General > General Technical Chat

I have the feeling that the whole trade war starts from a pile of nonsense.

<< < (45/145) > >>

apis:

--- Quote from: technix on May 27, 2019, 08:09:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 07:54:39 pm ---Ah, the good old philosopher king (or more recently enlightened absolutism) idea, it's not new and history shows it's wishful thinking.

--- End quote ---
China never really had a democracy and it is not really in the culture to be honest, and in the millennia Chinese people installed a technocracy/meritocracy system to approach the philosopher king scenario. Maybe instead of panning on each other, we should learn from each other somehow, for example merging the democratic process of selecting a leader using a vote with the technocratic/meritocratic process of selecting the candidates using standardized tests and profession matching.

--- End quote ---
I know very little about what happens inside the CCP, because it doesn't allow independent observers or journalists. But it seemed like the CCP had some sort of internal democratic process when electing leaders after Mao, is that the meritocratic process you refer to? China has experienced amazing economic growth in recent years and that is good of course, so whatever China has been doing can't be that bad.

There is room for improvement everywhere, in our democratic systems as well, for sure, but going back to authoritarian dictatorship would be throwing out centuries of hard earned progress.


--- Quote from: technix on May 27, 2019, 08:09:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 07:54:39 pm ---"Four legs good, two legs better."

--- End quote ---
Do you mind elaborate on it?

--- End quote ---
It's a quote from the Animal Farm.


--- Quote from: technix on May 27, 2019, 08:09:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 07:54:39 pm ---:bullshit:
China had emperors and aristocracy that waged war and oppressed the people just like Europe.

--- End quote ---
And they are usually overthrown in civil unrests pretty swiftly. Chinese history has a lot of episodes of civil riots when aristocracy went bad.

Here is a thing: historically Chinese people really, REALLY don't want to move far - 父母在不远游, because that is where the farmlands are and without those you are starving. So if the aristocracy went bad the choice is usually revolt and maybe live through it or leave and starve to a certain death. This is also why Chinese isn't that big on freedom of movement as it is not in the culture.

Chinese have been farming since prehistoric times, and the culture is continuous since, so there are a lot of really ancient stull stuff remained in the culture. An example will be that quote from above, it is from Analects which dates back to 5th century BCE, and it is taught right now in 21st century Chinese high schools - in fact it is required for a high school student to be able to understand almost any book written since ~8th century BCE in China, and there is a list of poems and texts written during 5th century BCE and 18th century CE students must memorize.

--- End quote ---
That is interesting. Most of Europe is also old farmland except for Scandinavia which is too far north. China is very big though, I would imagine all kinds of peoples and regions have existed there. And culture isn't static, things and people change. I'm not so sure people here and there are so different.


--- Quote from: soldar on May 27, 2019, 09:17:17 pm ---I am always amused by how strongly people will defend that western-style democracy is the only valid form of government. It is a fanaticism like few others. This in spite that western style democracy has only worked well in countries that have a culture of... western-style democracy!

--- End quote ---
Maybe because we have tried the alternatives. I don't think it's good to impose democracy on other countries either, the change would have to come from within. If the people doesn't understand it and want it it's not going to work anyway.


--- Quote from: soldar on May 27, 2019, 09:17:17 pm ---And America, which never stops preaching western style democracy has been busy for decades overthrowing popularly elected governments and installing dictatorships in their place. And nobody seems to even recognize the contradiction.

--- End quote ---
Yes that is a travesty.


--- Quote from: soldar on May 27, 2019, 09:17:17 pm ---The notion that we know better than them is just imperialism plain and simple. Just leave people alone. And if you really feel the need to fix things you can start by fixing your own country because, it does not matter what country it is, there is much that needs fixing.

--- End quote ---
It's wrong to be a hypocrite of course, but just ignoring everything else that's going on is making it too easy for oneself.

windsmurf:

--- Quote from: BravoV on May 27, 2019, 04:19:04 pm ---CNN just posted a "opinionated" column by a professor from Columbia University, which I think reflect the true current situation.  :-+

-> China is not the source of our economic problems -- corporate greed is

--- End quote ---

I think this echos the stance of the progressive liberals, Bernie Sanders, etc. 

