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It seems our institutions for societal problem solving have not changed much since the 19th century. We have prisons, the courts, and money, glorious money: the universal and only solution to all problems.

China seems to be rearranging the rules and making things not only about money, but also behavior.

They deal with their ethnic violence problems through reeducation camps instead of war (e.g Chechnya) or simply giving up and trying to contain the problem( e.g "no go zones").

They deal with their infrastructure problems by largely ignoring all legal opposition including property rights to development.

They deal with the boom bust cycle by printing money and strictly controlling bank behavior and severely punishing bad actors.

Now they are using social credit to control bad behavior without prisons.

It's like they are trying to invent the next level of society, while our system thrives on growing and making industries out of its irresolvabe conflicts.

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None of these things are new things. They're things the west largely has evolved past.

"reeducation camps" are not an alternative to war. They're slow burn racial suppression and replacement, and used to enforce subservience through fear and torture. Populations have been erasing rival populations over territory, ideology and resources since the beginning of time. Since the holocaust, the west has at least begun attempting to move in a new direction.

"ignoring all legal opposition to ... development" is not a new take on government infrastructure programs, its a return to the medieval period where a Lord didn't have to consider the needs of the peasants when deciding how to use and develop their land. Even serfdom granted the masses more rights than this.

"with boom bust cycle by printing money" - This is just financial and political regulation. The west values boom / bust, if only because cyclical creation and destruction creates opportunities for those with enough resources to play, and so long as the 'bust' isn't so large as to destabilize the system. China values strict stability for a large number of political and social reasons. And 'severely punishing bad actors' has very little to do with regulating the economy, and very, very much to do with ensuring the stability and status quo (of the hierarchy) of the one party system.

"using social credit to control bad behavior without prisons" - Does it matter if you have prisons, if you have turned your entire country into a prison? The purpose of the social credit system is not to control bad behavior, it is to control behavior.

"it's like they are trying to invent the next level of society, while our system thrives on growing and making industries out of its irresolvabe conflicts" - They are trying to create a different society, though it is hardly a "new" or "next level" one. They are recreating the same type of dynastic society they have had for thousands of years, in a modern setting.

As for us, our system thrives on the assumption that cyclical war/peace, famine/growth, boom/bust creates opportunity for those who survive to innovate the society. Our downsides are that when we entire long periods of peace, growth, and stability we tend to become overly lax and allow our most major economic actors to attempt to warp the system to lock in their dominant positions. If that then settles into a stagnant, stable or regressive economic period where such opportunity is increasingly unavailable, large segments of the population will desire to ditch the system entirely and desire radical change, usually to a strong-man system, such as the one once found in Germany, or currently found in China.

If you look at the history of China and the Taiping rebellion[1] 20 - 30 million died over essentially a religious extremism driven civil war. If China can stop religious uprising with minimal damage to society and death, isn't that an improvement, or are big civil wars somehow more fair?

In all things they take a pragmatic cost/benefit approach instead of solely thinking about dictums handed down from ancient books as the religious extremists do. The key question is: what is to stop all this from working?

In the 20s, Hayek and Von Mises wrote "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth"[2] and gave a great criticism of Socialism that eventually predicted its collapse. Mainly that planning without prices would be extremely inefficient. There really isn't a good argument that doesn't rely on natural rights to explain why China's system won't work from a utilitarian perspective, only ones that pull on the heart strings.

For example, I often argue with Nazis on racist boards in order to talk them out of their false beliefs in the master race theories of the Nazis and how those false theories directly led to their downfall. The Nazis thought they could take over the world because they were a superior race and exterminating certain classes of people would solve all their problems. They really believed that. Those theories though were wrong, not only in a moral sense, but in a practical sense too. They invaded Russia in the winter thinking it would be easy and also did a lot of other really stupid tactical errors because they got high on their own supply. Many Jewish scientists immigrated and helped develop key technologies that gave the west massive advantages in the war, etc.

Point being, you have to not just rely on emotional arguments if you really want to deeply understand the forces underlying and changing history instead of focusing on what makes one feel morally justified. Feeling morally justified is good, but a lot of people who end up participating in their own failure to achieve their goals feel morally justified, but what they are doing is not working.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Calculation_in_the_So...

