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Comment by ninetyninenine | Hacker News Reader

This is like what you hope will happen. It happened to Japan. Doesn’t mean it will happen to the US.

When you look at some European country like Russia and see how fucked up it is. Then you say well Russia is full of white ppl like the US so the future of the US will be like Russia, doesn’t that sound massively stupid to you?

So why do you think what happened to Japan applies to China? Like is it because the people in Japan look like the people in China? You know the countries hate each other right?

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For that you have to read Chricton's other book Jurassic Park.

There the message is simple - chimps with 3 inch brains love to pretend they can control ever increasing complex systems and scale. And obviously they can't.

China's enemy is Complexity. Not the US which is too lost to talk about. Complexity goes on increasing and pressure to pretend they have control also increases. Mistakes will be made and multiply with time. So see Covid, Evergrande/Country Garden, techbro crackdown, young ppl checking out etc. Larger the system more the issues not less. More fragile. Not less.

I read that book and you’re just making up shit. There is no chimp with 3 brains.

You are correct that chinas enemy is not the US. But complexity isn’t the the issue either. The issues are complex but complexity isn’t inherently the causal source of there issues. It’s not like oh the complexity was so overwhelming that it confused people and covid formed and young people checked out.

Your comment is an aside. The point is Japan and China couldn’t be more different. The guy was obviously comparing the two because, hey a bunch of mongoloid Asians reaching prosperity! They must be the same. It’s stupid af.

I’m Asian myself but I will say I don’t care about him being racist. Not trying to raise some social justice garbage here. I don’t give a shit about stuff like that. I’m commenting about the raw stupidity of the comparison not the moralness of it.

> There is no chimp with 3 brains.

“Chimp with 3 inch brain” refers to humans.

Nobody said “3 brains”

typo

Even though there is some overlap of the European continent and Russia's territory, I don't think that Russia qualifies as an example for the average European country.

Also, why are you mentioning the look of people in a discussion about cars and manufacturing?

Russia is a European power. Geographically, linguistically, culturally, religions-wise, artistically, musically, etc.

Right but not politically! The Russian leadership went for self-isolation and nationalism. I used to hope for that mindset to remain limited to Russia, but I'm not so sure now.

> doesn’t that sound massively stupid to you?

Also tangential? Economic development and demographic patterns might be more relevant than jumping straight to race like you did.

China and Japan couldn’t be more different culturally and economically, in a blind comparison the conclusion is that the distinction between these countries is night and day. Every single aspect is different.

It’s very very clear why he chose to compare Japan and China and expect that comparison to be like dropping the mic. Like he didn’t even say why Japan is an accurate model for China.

> couldn’t be

Well.. look how Japan’s economy developed between the 60s and 90s. If you don’t see any parallels that would be rather bizarre.

You mean massive growth? There are parallels between all countries that had massive economic growth. But growth in itself doesn't mean a guaranteed pattern of downfall. Clearly there's some subconscious bias in the comparison.

I mean you can draw parallels to any country that hit massive growth.

Almost entirely export driven massive growth and a looming demographic collapse (very little immigration compared to many rich developed countries).

> Clearly there's some subconscious bias in the comparison.

Not clear to me at all. Rather bizarre that you immediately jump to this conclusion and hand wave any further discussion

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