Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

Kind of adjacent: Can somebody explain why the LW/EA/rationalist types all seem to be so ardently against China?

They're otherwise generally in support of doing the greatest good for the greatest number, at least ostensibly, so I wonder what it is about China -- which has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty domestically and is looking to export wealth abroad (most notably in the form of accessible "luxury" goods such as electric cars) -- that seems to trigger them so much.

China's political economy is also far more "rationalist" than anything you'll find anywhere else.

And yet I swear, and I'm not exaggerating about this in the slightest, that the average EA/LW poster hates China far more than the average /pol/ poster -- and is perfectly comfortable making sweeping generalizations where 1.4B Chinese are concerned. Guys like Scott Alexander rarely (if ever) have a good word for them; Zvi Moshowitz discounts and belittles every technological advance they make, despite otherwise being very fair; and you see what LW itself is like...

I don't understand where you're getting "hates China" unless that's a framing of "disapproves of the Chinese government on the whole".

I have seen Zvi pushing back against the narratives that open-weights models and Chinese ICs have caught up to the frontier. Was he wrong? But I can't recall any animus against Chinese people or their talent there.

It's rather obvious Zvi is biased if you consider the totality of his work on China (since Covid to the current AI boom), not only because of his statement of facts or his policy positions but rather his writing style, which betrays his view the Chinese are somehow not only technologically but morally inferior. And he expresses them with an emotional valence similar to his treatment of Trump.

They call themselves rationalists but they don't apply their own theories, they think permanent authoritarianism is as bad as human extinction. It's a predictable offshoot from their own west coast US ideological origins.

Yes, exceptionalism.

Authoritarianism is bad, except for when I do it (to protect you).

Expecting rationality from rationalists is like expecting objectivity from Ayn Rand.

Did you just make that one up? It's pretty good!

I don’t recall seeing it anywhere.

It is kinda weird when I think about. Surely Chinese style technocratic leadership and political system would be most efficient in reaching goals of those people. It probably should be the system to emulate. Instead of utter inefficient messes seen in other parts of the world.

Maybe they just are lot less rational and altruistic than they claim to be. With significant biases...

Pour any Rationalist article through a colander and what remains after the pseudo-intellectualism drain away is bog standard US right-wing ideology. That’s why.

Bog standard right-wing ideology is pretty light on kindness and empathy.

One thing many Westerners get wrong about the PRC is assuming its economically monolithic, though I guarantee you that's the outcome of decades of Chinese messaging to the West. They want to appear unified, that they've done all these amazing things and everyone has benefited.

In reality, there's two separate economies within the PRC. Around 40% live in the modern world we see in images of China (skyscrapers, EVs, high-speed trains, etc.). Awesome stuff, to be sure, and that same environment has been engineered to track every single interaction you make with it. You must use Wechat; no exceptions. Say the wrong thing on the Internet? You might lose the ability to take long-distance train or airplane rides within China, let alone international travel rights.

The other 60% live with dirt floors, hand carts, and engage primarily in subsistence farming. (It's been about five years since I last looked up those stats, but it should be around the same.) The US has eliminated this level of poverty; having even access to an automobile is enough.

The PRC argues they're able to take care of all their people, but they're nowhere near out of the woods when it comes to food insecurity. Due to population and geographic realities, they simply cannot grow enough food to feed their own people, so importation is an absolute necessity. For this reason, "unlicensed" fishing fleets (no Chinese group larger than 20 people operates without de-facto government consent) sail across oceans to fish just outside a country's territorial waters.

The Chinese political economy appears to be rationalist, but few countries have more political dishonesty than the PRC. According to an old friend who extensively knows Chinese politics, there's three main political factions: pro-Xi reformers, anti-Xi old guard Communists, and everyone else. Their ability to disappear a political enemy without what we'd term "due process" is truly unheard of in the West. Local politics is arguably worse; bribery is how anything gets done, and local officials suppress incident fatalities because over a certain threshold (around 30), the higher-ups will shame them. In such a media-controlled environment, that's less difficult than you might think living in the West.

When you talk about exporting wealth with EVs, that comes with the understanding that the PRC has de-facto control of your vehicle. Most people dislike the idea of the PRC not only retaining all data gathered by your car but having remote access to disable or drive it. If that's alright with you, go right ahead.

Why lie, though?