I wrote you a very long response, I will have to split it into 2 separate posts.

Post 1/2 :

I appreciate the response to my comment that you've made here, and the links provided to sources, though they weren't necessary in this case : )

To respond to your post, I think we need to break it down into its constituent parts. I think you made 5 smaller points, each of which I would like to refute, and one larger, overall point, which I would like to address.

With no intention of reducing or summarizing the substance of your post above, I will refer to your points as 1-5, with each rephrased as the following:

1) If a society has a history of mass death and suffering, but the society organizes itself in a such a way as to reduce the chance of mass death and suffering in the future, does that not justify whichever way the society chooses to so organize itself? Or more simply: Is the evil of mass death and warfare not sufficiently morally awful to justify all attempts to prevent such strife?

2) What makes us think the Chinese model will not work?

3) Societal organization is not the same as an engineering blueprint. Societal organization induces certain behaviors among its people, who then influence their government, which then influences its people. This cycle is a resonance point, a catch-22, that means even similar societies with small differences can have larger social and cultural differences which may themselves be very good or bad. These second order effects are just as important as the initial on-paper social organization of the society itself, but they also tend to be unpredictable.

4) Moral philosophy is nice, but ultimately what really matters in this world is not whether things work on paper, but whether things work in reality. A thing that works in reality, is many times more important and more meaningful than something that seems better, but hasn't been proven. Particularly in topics as complex as politics, where point #3 comes into play very strongly, and the stakes are so high (as mentioned in point #1)

5) You then impugned my character. But I believe this was mostly unintended and a result of your wording as you attempted to explain point #4. You also lightly imply that change is not possible, but the result of the narrative of history, which may be true on the macro sense, but is not what we are discussing here today, and does not impact your ability to decide your thoughts after having this conversation.

So ignoring that last point, I understand your argument to be:

China's model works. With so many people in the country, small changes can result in mass death and suffering, but the Chinese model keeps the Chinese people safe. We may not like the Chinese model, but we have no reason to believe it will not work. In fact, it appears to be working. And any change we introduce is likely to have 2nd and 3rd order effects which we cannot predict, but which, because they are unpredictable, potentially reintroduce the possibility of political fracture, and suffering back into the Chinese system. So don't fix what isn't broken. Moral justifications and ideological musings are important, but more important, is keeping 1 billion people alive and happy and not risking their lives on unproven reform.

------------------------

My responses below will be to each of your points one at a time. Starting with your #1 above, and continuing in order:

1) This argument only validates that some form of governance is _needed_ and that that form of governance is only acceptable if it can keep the people within it safe and provide decent lives. It is not a sufficient argument to promote one form of government over another. All governments keep their people safe from uprisings and civil war! That is one of the primary purposes of governments!

If your objective is to keep people safe, then, we must ask whether the current structure of government is the best method of doing so. While I agree that, particularly so soon after China's bloody most recent civil war there is, and should, be significant resistance to major political overhaul in China itself... fundamentally the question still stands: of the types of government available, is the current form of government the best at, or even good at, keeping its people safe? If the answer is no, then some form of movement from the current type of government to a better version, even if in the form of small, incremental reform, I would argue is warranted. The exact degree of reform the populace should or would be willing to risk and experience will vary, but whether or not the populace should attempt such a thing is not.

If this seems like a counter-intuitive, or overly naive viewpoint, I would argue two separate things. 1) all governments are constantly changing. The current Chinese model is currently under reformation. The question is not whether a government and society should change, but whether it is doing so in a positive direction, and the speed at which the change is occurring. If you are unwilling to consider the ways in which other governments may do a better job than your own, then you will also be unable to see the ways in which your own system will need to be improved in order to solve the problems your country faces.

