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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32867 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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If anything, I would expect a gradual adoption of western attitudes the more the Qataris are involved with western business people in western settings.

Is there any reason why this would be the case? It didn't work with Chinese, and I don't think there's any reason to assume it as the default.

Is there any reason why this would be the case? It didn't work with Chinese, and I don't think there's any reason to assume it as the default.

It did sort of work on the Chinese, didn't it? They realized that they needed to liberalize their markets to some extent, and they aren't as oppressive as they were during the 1970s, when they still had political prisoners starving to death by the millions in Communist re-education camps. I mean, even if China almost fully sucks right now, it's still progress from where is was 40-50 years ago, right?

So the quality of the Chinese re-education camps has increased. What a liberal victory! Now their political prisoners are surveilled constantly instead of starving to death. I suppose that counts as progress, but it's not the kind of progress that would satisfy anyone rioting in Seattle in 2000.

but it's not the kind of progress that would satisfy anyone rioting in Seattle in 2000.

Not a metric I would put any stock into.

Another issue I take with the moralists is that there is seemingly no plausible metric that would satisfy them. There's a lot of talk about being "on the right side of history" but very little interest in the long arc of history. Progress is never enough nor fast enough, the work is never done. Once you let their nose inside any tent they will ruin it with relentless reform until it no longer resembles what they once were trying to protect.

I think the fact that they are a smaller country is one reason. China is so big and economically muscular that they can throw their weight around. Smaller countries must integrate into an international system if they want to do well. Also, china is not the only datapoint. South Korea started off a military dictator ship and transformed into a (somewhat shaky) liberal democracy. Singapore is known for being the model authoritarian state, but they have been very slowly loosening the ratchet. Various peripheral European states have been influenced to clean up their act in various ways by the economic power of the EU.

Is there any reason why this would be the case? It didn't work with Chinese, and I don't think there's any reason to assume it as the default.

Yeah, it all depends on who wants what from whom. If Qatar is seeking something from the west and spending billions to achieve it, they should be somewhat mindful of what the west thinks of them, right? I mean, it's not like for $4.5 billion they can now execute gays during the Old Trafford halftime show. If anything, it seems like this investment is more likely to require them to suppress things that the west won't like about them.

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