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Ex-World of Warcraft developer's thread about China and the gaming industry

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408 points seapunk | 4 comments | 09 Oct 19 10:27 UTC | HN request time: 0.839s | source
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roenxi ◴[09 Oct 19 12:36 UTC] No.21202536[source]▶
It is interesting to look back at the last ~50 years from a strategic standpoint. The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse.

With benefit of hindsight maybe that strategy was too passive. China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy. It is a pity; particularly since the English Common Law system combined with separation of power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere and China would have really ushered in an age of enlightenment had they taken that on.

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1. deogeo ◴[09 Oct 19 13:13 UTC] No.21202822[source]▶
> The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse.

I'm sure the corporations that make those trade agreements saw it as nothing more than cheap labor and large market. How this would help liberty is just something they tacked on to sell it to the public.

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2. roenxi ◴[09 Oct 19 14:08 UTC] No.21203395[source]▶
The 5 eyes are a totally disproportionate amount of the worlds military spending. They have a lot of faults, but they also look a long way into the future to spot potential threats.

America has been implementing a worldwide strategy against Russia for a very long time. If you look at a map US allies make a nice little fence around Russia.

It seems unlikely that trade agreements are being made with gay abandon and no consideration for the geopolitical situation. People like to pretend that there isn't a scheme afoot, but that is a ruse. Integrating with China would have been given extensive consideration beyond "cheap goods, aye?".

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3. deogeo ◴[09 Oct 19 14:50 UTC] No.21203778[source]▶
All the massive five-eyes apparatus does you no good if the people supposed to act on that intelligence are corrupted, and look to their own interests first:

https://www.jonathanpollard.org/1998/040798b.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Deception-Clinton-America-Chinese-Mil...

https://www.businessinsider.de/china-acquiring-military-secr...

https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/the-troubling-reason-why-biden...

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4. kipchak ◴[09 Oct 19 15:36 UTC] No.21204187{3}[source]▶
I wonder if it's a bit of a race between how much you can spend versus how much you loose to corruption, like filling a barrel with holes in it by adding water faster. Supposedly the US's classified intelligence program budget is 81.1 billion, larger than 9 of the next top ten foreign nation's total military expenditures.

https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/fs_1904_milex_...