Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds

Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by mamoswine on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @04:23AM (#20221669)

The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it relies on the benevolence of a dictatorship (and I don't use the term dictatorship pejoratively). It's all fine and good to have a system where people's needs are provided for and in general the populace is taken care of (for example, the housing situation in Singapore is very good and much better than places where people have to pay through the nose for shacks, like for example Hong Kong and SF).

But the real problem is that this system is by its nature fragile. On the one hand, this means that you never know when leadership will no longer be so enlightened and shit will hit the fan with nothing you can do about it.

From another perspective, because of this fragility, it's not capable letting its crazy people reach their potential. Can you imagine what the system would have done to creative hippies or even Steve Jobs if he didn't toe the line? If you don't give free enough reign to these people, your society will hit a ceiling where you don't produce the most innovative culture or people.

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by hungryhobo on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:14AM (#20221885)

An important factor that often gets left out when discussing different types of government is the level of development of a country. A centrally powerful government has some perks that makes rapid industrialization possible. Where as a democracy might be good if a country is wealthy and its citizens educated. South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed, and both were under authoritarian government when the rapid industrialization happened. You can also look at China and India, both started at comparable levels of development in the 70s but now one economy is 5 times the other

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by pizza on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:21AM (#20221920)

Germany? Japan? Taiwan?

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by hungryhobo on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:29AM (#20221969)

Germany was already developed. And Japan and Taiwan also fit my example

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by pjc50 on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:46AM (#20222027)

> South Korea and Singapore are the only countries that went from impoverished to developed

The entire West went through this process at one time or another, along with some of the post-Communist countries.

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by hungryhobo on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @10:44AM (#20223824)

Not very peacefully to say the least

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by wangii on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @05:18AM (#20221900)

I don't think Isaac Newton lived in a free society, and so did many truly ground breaking folks. I'd argue the odd of producing these figuers is more to do with the population. I'm a fan of Steve Jobs but he is not in that league.

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Re:Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds by nathanyukai on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @04:55AM (#20221809)

I disagree with your last point, just because some topics are forbidden to talk about, does not mean that creativity in general is suppressed in anyway.

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