I am probably ill-suited to present this scenario: As Syria unfolds and I hear the name Al Queda, and I think of Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, et al Then I think of the U.S., England, Spain, France.. and all the nations who have been victimized by terrorist acts of this radical religious sect. Then I think about all the reactive security measures we are subjected to - how many millions of hours of productivity are wasted going through airport security? Add in that cyber capabilities can be devastating and Iran is becoming a very effective "cyber-foe" along with North Korea and others.. We all are in this "religious-political" But does it appear that out of all the powers in the world; that China is unaffected by this tumult that has the rest of the us consumed with angst, anger, colonialism, genocide and much more.... is China - the inscrutable - watching us all self destruct...after we all self immolate in hysteria.. will then step and squash Al Queda.. and rule the world. Just curious
China's goal, it seems to me, is to conquer the world through merchandising. Let's not forget that it's a very old culture, Maoism fitting nicely into the grooves worn by Confucianism for almost 2,500 years. Let's also remember that, in addition to the majority Han population, there are over 50 other ethnic groups within this complex society. Our weakness as Westerners is a tendency to see it as some monolithic grey-jacketed group mind. It is not. We also forget how many cycles of conquest and empire and dissolution and reconquest these people have observed, initiated, and been victims or victors of over the course of history. To them, we're upstarts. They may watch our struggles with terrorism with amusement, but they're essentially above the fray unless and until their fractious neighbors India and Pakistan are involved.
They're taking us with them, and they know it. What they don't want us to know is who has the parachute.
Possibly. Depends on their trajectory. Is the decline slow enough that they start selling dollars slowly trying buy off opposition and to stay above water (which will depress the dollar enough to actually help us by making our exports more competitive and imports less) or is it all once which could crash the dollar?
For less than a century. Twenty-four centuries of Confucianism before that. Not to mention Buddism, traditional religions, Christianity, Islam, and even Judaism. See my previous post. Then there's the new religion: sales.
Well, there must have been some reason all those monks and nuns were beaten and raped, so, there were smatterings....
China would be seriously crazy to start a war. Crap, pretty much all model kit production is from there now. How would I get my fix?
Tell ya what, let's play analogies. What's the most important cultural artifact in your life, i.e., what would it kill you to do without? Some form of media, obviously. Let's say you woke up tomorrow and every movie and TV show you'd ever watched had vanished from this timeline. You'd never seen them, you had no memory of them, they didn't exist, and there was no interest among your fellow humans in creating them - not by you or anyone else. Would you just yawn and say "Oh, well, time to get on with saving the planet"? Or would you have some other reaction?
Guess I wasn't clear: You'd have no memory of the specific things you'd watched. You'd just know something had been there and wasn't anymore, and you wouldn't have any way to restore or replace it. Or, IOW, is there anything you care about so much that its absence would render your life meaningless?
I'd try to re-create it. Bringing back the entire Freddy Krueger canon seems formidable, but I'd take a crack at it. If it were 100% absent, it wouldn't be felt. If there were traces, the search for clues would be my meaning.
You've just described religion. Now, this is what religion looks like in China: Today. Almost 70 years after the Revolution. Despite every attempt by the government to destroy it. So let's not talk about "the absence of religion" in China as some sort of indicator for its success or failure, mmkay?
