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

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408 points seapunk | 2 comments | 09 Oct 19 10:27 UTC | HN request time: 0.641s | 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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rqs ◴[09 Oct 19 13:42 UTC] No.21203094[source]▶
> China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy.

How about tweak the thinking a bit: What's in there for China to totally embraced democracy? Will it become an advantage for the country (Or the leading elites at least), guaranteed? What if the change has failed and lead to something worse?

There are risk factors, and people don't like to take risks. Which is why societal changes are more likely to occur during crisis and disasters, because people simply have nothing to lose anymore.

For CCP, the "Take half the cake" approach is less risky for them, so they did that, and now everybody see what's happened after.

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1. pbourke ◴[09 Oct 19 14:13 UTC] No.21203436[source]▶
Is your argument that adopting democracy and the rule of law are risky to elites and the ruling party? Well, yeah - that’s sort of self-evidently true.

> How about tweak the thinking a bit: What's in there for China to totally embraced democracy?

Tweak your thinking a bit: the advantage would ultimately be to the anonymous Chinese citizen 50 years from now who wants to vote, express an opinion, join a social group, participate in a religion, petition their government for redress, etc.

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2. rqs ◴[09 Oct 19 14:43 UTC] No.21203730[source]▶
> Is your argument that adopting democracy and the rule of law are risky to elites and the ruling party?

No, just trying to explain why China does not go all-in and jump to the democracy train.

CCP apparently don't want to build something (Institution of democracy for example) that will later overthrow them (too risky, even maybe there is something good in it), and elites are bounded with CCP (That's why many of them are allowed to be elites). For CCP, "Without the CCP, There Would Be No New China"[0] is still the safest approach to any domestic problems.

Also, the westerners did not bring democracy into China, so Chinese people are not necessarily benefited from the western democracy. No benefit, no motive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Without_the_Communist_Party,_T...