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				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
“Are Chinese actually lizardmen” is certainly a take, given the sheer amount of moralising and, well, empathy you can read out of the ample historical annals of imperial China, even just from the court records.




Do we have any reason to believe that this is true? People living with the shame of being part of an inescapably horrible society are not exactly going to be immune to fabricating the idea of a brighter past.




This is to a significant degree true, and is quite well known by most who also know about the bystander problem in Chinese affairs. Makes me curious about what source you’re getting this information from, that they take away such context.




Consider this quote from, Ralph Townsend a US Consular official writing before the war and before the Communist takeover.






"Almost any veteran foreigner who has traveled up and down the rivers of China will be able to recount one or more cases where he has personally observed a mandrown without efforts to save him by other Chinese a few feet away on shore or in a boat. "






His experiences disgusted him so much that he published a book called "ways that are dark, the truth about China", and went around the U.S claiming that the Japanese were actually the good guys (getting arrested and charged with the Manafort offense - acting as an unregistered agent). That, or he was on their payroll from the start and made shit up, I guess we can never know for sure.




If we are to be trading polemics, allow me to quote Bertrand Russell who has a much more mainstream take:




A friend in Peking showed me a number of pictures, among which I specially remember various birds: a hawk swooping on a sparrow, an eagle clasping a big bough of a tree in his claws, water-fowl standing on one leg disconsolate in the snow. All these pictures showed that kind of sympathetic understanding which one feels also in their dealings with human beings—something which I can perhaps best describe as the antithesis of Nietzsche. This quality, unfortunately, is useless in warfare, and foreign nations are doing their best to stamp it out. But it is an infinitely valuable quality, of which our Western world has far too little. Together with their exquisite sense of beauty, it makes the Chinese nation quite extraordinarily lovable. The injury that we are doing to China is wanton and cruel, the destruction of something delicate and lovely for the sake of the gross pleasures of barbarous millionaires.






…






Of course China helped little, if at all, towards the winning of [WWI], but that was not what the Allies expected of her. The objects of the European Allies are disclosed in the French Note quoted above. We wished to confiscate German property in China, to expel Germans living in China, and to prevent, as far as possible, the revival of German trade in China after the war. The confiscation of German property was duly carried out—not only public property, but private property also, so that the Germans in China were suddenly reduced to beggary. Owing to the claims on shipping, the expulsion of the Germans had to wait till after the Armistice. They were sent home through the Tropics in overcrowded ships, sometimes with only 24 hours' notice; no degree of hardship was sufficient to secure exemption. The British authorities insisted on expelling delicate pregnant women, whom they officially knew to be very likely to die on the voyage. All this was done after the Armistice, for the sake of British trade. The kindly Chinese often took upon themselves to hide Germans, in hard cases, from the merciless persecution of the Allies; otherwise, the miseries inflicted would have been much greater.






…






There is one traditional Chinese belief which dies very hard, and that is the belief that correct ethical sentiments are more important then detailed scientific knowledge.






…






I must confess that I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers, is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners and perfect courtesy. Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional; it is quite as reliable in situations for which no precedent has been provided. And it is not confined to one class; it exists even in the humblest coolie. It is humiliating to watch the brutal insolence of white men received by the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot demean itself to answer rudeness with rudeness.




It must also be noted that Townsend was very high on the Japanese, who are quite closely related to the Chinese genetically; and sometimes in ways that age extremely poorly, as apparently he commended the Japanese invasion of China for how “humane” its armed forces behaved.


Interestingly, here is what Russell has to say about the Japanese, at least vis a vis the Chinese, also from The Problem of China:




The Japanese are earnest, passionate, strong-willed, amazingly hard working, and capable of boundless sacrifice to an ideal. Most of them have the correlative defects: lack of humour, cruelty, intolerance, and incapacity for free thought. But these defects are by no means universal; one meets among them a certain number of men and women of quite extraordinary excellence. And there is in their civilization as a whole a degree of vigour and determination which commands the highest respect.






