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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12338 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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The other angle of this argument is typically that our wealth was sent to China to enrich the elites. But if you look at everyday Chinese, their lives may be better than their parents generation but they definitely aren't good. The successful ones work crazy hours and there's a much larger precariat than here without a social safety net. If your father's generation was so much better off, where did the money go? Or did we just globally become less productive?

Not calling you out in particular, but "China is a big country inhabited by many Chinese." This may seem obvious, but I think China vs USA discussions often ignore or elide this point. China has a population about four times the size of the United States'. I think this is the most important fact about the world to consider when discussing such comparisons.

When we say "We want the USA to remain the biggest economy in the world, and not to have it surpassed by the PRC." We aren't just saying we want to be richer than China, we're saying we want the average American to be at least four times richer than the average Chinaman. That's an insane level of arrogance and privilege to state!

I can imagine my richer friend saying: "FiveHour, I hope my two kids are as wealthy as I am, and that your two kids do a little better than you did, but in my heart of hearts I hope that my two kids are always richer than your two kids." I could accept that.

If my richer friend said: "FiveHour, you have four kids and I have one, I hope my son is so much more successful than all your kids that he is richer than all four of them combined and it is important that this remain the case, it would deeply upset me if your four kids combined made more than my son." I would be dumbfounded by the weirdness of that position and assume he kind of hated me.

If China and America are equally wealthy as states, all the wealth that is in America can go to China, and just bring China's standard of living up 25% from where it was. (obviously this is a ridiculous economic concept, wealth and income are different and neither China's nor America's economies will make any sense with the other eliminated)

That's an insane level of arrogance and privilege to state!

Not really, I don't want the Chinese to run my country or have power over me and the Chinese similarly don't want me running theirs. The way to make this to happen is to be more a lot more rich and powerful than the Chinese. The Chinese think the same way, there's nothing personal about it. And compared to the example of two friends, having a larger economy gives one country power over the other that doesn't exist in the same way as for two middle-class people with a wealth difference.

I suppose the wealth goes somewhere, but no one would blink twice if you were to say “I hope US business leads the world and not China”.

That's exactly my point! Americans feel perfectly comfortable saying that America's economy should remain the world's largest! We feel that it's the natural order of things! We don't reflect on what we're saying and what it means!

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