I would also point out, that you specifically point out two major problems that are facing the Chinese government currently, namely religious extremism, and the potential for civil war. But my counter, is that both of those things are only the main threats to stability in china... BECAUSE of the type of government that it has. Similarly to what you mentioned in your point #3, different forms of government have different forms of weakness. Historically, systems close to the Chinese system have a GREATER chance of exacerbating religious fundamentalism and violent revolt than most other governmental types, or said another way, if China was not an authoritarian government these particular threats would not be threats that need worrying about. As such, if your desire is to keep people safe, and prevent a future Taiping rebellion, then your goal should be to move China _away_ from an authoritarian model, not further towards it. In short: increasing the possibility of non-violent reform decreases the possibility of mass violence, radicalism, and extremism.

Post 2/2

2) Nothing suggests to me that the Chinese model will not work. Similarly, I disagree with you that Nazi ideology does not work. Yes, Nazi leadership in the 20th century ultimately lost, and they did so in no small part due to their own hubris, but I think you are sorely mistaken if you believe that this means that Nazi ideology is not a workable political model. There have been many, many nations and empires built upon the concepts that a certain class or race of people were superior, and that the rich deserved to rule the nation, among the other aspects of fascist ideology. Given a different time, country, or leadership, there could still be a Nazi government alive and well in Europe today. In fact, I would point to the fact that there is such a large international Nazi movement alive and well today, despite such gigantic attempts to constrain it, as a good indication that it is a workable and viable political movement.

It is also, however, simply NOT a world I would want to live in. The fall of the Nazis did not prove that one race was or was not stronger or "better" than another. It partially proved that the world wanted to live in a world that did not have to contend with such a competition between governments, peoples and races. It was a fundamentally moral question about what type of world we want to live in. I do not want to live in a world where Nazi ideology is the dominant ideology, and would give my life to prevent it. But this is not because I do not think Nazi ideology is a workable form of government, or that Nazi ideology would not keep its chosen people safe. It is because I fundamentally do not want to live in that world, and do not believe that that is a world humanity, or at least myself, needs to accept.

I feel similarly about post-Leninist, or post-Maoist one party rule as I do living under a monarch, or living under a dictator, a theocracy, or a fascist government. It is not that these systems do not work. It is that I do not believe these governments to be ideal or good types of governance, for either moral or quality-of-life reasons for the people thus ruled.

3) I agree with your point #3. However, you then use this as a reason to argue against change and reform. But as I stated earlier, all governments are always in a state of change and reform, so this is an invalid step of logic.

But there's a more insidious aspect to this argument, that I'm not sure you considered. Your argument here takes as an assumption that no matter what the effects are of political/organizational change and reform are, that the people involved are powerless to either correct the mistakes, or decide for themselves.

In short, it implies that the people within a country have no capability of determining their own lives. That people are purely a product of their environment, and thus must be shaped by a greater force or person with power in order to improve.

Ironically, historically, systems organized in this way almost always result in the people making the decisions being the people who are the most isolated, pampered, richest, and farthest removed from the effects of their decisions in the society. That in turn does usually mean that the country is unable to course-correct when negative reforms are made, due to the simple fact that those making the decisions are too far removed from the results of their decisions to intelligently know when to course correct.

But if we throw out that underlying assumption to begin with, and assume that people do have the ability to comprehend what is good and bad in their own lives, to at least some degree, then the fear of second order effects you are mentioning is severely mitigated, and possibly ceases to exist outright.

Allow me to put this another way: reform and change always occurs within a country. If that reform and change is not recognized by a country's organization, then it will happen informally and quietly in the hands of individuals with power, likely for their own benefit at the expense of the rest, and likely without recourse or the ability to correct mistakes. If, however, the country has a political process by which to reform itself, then that means that there is also, by definition, a way for some people in the country to undo reforms that do not work out.

In other words, you do not need to worry about reform leading to the death and misery of the people. Those that have the power to reform, by definition, will have the power to undo reform that is seen as negative. What you need to worry about, are allowing the wrong people to have this power in an unaccountable way, or organizing your society in a manner where such reform is impossible and the only possibility is eventual revolution and bloodshed. Ironically, both of these things become substantially more likely the more and more authoritarian a country is.

4) I believe I also addressed this in the previous point.