…






It is very remarkable, as distinguishing the Chinese from the Japanese, that the things they wish to learn from us are not those that bring wealth or military strength, but rather those that have either an ethical and social value, or a purely intellectual interest.






…






One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese is their power of securing the affection of foreigners. Almost all Europeans like China, both those who come only as tourists and those who live there for many years. In spite of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a single Englishman in the Far East who liked the Japanese as well as the Chinese. Those who have lived long among them tend to acquire their outlook and their standards.




Interesting how a century changes things.


Anyway.




Having read it, I can say that the Wikipedia summary in no way understates the allegations he makes:






Through a large number of personal and second-hand anecdotes, Townsend argues that the Chinese may be the only people in the world who are completely unable to comprehend the basic human impulses of sympathy or gratitude toward other people. Because the Chinese feel no empathy toward others, they behave in an unbelievably sadistic and cruel fashion toward one another, and they view altruistic foreigners as targets to be mercilessly taken advantage of.




Forget careful societal analysis, we can dismiss this out of hand through a cursory glance at Chinese literature and philosophy. Would Dreams of the Red Chamber be written by a lizardman without empathy, and would a race of sociopaths keep record of poetry in the Book of Odes for three thousand years? Would a race wholly incapable of any tenderness found philosophies like Confucianism, where the first two of the five virtues are benevolence and righteousness, and Mohism (a warring-states philosophical school that was a major school of thought at the time), which has universal love essentially as its central tenet?


————————


Let me end with quoting Russell again:




China has an ancient civilization which is now undergoing a very rapid process of change. The traditional civilization of China had developed in almost complete independence of Europe, and had merits and demerits quite different from those of the West. It would be futile to attempt to strike a balance; whether our present culture is better or worse, on the whole, than that which seventeenth-century missionaries found in the Celestial Empire is a question as to which no prudent person would venture to pronounce. But it is easy to point to certain respects in which we are better than old China, and to other respects in which we are worse. If intercourse between Western nations and China is to be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as missionaries of a superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to exploit, oppress, and swindle the Chinese because they are an "inferior" race. I do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate knowledge of China, would take the same view.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Granted that Mao was not a good person, he didn't set out to kill 100 million people. He made some bad decisions that inexorably led to a famine which killed 100 million people.




Absolutely nitpicking, but I don‘t think Mao killed a hundred million people in the Great Leap Forward. The commonly quoted numbers are anywhere from 18 million (CCP official estimates) to 60 million (some of the more loony estimates), with most reputable estimates going from 30 to 45 million. (The commonly quoted one I grew up with was 36 million.)


100 million sounds like something right out of the Black Book of Communism, which has very artistic ways of arriving at casuality figures.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What on earth would be the scientific consensus around “animals are below humans” and “I eat meat, I don’t like eating lentils and kale” and “let’s find 8 earths to feed meat to humans”? Those are value judgements, not scientific theories and facts.


This is clearly using “scientific consensus” as intimidation and consensus-building, even if there’s a weak case for “if animals were on par with humans the original replier would consider otherwise”. A weak case that doesn’t even begin to approach your own rhetoric!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The reason that neo-liberalism must be so careful to purge society of crimethink is because we vote. I don’t think that all efforts for propaganda would stop, but the volume and ubiquity of culture war propaganda would vastly decrease if it didn’t matter so much that I personally sign off on various issues.




I’m not sure that the PRC has less propaganda than the Anglosphere…


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Please, Name one aspect of Chinese culture that you would like to see implemented here given the option between it, and the similar version of it present in Western countries before the 1960s.




One late European adoption of an old Chinese custom is that of the competitive written examination, first advocated for in Britain and trialed in India, and then spread elsewhere. It is something that has already been adopted, yes, but I find your qualifiers nonsensical, and this serves as good an example as any for a far-reaching social institution that whites felt obliged to adopt for themselves.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				In This House, We Believe in Gender Stereotypes
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A relatively moderate trans medicalist perspective as you described would be just as vilified by either side.




