Comment by ninetyninenine
2 months ago
We Americans have more to fear from economic and technological dominance than we do from military invasion.
As a budding superpower ready to unseat the US from it's throan. All China has to do is wait for progress and time to run it's coarse and emerge the victor. If anything, the US is the tigger happy country as we watch the inevitable, looking for any excuse to use to stop them.
Remember, why the hell does China give two shits about war if China can surpass the US simply through economic progress. They don't care, in fact they want to avoid war.
why does they have to be a winner and loser. everyone can thrive? except the United States is being buoyed by two main elements.
1) the ability of the internet to extract value overseas while untaxed in the client country 2) The H1B visa which funnels the best talent from struggling countries 3) strong institutions and financial and education centers and 4) military industrial complex that thrives on basically manufacturing conflicts with other countries
#4 is what is scary. not the dominance of any other country itself
So that I can afford cheap shit from poorer countries, if they stay poor they contribute less to climate change, less competition for finite rare resources
> why does they have to be a winner and loser. everyone can thrive? except the United States is being buoyed by two main elements.
Why can’t there be a winner and a loser and both the winner and the loser cooperate and thrive with loser having the humility to admit he’s a loser? Isn’t this the same peaceful consequence? Just say China is better and admit inferiority for the everlasting peace. Why can’t you do it?
Because competition and cooperation are intrinsic parts of natural selection and therefore evolutionary biology and therefore human nature. Don’t pretend to be above your own nature.
Or do pretend. We can all act according to our ideals and deny our basest instincts, but don’t expect the mob to act the same way in aggregate.
I don’t think anyone disputes that China can out-manufacture us. Does that make them “better”, they the winner and the West the loser? Obviously not; things don’t end, history continues and things can go in different directions in the future. Not to mention that there are other dimensions that matter besides manufacturing prowess, namely quality of life, individual freedom, etc.
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When your natural resources shrinking, you need to expand if your entire economy depending on that sources.
China will soon be more aggressive as any other empires.
>China will soon be more aggressive as any other empires.
in its entire history it has never invaded outside its traditional borders, and it achieved all this without invading or enslaving people. It will continue this way in future too :)
> Slavery in China has taken various forms throughout history. Slavery was nominally abolished in 1910,[1][2][3] although the practice continued until at least 1949.[4] The Chinese term for slave (nuli) can also be roughly translated into 'debtor', 'dependent', or 'subject'. Despite a few attempts to ban it, slavery existed continuously throughout pre-modern China, sometimes serving a key role in politics, economics, and historical events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_of_the_Pe...
In its entire history it has never invaded outside its traditional borders
Vietnam, 1979.
Support for North Korea's invasion of South Korea 1950-1953.
Invasion of Indian-held areas in 1962 based on extremely dubious claims.
Not an invasion, but its support for the genocidal Khmer Rouge in the 1970s (who ended up invading Vietnam with Chinese arms) was quite significant.
Its current menacing of the Phillipines.
Claims about "traditional borders" are almost invariably nonsense.
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> it has never invaded outside its traditional borders
Your notion of "traditional borders" is where this becomes nonsense. With a little bit of revisionist history you can justify all sorts of invasions, such as the 1959 invasion of Tibet, or the desire to retake Taiwan. In reality, China is an empire, with several of its regions very unhappy to part of it (Tibet, Xinjiang, and probably more if you could only ask its people).
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Let’s pray renewables become standard before any empire becomes thirsty for this.