So to summarize:

5) Yes, the Chinese model likely works. With so many people in China, stability is greatly needed, and that is important, because the stakes are so unfathomably high. But a belief that the current Chinese model is the only model that could work for China is wrong. Indeed, a counter argument could be easily made (as it could be for almost all governments) that the majority of major problems China currently faces is the result of its current political structure, not solved or benefited by it. The only way to address those problems, is through academic study and comparison to other political systems so that one might identify how Chinese governance must be reformed in order to solve those problems. But the belief that change is not warranted and is unsafe both ignores the fact that change is always occurring, and dooms the country to its current path. And since its current path is one of increasing authoritarianism, the natural result of your argument, is, ironically, that the Chinese people, and the world, are less safe from the fears you mentioned at the beginning of your post as a result, not better.

Or to put it another way: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety, and will soon have Neither."

Great writeup. Save it for now. Will think about your points later because a little bit long.

HNers are most rational netizens as I know. However quite lot of us still believe misinformation about China unintentionally spread by Western journalists and some travellers with their simplified misinterpretation upon a huge complex topic. Sometimes those who look intelligent behave like superstitious cult believer that there’s no way to have discord discussion. Your input is valuable. Maybe not always have correct source of information. For example you believe Chinese are less informed about individual liberty because they haven’t read books from George Orwell. On the contrarily some Chinese who still promote George Orwell’s books and open society meme are considered by other fellow Chinese as simple minded blind followers of old idea with their beliefs can not be bayersianly updated on new facts. Both groups are still very small educated portion of whole population that’s why you don’t know them. Most people are not aware of both groups but only care about daily life like all other societies over the world.

Anyway thank you for your idea.

I would very much love to learn about the educated viewpoints you mentioned here. What are the new facts that make people feel like Orwell is outdated?

I definitely do not have great sources of information for life inside China. I am just a developer that has grown interested in china since the 'trade wars' started. But I would like to learn more. My hope was if I could foster discussion here, and I might learn more along the way.

Do you have any suggestions for better sources?

It's difficult to express "educated" view (What I said was views of small portion of educated people) in a short paragraph. But what I would give a brief abstract description with some sacrifice of accuracy:

Some correct ideas with the tree scope could be totally wrong when observed from the forest scope but here's no way a tree can understand forest (Maybe it can if the tree have learnt Godel theorem. Just kidding). The great idea of open society might have different out comes on different areas of forest based on nature conditions . If the democracy /open society can be pin pointed to be the root cause of sever consequence like millions of life lost, then democracy would be averted. It's not against concept of open society/individual liberty but rather choose less evil. That’s why a lot of Chinese who know Owell still support the totalitarian regime.

BTW, I didn't mean Owell's thoughts is outdate itself but the people within China still promote Owell's work usually built their belief about democracy have outdate understanding about China and democracy. Some of groups (more specific, those who originated from democracy movement that triggered 1989 crackdown by government. Now most of them are overseas Chinese dissidents ) even have consistent integrity problems. (Why Chinese democracy activists have extremely high percentage of liar caused my curiosity that wasted a lot of time but that's beyond the topic).

As to new facts that lead some Chinese think twice about democracy, there are many: The simplest other new facts include failure practise of democracy in different areas like middle east, east Europa, and very important one which west media won't report: the government election experiments in village (The totalitarian regimen did tried to follow the great universal value promoted by western leaders instead of keep them in power, do you believe it), Taiwan's democracy (I'm not saying that the democracy failed but a lot of observation of what happened during all the process that can draw some conclusion that could be extrapolated). There new facts even get some new explanation about many old facts.

The sources of information is quite spread among many WeChat groups, moments etc. So it's difficult to get single source so it's not practical to really collect comprehensive understanding of big picture of Chinese society with so many segmented small pockets. However there are a couple of good source you can have a peek. Here's a famous rational nationalist community. http://www.m4.cn

(There are many more irrationally nationalist within China in terms of population. I personally don't support nationalist weather rational or irrational) The sponsor of the community include a VC who has a famous TED talk which might also helpful https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_...