I am a transmedicalist. Unfortunately, if you ask me to choose between the virulent insane pro-trans group and the virulent insane anti-trans group, I’m going to pick the virulent insane anti-trans group, because that at least returns us to a more coherent system of social organisation. Anything to avoid the mangling of language, and generating the group of acquaintances I have with neopronouns and genders listed as anything from “genderfluid” to “centipede”. (I also happen to really hate the weird contracted cutesy names people of this persuasion tend to pick for themselves. It sounds extraordinarily fake and performative.)


Which is really unfortunate, because I think the actual medical condition extreme-distress-with-birth-body people do exist, and we should be sympathetic and accommodative towards them (within reasonable limits, and assuming that they are also reasonable and accommodative towards society).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surely the culture war is interested in whether issues like these are sound precisely because they are influencing public policy around such important issues?


In which case:




Now you have to accept the bad actors as members of your own group. You made this bed, now you have to lie in it.




This doesn’t read at all like “we should tolerate criminals”, but “progressives advocated for these paradigms; now that they are seen to be damaging, progressives should take the hit to credibility for supporting these paradigms.”


Your comment is truly an interesting rhetorical invocation of “privatising the gains and socialising the losses”.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I despair when Mulan is really properly thought of as trans representation


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Review of Yes Minister – televising the British deep state (in 1980)
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Great show.




In terms of the writer’s political views, the show seems rather unusual. While seeking more women and less Oxford classicists in the bureaucracy, the writers also seem fairly keen on conscription and the build-up of Britain’s conventional forces, vaguely Euroskeptic. Meanwhile they seem to favour school choice, joke about the excesses of political correctness. The abiding theme is a distrust in the competence of politicians and the alignment of the bureaucracy with British interests.




That the show’s politics are a bit eclectic and ultimately converge on some vague anti-establishmentarianism shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, given that it was co-written by a right-winger and a left-winger.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I can think of no better term to encapsulate this phenomenon than the paradox of tolerance. Anyone who knows even a little bit about Islam can tell you that moslems aren't exactly friendly with gays, i.e. they are intolerant of the LGBT crowd. So what happens when you tolerate people who are intolerant of gays? You end up with the intolerance of gays, exactly as predicted.




Not this interpretation of the paradox of tolerance again!


For reference, the original Popperian paradox is more limited and much less explicitly progressively coded, and describes tolerance of people and ideas that refuse to be discussed.


The issue with the common misinterpretation is that it’s not much of a paradox at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm more surprised that other people don't seem notice it more. Quite often I'll come across people accidentally revealing their power level, and when that's the case I think there's at least some sort of pragmatic decision to go with the flow rather than a real conviction in woke stuff.


I mean, these are people who will repeat all the shibboleths, but they're not people who go full tattoos + weird neon coloured haircut + nose rings + etc., but if you just clerked them on what they said their opinions are, they'd be very progressive...except I have good reason to think they're not really genuine about it. Unless you mean the people who really go hard on the acting obnoxiously queer part?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
＞You take that back!


I can understand pixie cuts, but I will admit to finding the haphazardly-shaven or buzz-cut-esque haircuts common in queer circles to be bizarre and unattractive.


Also the…jewelry. Why nose rings?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is "straight" a slur? "Able-bodied"? "Neurotypical"? Those, like "cis", are all neutral valance ways of describing a person as normal along some axis.




Honestly, in certain contexts I would consider those slurs. Able-bodied aside (and that probably because I don’t know that many disabled progressives), I’ve certainly heard straight and neurotypical used in the same way slurs are.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Whiteness really isn’t vague at all. Europeans had a shared culture that was deeper and longer than any other race category. Look at the bio of some composers or monks, for instance, and you’ll find Poles copying British composers, Italian composers in Spanish courts, German composers in Hungarian courts, Irish monks in Italy, French leaders reading Scottish writers influenced by old Greek epics, and so on. This stretches at least 400 years. We don’t even have to bring up religion.