Your "60% live with dirt floors and engage primarily in subsistence farming" claim is utterly indefensible. At the end of 2025, China’s population was 67.9% urban and 32.1% rural. Even in 2021 -- approximately when you say you last checked -- it was already 64.72% urban.

Here's Chongqing, China's largest city by population (~31M): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOjZPCeZzGw

You'll agree that it's by no means a slum.

Also, and even more importantly, rural residence does not mean subsistence poverty. Look at stats on Chinese rural household possessions -- they're actually reasonably well-off. (e.g., >100 air conditioners per 100 households, whereas in France only ~25% of households have air conditioners!) Little surprise, then, that the World Bank credits China with lifting almost 800 million people out of extreme poverty.

Even if I grant your claim about food insecurity -- which is also fundamentally untrue, but not worth getting into -- how is it relevant? They need to import soybeans for animal feed, so they are evil?

You don't like them for some reason -- but I still don't get it, as the reasons you've put forth here make no sense and are flimsy, paper-thin.

Much of Europe has historically had an oceanic climate and not much need for air conditioners.

Italy is at 56% overall -- and 27.3% "in small municipalities with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants" (i.e. rural dwellings) -- and they usually have brutal summers:

> https://www.istat.it/en/press-release/household-energy-equip...

> https://www.idealista.it/news/finanza/casa/2026/07/26/406719...

Point is, the Rural Chinese aren't pre-industrial dirt farmers. When it comes to things like air conditioners, cell phones, TVs (~100% of households), internet use, etc., they usually rank quite highly.

As such, "60% live with dirt floors, hand carts, and engage primarily in subsistence farming" is either a lie or shocking ignorance, plain and simple.

I guess had old data. Seems like about 30 years ago, it was 40/60 urban/rural but now is 60/40 urban/rural. Good for them!

The air conditioner point, while hilarious, is not really comparable because Europeans have the money to install them but are usually forbidden from fixed installs due to historical building preservation codes and other regulations. Europeans create that issue for themselves, like always.

On food insecurity, I'll point to this excellent (though slightly older) article about food production in the PRC (https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat9/sub63/item348.html). For a more recent perspective, I asked AI for an answer:

> While domestic production has grown to nearly 7.5 billion metric tons annually, the overall food self-sufficiency rate has declined from 94% in 2000 to approximately 66% in 2020. Consequently, China has become the world's largest agricultural importer, relying on global markets to supplement domestic production for a diversified diet.

So, yeah, food insecurity (perhaps better termed food supply insecurity, I'll admit), though that might change once they start experiencing population shrink over the next fifty years.

I dislike the PRC due to a complete, utter mistrust of their entire operating model. It's undeniable that their methods are worth examining to understand the exact reasons for their effectiveness in growing the overall standard of living, educational outcomes, infrastructure, and more, and I will readily acknowledge that. How the PRC achieved that success is by truly, genuinely only caring about itself, with marginal concern for the outcomes of anyone other than themselves ("themselves" being the political elite, not the People). For all the global discussions about transitioning away from fossil fuels, the PRC destroys that progress every single day with their energy policies.

Most Americans are completely unaware of the extent of corruption in other countries. There is ALWAYS work to be done here, but to even compare them is genuinely comical. The PRC is far, far, far more corrupt. When I say corrupt, I don't mean greasing wheels or backroom deals; that's how all political structures (governmental or otherwise) operate, and if you can't accept that, then don't get into politics. Corruption in the PRC boils down to structured, deliberate misrepresentations and omissions of facts to avoid shame and preserve a good appearance (some parallels exist here with the USSR). Nothing even like that exists in the West, and you would be naive or silly for believing it does. For primarily that reason, I dislike them.

PRC is far less likely to do something malign with my data or my vehicle than the US government and the conglomerate of monopoly business interests it represents.

What's your understanding of cross-border data flows and third-party doctrine?

Say data leaves the US and goes back to the PRC. Did you know it's actually easier (from a legal perspective) for the US government and its business interests to collect the data outside the country than inside? It's actually in the intelligence and industrial communities' best interests for data on US persons leave the country. My point is, even with your beliefs, you should very much dislike that PRC automotive data will leave the country.

Remember the OPM hack? Perhaps the data should have simply been given to the PRC, since they're better data stewards and have our best interests in mind (/s). Ultimately, PRC vehicles will be used for facial recognition, home address identification, employer identification, and more. If you think I'm being hyperbolic, consider that the PRC can locate any person inside their borders (at least within an urban area) within ten minutes.

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