Comment by qiskit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qiskit | Hacker News Reader

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> This is great to hear about India.

It is and I hope india is able to develop.

> The more developed and economically successful the world’s largest democracy is, the better for the world in general.

Who cares whether india is a democracy or not? It's so odd people parrot the propaganda so religiously. Every post about india inevitably mentions something about india being the largest democracy. Who cares? If india wasn't a democracy, should we hope 1.4 billion indians revel in poverty?

> The US, Europe, and allies should be doing whatever we can to support this.

We will support as long as india is poor and unsuccessful. As soon as they get rich and strong, we'll attack them just like we did to japan in the 80s and china today. The largest geographical democracy is russia and boy we surely don't support them. And we sanctioned india when they developed nukes in 90s, even though they were a democracy.

How about we support india lifting hundreds of millions of humans being out of poverty and worry less about democracy which has kept them in poverty for nearly years after independence?

> Who cares whether india is a democracy or not?

Every human being on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dictatorship subject to the whims of one or few strongmen, or to be disappeared with no legal recourse for saying or thinking the wrong thing, or to have the valuable things they've built stolen by the unaccountable powerful.

There was a brief interregnum to history after the fall of the USSR, where we all thought authoritarianism would disappear if we just all get rich together, and that the culmination of human social evolution was liberal democracy and free markets.

Unfortunately none of that is true, and authoritarianism is on the rise again. You can pretend not to see it or that it doesn't matter if you wish, but that won't change the reality.

And Russia is no longer a democracy, the US has never attacked Japan post-WWII, and US has been extremely generous to China until Xi Jinping took over and began his campaign of regional and world domination.

Regarding Japan, I think the parent comment was referring to the 1980s US-Japan trade war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

> Every human being on the planet who doesn't want to live in a dictatorship subject to the whims of one or few strongmen, or to be disappeared with no legal recourse for saying or thinking the wrong thing, or to have the valuable things they've built stolen by the unaccountable powerful.

How exactly does a democracy prevent any of that? Democracy gave us Hitler. Democracy gave us Putin.

> There was a brief interregnum to history after the fall of the USSR, where we all thought authoritarianism would disappear if we just all get rich together, and that the culmination of human social evolution was liberal democracy and free markets.

There was a brief time after the soviet collapse where the clever sold the lie to the naive. But no serious person ever believed "it was the end of history".

> Unfortunately none of that is true, and authoritarianism is on the rise again. You can pretend not to see it or that it doesn't matter if you wish, but that won't change the reality.

My point is that india suffered immensely for 80 years as a democracy. It has hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. Hundreds of millions of people without electricity. Not a very good endorsement of democracy. My point is that india needs competent leadership who can develop india. Not necessarily democracy.

> And Russia is no longer a democracy

Democracy must have sucked then.

> the US has never attacked Japan post-WWII

Other than the attacks on japan during the 80s.

> and US has been extremely generous to China

I'd say it is china that has been extremely generous. You might want to read up on some Sino-America history. It's a pretty ugly affair.

> until Xi Jinping took over and began his campaign of regional and world domination.

It isn't china that colonized and occupied asian countries. It is the US. We are the ones occupying taiwan, philippines, korea, japan, etc.

The monster in the pacific isn't china. It's the US. The country causing strife in the pacific is the US, not china. But then again, we cause strife everywhere in the world from south america to africa and everywhere in between.

>Who cares whether india is a democracy or not?

Anybody who wants to do business. Democracies have stable, predictable rule of law. Do you want to invest in a country where a dictator could simply decide that he is going take your assets?

Rule of law is largely orthogonal to democracy. England had rule of law long before it was a democracy.

the "rule of law" began with the magna charta, a first limiter to the "divine right of kings". We dont see these or other checks and balances in illiberal / undemocratic countries and if there are, they got dismantled to devolve in autocracies. See Uncle Xi with deng xiaoping checks and balances reforms.

> Democracies have stable, predictable rule of law.

Really? Russia? Venezuela? They are democracies. Also, do you realize that many of the world's poorest and unstable countries are democracies? India has been a democracy for nearly 80 years. Nobody wants to do business with them. Everyone wants to do business with china. Go figure.

> Do you want to invest in a country where a dictator could simply decide that he is going take your assets?

You mean like how britain, EU, etc are taking russia's assets? Or how we stole japanese american assets during ww2? Or mexican american assets in the 1930s. Or the native american's lands since the very beginning?

There's nothing inherently good, stable or lawful about democracies. If you didn't have blinders on, you'd be shocked at how terrible democracies have been. The country with the most poverty in the world is a democracy - india. The countries that have waged the most wars around the world in the past 20 years have been democracies - US, Russia, EU, etc. The countries that have committed the greatest genocides have been democracies.

What a nation needs is competent leaders, not democracies. Instead of blinding accepting propaganda, just look at the reality.

Quite sick that you and GGP are referring to Russia as a democracy. It's a dictatorship

There are no actual major democracies. The USA for example is an oligarchy whose oligarchs find it convenient to masquerade as a democratic republic[1]. The NATO countries are de facto US satrapies. I believe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is both immoral and imprudent, but the utter puerility of discourse on Russia grossly disappoints me.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

> Nobody wants to do business with them

Last I know all major nations and big corporations of the world are queuing up to invest in India.

Russia and Venezuela simply never developed a civil society in the modern sense. Same for many poor and unstable countries. They're still likely far better off than similarly vulnerable autocracies - I'd much rather be in one of those flawed democracies than, say, in North Korea. 'Competent leaders' are not born, they're made. Democracy, liberal/bourgeois values, civil society, proper rewards for merit... All of these things ultimately foster competence.

> Russia and Venezuela simply never developed a civil society in the modern sense.

Isn't that the fault of democracy then? How can democracy be so great if it can't even help develop basic civil society? So now you are moving the goalpost from political government to civil society? So it's civil society that's important not democracy?

> I'd much rather be in one of those flawed democracies than, say, in North Korea. '

And most people would rather live in china or vietnam than many of those flawed democracies.

> Democracy, liberal/bourgeois values, civil society, proper rewards for merit...

That's not what honest look at political history shows. We're told hitler was the worst thing in history and democracy gave us hitler.

> All of these things ultimately foster competence.

I'd say it fosters corruption rather than competence. And everyone from the founding fathers to the ancient greeks would have agreed.

There are merits to all forms of governance. Nothing magical about democracy as I've shown. What you need is competence. Doesn't matter the form of government.

TWN, SK, and JPN were all authoritarian when industrializing. Similar with US too, to be honest.

Democracy on paper is not democracy in practice, just like China isn’t a real communist society.

The grandparent’s point was that Russia is technically a democracy and look how it’s doing. If there’s enough corruption is it really still a democracy? And if it isn’t, why does it matter if India is a paper democracy or not when considering whether it needs our support.

Have you heard of civil forfeiture?

Russia is not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination.

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