This seems an absurd overstatement on its face to me, and suggests an abject ignorance of world history. India and China both have cultural works/institutions (and in the case of China, actual records) that stretch farther than the Mycenaean collapse, let alone Archaic and Classical Greece, and China is well known to have used the Four Books and Five Classics (texts written in centuries BC) right up to the collapse of imperial China, as well as for having an uncommonly stable cultural and civilizational lineage in general.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If all the white people have kids with nonwhite folks (as those friends have) is anyone or anything really dying out?




I think this sentiment is only possible if you are convinced that there is no chance that your culture could die out or become unrecognisable.


Would anything be lost or die out if, in a collective fit of insanity, Japan decided to integrate - and intermarry fully - into the People’s Republic of China as a province? I imagine there would be a good amount of indigenous culture that would be discontinued. Of course, such forms of integration aren’t the only possible way cultures can irrevocably change or “die”, but I imagine it would be a pretty big shift with pretty monumental losses.


(Whether any particular instance of cultural “death”, like a language dying, is something to be regretted depends on your values, I suppose.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Incidentally, these works tend to be catered towards the female gaze, and gay men often find M/M fanfiction alien or offputting.


Similarly with bara and yaoi in Japan, though this is by no means a physical law. BL is famously written by women for women.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Surely then nonwhite people shouldn’t complain about erasure of their experiences if people of their skin tone aren’t represented, then, if demographics of characters in books don’t count as erasure?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is notable that a lot of gay fiction is actively offputting to gay men, though, because it’s written pretty explicitly for women.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Focusing on the documentary village in particular.




The Villages are essentially a permanent vacation town of 150,000 or so old people (I think, wikipedia seems to suggest a smaller number). There are some absolutely bizarre and surreal scenes of 80 year olds getting drunk at parties, doing karaoke, dancing and so on.










I think the first two things that it made me think of were Wall-E and the Culture novels by Iain M Banks. Not that these people are particularly fat (in fact they're all rather active and healthy), but the decadent nature of it all.




Which part of it is decadent or distasteful to you in particular? Is it the unproductivity? The recreation? Why is it bizarre?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Also "status" is absolutely a thing in masculine spaces, which is one reason why "I'm sorry, I was wrong" is never seen here.




I did get something quite close! It does happen!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But also—what happened in ‘22 to make crime the Current Thing? Are gender politics really going to drive up support for law-and-order conservatism? The biggest BLM talking points should definitely have shown up in the 2021 data.




My understanding (as someone who doesn’t live in the States, but has friends who do and other friends who keep track of local city news there) is that crime has continued to get significantly worse even after the pandemic. As such, I am not surprised in the slightest that there’s movement towards a more law-and-order position in America.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't disagree that if all we know about a person is their sex we might be inclined to start a woman off with more "empathy points" than a man, but the idea that it's a massive yawning gulf to the point that could it could be compared to a "Lovecraftian horror story" strikes me as absurd hyperbole.




I agree that it's hyperbolic, but I do suspect that it is significant enough that most (esp. non-elderly) women find it very difficult to wrap their head around. Like, consider the median woman's understanding of what the male experience is on dating apps, and just generalise it across pretty much all social interaction.


What was it again, "privilege is invisible to those who have it"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am not sure I would call it complete indifference, but isn't it well known enough that there is a marked difference between the empathy we give men vs women? IIRC it's common for FTM transgender people to comment on how much more hostile the world is. To writ:




A couple of years after my transition, I had a grad student I’d been mentoring. She started coming on to me, stalking me, sending me emails and texts. My adviser and the dean — both women — laughed it off...I had experienced harassment as a female person at another university and they had reacted immediately, sending a police escort with me to and from campus. I felt like if I had still been in my old body I would have gotten a lot more support.




 




What continues to strike me is the significant reduction in friendliness and kindness now extended to me in public spaces. It now feels as though I am on my own: No one, outside of family and close friends, is paying any attention to my well-being.




(And isn't the quote below revealing?)