But one thing the article gets wrong... there's no such thing as corporate greed.  There's only greed of persons who run corporations (and greed of investors with profit as the only motive). 

Corporations in Germany are now run with input from the supervisory board which include employee representatives.   Employees are no longer just "labor" to be exploited.  This system seems to be working well for them. 

magic:

--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 04:00:57 pm ---Poland just haven't had democracy for very long.
--- End quote ---
If only you knew.
Read this and scroll down to "decline". You have it all: consolidation of power by magnates, bribery, even literal Russian collusion ;)
That republic was destroyed in the 18th century by, you guessed it, neighbor monarchies.
I don't mind living in a free country, but it's not a silver bullet. And the West is too emotionally attached to democracy, to the point that your politicians have no respect for you and treat you like children because they know you wouldn't dare to threaten them with some little revolution or a bit of anarchy.


--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 04:00:57 pm ---If you couldn't live in Poland, which country of your neighbours would you prefer to live in, Belarus or Germany?

--- End quote ---
Probably Slovakia, not a big fan of German radicalism (including their devotion to European integration) and Belarus I will pass to our communism fanboys ;)
Why not some sensible authoritarian states like Singapore or Vatican?


--- Quote from: technix on May 27, 2019, 07:26:06 pm ---That means you have a fracture in your society, which will require talks sooner or later, or see the society fall apart, either into separate entities, or worse into a civil war.
--- End quote ---
Indeed, America has their culture war, EU is a bunch of vastly different nations shoved under one government increasingly asserting its centralized power. Things are crazy.

windsmurf:

--- Quote from: soldar on May 27, 2019, 09:33:18 am ---...The Kuomingtang was defeated in the mainland and retreated to Taiwan with all the loot they could take...

The "Taiwan problem" is entirely of American creation. If it were not for America Taiwan today would be a province of China.

--- End quote ---

What loot did they take?
Why is Taiwan a problem? 

BravoV:

--- Quote from: apis on May 27, 2019, 07:54:39 pm ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 27, 2019, 07:01:34 pm ---The word "authoritarian" is always seen as evil and nothing good at all, actually everything has two sides of a coin.

Authoritarian has good side is which is persistency, as IF (a big "IF" I know) that the leader has a sincere,good and noble vision for the country's interest in long term, this it self will beat the hell out so called pure "democracy", as this democracy makes it very hard to maintain the country's direction, as the whole realm in the country is constantly dragged into the fight of the change at every election period, or good example referendum like Brexit which is divided the whole country into pieces.

Its like fighting to tame a voltage regulation (electronics speaks) that has heavy fluctuations, one or two cycles of the control loop sometimes is not enough, really believe some of you probably agree on me using this analogy.

At the end, it is the "stable and expected" voltage regulation that matter, for long term.

--- End quote ---

In democracy the people get to decide whether to keep or replace the "dictator" at regular intervals. (Maybe 4 years is too often though.) This gives the people some protection from the bad leaders. Take the US for example, Trump can be president for at most 8 years then he has to go, so the amount of damage he can do to the country (and the world) is limited, the people will even have the chance to replace him already next year. There are also other systems in a democracy that limits the damage one bad person can do (i.e. separation of powers). All this is actually quite complicated and a science in itself.

If you like the voltage regulator analogy then dictatorship is like voltage regulation without feedback, while democracy is voltage regulation with negative feedback (elections) and other checks and balances. As an engineer I'm sure you realise which is most stable.

--- End quote ---

That is exactly my point, sometimes at certain period or by the nature of people/cultural & etc, the suitable power source is not a periodic switching regulator as in power switching, the struggle riding the ups and downs maintaining voltage regulation, and the case we're seeing is the struggle maintaining a low ripple as it constantly hard swing e.g.: left wing <-> right wing leadership in the struggling control loop.

A simple battery power source, "good & strong" battery, like in those olde day battery powered flash light than runs without any feedback at all, and runs until starting to dimm, and then initiate the the battery replacement process. Of course, this is the critical part, it seems like the method/process of choosing a good & strong "battery" (read:leader) in China is already quite matured, stable and proven, as we've never seen a bloody power struggle during the transition period, or country great divisions because of that battery replacement process it self.

Of course, as I mentioned, everything has two sides of a coin.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod