The world would have done nothing about Hitler if he hadn't started invading the rest of Europe [1]. And the CCP is smart enough to focus on economic domination instead of land-war.

This is my greatest fear for humanity right now.

[1] https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/britain-ado...

Edit: Why would this get downvoted? Do you disagree with the interpretation of history (and extrapolation to our current situation), or do you disagree that this prospect is a bad thing?

Framing everything in relation to WW2 actually holds people back from looking at the problem and formulating an actual solution. Almost every relevant parameter is wildly different: analogies based on simplified similarities are seductive but fundamentally flawed.

It seems like we want to make it happen again just because it's the story we know.

But it's not going to happen again. There might be a bloody conflict, but it will not have meaningful similarities to WW2.

Climate change is the other big one, but given two different sources of great future suffering and dystopia, the one that's rooted in premeditated evil in the heart of man is much more distressing to me than the one that's rooted in stupidity and negligence (not that there are no evil parties benefiting from climate change, but malice upsets me more than greed).

But those are just my personal feelings; there's no ranking tragedies, really, and I feel equally powerless against all of them anyway. So take your pick on which one you're going to lose the most sleep over.

> Not Climate chaos/disaster, ecological+societal collapse, pollution?! Micro-plastics?

China's the leading driver of these things right now, by miles.

> Nukes?

You don't think nuclear-armed superpowers (like, say, China, Russia, and the US) butting heads might, you know, contribute to nukes being a danger in the first place? Or indeed, contribute to nukes being stockpiled in the first place?

The nukes being stockpiled again (or more, as the case may be) globally is the cause of a single country in that list.

Isn’t China’s relationship with Pakistan more about threatening India?

That's the whole point - Muslim countries care about their self-interest over the interest of some muslims in Xinjiang.

Some care about selling oil, some about economy and so on..

Why should they care more or less than the rest of us?

Or phrased differently,

Why should [different religion countries] care less?

(I cannot imagine that there's any good answer to that question)

This bigotted comment is not welcome here.

While this is true, you could say the same for all the ostensible Christian majority countries that both refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide that was inflicted by the Turks and the current genocide in Yemen targeting both Shia Muslims and Christians in the region.

Point is pundits like Sam Harris are full of shit - Religion is only ever evoked when the ruling party's self interest and the regional interpretation of scripture align. Such pundits also ignore the inconvenient fact that many Muslim majority countries often have very old Christian communities yet the same is not true of Christian majority countries. I wonder why?

> Such pundits also ignore the inconvenient fact that many Muslim majority countries often have very old Christian communities yet the same is not true of Christian majority countries. I wonder why?

What? Muslim majority countries with old Christian communities are because Christianity spread widely in the Middle East after 0 AD, until 7th century AD when Islam came around. Of course there will be residual Christian communities there. But the Christian majority countries became Christian before 7th century AD and were able to halt the spread of Islam post 7th century (Europe), or the country was colonized after the fact by previous Christian countries (USA, South America) where Islam never made it.

We can give them hassle over it. I think the Chinese still want to be seen as honourable.

How about if we do the courageous thing and give them war till they stop?

We are morally no different than Europe prior to Hitler's invasion; knowingly allowing the genocide of others as long as it didn't affect us.

Cute thought but it's never going to happen. Hitler was a moron who kept prodding the Allies with invasions that were creeping ever closer West. At that point, the third Reich had become an existential threat to the Allies. They would have never went to war over the plight of some Jews and other hated minorities.

China on the other hand manufactures much of the world's consumer goods and has strong trade ties with dozens of nations. It has also never invaded Europe and shows no sign of having any intention of doing so. It also has a large enough army and nuclear armament to completely flatten any European country that chooses to break from NATO and try to pick a fight with it by itself.

NATO nations sell arms and political support to countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel so clearly morality is not a priority here. The real reason why they keep political pressure on China is because it's a rival to the USA and it's (at least in it's own eyes) communist - which is worse than stoning women and gay people to death, and bombing children hospitals and practising apartheid in the eyes of Washington D.C.

There IS one thing different this time, COVID

Things will happen, it just takes time

What's the relation between COVID and this genocide?

What happens in China does not stay in China? Public perception in other words