Hacker News Reader

Comment by nihonde | Hacker News Reader

The premise of this headline is that the USA is indisputably in the lead and that the winner is whoever catches up the USA. After spending years in Asia, my impression is that there is another game being played entirely, and the USA is merely a player whose ability to interfere in the outcome is being carefully managed. (And the same is true about Russia, incidentally.) I won't be at all surprised if Asia rules the world by the time I'm an old man.

View on HN

What part of Asia? I’ve spent months in China and the more time I spend, the less optimistic I am for their future.

I'm interested in this, I'd like you to write a bit about your impressions if you want.

It would take more than an HN comment to describe. The key thing I observed is an intense lack of empathy throughout the society. It's simultaneously anarchic and totalitarian without the rule of law, and little societal trust. I don't see how they approach Western standards of living without the CCP loosening its grip, but the CCP is only tightening its grip, which belies a deep insecurity. I believe their government is only metastable, relying mostly on economic growth for its legitimacy. Once their growth inevitably plateaus, watch out.

> The key thing I observed is an intense lack of empathy throughout the society

Can you elaborate? I just came back from Shanghai for a business trip, curious if we're seeing the same things.

Small example - lack of toilet paper in most restrooms (might not apply so much in the touristy parts of Shanghai). Instead of empathy towards others who might use the same restroom and need toilet paper, the toilet paper is quickly stolen because how foolish of the place to offer free toilet paper, they're basically asking for it to be stolen. Or seeing a Mom change a baby's poopy diaper on a restaurant table, because the sanitation will be someone else's problem. So much bad behavior that comes from empathy that seems to only extend to family and very little beyond that.

How does this hurt the society? Well, now you have to take toilet paper with you wherever you go. It's a deadweight loss for the society, and China is riddled with these due to the empathy gap.

EDIT: you are probably familiar with the homeless guy, down on his luck, who visits a restaurant, doesn't buy anything, takes a huge helping of free condiments and uses the bathroom. Now imagine a society where it's not just the homeless guys acting like this.

I think there is a certain inconsiderateness, or like a "fuck you got mine" vibe reflected in things like crowding to get into a subway, or cutting people in line (I hate queueing in China).

I'm not sure I chalk up the lack of TP towards that as much as there being no expectation of offering free TP so nobody does it. For instance there are also toilets in Japan where you have to buy the TP in a vending machine but people there are exceptionally considerate. In many places in Europe you usually have to pay to use restrooms in public places too. Just a different norm.

The TP probably isn't the best example, but I think you get the general idea. I went to Disneyland Shanghai and even Disney, legendary for their line management, couldn't get the queues under control in China. People would push into your back or walk right past you if you left any space.

Yea for sure, definitely my least favorite part of traveling there.

My brother in law spent 10 years in China doing business and went from "China will rule the world" to "China is Enron." I suspect the truth is between these extremes.

China's formula has been GDP at all costs. It's an experiment in Keynesianism on meth. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. One visible result is some of the worst regional environmental destruction in human history, which could be considered a form of debt.

> I suspect the truth is between these extremes.

That's not a very bold prediction, that the truth is somewhere between the two extremes.

I think "China is Enron" is closer to the truth, in the longer term. I expect to see a collapse of the CCP in my lifetime. China itself will survive of course, just like the oil Enron owned still existed.

The same thing was said about Japan.

Writing Japan off is another favorite pastime, I notice. What most impresses me about Japan is their ability to weather the doldrums of their current economy, and still have a higher quality of life than Americans do. How well do you think America will fare under similar economic conditions? (You can probably guess what I think.)

I think this entire exercise is conversational bullshit because there is no metric for 'winning'. Quality of life is relative. People prefer different things, that's why those who are able, relocate to somewhere that suits their preferences. Japan benefits greatly from being an island, not having to worry about their national security for decades and a tight immigration policy.

Indeed. I'm old enough to remember the panicky statements by US politicians about how the Japanese were going to destroy our auto industry, dominate the next generation of computers, buy up all our real estate, etc. It never happened, and then the Japanese wrecked their own economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)

I think such prophecies are greatly exaggerated, since it's rare that a developed country "gets taken over" by another country. The only cases that come to mind would Germany and Japan after WW2 and even these bounced back and took back control. And that was after WW2, so after huge disruptions.

But, getting back on track, things are different. China is 10x the size of Japan. If China's GDP per capita gets at least close to that of Japan's, they will both double the world's economy and also become 50% of it, like the US was a few decades ago. They will dwarf everyone, including the US. So there will definitely be a huge Chinese influence, world wide.

> the USA is merely a player whose ability to interfere in the outcome is being carefully managed. (And the same is true about Russia, incidentally.)

Agreed. The world rests on China's and soon also India's shoulders. They already rule the world economically and diplomatically, the next domino to fall will be cultural influence. Russia is a good demonstration of the impotence of military power alone, and hard power is looking like the US' only advantage over China.

Their respective per capita GDP is a small fraction of the Western world. If that’s what economic dominance looks like I’ll pass.

And the US' per capita GDP is a fraction of Luxembourg's.

Your post is borderline trollish considering Luxembourg has a population of less than San Francisco. And the fractions are somewhat different with the US in much closer per GDP striking distance to the tiny city-state protectorate of Luxembourg versus the huge per capita gap between the USA and China.

Please try to post constructive comments. This is not Reddit.

The comment was constructive. You brought the attention to "GDP per capita" yourself, so pointing out the obvious problem with that metric singled out is as ad rem as it gets.

If the comment pointed out a country of comparable size (within an order of magnitude) to the US with a significantly higher GDP per capita (on a similar order to the gap between the USA and China), it would have been constructive and informative.

Imagine a discussion of average tech salaries among the tech giants and someone points out they know a company with 2 people and the average salary is $350k per person. That's irrelevant and derailing.

We should try to increase the per capita GDP in the US then.

USA GDP per capita is $57k. Luxembourg is $100k. Does that really qualify as fractional?

Don't worry about the downvotes. Freedom of speech is a pillar of American society, until you express doubt about their unassailable exceptionalism, at which point the censure is relentless.

Good thing censure doesn't deny anyone their free speech! If it did, you might have actually made a well-formed argument.

It's also good that your point is empirically, observably false. Few non-Americans can actually match Americans in the amount of passion that goes into doubting and angrily denouncing American exceptionalism.

"you might have actually made a well-formed argument".

I'll leave you to pat yourself on the back. The downvotes don't bother me in the slightest.

> Few non-Americans can actually match Americans in the amount of passion that goes into doubting and angrily denouncing American exceptionalism.

Ironic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com