This.

Also, China has always taken the long view, and has, historically, leveraged experience.

I’m no expert in their culture, and am rather worried about their influence, but I can’t but admire their incredible strategic vision.

Also, as a retiree, I’m rather saddened by some of the discussions, here.

A lot of the retirees vs young discourse (and, tbh, wider politics) is just mirroring the conflict people have with their own parents or children. Especially the "why don't you just" for getting a job/a house/a partner, without acknowledging the very different conditions prevailing.

(sometimes it materializes more directly, in things like NIMBY planning conflicts or homophobia)

Maybe this topic is too hot. I originally just wanted to mention it in passing, since these are all slogans ingrained in our minds. Everyone's discussion is about groups, not individuals. It's about government policies. Just like in China, our generation basically doesn't expect to have a pension, nor to retire before 70. Our elderly enjoy life in the parks, benefit from free public transport and cheap tickets to attractions, while we work day after day, until we die. Any normal person would be dissatisfied.

Well, one of the issues, is that younger folks look at retired older folks, and think “unproductive leech,” while ignoring wrecked hands, shattered spines, and cancers. I also know many veterans, and they provided a Service that I definitely benefit from, today.

Also, speaking only for myself, I live off of investments and savings, created from 40 years of living frugally and sensibly. Every few months, I have to chase off people that try to steal those savings. It’s not surprising, but is annoying. There’s a huge industry, based completely around stealing money from older folks (usually ones without the means to defend themselves).

Back when I was young, there was this rather silly movie, called Logan’s Run. Besides a brief flash of Jenny Agutter naked, it offered a vision of a culture that literally kills off anyone over 30. The interesting thing, was that the culture still had strategic vision, but that vision was supplied by a machine.

I find it hard not to suspect that some countries are using certain policies to subtly eliminate the elderly. Of course, I will also grow old, so the consensus is to rely on oneself—invest and save, just in case. Optimistically, household robots might change a lot. I often think of that example: in the past, people often imagined futuristic skyscrapers but could not imagine elevators. New technologies are always unpredictable. There is a Chinese saying: “Where the cart reaches the mountain, there will be a path,” so perhaps there’s no need to worry too much.

Eg. I'm pretty optimistic about some of the Chinese exoskeleton startups I've seen. If you can keep people mobile, living at home and avoid falls they will make a huge difference.

Not to mention self driving vehicles allowing for more independence in old age.

Sign me up.

Pensions are an insane ponzi scheme but I'm somewhat optimistic that dignified aged care is a problem that can be solved.

However there is no denying sacrifices will have to be made.

You can achieve a lot of bad things that way too, with nobody to stop you. It's the promise of every totalitarian: free you from all the messiness of having to deal with conflicting opinions.

It is remarkable how well the tradeoff of "you don't need political freedom if the economic growth rate is high enough" works for China, and also previously Korea and Singapore. Even, to a certain extent, Japan - fairly high levels of political freedom, but somehow it's still a one-and-a-half-party state.

I know it sounds insane but I wish Germany had such a stable government that actually DOES something. For as long as I can remember German govs have been absolute dogshit. Not to say the CN gov hasn't done no wrong. But they are moving with incredible speed in the right direction.

For our mindset, we love AFD. Not saying we have interests connected to them, but they seems at least have an action plan , not like Merz and the president of Franchise. The industry decline of German is a hot topic on Chinese internet these days

I really like a book by Foucault that discusses the origins of the modern state. He argued that the modern state could only originate in the West because only there did a balance of power among large states form, generating sufficient competition. In contrast, during China's Ming and Qing dynasties, it maintained an overwhelming advantage over its surroundings, thus lacking the impetus for reform. But now everything is different. The world is not a rational free-trade world. The EU has only two choices: either re-integrate into a unified empire, or disband and learn the survival strategies of smaller states—not taking sides and cooperating with both China and the US, or something like ASEAN. Its current loose alliance is the worst possible choice.

I agree that the EU needs to reform into something stronger, because the different nations of the EU are not really acting in union. However, while I sympathize with some stances of the AfD they are generally pretty anti EU. So I'm not sure I agree that they have a real action plan.

It’s possible that East Asian ways of thinking appear right-wing and conservative to Europeans. So we tend to understand European right-wing parties better — not just the AfD, but those in every country. For example, Belarus and Hungary are friendly toward China, yet most EU countries might want to kick Hungary out.