Other source in general about China, there are many online but stay away any main stream media instead looking for alternative source for balance. Like moon of Alabama(not many about China but quite accurate for those related about China) , global security. Quora is a good place that there are many educated normal Chinese is there. a couple of recent piece on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-XDxCb92X4&t=3s for domestic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIvC_Kdvc4E for international Look at comment section. That’s more interesting than video

Thank you very much of the links. I will go through them all over the course of this coming week. Thank you : )

> very important one which west media won't report: the government election experiments in village (The totalitarian regimen did tried to follow the great universal value promoted by western leaders instead of keep them in power, do you believe it)

I would LOVE to read about this. Is there any place where I could do so? This would be extremely interesting to read.

My initial reaction, however, is that this wouldn't be possible to succeed? Democracies do not work if people believe that they might be punished at some point in the future for submitting a wrong answer, and when democracies are created for the first time they have a tendency to react directly against whatever the status quo was right before they were created... like a person testing out their strength for the first time. Most democracies don't ever get past this stage, before more powerful nearby nations destroy or undermine the democracy out of fear. See as an example, a history of the middle east.

> new facts include failure practice of democracy in different areas like middle east, east Europa

These are all regions where democracy was specifically undermined by rival powers in the interest of ensuring that they serve as client states. You could have added most of South and Central America to this list as well. The United States regularly undermines democracies in oil producing countries, and Russia regularly undermines or invades democracies in Eastern Europe as a defense against NATO. Neither region has much hope for democratization, outside powers do not allow it.

The only democratically aspiring nation who's democratic attempts haven't been undermined and destroyed by outside powers since the Arab Spring, that I am aware of, in the Middle East, is Kurdistan, strictly because they proved themselves so valuable to America's anti-ISIS efforts. But here you have an example of an extremely democratic society, that is thriving, despite being in the middle east, and despite the fact that it is currently facing completely genocide from Turkey, abandonment by Trump, and massive foreign power attempts to destabalize.

> Taiwan's democracy (I'm not saying that the democracy failed

What is wrong with Taiwan's democracy? I know almost nothing about the island

> If the democracy /open society can be pin pointed to be the root cause of sever consequence like millions of life lost, then democracy would be averted. It's not against concept of open society/individual liberty but rather choose less evil. That’s why a lot of Chinese who know Orwell still support the totalitarian regime.

I agree with the original premise, IE: if you can prove that democracy will result in millions of deaths, then you shouldn't be a democracy. But I don't understand how you went from that sentence to the last one. The last democracies I am aware of that resulted in deaths of the sort you are talking about are all pre-holocaust, the progroms of Europe. But this has been a solved problem since Immanuel Kant, and is why democracies are always created with constitutions.

> Why Chinese democracy activists have extremely high percentage of liar caused my curiosity that wasted a lot of time but that's beyond the topic

I am curious about this, if you would be willing to speak more? In the United States, we call this phenomenon COINTELPRO.

Great writeup indeed.

> reform and change always occurs within a country. If that reform and change is not recognized by a country's organization, then it will happen informally and quietly in the hands of individuals with power, likely for their own benefit at the expense of the rest[..]. If, however, the country has a political process by which to reform itself, then that means that there is also, by definition, a way for some people in the country to undo reforms that do not work out.

Doesn't this kind of imply not leaving change to natural processes. Like... market forces. Does that mean a social credit system deployed by a government is better than one by a conglomerate of companies, because there is an official way of recourse? I guess in the end it always falls back to prevent power from centralizing as best as possible.

Yes, programs developed by governments do tend to be much more responsive to the needs of the people than programs developed by a small conglomerate of companies.

This is exactly because governments tend to be responsive to the people they rule (how much so depends on the type of government), while private businesses are in no way obligated to listen to anyone other than themselves.

So yes, if I had to choose between a social credit system created by a government, and a social credit system created by Google, I would absolutely want the government version. At least there's a chance that the governmental version will be audited by other people, or have a way that people treated unfairly can complain. The google version will likely just punish me if they ever notice me using a product from a company that isn't google, and there will be no way for me to get my score fixed if google doesn't want to do so.

But these aren't really two very different options. A small group of CEOs, vs a small group of government officials are still two very small groups of very powerful, rich people, who are designing a system to judge the lives of people completely unlike their own. It is an extreme amount of power given to a small group of people with very little accountability, huge potential for corruption, and who will have very limited understanding of the impact their decisions will make on everyone else.

