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The Big [Censored] Theory

(pudding.cool)
1444 points feross | 2 comments | 29 Aug 22 17:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.543s | source
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aero-glide2 ◴[29 Aug 22 18:32 UTC] No.32641737[source]▶
I don't really agree with this, but consider this argument : Is it really a bad thing if different countries have different understanding of what's allowed/not allowed? If the whole world had the same system of governance, that could be dangerous too.
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S201 ◴[29 Aug 22 18:40 UTC] No.32641842[source]▶
Because the people of China didn't choose this: their oppressive and authoritarian government did it for them.
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darawk ◴[29 Aug 22 18:49 UTC] No.32641964[source]▶
This is right. If people vote for censorship in a democracy, that's a perfectly fine form of governmental heterogeneity. What's happening in China is not that.
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cutemonster ◴[29 Aug 22 19:06 UTC] No.32642181[source]▶
I find it slightly amazing how often commenters here (hello aero-glide2) fail to see that the people in a country are not the same as the dictators controlling the country.

When such misunderstandings are common here at HN, where people are a bit brighter that elsewhere (or so I think) -- then, such misunderstandings must be dangerously common outside HN. I wonder what consequences follow from that

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politician ◴[29 Aug 22 19:20 UTC] No.32642340[source]▶
Given the scale of the demographic collapse in China -- the over-reporting of girls by 100M, the situation where 20M men have no chance of the possibility of having a stable heterosexual relationship due to the lack of women, the rapidly aging population (highest in the world) that is post child bearing age -- doesn't it begin to seem reasonable the steps that the government is taking to curtail and shape public opinion?

China has no replacement generation, and they are facing internal turmoil within the next decade on a scale that has no historical precedent.

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1. hikingsimulator ◴[30 Aug 22 09:03 UTC] No.32648182[source]▶
The main propagator in the US of the Chinese demographic collapse is Peter Zeihan, who may not be the best source here. Even if some of his predictions have been right wrt Europe, he tends to have and present unsourced information for anything Asia/China related.
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2. politician ◴[30 Aug 22 15:04 UTC] No.32651331[source]▶
I've read some of his material, and have tried to find some independent sources regarding their demographics, agriculture, and imports. Those sources (via naive online search, filtered by bias) seem to line up pretty well: China's population is rapidly aging and their pyramid has inverted, China subsists on grains and pork but they must import corn to feed the hogs and struggle with outbreaks of ASF. Extreme weather (drought, rain) is ravaging their harvest. The war in Ukraine and the Russian sanctions have pushed up global fertilizer costs to which China -- the top producer -- has responded by implementing strict quotas on phosphate exports, a strange choice.

"As the top-producing country, China puts out 90 million MT annually for 30 percent of global supply." -- https://investingnews.com/phosphate-outlook-2022/

So, I'll give you that Peter Zeihan might be trying to sell his books, but it's not like there's zero corroborating sources.