While on our Alaska trip I finished the book Breckneck by Dan Wang. Dan has spent half his life living in the USA and half in China.
The book echoes and solidifies the same sentiments that I've made about China based on my one visit there earlier this year, versus my 23 years in the USA, 2 years in Switzerland, and 30 years in Australia.
China is a country of engineers, with mind-blowing infrastructure and civil engineering projects: towering bridges, the largest high speed rail network in the world built in only 17 years, massive electricity production, clean electric cars and scooters everywhere on the roads, gleaming megacities, and 40% of the world's manufacturing capacity.
Meanwhile the USA has stagnated. The USA has become a country run by lawyers who obstruct everything, good or bad, and profit from unsolvable problems. The USA's lawyerly society began in the 1960s when unscrupulous corporate interests were disregarding public interests and safety, for example by polluting the air and water. The lawyerly society arose as a response to a need for regulation, and then never went away.
China's engineering society is not without its flaws however. The 35 year one-child-policy was a social engineering disaster that traumatized people, families, and the population. Their zero-Covid strategy was equally oppressive and miserable. The paranoia of the Chinese government has led the country to become closed to outside influence and stifled innovation and investment. It has become a surveillance state, with extreme internet censorship and social control. Under the hukou system, people's social services, such as education and healthcare, are tied to their place of birth, meaning that people are not able to easily move around the country for better opportunities. In this way the Chinese government controls both external and internal immigration. In a country of 1.4 billion people, internal immigration is an issue. It is also not possible to own land in China, as all land is owned by the government, and is leased out for housing, agriculture, industrial, or recreational uses. This makes it easy to build mega-projects like the high speed rail network and the Three Gorges Dam.
Yet despite its problems, China's people have a great sense of optimism for the future. Meanwhile, the USA's ruling class of elite lawyers can no longer get anything done. They've given us unbalanced budgets for 24 years and $37 trillion national debt. Lawyers don't create, design, invent, innovate, or produce anything. Also people in the USA, and the Western world in general, have forgotten the evils of socialism and would like to try it again as a possible solution to a system they see as failing them. There's also a general disdain for wealth and success among many youths today, who have come to embrace mediocrity rather than greatness.
In any case, I can't wait to go back to China again next month
More thoughts...
You'll be seeing a few shows during the trip. The Tang Dynasty show, the Sichuan Face Change Opera, and the Three Kingdoms on Fire show.
You'll also find Shanghai very different to the other cities as it has British, French, and American quarters
Beijing is the capital so it tends to be stale. Xi'An is ancient. Shanghai is the newest city
I'd like to spend more time in Chongqing, very unusual city, but the tour only visits some shitty pagoda. I was always too drunk and tired to go explore at night. I'll see if I can do better on my next China trip. I'll be doing more of the nature, Zhangjiajie National Park and Guilin Hills. Then Hing Kong, which is also supposed to be very different
But yes, the culture is restricted. The Rolling Stones first toured China in 2006, and only did Shanghai. China has a lot of promise if their govt would stop being so paranoid and doing crazy attempts at social engineering like the one child policy and zero Covid. The one child policy ran for 35 years and traumatized women, families, and the whole population.
They also have the hukou system that ties your benefits like education and healthcare to your place of birth, which allows the govt to control internal immigration. Internal immigration in a country of 1.4 billion people is a big issue
One child policy had forced abortions and sterilizations. Often the abortions were horrifying third trimester abortions because women tried to hide their pregnancies but couldn't once they got to third trimester. An estimated 310 million abortions were done in those 35 years, about the population of the USA
And of course the govt owns all land in China, leasing it out for housing, agriculture, natural parks, and industry. That makes it a lot easier to build amazing projects like their high speed rail or the Three Gorges Damn. No parasitic lawyers holding up projects like the US and particularly California
California started its high speed rail project in 2008 and just started laying track this year. China started the same year and now has the biggest high speed rail network in the world, over 30,000km of lines. Then again they're a major industrial cixlization, whereas we're a decaying country of lawyers who profit from obstruction and unsolvable problems
All the Tier 1 cities are mega cities with about 20 million people or more
Did you see life in the park in Xi'An or elsehare yet? People in the cities don't have yards or balconies so the parks are filled with social life
The lawyerly society began in the US in the 1960s as a response to corporate interests that did unscrupulous things like polluting water and air, then they just never went away. They obstruct everything, good or bad.. Lawyers don't create, design, invent, innovate, or produce anything. Sorry Dale.
And then of course in California we have three times as many laws and regulations as the average state, so parasitic lawyers have figured out thry can get rich by having lawsuits to hold up everything. That's why no one is building Ai data centers or factories in California anymore. For example, Tesla's gigafacfoey would have been held up for 5 years by lawsuits, so Musk simply decided to build them in Nevada and Texas.
All the hyperscale Ai data centers are now being built in places like Texas and Tennessee
I just finished reading "Breakneck" by Dan Wang, a technology analyst who's spent half his life living in the US and half in China. He makes some good cases for and against each society
So the conclusion of the book "Breakneck" is that China and the USA need to learn from each other's strengths. Engineers aren't good at doing things that involve morality and people's feelings. Lawyers aren't good at building. So we need to rebuild our country with industry and infrastructure, and China needs to give people more personal freedoms and protect their rights.
-Dave Badperson