My ability to empathize has grown exponentially [after transitioning], because I now factor men into my thinking and feeling about situations. Prior to my transition, I rarely considered how men experienced life or what they thought, wanted or liked about their lives.




(There were other anecdotes I recall, e.g. a trans man quipping about how he learned that people were much more lenient to women talking shit than men, and that he quickly got called aside to talk about how he was acting inappropriately once he started passing - even though nothing had actually changed in behaviour; but the WaPo article was the first one I found and it seems good enough to illustrate my point.)


Not to mention the actual litany of things that we do privilege women over men for, from prison sentencing to divorce and custody to education, the complete  etc etc. Even most of the examples used in the trans rights fight is one group trying to gatekeep womanhood vs another group of self-described women wanting privileges available for women.


My personal experience is that when I try to destress with people (e.g. venting about an 80 hour workweek, or a crappy boss) off work is that - yes, there will be friends and family to empathise, but you get a much higher incidence of "dude not our problem" and "stop whining", as well as a general presumption that I'll be fine and it's not serious, compared to women - who people feel more obliged to reassure and to take action on behalf of.


On the more absurd side, there are things like that youtube video "experiment" (yes, n=1, but you get the point) on public violence where the male-on-female violence got bystanders to stop the altercation/call the police immediately, but reversing the roles lead to people cheering for the woman beating the man and sometimes joining in!


It's an effect strong enough that we call it the "women-are-wonderful effect" (or part of it) and discuss how it's benevolent sexism; but we don't call the perception of competence or increased expectations (e.g. with regards to life success) put on men "benevolent sexism", do we? And isn't that itself a bit suggestive of how we're more receptive towards Women's Issues? (I don't claim to be immune from this either!)




If I started crying on a park bench I suspect no one would stop to ask me what was wrong, and maybe they would for a woman (not a sure thing though, I wouldn't stop for a stranger crying in public, regardless of sex). But that's a marginal kind of scenario and I don't think that's what most people are getting at when they say no one cares about you if you're a man.




Is that really a "marginal scenario" (with the implication that it's not part of a larger trend of scenarios that would impact men)?


(wow didn't realise I didn't actually post the link)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The fact that death is permanent is very weird for instance and it seems much more parsimonious to say the link between the body and the soul has been severed than that the extremely complex computer has been broken in a subtle way that can't be repaired.




On the other hand, obviously material things like strokes, lobotomies, head injuries, and drugs appear to have an obvious effect on the qualia of an individual. Why does death - which materially seems to just be an extreme extension of brain injury - suddenly now need an ineffable soul? Or do clots in your brain, or a metal rod through your head, claw at your spirit as well?


Put it another way, we can’t fix the brain once it’s dead right now, as you say, because it is Too Complex and Can’t Be Repaired. Would being able to fix death, in your eyes, be good evidence for the material basis of “consciousness”?


We also often can’t fix computers (or other complex machines) without replacing parts once some parts have degraded enough. Is that not dissimilar to how we cannot fix the brain (except that we can replace parts for other things and less so for a brain)?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Monash University, Australian National University, and  University of New South Wales in Australia (1958, 1946, and 1949) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (1991) are cases of success in growing a new university even though there were other local universities that were already relatively prestigious.


That said, I’m not sure it’s replicable exactly in all situations. It may be that the market space at the time of these universities’ founding was unsaturated and they could absorb a glut of talented students that the existing institutions would’ve been happy to admit but did not have the capacity for. I think - correct me if I’m wrong - they also tend to be more unbalanced in their subject strengths; Monash is a world leader in pharmacology, ANU is excellent in a bunch of anthropology and humanities-focused subjects as far as I can tell, UNSW in water resources and mineral sciences, HKUST in (surprise!) business and finance.


Maybe a way to grow a new institution’s prestige is to focus really hard on one thing a la UCSF? You could even do it to the point of only offering programs in the field of interest (again, like UCSF). Still wouldn’t be easy, but it’s probably easier than trying to compete in all fields. (I think this was touched on in the OP.)