etc. No decision-making overheads because various politicians are bribed to support different groups. No pandering to electorate. If it needs to be done, it just gets done. In contrast, western governments are pretty much incapable of any serious action on anything that matters. I think this is the very reason geeks seem to worship benevolent dictatorships. They're just efficient. It's maintaining the benevolent part that is hard.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  >have one very good feature democracies lack - they get things done. I think this is a misconception. Chaotic system almost exclusively defeat planned systems. A chaotic market will beat communist central planning every time. A chaotic fight for life via evolution will beat robots every time, etc. Humanity's greatest achievements have been done under largely western, open, and democratic societies (for various definitions of) from ancient Greece to what the US and EU has been able to do. While autocratic systems have their success stories, they're more rare and often hit a wall due to the natural of autocracy (threaten the political order, favor system stopping innovation). You're using an American OS on an American network stack and American root DNS and American URLs on an American designed CPU in English at an American website to have this conversation for a reason. I suggest you check out Kelly's Out of Control or Taleb's Anti-Fragile.

cyorir 12y ago

"Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason." I do not think this is entirely correct. You don't see widespread support for the majority of the world's autocrats. I think geeks want technocrats, not simply autocrats. In that sense, it is important to distinguish between different types of autocrats. There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or pro-Saudi pieces for example. What people see in China is a society which has faced many challenges - demographic challenges, economic challenges, environmental challenges, stability challenges. They are not a democracy, and yet they perform much better on many issues than the vast majority of autocracies out there - as Syria falls to pieces, Russia's economy falters, and Egypt regresses from revolution, states like China are actually making some progress, however slight, in meeting needs of their populations. China as a system that is superior to ours? I do not think sama and others are actually arguing this. However, I think that a state like China, while being an autocracy, does not make mistakes only - occasionally it does something right. And when a state occasionally does something right, there is a lesson to be learned.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>There is a reason you see more pro-China pieces than pro-Russia, pro-Syria, pro-Cuba, or pro-Saudi pieces for example. I'm fairly political so I imagine I pay attention to this stuff more than most, but you bet your bottom dollar people here and on reddit and slashdot sing the praises of Cuba, Syria, and Russia. Usuallly the sentiment come from Europeans and others with an anti-US bone to pick. As someone who has done business with both the Chinese and the Russians, its incredible how shitty and dishonest their business culture is. I don't think a lot of the people cheerleading them have any idea what they are talking about.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > but you bet your bottom dollar people here and on reddit and slashdot sing the praises of Cuba, Syria, and Russia. Usuallly the sentiment come from Europeans and others with an anti-US bone to pick I think its a lot more common that American Exceptionalists mistake arguments of the form that, e.g., Cuba does better on some narrow measure than the US despite its much poorer, economy, so one might want to consider how the US could do better, or that abuses being complained about in Russia have parallels in the US, or that US government (or popular media) complaints about Syria are hypocritical in light of the same sources defense of regimes with the same features, in greater degree, than Syria shows as "singing the praises of" Cuba, Russia, or Syria.

ahomescu1 12y ago

> Geeks always seem to worship autocrats and dictators for whatever reason. That's not entirely true, there are also plenty of libertarian geeks (including here on HN).