> I guess in the end it always falls back to prevent power from centralizing as best as possible.

Yeah, this is really the answer, right here.

Why does the choice need to be designed by a small group of CEOs, or a small group of government officials at all?

Why not let the people themselves decide what behaviors are good and bad? Do we really think people don't know the difference between what behaviors they like and do not like in their community? Do we really think people are unaware of the good things and problems in their own lives and towns?

Why not publish the rules for everyone to see? And let everyone see for themselves what they did that resulted in positive and negative scores? Wouldn't that be more effective to encourage people to live better lives?

Why not go even further? Why not federalize the entire program, and let people decide on what should be considered good and bad, and how strongly for each, on a local level by the people who will be impacted themselves? Let each town and city decide? And require each town and city to set up a court of some sort, where people who feel they have been treated unfairly can complain and potentially get their score changed?

If you did something like that, people would be more likely to use the program (as opposed to trying to outsmart or game the program) because they would understand it, and they would feel ownership of it. It would be more likely to reflect the realities of life. I guarantee you the reward / punishment levels would be very different than what a CEO or government official would think of isolated in their ivory tower, and as a result it would likely be much more effective for the people involved. But most importantly, a system like this would ensure that a mean CEO or government official wasn't putting rules in the app that were unfair or hurt good people. It would ensure that a CEO couldn't put in a rule that punished people for using other products, and would stop a government official from adding a rule that punished anyone caught reading a news story that reported on the government official stealing from the public, as examples.

To be clear, I am not saying that the above questions are definitively correct answers. The social credit system is a very specific example, and is a very complex topic, and we are discussing it in very basic terms. Furthermore I am absolutely not an expert in China, or the program, at all. But the general concepts we've talked about here are good rules of thumb that do generally hold true for all social and governmental programs. Its basic power dynamics. So I hope this answered your question, and explained the general concept a bit better : )

I suggest you read up on Chinese "solutions" to unrest in Xinjiang. I doubt things like having security checkpoints every 300 meters are viable in non-totalitarian countries.

All the "solutions" you listed are broken and don't work, it's not because it's different that it's better.

Current system might be flawed but China's is even worse.

Whoa, hang on there, let's look at it from the other side.

China chooses band-aid problems over fixing what are extremely complex socio-economic, ethnic dynamics that arose out of a swim-or-drown capitalist system that doesn't offer the usual safety nets found in Western democracies, such as enforcement of regulations and law and more importantly lobbying or "legalized and public bribes".

But the main difference between the West and China is human rights. Note that the West is not exactly innocent here, the concept took a long time to mature. I do have hope for countries like South Korea, which appear to be headed in the right direction.

It's amazing how a simple, fundamental differences about how a human being should be treated between these two cultures can produce such drastically different outcomes.

They can ignore human rights because they can't afford not to.

They can ignore infrastructure problems since they don't care about human rights and no consequences for ignoring legal opposition, because why would you care about the oppositions whining about human rights when there are no consequences?

They can't keep printing money forever because of inflation, no country is immune, this is just the laws of physics. They can do it now because they simply don't care about what happens to the Chinese citizens in the future, and they certainly don't care about their children's children.

China is going backwards, instead of democracy, they chose authoritarianism, well because of Winnie the Pooh decided he would be the new Mao.

Democracy is a long and arduous path, but it is ultimately what a lot of Western countries have gone through, and some new democracies like South Korea are currently going through.

Looking at China today is like looking at America in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s, when the industrial revolution started happening, and they didn't give a shit about letting women and kids work in dangerous factory conditions. They also imported a bunch of humans like commodities....they interned Japanese Americans like Uhigurs...horrible horrible shit

If it were not for the Founding Fathers of the US constitution, and the subsequent descendants iron will to uphold that constitution it wouldn't be where it is today....but I fear that this will not always be the case, and the US can easily snap into authoritarianism....just watch Vice and Unitary executive theory....it's so easy to make up new legal jargon to centralize power to a single individual.

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