[ExI] totalitarian techniques

[John Grigg]

bill w wrote:
"American tends to view other countries as friends or enemies.  We like to
think that it is better to be cautious and treat someone as an enemy until
they prove to be a friend.  That is overly cautious.  While we must remain
on guard that a friend or neutral could become an enemy, we may be missing
opportunities for an enemy to become a friend.  If someone kept treating
you as an enemy, what would you do or think?

China could be the best friend we ever had.  (Maybe it would help if we
quit telling them how to run their country, esp. since we are far from
blameless..)

Love your enemies, the Bible says.  Freud said that that was the hardest
thing for anyone to do.  Impossible, he said.  I think not."

In time China could become a true ally of America, but until their
totalitarian government "mellows out," and stops doing things like organ
harvesting, execution of political prisoners, taking civil liberties away
from Hong Kong (and their own people), plotting to conquer Taiwan, bullying
their neighbors, massive espionage/technology theft against the west,
policies that allow viruses to escape their borders and kill millions,
cyber attacks, a huge arms build-up to be the greatest military power in
the world, etc.,. it just is not going to happen. And if these outrages
continue, then yes, we should continue telling them how to run their
country.

Yes, we can love the people of China, unfortunately saddled by a mafia-like
government which rules them, and we do that by standing up to it. They are
bullies, and they only understand shows of strength. I realize over the
next century China will most likely only get stronger, in time probably
having an economy twice our size, and so America has as its greatest ever
challenge, coming to terms with China and helping to shape them into a
society that respects civil liberties in their own nation, and across the
globe. And that can also peacefully share power and dominance with
America, without a cold war always happening.

John




On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 7:54 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Like the Japanese, the Chinese are a very proud people.  They have been
> dominated by the Japanese to a certain extent and that motivates them.  I
> think they are embarrassed that their country has lagged behind the West
> and Japan and now Korea, and they are desperate to catch up.  They will
> burn coal or do whatever it takes to catch up.  This is not time to
> hamstring your own efforts, they must think.
>
> Maybe they will moderate some of their stances when they do - we can only
> hope so.  Their success at feeding their people has been extraordinary.
>
> American tends to view other countries as friends or enemies.  We like to
> think that it is better to be cautious and treat someone as an enemy until
> they prove to be a friend.  That is overly cautious.  While we must remain
> on guard that a friend or neutral could become an enemy, we may be missing
> opportunities for an enemy to become a friend.  If someone kept treating
> you as an enemy, what would you do or think?
>
> China could be the best friend we ever had.  (Maybe it would help if we
> quit telling them how to run their country, esp. since we are far from
> blameless..)
>
> Love your enemies, the Bible says.  Freud said that that was the hardest
> thing for anyone to do.  Impossible, he said.  I think not.  bill w
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 9:36 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
>> Of *BillK via extropy-chat
>> *Sent:* Friday, November 12, 2021 5:13 AM
>> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> *Cc:* BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] totalitarian techniques
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 12 Nov 2021 at 12:44, spike jones via extropy-chat
>> >>…  We should be using market forces to do that.  So far, markets
>> haven’t chosen that as a high priority.
>> >
>> > spike
>> > _______________________________________________
>>
>>
>> >…Fighting climate change has to be tackled at government level to pass
>> laws that apply to all companies.
>>
>> >…But it is not going to happen. The next generation will have to
>> survive as best they can.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ja.  The fact that companies cannot compete if they spend their capital
>> fighting climate change scales up to any company of any size.  It isn’t a
>> big leap of intuition to recognize that if a company is the size of a
>> nation, that same principle still applies, and if we want to view nations
>> as competing companies (they are, in a sense) then nations cannot compete
>> with other nations if they spend their capital fighting climate change.
>>
>>
>>
>> The biggest player in all this (China) isn’t playing, not even trying.
>> They have no intentions of fighting climate change.  Their company strategy
>> is to out-compete the other nations economically with a long-range vision
>> of taking over the African continent, replacing the people who live there
>> now with their own, living with climate change.
>>
>>
>>
>> spike
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
> _______________________________________________
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